ignon and the others were watching her to see how she
received the bad news. Marjorie's desire to cry left her. She leaned
back in her seat and assumed an air of indifference far removed from her
real state of mind. Then she calmly refolded the letter and placed it in
its envelope with the impassivity of a young sphinx.

Later that afternoon, as Mignon La Salle strolled out of school between
her two satellites, Susan and Muriel, she was heard to declare with
disappointed peevishness that that priggish Miss Dean was either too
stupid to resent or too thick-skinned to feel a plain out-and-out snub.

CHAPTER X

A BLUE GOWN AND A SOLEMN RESOLVE

The next day in school was a particularly trying one for poor Marjorie.
It was decidedly hard for the sore-hearted little freshman to believe
that Miss Arnold's motive in asking her to resign from the team had been
purely disinterested. She was reasonably sure that she had Mignon to
blame for the humiliation. Jerry Macy had told her of Miss Arnold's
respect for Mignon's father's money, and that Miss Archer's thin-lipped,
austere-looking secretary was one of the French girl's most devoted
followers.

The wave of dislike which had swept over Marjorie upon first beholding
Marcia Arnold had, as the days passed, intensified rather than lessened.
Jerry, too, could not endure the secretary. "I never could bear her,"
she had confided to Marjorie. "I'm glad she's a junior. I'll have two
years of comfort after she's gone. I suppose she deserves a lot of
credit for keeping up in her studies and earning money as a secretary at
the same time, but I'd rather have a nice wriggly snake, or a cheerful
crocodile for a friend if it comes to a choice."

Marjorie was equally certain that Miss Arnold did not like her. She had
had occasion to ask the secretary several questions and the latter's
manner of answering had been curt, almost to rudeness. The desired
resignation was yet to be written. Marjorie had purposely delayed
writing it until the last hour of the afternoon session. She wished to
think before writing. It took her the greater part of the hour to
compose it, although, when it was finally copied on a sheet of note
paper she had brought to school for that purpose, it covered little more
than one side of the sheet.

While she was addressing it for mailing, she suddenly remembered that
she had not yet asked Miss Arnold for her Hallowe'en invitation. Should
she hand the secretary h