Nor was she alone in her desire.  The other girls were just as eager to overthrow the victorious juniors.  It was evident, so strong was the feeling in the class, that something more than a sense of sport had stirred them to this degree of rivalry.

The former freshman class had many scores against the present juniors.  As sophomores, the winter before, they had never missed an opportunity to annoy and irritate the freshmen in a hundred disagreeable ways.  “The Black Monks of Asia” still rankled in their memories.  Moreover, was not Julia Crosby, the junior captain?  She was the same mischievous sophomore who had created so much havoc at the Christmas ball.  She was always playing unkind practical jokes on other people.  It is true, she was an intimate and close friend of Miriam Nesbit, but they all were aware that Miriam was a law unto herself, and none of them had ever attempted to explain certain doings of hers in connection with Julia Crosby and her friends during the freshman year.

Grace’s mind was busy with these thoughts when the door of the gymnasium opened noisily.  There was a whoop followed by cries and calls and in rushed the junior players, most of them dressed in gymnasium suits.

Julia Crosby, at their head, had come with so much force, that she now slid halfway across the room, landing right in the midst of the sophomores.

“I beg your pardon,” said Grace, who had been almost knocked down by the encounter, “I suppose you did not notice us.  But you see, now, that we are in the midst of practising.  The gym. is ours for the afternoon.”

Julia Crosby looked at her insolently and laughed.

How irritating that laugh had always been to the rival class of younger girls.  It had a dozen different shades of meaning in it—­a nasty, condescending contemptuous laugh, Grace thought, and such qualities had no right to be put in a laugh at all, since laughing is meant to show pleasure and nothing else.  But Julia Crosby always laughed at the wrong time; especially when there was nothing at which to laugh.

“Who said the gym. was yours for the afternoon?” she asked.

“Miss Thompson said so,” answered Grace.  “I asked her, this morning, and she gave us permission, as she did to you last Monday, when the boys were all out at the football grounds.”

“Have you a written permission?” asked Julia Crosby, laughing again, so disagreeably that hot-headed Nora was obliged to turn away to keep from saying something unworthy of herself.

“No,” answered Grace, endeavoring to be calm under these trying circumstances, but her voice trembling nevertheless with anger.  “No, I have no written permission and you had none last Monday.  You know as well as I do that the boys principal is willing to lend us the gym. as often as we like during football season, when it is not much in use; and that Miss Thompson tries to divide the time as evenly as possible among the girls.”