Sanford. I suppose Mary, poor
innocent, asked her the way to the classroom. Where was Marjorie all
that time, I wonder? I'll bet you a box of Huyler's that they won't walk
into geometry again to-morrow morning. Hurry up, there's Marjorie just
ahead of us with Mary now. The fair Mignon has vanished. I can see her
away ahead of them. I guess Marjorie didn't know who piloted Mary into
class. She came in last, you know."

Irma laid a detaining hand on Jerry's arm.

"Oh, wait until after school, Jerry," she counseled. This quiet,
unobtrusive girl was a keen observer. She had noted Marjorie's
half-troubled expression as she entered the room. The suspicion that
Marjorie knew and was not pleased had already come to her.

"All right, I will. Wish school was out now. Those geometry definitions
make me tired. I'm worn out already and school hasn't fairly begun yet.
I hate mathematics. Wouldn't look at a geometry if I could graduate
without it."

But while Jerry was anathematizing mathematics, Marjorie was saying
earnestly to Mary, whom she had joined at the door, "I am so sorry I
didn't come back to your seat in the study hall before the first bell
rang. I really ought to have asked permission to do so, but I was afraid
Miss Merton would say 'no.' She never loses a chance to be horrid to me.
When you said you were going to recite in this section I hurried and
changed my programme to make things come right for us."

Marjorie's earnest little speech, so full of apparent good will, brought
a quick flush of contrition to Mary's cheeks. She experienced a swift
spasm of regret for her bitter suspicion of Marjorie. Her tense face
softened. Why not unburden herself to her chum now and find relief from
her torture of doubt?

"Marjorie," she began, laying her hand lightly on her friend's arm, "I
wish you would tell me something. Miss La Salle said that Constance
Stevens----"

"Mary!" Marjorie's sunny face had suddenly grown very stern. "I am sorry
to have to speak harshly of any girl in Sanford High, but as your chum
I feel it my duty to ask you to have nothing to do with Mignon La Salle,
or pay the slightest attention to her. She made us all very unhappy last
year, particularly Constance and myself. I can't help saying it, but I
am sorry that she has come back to Sanford. I understood that she was at
boarding school. I am sure I wish she had stayed there." Marjorie spoke
with a bitterness quite foreign to her generous nature.

Ma