"It has been intimated us that we are not to be granted the privilege of remaining at Wayland Hall during our junior year. We understand the reason for this injustice and wish you to understand it also. Miss Remson, the manager of the Hall, has taken sides with a certain few students in the house who have a fancied grudge against a number of young women whose interests I am now representing. Miss Remson has allowed these students to place us in the most humiliating of positions; has even aided and abetted them in putting us in a false light. She has also reprimanded us frequently for offenses of which we are not guilty. We are willing to overlook all this and try even more earnestly in future to please Miss Remson. This, in spite of the harsh way in which we have been treated by all concerned. We are not willing to leave the Hall. We came here to live as freshmen and we object to being thrust from it after two years' residence in it. We have been given to understand that complaint against us is to be lodged with you by Miss Remson. Will you not take up the matter summarily with her and see that we obtain justice?
"Yours sincerely,
"Joan Myers."
A united gasp arose as Miss Remson finished the reading of Joan Myers' letter and laid it on the desk.
"Can you beat that?" inquired Jerry, in such deep disgust everyone laughed. "Of all the cast-iron, nickle-plated nerve, commend me to the Sans."
"Outrageous!" Leila's black brows were drawn in a deep scowl. "And they are clever, too," she nodded with conviction. "That letter is the kind a man of Doctor Matthews' standing detests. It gives the whole affair the air of a school-girl quarrel. Very hard on your dignity, Miss Remson," she glanced sympathetically at the little manager.
"Not only that. I am practically cut off from my old friendly standing with the president." Miss Remson's usually quick tones faltered slightly. "I would not appeal to him for justice again if these lawless girls brought the Hall down about my ears. You can understand my position."
She appealed to her youthful hearers In general. "It was my belief that you should be told this by me, as I had assured you last spring that I would not have these trouble-making, untruthful students at the Hall this year, if I could help it. They are coming back wholly against my will. We were into Commencement week last June when this occurred, so I said nothing to any of you. It would have been an annoyance to you during the summer every time you happened to recall it."
"Who told the Sans that you weren't going to allow them to come back to the Hall?" was Marjorie's pertinent question. "I can answer for every one of us in saying that we never repeated a word outside of our own intimate circle."
"That is a question I have pondered more than once during the summer," Miss Remson responded with alacrity. "I did not suspect one of you for an instant. I do not see how anyone could have overheard the remarks I made on the subject, as I made them in this office with the door always closed. President Matthews is, of course, above suspicion. His secretary would not dare repeat his official business, even to an intimate friend. I mailed my letter to the president. It went through the postoffice. This precludes the possibility of it having been tampered with."
"Perhaps the Sans guessed that you would refuse them admittance to the Hall this year because you called the meeting in the living room," was Muriel's plausible surmise. "You had had a good deal of trouble with them and they knew they were in the wrong; that you disapproved of them. They may have scented disaster and taken the bull by the horns. They calculated, perhaps, that you might appeal to President Matthews and thought they would secure themselves by reporting us and accusing you of favoritism."