em to be a regular blunderer."

"You're a dear little sister, all the same," declared Nan.

"I say girls, come and play ping-pong," called Will from the hall below,
and the interview ended summarily.

But the memory of Eleanor Watson seemed fated to pursue Betty through
her vacation. A few days later an old friend of Mrs. Wales, who had gone
to Denver to live some years before and was east on a round of visits,
came in to call. The moment she heard that Betty was at Harding, she
inquired for Eleanor. "I'm so glad you know her," she said. "She's quite
a protege of mine and she needs nice friends like you if ever a girl
did. Don't mention it about college, Betty, but she's had a very sad
life. Her mother was a strange woman--but there's no use going into
that. She died when Eleanor was a tiny girl, and Eleanor and her brother
Jim have been at boarding schools ever since. In the summers, though,
they were always with their father in Denver. They worshiped him,
particularly Eleanor, and he has always promised her that when she was
through school he would open the old Watson mansion and she should keep
house for him and Jim. Then last year a pretty little society girl, only
four or five years older than Eleanor, set her cap for the judge and
married him. Jim liked her, but Eleanor was heart-broken, and the judge,
seeing storms ahead, I suppose, and hoping that Eleanor would get
interested and want to finish the course, made her promise to go to
Harding for a year. Now don't betray my confidence, Betty, and do make
allowances for Eleanor. I hope she'll be willing to stay on at college.
It's just what she needs. Besides, she'd be very unhappy at home, and
her aunt in New York isn't at all the sort of person for her to live
with."

So it came about that Betty returned to college more than ever
determined to get back upon the old footing with Eleanor, and behold,
Eleanor was not there! The Chapin house was much excited over her
absence, for tales of the registrar's unprecedented hardness of heart
had gone abroad, and almost nobody else had dared to risk the mysterious
but awful possibilities that a late return promised. As Betty was still
supposed by most of the house to be in Eleanor's confidence, she had to
parry question after question as to her whereabouts. To, "Did she tell
you that she was coming back late?" she could truthfully answer "No."
But the girls only laughed when she insisted that Eleanor must be ill.

"She