ear. And I feel myself lucky to get the
brightest girl in her class, and maybe in Oakdale High School, to come
and entertain me twice a week."

CHAPTER IV

THE BLACK MONKS OF ASIA

"Who wants to go nutting?" demanded Grace Harlowe in the basement
cloakroom a few afternoons later.

"We do," came a chorus of voices.

"I don't," answered one.

"Don't you like nutting parties, Miriam?" asked Grace.

"She's too old," put in a sophomore. "This is a young people's party, I
presume?"

"Well, it's not a sophomore party, at any rate," retorted Nora.

"Ma-ma, ma-ma," cried a number of other sophomores, imitating the cries
of a baby.

The freshmen were nettled by the superior attitude of the older class,
but they knew better than to say anything more just then.

"Never mind, girls," said Grace in a low voice, after the sophomores had
strolled away, "we'll be sophomores ourselves next year. Now, all who
want to join the party, meet Nora and Jessica and me at the old Omnibus
House at three-thirty. And, above all, don't give the meeting place
away."

"Not in a thousand years," said Marian Barber.

It was evident that Miriam Nesbit had hoped to break up the party by
declining to go herself. But she was not quite strong enough in the
class to divide it utterly, and she went off in a huff, with the secret
wish to take revenge on somebody. As she started up Chapel Hill to her
home she was joined by one of the sophomore girls, who lived across the
street.

"Your plebes are getting away from you, Miriam," exclaimed the older
girl in a bantering tone. "You haven't got them well in hand yet.
Nutting parties should be left behind for the Grammar School pupils."

"They certainly should," replied Miriam in a disgusted tone. "It's Grace
Harlowe who gets up all these foolish children's games. She's nothing
but a tomboy, anyhow."

"She's the captain of the basketball team, isn't she?" asked the other
dryly.

"Yes," admitted Miriam reluctantly, "but she never would have been if
she hadn't brought along all her friends to vote for her."

"Whew-w-w!" whistled the sophomore. "You don't mean to say it wasn't a
fair election?"

"Oh, fair enough," said Miriam, "except that I didn't bother to bring
any of my special friends, and she did. I don't call that exactly fair."

"Oh, well," consoled the other, "you have a few things coming to you
anyway, Miriam. You're at the head of your class, as usual, I suppose?"

Miriam no