“Isn’t it rather early in the year to be conditioned?” asked Miriam.

“Yes, but Beatrice has been cutting classes ever since she came back this year,” confided Mabel.  “I am not betraying a confidence in telling you this.  She admits that she neglects her work.  She says she is going to settle down after mid-year’s exams and work.”

“I think she’s about the most snobbish proposition I ever came across,” announced Elfreda.  “It would serve her right if she did flunk in her examinations.  I hope with all my heart she falls down with an awful bump.”

Elfreda had forgotten her former aspirations toward cultivating the true college spirit.

“You mustn’t wish even your bitterest enemy bad luck,” smiled Mabel Ashe.  “Superstitious people say that the bad luck will be visited on the head of the one who wishes it.”

“I’m not superstitious,” retorted Elfreda.  “Of course, I believe that pins cut friendship, and that it’s bad luck to see the new moon through the window, or to walk under a ladder.  It’s a sure sign of death to break a looking glass or dream of white flowers, too, and to drop a spoon means certain disappointment, but aside from a few little things like that, I certainly don’t believe in signs.”

“Oh, no, you don’t believe in signs,” chorused the girls, in gleeful sarcasm.

“Well, I don’t,” reiterated Elfreda.  “That is, not a whole lot of them.”

“Good-bye, children, I must leave you at this corner,” announced Mabel.  “Come and see me soon.  I’ll look you up the first evening I have free.”

“I should think that Miss Alden would hate herself,” remarked Elfreda scornfully, as she marched along beside Grace.  “She hates you, that’s sure enough.”

“Nonsense, why should Miss Alden hate me?  You are letting your imagination run away with you, Elfreda,” laughed Grace.

“Don’t you believe it,” declared Elfreda doggedly.  “She doesn’t like you, because Mabel likes you, and she likes Mabel.  Some one told me the other day that she can’t bear to have Mabel look cross-eyed at any other girl here.  She claims that it’s because she loves her so much, but I think it’s because she wants to have the most popular girl at Overton for her friend,” finished the stout girl shrewdly.

“What shall we do this afternoon?” called Miriam Nesbit over her shoulder.

“Go on boosting our candidate,” laughed Anne.  “Let us go for a walk after dinner.  We will call on Ruth Denton.  Then we’ll take her with us to Morton House.  That will be a nice way for her to meet the Morton House girls.  While we are there we can find out how the land lies.  Then we will take Ruth home with us for supper and the rest of the evening, if she doesn’t have to study.”

At the dinner table that day Grace again introduced the subject of the class election and was pleased to note that her suggestion regarding Gertrude Wells as the best possible choice for class president had borne fruit.  The two sophomores at the table who had been through two class elections, having just elected their president, smiled tolerantly at the excitement exhibited by the “babies,” and advised them not to elect in haste and repent at leisure.