said loftily. "I suppose you haven't the faintest idea what real,
downright hard work is, and neither can you appreciate the joys of
downright idleness. I shall try that as soon as I've finished the math."

"Why?" asked Betty. "Do you like making it up later?"

"I shouldn't have to. You know I'm getting a reputation as an earnest,
thorough student. That's what the history department called me. A
reputation is a wonderful thing to lean back upon. I ought to have gone
in for one in September. I was at the Hill School for three years, and I
never studied after the first three months. There's everything in making
people believe in you from the first."

"What's the use in making people believe you're something that you're
not?" demanded Betty.

"What a question! It saves you the trouble of being that something. If
the history department once gets into the habit of thinking me a
thorough, earnest student, it won't condition me because I fail in a
written recitation or two. It will suppose I had an off day."

"But you'd have to do well sometimes."

"Oh, yes, occasionally. That's easy."

"Not for me," said Betty, "so I shall have to do respectable work all
the time. But I shall tell Helen about your idea. She works all the
time, and it makes her dull and cross. She must have secured a
reputation by this time; and I shall insist upon her leaning back on it
for a while and taking more walks."

CHAPTER IX

PAYING THE PIPER

"I feel as if there were about three days between Thanksgiving and
Christmas," said Rachel, coming up the stairs, to Betty, who stood in
the door of her room half in and half out of her white evening dress.

"That leaves one day and a half, then, before vacation," laughed Betty.
"I'm sorry to bother you when you're so pressed for time, but could you
hook me up? Helen is at the library, and every one else seems to be off
somewhere."

"Certainly," said Rachel, dropping her armful of bundles on the floor.
"I'm only making Christmas presents. Is the Kappa Phi dance coming off
at last?"

"Yes--another one, that is; and Mr. Parsons asked me, to make up for the
one I had to miss. Now, would you hold my coat?"

"Betty! Betty Wales! Wait a minute," called somebody just as Betty
reached the Main Street corner, and Eleanor Watson appeared, also
dressed for the dance.

"Why didn't you say you were going to Winsted?" she demanded
breathlessly. "Good, here's a car."

"Why didn't you say you were