e custom of the school,
to wake the pupils by song on Easter morning.

The voices drew nearer. The singers paused at the landing of the stair.
Hester could distinguish Erma's loud, clear notes which soared upward
like a bird and floated over all.

"Alleluia, Alleluia, swell the strain."

The spirit of the Easter morn came to Hester.

There was peace and joy. She wished for that. She really had not had it
for weeks. While the song rose and fell, her heart softened toward
Helen. She would make up with her. She would ask to be forgiven and be
friends again. She crept out of bed and went to Helen's bed, but Helen
had gone to make one of the Easter Wakening Chorus.

CHAPTER XIV

Proserpina had returned to earth again. The evidence of her visit was
everywhere. The campus had turned into green velvet; the pussy willows
were soft as chinchillas; the apple trees were in leaf, and just about
to blossom. These were the signs of spring everywhere. In addition to
these, the seminary had a sign which appealed to it alone. The man with
the ice-cream cart had appeared. For several days, his cart had been
backed against the curb of the campus and the sound of his bell was like
the music of the hand-organ to the girls. It was a bluebird and a
robin--the harbingers of spring to them.

May came and was quickly passing. The girls were talking caps and gowns
and diplomas. The seniors went about with a superior air; the juniors
were little better for they had a classday at least. The freshmen and
sophomores, in the plans for commencement week, were but the fifth
wheel to a wagon. They were ignored. If they offered suggestions they
were snubbed, and informed, not too gently, that they could not be
expected to know anything about such matters--being new to the ways of
commencement.

Though they had neither commencement, class day, nor play, the freshmen
and sophomores did not lose spirit. What was not theirs by rights, they
meant to make theirs by foul means and strategy.

It had long been the custom of the seniors to follow the commencement
proper with a banquet. This included only members of the senior class.
The Alumnae banquet took place later and was in the hands of old students
who had long since left the seminary. Among these were the wives of
judges, physicians, bankers--people with whom the freshmen and
sophomores dare not interfere, though it would have been an easy matter
to have taken this Alumnae Banquet, for