“Mercy sakes!” exclaimed Lilian, putting her books upon the table and inviting Isabel and Pauline to take seats by a wave of her hand. Cathalina, Betty, Hilary, Olivia and Eloise entered at the same time.

“Here’s Cathalina wanting me to take a duty in the Latin Club,” continued Lilian, “Hilary rooting for the French Club, Isabel for the Dramatic Club, everybody for the Collegiate Glee Club, to say nothing of the collegiate orchestra and the literary societies, if we get invited. I see what is ahead of me. When I am going to get time for mere studies is a question!”

“Nonsense, Lilian,” said Pauline, “you don’t have to prepare much for these clubs. The glee club practice and the different meetings only come at times when we’d be visiting or fooling around outdoors. The glee club will be adorable, and the girls always give one concert at Greycliff Village, and perhaps we are going to the military school this year, and to Highlands, too.”

“Listen!” said Lilian. “I have two hours of practice every day, two lessons in voice a week, and one in violin.”

“So have I,” said Eloise, “only it is piano instead of violin.”

Lilian went on without paying any attention to the remark of Eloise. “I have three hours of recitation on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lab. on Saturdays, beside swimming, riding and any other athletics in which I may wish to indulge.”

“You need a printed schedule, Lilian, worked out to every five minutes of your time,” said Isabel.

“Worked out to seconds,” insisted Lilian. “I’ll have to take my books to the table.”

“And what would Miss Randolph do to you?”

“Indeed, what wouldn’t she?”

“Oh, Lilian, you are just having the usual brainstorm that girls have when they think of their work all together. I have one every fall, regularly,” said Hilary. “You’ll work it out. Put the work on your lessons first, and if you have to neglect anything, miss an occasional practice hour or one of the society meetings, or some of the athletics. I’m not going to play basketball this year.”

“Oh, Hilary!” came in dismay from Pauline. “When we have so good a chance to beat the academy with you in the team these two years!”

“Well, I’ll see. I haven’t decided surely, but it does not look as if I’d have time.”

“How do you work out a schedule?” asked Olivia. “You girls always seem to get along so well, and last year I’d forget and get behind.”

“Take Lil’s work, for instance,” said Hilary. “Monday’s lessons have to be attended to on the week end. I usually get in a little work on Friday afternoon, sometimes study a while before society meeting that evening. Saturday isn’t a very successful day in lessons. You always think that you will get so much done, but there are things about your room and clothes to see to. I always ‘mend and things’ on Saturday, as Jane says. But there is some time, and study hours in the evening. Sunday I absolutely rest, and visit, in the afternoon, and write letters home. Then I get up early on Monday, look over lessons and get in what study I can in between classes. Probably Lilian can get ahead a little on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her Monday evening will account for the two recitations of Tuesday, and so will the Wednesday evening take care of Thursday. I try to read ahead in the language courses whenever I have the next day’s lessons prepared, so that I’m not rushed to death at the end of the week.”

“Don’t you ever study a bit on Sunday?”

“Not a bit, Olivia, and I get along all the better. Miss Randolph doesn’t want us to, any more than Father and Mother at home, and I’m always thankful that there is one day when I don’t feel I ought to be studying every minute!”

“I never feel that way,” laughed Olivia.

“But Sunday is always a busy day at home with church doings, and I used to feel a lot of responsibility. That is why they sent me away to school, so I’d have a chance like other girls. I liked it, though.”

“Will you help me make out a schedule, Hilary?” asked Olivia.

“Indeed I will. Just go and get your list of studies and we’ll do it now.”

“I can just see Hilary, the handsome, grey-eyed, brilliant Hilary, as the future instructor of youth—can’t you?” said Pauline, her own grey eyes shining affectionately upon Hilary as she pushed back her black locks and settled her plump self more comfortably in her chair.

“I could,” replied Lilian, “if there were not other indications.”

“Oh, yes!” said Pauline; “that mysterious Eastern youth of whom we have had an inkling. But Hilary distinctly said in her first year at Greycliff that she did not think of marrying. And, speaking of marriage, I wonder when Dr. Norris and Miss West are going to be married.”

“By the way, Lilian,” said Cathalina, “the reason I want you girls to help in the next Latin Club program is that Patty has to get it up and said she wished we would help her.”

“That changes it,” said Lilian promptly. “Of course I’ll help.”

