still and
regarded them with an air of surprised, sad dignity as the two flung
themselves upon her.

"Young ladies, I am astonished at such behavior. Leading juniors--real,
live, brand-new juniors--and to display such lack of self-restraint, such
disdain of gracefulness and repose! Oh!" her voice changed magically,
"oh, you, dear sweet, darling girls, I love you pretty well."

"Then why," queried Berta, gasping as she released herself, "then why, I
repeat, do you endeavor to choke us to death?"

"Because," answered Bea, as she meekly allowed Lila to straighten her hat
while Berta rescued her satchel from the middle of the corridor, "because
you are so nice and noble and haven't any false feeling about little
tokens of affection like that. In fact, you haven't any false pride or
anything false, and I have a tale of woe to tell you by and by. Hereafter
I intend to be a typical college girl, not an exception."

The promised by and by proved to be the hour of unpacking after chapel
services. While Bea was emptying her satchel that night she snatched up a
little fringed napkin and shook it vigorously before the other girls.

"See the crumbs! Thereby hangs the tale. Now, listen.

This summer we have been feeling rather poor at home, you know. My
father's firm was forced to make an assignment. It wasn't his fault, you
understand; it was because of the hard times. Every few days we would
hear of a bank closing its doors or a factory shutting down. People have
been cutting off expenses in all directions. Of course my family has to
economize. I am thankful enough to be able to come back to college. About
a dozen girls in the class have dropped out this year of the panic. I
knew that I could earn fifty dollars or more by tutoring and carrying
mail, if I once got here. That will help quite a lot toward books and
postage and ordinary personal expenses. Father said he could manage the
five hundred for board and tuition. You had better believe that I do not
intend to be needlessly extravagant, when my mother is keeping house
without a maid, and my father is riding to his office on a bicycle.

Now I rather suspect that this explanation is no excuse for the foolish
way I behaved on the journey to college that September. But the summer
has been so horrid, and two or three acquaintances changed around after
the failure and treated us as if we had ceased to be worth noticing. Of
course I know that such persons are not worth noticing