“They certainly are,” maintained the tall girl.
“Don’t grab all the bouquets, Gus,” lazily advised Calista Wilmot, the black-eyed girl. “Leave a few for someone else.”
“Sha’n’t. I want ’em all myself.” The reply was careless rather than ill-humored. “Anyhow there was nothing startlingly beautiful about that one girl you folks are raving over.”
“Oh, I think there was,” differed the freshman with the eyeglasses, with a positiveness that courted argument.
“Do you suppose they were freshmen?” A plump blonde girl with a pleasing face tactfully propounded this question. Anna Perry, the stolid freshman, and Augusta Forbes never agreed on anything. Charlotte Robbins purposed to nip rising argument in the bud if she could.
“No, indeed,” Augusta assured. “The tall one with the black hair is a post graduate. I inquired about her. She rooms three doors up the hall from Flossie and me. I haven’t seen the others before. I don’t care to again.” A glint of wounded pride appeared in her eyes as she made this announcement.
“Why, Gus?” demanded three or four voices.
“Because they are snippy. Didn’t you see the disgusted way that one girl in light blue looked at us? Much as to say, ‘Oh, those silly freshmen!’ They are all upper class girls. I don’t admire their manners. They were making fun of us, I’m sure. They have no time for mere freshmen.”
“Gus talks as if it were a positive crime to be a freshman in the eyes of the upper class students.” Calista Wilmot lifted her thin shoulders. “I’ve always heard they go by preference rather than class in taking up a freshman.”
“They do not.” Augusta seemed determined to oppose her companions. “The juniors and seniors at college are awfully high and mighty. I have been told that they are very patronizing to the freshmen. They shall not patronize me. I won’t submit to it. This business of the freshmen having to defer to upper class students is all nonsense. I shall assert myself from the start.”