“The time till Christmas is always the hardest,” said Cathalina, “because the studies are new, I guess, and there is so much to start. I’m doubling on Latin again, Vergil to Patty and De Senectute, as you know, to Dr. Carver. But I’m beginning to get the hang of Latin poetry and can find the adjective six or seven lines away from the noun, or the verb any old place, just as easily as putting together a puzzle. And I’d love Cicero’s essay, if it were not for Dr. Carver.”

“We’ll all be together at last in her class,” said Hilary.

“Lovely thought,” said Isabel. “Oh, to be a junior collegiate and sit with the rest of you before the gentle Dr. Carver! Honestly, though, I’m just beginning to think how awful it will be here when you girls are through. Maybe I won’t stay.”

“Don’t think about it yet, Isabel, we’re here still.”

“The collegiate society invitations are to be out today or tomorrow, they say,” said Pauline.

“They will be soon, I’m sure, for the dear senior girls have just been living here for the last few days.”

“Not quite that, Lilian,” said Betty.

“Almost. In fact, this is the longest time outside of study hours that I’ve been in the suite without at least one of them. There! That is probably one of them now.”

But it was only Juliet, who was lonesome in her suite and came to see where her girls were, this, naturally, being the first place to be thought of. “What is this?” she asked. “Anything special?”

“No,” replied Eloise. “We’re just visiting. Where’s Helen?”

“Around somewhere with Diane and Evelyn, or was when I came upstairs.”

“We were just talking about the senior-junior societies and the rushing,” said Betty.

“It is too killing for words.”

“Oh, don’t say that. It is very flattering when they want you. I don’t think that the girls are hypocritical, as Jane Mills says. They really want you to join their particular society, and if they rather overdo the attentions it is real pleasant anyway.”

“Wait till some of them won’t speak to you if you join the other society,” said Isabel.

“How do you know that?” inquired Betty.

“Watched ’em last year and year before. I believe that each girl in a society thinks the girls in the rival societies will scarcely get into heaven!”

“Oh, Isabel!”

“I’ll probably feel that way, too, if I ever get into one. Whatever one you girls go into I’m going to join, if I get a chance when I’m a junior collegiate!”

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some of us would be invited for one and some for the other!”

“Why, then we needn’t join any!”

“That wouldn’t do, I’m afraid,” said Hilary; “but what do you think about not worrying till the time comes?”

“Sensible idea,” said Juliet.

At that point in the conversation there came a knock upon the door. It was one of the senior girls, and Lilian gave a little glance at Hilary, as if to say, “You see that we are not left alone long.”

The visitor gave a comprehensive glance around the room to see who were there and said, “This is good—I’m saved a visit to your suite, girls, and you can tell Helen Paget for me. Why, we—some of us are having a little get-acquainted party tonight and are inviting some of the junior collegiates to come. We have permission, and the party will begin at eight-thirty. You will all come, won’t you?”

“That is lovely of you,” said Cathalina; “is it in your suite?”

“Oh, yes—silly of me not to say. Be sure to come.”

“Can’t you sit down and visit a while?” asked Lilian, naughty girl that she was.

“I can’t this time, but I may drop in later in the day,” and the visitor departed.

“She is really a dear,” said Cathalina, “but I think she was a little embarrassed.”

“They ought to have sent that friend of Myrtle’s. She wouldn’t have been embarrassed and would have had a separate and definite acceptance from every one of you before she thought of leaving.” So said Isabel.

“Oh, does that girl belong to this society?”

“The same.”

“Mercy, what a drawback!”

“But she’s a g-r-e-a-t worker for her society.”

“What are we going to do, girls? Won’t it seem like pledging ourselves if we go to this feast?”

“Better not go, unless you really like this crowd best,” said Isabel.

And Isabel had scarcely ceased speaking when two more visitors arrived. But the girls adopted a different plan of action. After greeting these girls, and pretty, bright girls they were, the girls kept chatting as if they were entertaining each other and the visitors, and the latter had no chance to deliver the invitation with which they, too, had come, until as they left they drew Cathalina and Hilary to the door and gave an invitation similar to the one which the girls had had before.

“What did you say, Cathalina? Did they insist on an acceptance?”

“I think that they knew we had had the other invitation, and they urged us a lot to come, but they did not insist on our saying we would. We thanked them and said we would let them know before evening. I guess we’ll have to decide where we are going now, unless we go to both parties for a short time.”

“Wouldn’t that be a joke?—but it wouldn’t do, and we must decide. But it is a funny thing to do before the invitations are out,” said Hilary.

