nt the ball curving through the
air. It dropped squarely into the basket, bounded up in the air, then
dropped gently into place.

[Illustration: Grace Measured the Distance.]

For the next few minutes pandemonium reigned in the gymnasium. The happy
freshmen burst into song and drummed on the floor in expression of their
glee. The freshmen team had outplayed that of the sophomores. Only once
before in the history of the college had such a thing occurred. To Grace
Harlowe and Miriam Nesbit was given the principal credit for this latest
victory. Grace's goal toss had been a record-breaker. Never had a
freshman been known to make such a toss.

Now that the excitement was over, Grace felt suddenly weak in the knees.
She started for a seat at the side of the gymnasium, but before she
reached it there was a rush from the freshman class. Her classmates
lifted her to their shoulders and began parading about the gymnasium
floor, singing:

"Nineteen---- is looking sad,
Tra la la, Tra la la,
I wonder what has made her mad,
Tra la la, Tra la la,
Her coaching was in vain,
The freshman team has won again,
Little sophomores, run away,
Come again some other day."

Then there followed a song that brought a shout of laughter from
hundreds of throats, and one in which the sophomores did not join:

Backward, turn backward, O ball in your flight,
Why did you drop in the basket so tight?
Sadly the sophomores are rueing the day
They asked the freshmen in their yard to play,
Sophomore banners are hung at half mast,
Sophomore tears they are falling so fast,
Sophomore faces are turned toward the wall,
Sophomore pride has had a hard fall.

Grace had been seized and carried around and around the gymnasium on the
shoulders of her exulting classmates, who sang lustily as they marched,
then gently deposited her in the dressing room. Miriam also had received
that honor. When the two girls left the dressing room twenty minutes
later, they were taken charge of by a delegation of admiring freshmen
and informed that there would be a dinner given that night at Vinton's
in honor of them.

An air of deep gloom pervaded the sophomore dressing room, however.
Virginia Gaines dressed in gloomy silence. One or two of her team
ventured to speak to her. She answered so shortly that they did not
trouble her further, but went out talking among themselves as soon as
they had changed the