“I’m beginning to feel that we shall issue happily out of all our troubles,” cried Judy Kean, bursting into her friends’ room without knocking, “and the reason why I feel that way is because when I am clothed in silk attire my soul is clothed in joy. Especially when there’s dancing to follow. Button me up, someone, please, so that I may take a good look at my resplendent form in your mirror. I can’t see more than a square inch of neck in my own two by four.”

The girls stood back to admire their friend, who indulged her artistic fancy in rather theatrical clothes much too old for her, but who usually succeeded in gaining the effect she sought.

“Dear me, ‘she walks in beauty like the night,’” said Molly laughing. “You look like a charming and very youthful widow-lady, Judy, but how comes it you are wearing black?”

“Black is for certain types,” replied Judy sagely, “and I am one of them. Next to black my bilious skin takes on a dazzling, creamy tint and my mouse-colored hair assumes a yellow glint that is not its own.”

The girls laughed at their erratic friend, who was, indeed, dressed in black chiffon, from the fluffy folds of which her vivacious young face glowed like a flower.

“If you object to me, wait until you see Jessie,” cried Judy. “She might be going to the opera, she is so fine. She is wearing pink satin that glistens all over like a Christmas tree with little shiny things.”

As a matter of fact, Nance, whose well balanced and correct tastes in most things rarely failed her, was the most suitably dressed of our girls, in her pretty white lingerie frock.

At eight o’clock that evening Molly rolled away luxuriously in a village hack with Mary Stewart, holding her roses tenderly and carefully under her gray eiderdown cape, so as not to crush them.

“I’m awfully glad I was so lucky as to draw you this evening, Molly,” the older girl was saying.

“I’m the lucky one,” answered Molly, her thoughts reverting to the strange discovery of the morning. “Oh, Miss Stewart, what did Frances Andrews do last year to get herself into such a mess and be frozen out by all her class this year?”

“I’ll tell you perhaps some day, but not to-night. We want to enjoy ourselves to-night. Can you guide, Molly?”

“Like a streak. I always guided at home at the school dances, because I was the tallest girl in my class.”

“I’m a guider, too,” laughed Mary, “and when two guiders come together, I imagine it’s a good deal like a tug of war.”

During the ride over to the gymnasium, neither of the girls mentioned the thing uppermost in their minds: the attempt to set the gymnasium on fire that night. Nor was the rumor referred to by anyone at the dance later. It was a strictly forbidden topic, the President herself having issued orders.

The great room was a mass of foliage and bunting, Japanese lanterns and incandescent lights in many colors, and it was really quite a brilliant affair according to Molly’s notions, who had never seen anything but small country dances usually given at the schoolhouse several miles from her home. Lovely music floated from behind a screen of palms and lovely girls floated on the floor in couples, to the strains of the latest waltz.

“I’m afraid I’m going to be an awful wallflower,” thought Molly, feeling suddenly overgrown and awkward in the midst of this swirling mass of grace and beauty. “I can’t help feeling queer and I don’t seem to recognize anybody.”

But Molly had plenty of partners that evening, and after that first delightful waltz, it was nearly an hour before she caught a glimpse of Mary Stewart again in the crowd of dancers.

“Isn’t it jolly?” called Judy, as they dashed past each other in a romping barn dance.

“I never thought I could have such a good time at a manless party,” Jessie Lynch confided to Molly while they rested against the wall later. “But, really, it’s quite as good fun.”

“Isn’t it?” replied Molly. “I think I never had a better time in my life. But I’m afraid our roommates and friends are not enjoying it very much,” she added ruefully, pointing to the gallery, where seated in a silent bored row were Margaret Wakefield, Nance Oldham and Mabel Hinton.

“Of course,” said Jessie, “you would never expect Mabel to join this mad throng, but I’m surprised at Nance and Margaret.”

“Margaret prefers conversation parties, I suppose, and Nance is not fond of dancing, either. She would always rather look on, she says.”

