While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda and Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch girls’ sitting room, school politics were playing an important part in the precincts of Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and Gerry Ferrows were devoting that same Saturday afternoon to canvassing their class in order to discover whether Jean or Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for Jean, while Winifred was conducting a personal investigation. Indeed, the situation between these two girls was a peculiar and a difficult one, for having once been intimate friends, they had now become violently estranged from one another and yet continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than because Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together and with their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively refused to work for herself, having turned over her cause to her two best friends, Gerry and Margaret Belknap.

But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning Jean and Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances for her election and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the whole situation.

Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s success. If even at this late date Jean would allow herself to be elected into one of the sororities and thus proclaim her independence of the girl whose presence in the school her classmates resented, she might yet win their complete allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case that Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart for the honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on this question of Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while she was too good a sport to be unkind to any one in adversity, yet she did not herself care to associate with Olive on terms of perfect equality, although she had never mentioned this fact to Jean. And lately she had felt her own decision waver, for since her father had written her that he had charge of Jack Ralston’s case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl he had ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.

Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice grew deeper on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to the other of her classmates, asking them point-blank whether they intended to cast their votes for Winifred or for Jean at the coming election. Some of the girls were quite frank. They had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided that it would be wiser not to have as the representative of their class a girl who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean, not having entirely made up their minds between her and Winifred; a number of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and loyal supporters and yet it was with a feeling of discouragement that Gerry at the close of her canvass returned to her own room. She had taken a note book with her and written down each girl’s position in regard to the election, and yet she could not now decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it was peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room to find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde hair down her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the pages of a magazine, wearing a particularly cheerful and self-satisfied expression.

Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an agreeable one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a certain portion of American society. As long as Winifred could remember she had been taught these two things: By her brains and her beauty she must some day win for herself the wealth and the position that her family had always longed to have and yet never had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her mother and father had been spending more money than they could afford in trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more prominent than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at Primrose Hall was but another proof of their extravagance, for they could by no means afford the expense of such a school, yet their hope was that there Winifred would make so many wealthy and aristocratic friends that later on they might help her to a wealthy marriage.

But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good mind and longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her friendships, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should cordially dislike the two older ranch girls, who, coming out of nowhere and pretending to nothing, seemed likely to prove her rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the way of her being chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior class, Olive was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which the old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also competing for this prize, but as it represented a fairly large sum of money, sufficient to cover a year’s tuition at Primrose Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must be hers.

She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down on their couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a nap.

“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend Gerry?” she asked in an irritating fashion.

“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none too truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm assurance.

Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you know it, and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if it half killed you, being anxious to prove that women are as honest as men, as brave and as straight-forward and as clever, and therefore should be entitled to equal suffrage.”

Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely face crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite truthful; I am afraid that your chance for the presidency is better than Jean’s. But you know that it is all because the girls here think that Olive isn’t a fit associate for the rest of us, or else Jean would have won in a walkover. I wonder if the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her parentage is true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me. Where did you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”

“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and heard the tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the younger girls she knew in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth meant any harm in telling, for she seemed to think that we would be pleased to have an Indian enliven us at Primrose Hall. You may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean and Frieda have been very quiet about the whole question of this objectionable Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why don’t you inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.

Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss Winthrop treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is any mystery about Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private affair,’ she said. ‘But kindly remember that she is a student at Primrose Hall and if I thought her unfit for the companionship of my other girls, she would not be among you.’ You can imagine that I felt about the size of a small caterpillar when she got through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore from Miss Winthrop’s snubbing.

“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind your own business,” Winifred interposed with secret satisfaction, knowing from Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had heard of Olive’s past and glad to have the truth of the story that she had been repeating confirmed.

“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to a girl for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so anxious to have Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her own mind.

Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’ parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”

Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election! And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”