“She’s a lot nicer than the rest of her crowd,” Babbie reminded her, “and I think she’s tired of acting as if she wasn’t.”
“I hate freaks,” said Babe, “but it is fun to see them bustle around, acting as if they owned the earth. Leslie’s whole family is coming to commencement, down to the youngest baby, and the fat Miss Austin is fairly bursting with pride just because she’s on the supper committee. She has some good ideas, too.”
“Of course they’re proud,” said little Helen Adams sententiously. “Things you’ve never had always look valuable to you.”
Helen had won in the song contest. Her family would see her name and her song in print on the Ivy Day program, and May Hayward, a friend of hers and T. Reed’s in their desolate freshman year, was to be in the mob in Helen’s place.
All the changes had been made without any difficulty and no one was worrying lest experiments should prove the ruin of 19—’s commencement. Mr. Masters had protested hotly against Christy’s withdrawal from the play, but the new Antonio was proving herself a great success and even Mr. Masters had to admit that the whole play had gained decidedly the minute that the actors had dropped their other outside interests. But the great difference was in the spirit of good-fellowship that prevailed everywhere. Everybody had something to do now, or if not, then her best friend had, and they talked it over together, told what Christy had suggested about the tables for class-supper, how Kate was having all her own dresses made for Portia and Nerissa couldn’t afford to, so Eleanor Watson had lent her a beautiful blue satin, or what the new Ivy Day committees had decided about the exercises. There was no longer a monopoly of anything in 19—. Incidentally, as Katherine pointed out, nobody was resting her nerves at the infirmary.
Betty would have been perfectly happy if she hadn’t felt obliged to worry a little about Georgia Ames. Ashley Dwight had been up to see her twice since the prom. Betty felt responsible for their friendship and wondered if she ought to warn Tom that she really didn’t know anything about Georgia. For suppose Georgia hadn’t had anything to do with the Westcott house robbery; that didn’t prove anything about her having taken Nita’s pin in the fall.
If Madeline had spoken to her protégée, as she intended to do, about excluding the Blunderbuss from her acquaintance, Georgia had paid the advice scant heed. The Blunderbuss came to see her more and more often as the term went on. To be sure Georgia was very seldom at home when the senior called. Indeed her roommate was getting to feel decidedly injured because Georgia never used her room except to sleep and dress in.