“You know she just happens to be my freshman,” Betty explained smilingly. “I was asked to tutor her and look out for her a little. I liked her too, the little I’ve seen of her.” Betty had slipped on her rain-coat while they talked. “Come and help me find her, Georgia-dear-to-the-Rescue.”
The note-room is a notable Harding institution, time-honored and hedged about with inviolable customs. It gets its name from the four letter-racks, one for each class, that cover the long wall opposite the windows. The other walls are patched with Lost and Found and Want signs, and with notices of class and society meetings. A long table runs almost the length of the narrow room. On Mondays the janitor piles upon it the week’s accumulation of dropped handkerchiefs, for their owners to claim and carry off. On other days college celebrities may sit on it, swinging their feet comfortably while they beam on their admirers or wait to keep a “date” with one of their “little pals.” It is unwritten law that no freshmen save only the president, vice-president, and Students’ Council member may sit, or even lean, on the note-room table.
The note-room is always crowded between classes, and on this first disorganized, rainy morning it was a favorite rendezvous. As Betty and Georgia wormed a slow passage through the crowd near the door, they could see Miss Marie O’Toole, dressed, quite without regard for the weather, in a furbelowed silk gown, a huge be-flowered hat, and—of all things at Harding!—gloves, perched comfortably on the sacred table, between Fluffy Dutton and a clever little sophomore named Susanna Hart. Fluffy was all smiles and attention; Susanna’s black eyes twinkled with suppressed glee. Around the table surged a mob of girls, all amused but the freshmen, who were deeply and seriously interested in what was going on.
“Yes, I think I shall like it here,” Marie was saying in her sweet, piercing voice. “It’s so friendly and informal—not a bit like Miss Mallon’s Select School ‘pour les Americaines’ in dear old Paree. I’ve talked to lots of nice girls this morning. I can’t remember half their names, but they nearly all promised to call on me. You will too, won’t you?” She beamed impartially on Fluffy and Susanna.
“Maybe, if we have time. Got a crush yet?” inquired Fluffy sweetly.
“A what?” Marie’s face was blank.
Fluffy explained.
Marie giggled consciously. “You embarrass me, Miss Dutton. You go off and stand in a corner of the hall for a minute, and I’ll tell the rest of these girls whether I’ve got a crush or not,—and what her name is.”
Fluffy slipped obediently off the table, and then pulled the amazed Marie roughly after her. “Freshmen aren’t allowed on this table,” she announced sternly. “You’d better go home and read the rules of this college. There’s a rule about crushes, too. And about asking upper-class girls to call.” Then tender-hearted Fluffy relented and held out her hand. “I must go now,” she said. “But it won’t be against the rules for me to call on you, and I will. Where do you live?”
Marie explained, her gaiety somewhat subdued. Just then she caught sight of Betty and Georgia, who had at last succeeded in getting somewhere near the sacred table.