hich, far below, took its slow way along between
the willows.

As editor-in-chief of _The Spinster_, there was good reason why she
should be excused from recitations now and then, to spend an afternoon
in this retreat. This year's souvenir volume bade fair to be the
brightest and most creditable one ever issued by the school. The English
professor not only openly said so, but was plainly so proud of Betty's
ability that the lower classes regarded her with awe, and adored her
from a distance, as a real live genius.

Whether she was a genius or not, one thing is certain, she spent hours
of patient, painstaking work to make her writing measure up to the
standard she had set for it. It was work that she loved better than
play, however, and to-day she sighed regretfully when the hunter's horn,
blowing on the upper terrace, summoned the school to its outdoor sports.

Instantly, in answer to the winding call, the whole place began to
awaken. There was a tread of many feet on the great staircase, the outer
doors burst open, and a stream of rollicking girls poured out into the
May sunshine.

Betty knew that in a few minutes the garden would be swarming with them
as if a flock of chattering magpies had taken possession of it. With a
preoccupied frown drawing her eyebrows together, she began gathering up
her papers, preparatory to making her escape. She glanced down the long
flight of marble steps leading to the river. There on the lowest
terrace, a fringe of willow-trees trailed their sweeping branches in the
water. Around the largest of these trees ran a circular bench. Seated on
the far side of this, the huge trunk would shield her from view of the
Hall, and she decided to go down there to finish.

It would never do to stop now, when the verses were spinning themselves
out so easily. None of the girls, except her four most intimate friends,
would dare think of following her down there, and if she could slip away
from that audacious quartette, she would be safe for the rest of the
afternoon.

Peering through a hole in the hedge, she stood waiting for them to pass.
A section of the botany class came first, swinging their baskets, and
bound for a wooded hillside where wild flowers grew in profusion. A
group on their way to the golf links came next, then half a dozen tennis
players, and the newly organized basket-ball team. A moment more, and
the four she was waiting for tramped out abreast, arm in arm: Lloyd
Sherman, Gay Me