ty Mason, and as you couldn't go back with
her I had to. But I only had lemonade that time. And this child was so
comical, and it was such a good idea."

"What was such a good idea?" inquired Rachel.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? Why, after we'd finished at Cuyler's, she asked
me if there weren't any other places something like it, and she said she
thought if we tried them all in a row we could tell which was best. But
we couldn't," sighed Betty regretfully, "because of course things taste
better when you're hungriest. But anyhow she wanted to keep on, because
now she can give pointers to other freshmen, and make them think she is
a sophomore."

"How about the shirt waists?"

"Oh, she had just got to that when I had to leave her." Betty rose,
sighing, as a train whistled somewhere down the track. "Do you suppose
Georgia Ames will be on this one?"

"Who can tell?" said Rachel. "There'll be somebody that we know anyway.
Wasn't that first day queer and creepy?"

"Yes," agreed Betty, "when nobody got off but freshmen frightened to
pieces about their exams. And that was only two days ago! It seems two
weeks. I've always rather envied the Students' Aid Society seniors,
because they have such a good chance to pick out the interesting
freshmen, but I shan't any more."

"Not even after to-day?"

Betty frowned reflectively. "Well, of course to-day has been pretty
grand--with all those ices, and Christy, and the freshmen all so
cheerful and amusing. And then there's the eight-fifteen. Won't it be
fun--to see the Clan get off that? Yes, I think I do envy myself. Can a
person envy herself, Rachel?" She gave Rachel's arm a sudden squeeze.
"Rachel," she went on very solemnly, "do you realize that we can't ever
again in all our lives be Students' Aid Seniors, meeting poor little
Harding freshmen?"

Rachel hugged Betty sympathetically. "Yes, I do," she said. "Why at this
time next year I shall be earning my own living 'out in the wide, wide
world,' as the song says, miles from any of the Clan."

Betty looked across the net-work of tracks, to the hills that make a
circle about Harding. "And miles from this dear old town," she added.
"But we can write to each other, and make visits, and we can come back
to class reunions. But that won't be the same."

Rachel looked at the pretty, yellow-haired child, and wondered if she
realized how different her "wide, wide world" was likely to be from
Katherine's or Helen Chase Adams's--or Rach