After Christmas there were goodies from home to eat and Christmas-gifts to arrange in their new quarters. Betty’s piÊce de resistance was a gorgeous leather sofa pillow stamped with the head of a ferocious Indian chief. Eleanor had a great brass bowl, which in some mysterious fashion was kept constantly full of fresh roses, a shelf full of new books, and more dresses than her closet would hold. Katherine had a chafing-dish, Rachel a Persian rug, and Roberta an illustrated “Alice in Wonderland” of her own. To Betty’s great relief Helen had brought back two small pillows for her couch, all her skirts were lengthened, and the Christmas stock of black silk with its white linen turnovers replaced the clumsy woolen collars that she had worn with her winter shirt-waists. And–she was certainly learning to do her hair more becomingly. There wasn’t a very marked improvement to be sure, but if Betty could have watched Helen’s patient efforts to turn her vacation to account in the matter of hair-dressing, she would have realized how much the little changes meant, and would have been more hopeful about her pupil’s progress. Not until the end of her junior year did Helen Adams reach the point where she could be sure that one’s personal appearance is quite as important a matter as one’s knowledge of calculus or Kantian philosophies; but, thanks largely to Betty, she was beginning to want to look her best, and that was the first step toward the things that she coveted. The next, and one for which Betty, with her open-hearted, free-and-easy fashion of facing life, was not likely to see the need, must be to break down the barriers that Helen’s sensitive shyness had erected between herself and the world around her. The self-confidence that Caroline Barnes had cruelly, if unintentionally wounded, must be restored before Helen could find the place she longed for in the little college world.

No one had had any very exciting vacation adventures except Rachel, who was delayed on her way home by a freight wreck and obliged to spend Christmas eve on a windswept siding with only a ham sandwich between her and starvation, and Eleanor, whose vacation had been one mad whirl of metropolitan gaiety. Her young aunt, who sympathized with her niece’s distaste for college life, and couldn’t imagine why on earth Judge Watson had insisted upon his only daughter’s trying it for a year at least, did her utmost to make Eleanor enjoy her visit. So she had dined at the Waldorf, sat in a box at the theatre and the opera, danced and shopped to her heart’s content, and had seen all the sights of New York. And at all the festivities Paul West, a friend of the family and also of Eleanor’s, was present as Eleanor’s special escort and avowed admirer. Naturally she had come back in an ill humor. Between late hours and excitement she was completely worn out. She wanted to be in New York, and failing that she wanted Paul West to come and talk New York to her, and bring her roses for the big brass bowl that she had found in a dingy little shop in the Russian quarter. She threw her good resolutions to the winds, received Miss Hale’s thanks for the violets very coldly, and begged Betty to forget the sentimental letter that she had written before Christmas.

“But I thought it was a nice letter,” said Betty. “Eleanor, why won’t you give yourself a chance? Go and see Ethel this afternoon, and–and then set to work to show her what you said you would,” she ended lamely.

Eleanor only laughed. “Sorry, Betty, but I’m going to Winsted this afternoon. Paul has taken pity on me; there’s a sleighing party. I thought perhaps you were invited too.”

“No, but I’m going skating with Mary and Katherine,” said Betty cheerfully, “and then at four Rachel and I are going to do Latin.”

“Oh, Latin,” said Eleanor significantly. “Let me think. Is it two or three weeks to mid-years?”

“Two, just.”

“Well, I suppose I shall have to do a little something then myself,” said Eleanor, “but I shan’t bother yet awhile. Here comes the sleigh,” she added, looking out of the window. “Paul’s driving, and your Mr. Parsons has asked Georgie Arnold. What do you think of that?”

“I should certainly hope he wouldn’t ask the same girl to everything, if that’s what you mean,” said Betty calmly, helping Eleanor into her new coat.

Eleanor shrugged her shoulders. “Good-bye,” she said. “For my part, I prefer to be the one and only–while I last,” and snatching up her furs she was off.

Betty found Mary and Katherine in possession of her room and engaged in an animated discussion about the rules of hockey.

“I tell you that when the thing-um-bob is in play,” began Katherine.

“Not a bit of it,” cut in Mary.

“Come along, girls,” interrupted Betty, fishing her skates from under her couch, and pulling on her “pussy” mittens. “Never mind those rules. You can’t play hockey to-day. You promised to skate with me.”

