“Oh, well, so is every freshman sure she’ll flunk,” condoled Babbie Hildreth easily, “and most sophomores.”
Betty nodded. “Of course. The difference is that the rest won’t flunk, except a few who aren’t expecting to, and Marie will, I guess, from all that I hear.”
The acting tutors exchanged surreptitious glances, and reluctantly agreed that Betty was right.
“Has she really lost her nerve—given up the ship?” asked Madeline thoughtfully.
“Oh, no,” Betty told her, “she’s trying harder than ever. She’s determined to pass.”
“She’s working too hard, probably,” said Mary thoughtfully. “She really knows a good average amount about Latin prose.”
“Her themes are fair now,” put in Madeline.
“She knows heaps more about freshman lit. than I ever did,” acknowledged Helen Adams.
“When she isn’t nervous about it she can reason out her geometry pretty well,” Christy testified. “She’s naturally quite logical.”
“Then,” said Babbie Hildreth, looking sternly at the official tutors, “if you’ve done your duty, as you imply that you have, and she’s fairly well up in everything, why in the world are you so pessimistic about her exams?”