In “Grace Harlowe’s sophomore year,” the girl chums were found leading their class in athletics.  Here, Miriam Nesbit, still unsubdued, endeavored once more to humiliate Anne Pierson, and to oust Grace from her position as captain of the basketball team, being aided in her plan by Julia Crosby, captain of the junior team, against whom the sophomores had engaged to play a series of three games.  Grace’s brave rescue of Julia Crosby during a skating party and the latter’s subsequent repentance restored good feeling between the two classes, and the book ended with the final conversion of Miriam after her long and stubbornly nursed enmity.

David Nesbit’s trial flight in his aeroplane, Grace’s encounter with the escaped lunatic, who imagined himself to be Napoleon Bonaparte, were among the features which made the book absorbing from start to finish.

The clang of the first bell broke in upon the chattering groups, and obedient to its summons, the girls moved slowly out of the locker-room and down the corridor, talking in subdued tones as they strolled toward the study hall.

Miss Thompson stood at her desk, serene and smiling, as the girls filed in.

“How well Miss Thompson looks,” whispered Grace to Anne as they neared their seats.  “Let’s go up and see her when this session is over.  It’s sure to be short this morning.”

It was customary on the opening of school for the members of the various classes to take their seats of the previous year.  Then the sections were rearranged, the seniors taking the seats left by the graduates, and the other classes moving up accordingly.  The first day of school amounted to really nothing further than being assigned to one’s seat and getting used to the idea of school again.  Miss Thompson usually addressed the girls on the duty of High School students, and the girls went forth full of new resolutions that last for at least a week.

Grace looked curiously about her.  She wondered if there were to be many new girls that year.  The present freshmen, direct from the Grammar Schools, sat on the front seats looking a trifle awed at the idea of being academic pupils, and feeling very strange and uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many pairs of eyes.

Her glance wandered toward the new sophomore class, as though in search of some one, her eyes brightening as she caught sight of the brown-eyed girl who had won the freshman prize the previous June.  The latter looked as helpless and friendless as when Grace first saw her step up on the platform to receive her money.  “I shall certainly find out more about that child,” she decided.  “What is her name?  I heard it at commencement, but I have forgotten it.”

Taking a leaf from a little note-book that she always carried, Grace wrote:  “Do you see the freshman-prize girl over among the sophomores?  What is her name?  I can’t remember.”  Then, folding the paper, she tossed it to Anne, who nodded; then wrote, “Mabel Allison,” and handed it to the girl sitting opposite her, who obligingly passed it over to Grace.