"You mean we must rush the freshies?" interrogated Margaret Wayne.
"Yes," nodded Leslie. "Cart them around in our cars. Blow them off to dinners and luncheons. Begin tomorrow to go down to the station and grab them as they come off the train."
"Deliver me from the station act." Joan Myers made a wry face.
"You'll have to go to it with the rest of us," insisted Leslie with a suggestive lowering of brows. "This is really serious business, Joan. I don't intend to sit still and see a bunch of muffs like those Sanford girls run Hamilton College. We had things all our own way until they came upon the scene. Nothing has been as it should be for us since then. They have turned a lot of upper class girls against us. I don't mean Leila Harper and her crowd. They never had any time for us. There are a good many Silverton Hall girls of our social standing, but they went almost solid against us in that Miss Reid affair last year. Who was to blame for that? Those Sanford busybodies, you may be sure."
"I believe it was that Miss Page who started the Silverton Hall gang," differed Dulcie Vale, with a touch of sulkiness. She was still peeved at Leslie and now delighted in expressing a contrary opinion.
"I don't care what you believe," mimicked Leslie disagreeably. "I say it was the Sanford crowd who started the trouble."
"Say it, then. Sing it if you like," retorted Dulcie. "I am privileged to my own opinion."
"Keep it to yourself, then. I don't care to hear it," coolly returned Leslie. "You girls make me weary. You are all so ready to start fussing over nothing."
"You are just as ready!" burst forth Dulcie, in a sudden gust of anger. "You think we all ought to do precisely as you say and never have an opinion of our own. I fail to see why I, at least, should be bossed by you. It isn't we girls that are at fault. It is you. I like you, Leslie, when you don't try to run everything. When you begin bullying, I can't endure you. Please don't attempt to bully me, for I won't stand it."
"There is one thing about it," broke in Harriet Stephens decidedly, "we shall not accomplish much if there is no unity among us. So far as I am concerned, I would rather have Leslie take the lead. I will never forgive the Sanford crowd for what they did to us last March. If Leslie can find ways to get even with them, I am willing to do as she says, simply to see those hateful girls defeated in whatever they set out to do."