NEXT morning dawned bright and clear—another day like midsummer—and, when Jacquette began to dress, a remark that Louise had made on the way home from the spread the night before, came into her mind.

“This is your travelling suit, isn’t it?” Louise had said. “It’s so appropriate—plain and dark! I love plain things for travelling, don’t you?”

With this in her thoughts, Jacquette discarded the simple shirt-waist suit she had intended to wear, and took out, instead, a fluffy rose-coloured mull, which Aunt Sula had advised her to put on often for dinner, while she was visiting at Uncle Malcolm’s.

She felt repaid for the change when she saw Aunt Fanny’s welcoming smile and Quis’s glance of admiration, at breakfast. Uncle Mac studied her without comment, but, just as she was starting for school, he put his arm around her and whispered, tenderly,

“Your mother’s own daughter—that’s what you are! Don’t let ’em spoil you with their secret societies and things. Keep your pretty head level.”

The pretty head, hatless this morning, nodded confidently as Jacquette tripped away at Marquis’s side.

Louise Markham joined them at the corner, and, a block or two farther on, Marquis excused himself to walk with a boy who had met them at one of the cross-streets.

“We needn’t feel jealous,” Louise said, with a smile, as Marquis left them. “It isn’t because he prefers Clarence Mullen’s company to ours.”

“What made him go, then?” Jacquette asked. “Oh, business! The Beta Sigs want to pledge that little fellow, and two or three other fraternities are after him, too, so Quis couldn’t lose this chance of courting him.”

“But, Louise, that boy has such a queer, sly-looking face! I thought so the minute I saw him. Is he nice?”

Louise shrugged her shoulders good-naturedly. “His father has loads of money and a ball-room in his house.”

“You don’t mean to say that Quis’s fraternity would choose a boy for those things?”

There was a scandalised note in Jacquette’s voice, and Louise laughed.

“Not really,” she said. “I don’t actually know anything against that Mullen boy, but somehow, I feel just as you do about him—creepy—and I can’t help thinking that his father’s financial position may have a little to do with all the fraternities rushing him so hard. Maybe that’s unjust. I don’t know—but I do know, Jacquette, that when a girl can look as much like a flower as you do in that pink dress, she has no business ever to wear plain things.”

“Oh, Louise!” Jacquette protested, looking more like a flower than ever, as they turned into the school entrance, and walked up to the office to register.

When they came out into the hall again, Louise said, “Well, you’re assigned to room 17, I see. That means you’re going to bloom in Mademoiselle’s rose-garden. I ’most wish I were a freshman or sophomore, so I could be there with you. We seniors have to go up on the top floor.”

“What is Mademoiselle’s rose garden?”

“Come in here and see,” was the answer, as Louise led Jacquette into room 17 and straight to Mademoiselle Dubois’s desk, where a half dozen pupils were standing in line, waiting for the French teacher to assign them seats in her study room.

Mademoiselle, a slight figure dressed in black, was writing busily, but, after a moment, she lifted her head and fixed a pair of searching eyes on Jacquette. Instantly, the girl was conscious of a forceful character, masked by a dimpling face, which revealed nothing.

“Jacquette Willard,” Mademoiselle repeated after Louise, in honeyed tones. “A little French name, is it not? But it is not a little French girl? No? Ah, a cousin of Marquis Granville, did you say? My cunning chicken, I am charmed to meet you! You are going to be my child, for I know your cousin well, and, indeed, I am so fond of that little wretch!”

Jacquette gasped, and, before she could stammer a word in reply, Louise’s laugh had bubbled forth.

“Your old abominable laugh, my sweet pet,” Mademoiselle chided, turning to Louise and speaking in the same mellifluous voice. “You have carried it through high school, and you will carry it into womanhood. It is scandalous, dearie. You shall have that seat next the aisle, my little plum-tree,” she added, addressing Jacquette again. “The one in the second row, honey, and Louise, the dear child, shall help you make out your programme for the quarter. You see that all the classes and all the hours are plainly written on the board, don’t you, dearie? Go now, Louise, and help the little Willard, before the bell rings.”

“There! How do you like Mademoiselle?” Louise whispered, as soon as they were seated. “All the other teachers in high school call you ‘Miss’—but not Mademoiselle! She makes you feel, just at first, as if you’d dropped back into kindergarten, but don’t deceive yourself—you haven’t! There isn’t a more respected, better obeyed teacher in Marston than Mademoiselle Dubois, and, as for French, what she doesn’t know about it isn’t worth learning. Did you notice how she spoke about my laugh? She’s just right. I can’t control it to save my life. But isn’t she great?”