It was an ideal winter’s afternoon, clear, cold and still. The ice on Paradise was smooth and hard, and the little pond was fairly alive with skaters, most of them Harding girls. Betty was a novice, with one weak ankle that had an annoying habit of turning over suddenly and tripping her up; so she was timid about skating alone. But between Mary and Katherine she got on famously, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. At four Mary had a committee meeting, Katherine an engagement to play basket-ball, and Betty had agreed to meet Rachel. So with great reluctance they took off their skates and started up the steep path that led past the boat-house to the back gate of the campus.

“Goodness, but I’m stiff,” groaned Mary, stopping to rest a minute half way up. “I’d have skated until dinner time though, if it hadn’t been for this bothering committee. Never be on committees, children.”

“Why don’t you apply your own rules?” inquired Katherine saucily.

“Oh, because I’m a vain peacock like the rest of the world. The class president comes to me and says, ‘Now Mary, nobody but you knows every girl in the class. You can find out the sentiments of all sorts and conditions on this matter. And then you have such fine executive ability. I know you hate committees, but—’ Of course I feel pleased by her base flattery, and I don’t come to my senses until it’s too late to escape. Is to-day the sixteenth?”

“No, it’s Saturday, the twentieth,” said Katherine. “Two weeks next Monday to mid-years.”

“The twentieth!” repeated Mary in tones of alarm. “Then, my psychology paper is due a week from Tuesday. I haven’t done a thing to it, and I shall be so busy next week that I can’t touch it till Friday or Saturday. How time does fly!”

“Don’t you even know what you’re going to write on or anything that you’re going to say?” asked Betty, who always wrote her papers as soon as they were assigned, to get them off her mind, and who longed to know the secret of waiting serenely until the eleventh hour.

“Why, I had a plan,” answered Mary absently, “but I’ve waited so long that I hardly know if I can use it.”

Just then Alice Waite and her roommate came panting up the hill, and Mary, who seldom took much exercise and was very tired, fell back to the rear of the procession. But when the freshmen stopped in front of the Hilton House she trilled and waved her hand to attract their attention.

“Oh. Betty, please take my skates home,” she said as she limped up to the group. Then she smiled what Roberta had named her “beamish” smile. “I know what you girls are talking about,” she said. “Will you give me a supper at Holmes’s if I’m right?”

“Yes,” said Katherine recklessly, “for you couldn’t possibly guess. What was it?”

“You’re wondering about those fifty freshmen,” answered Mary promptly.

“What freshmen?” demanded the four girls in a chorus, utterly ignoring the lost wager.

“Why, those fifty who, according to a perfectly baseless rumor, are going to be sent home after mid-years.”

“What do you mean?” gasped Betty.

“Hadn’t you heard?” asked Mary soothingly. “Well, I’m sure it will be all over the college by this afternoon. Now understand, I don’t believe it’s true. If it were ten or even twenty it might be, but fifty–why, girls, it’s preposterous!”

“But I don’t understand you,” said Miss Madison excitedly. She had grown very pale and was hanging on to Katherine’s arm. “Do you mean that there is such a story–that fifty freshmen are to be sent home after mid-years?”

“Yes,” said Mary sadly, “there is, and that’s what I meant. I’m sorry that I should have been the one to tell you, but you’d have heard it from some one else, I’m sure. A thing like that is always repeated so. Remember, I assure you I don’t believe a word of it. Somebody probably started it on purpose to frighten you little freshmen. If you would take my skates, Betty. I hate to lug them around till dinner time. Now good-bye, and do cheer up.”

Left to themselves the four freshmen stared blankly at one another. Finally Katherine broke the mournful silence.

“Girls,” she said solemnly, “it’s utter foolishness to worry about this report. Mary didn’t believe it herself, and why should we?”

“She’s not a freshman,” suggested Alice gloomily.

“There are almost four hundred freshmen. Perhaps the fifty wouldn’t be any of us,” put in Betty.

Miss Madison maintained a despairing silence.

“Well,” said Katherine at last, “if it is true there’s nothing to be done about it now, I suppose; and if it isn’t true, why it isn’t; so I think I’ll go to basket-ball,” and she detached Miss Madison and started off.

Betty gave a prolonged sigh. “I must go too,” she said. “I’ve promised to study Latin. I presume it isn’t any use, but I can’t disappoint Rachel. I wish I was a fine student like Rachel. She won’t be one of the fifty.”

Alice, who had been in a brown study, emerged, just as Betty turned away.

“Wait a minute,” she commanded. “Of course it’s awfully queer up here, but still, if they have exams. I don’t see the use of cooking it all up beforehand. I mean I don’t see the use of exams. if it is all decided.”

Her two friends brightened perceptibly.

