“I tell you things do hum in this college!” exclaimed Judy Kean, closing a book she had been reading and tossing it onto the couch with a sigh of deep content.

“I don’t see how you can tell anything about it, Judy,” said Nance severely. “You’ve been so absorbed in ‘The Broad Highway’ every spare moment you’ve had for the last two days that you might as well have been in Kalamazoo as in college.”

“Nance, you do surely tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” said Judy good naturedly. “I know I have the novel habit badly. It’s because I had no restraint put upon me in my youth, and if I get a really good book like this one, I just let duty slide.”

“Why don’t you put your talents to some use and write, then?” demanded Nance, who enjoyed preaching to her friends.

“Art is more to my taste,” answered Judy.

“Well, art is long and time is fleeting. Why don’t you get busy and do something?” exclaimed the other vehemently. “What do you intend to be?”

Judy had a trick of raising her eyebrows and frowning at the same time, which gave her a serio-comic expression and invested her most earnest speeches with a touch of humor. But she did not reply to Nance’s question, having spent most of her life indulging her very excellent taste without much thought for the future.

“What do you intend to be?” she asked presently of Nance, who had her whole future mapped out in blocks: four years at college, two years studying languages in Europe, four years as teacher in a good school, then as principal, perhaps, and next as owner of a school of her own.

“Why, I expect to teach languages,” said Nance without a moment’s hesitation.

“Of course, a teacher. I might have known!” cried Judy. “You’ve commenced already on me—your earliest pupil!

She broke off with her song suddenly and seized Nance’s hand.

“Please don’t scold me, Nance, dear. I know life isn’t all play, and that college is a serious business if one expects to take the whole four years’ course. I’ve already had a warning. It came this morning. It’s because I’ve been cutting classes. And I have been entirely miserable. That’s the reason I’ve been so immersed in ‘The Broad Highway.’ I’ve been trying to drown my sorrows in romance. I know I’m not clever——”

“Nonsense,” interrupted the other impatiently. “You are too clever, you silly child. That’s what is the matter with you, but you don’t know how to work. You have no system. What you really need is a good tutor. You must learn to concentrate——”

“Concentrate,” laughed Judy. “That’s something I never could do. As soon as I try my thoughts go skylarking.”

“How do you do it?”

“Well, I sit very still and dig my toes into the soles of my shoes and my finger nails into the palms of my hands and say over and over the thing I’m trying to concentrate on.”

The girls were still laughing joyously when Molly came in. Her face wore an expression of unwonted seriousness, and she was frowning slightly. Three things had happened that morning which worried her considerably.

The first shock came before breakfast when she had looked in her handkerchief box where she kept her funds promiscuously mixed up with handkerchiefs and orris root sachet bags and found one crumpled dollar bill and not a cent more. There was a kind of blind spot in Molly’s brain where money was concerned, little of it as she had possessed in her life. She never could remember exactly how much she had on hand, and change was a meaningless thing to her. And now it was something of a blow to her to find that one dollar must bridge over the month’s expenses, or she must write home for more, a thing she did not wish to do, remembering the two acres of apple orchard which had been sunk in her education.

“And it’s all gone in silk attire and riotous living,” she said to herself, for she had bought herself ten yards of a heavenly sky blue crÊpey material which she and Nance proposed to make into a grand costume, also she had entertained numbers of friends at various times to sundaes in the village. One of the other of her triple worries was a note she had received that morning from Judith Blount, and the third was another note, about both of which she intended to ask the advice of her two most intimate friends.

“What’s bothering you, child?” demanded Judy, quick to notice any change in her adored Molly’s face.

“Oh, several things. These two notes for one.” She drew two envelopes from her pocket and opening the first one, began to read aloud:

The note was written on heavy cream-colored paper with two Greek letters embossed at the top in dark blue. Judith lived in the Beta Phi House, which was divided into apartments, and occupied by eight decidedly well-to-do girls, the richest girls in college, as a matter of fact. It was called “The Millionaire’s Club,” and was known to be the abode of snobbishness, although Molly, who had been there once to a tea, had been entirely unconscious of this spirit.

Judy and Nance were speechless with indignation after Molly had finished reading the note.

“What do you think of that?” she exclaimed, breaking the silence.

“It’s a rank insult,” cried Nance.

“If you were a man, you could challenge her to a duel,” cried Judy; “but being a girl, you’ll have to take it out in ignoring her.”

“It’s written in such a matter-of-fact way,” continued Molly, “that I can’t believe it’s entirely unusual. After sober, second thought, I believe I’ll ask Sallie before I answer it.”

