"Like babies!"
"How silly!"
"To be perfectly frank, Miss Leslie, I must say I don't think so. Alison is an awfully dear girl, and all that, but I hardly think she represents the element we hope to get into Alpha. I'm sorry to say so, but—"
"The voting has begun," said the president. "Will you hurry, please?"
"Miss President," said Cornelia Burt, rising abruptly, "may I speak to the society before the voting?"
"Certainly, Miss Burt," said the president. There was an instant hush, and the girls stood clustered about the ballot-table in their pretty, light dresses—a charming sight, Neal thought vaguely, as she hunted for the words to say.
"I know perfectly well that what I am about to propose is quite unconstitutional," she began, and to her own ears her voice seemed far off. How many there were, and how surprised and attentive they looked! They were no fools, as she had said. They represented the cleverest element in the college, on the whole, and they had, naturally enough, their own designs and inclinations—why should they be turned from them in a moment?
"I know that no girl is eligible for voting upon until she has been read two meetings before, and been properly put up for membership, and all that," said Neal, quietly, with her eyes fixed on Patsy's, who tried to evade them. Poor Patsy. She wanted Kate to get the society in her sophomore year! "But I am in possession of certain facts that seem to me to warrant the breaking through the constitution, if such a thing can ever be done."
The silence had become intense. An ominous look of surprise deepened on the girls' faces, and the president looked doubtfully at the secretary.
"I think I am quite justified in believing that I have not the reputation of a sentimental person," said Cornelia. She had herself well in hand, now. The opposition that she felt nerved her to her customary self-possession. A little grin swept around the room. She was, apparently, quite justified.