gh and I accepted her first invitations without thinking, so when
she wanted to be intimate I felt as if I had been partly to blame for
letting her begin it."

"Yes, you do have to be careful about not being too friendly at first,"
said Betty soberly, "but I think there are a lot of mistakes worse than
that. I'm sorry though, if this has spoiled your first year here."

"Oh, it hasn't," said Georgia, eagerly; "it has just spotted it a
little. It was a lucky thing, I guess, that I had something to bother
me, or I should have been spoiled with all the good times you've given
me. I did try to be a good 'Merry Heart,' Betty. Perhaps I shall have
better luck next time."

"I'm sure you will," said Betty, heartily, and after they had arranged
for the returning of Nita's pin in such a way as not to involve Miss
Harrison, they started back to the Belden, Georgia to begin her packing
and Betty to join the rest of the "Merry Hearts," who were spending the
evening on the piazza.

But after all Betty slipped past them and went on up-stairs. She was in
a very serious mood. She realized to-night as she never had before that
her college days were over. The talk with Georgia had somehow put a
period to a great many things and she wanted to be alone and think them
over. Her little room was stiflingly hot and she threw the window wide
open and sat down before it in the dark, leaning her elbows on the sill.
The piazza was just below; she could hear the laughter and merriment,
and occasionally a broken sentence or two drifted up to her.

"There's nothing left to do now but commence," declared Bob Parker,
loudly.

"And when we have commenced we shall be finished," added Babe, and
laughed uproariously at her bad joke.

That was just Betty's trouble,--"nothing left to do but commence," which
was quite enough if you happened to be a member of the play committee.
But before you "began to commence" all the tangled threads of the four
happy years ought to be laid straight, and they weren't, or at least one
wasn't. Betty had always felt sure that before Eleanor graduated she
would get back her standing with the class. But if she had, there was
nothing to prove it; the feeling of her classmates toward her had
certainly changed but nothing had happened that would take away the
sting of the Blunderbuss's insult last fall and of Jean's taunts at the
time of the Toy Shop entertainment. Eleanor would go away feeling that
on the whole she had faile