Freshman elections began with a babble.

Everywhere the insistent voices of the lobbyists were heard. Upper-class girls had come in to impress the freshmen as to the proper name to write on the voting slips.

“She’s a dandy girl,” was shouted confidentially into Peggy’s ears so many times, while she didn’t know who was nor why she was, that she couldn’t help having a high opinion of her class altogether. Every girl in it seemed to be “dandy” in somebody’s judgment.

“Will you vote for Myra Whitewell?” some friend was imploring.

“No,” said Peggy, suddenly, “let me alone. Every one is after me so hard to vote for other people that I haven’t had any time to work for my own candidate.”

And she forced her way through the throng, shouting into each bewildered and crimson ear, “Vote for Gloria Hazeltine! She’s a dandy girl.”

“Peggy, Peggy, listen a moment,” said Katherine’s agonized voice. “What do you think the Andrews girls are doing? Going back on us at the last minute. They say they will put up Florence Thomas for president if neither of us will run, and that you and I are traitors to try to elect some one not from our own prep school.”

“Well,” said Peggy, gritting her teeth, “we can elect Gloria without Andrews.”

“Oh, but, Peggy, we will be voting against our own school! If they insist on putting her up this way, won’t we have to vote for Florence?”

Peggy shook her head and went on through the thick crowds of freshmen. “She’s a dandy girl,” Katherine heard in Peggy’s clear tones.

Here in this giant recitation room was assembled a class in the process of being welded together into an organization having one heart and one mind. It was a conglomeration of more or less uncertain and dazed girls now. Some were actively working up sentiment, but for the most part they stood in groups, each group a stranger to the others, four hundred and fifty girls, many of whom had never seen each other before this day, trying to realize that they were of one college flesh and that out of this roomful must be made the dearest friendships of a lifetime.

There was nothing coherent about them as yet. They held aloof from each other, partly in timidity and partly in pride, and their interests were in conflict rather than in unison.

Once pledged to a name for president, they clung to it desperately as if that particular girl had been their best and oldest friend. And they hated all the other girls who had been put up.

Slips of paper were passed around and, with a feeling of deep importance, each freshman wrote the name of the girl she wanted for her president.

With much rustling the slips were collected in hats by freshmen appointed by the pretty Junior who presided.

Then with more rustling they were counted, while the freshmen’s eyes popped out of their heads in eagerness to learn how good a showing their favorite was making.

The silence was most respectful when the pretty Junior took up the counts the freshmen had made and read in her sweet, serious voice, “Myra Whitewell 200, Gloria Hazeltine 101, Florence Thomas 99, Corinne Adams 50.”

The ignorant freshmen remained breathless, waiting to be told whether any one was yet their president or not.

“It is necessary, according to the by-laws, to have a two-thirds majority for a candidate before she can receive office,” the presiding Junior informed them in those dainty and precise tones of hers. “Therefore another vote will be cast, in the hope of bringing about more unanimity.”

With joy the freshmen wrote again on slips of paper. But the vote came in again identically the same! The pretty Junior, whose name was Alta Perry, raised her eye-brows in surprise. Tirelessly the appointed freshmen passed out new voting slips.

“When a candidate has too few votes to be really in the running,” protested the Junior mildly, “the voting would get on faster to give those votes elsewhere. The idea is not to show your loyalty to any one girl, but to elect a president for the freshman class.”

Peggy took council with her henchman, Katherine.

“If those Adams votes go to Florence Thomas, I suppose Gloria will be sacrificed sooner or later,” she said. “If they go to Myra Whitewell—I think she’s the haughty little thing yonder wearing the Mrs. Castle head-ache band,—why, then Gloria’s out, too. The only thing to do is to get them for Gloria.”

She sped away to the Andrews group, where Florence Thomas, who had always taken life pleasantly and coolly, was the flushed and eager center of ninety-nine supporters, both those from her own school and the others who had rallied to her cause.

