One glaring result of Jane's dinner party was the ignoring of the ten-thirty rule that night.

It was eight o'clock when the congenial diners finished an elaborate dessert and strolled gaily out of the Inn. The beauty of the night induced the will to loiter. Some one proposed a walk into Chesterford and a visit to a moving-picture theatre.

When they emerged from it it was half-past nine, thus necessitating a quick hike to the campus. Jane and Judith made port in their room at exactly twenty-five minutes past ten.

Visions of unprepared lessons looming up large, they decided that for once "lights out" should not be the order of things.

As a consequence of retiring at eleven-thirty, both overslept the next morning and dashed wildly off to chapel without breakfast.

Occupied from then on with classes, it was not until she had finished her last recitation of the morning and was on her way to Madison Hall that Jane remembered her resolve to see Alicia.

Determined to lose no more time in putting it into execution, she quickened her pace. Coming to the stone walk leading up to the steps of the Hall, Jane uttered a little cluck of satisfaction. She had spied Alicia seated in a rocker on the veranda, engaged in reading a letter.

"Oh, Alicia!" she called as she reached the foot of the steps. "You're the very person I most want to see!"

Sound of Jane's voice caused Alicia to glance up in startled fashion. She had been faintly smiling over her letter when first Jane glimpsed her. Now her pale face underwent a swift, ominous change. She hastily rose.

"I didn't wish to see you," she said stiffly, and marched into the house.

Jane's primary impulse was to follow her and demand an explanation. The rebuff, however, had stirred again into life the old, rebellious pride which had formerly caused her so much unhappiness.

For a moment she stood still, hands clenched, cheeks flaming with mortification. Then with a bitter smile she walked slowly up the steps and into the house. After that affront Alicia would wait a long time before she, Jane Allen, would seek an explanation.

"Well, it has come," she said sullenly, as she entered her room where Judith sat at the dressing table, recoiling her long brown hair.

"What's come? By 'it' do you mean yourself?"

Judith turned in her chair with a boyish grin.

"No," Jane answered shortly. "Alicia Reynolds has gone back to her old chums."

"You don't mean it!"

Judith's hands dropped from her hair. In her surprise she let go of half a dozen hair pins she had been holding in one hand.

"Now see what you made me do," she laughingly accused. "Get down and help me pick them up."

"Oh, bother your old hairpins!" exclaimed Jane savagely. "I'm awfully upset about this, Judy. I felt last night as if I should have gone to Alicia and asked her what was the matter. This is some of Marian Seaton's work."

"Of course it is," calmly concurred Judith. "I haven't the least idea of what it's all about, but I agree with you just the same. I'll agree even harder when I do find out."

In a few jerky sentences Jane enlightened Judith.

"So that's the way the land lies," commented Judith. "Well, I'm not surprised. Take my word for it the ignoble Noble has had a hand in this. Just the same I don't believe Alicia has gone back to Marion Seaton. She's merely hurt over some yarn that's been told her. You'd better see her, Jane, and have it out with her."

"I won't do it." Jane shook an obstinate head. "Alicia ought to know better than listen to those girls. She knows how badly Marian Seaton behaved last year about basket-ball. She knows that Marian is untruthful and dishonorable. If she chooses to believe in a person of that stamp then she will have to abide by her choice."

It was the stubborn, embittered Jane Allen of earlier days at Wellington who now spoke.

"Only the other day I said to Dorothy that I didn't hate Marian Seaton any longer; that I felt only sorry for her. I said, too, that there must be some good in her if one could only find it. What a simpleton I was!"

The sarcastic smile that hovered about Jane's red lips, fully indicated her contempt of her own mistaken sentiments.

"Adrienne was right," she said after a brief pause. "She said she could never forget nor forgive an injury. I thought I could, but I can't. I mean I don't want to."

Her brows meeting in the old disfiguring scowl, Jane began pacing the room in what Judith had termed her "caged lion" fashion.

"Oh, forget it," counseled Judith, casting a worried glance at Jane's gloomy, storm-ridden face. "Don't let Marian Seaton's hatefulness upset you, Jane. You behaved like a brick about your room and that letter. This isn't half as bad as that mix-up was. You said your own self that you were going to ignore anything she tried to do against you. Now go ahead and keep your word. You've lots of good friends. You should worry."

"I haven't so many," Jane sharply contradicted. "I can count them on my fingers. I don't make friends as easily as you do, Judy."

"Just the same a lot of fuss was made over you last spring when you won the big game for our team," Judith sturdily reminded.

