"What?" Leslie stared. A faint snicker arose from two or three of the other girls. "You seem to have recovered your wits again, Nat," she said with elaborate carelessness. "We are quits, I guess, for the present."
"Thank goodness!" This from Joan Myers. "Now that peace has been restored, perhaps you will condescend to tell us what you started out to say, Leslie."
"De-lighted." Leslie bowed ironically. "To jump into the middle of the subject at once, I asked you seven Sans to this party tonight for a purpose. We eight girls are the founders of the Sans. I told all the other Sans that I wasn't going to ask them here tonight, and not to get their backs humped about it. I promised 'em a big party at the Ivy Saturday night. There is a private dining room there with a long table that will seat the whole eighteen of us. I don't know whether they liked it or not, and I don't care. It was up to us to talk things over and let them into it afterward."
"Some of the girls had other engagements anyway," put in Joan Myers. "I know Anne Dawson and Loretta Kelly were invited to a senior blow-out at Alston Terrace."
"Well, that's neither here nor there," retorted Leslie somewhat rudely. It did not please her to learn that any of the Sans had received more attention from the seniors than herself. Thus far she had not been the recipient of an invitation to dine from a senior. She was still inwardly sore at the lack of attention they had met with on their arrival at Hamilton station.
"I don't think it is a very good policy for we eight founders of the Sans to keep to ourselves too much," deprecated Dulcie Vale, regardless of Leslie's views on the subject. "The whole eighteen of us will have to stick together and work hard if we expect to keep the upper hand of things here at Hamilton."
"Oh, forget it," ordered Leslie brusquely. "Your trouble is easy to explain. You are sore because I didn't invite Eleanor, your pal, to this dinner."
"I am not," stoutly contradicted Dulcie. Nevertheless her sudden flush belied her words.
"Of course you are," went on Leslie imperturbably. "Understand, I didn't want the rest of the gang here tonight, and that's that. What I started out to say when Nat and Joan and Margaret and you butted in, one by one, was this: We must bestir ourselves and make a fuss over the freshies. This year's freshman class is, I'm told, the largest entering class for ten years. I don't feel like bothering myself with the diggy, priggy element of freshies, but even they will have to be considered. I'd do anything to spite that Sanford crowd and upset the progress they have made against us."
"What progress have they made, I'd like to know?" demanded Harriet Stephens scornfully. "If you mean the way they got back at us for ragging Miss Dean, I think that was simply disgraceful in them to call a meeting as they did and blacken our standing at Wayland Hall. It is a wonder we managed to keep our rooms at the Hall after all the row they made about a little bit of ragging."