"Really!" exclaimed Mabel. "Elfreda seems to be coming to the front this year, doesn't she!"
"She is turning out splendidly," said Grace warmly. "She stands high in every one of her classes, and she is so ridiculously funny that we would feel lost without her. She says things in the same droll way that a young man we know in Oakdale does. But I mustn't stay another minute. Good-bye, Mabel, I'll see you in a day or two."
Grace darted across the campus and ran rapidly in the direction of Wayne Hall. She loved to run and her fleetness of foot had served her well on more than one occasion. Only that day she had complained to Miriam that it had been years since she had indulged in a good run. Miriam had laughingly accused her of still being a tomboy, and had proposed that they take a long tramp on Saturday. "You can run up and down the road to your heart's content when we get far enough away from Overton so that no one will see you and think you have suddenly gone crazy," Miriam had declared good-naturedly.
Bounding up the steps two at a time, Grace reached the front door of Wayne Hall without drawing a laboring breath. "I'm certainly in good condition," she laughed to herself, inhaling deeply and inflating her chest. "I hope I'll be chosen to play on the team this year." She rang a third time before the door was opened by Emma Dean, who grumbled at her repeated ringing and then announced that she had rung six times that afternoon before any one had condescended to let her in. "Have you seen Elfreda?" flung back Grace on her way upstairs.
"You'd better hurry," called Emma after her. "I heard her growling to herself as I passed her door."
"I began to think you were never coming," greeted Elfreda, as Grace burst into the room, her eyes bright and her cheeks becomingly flushed from her recent run across the campus.
"Why didn't you ask some one else to hook you up?" retorted Grace mischievously, throwing down her gloves and beginning on the top hook.
"Because I wanted you to see how nice I looked in this new frock," replied the stout girl. "If I had not stipulated that you were to perform this extremely important service for me, you would have in all probability absented yourself from my immediate vicinity, unmindful of the rare exhibition of youth and beauty that was being prepared for you in my room."
"If I had closed my eyes I could have sworn it was Miss Atkins," laughed Grace. "Even she herself couldn't fail to recognize that impersonation. It's ridiculously funny, Elfreda, but I wish you wouldn't do it." As Grace and Elfreda were standing with their backs directly away from the door neither girl saw the tense little figure that stood rigid, one hand on the door casing, listening with eyebrows drawn fiercely together. An instant later it had vanished. Grace, after triumphantly placing the last hook in its eye, began helping Elfreda find her handkerchief and gloves. "Now you have everything you need," she declared, holding up the stout girl's coat. "Do you wait here for your dinner partner or does she call for you?"
"She is coming in here for me," answered Elfreda. "I wish she would hurry along. I haven't had even a cracker to eat since luncheon and I'm famished."