n. She had been working on her song in
secret all through the year, and she felt sure that nobody had cared so
much or tried so hard as she,--though of course, she reminded herself
sternly it took more than that to write the winning song and she didn't
mean to be disappointed if she failed.

"Order please, young ladies," commanded Babe, who delighted to exercise
her presidential dignities. "We are straying far from the subject in
hand--to adapt the words of our beloved Latin professor. Betty Wales was
going to tell us how the 'Merry Hearts' could go out with a splurge."

"I object to the president's English," interrupted Madeline. "The
connotation of the term splurge is unpleasant. We don't wish to splurge.
Now go ahead, Betty."

"Why, it's nothing much," said Betty modestly, "and probably it's not at
all what Bob is thinking of. It's just that, as Helen says, everybody
who is in anything is in a lot of things and most of the class are being
left out of the commencement plans. I thought of it first that day we
had a lecture on monopolies in sociology. Don't you remember Miss
Norris's saying that there were classes and masses and excellent
examples of monopolies right here in college, and that we needn't wait
until we were out to have a chance to fight trusts and equalize wages."

"Oh, that was just an illustration," objected Bob blandly. "Miss Norris
didn't mean anything by it."

"She's a Harding girl herself," Betty went on, "and it's certainly true,
even if she didn't intend it to be acted on. Thursday night when I went
over the things I had to do about commencement and thought I couldn't do
any of them I felt dreadfully greedy."

"But Betty," Rachel took her up, "don't you think it takes executive
ability to be on committees and plan things? Commencement would be at
sixes and sevens if the wrong girls had charge of it."

"Yes, of course it would," agreed Betty. "Only I wondered if all the
left-out people are the wrong kind."

"Of course they're not," said Madeline Ayres with decision. "What is
executive ability, anyway?"

"The thing that Christy Mason has," returned Bob promptly.

"Exactly," said Madeline, "and that is just practice in being at the
head of things,--nothing more. Christy isn't much of a pusher, she isn't
particularly brilliant or particularly tactful; but she's been on
committees as regularly as clockwork all through her course, and she's
learned when to pull and when to push, and when to s