shmen above--the flippant fun-loving irresponsible
six-year-old freshmen--they waited ready to meet the warden with an
impudent burst of revelry, and thus to dash her official dignity from its
exasperating estate. When they saw Robbie Belle's face they simply
stared. They listened in silence to the few rapid words that stung and
burned and smarted. They watched her depart, her head still held at its
angle of wrathful justice. Then they looked at one another.

They could not see how, when once safely in the haven of her room, she
broke down utterly and lay trembling and sobbing in Miss Cutter's
astonished arms. Now at last she had surely committed an unpardonable
offense against the only girls for whom she cared in the whole
collegeful--especially Berta. Now Berta would be certain she was queer.

Meanwhile in the tower, Berta drew a long breath and glanced around at
her dismayed and sobered companions.

"The more I see of that girl," she said, "the better I like her. And we
have been awfully silly--that's a fact. The next time I see her I shall
tell her so too. Now suppose we go and do a little studying our own
selves."

Somehow or other before Thanksgiving Day, Robbie Belle Sanders had ceased
to be disappointed in college. With Berta for a dearest friend and Miss
Cutter withdrawn to a more congenial neighborhood, she was finding it
even more fun than she had expected.

CHAPTER III

A QUESTION OF ECONOMY

"I LOVE music myself," said Robbie Belle, lifting serene eyes from her
porridge, "but to-day is Thanksgiving Day."

"Oh!" sighed Berta, as she clasped her hands--those thin nervous hands
with the long fingers that Robbie Belle admired all the more for their
contrast with her own dimpled ones, "think of hearing Caruso and Sembrich
together in grand opera! I could walk all the way on my knees."

"What!" cried Robbie Belle in wide-eyed astonishment, her spoon half way
to her mouth, "walk seventy miles! And miss the Dinner?"

The graduate fellow at the head of their table looked quite sad as she
nodded her pretty head, though to be sure her napkin was hiding her lips.

"Why!" gasped Robbie Belle, freshman, "but Dinner is to begin at three
and last till almost six. And we are going to have salted almonds and
nesselrode pudding and raw oysters and chocolate peppermints and turkey
and sherbet and macaroons and nuts and celery and Brussels sprouts and
everything. We are painting the place-cards this morning