THE mid-year examinations over, there was less strain upon the girls in all the classes, and the juniors began to think of the dramatics which they had planned to give the freshmen. Janet was cast for a prominent part requiring gorgeous costuming, and Polly was delighted. Lee Penrose as a saucy soubrette and Cordelia as leading lady were immensely interested. Girls, with suggestive-looking papers in their hands, were seen at odd times, pacing corridors or haunting corners, their lips moving silently and a far-away look in their eyes.
The sophomores had expressed their determination of being present and the juniors were equally determined that they should not get in.
"I am equal to charging upon them with a truncheon, whatever that is," said Lee. "Imagine looking up at a telling moment and seeing Jessie Turner grinning at you. No, girls, we must move heaven and earth to keep them out."
"Fancy trying to keep your mind on the variety of manly attitudes you must assume and battle with sophomores at the same time," said Grace Breitner who was cast for the part of the heroine's lover. "I'll never be able to make love to you properly, Cordelia, if I must fill my head with a dread of sophs. It's all I can do to stride and frown and cry, 'Hold sirrah,' as I should."
"Well, we won't call upon you, Grace," Lee assured her. "We, of the gentler sex, will protect ourselves. They'll not get in by the stage door, that's one thing certain."
"They'll not get in at all," declared Cordelia emphatically. "Where's Alphonso's doublet, Lee? I put it in this window box and it isn't here."
"Oh, I took it out," Lee told her. "I wanted to put in the fairy's dress, and the doublet crushed it, so I hung it up in my closet with the cap and the old monk's costume."
"You will call him a monk," protested Cordelia. "He is a minstrel."
"Well, he looks like a monk, or rather she looks like a monkess in that cloak."
"More like a monkey," put in Pen Robbins to whose lot it fell to play the part of minstrel. "I know I shall forget to sing the half of those lines extolling Alphonso's doughty deeds, as it is, and if I catch a sight of a single soph, I know I shall be a goner."