the gas, with another she pulled down her
hair and released the prisoned beetle. Then she twisted up the soft coil
again in the dark and went out into the sweet spring dusk.

At the next corner she gave an angry little exclamation and turned back
toward the house. The girls had deserted the piazza before she came
down, and now the only light seemed to be in Betty's room. Every window
there was shut, so it was no use to call. Eleanor climbed the stairs and
knocked. Katherine and Betty were just starting for a trolley ride, to
cool off the champion, Katherine explained; but Helen was going to be in
all the evening.

"I pity you from the bottom of my heart," said Eleanor, "but if you are
really going to be here would you tell Lil Day when she comes that I
have an awful headache and have gone off--that I'll see her to-morrow. I
could go down there, but if she's in, her room will be fuller of
June-bugs than mine. Hear them slam against that glass!" She turned to
Betty stiffly. "I congratulate you on your victory," she said.

"Oh thank you!" answered Betty eagerly. "Christy did most of it.
Would--won't you come out with us?"

"No, thank you. I feel like being all alone. I'm going down for a
twilight row on Paradise."

"You'll get malaria," said Katherine.

"You'll catch cold, too, in that thin dress," added Helen.

"I don't mind, if only I don't see any June-bugs," answered Eleanor, "or
any girls," she added under her breath, when she had gained the lower
hall.

The quickest way to Paradise was through the campus, but Eleanor chose
an unfrequented back street, too ugly to attract the parties of girls
who swarmed over the college grounds, looking like huge white moths as
they flitted about under the trees. She walked rapidly, trying to escape
thought in activity; but the thoughts ill-naturedly kept pace with her.
As everybody who came in contact with Eleanor Watson was sure to remark,
she was a girl brimful of strong possibilities both for good and evil;
and to-night these were all awake and warring. Her year of bondage at
college was nearly over. Only the day before she had received a letter
from Judge Watson, coldly courteous, like all his epistles to his
rebellious daughter, inquiring if it was her wish to return to Harding
another year, and in the same mail had come an invitation from her aunt,
asking her to spend the following winter in New York. Eleanor shrewdly
guessed that in spite of her father's disapproval