The two girls were standing near the musicians and from the other side of the screen of palms they now heard a voice say:

“Have you danced with the fantastic Empress Josephine as yet?”

“Not as yet,” came the answer with a laugh. “But be careful, she is near——”

Molly moved away hastily, her face crimson.

Jessie had heard the question also and recognized the voice of Judith Blount.

“Why, Molly,” she exclaimed, glancing at her face, “you don’t think they meant——”

“Yes,” said Molly, trying to smile naturally, “I do.”

She glanced down at her home-made dress. Perhaps it did look amateurish. She and Nance had worked very hard over it, but, after all, they were not experienced dressmakers.

“Why, you look perfectly charming,” went on Jessie generously. “The color is exactly right for you——”

“Yes, color,” answered Molly, “but there ought to be something besides color to a dress, you know. Never mind, I shouldn’t be such a sensitive plant, Jessie. One ought not to mind being called fantastic. It’s not nearly so bad as being called—well, malicious—cruel. I’d rather be fantastic than any of those things. But I did think the dress was pretty when we made it.”

“Come along, and let’s get some lemonade, Molly. Your dress is sweet and suits you exactly, so there.”

Then someone came up and claimed Jessie for the next dance, but Molly was grateful to the pretty butterfly creature for her assurances and she resolved to forget all about her dress. As she lingered in the corner, uncertain whether to stay where she was or join her friends in the gallery, Mary Stewart made her way through the crowd and called:

“Oh, here you are. Some of the seniors are just outside and want to meet you. Will you come?”

“I should think I would,” replied Molly, joyfully. Fantastic, or not, she had one good friend among the older girls.

“This is Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky,” announced Mary Stewart presently to a dozen august seniors who shook her hand and began asking her questions.

“We had two reasons for wanting to meet you, Miss Brown,” here put in a very handsome big girl, who spoke in an authoritative tone, which made everybody stop and listen. (She was, in fact, the President of the senior class.) “One of course was just to make your acquaintance, and the other was to ask if you would do us a favor. We are going to have a living picture show Friday week for the benefit of the Students’ Fund, and we wondered if you would pose in one of the pictures, maybe several, we haven’t decided on them yet. But that dress must be in one of them, don’t you think so, Mary? One of Romney’s Lady Hamilton pictures for instance, with a white gauze fichu; or a Sir Thomas Lawrence portrait——”

“You don’t think it’s too fantastic?” asked Molly.

“What, that lovely blue thing? Heavens, no! it’s charming——”

Molly had barely time to thank her and accept the invitation, when she and Mary were dragged off to make up the big circle of “right and left all around,” which wound up the dance. After this whirling romp, three loud raps were heard and gradually the noise of talking and laughter subsided into absolute silence. A girl had mounted the platform. She carried a megaphone in one hand and a book in the other. She was the official reader of her class, and now proceeded to recite through the megaphone all the best and most amusing material from “Jokes & Croaks.” According to time honored custom, the jokes were greeted with applause and laughter, and the croaks with groans and laughter, and anybody who groaned at a joke or applauded a croak, if she happened to be caught, was publicly humiliated by being made to stand up and face the jeers of the multitude. The girls finally decided, after many ludicrous mistakes, that the jokes were on the sophomores and the croaks were on the freshmen. For instance, here was a croak:

This was greeted with laughing groans, and Molly for the first time realized the significance of her roommate’s name.

Margaret Wakefield figured in several croaks, as “the Suffragette of Queen’s.” In fact Queen’s girls came in for a good many croaks and began to wait fearfully for what was to come next. But the witticisms were all quite good-natured, even the last, which called forth so many merry groans that they soon ceased to be groans at all and became uproarious laughter, and Molly, very red and laughing, too, was the centre of all eyes. This was the croak:

It was all very jolly and delightful, and for the first time the girls felt that they were really a part of the college life.

Mary Stewart was very sweet to Molly when she took her home that night, and the young freshman never realized until long afterwards, when she was a senior herself, what a nice thing her friend had done; for sophomore-freshman receptions were an old story to Mary Stewart.