“I know it,” agreed Grace.  “There was just as large a crowd here when Nora and Jessica went away last Monday.  Doesn’t it seem dreadful that we are obliged to be separated?  How I hated to see the girls go.  And we won’t be together again until Christmas.”

“Oh, here come the boys!” announced Eva Allen, who, with Marian Barber, had been standing a little to one side of the three girls.

At this juncture four smiling young men hurried through the crowd of young people and straight to the circle surrounding the three girls, where they were received with cries of:  “We were afraid you’d be too late!” and, “Why didn’t you get here earlier?”

“We’re awfully sorry!” exclaimed David Nesbit.  “We had to wait for Hippy.  He overslept as usual.  We threw as much as a shovelful of gravel against his window, but he never stirred.  Finally we had to waken his family and it took all of them to waken him.”

“Don’t you believe what David Nesbit says,” retorted Hippy.  “Do you suppose I slept a wink last night knowing that the friends of my youth were about to leave me?” Hippy sniffed dolefully and buried his face in his handkerchief.

“Now, now, Hippy,” protested Miriam.  “If you insist on shedding crocodile tears, although I don’t believe you could be sad long enough to shed even that kind, we shall feel that you are glad to get rid of us.”

“Never!” ejaculated Hippy fervently.  “Oh, if I only had Irish Nora here to stand up for me!  She wouldn’t allow any one, except herself, to speak harsh and cruel words to me.”

“We shan’t be able to speak many more words of any kind to you,” said Miriam, consulting her watch.  “The train is due in ten minutes.”

When Grace Harlowe and her three dear friends, Nora O’Malley, Jessica Bright and Anne Pierson, began to make history for themselves in their freshman year at Oakdale High School, none of them could possibly imagine just how dear they were to become to the hearts of the hundreds of girls who made their acquaintance in “Grace Harlowe’s Plebe Year at High School.”  The story of their freshman year was one of manifold trials and triumphs.  It was at the beginning of that year that Grace Harlowe had championed the cause of Anne Pierson, a newcomer in Oakdale.  Then and there a friendship sprang up between the two girls that was destined to be life long.  The repeated efforts of several malicious girls to discredit Anne in the eyes of her teachers, and her final triumph in winning the freshman prize offered to the class by Mrs. Gray, a wealthy resident of Oakdale, made the narrative one of interest and aroused a desire on the part of the reader to know more of Grace Harlowe and her friends.

In “Grace Harlowe’s Sophomore Year at High School” the girl chums appeared as basketball enthusiasts.  In this volume was related the efforts of Julia Crosby, a disagreeable junior, and Miriam Nesbit, a disgruntled sophomore, to disgrace Anne and wrest the basketball captaincy from Grace.  Through the magnanimity of Grace Harlowe, Miriam and Julia were brought to a realization of their own faults, and in time became the faithful friends of both Anne and Grace.