“Great—I should think she was!” Jacquette agreed, impulsively. “I’m afraid of her and I like her at the same minute. ‘My cunning chicken’! Louise, I’ve had one year of French at home; I hope I can take my second year with her.”

“All right; let’s plan it that way.” And the girls fell to work on Jacquette’s programme.

Tap, tap, tap, sounded on Mademoiselle’s desk, when they had nearly finished.

“Now, my little flock,” said the small Frenchwoman, standing behind her desk to address the roomful of fifty young people, whose ages ranged from fifteen to eighteen. “My sweet pets”—she paused and dimpled—“at the beginning of the year, I will explain to you the meaning of the bells. You see, I never have the least particle of trouble with the dear children who study in my room—not the least particle—after I have once explained the meaning of the bells. It is this: First bell, no walking; second bell, no talking; and third bell”—her voice had dropped almost to a whisper—“when the third bell rings, in Mademoiselle’s room, it is always as still as a little rose garden!”

“What did I tell you?” murmured Louise. “See how they strain their ears to catch every word she says.”

“If I hear any voice,” Mademoiselle’s hushed tones went on, after she had cast one keen glance at Louise, “if there is ever any sound at all, I know it must be an echo from that bad room across the hall, for my children never give me the least particle of trouble—the sweet pets!

“Very good. You are just as I knew you would be, dear children. Now, Alice, honey, when you registered yesterday, did you not ask to be excused from drawing, this quarter?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle Dubois,” answered a tall, serious looking sophomore, who had evidently met Mademoiselle, before.

“Well, sweet pet, did you bring your note of excuse from mamma, to-day?”

“No, Mademoiselle, I forgot it.”

“I am so sorry, Alice, because you see, dearie, you must go right home after it, and that means you will miss the first and second period—both recitations for you—and that means”—lingeringly and lovingly—“that means two—little—zeros! And you see, Alice, that it always pays, in Mademoiselle’s room, for her dear little peacocks to do everything just at the right little minute, because, if they don’t, it means t-r-o-t, trot!”

She pointed a tiny finger at the door, and, to Jacquette’s wondering amazement, tall Alice meekly departed.

As the door closed behind her, Mademoiselle assumed a meditative expression. “There are three people talking in this room at present,” she said softly, addressing a distant spot on the ceiling. “I am one of them; I wonder who the other two could be! Chester!” she added, suddenly, fixing her eyes on a corner of the room where a sly whispering was in progress. “Take your books, honey, and come to this row at once. No, not there,” she demurred, as the big, broad-shouldered fellow sheepishly obeyed. “I reserve those seats for my French class, and if you should be studying there, and I should imagine you were one of my French class who was not paying attention, you might get your sweet little ears boxed! Now, as I was about to say, when I was so rudely interrupted——”

But the things Mademoiselle wished to say had to be postponed, for the bell sounded, and the pupils of her second year French class—some from her own room, and some from other rooms—began to assemble in the front rows. Louise gave Jacquette’s hand a farewell squeeze, and hurried away to a class of her own on the upper floor, while Jacquette, left alone for the first time, shyly took her place among Mademoiselle’s pupils, wondering, as she did so, whether she was likely to get her “sweet little ears boxed” by sitting at the wrong desk.

The French recitation proved to be a taking of stock, by Mademoiselle, of her class’s stage of advancement, but it served, at the same time, to fix in the minds of those who had not worked with her before, the necessity of keeping eyes and ears open.

Early in the hour, she called on Arline Grant, a much be-curled young lady, to give the rule under which a certain word preceded the verb in a French sentence they were discussing.

Arline was silent. “Class,” said Mademoiselle, “We will sing for Arline a little song that we learned at the beginning of our first year in French. All together, ready! First verse” (chanting): “Pronoun objects come before the verb! Second verse: Pronoun objects come before the verb! Third verse: Pronoun objects come before the verb! Chorus: Pronoun objects come before the verb! Now, Arline, do you know the little rule, my pet?”

Arline gave it.

“Triumph No. 1!” Mademoiselle exclaimed brightly. “We have taught Arline something!” Then she looked sharply at her book, and said in a surprised tone, “I notice ‘mon amie’ printed in the next sentence! ‘Mon’—a masculine pronoun—when the ‘friend’ referred to is feminine. A misprint, is it not? Scratch it out, everyone of you, and write the feminine ‘ma’ in its place.”

The pupils obediently made the change. “Class, rise,” Mademoiselle commanded, and the class rose.

“Now, all who scratched that out, sit down,” she continued, and everyone except Jacquette sat down.

“My little Willard!” said Mademoiselle, in evident surprise. “What are you walking around here for?”

“Because I didn’t scratch it out,” Jacquette replied, blushing furiously.

