"Stop exchanging eye messages and tell me," ordered Mabel.
"Her name is Atkins," returned Grace briefly. Then a peculiar look in her eyes caused Mabel to say hastily, "I just wondered who she was," and changed the subject.
As they left Martell's, walking two by two, Mabel fell into step with Grace. Slipping her arm through that of the Oakdale girl, she said in a low tone, "Come over to see me to-morrow evening. I have something to say to you. I almost said it before the girls; then I caught your warning look in time. Come to dinner to-morrow night and stay all evening. I promise faithfully to make you study."
"I have a theme to do," replied Grace dubiously. "Do you think there would be any prospect of my getting it done?"
"Oceans of it," assured Mabel glibly. "I'll be as still as a mouse while you do it. If you need a subject perhaps I can furnish the inspiration. As long as I intend to become a newspaper woman I might as well begin to sprout a few ideas."
"All right, I'll come," laughed Grace. "Did I tell you I was taking chemistry this year? I find it very absorbing."
"I liked it, too," agreed Mabel. "I am more interested in psychology, though I like my essay and short story work best of all. I'm going in for interpretative reading, too. All that sort of thing will help me in my work when I leave here."
"I wish I knew what I wanted to do," sighed Grace. "I'd love to begin to plan about it now."
"It will dawn upon you suddenly some day," prophesied Mabel, "and you will wonder why you never thought of it before."
The diners strolled along together as far as the campus. There, Constance Fuller, Mabel, Frances and Helen Burton left the quartette from Wayne Hall.