"That's not friendship. That was only admiration of the moment. The same girls who cheered me then would probably be just as ready to turn against me if they happened to feel like it," pointed out Jane skeptically. "No wonder I used to hate girls. Very few of them know what loyalty and friendship mean."

"You're hopeless." Judith made a gesture of resignation.

With a chuckle she added: "Why not challenge Marian Seaton to a duel and demolish her? Umbrellas would be splendid weapons. I have one with a lovely crooked handle. You could practice hooking it around my neck and when the fateful hour came you could bring the double-dyed villain to her knees with one swoop. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"You're a ridiculous girl, Judy Stearns."

Jane was forced to laugh a little at Judith's nonsense.

"You're a goose yourself to get all worked up over nothing," grinned Judith. "I can't say I blame you for throwing up the stupendous labor of hunting out Marian's good qualities. In my opinion 'There ain't no such animal.' But you're a very large-sized goose if you allow her to spoil your sophomore year for you."

"I don't intend she shall spoil it," Jane grimly assured. "I've stood a good deal from her without ever even once trying to strike back. I'm not sure that I've done right in allowing her to torment me as she has without ever asserting myself. There's a limit to forbearance. I may feel some day that I've reached it."

Judith smiled but said nothing. She had too high an opinion of Jane to believe that her proud-spirited roommate would ever descend to the level of her enemies. Given an opportunity for revenge, she believed that Jane would scorn to seize it.

"Have you invited your freshman yet?" she asked with sudden irrelevancy.

"No, I haven't had time to see any one of them yet," Jane answered.

"I asked Miss Lorimer, a cute little girl from Creston Hall, this morning after chapel, but she said she'd already been invited," informed Judith. "I must find out if the three eligible freshmen here have escorts yet. I suppose they have, with so many sophs in the house. The ignoble Noble's not an eligible."

The luncheon bell now interrupted the talk. It seemed to Jane as she took her place at table that spiteful triumph lurked in the sharp glance Elsie Noble flashed at her.

The conversation carried on by herself, Adrienne and Dorothy, centered almost entirely on the coming dance. From Adrienne, Jane learned that the Hall's three freshmen had already received invitations.

When the little French girl announced this, Jane again fancied that she read satisfaction in the sharp features of the quarrelsome freshman.

Though the latter had not addressed a word to her tablemates since her advent among them, she never missed a word they said. All three were well aware of this and it annoyed them not a little.

When just before dinner that evening Judith and Jane compared notes, it was to discover the same thing. Neither had been successful in securing a freshman to escort to the dance.

"I've asked five girls and every one of them turned me down," Judith ruefully acknowledged. "I thought I'd start early, but it seems others started earlier."

"I've asked two different girls, but both have escorts," frowned Jane. "I sha'n't ask any more. I thought Miss Harper, the second girl I asked, refused me rather coolly. I want to do my duty as a soph, but I won't stand being snubbed."

"Let's go and see what luck Ethel and Adrienne have had," proposed Judith.

Indifferently assenting, Jane accompanied Judith to her friends' room.

"Ah, do not ask me!" was Adrienne's disgusted outburst, "These freshmen are, of a truth, too popular. Four this day I have invited, but to no purpose."

"I'm going to take Miss Simmons, a Barclay Hall girl, to the dance," informed Ethel. "I asked her this morning and she accepted."

"Well, we seem out of luck," sighed Judith. "Do you know whether Mary and Norma have invited their freshmen?"

"Mary's going to take Miss Thomas, an Argyle Hall girl. Norma hasn't asked any one yet," was Ethel's prompt reply. "You girls just happened to ask the wrong ones, I guess. Try again to-morrow. There are more than enough freshies to go round this year."

After a little further talk, Jane and Judith went back to their room.

"What do you think about it?" Judith asked abruptly the instant they were behind their own door.

"I don't know. It's probably as Ethel says, 'a happen-so.' I can't think of any other reason, unless——"

Jane stopped and eyed Judith steadily.

"Unless some one in the freshman class has set the freshmen against us," quickly supplemented Judith.

"Yes, that's what I was thinking. It doesn't seem possible in so large a class. Still one girl can sometimes do a good deal of mischief."

"You mean Miss Noble?"

Judith was too much in earnest to use the derisive name she had given the disagreeable freshman.

"Yes," affirmed Jane. "If she helped to turn Alicia against me, she is quite capable of going further. So far as we know, you and Adrienne and I are the only sophs who've been turned down all around. Norma hasn't asked any one yet. Anyway, she's a junior."

"It looks rather queer, so queer that I'm going to make it my business to ask a few questions to-morrow. If there's really anything spiteful back of this, believe me, little Judy will find it out."