etty curiously one
afternoon when Eleanor had come in to borrow a lexicon. "You say you
hate it here, and you hate to study. So why do you take so much trouble
about staying?"

Eleanor straightened proudly. "Haven't you observed yet that I have a
bad case of the Watson pride?" she asked. "Do you think I'd ever show my
face again if I failed?"

"Then why----" began Betty.

"Oh, that's the unutterable laziness that I get from my--from the other
side of the house," interrupted Eleanor. "It's an uncomfortable
combination, I assure you," and taking the book she had come for, she
abruptly departed.

Betty realized suddenly that in all the year Eleanor had never once
spoken of her mother.

After that she couldn't help being sorry for Eleanor, but she pitied
Miss Madison more. Miss Madison was dull at books and she knew it, and
had actually made herself ill with work and worry. Going to see her
Hilton House friends on the Friday afternoon after the skating party,
Betty found Miss Madison alone and undisguisedly crying.

"I know I'm foolish," she apologized. "Most people just laugh at that
story, but I notice they study harder since they heard it. And I'm such
a stupid."

Betty, who hated tears, had a sudden inspiration. "Why don't you ask
about it at the registrar's office?" she suggested.

"Oh, I couldn't," wailed Miss Madison.

"Then I shall," returned Betty. "That is, I shall ask one of the
faculty."

"Would you dare?"

"Yes, indeed. They're human, like other people," said Betty, quoting
Nan. "I don't see why some one didn't think of it sooner."

That night at dinner Betty announced her plan. The freshmen looked
relieved and Mary Brooks showed uncalled-for enthusiasm.

"Do go," she urged. "It's high time such an absurd story was shown up at
its real value. It's absurd. The way we talk and talk about a report
like that, and never dare to ask the faculty if it's true."

"Do you take any freshman courses?" inquired Eleanor sarcastically.

Mary smiled her "beamish" smile. "No," she said, "but I'm an interested
party nevertheless--quite as much so as any of the famous fifty."

"Whom shall you ask, Betty?" pursued Katherine, ignoring the digression.

"Miss Mansfield. I have her the first hour, and besides, since she's
been engaged she's so nice and sympathetic."

Next day the geometry class dragged unmercifully for three persons.
Eleanor beat a nervous tattoo on the seat-arm, Miss Madison stared
fixedly at