lot of work on it since last rehearsal," said
Polly serenely. "I'm sure I hope she has, but this is something any
amount nicer."

"Then I give up."

"Well, it's a monkey," cried Polly triumphantly, "a real live monkey
that belongs to a hand-organ man in Boston. The Italian bootblack at the
station knows him, and--did he promise fair and square to get them up
here, Lucile?"

"Fair and square," repeated Lucile promptly. "I said we'd give him five
dollars and his fare up from Boston. It's well worth it. A cat would
have been too absurd when everybody knows the story."

"I hope Sara won't mind carrying a live monkey across the stage," said
Betty. "I should be dreadfully afraid it would bite."

"She ought to have thought of that when she took the part," said
Madeline. "She can't flunk now."

"Let's hurry it through and have the organ-man play for a dance
afterward," suggested the ingenious Georgia Ames. "He'd surely throw
that in for the five dollars."

"Better have him play between the acts too," put in somebody else.
"There's nothing like getting your money's worth."

"And we'll pay him all in pennies," added Polly gleefully. "We can take
turns handing them out to the monkey. How many pennies will there be in
five dollars and a fare from Boston, Lucile?"

Helen listened to their gay banter, wondering, as many thoughtful people
have wondered before her, at the light-hearted abandon of these other
girls. "It must be fun to be like that," she reflected, "but I don't
believe I should want to change places with any of them. They only see
their own little piece of things, and they don't even know it's
little,--like the man who didn't know anything about the forest he was
walking through, because he got so interested in the trees. My tree is
just a scraggly, crooked little sapling that won't ever amount to much,
but I can see the whole big forest, and hear it talk, and that makes
up. I'm glad I'm one of the kind that college teaches to think," ended
Helen happily.

A moment later she made an addendum. "Betty Wales is a kind by herself,"
she decided. "She doesn't exactly think, but she knows. And she's really
responsible for to-day. I wish I could tell her about it."

CHAPTER VII

ROBERTA "ARRIVES"

It was dress rehearsal night for the Belden House play, and the hall in
the Students' Building, where the big house-plays are performed was the
scene of a tremendous bustle and excitement. The play was to be "S