“Girls,” said Peggy, “we’re two ahead of you. Please be reasonable——”

But she saw the curious star-like quality of Florence’s eyes. And she hadn’t the heart to go on.

The plain, kindly, everyday, comfy Florence to light up and shine like that! Well, if she had known in time how honors could bring that girl out, perhaps Peggy would have considered her a perfectly suitable president from the beginning.

“If you had wanted it, Peggy, I wouldn’t have stood a chance,” Florence breathed down to her from the window seat on which she was perched so as to overlook her adherents. “The girls only put me up because you and Katherine failed them.”

Failed them! Peggy’s heart skipped a beat. The cold glances of the other girls let her guess only too plainly how she was viewed by the Andrews contingent, the members of her own school.

“If you give up something that most anybody would want and feel just right about it, then somebody comes and takes the joy out of life by seeing you as a villain still,” mused Peggy aloud.

She didn’t try to get the Corinne Adams votes for Gloria, she didn’t argue with a single Myra Whitewell enthusiast.

And the vote came in again so nearly the same that the pretty Junior was vexed, and looked at her wrist watch and thence out to the waning sunlight over the campus. Really an afternoon spent with her own somewhat intelligent juniors would be greatly preferable to this monotonous and stubborn concourse of freshmen who seemed to have set their hearts on making an election impossible. Corinne Adams had lost seven votes to Myra, and now tragically arose and announced her withdrawal from the contest. Many voices murmured protestingly “no, no,” as she came forward and went toward the door, but these sympathizers had not voted for her when they had the chance.

“I never knew anything so heart-breakingly mixed up,” said Peggy. “That Junior’s mad, the freshmen are near to tears and the candidates are all wobbly.”

And then suddenly an idea lifted her right up out of the depression and doubt that was settling over the room. She stepped over to the desk and held a confab with the Junior and the freshmen vote-collectors.

Alta Perry snatched eagerly at the chance to bring order out of chaos.

She arose and rapped for attention. Immediately all the despairing whispers ceased.

“Some one has suggested that the girls would like to see the candidates,” she said, “so that they’d know who they’re voting for.”

A wave of approval swept her audience.

“So I’ll ask the girls who are still up to come forward to the platform so that—everybody may see them.”

The crowd parted, while from three corners of the room the candidates came.

The Junior smiled apologetically as she ranged them before the class. This was vastly amusing to her, but she realized that all the voters were staring forward with hero-worship in their eyes waiting to see which was the girl for whom each had been so religiously voting, ballot after ballot.

“Myra Whitewell,” introduced Alta Perry, nodding toward the first girl.

The girl acknowledged the introduction with an abrupt lifting of her chin. She was small and dark, with snapping brown eyes and a fine, slender, somewhat selfish face with no color in it. Her lips were full and red.

A pretty, wilful, egotistical picture this first candidate presented to the freshman class. Myra was the sort of girl who would always have blindly devoted followers willing to put up with her whims and ill-tempers because they believed her to be of finer clay than the rest of the world.

She herself was superbly conscious of this extra fineness. She scanned the eager faces of the crowd with quick glances, haughty, like a young princess reviewing her humble but faithful subjects.

“And this is Florence Thomas,” continued the Junior, her eyes sparkling just a bit with the fun of the little drama.

And the class saw Florence Thomas for just what she was—a nice, ordinary, typical girl like most of them; possessed of a good deal of executive ability if it was forced into action, neither markedly self-centered nor self-sacrificing.

She had a little round face, with wavy dark-brown hair around it. They got no very distinct impression of the second candidate further than this. She was without the rare gift of personality that “gets across,” and hence her undoubted, sterling qualities had little opportunity for appeal.

Her face was flushed with her sudden prominence, and there was a trace of embarrassment in her smile.

Peggy’s thought raced back over Florence’s characteristics while at Andrews. Florence was just the type to have an important place in a small school, where each individual girl could get to know her and love her. But here among these hundreds there was nothing about her striking enough to hold their attention at first glance.

