“Oh, she knows she’s got the majority with her,” snapped Cora, shrugging her shoulders. “The minority have no rights at all in this class.”
“I am glad—or would be so—if I believed I was so popular,” Nancy said, with some warmth. “But I believe with the majority of us girls my suggestion is popular. It isn’t I.”
Then she put the question and the Montgomeryites were in a very small minority.
Nevertheless, outside of class matters, Grace Montgomery was still something of a leader. She and Cora paid more attention to dress than other girls in the school. They spent more money on “orgies,” too, and had hampers arrive from home more frequently. They were even more popular among the juniors than they were in their own class.
And soon a certain number of the new girls at Pinewood Hall began to ape the manners and quote the sayings of Grace Montgomery. The present class of seniors paid little attention to Grace and her growing clique; but Nancy and Jennie often spoke of the possibility of her having a large following before she was through her senior year.
“Unless she does something for which to be shown up before them all, the time will come when Grace Montgomery will divide the school. She’ll never have much influence in her own class,” said Jennie; “but in the school as a whole she will be a power if she can.”
In athletics that fall, however, neither Grace nor Cora cut much of a figure. Cora tried hard for the school crew, but Miss Etching turned her back to the second boat for another year.
To make Cora all the angrier, Nancy “made” Number 6 in the eight-oared shell. It was something for the sophomore class as a whole to be proud of; for it was seldom that one of their number got into the “varsity” crew.
But Cora did all she could to belittle Nancy’s triumph. She stood on the landing and sneered at the work of the crew, and especially at “Number 6” until one evening Jennie Bruce came up behind her, caught her by both elbows, and thrust her suddenly toward the edge of the float.
“Ouch! Don’t! You mean little thing!” cried Cora.