“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion. “Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think that you have had anything to do with my failure.”
Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward their door.
Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”
The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming down the hall.”
As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had appeared to interrupt them.
“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few ballots of the Junior class.”
However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.
It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean waited calmly in the center of the room.
Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a farm clasp of Olive’s hand.
“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.