going?" demanded Betty in her turn as they
scrambled on.

"Because I didn't intend to until the last minute. Then I decided that
I'd earned a little recreation, so I telegraphed Paul West that I'd come
after all. Who is your chaperon?"

"Miss Hale."

"Well please introduce me when we get down-town, so that I can ask if I
may join her party."

Ethel Hale received Betty with enthusiasm, and Eleanor with a peculiar
smile and a very formal permission to go to Winsted under her escort. As
the two were starting off to buy their tickets, she called Betty back.

"Aren't you going to sit with me on the way over, little sister?" she
asked.

"Of course," said Betty, and they settled themselves together a moment
later for the short ride.

"You never come to see me, Betty," Miss Hale began, when they were
seated.

"I'm afraid to," confessed Betty sheepishly. "When you're a faculty and
I'm only a freshman."

"Nonsense," laughed Miss Hale. Then she glanced at Eleanor, who sat
several seats in front of them, and changed the subject abruptly. "What
sort of girl is Miss Watson?" she asked.

Betty laughed. "All sorts, I think," she said. "I never knew any one who
could be so nice one minute and so trying the next."

"How do you happen to know her well?" pursued Miss Hale seriously.

Betty explained.

"And you think that on the whole she's worth while?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand----" Betty was beginning to feel as if
she was taking an examination on Eleanor's characteristics.

"You think that on the whole she's more good than bad; and that there's
something to her, besides beauty. That's all I want to know. She is
lovely, isn't she?"

"Yes, indeed," agreed Betty enthusiastically. "But she's very bright
too. She's done a lot of extra work lately and so quickly and well.
She's very nice to me always, but she dislikes my roommate and she and I
are always disagreeing about that or something else. I don't think--you
know she wouldn't do a dishonorable thing for the world, but I don't
approve of some of her ideas; they don't seem quite fair and square,
Ethel."

"Um," assented Ethel absently. "I'm glad you could tell me all this,
Betty. I shouldn't have asked you, perhaps; it's rather taking advantage
of our private friendship. But I really needed to know. Ah, here we
are!"

As she spoke, the train slowed down and a gay party of Winsted men
sprang on to the platform, and jostled one another down the aisles,
noisily