“DONE with Sigma Pi!” Aunt Sula echoed, not able to believe her ears.

But Jacquette, dropping into a chair and covering her face with both hands, had begun to sob. It was with an effort that she quieted herself to begin telling the troubles of the afternoon, but when she came to the description of the accident, her excitement dried her tears.

“And yet,” she declared, at the end, “I would have stood by Sigma Pi through everything, Tia—you know I would—if the girls hadn’t all turned against me, but everyone of them except Louise brought up some criticism. They said, if I was going to find fault with the sorority, I might as well know that the sorority had fault to find with me, and that, the truth was, I’d acted set up ever since they were so easy with me about letting me keep on my pin after my flunk in December. Then Mamie Coolidge showed out her jealousy of Louise. She said it wasn’t sorority spirit for me to go so much with one girl to the exclusion of my other sisters. And Blanche Gross put in that she wouldn’t say anything if I’d confine my attentions to Sigma Pi girls, but that I’d been seen bowing to non-sorority and non-fraternity people around school, and that I must know it was against sorority principles to do that.

“Oh, how angry that made me! I told her it wasn’t against my principles, and I wasn’t going to have my character all made over by any bunch of girls—not even my sorority—and that one thing I liked about Louise was the way she always spoke to everyone she knew around school, whether they belonged to sororities or not. Then Flo Burton said I might insist on bowing to them but I surely ought not to chum with non-sorority girls, and that she had noticed my walking to school with Fannie Brewster. And when I told them Fannie was poor, and that you thought she was lonely, Flo said, in the meanest way, ‘Aunt Sula, again!’ and two or three of the girls laughed, as if they had made a joke of it before.

“Do you think I could stand that? I came off and left them! And on the way home, I decided I’d make you happy, no matter how I felt myself, by telling you that I had done with Sigma Pi forever.”

Jacquette had hardly stopped for breath since the beginning of her story, but now she lifted her tear-stained face to meet Aunt Sula’s approval. To her surprise, it was not there.

“What about the vows of loyalty, sworn for life?” Aunt Sula asked her. “Where is the friendship that was going to bear criticism? This is its first test.”

Jacquette’s eyes dropped, but her voice was unyielding. “I can’t help that,” she murmured. “The girls were mean, and I’ll show them there is such a thing as going a step too far, even in a sorority. I’m going to call up two or three of them this very night, and tell them I’ve decided to resign.”

In spite of her unhappiness, Jacquette was getting a certain solace from imagining the effect of this announcement, but, before she had time to gloat over it, Aunt Sula astonished her still further by saying decidedly,

“Jacquette, I’m not willing you should resign.”

“Not willing! When you’ve always wished I wasn’t in it!”

“No; I’m not. If you break these vows like threads, because you’re angry with the girls, you make it that much easier for yourself to break other promises and be untrue to other obligations. No; I want you to promise me, here and now, ‘on your honour as a Sigma Pi’ not to say one word about resigning, to any of the girls—not even Louise—for at least a week, and not then until we have talked it over again.”

But instead of answering, Jacquette, who had risen to her feet in her amazement, put both hands to her head and wavered backward. “I’m so dizzy!” she said.

“Lie down on the couch. There; what is it?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, I guess—only my head aches! I’m—so—tired!” And the worn-out girl, completely unstrung, buried her face in the pillow and wept hysterically.

All that afternoon, Jacquette lay in a darkened room, resting and thinking. Just before dinner, Louise ran in to say how remorseful the girls had been as soon as they realised that they had hurt her. “It came over them all at once that they had gone too far,” she said. “As soon as you left, they began to talk about the good work you had done for Sigma Pi, and, first we knew, it just turned into a meeting of praise for you. Mamie Coolidge and Flo Burton got one good lecture for the way they spoke about your aunt, and they’re dreadfully sorry.”

Jacquette felt her heart softening as she listened. The promise to Aunt Sula had been given, and, on the whole, she reflected, it was not a bad idea to wait a week before she acted.

As the evening passed, the telephone bell began to ring, and apologies and messages of love from the Sigma Pi girls came over the wire. It was hard to believe it, but Blanche Gross—proud, cold Blanche—was actually crying when she told Jacquette how sorry she was for what had happened at her house that day. There was news from Winifred, too. Some of the girls had been to inquire, and, though her father had all but shut the door in their faces, they had learned that she was not dangerously injured.

Then came a long, restful Sunday, and, by the time Jacquette started for school Monday morning, the world had begun to wear its natural colour. The sorority girls gathered around her effusively, and, when she went to her desk, she found a beautiful bunch of violets, bearing the message, “With the love of your Sigma Pi sisters.”

