toring
evenings. And I've saved enough so that I shan't have to worry one
single bit about money this year," announced Rachel triumphantly.

"Good for old Rachel!" cried Madeline Ayres, who had spent the summer
nursing her mother through a severe illness and looked worn and thin in
consequence. "Then you're as glad to get back to the grind as I am.
Betty here, with her summer on an island in Lake Michigan, and Eleanor,
and these lucky B's with their childless farms, and their Parisian
raiment, don't know what it's like to be back in the arms of one's
friends."

"Don't we!" cried a protesting chorus.

"Don't you what?" called a voice out of the darkness, and the real
Georgia Ames, cheerful and sunburned and self-possessed shook hands all
around, and found a seat behind Madeline on the piazza railing.

"You were all so busy talking that you didn't see me at the train," she
explained coolly. "A tall girl with glasses asked if there was anything
she could do for me, and I said oh, no, that I'd been here before. Then
she asked me my name, and when I said Georgia Ames, I thought she was
going to faint."

"She took you for a ghost, my dear," said Madeline, patting her double's
shoulder affectionately. "You must get used to being treated that way,
you know. You're billed to make a sensation in spite of yourself."

"But we're going to make it up to you all we can," chirped Babbie.

"And you bet we can," added Bob decisively.

"Let's begin by escorting her home," suggested Babe. "There's just about
time before ten."

"I saw Miss Stuart yesterday about her coming into the Belden,"
explained Betty, after they had left Georgia at her temporary off-campus
boarding place. "She was awfully nice and amused about it all, and she
thinks she can get her in right away, in Natalie Smith's place.
Natalie's father has been elected senator, you know, and she's going to
come out this winter in Washington."

"Fancy that now!" said Madeline resignedly. "There's certainly no
accounting for tastes."

"I should think not," declared Katherine hotly. "If my father was
elected President, I'd stay on and graduate with 19-- just the same."

"Of course you would," agreed Babbie. "You can come out in Washington
any time--or if you can't, it doesn't matter much. But there's only one
19--."

"And yet when we go we shan't be missed," said Katherine sadly. "The
college will go on just the same."

"Oh, and I've found out the reason why," cried