“That’s a good idea,” declared Betty. “Every one says the mid-years are so important. Let’s do our best from now on, and perhaps the faculty will change their minds.”As she walked home, Betty thought of Eleanor. “She’ll be dreadfully worried. I shan’t tell her a word about it,” she resolved. Then she remembered Mary Brooks’s remark. Yes, no doubt some one else would enlighten Eleanor. It was just too bad. But perhaps Mary was right and the story was only a story.

It is hard for freshmen on the eve of their mid-year examinations to be perfectly calm and philosophical. The story of the fifty unfortunates ran like wild-fire through the college, and while upper-class girls sniffed at it as absurd and even freshmen, particularly the clever ones, pooh-poohed it in public, it was the cause of many anxious, and some tearful moments. Betty, after her first fright, had accepted the situation with her usual cheerfulness, and so had Alice and Rachel, who could not help knowing that her work was of exceptionally high grade, while Helen irritated her house-mates by affecting an anxiety which, as Katherine put it, “No dig, who gets ‘good’ on all her written work, can possibly feel.” Katherine was worried about her mathematics, in which she had been warned before Thanksgiving, but she confided to Betty that she had counted them up, and without being a bit conceited she really thought there were fifty stupider girls in the class of 19–. Roberta and the Riches, however, were utterly miserable, and Eleanor wrote to Paul West that she was busy–she had written “ill” first, and then torn up the note–and indulged in another frantic fit of industry, even more violent than its predecessors had been.

“But I thought you wanted to go home,” said Betty curiously one afternoon when Eleanor had come in to borrow a lexicon. “You say you hate it here, and you hate to study. So why do you take so much trouble about staying?”

Eleanor straightened proudly. “Haven’t you observed yet that I have a bad case of the Watson pride?” she asked. “Do you think I’d ever show my face again if I failed?”

“Then why—” began Betty.

“Oh, that’s the unutterable laziness that I get from my–from the other side of the house,” interrupted Eleanor. “It’s an uncomfortable combination, I assure you,” and taking the book she had come for, she abruptly departed.Betty realized suddenly that in all the year Eleanor had never once spoken of her mother.

After that she couldn’t help being sorry for Eleanor, but she pitied Miss Madison more. Miss Madison was dull at books and she knew it, and had actually made herself ill with work and worry. Going to see her Hilton House friends on the Friday afternoon after the skating party, Betty found Miss Madison alone and undisguisedly crying.

“I know I’m foolish,” she apologized. “Most people just laugh at that story, but I notice they study harder since they heard it. And I’m such a stupid.”

Betty, who hated tears, had a sudden inspiration. “Why don’t you ask about it at the registrar’s office?” she suggested.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” wailed Miss Madison.

“Then I shall,” returned Betty. “That is, I shall ask one of the faculty.”

“Would you dare?”

“Yes, indeed. They’re human, like other people,” said Betty, quoting Nan. “I don’t see why some one didn’t think of it sooner.”

That night at dinner Betty announced her plan. The freshmen looked relieved and Mary Brooks showed uncalled-for enthusiasm.

“Do go,” she urged. “It’s high time such an absurd story was shown up at its real value. It’s absurd. The way we talk and talk about a report like that, and never dare to ask the faculty if it’s true.”

“Do you take any freshman courses?” inquired Eleanor sarcastically.

Mary smiled her “beamish” smile. “No,” she said, “but I’m an interested party nevertheless–quite as much so as any of the famous fifty.”

“Whom shall you ask, Betty?” pursued Katherine, ignoring the digression.

“Miss Mansfield. I have her the first hour, and besides, since she’s been engaged she’s so nice and sympathetic.”

Next day the geometry class dragged unmercifully for three persons. Eleanor beat a nervous tattoo on the seat-arm, Miss Madison stared fixedly at the clock, and Betty blushed and twisted and wished she could have seen Miss Mansfield before class. The delayed interview was beginning to seem very formidable. But it wasn’t, after the first plunge.“What an absurd story!” laughed Miss Mansfield. “Not a word of truth in it, of course. Why I don’t believe the girl who started it thought it was true. How long has it been in circulation?”

Betty counted the days. “I didn’t really believe it,” she added shyly.

“But you worried,” said Miss Mansfield, smiling down at her. “Next time don’t be taken in one little bit,–or else come to headquarters sooner.”

Eleanor and Miss Madison were waiting outside the door when Betty dashed at them with a little squeal of ecstasy. There was a moment of rapturous congratulation; then Miss Madison picked up the note-book she had dropped and held out her hand solemnly to Betty.

