Now that Thanksgiving was past, basketball became the topic of the hour. The juniors had accepted the challenge of the senior class, and had agreed to play them on Saturday, December 12, at two o'clock, in the gymnasium. Only two weeks remained in which to practise. Their sorority enthusiasm had so completely run away with them that they had even neglected basketball until now. Therefore Grace Harlowe lost no time in getting Miss Thompson's permission to use the gymnasium, and promptly notified her team and the subs. to meet there, in gymnasium suits, prepared to play, that afternoon.

The instant the last bell sounded on lessons, ten girls made for their lockers, and fifteen minutes later the first team and the subs. were moving toward the gymnasium deep in the discussion of the coming game and their chances for success over their opponents.

A brief meeting was held, and the girls were assigned to their positions. Grace had fully intended that Miriam should play center, but when she proposed it, Miriam flatly refused to do so, and asked for her old position of right forward.

"You are our captain," she declared to Grace, "and the best center I ever saw on a girls' team. It would be folly to change now. Don't you agree with me, girls?"

Nora was detailed as left forward, while Marian Barber and Eva Allen played right and left guards. The substitutes were also assigned their positions and practice began.

Before they had been on the floor twenty minutes the girls were thoroughly alive to the joy of the game and worked with the old-time dash and spirit that had won them the championship the previous year. Now that they were in harmony with each other, they played with remarkable unity, and after an hour's practice Grace decided that they were in a fair way to "whip the seniors off the face of the earth."

"I never saw you girls work better!" she exclaimed. "It will be a sorry day for the seniors when we line up on the twelfth."

"There'll be a great gnashing of senior teeth after the game," remarked Nora confidently.

"Do you know, girls," said Grace, as they left the gymnasium that afternoon, "I am sorry that Eleanor won't be peaceable. I wanted her to like every bit of our school life and thought she'd surely be interested in basketball. I suppose she will stay away from the game merely because we are on the team. It is really a shame for her to be so unreasonable."

"Grace Harlowe, are you ever going to stop mourning over Eleanor?" cried Miriam impatiently. "She doesn't deserve your regret and is too selfish to appreciate it. I know what I am talking about because I used to be just as ridiculous as she is, and knowing what you suffered through me, I can't bear to see you unhappy again over some one who is too trivial to be taken seriously."

"You're a dear, Miriam!" exclaimed Nora impulsively.

It was the first time that the once haughty Miriam had ever referred publicly to past shortcomings, although from the time she and Grace had settled their difficulties at the close of the sophomore year, she had been a changed girl.

"Where are Anne and Jessica to-day?" asked Eva Allen.

"Anne and Jessica have refused point blank to honor us with their presence during practice," announced Nora. "I asked Jessica to-day, and she said that they didn't want to know how we intended to play, for then they could wax enthusiastic and make a great deal more noise. It is their ambition to become loud and loyal fans."

"What a worthy ambition," said Marian Barber, with a giggle. "They are such noisy creatures already."

There was more laughing at this, as Anne and Jessica were by far the quietest members of the sorority.

"Remember, we practise to-morrow after school," called Grace as she separated from her team at her street.

As she walked slowly down the quiet street, deep in thought, her ear caught the sound of an approaching automobile, and she looked up just in time to see Eleanor drive by in her machine. Grace nodded to her, but her salutation met with a chilly stare.

"How childish she is," thought Grace. "I suppose she thinks that hurts me. Of course it isn't exactly pleasant, but I'm going to keep on speaking to her, just the same. I am not angry, even if she is; although I have far greater cause to be."

But before the close of the week Grace was destined to cross swords with Eleanor in earnest, and the toleration she had felt was swallowed up in righteous indignation.

During the winter, theatrical companies sometimes visited Oakdale for a week at a time, presenting, at popular prices, old worn-out plays and cheap melodramas. These companies gave daily matinÉes as well as evening performances, and the more frivolous element of High School girls had in time past occasionally "skipped school" to spend the afternoon in the theatre. By the girls, this form of truancy was considered a "lark," but Miss Thompson did not look at the matter in the same light, and disciplined the culprit so severely whenever she found this to be the cause of an afternoon's absence that the girls were slow to offend in this respect.

All this Eleanor had heard, among other things, from Edna Wright, but had paid little attention to it when Edna had told her. Directly after cutting Grace Harlowe, she had turned her runabout into Main Street, where a billboard had caught her eye, displaying in glaring red and blue lettering the fact that the "Peerless Dramatic Company" would open a week's engagement in Oakdale with daily matinÉes.

Eleanor's eyes sparkled. She halted her machine, scanning curiously the list of plays on the billboard. "The Nihilist's Daughter" was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and Eleanor decided to go. She wasn't afraid of Miss Thompson. Then, possessed with a sudden idea, she laughed gleefully. At last she had found a way to effectually annoy the principal.