Up to that instant, Jacquette had been secretly triumphing over the way she had brought the girls to their knees, but those words on the card went through her vanity straight to her heart, and her eyes were suspiciously shiny as she turned to smile her thanks at two Sigma Pi sisters who sat near. Then she heard the voice of Mademoiselle, summoning her to the desk.

“Dearie,” said the little Frenchwoman, in a sorry tone, “you are wanted in the office, directly.”

“Why, Mademoiselle! I haven’t done anything!” Jacquette protested, and her head went up in a gesture that looked like defiance, though Mademoiselle, who loved her, knew that it was not.

“Wait, honey. Listen to me. Mr. Pierce is there with Mr. Branch and he is very angry about the way his little girl was treated on Saturday. She might have been crippled for life, or even killed, you know. It is a mercy that she was not. They will ask you questions, and, as I tell you, he is very angry. People who are angry do not choose their words. But you—will you remember one little thing? This: Between the extremes of servility and impertinence, there lies a golden mean called courtesy. Go, dearie.”

As Jacquette went up the stairs, she knew that Sigma Pi was in trouble. The message of the violets was warm in her heart. Surely, this was no time to desert the girls! Winifred Pierce’s father was a detestable sort of man, anyway, that was plain, and her head went up at the thought. Then she remembered Mademoiselle’s warning.

It was a long interview. Jacquette was pale when she came back to the study-room. She took her books and went to her algebra recitation without a glance at anyone. The Sigma Pi girls were in a flutter of anxiety, but there was nothing to do but wait.

Presently, Mademoiselle was called to the office, herself. Then she came back and sat at her desk in a brown study. At last she looked up and asked Mamie Coolidge and Flo Burton to step out into the hall with her.

As the door closed behind the three, she said, abruptly, “My chickens, tell me who was with the little Pierce at the time of her accident, Saturday?”

The girls looked at each other. Mamie spoke first. “I was, for one,” she answered.

“I was, too,” Flo added, reluctantly. “And Jacquette Willard.”

Mademoiselle’s face cleared, but she shook her head. “How it has come about I do not know,” she went on, gravely, “but Mr. Pierce believes that the little Willard was the only one of you who was with his daughter, and he holds her accountable for every disgraceful detail of that trouble. He is very angry. He wishes to have her publicly reprimanded and he would be glad if Mr. Branch would even expel her from school. And she knows all about it, but she has not once mentioned your names!”

“Oh!” gasped both the girls together. Then something that, until now, had been asleep, woke within Mamie. “Is Mr. Pierce in the office, yet?” she demanded. “May we go straight up there and tell him all about it?”

“At once, dearie,” Mademoiselle agreed, with alacrity. “Say to Mr. Branch that Mademoiselle Dubois gave you permission to come.”

A minute later, two astonished men in the office were listening to a joint recital from two excited girls. Mr. Branch had received them sternly as they entered, his eye taking in the Sigma Pi pins they wore, with a glance of disapproval. He had been not only surprised, but shocked at the account given him by Winifred’s father, and he was not disposed to treat the matter lightly. Mr. Pierce, his face flushed, his sandy beard bristling with indignation, had just risen, and was buttoning the coat of his light grey business suit, but he sat down again, and glared at the girls, while he listened.

Bit by bit, in broken sentences, it all came out. How Jacquette had tried to restrain them at the start; how anxious she had been to protect Winifred; how good her influence had always been in the sorority; how she had taken all the blame on herself when she was perfectly innocent; how dear and sweet she was; how everybody loved her—oh!——

“There! there! there!” broke in Mr. Pierce, his bluster all gone, as the girls began to cry, and he actually pulled out his own handkerchief to polish his glasses. “This puts a new light on things, I declare! Mr. Branch,” he said, turning to the principal, who, from behind his desk, was watching developments with keen eyes, “will you let me see that Willard girl again, now, right away?”

“Certainly,” was the answer, and, stepping to the door, Mr. Branch sent a messenger for Jacquette, while Mamie and Flo sat wondering what was going to happen next.

Mr. Pierce did not let them wonder long. As soon as Jacquette appeared in the doorway, he walked across the room with his hand outstretched. “My girl, I want to apologise,” he said bluntly. “I don’t like your sororities, that’s true enough, and I won’t send my daughter to any school that’s in the clutch of such an octopus. As soon as she’s able to walk I’m going to ship her off to some place where secret societies are tabooed. But I say, Mr. Branch,”—still grasping Jacquette’s hand, he turned to the principal—“bad as these societies are, they can’t be all bad, or they couldn’t turn out girls that would stand by each other like this. I want to say that there’s not a word of fault to be found with you,” he declared to Jacquette, while the colour rushed into her sensitive face. “You tried to prevent the mischief, but you didn’t shirk the blame, even when you had a right to. You were respectful, you were sorry—and the way you acted has brought the best there was in these two girls right to the surface. Mr. Branch, I withdraw my complaint. They won’t do this thing again, and they’ve won that much from me by their loyalty to each other. As for you, my girl, I wish I had a son like you!”

