than she had
intended, however. Suddenly, at the top of the flight, appeared Corinne
Pevay, captain of the West Side.

"What is the trouble, _mes enfants_?" she demanded. "Why all the
outburst of variegated sounds, Cora? Is it a convention of the Freshman
Calliope Society; or merely a discussion of the question: Votes for
Women?"

Cora had become silent instantly. Nancy was winking back her tears, and
would not turn around. The other girls did not feel called upon to
speak.

"'Silence was her answer; Low she bowed her head!'" chanted Corinne, in
a sing-song tone. "It sounded like a washerwomen's convention, and now
it has suddenly changed to a Quaker meeting. Come! what's the trouble?"
and she spoke more sharply as she began to descend the stairs.

"None of your business, Miss!" snapped the black-eyed girl, made even
angrier at this interruption.

"Wrong Cora--wrong. It _is_ my business. Somebody will call me to
account for it if you West Side infants raise ructions in the main hall.
You know that. So, out with the difficulty."

Cora still remained scornfully silent.

"It is about Nancy, here, again, I suppose," said Corinne, finally
reaching Nancy's side, and resting one hand lightly on the latter's
shoulders. "You girls seem unable to annoy anybody else but Nancy
Nelson. And if I were she"--she was coolly looking around the group and
soon identified them as the party that had been punished with Nancy over
Number 30's spread,--"I never would stand it.

"She is too easy.... That is what is the matter with her. When Madame
Schakael found her in Jennie's room that night she ought to have told
just how she had been crowded out of her own room--and after paying for
all the goodies you girls stuffed yourselves with, too!

"Why, I'd be ashamed! She took her punishment and never said a word.
Jennie can prove _that_. And all you little fools have laid your
punishment to _her_. And after eating her spread----"

"That isn't so!" snapped Cora, in a rage.

"What isn't so?"

"She knows she's going to be paid back for what she spent on the
supper," declared Cora.

"Good! I hope she will be paid back. But you can't pay her back for the
mean way you have treated her," declared the senior, with some warmth.

"I don't want to! I don't want to!" almost screamed Cora. "Do you think
I am going to have anything to do with a girl who doesn't even know who
she _is_?"

"What do you mean, Cora?" asked Corinne, quickly.

"Th