“Thank you, I will if I don’t have too much mending on hand,” replied Ruth.  “Good-bye.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed being with you.”

“Don’t try,” advised Elfreda laconically.  “We’ve had just as much fun as you have.”

Miriam and Grace exchanged glances.  Elfreda was making rapid strides along the road to fellowship.

“I like that girl,” she announced as Ruth disappeared around the corner.  “She has lots of pluck.  When we asked her to go out with us to-day she looked at her old coat and hat, then at us.  I could see that she was ashamed of them.  But she wasn’t ashamed for more than five seconds.  She straightened up and looked as proud as a princess.  I could see——­”

“A great deal more than we did,” finished Miriam.  “I believe you have eyes in the back of your head, Elfreda.”

“I don’t miss much,” agreed Elfreda modestly.  “I saw you and Grace look at each other when I said we’d had just as much fun as Ruth,” she added slyly.  “I know what you were both thinking, too.  You were thinking that I wasn’t so selfish as when I came here.  You needn’t color so because I caught you.  I am selfish, but I’m beginning to find out, just the same, that there are other people in the world besides myself.”

CHAPTER XIV

AN INVITATION AND A MISUNDERSTANDING

The class elections went off with a snap.  Grace nominated Gertrude Wells for president.  There were two other nominations, and after the three young women had gone through the ordeal of inspection before the class, the votes were cast.  Gertrude Wells was elected president by an overwhelming majority, and the nomination and election of the other class officers quickly followed.  The next night Grace and Miriam gave a dinner in honor of her election at Vinton’s, to which twelve girls were invited, and for a week the new president was feted and lionized until she laughingly declared that a return to the simple life was her only means of re-establishing her lost reputation for study and avoiding impending warnings.

The class of 19——­ soon became used to being a regularly organized body and held its class meetings with as much pride as though it were the most important organization in college.  Thanksgiving plans now occupied the foreground, and as the vacation was too short even to think about going home, the girls began to make plans to spend their brief holiday as advantageously as possible at or at least very near Overton.

“There’s a football game over at Willston, on Thanksgiving Day,” remarked Grace, looking up from the paper on which she was jotting down possible amusements for vacation.  Miriam had run into Grace’s room for a brief chat before dinner.  “We don’t know any Willston men, though.  I think football is ever so much more interesting when one knows the players.  If we were nearer the boys we might attend a fraternity dance once in a while.”