"What's the prize?" questioned Bess. "I can't run well unless I know it's worth it."
"You get the hole out of a doughnut," said Nan. "All sugared over, too."
"And a glass of frozen ice-water," added Grace.
"This is all the way around the campus," went on Laura. "No cutting corners, remember. You must follow the trees and the hedge. One cent fine if you don't. All ready? One—two—three, go!"
With wild shouts and much laughter the race around the campus was on.
Nan won "by a nose," as Laura rather slangily put it, and the girls, glowing and breathless, looked like anything else than confessed law-breakers doing penance.
The sight of their happy faces was too much for Linda, who, with Cora, was passing them, drawing the Gay Girl and carrying their skates over their shoulders.
"Some people try mighty hard to show that they're having a good time," she remarked to her companion.
"Blessings brighten as they take their flight, as the girl said when she couldn't leave the campus," grinned Cora maliciously.