“Nobody seemed to care much about its being so slow, except me,” she said to Helen, as they did it up in neat little bundles to be handed to the guests of the evening at chapel. “Weren’t Eleanor and Roberta fine?”
“Yes,” agreed Helen enthusiastically. “But isn’t it queer that Roberta won’t let us praise her? She seems to be ashamed of being able to be so funny.”
Betty laughed. “That’s Roberta,” she said. “It will be months before she’ll do it again, I’m afraid. I suppose she felt last night as if she had to do what she could for the honor of the house, so she came out of her shell.”
“She told Rachel that she did it on your account. She said you looked as if you wanted to cry.”
Betty flushed prettily. “How nice of her! I did want to cry. I felt as if I was to blame about the fudge. I wish I had a nice stunt like that of Eleanor’s to come to people’s rescue with.”
“Were those what you call stunts?” inquired Helen earnestly. “I didn’t know what they were, but they were fine.”
“Why, Helen Chase Adams, do you mean that you’ve been in college two months and don’t know what a stunt is—” began Betty, and stopped, blushing furiously and fearing that she had hurt Helen’s feelings. For the reason why she did not know about stunts was obvious.
Helen took it very simply. “You know I’m not asked to things outside,” she said, “and I don’t seem to be around when the girls do things here. So why should I know?”
“No reason at all,” said Betty decidedly. “They are just silly little parlor tricks anyway–most of them–not worth wasting time over. Do you know Miss Willis told us in English class that a great deal of slang originated in college, and she gave ‘stunt’ as an example. She said it had been used here ever so long and only a few years outside, in quite a different meaning. Isn’t that queer?”
“Yes,” said Helen indifferently. “She told my division too, but she didn’t say what it meant here. I suppose she thought we’d all know.”