A warm feeling of affection surged up in Peggy’s heart for her last year’s comrade.

Just for a moment she would have forced Florence down their throats whether or not, if she could, without regard for the fact that she believed another girl was infinitely better fitted for the post.

That other girl’s name was now being spoken by the Junior.

“This is Gloria Hazeltine,” she announced to the monster class.

And just as the moon and stars fade out of view when the sun comes up, so the less vivid attraction of Myra and Florence dimmed into insignificance beside the appealing radiance that was Gloria’s.

“O-oh, isn’t she sweet!” breathed a girl near Peggy. “I never saw anything like that hair in my life. For goodness’ sake, somebody lend me a knife to sharpen my pencil so that I can vote all over again for her!”

If she were nothing besides sweet, argued Peggy to herself, she would never have been put up. Most of the girls were that. But she understood that the rapturous tribute of her neighbor meant far more than the words she had chosen.

The quality of graceful and unconscious leadership seemed stamped in Gloria’s face, as she smiled out on the freshmen, who were all beginning to go wild over her at once.

The slips were passed again while the three candidates faced their different constituents.

All anxiety had passed from Peggy’s mind. She was sure who had won.

The slips rustled triumphantly when they had been sorted after the voting and were passed up to the Junior again.

“Twenty for Florence Thomas,” she read aloud without raising her eyes from the papers. “Fifty for Myra Whitewell, and—all the rest for Gloria Hazeltine—Miss Hazeltine is elected president of your class!”

With that announcement something happened to the class. Instantaneously the fusion took place.

There were no longer separate groups, shy and a little suspicious of each other: they were one class. They had elected a president. She was the president of all alike.

At the same instant they all burst forth into the same song:

“Oh, here’s to Morning Glory,

Drink her down!

Oh, here’s to Morning Glory,

Drink her down!

Oh, here’s to Morning Glory,

Whom we’ll love till we are hoary;

Drink her down, drink her down,

Drink her down, DOWN, down!

Balm of Gilead, Gilead,

Balm—Of—Gilead—

Way down on the Bingo Farm!”

And then they turned and looked at each other with wonder, for the little rhyme in the middle had come with unanimous harmony to all, and each had sung this cheer song just as loudly as she could, although a few minutes before many would have said they didn’t even know the tune.

Peggy was thrilled to her finger tips. She squeezed Katherine’s arm. Gloria’s beauty and ability had been enhanced twenty fold, for every girl present, by this spontaneous tribute. And Peggy could think of nothing more desirable in the world than that she should some time hear this song laden with her own name.

The other officers were elected with expedition, the vice-presidency being offered to Myra Whitewell, who indignantly refused it, declaring she would be first or nothing—thus maintaining a single discordant note in the general happiness and good humor. The despised office was then hesitatingly tendered to Florence Thomas, who was almost too pleased to speak, but made the remark in acceptance that this office, while still too big for her, was nearer her size and she’d do just everything she could to deserve their trust and faith in her.

Myra Whitewell edged her way out of the room, with a slight sneer distorting her pretty lips.

But Florence shook hands with all who came forward and received their kisses with pleasure that made every one love her.

The class went singing home in every direction from its election. An enormous hysterically happy crowd flocked in the wake of Gloria. Peggy and Katherine were in the outskirts of this crowd, and they looked from the heroine of their making into each other’s radiant faces.

“Well, thank goodness, her looks elected her,” sighed Peggy thankfully. “As soon as I thought of a ‘seeing is believing’ test, I knew we’d won.”

“All the girls are saying she’s the prettiest president a freshman class ever had,” laughed Katherine, “and the joke on them is that they have a regular person as well as just a beauty.”

“We’ve certainly done our duty by the class,” agreed Peggy.

Katherine turned and looked consideringly at her room-mate.