“I think that the first party was arranged to get you acquainted with their girls and half bound to join, and then the others found it out and arranged a party, too.”

“It is very flattering, Isabel, and looks as if we were being considered by both societies.”

“Dear me, Cathalina, this isn’t the first that you have noticed that, I hope. Olivia, do you suppose any glory will reach us from being associated with such popular companions?”

“I don’t know. I feel terribly left out not to be in the same literary society with them. And look at the party that we are going to miss!”

Hilary, who had begun to look over Olivia’s list and to consider a schedule of recitations and study hours, looked up to say that while she was busy the other girls ought to think out what to do about the invitations. Betty pretended to tear her hair. The starry-eyed Eloise struck an attitude and stared into the distance with a fixed gaze. Juliet put her elbows on the table, rested her head on her fists and closed her eyes. Pauline in tragic tones cried, “Send for Helen, Evelyn and Diane!” Cathalina did nothing but laugh at the other girls, and Isabel volunteered to go for the missing girls.

“That isn’t a bad idea, a full council of war, because it makes more difference, our being separated, though of course there are lovely girls in both societies,” said Cathalina. “We may feel as Isabel says we shall after we are in the societies, but I hope we shall not lose all our common sense.”

When the three girls arrived, Betty with pencil and paper went the rounds, asking each girl two questions, “Which society do you prefer?” and “Which society has been rushing you?” Of Diane, Evelyn and Helen, who had been absent when the invitations were delivered, given, indeed, only to the members of the two suites, Betty asked, “Have the girls of either society asked you to a feast?”

“Helen is included with us,” said Eloise.

“That is so. How about you and Diane, Evelyn, and Dorothy and Jane?”

“We all were invited to a party tonight by some of the Whittier society.”

“Hurrah,” said Betty, “that settles it! Which tried first to get us to commit ourselves?—the Emerson crowd. The Whittiers just asked us in self-defense. Listen!” Betty read the names of the girls and the answers to the questions. Several had no preference. Those who had expressed themselves were for the Whittier society.

“But what shall we do about the parties?” asked Hilary, handing over a completed schedule to the grateful Olivia. “We were asked first to the Emerson party. I don’t see that we can go to either.”

“If we don’t go to either, they may both be disgusted with us and not send invitations to any of us,” said Diane.

“All right; let ’em,” said Betty.

“The lady or the tiger?” said Isabel.

“We might send a nice little note to each, saying that we were embarrassed by having two invitations for the same time, and that in view of the circumstances, it seemed best not to accept either—something like that—although we appreciated being asked, and knew what a good time we should have.” This was Pauline’s suggestion.

“Polly, that wouldn’t do at all. In fact I don’t see what on earth we can do!” This was Eloise. “Cathalina, appeal to Miss Randolph.”

“No, don’t bother her with it!” exclaimed Juliet. “We ought to work it out ourselves. I have it—have Patty call a meeting of the Latin Club. There’s the dinner bell! What are we going to do?”

“What is the reason you can’t accept your first invitation? That would be considered fair,” said Olivia.

“Don’t you see, Olivia? If we go, they will consider that we are pledged to them, or at least it will make it very awkward, after accepting their hospitality and all.”

“Whatever we do has to be decided on right after dinner. Everybody think it over, please,” said Betty. “There’s no hope in Patty, because there never would be a Latin Club meeting at that time.”

What the girls would have done will never be known, for the matter was settled for them in an unexpected way by Miss Randolph herself. At the close of dinner she rose and announced a practice of the Collegiate Glee Club from eight-thirty to nine-thirty. “This will shorten your study hours,” said she, “but was made necessary by some arrangements of your leader. I am sorry that it will interfere with some social matters about which I was asked, but they can be held just as well on tomorrow night, and the glee club meeting tonight is important.”

Not a glance was exchanged among our girls, and it was the prospective hostesses that came to them, expressing their regrets at having their plans upset. Not a word of extending the invitations until the next night.

“There won’t be any feasts until they celebrate with the people who accept their invitations,” said Isabel later.

“I’m so relieved!” exclaimed Cathalina. “Someway, I hate anything uncomfortable, and they all have been so kind. So far as I am concerned, I think it’s very good of them to want me, and if we can get through this time without offending any of the girls I think it is much better.”

“One thing was funny about it,” said Isabel, “Miss Randolph’s saying that the ‘social affairs’ could be held just as well tomorrow night. Little did she realize the importance of having them the night before the invitations came out.”