ion Lustig, who was
equally sure to be class-poet, on the shoulder--"next to these one or
two geniuses, Eleanor is our wittiest member. Of course our
class-supper will be the finest ever,--it can't help being--but with
Eleanor Watson at the head of the table, it will eclipse itself. To
quote the great Dr. Hinsdale, do you get my point?"

Kate Denise seconded the nomination with a heartiness that made Eleanor
flush with pleasure. Betty watched her happily, half afraid she would
refuse the nomination, as she had refused the Dramatic Club's election;
but she only sat quite still, her great eyes shining like stars. She was
thinking, though Betty could not know that, of little Helen Adams and
her "one big day" when she was elected to the "Argus" board.

"I know just how she felt," Eleanor considered swiftly. "It's after
you've been left out and snubbed and not wanted that things like this
really count. Oh, I'm so glad they want me now."

"Are there any other nominations?" asked Marie. There was a little
silence, broken by a voice saying: "Let's make it unanimous. Ballots
take so long, and everybody wants her."

Then a girl got up from the back row,--a girl to whom Katherine
Kittredge had once given the title of "Harding's champion blunderbuss."
She could no more help doing the wrong thing than she could help
breathing. She had begun her freshman year by opening the door into Dr.
Hinsdale's recitation-room, while a popular senior course was in
session. "I beg your pardon, but are you Miss Stuart?" she had asked,
looking full at the amazed professor, and upon receiving a gasping
denial she had withdrawn, famous, to reappear now and then during her
course always in similar roles. It happened that she had never heard of
Eleanor Watson's stolen story until a week before the class-meeting,
when some one had told her the unvarnished facts, with no palliation and
no reference to Eleanor's subsequent change of heart or renunciation of
one honor after another. Virtuous indignation and pained surprise
struggled for expression upon her pasty, immobile face.

"Madam president," she began, and waited formally for recognition.

"Oh, I say, it's awfully late," said somebody. "I've got five
recitations to-morrow."

This speech and the laugh that followed it put new vigor into the
Champion's purpose. "I hope I am not trespassing on any one's time
unduly," she said, "by stating that--I dislike to say it here, but it
has been forced upo