CHAPTER XVII
THE LAST STRAW
The days glided by rapidly. The Christmas holidays came, bringing with them the usual round of gayeties. Thanks to the Phi Sigma Tau, the lonely element of High School girls did not lack for good cheer. As at Thanksgiving, each member of the sorority entertained two or more girls on Christmas and New Year's, and were amply repaid for their good deed by the warm appreciation of their guests.
Tom Gray came down for the holidays, bringing with him his roommate, Arnold Evans, a fair-haired, blue-eyed young man of twenty, who proved himself thoroughly likable in every respect. He lost no time in cultivating Miriam's acquaintance, and the two soon became firm friends.
Tom gave a dinner to his roommate, inviting "the seven originals," as he expressed it, and Miriam, who felt that at last she really belonged in the charmed circle. David was even more pleased than his sister over the turn affairs had taken. To have Miriam a member of his own particular "crowd" had always been David's dearest wish, and the advent of Arnold Evans had done away with Miriam being the odd one. So the circle was enlarged to ten young people, who managed to crowd the two weeks' vacation with all sorts of healthful pleasures.
There were coasting and sleighing parties, and on one occasion a walk to old Jean's hut in Upton Wood, where they were hospitably entertained by the old hunter, who had smilingly pointed to the wolf skins on the wall, asking them if they remembered the winter day two years before when those same skins held wolves who were far too lively for comfort. Then the story of their escape had to be gone over again for Arnold's benefit.
They had stayed until the moon came up, and, accompanied by the old hunter, had walked back to Oakdale in the moonlight.
After the holidays came the brief period of hard study before the dreaded mid-year examinations. Basketball enthusiasm declined rapidly and a remarkable devotion to study ensued that lasted until examinations began. By the last week in January, the ordeal was past.
Eleanor Savell had not yet returned to school. Whether or not she would be allowed to return was a question that occasioned a great deal of discussion among three lower classes of girls. Edna Wright and the other members of the sorority organized by Eleanor were loud in their expressions of disapproval as to Miss Thompson's "severity" toward Eleanor. They talked so freely about it, that it reached the principal's ears. She lost no time in sending for them, and after a session in the office, they emerged looking subdued and crestfallen; and after that it was noted that when in conversation with their schoolmates, they made no further allusion to Miss Thompson's methods of discipline.