Amy took out a sheet of copy paper from her Ancient History, and read aloud: 

    “Oh, wayward maid,
      Hast strayed
    Too far from native strand. 
     Lost in a maze, the savage gaze
      Becomes a frightened, spellbound gaze,
     By fond ambition fanned.”

“Sounds just like Pope, doesn’t it?” said Kit.  “I like that last line, ’by fond ambition fanned.’”

    “Seek not the sacred hall of fame,
      Cling to thy simple life,
     On Hope’s high banner, Beaubien,
      Shall never, never——­”

But Kit interrupted pointblank.  She was sitting up very straight on the divan, with a certain expression around her mouth, and a very steady purposeful look in her eyes, which even Jean at home paid attention to.

“Just a minute,” she said, quickly.  “Do you mean Marcelle Beaubien?  Because if you do, I don’t think that’s fair.”

CHAPTER XII

Kit locates A “Founder”

Peg patted her in a conciliatory manner.

“Now, my child,” she said, “curb that swift and rising wrath, and bottle the vials thereof.  What is Hecuba to you, or you to Hecuba?”

“Poor little Peggy,” Charity murmured, “getting into trim for a Shakespeare drive?  You know, Kit, our Peg is president of the Portia Dramatic Club, and the mantle doth not rest lightly on her young shoulders.”

But Kit could not be diverted, and the color rose somewhat belligerently in Amy’s cheeks, too;

“I don’t see,” she said, “why you feel that you have to take Marcelle Beaubien’s part.  If you knew all about her the way we girls do, you’d let her alone.”

“I don’t see how she ever came up here anyway,” Norma remarked.  “It’s just exactly as if one of her brothers tried to come in.  Do you think the boys would stand for that?”

“Why on earth shouldn’t they?” demanded Kit, hotly.  “And I’d like to know what they’ve got to say about it anyway.  I don’t think that’s the college spirit.  Any one who wants an education and is willing to work for it should be admitted.”

“Yes, but if they had any sense at all,” responded Norma, placidly, “they wouldn’t put themselves into the position of being snubbed.  You can talk all you want to about the college spirit from the standpoint of Deans and faculties, but when all’s said and done, it’s the student spirit that rules.  I’ll bet that she doesn’t stay here a month.  She hasn’t any one to help her at home, and can’t afford tutoring, so she’ll just peter out.”

“Dear, dear friends of my youth,” Charity exclaimed, on her knees before the couch, “here are some wonderful chocolates and cheese straws and pimentoes.  Let’s have a love feast immediately and bury the hatchet.  Kit, your hair isn’t red enough to warrant any such exhibitions, and you’ll have to cut them out.”