“Speaking of angels—there is Sallie!” cried Judy, as that young woman herself hurried past the door on her way to a class.

“What is it? Make it quick. I’m late now!” ejaculated Sallie, popping her head in at the door with a smile on her face to counteract her abrupt manner. “Who’s in trouble now?”

The three freshmen stood silently about her while she perused Judith’s note.

“Did you ever hear of such a thing?” burst out Judy with hot indignation.

“Oh, yes, lots of times, little one. It’s quite customary for freshmen to act as waitresses when girls in the older classes entertain in their rooms. The freshies like to do it because they get such good food. I do think this note is expressed, well—rather unfortunately. It has a sort of between-the-lines superiority. But Judith is always like that. You just have to take her as you find her and ignore her faults. You’d better accept, Molly, with good grace. You’ll enjoy the food, too. To-morrow—let me see, that’s New England boiled dinner night, isn’t it? You’ll probably have beefsteak and mushrooms and grape fruit and ice cream and all the delicacies of the season.”

“Very well, if you advise it, I’ll accept, like a lady,” said Molly resignedly.

“It’s customary,” answered Sallie, smiling cheerfully and waving her hand as she hurried down the hall.

“Well, that’s settled,” continued Molly sighing. Somehow, Judith Blount did get on her nerves. “Now, the other note is even more serious in a way. Listen to this.”

Before reading it, she carefully closed the door, drew the other girls into the far end of the room and began in a low voice:

The girls looked at each other in consternation.

“What’s to be done?”

“Say you have another engagement,” advised Judy, who was not averse at times to telling polite fibs in order to extricate herself from a difficulty. But Molly was the very soul of truth, and even small fibs were not in her line.

“Hasn’t any one else asked you yet?” asked Nance.

“No; you see, it’s a week off, and I suppose they are just beginning to think of partners now.”

“All I can say is that if you do go with her you are done for,” announced Nance solemnly.

Molly sat down in the Morris chair and wrinkled her brows.

“I do wish she hadn’t,” she said.

“She just regards you as a sort of life preserver,” exclaimed Judy. “She’s trying to keep above the surface by holding on to you. If I were you, I wouldn’t be bothered with her.”

“Of course, I know,” said Molly, “that Frances Andrews did something last year that put her in the black books with her class. She’s trying to live it down, and they are trying to freeze her out. Nobody has anything to do with her, and she’s not invited to anything except the big entertainments like this. I can’t help feeling sorry for her, and I don’t see how it would do me any harm to go with her. But I just don’t want to go, that’s all. I’d rather take a beating than go.”

“Well, then you are a chump for considering it!” exclaimed Judy, whose self-indulgent nature had little sympathy for people who would do uncomfortable things.

“Then, on the other hand,” continued Molly, “suppose my going would help her a little, don’t you think it would be mean to turn her down? Oh, say you think I ought to do it, because I’m going to, hard as it seems.”

Nance went over and put her arms around her friend, quite an unusual demonstration with her, while Judy seized her hand and patted it tenderly.

“Really, Molly, you are quite the nicest person in the world,” she exclaimed. Then she added: “By the way, Molly, can you spare the time to tutor me for a month or so? I don’t know what the rates are, but we can settle about that later. Nance tells me I must get busy or else take my walking papers. I’d be afraid of a strange tutor. I’m a timid creature. But I think I might manage to learn a few things from you, Molly, dear.”

Did Judy understand the look of immense relief which instantly appeared on Molly’s sensitive face? If she did she made no sign.

“Now, don’t say no,” she went on. “I know you are awfully busy, and all that, but it would be just an act of common charity.”

“Say no?” cried Molly, laughing lightly. “I can hardly wait to say yes,” and she cheerfully got out six pairs of muddy boots from the closet, enveloped herself in a large apron, slipped on a pair of old gloves and went to work to clean and black them. Molly had become official bootblack at Queen’s Cottage at ten cents a pair when they were not muddy, and fifteen cents when they were.

When she had completed her lowly job she sat down at her desk and wrote two notes.

One was to Judith Blount, in which she accepted her invitation to wait at table in the most polite and correct terms, and signed her name “Mary Carmichael Washington Brown.”

The second letter, which was to Frances Andrews, was also a note of acceptance.

Then Molly removed her collar, rolled up her sleeves, kicked off her pumps—a signal that she was going to begin work—and sat down to cram mathematics,—the very hardest thing in life to her and the subject which was to be a stumbling block in her progress always.