“You know, Peggy, that you could have been the center of that crowd this minute, if you had wanted to. Dit Armandale did a good deal to work up sentiment and—you are the best known freshman of any—or were an hour or so ago. I think you’d have been just as good a president as Gloria,—and if I do say it myself, a lot better even—and—and just as pretty——”

“No matter who you room with,” trilled Peggy remindingly and ungrammatically, “you’re for Hampton now.”

“That Wilson idea again?”

“The very same.”

“Well, anyway, Peggy, you could——”

“Don’t!” said Peggy suddenly and almost sharply. “Do you think I am some kind of angel?”

“Ye-es,” drawled Katherine affectionately with a slow smile, “sort of.”

But Peggy looked away from her laughing eyes, and shook her head quickly as if she expected to shake out of it some unwelcome thought.

Later in the day—just before dinner time, she and Katherine gathered in the quantities of notes and invitations that had come to Gloria and Florence Thomas. It seemed that every girl in college, no matter what class she was in, had taken immediate occasion to sit down and write her congratulations to the freshman president.

When they stopped to deliver their burden at Gloria’s door, they found her room fragrant with American beauty roses, and sweet with violets and spicy with pink carnations. A huge orchid nodded coolly in a Japanese vase which the girls had never seen before, and an array of dainty little leather-covered books on every subject from “Friendship” to “Ibsen” were strewn on the table by the window.

Three new pictures in black walnut frames stood leaning against the couch with the waiting picture wire beside them.

Gloria came to meet them, flushed with pleasure.

“Oh, I never knew it would be like this,” she exclaimed, quite frank in her delight. “And what have you brought me? Oh, so many notes—aren’t they all dear? I didn’t imagine college—or anything—could be so nice.”

She sat down on the couch while Katherine and Peggy poured their harvest of congratulations into her lap. Her fingers felt them over and sifted them before she unfolded any, and she looked up to laugh her happiness into her friends’ eyes.

“Your room looks wonderful,” breathed Katherine, looking around, “just like a senior’s, all of a sudden.”

“Doesn’t it?” echoed Gloria. “I’ve solved the mystery of Ditto Armandale’s room seeming so unlike her, as you said it did,—her furnishings are all gifts from people for getting elected to things.”

Two dimples of satisfaction dented Peggy’s piquant little face. She ached from head to foot from the hours of standing and of forcing her way back and forth through the crowds while she made her brief campaign appeals. But it had turned out wonderfully. Her candidate had won, and was this same radiant and beautiful Gloria looking so joyously at her now.

“Listen to this,” Gloria was saying, reading one of the tributes from the note-room; “this is a darling one:

“‘Dear First Lady of the Freshmen:

“‘Please allow an old, old Junior to express her joy over you and her envy of you. Once a long time ago—two whole years—she herself heard the Balm of Gilead song in honor of her own election to the heights you have attained to-day.

“‘I don’t think I ever felt so lofty over anything. And all the college experiences that have come since have never dimmed the thrilling feeling of that day or made it seem one bit less the best thing that ever happened to me.

“‘But I was afraid as well as glad: afraid that maybe I wouldn’t know how to do everything just as I should and that I might in some way disappoint the girls who were mentally carrying me about on their shoulders. In case you ever feel that way, little First Lady—and this is the reason for my note being written—I want you to know that you’ll be very welcome to come to the veteran—and get the advice or bolstering up she may be able to give you as a result of having learned from her own mistakes.

“‘Remember the juniors are just in college to be big sisters to the freshmen, and I hope you will come and claim the relationship the first free minute you have.

“‘Love and congratulations,

“‘Mary Marvington.’”

“Oh,” said Peggy, clasping her knees, “isn’t that a lovely one?”

“Well, it’s hard to realize that you are one of the great ones, now, Morning Glory,” sighed Katherine whimsically, “so that even ex-presidents will be flattered when you go to see them. And the condescension is all yours! Because a brand new freshman president is more in the college public eye than an ‘old’ junior who used to be once what you are now.”

