ay, Betty, would you run down after gym to get our
old order sheet and put up a new one? I have a special topic in
psychology to-morrow, and if Professor Hinsdale really thinks I'm clever
I don't want to undeceive him too suddenly."

Betty promised, but after gym Rachel asked her to stay and play
basket-ball with "The Stars" in the place of an absent member. Naturally
she forgot everything else and it was nearly six o'clock when,
sauntering home from an impromptu tea-drinking at the Belden House, she
remembered the order sheet. It was very dusky in the basement. Betty,
plunging down the steps that led directly into the small room where the
bulletin board was, almost knocked down a girl who was curled up on the
bottom step of the flight.

"Goodness! did I hurt you?" she said, a trifle exasperated that any one
should want to sit alone in the damp darkness of the basement.

There was no answer, and Betty, whose eyes were growing accustomed to
the dim light, observed with consternation that her companion was doing
her best to stop crying.

As has already been remarked, Betty hated tears as a kitten hates rain.
Personally she never cried without first locking her door, and she could
imagine nothing so humiliating as to be caught, unmistakably weeping, by
a stranger. So she turned aside swiftly, peered about in the shadows for
the big red heart, changed the order sheet, and was wondering whether
she would better hurry out past the girl or wait for her to recover her
composure and depart, when the girl took the situation out of her hands
by rising and saying in cheery tones, "Good-evening, Miss Wales. Are you
going my way?"

"I--why it's Emily--I mean Miss--Davis," cried Betty.

"Yes, it's Emily Davis, in the blues, the more shame to her, when she
ought to be at home getting supper this minute. Wait just a second,
please." Miss Davis went over to the signs, jerked down one, and picking
up her books from the bottom step announced without the faintest trace
of embarrassment, "Now I'm ready."

"But are you sure you want me?" inquired Betty timidly.

"Bless you, yes," said Miss Davis. "I've wanted to know you for ever so
long. I'm sorry you caught me being a goose, though."

"And I'm sorry you felt like crying," said Betty shyly. "Why, Miss
Davis, I should want to laugh all the time if I'd done what you did the
other day. I should be so proud."

Miss Davis smiled happily down at her small companion. "I was proud,"
she