Altogether, it made an exciting story to tell Aunt Sula after school, and it was a story with a happy ending, too, for, when Winifred’s father had finally gone, Mr. Branch had dismissed the girls with nothing worse than a serious warning as to their manner of conducting future initiations.

The first thing Aunt Sula said was, “What a friend Mademoiselle is!”

“Tia, she’s a wonder! She never pries around to find out things; she just understands; and she heads us away from trouble every chance she can get. How did she know I wasn’t going to be respectful to Mr. Pierce? But I wouldn’t have been, without her warning.”

“I’ve been wondering what she would think of your determination to resign from Sigma Pi. Suppose you ask her?” Jacquette’s face grew warm, but she did not drop her eyelids. “I’ve been thinking that over, to-day,” she answered. “Tia, do you realise that, in order to resign, I should have to let the girls expel me? The promise is; ‘Once a Sigma Pi always a Sigma Pi,’ unless you’re put out.”

“Yes, I know. You told me.”

“And it wouldn’t be my own sorority alone that would know about it. Of course every chapter of Sigma Pi would be told, but, besides that, an official notice would be sent out to every fraternity and sorority in Marston, stating that Jacquette Willard had been ‘dishonourably expelled.’ No reason would be given—just the fact.”

Aunt Sula waited.

“I really haven’t any friends at school outside of Sigma Pi,” Jacquette went on, slowly. “If I should resign, all my friends would be my enemies.”

“Suppose some of the girls should decide to go out with you?” “And break up Sigma Pi! and let the Kappa Delts triumph over us! I couldn’t bear it! And the girls wouldn’t go with me, either. When it came to the point, they couldn’t! I’d resign alone, and I’d be alone. The other sororities wouldn’t have anything to do with me, and, even if there were any non-sorority girls worth knowing, they wouldn’t want me, after I had been expelled from Sigma Pi. That’s true, Tia.”

“Oh, Jacquette! Among so many, there must be some nice ones who haven’t joined sororities because their parents didn’t approve of them, or because they couldn’t stand the extra expense, or some such reason. You’d find them out before long.”

“No. You can’t understand till you’ve been there. The nice girls who aren’t allowed to join some sorority are so unhappy at Marston that their parents have to send them somewhere else. You see Mr. Pierce is going to take Winifred away. Besides,” Jacquette ended, irrelevantly, “Quis and Bobs would both despise me if I deserted my sorority. They think girls are always fighting, anyway. They say we don’t know how to be real friends to each other.”

“But had you forgotten all these things when you said you wanted to resign, Jacquette?”

“No, I hadn’t. I counted the whole cost on my way home, that day, and I thought I could face it for the sake of punishing the girls. And it isn’t remembering these things that makes me feel differently, now, Tia. It’s—it’s—oh, it’s that bunch of violets, with its message, don’t you see? They’re a darling bunch of girls, after all. I love them, Tia. I—don’t see how I could resign from Sigma Pi!”

Jacquette looked as if she expected to be laughed at for the confession, but there was not a shadow of a smile on Aunt Sula’s face as she answered,

“I’m not surprised, dear. I know you love the girls, and I’m learning to feel the net that closes about you when you consider cutting loose from the sorority. But I want you to think of everything. If you stand firm for what you believe to be right, you’ll have these same clashes of opinion over and over, with each new set of girls that comes into Sigma Pi. Then, another thing: you will be expected, more and more, to take your part in the delegations that make out of town trips to form new chapters, the way the juniors and seniors have to do, now, and the amount of money and time and strength you’ll have to spend, is bound to increase, instead of growing less. Now, is it all worth while?”

“But I don’t understand, Tia! First, you wouldn’t let me resign, and now——”

“I know; I couldn’t have you break your vows in a fit of anger, but I do want to say this: If the time ever comes when you make up your mind deliberately, without any personal pique, that the sorority is a mistake—that you’re using the best of your efforts to build up something that really ought not to be—remember, I’ll stand by you.”

Jacquette’s face was earnest, as she leaned forward to answer. “That time will never come, Tia,” she said. “I never realised until to-day what an influence I have over the girls, and I’m going to use it in the best way. For one thing, I’m going to begin new, next week, and show everybody what a good student a sorority girl can be. And I’m going to stand by Sigma Pi, and help her grow into the best, biggest high-school sorority in the whole United States!”