“Nonsense!” cried Betty positively. “Everybody knows that you’ve changed—everybody, that is, except that hateful Miss Harrison, and some day perhaps she’ll see it.”
That evening Betty explained to Helen, who had never heard a word of the “Argus” matter, why Eleanor had not been made an editor.
“Do you think there were any others to-day who didn’t want her?” she asked anxiously.
Helen hesitated. “Ye-es,” she admitted finally. “I think that Miss Harrison has some friends who feel as she does. I heard them whispering together. And one girl spoke to me. But I am sure they were about the only ones. Most of the girls feel dreadfully about it.”
“Of course no one who didn’t would say anything to me,” sighed Betty. “Oh, Helen, I am so disappointed.”
“Well,” returned Helen judicially, “it can’t be helped now, and in a way it may be a good thing. Eleanor will feel now that everybody who counts for much in the class understands, and perhaps there will be something else to elect her for, before the year is out.”
Betty shook her head. “No, it’s the last chance. She wouldn’t take anything after this, and anyway no one would dare to propose her, and risk having her insulted again.”
“I guess we shan’t any of us be tempted to do anything dishonest,” said Helen primly. “Doesn’t it seem to you as if the girls were getting more particular lately about saying whether they got their ideas from books and giving their authorities at the end of their papers?”
“Yes,” said Betty, “it does, and I think it’s a splendid thing. I went to a literary club meeting with Nan last Christmas and one of the papers was copied straight out of a book I’d just been reading, almost word for word. I told Nan and she laughed and said it was a very common way of doing. I think Harding girls will do a good deal if they help put a stop to that kind of thing. But that won’t be much comfort to Eleanor.”
When Helen had gone, Betty curled up on her couch to consider the day. “Mixed,” she told the little green lizard, “part very nice and part perfectly horrid, like most days in this world, I suppose, even in your best beloved senior year. I wonder if Prexy will like the scholarship idea. I straightened out one snarl, and then I helped make a worse one. And I shall be in another if I don’t set to work this very minute,” ended Betty, reaching for her Stout’s Psychology.