he Briggs Helping Hand Society has disbanded."

CHAPTER XVII

MAKING OTHER GIRLS HAPPY

The Thanksgiving holiday was welcomed with acclamation by the students
of Overton College, who, with a few exceptions, ate their Thanksgiving
dinners at their various campus houses and boarding places. During the
four days tables at Martell's and Vinton's were in demand and a
continuous succession of dinners and luncheons made serious inroads in
the monthly allowances of the hospitable entertainers.

The month of December dragged discouragingly, however, and when the time
really did arrive to pack and be off for the Christmas holidays the
latent energy that suddenly developed for packing trunks and making
calls caused the faculty to sigh with regret that it had not been used
in the pursuit of knowledge.

Nothing of any event had happened at Wayne Hall. Since the evening when
Elfreda had waited in vain for Laura Atkins, whose invitation to dinner
she had accepted, this peculiar young woman had offered neither apology
nor explanation for her inexplicable behavior. In fact, the next morning
she had completely ignored Elfreda, who, feeling herself to be the
aggrieved one, had made no attempt to discover what had prompted this
glaring disregard of etiquette on the part of the eccentric freshman.

For a week afterward Elfreda discussed and rediscussed the mystery with
Grace, Anne and Miriam. Then she gave up in disgust and turned her
attention to basketball. She had lost considerable weight and was now a
member of the scrub team. Her greatest ambition was to make the real
team in her junior year, and with that intent she sturdily refused to
eat sweet things, took long walks and daily haunted the gymnasium, going
through the various forms of exercises she had elected to take with
commendable persistency.

Grace had never sought to discover the identity of the freshman who had
stolen her theme. She felt reasonably certain that the same roof covered
them both, but she never allowed herself to reach the point of laying
the finger of suspicion on any one in particular. That she had been
vindicated of the charge was quite enough for her, but she could not
resist wondering occasionally what had prompted the deed, and whether
the other girl had turned over a new leaf.

One other thing troubled Grace not a little. Mildred Taylor had become
extremely intimate with Mary Hampton and Alberta Wicks. Both young women
were frequent guests