phomore year had been
crowded with many trials, some of them positive school tragedies, in
which Anne and Grace had been the principal actors.

"What are you two mooning over?" asked a gay voice, and the two girls
turned with a start to find Julia Crosby grinning cheerfully at them.

"O Julia, how glad I am to see you at close range!" exclaimed Grace.
"Admiring you from a distance isn't a bit satisfactory."

"Business, children, business," said Julia briskly. "That's the only
thing that keeps me from your side. The duties of the class president
are many and irksome. At the present moment I've a duty on hand that
I don't in the least relish, and I want your august assistance. Will you
promise to help before I tell you?"

"Why, of course," answered Grace and Anne in the same breath. "What is
it you want us to do?"

"Well, it seems that some of your juniors are still in need of
discipline. You remember the hatchet that we buried last year with such
pomp and ceremony?"

"Yes, yes," was the answer.

"This morning I overheard certain girls planning to go out to the
Omnibus House after school to-morrow and dig up the poor hatchet and
flaunt it in the seniors' faces the day of the opening basketball game,
simply to rattle us. Just as though it wouldn't upset your team as much
as ours. It's an idiotic trick, at any rate, and anything but funny. Now
I propose to take four of our class, and you must select four of yours.
We'll hustle out there the minute school is over to-morrow, and be ready
to receive the marauders when they arrive. Select your girls, but don't
tell them what you want or they may tell some one about it beforehand."

"Well, of all impudence!" exclaimed Anne. "Who are the girls, Julia? Are
you sure they're juniors?"

"The two I heard talking are juniors. I don't know who else is in it.
They'll be very much astonished to find us 'waiting at the
church'--Omnibus House, I mean," said Julia, "and I imagine they'll feel
rather silly, too."

"Tell us who they are, Julia," said Grace. "We don't want to go into
this blindfolded."

"Wait and see," replied Julia tantalizingly. "Then you'll feel more
indignant and can help my cause along all the better. I give you my word
that the girls I overheard talking are not particular friends of yours.
You aren't going to back out, are you, and leave me without proper
support?"

"Of course not," laughed Grace. "Don't worry. We'll support you, only
you must agree to do