us for
all the freshmen in the house, so she's very sensible to keep away from
it when she's busy."

"Where does she go?"

"Oh, to the library, I suppose," said Madeline. "Most of the freshmen
study there a good deal, and she camps down in Lou Waterson's room,
afternoons, because Lou has three different kinds of lab. to go to, so
she's never at home."

"Well, it's a wonder that Georgia isn't completely spoiled," said Nita
Reese. "Just to think of the things that child has had done for her!"

And certainly if Georgia's head had not been very firmly set on her
square shoulders, it would have been hopelessly turned by her meteoric
career at Harding. For weeks after college opened she was a spectacle, a
show-sight of the place. Old girls pointed her out to one another in a
fashion that was meant to be inobtrusive but that would have flattered
the vanity of any other freshman. Freshmen were regaled with stories
about her, which they promptly retailed for her benefit, and then sent
her flowers as a tribute to her good luck and a recognition of the
amusement she added to the dull routine of life at Harding. Seniors who
had been duped by the phantom Georgia asked her to Sunday dinner and
introduced her to their friends, who did likewise. Foolish girls wanted
her autograph, clever ones demanded to know her sensations at finding
herself so oddly conspicuous, while the "Merry Hearts" amply fulfilled
their promise to make up to her for unintentionally having forced her
into a curious prominence. But Georgia took it all as a mere matter of
course, smiled blandly at the stories, accepted the flowers and the
invitations, wrote the autographs, and explained that she guessed her
sensations weren't at all remarkable,--they were just like any other
freshman's.

"All the same," Madeline declared, whenever the subject came up, "she's
absolutely unique. If the other Georgia had never existed, this one
would have made her mark here."

But just how she would have done it even Madeline could not decide. The
real Georgia was not like other girls, but in what fundamental way she
was different it was difficult to say. Indeed now that the "Merry
Hearts" came to know her better, she was almost as much of a puzzle to
them as the other Georgia had been to the rest of the college.

CHAPTER XI

A DARK HORSE DEFINED

"Did you see Mr. Masters in chapel this morning with Miss Kingston?"

This was the choice tid-bit of news that 19-- pa