It was with a light heart that Grace Harlowe ate her breakfast and flitted about the house, putting a final touch here and there before receiving her guests.  Before eleven o’clock everything was finished, and as she arranged the last flower in its vase she felt a little thrill of pride as she looked about the pretty drawing room.  Before going upstairs to dress, she ran into the reception hall for the fourth time to feast her eyes upon a huge bunch of tall chrysanthemums in the beautiful Japanese vase that stood in the alcove under the stairs.  They had come about an hour before with a note from Tom Gray saying that he had arrived in Oakdale that morning, had seen the boys and would be around to help David and Reddy at the “girl convention,” as he termed it.

Grace was overjoyed at the idea of seeing Tom Gray again.  They had been firm friends since her freshman year, and had entertained a wholesome, boy-and-girl preference for each other untinged by any trace of foolish sentimentality.

As she dressed for dinner, Grace felt perfectly happy except for one thing.  She still smarted a little at Eleanor’s rude reply to her invitation.  She was one of those tender-hearted girls who disliked being on bad terms with any one, and she really liked Eleanor still, in spite of the fact that Eleanor did not in the least return the sentiment.

Grace sighed a little over the rebuff, and then completely forgot her trouble as she donned the new gown that had just come from the dressmaker.  It was of Italian cloth in a beautiful shade of dark red, made in one piece, with a yoke of red and gold net, and trimmed with tiny enameled buttons.  It fitted her straight, slender figure perfectly and she decided that for once she had been wise in foregoing her favorite blue and choosing red.

The party that evening was to be a strictly informal affair.  Grace had suspected that the girls whom the members of the Phi Sigma Tau were to entertain were not likely to possess evening gowns.  In order to avoid any possibility of hurt feelings, she had quietly requested those invited to wear the afternoon gowns in which they would appear at the game.

Before one o’clock her guests had arrived.  They were three shy, quiet girls who had worshiped Grace from a distance, and who had been surprised almost to tears by her invitation.  Two of them were from Portville, a small town about seventy miles from Oakdale, and had begun High School with Grace, who had been too busy with her own affairs up to the present to find out much about them.

The other girl, Marie Bateman, had entered the class that year.  She had come from a little village forty miles south of Oakdale, was the oldest of a large family, her mother being a widow of very small means.  As her mother was unable to send her away to school, she had done clerical work for the only lawyer in the home town for the previous two years, studying between whiles.  She had entered the High School in the junior class, determining to graduate and then to work her way through Normal School.  By dint of questioning, Grace had discovered that she lived in a shabby little room in the suburbs, never went anywhere and did anything honest in the way of earning money that she could find to do.