nvictions; "it seems somewhat cruel when one considers how passionately
fond of music the child is. Still you must remember that this scholarship
fund is the result of endless self-denial. I have known several alumnae,
to say the least, who have sacrificed greater privileges than visits to
the Opera for the sake of contributing an extra mite. Would it be just for
one who benefits from the economy of others to spend in self-indulgence?"

Meanwhile Berta, unconscious of the fact that her whole college career
and the future to be moulded by it had depended upon her decision to do
right in this apparently insignificant respect, had trudged up to a
certain lonely room. Robbie Belle lifted a wet face from a consoling
pillow.

"Berta!" It was like a soft little shout of triumph. "I knew----"

Berta swallowed a lump in her throat and managed to smile a whimsical
smile from behind dewy lashes.

"Maybe we'll have clam chowder for luncheon," she said, "and then won't
those two seniors be sorry!"

CHAPTER IV

HER FRESHMAN VALENTINES

WHEN Bea straightened her head from its anxious tilt over the desk, she
drew the tip of her tongue from its perilous position between two rows of
white teeth, and heaved a mighty sigh of relief.

Then she blinked admiringly upon the white pile of envelopes lying in the
glow of the drop-light. "There! That makes fifteen valentines all for
her. She will be sure to receive more than any other senior, and that
will teach Berta Abbott a thing or two. The idea of her insisting that
her senior is more popular than my senior!"

With a smile that was rather more sleepy than dreamy, the industrious
young freshman picked up the precious missives.

"O Lila,--my magnanimous roommate,--are you asleep? Do you want to listen
to my last valentines? I intend to run down and put them in the senior
caldron presently. Is this sentimental? When I read it to Berta, she
laughed at it.

"My Music

"At thy birth were gathered voices of the sea,
Murmur of the breezes in the forest tree,
Songs of birds and laughter--"

At this point an open umbrella, which hid the pillow on the farther
narrow bed, gave a convulsive shiver, and a fretful voice complained:

"Will you turn off that gas and stop your nonsense? Here it is midnight,
if it's an hour, and I haven't slept a wink, with that light blazing. I
know I shall fail in the written test t