“You’ve–why I think you’ve saved my life,” she said, “and now I must go to my next class.”

“You’re a little hero,” added Eleanor, catching Betty’s arm and rushing her off to a recitation in Science Hall.

Roberta received the joyful news more calmly. “We may any of us flunk our mid-years yet,” she said.“But we can study for them in peace and comfort,” said Adelaide Rich.

Mary Brooks asked endless questions at luncheon. Did the girls all accept Miss Mansfield’s denial as authoritative? Did it travel as fast as the original story had done? How did people think the rumor had started?

“Why, nobody mentioned that,” said Rachel in surprise. “How odd that we shouldn’t have wondered!”

“Shows your sheep-like natures,” said Mary, rising abruptly. “Well, now I can finish my psychology paper.”

“Haven’t you worked on it any?” inquired Betty.

“Oh, yes, I made an outline and developed some topics last night. But I couldn’t finish until to-day. I was so worried about you children.”

Toward the end of the next week Rachel came in to dinner late and in high spirits. “I’ve had such a fine walk!” she exclaimed. “Hester Gulick and I went to the bridge, and on the way back we overtook a senior named Janet Andrews. She is such fun. She’d walked down-town with Professor Hinsdale. He teaches psychology, doesn’t he? They seem to be very good friends, and he told her such a funny thing about the fifty-freshmen story. How do you suppose it started?”

“Oh, please tell us,” cried everybody at once.

“Why, an awfully clever girl in his sophomore class started it as an experiment, to see how it would take. She told it to some freshmen, saying explicitly that it wasn’t true, and they told their friends, and so it went all over the college until last Saturday Betty got Miss Mansfield to deny it. But no one knew how it started until yesterday when Professor Hinsdale looked over a paper in which the girl had written it all up, as a study in the way rumors spread and grow. This one was so big to begin with that it couldn’t grow much, though it seems, according to the paper, that some people had added to it that half the freshmen would be conditioned in math.”

“How awfully funny!” gurgled Betty. Then she jumped almost out of her chair. “Why, Mary Brooks!” she said.

Everybody looked at Mary, who blushed guiltily and remarked with great dignity that Professor Hinsdale was an old telltale. But when she had assured herself that the freshmen, with the possible exception of Eleanor, were disposed to regard the psychological experiment which had victimized them with perfect good-nature, and herself with considerable admiration, she condescended to accept congratulations and answer questions.

“Seriously, girls,” she said at last, “I hope no one got really scared. I wanted to explain when I heard Betty tell how unhappy Miss Madison was, but I really thought Miss Mansfield’s denial would cheer her up more and reach her almost as quickly, and at the same time it would help me out so beautifully. It made such a grand conclusion!

“You see,” she went on, “Professor Hinsdale put the idea into my head when he assigned the subjects away back last month. He said he was giving them out early so we would have time to make original observations. When he mentioned ‘Rumor,’ he spoke of village gossip, and the faked stories that are circulated on Wall Street to make stocks go up or down, and then of the wild way we girls take up absurd reports. The last suggestion appealed to me, but I couldn’t remember anything definite enough, so I decided to invent a rumor. Then I forgot all about it till that Saturday that I went skating, and ‘you know the rest,’ as our friend Mr. Longfellow aptly remarks. When I get my chef-d’oeuvre back you may have a private view, in return for which I hope you’ll encourage your friends not to hate me.”

“Isn’t she fun?” said Betty a little later, when she and Helen were alone together. “Do you know, I think this rumor business has been a good thing. It’s made a lot of us work hard, and only seriously frightened three or four.”

“Yes,” said Helen primly. “I think so too. The girls here are inclined to be very frivolous.”

“Who?” demanded Betty.

Helen hesitated. “Oh, the girls as a whole.”

“That doesn’t count,” objected Betty. “Give me a name.”

“Well, Barbara Gordon.”

“Takes sixteen hours, has her themes read in Mary’s class, and in her spare moments paints water colors that are exhibited in Boston,” said Betty promptly.

“Really?” gasped Helen.

“Really,” repeated Betty. “Of course she was very well prepared, and so her work here seems easy to her. Next year I hope that you and I won’t have to plod along so.”

Helen said nothing, but she was deeply grateful to Betty for that last sentence. “You and I”–as if there was something in common between them. The other girls set her apart in a class by herself and labeled her “dig.” If one was born slow and conscientious and plodding, was there any hope for one,–any place among these pretty girls who worked so easily and idled so gracefully? Helen shut her lips firmly and resolved to keep on hunting.