ara Summerson. "During the game I was where I
could see Miss Watson. Nothing escaped her. She watched every move
Hester made. Emma was all right at first, but that foul put her on Miss
Watson's black list. I could tell that. You know how Miss Watson presses
her lips together and nods her head when she's pleased. Well, she did
that every time Hester made a good play."

"I will not get a chance to go," said Emma. "I am sure of that. I'd like
to, for I know lots of Exeter girls. There's a whole _bunch_ of them
from up our way."

"You speak as though they were flowers," laughed Erma, as she hurried
down the steps from the gallery to join the girls. "A bunch of girls and
a bunch of flowers, I presume that is a figure of speech, but
nevertheless I would not let Doctor Weldon hear me, if I were you. She
might fail to see how flowery it is, and think you are using slang."

Josephine was leaning against the balustrade. Her cheeks were pressed
upon her upturned palm and her eyes were raised toward some remote
region in the direction of the ceiling. Her hair was bound with a Greek
band. She had seen to it that her short-waisted dress was suggestive of
Grecian lines of beauty.

"I rather like that term," she said slowly. "We say a bunch of flowers;
then why not a bunch of girls. Somehow I always think of flowers when I
see a group of girls together. Do people never make you think of
flowers? Some seem to me like lilies, others like shy, modest violets."

"Oh, cut it out!" said Emma, disregarding the rules in the use of
language. "Just at present they make me think of a lot of empty vessels
which will be emptier if they are not out of these duds and into dresses
before the ten-minute bell rings for dinner."

Emma strode on down the hall, in company with Mame Cross and Edna
Bucher. Edna had her arm around Emma's waist, although she was fully
six years Emma's senior. But the younger girl's father was a bank
president, a railroad magnate, and a number of other important persons,
and Edna believed in cultivating friendship where it would bear fruit
worth while. Emma was lavish and Edna fell heir to many discarded
trifles and was never ignored when Emma had a spread or banquet.

"Josephine is too sentimental," said Emma placidly. "If she would only
waken and talk sense, she would be fine."

"She's such a sweet girl," said Edna. Every woman, girl or child she had
ever known, came under that general heading in Edna Bucher's good bo