"Oh, yes, you can," declared Lucy. "Come to the meeting to-morrow at two, and we'll give you plenty to help about."
"Time's up," called the captain of the regulars, and Lucy ran for the door, leaving Betty in a state of pleased excitement. Dorothy King was president of her class this year, and therefore also president of the Students' Commission. Marion Lawrence was a representative from the junior class. To be even a temporary member of so august an assembly seemed to Betty a very great privilege. She was so busy wondering who had chosen her,—whether Lucy or the whole commission,—and what to-morrow's meeting would be like, that she deliberately threw the ball twice toward the wrong basket and never discovered her mistake until Elizabeth West begged her please to "come to" and help her own side a little just for variety.
On the way home Betty met Miss Ferris. "Come and have tea with me, little girl," she said.
"Could I, like this?" asked Betty wistfully, pulling back her rain-coat to show her gym. suit and the tightly braided pig-tails tucked inside.
Miss Ferris laughed. "I shouldn't mind, but some one else might drop in.
It takes me ten minutes to make tea. Now run!"
Exactly nine minutes and a half later. Betty, looking very slender and stately in a clinging blue gown and a big plumed hat, her cheeks pink with excitement and her hair blown into fascinating ringlets from her brisk run across the campus, knocked timidly on Miss Ferris's door.
"Come in," called Miss Ferris. "You're early. The water hasn't boiled."
"It used to take me half an hour to dress, at the very fastest," said Betty, slipping into a low chair by the fire, where she could watch Miss Ferris making tea in a fat little silver pot, and pouring it into cups so thin and beautiful that Betty hardly dared touch hers, and breathed a deep sigh of relief when it was safely emptied and out of her hands.
Just as she was leaving, she told Miss Ferris about her appointment to the Students' Commission.
"Well," said Miss Ferris, "that won't be new work for you. You were an ex-officio member last year."