ke her?"

"Do you mean that it's like her to give you something for commencement
that you won't have much use for afterward?"

"Yes," laughed Betty, "and to give it to me because she says I made her
see that it's the sensible way of looking at college, although she
thinks the person who got up these mottoes probably meant it for a joke.
She wishes she could find out for sure about that. Isn't she comical?"

"Yes," said Roberta, "she is. You haven't written as much as you've
crossed out since I came, Betty Wales. We shall be late."

Betty shut her fountain pen with a snap, and tossed the much blotted
page on top of a heap of its fellows, which were piled haphazard in a
chair beside her desk.

"Who cares for Madeline Ayres?" she said, and arm in arm the two friends
started for the back campus, where they found all the rest of the senior
"Merry Hearts" waiting for them. Dora Carlson couldn't come, Eleanor
explained; and Anne Carter and Georgia thought that they were too new to
membership in the society to have any voice in deciding how it should be
perpetuated.

"It's rather nice being just by ourselves, isn't it?" said Bob.

"It's rather nice being all together," added Babbie in such a
significant tone that Babe gave her a withering glance and summarily
called the meeting to order.

The discussion that followed was animated, but it didn't seem to arrive
anywhere. There were Lucile and Polly and their friends in the sophomore
class who would be proud to receive a legacy from the seniors they
admired so much; and there was a junior crowd, who, as K. put it, were a
"jolly good sort," and would understand the "Merry Hearts'" policy and
try to keep up its influence in the college. Everybody agreed that, if
the society went down at all, it ought to descend to a set of girls who
were prominent enough to give a certain prestige to its democratic
principles, and who, being intimate friends, would enjoy working and
playing together as the first generation of "Merry Hearts" had, and
would know how to bring in the "odd ones" like Dora and Anne, when
opportunity offered.

"But after all," said Rachel dejectedly, "it would never be quite the
same. We are 'Merry Hearts' because we wanted to be. The idea just
fitted us."

"And will look like a rented dress suit on any one else," added Madeline
frivolously. "Of course I'm not a charter member of 19--, and perhaps I
ought not to speak. But don't you think that the younger class