With the delights of the past holiday season still fresh in their memories, the pupils of Oakdale High School went back to their studies on the fourth of January, and in the course of a few days everything was again in smooth running order.
Semi-annual examinations were but three weeks away, and that meant a general brushing up in studies on the part of every pupil.
The senior class had, perhaps, less to do in the way of study than the three lower classes. A few of the seniors already had enough credits to insure graduation, although the majority expected the results of the January examinations to place them securely among the number to be graduated.
The members of the Phi Sigma Tau, with the exception of Anne, were among the latter, and had settled down to a three weeks' grind, from which no form of pleasure could beguile them.
As for Anne, she had carried five studies the entire time she had been in High School and had never failed in even one examination. She might have graduated a year earlier had she been so disposed.
Away down in her heart Anne cherished a faint hope that the way for a college career would yet be opened to her. She had made up her mind to try for a scholarship, and she prayed earnestly that before the close of her senior year she might hit upon some plan that would furnish the money for her support during her freshman year in college.
Grace was optimistic in regard to Anne's college career.
"You'll have some opportunity to earn money before the year is out, just see if you don't," she said to Anne one day at recess, when the latter had developed an unusual case of the blues. "If you just keep wishing hard enough for a thing you are pretty sure to get it. That is, if it's something that's good for you to have."
"I've been wishing for the same thing ever since I came to Oakdale, and I haven't got it yet," replied Anne rather mournfully. "I've been unusually short of money this year, too, because Mrs. Gray has been away, and the money I received from her work was a great help."
"Poor little Anne," said Grace sympathetically. "I wish you didn't have to worry over money. However, Mrs. Gray will be home in February, and you'll have her work until June."