now on, I'm going to keep up in my classes and after
classes enjoy myself. If we can't run the college _now_, that's no sign
we never will. We can be exclusive. There are enough of us to do that. I
don't believe Bean and her crowd are going to tell any tales on us. For
the rest of the year we'll just amuse ourselves in our own way."

"It's almost a year since we started to rag Miss Dean and had so much
trouble over that affair," half-sobbed Dulcie Vale. "You are always
making plans to get even with someone you don't like, Leslie Cairns, and
dragging us into them. You never win. You always get the worst of it. I
don't intend to go into any more such schemes with you. My father said
if ever I was expelled from college he would make me take a position in
his office. Think of that!" Dulcie's voice rose to a scream.

"He did? Well, don't tell everybody in the gym about it," Leslie
advised, then laughed. Her laughter was echoed in quavering fashion by
the other weepers. Under their false and petty ideas of life there was
still so much of the eagerness of girlhood to be liked, to succeed and
to be happy. Only they were obstinately traveling the wrong road in
search of it.

Out in the gymnasium the winning team were being carried about the great
room on the shoulders of admiring and noisy fans. Marjorie smiled to
herself as she reflected that this was a pleasant ending of her
basket-ball days. She had firmly determined not to play during the next
year. Standing among her teammates afterward, surrounded by a circle of
enthusiastic fans, it was borne upon her that she knew a great many
Hamilton girls. She had not thought her friendly acquaintances among
them so large.

"You did what Muriel said you folks would do," Jerry exulted, when,
congratulations over, Muriel and Marjorie were free to join their chums.
"You laid the junies up for the winter. That team must have been crazy
to challenge you. They played well, for them. Against your five--good
night! A whitewash! Think of it!"

"They deserved it." Marjorie's eyes lost their smiling light. The curves
of her red lips straightened a trifle. "We paid them for ragging the
freshies. They have had two hard defeats inside of two weeks. They ought
to retire on them. They are lucky in that we haven't made trouble for
them. Between you and me, Jeremiah, the Sans are not gaining an inch at
Hamilton. The juniors are peeved with them for not taking proper
interest in the Valentine danc