promised
plenty of discord later on. Though every member of the class had
attended the picnic as a matter of courtesy, the finer element had been
privately weary of the affair before the afternoon was over. The Sans'
efforts to mould the freshmen to their views merely resulted in
amalgamating stray groups to one solid formation. A fact they were
presently to discover.

The election of officers had occurred much later than was the rule. The
excitement attendant upon it had hardly died out before the freshman
frolic loomed large on their horizon. With the sophomore class almost
entirely free from snobbish influences, the dance promised to be an
occasion of undiluted enjoyment. The humbler freshmen off the campus
were the first to receive invitations from the sophs. Those sophs who
still clung to the Sans were only a handful. The freshies of Elizabeth
Walbert's faction found that the majority of them would be without
special escort unless the juniors or seniors came to their rescue.

Rallied to duty by Alida Burton and Lola Elster, the Sans magnanimously
stepped into the breach. They, in turn, brought certain of their junior
and senior allies to the aid of the escortless. It was a sore point,
however, among a number of freshmen who had voted for Miss Walbert that
the sophomores had passed them by for mere off-the-campus students. It
served as a quiet lesson by which a few of them afterward profited.

Eager to regain her lost laurels, Natalie Weyman was insistent that Lola
and Alida should ask the entertainment committee to give another Beauty
contest.

"What do you take me for?" was Lola's derisive reply when Natalie asked
her for the third time to try to bring the contest about. "I'd just as
soon ask Prexy Matthews to dye his hair pink as to ask those snippies to
give a Beauty parade. Kiss yourself good-bye, Nat. You didn't win it
last year. Nuff said."

Whereupon Natalie took pains to confide to anyone who would listen to
her that she thought Lola Elster the rudest, slangiest person she had
ever had the misfortune to meet.

Marjorie could not recall a festivity for which she had worked hard
beforehand and enjoyed more than the preparation for the freshman hop.
Going to the woods to gather the spicy, fragrant pine boughs and
gorgeous armfuls of autumn leaves and scarlet mountain ash berries for
decorations was purest pleasure. No less did she revel in the hours
spent in beautifying the gymnasium in honor of the ba