“Great ones,” Gloria was repeating to herself.

“Do you suppose I really am?” she asked artlessly.

“Yes, you are,” Katherine said. “A few hours ago you weren’t half as much as Peggy—and didn’t have the outlook she had, but now——”

Peggy and Gloria simultaneously clapped their hands over Katherine’s mouth, and in her quick movement Gloria’s mass of folded notes scattered over the floor like a sudden storm of Luther Burbank snow-flakes.

When they had gathered these together again and had helped Gloria sort out the most interesting-looking ones to read first, they each kissed her and went home, leaving her well absorbed in her overwhelming correspondence before they were even out of sight.

There was a reception in honor of the officers that evening in the Students’ building. The freshmen were tired from their strenuous day, but they looked charming, nevertheless, in their soft silks and batistes as they drifted down the walk to the scene of festivities.

“There’s Peggy Parsons!” a cry went up as soon as the pair from Suite 22, Ambler House, entered the building.

Peggy was immediately surrounded and borne off toward the receiving line, down which she was marched with nearly all the Andrews crowd and ever so many others in her wake. It did her heart good to hear every Andrews girl telling Gloria Hazeltine that each had voted for her from the beginning—and they believed it, the happy enthusiasts, Peggy could see that.

Then Peggy was swept on by the mob and was soon in the middle of a seethe of dancers, all girls, fox-trotting, one-stepping, waltzing and bumping into each other in brilliant lavender, pink, blue and white confusion. How many dances she danced, nor what they were, she never could remember afterwards. For as soon as one girl left her another carried her off; juniors, seniors, sophomores and freshmen, she couldn’t tell which. But every one knew her name and hailed her as Peggy as if they had known her all their lives.

“I never knew anything so funny,” she said, when she was limping home later, with Katherine in the moonlight. “It was just all a kaleidoscope. I feel a good deal like a moving-picture that has been run too fast.”

“I think you were the director of the picture,” smiled Katherine, glancing affectionately at her dishevelled room-mate. “You wrote the scenario for the election, and directed it, even if you did have to be in the picture yourself.”

“Katherine, you’ve got an awfully horrid room-mate,” mused Peggy in answer to this eulogy.

“I’ve got Peggy Parsons,” Katherine refuted.

“Well, she’s the one I mean,” Peggy laughed.

“You’d be ashamed of her if you knew. Katherine, what do you think I almost wished when we were taking all those notes over to Gloria?”

“It wouldn’t be so strange if you’d realized they might all have been for you,” Katherine defended her. “They might, you know. It was just your crazy generosity that gave them up and deprived me of rooming with a freshman president. Did you really wish you were president? I hope you did, because if you didn’t you’re more than human and I don’t like such people.”

“There!” cried Peggy, abruptly stopping in her homeward limp, and throwing her arms around her room-mate’s neck, “I’m not half so ashamed of it now that it’s been dragged out into the light of day—the light of moon, I mean. It’s funny how much better it makes a person feel to confess something mean and be sympathized with for it.”

“Anyway,” said Katherine, as their tired feet climbed the steps of their house, “you were the dea ex machina, Peggy Parsons.”

“The—the what?” demanded Peggy, startled. “Oh, it’s mean to spring anything like that on a trusting room-mate who hasn’t any Latin dictionary along. I’ll be driven to using a trot for your remarks, if you keep on.”

Their laughs rang out inside the huge dimly lighted hall, and the matron, in curl-papers and a purple wrapper, strode forth from her room noiselessly and confronted the culprits.

“Hush, hush,” she said. “At this time of night! Please go up to your room without any more of this unseemly laughter.”

“Yessum, yessum,” whispered Katherine and Peggy meekly, and together they stole up the broad stairway to their rooms, where they snapped on the light and looked at each other and laughed again—but this time silently.