“And why not?” The deep dimples appeared in Mademoiselle’s cheeks.

“Because the pronoun ‘mon’ retains the masculine form before a feminine noun beginning with a vowel or h mute,” Jacquette faltered, frightened almost out of her voice at finding herself the only one who knew it.

“Excellent, dearie! I am charmed! You may be seated. And for the rest of you—zero!” Mademoiselle pronounced, dramatically. “I don’t wonder you look chagrined, my pets,” she added, “but you must remember that, in Mademoiselle Dubois’s classes, it pays to keep your wits about you.”

“Well, Mademoiselle,” one of the boys protested, with a shamefaced grin, “it’s mighty hard for us to keep track of all those little things. Now, there’s another point bothers me; the same word has so many different meanings in French. How are we going to tell them apart?”

“Honey, how can I bear to have you ask me so many silly questions!” Mademoiselle answered, instantly, folding her arms high on her chest as she spoke. “Now, listen: There is a big—black—animal, with long—fuzzy—hair, which our President loves to shoot—alas! Do you know the two meanings I gave to the word ‘bear’ in that remark?”

“Why, y-yes,” Clarence stammered, “The way you used it shows.”

Mademoiselle suddenly waved her hand at him as one tosses farewell to a baby. “Also in French, honey!” she told him, brightly.

All this was very entertaining to Jacquette, so much so that her algebra class, which met in the next hour and was taught by the dignified Mr. Pettingill, might have seemed dull except for the fact that she sat next to Etta Brainerd, who wrote her note after note and slipped them into her hand during the class period.

It seemed, Jacquette learned while Mr. Pettingill imagined he was teaching her algebra, that the Kappa Deltas were extremely anxious to get her into their sorority, on account of Margaret Howland’s former friendship with her, and that they were planning to ask her to their spread that afternoon. To outwit them, the Sigma Pi girls proposed to put their colours—pale blue and gold—on Jacquette, even before her Aunt Sula’s consent should come. In that way she could appear to be already pledged to them, and could have a good reason for declining the Kappa Delta’s invitation.

As soon as the half-hour for luncheon came, the Sigma Pi girls gathered around Jacquette.

“We’re not asking you to sign the pledge without your guardian’s permission, you understand, dear,” said Louise Markham, holding the blue and gold ribbons in one hand and the enamelled pledge pin in the other. “You simply promise, by wearing our colours this way, that if you ever do go any sorority, it will be Sigma Pi.”

And the end of it was that, when a delegation of Kappa Deltas, headed by Margaret Howland, came after Jacquette, a few minutes later, they found her wearing the blue and gold.

“I’m dreadfully sorry we can’t be in the same sorority,” she told Margaret, honestly, “but my cousin thinks——”

“That’s just why I want you to meet our girls,” Margaret argued. “Your cousin isn’t giving you a chance to judge for yourself.”

“That will do, Margaret!” exclaimed Etta Brainerd, stepping out of the close background, where she had been lingering to protect the Sigma Pi “pledge.” “I hate to say anything, because I know Jacquette used to think a great deal of you, but you know as well as anyone that it isn’t honourable to try to get another sorority’s pledge to come to your spreads.”

Then, without giving Jacquette time to do more than cast an apologetic backward glance at Margaret, Etta carried her off out of harm’s way.

Marquis was delighted, that night, when he saw the Sigma Pi colours pinned over Jacquette’s heart, and heard her story of the day.

“You did exactly right,” he told her. “It shows the Kappa Delts, once for all, just where you stand, and another thing I like about it is that it proves the Sigma Pi girls are dead anxious to get you. Oh, you’re all right, fairy princess!”

And Jacquette glowed with pleasure at his words.

The hours dragged slowly for a few days, after that, in spite of all the absorbing new happenings. It was because Aunt Sula’s answer was being waited for, but it came, at last, and Jacquette waved it wildly out of her bedroom window at Louise Markham, who happened to be passing.

“Louise! Louise! She says yes!” she cried, joyfully.

“Hurrah!” Louise called back. “I can’t stop, now, but I’m proper glad. A delegation of us will be over to-night to pledge you, dear.”

Then Jacquette sat down alone and read Aunt Sula’s “yes” all through again.

“About the girls’ club you speak of,” the letter said, “If it really must be decided before I come, I am going to leave it to you. You are almost a woman, now, and must begin to make your own decisions.

“I am assuming, of course, that Uncle Mac and Aunt Fanny approve, but, at the same time, I want you to use your own mind—not theirs—in forming your opinion. Find out, definitely, about the expense connected with it, and be sure, from all standpoints, that you are not doing anything you may regret later.

“Loving you always,

“Tia.”