Beth practised with the first basket-ball team every day, and Miss Hammersly herself came to watch the play and pronounce judgment. She was very much pleased with the smooth work of the five and applauded vigorously.
The whole school took a deep interest in the practice games; but the general applause grew noticeably fainter day after day, when Beth chanced to make a good play. Molly Granger and a number of her close friends, who were frequently on the side lines together, cheered Beth to the echo. But they finally became quite alone in their applause.
Beth herself had noticed the coldness of her fellow-students before this. She discovered it in other ways besides the lack of applause on the basket-ball court.
A girl who had promised her some work did not bring it to Number Eighty and Beth asked her about it.
“Miss Rice, I can mark those handkerchiefs for you now, if you like,” Beth said. “Shall I come for them, or will you bring them to me?”
The girl spoken to flushed and hesitated. “Oh—I—well—I’ve changed my mind, Miss Baldwin,” she stammered. “I guess I won’t have them done just now.”
“Oh, dear me!” laughed Beth, “if it is a matter of a lack of the essential pin-money just now, I’ll trust you. I have to do such work when I can, you know, and often we girls have spent all our immediate allowances.”
“No, Miss Baldwin. I don’t want the handkerchiefs done at all,” said Miss Rice, tartly. “I prize them rather highly—they were sent to me from Paris. I don’t think I care to risk them out of my own possession.”
Nothing could be plainer than this. Beth was aware that Miss Rice was frequently in Maude Grimshaw’s company. The lesson to be drawn was obvious.
All the girls of Rivercliff were not followers of “Princess Fancyfoot.” Yet it was plain enough before the day of the game between the school’s first team and the one from Jackson City, that Beth was not a favorite on the basket-ball team.