"Isn't it nice of her?" returned Betty, with enthusiasm.
And Jean, meditating on the matter later, decided shrewdly that Betty Wales was somehow at the bottom of Eleanor's unexplainable change of heart, and advised the Hill girls to make a determined effort to monopolize Eleanor's time and interest, before she had become hopelessly estranged from their counsels. But to all their attentions Eleanor paid as little heed as she did to the persistent appeals of Paul West, a friend at Winsted College, a few miles away, that she should give up "slaving over something you don't care about and come over to our next dance." To the Hill girls Eleanor gave courteous but firm denials, and she wrote Paul West that once in three weeks was as often as she had time for callers.
"And you really had a good time?" said Eleanor, riding down to Market
Street to see Miss Carlson home.
"Splendid!" said Miss Carlson, heartily. "I'm sorry your first partner was sick, but I guess I enjoyed it fully as much as she would. Your friends were all so nice to me."
"I'm glad of that," said Eleanor, relieved to find that Dora had not apparently noticed Jean Eastman's insolent manner, nor the careless self- absorption of one or two of her other partners. "And now that you've met the girls," she added practically, "you mustn't let them forget you. Making friends is one of the nicest things about college."
"Yes, isn't it?" responded the little freshman, quickly. "I quite agree with you, but I don't expect to make any. I guess it's like other gifts. It doesn't come natural to some people. But," she added, brightening, "I came here to learn Greek and Latin, so that I can teach and support my father in his old age. And the good time I've had to-night is enough to last me for one while, I guess."
Eleanor put out a slim, white hand and caught Miss Carlson's hard, brown one impetuously in hers, "Don't," she said. "That isn't the way things are here. Good times don't have to last, because one always leads to another. Why, I know another that's coming to you very soon. I've had a good deal of company for dinner lately and I can't ask for a place again right away, but the first Sunday that I can arrange it, you're coming up to have dinner with me at the Hilton House. Will you?"
Jean Eastman had a great deal to say about Eleanor's freshman crush, as she called Dora Carlson. It was foolish, she said, and not in good taste, to send a bunch of violets as big as your head to a perfect stranger, whom you never expected to see again. Later, after Dora's appearance at the Hilton for Sunday dinner, Jean declared that it was a shame for Eleanor to invite her up there and make her think she really liked her, when it was only done for effect, and she would drop the poor child like a hot coal the minute she felt inclined to.
Even Betty Wales failed to understand Eleanor's interest in the quaint little freshman, and she and the other Chapin house girls rallied her heartily about Miss Carlson's open and unbounded adoration.
"Please don't encourage the poor thing so," laughed Katherine, one day not long after the reception. "Why, yesterday morning at chapel I looked up in the gallery and there she was in the front row, hanging over the railing as far as she dared, with her eyes glued to you. Some day she'll fall off, and then think how you'll feel, when the president talks about the terrible evils of the crush system, and stares straight at you."