"But you still like college, don't you, Betty?"
"Oh, yes!" assented Betty eagerly. "I just love it." Then she laughed merrily. "You and Nan told me the summer before I came here that all nice girls liked college, so it's hardly polite of you to ask me now if I like it, Ethel."
Then Miss Hale laughed in her turn. "And who are your friends this year?" she pursued. "Has your last year's crowd broken up?"
"Oh, no! We're all too fond of one another for that. Of course we're in different houses now, some of us, and we've all made lots of new friends down on the campus. Do you know Madeline Ayres?"
Miss Hale nodded. "I'm glad you know her, Betty; she's a splendid girl.
And how is your protege, Miss Watson, getting on nowadays?"
"Beautifully." Betty launched into an enthusiastic account of Eleanor's literary triumph, her softened manner, her sudden popularity, and her improved scholarship.
Miss Hale listened attentively. "That's very interesting," she said. "I had no idea that Miss Watson would ever make anything out of her college course. And do you see as much of her as ever, or has she dropped her old friends now that she has so many new ones?"
"Oh, dear!" said Betty sadly. "You don't like her one bit, do you, Ethel? I'm so sorry. Nan didn't like her either. Of course I know she has her faults, but I do love her so—"
"I'm glad of that," broke in Miss Hale heartily. "She would have left Harding in disgrace last June, if she hadn't had such a loyal friend in you. We can't help people unless we care for them, Betty,—and sometimes not then," added Ethel soberly. "The only way is to take all your opportunities, and then if you fail with one, as I did with Miss Watson, you may succeed with some one else. And it's the finest thing in college, Betty, or in life,—the feeling that you really mean something to somebody. I wish I'd learned to appreciate it sooner."
They walked on for a while in silence, Betty wondering if she did "really mean something" to Eleanor or to Helen Adams, Miss Hale harking back to her own college days and questioning whether she and her set had ever spared a thought for anything beyond their own fun and ambitions and successes. She blushed guiltily in the dark, as she remembered how they had snubbed Nan Wales, until Nan actually forced them to recognize her ability, and later to discover that they all wanted her for a friend.