Winifred Ayres tittered outright, but the advent of Dozia Dalton furnished a welcome interruption.

“Girls,” she panted, “what ever do you think?  Dol Vincez, our dangerous adversary of last year, runs the beauty shop beyond our gate!  Can you comprehend the audacity?”

“We can when you say Dolorez,” replied Jane.  “Do you actually mean to say she has set up the College Beauty Shop at our very door?”

“She has!” declared the excited Dozia.  “Who would dare trust a live and workable phiz to that—­traitor?”

“Not I,” said Velma Sigsbee.

“Nor I,” from Maud Leslie.

“My face must serve me this term,” added Inez Wilson, twisting her features to make sure they worked well.

“All the same,” demurred Judith, “the temptation is not to be laughed at.  Just imagine real dimples speared in,” with a finger poked in Maud Leslie’s cheek, “and long silky lashes tangles in one’s violet gaze——­” This was too much even for staid juniors and the race that followed almost justified Shirley’s much criticised romp.  With this difference:  Wellington Hall was now out of the shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting in and out of the autumn sunshine that lay like stripes of panne velvet on the sward, but Shirley’s run had begun at the very steps.

Recreation had its limits and that day was counted lost into which a race over the pleasure grounds had not been crowded.  It might be for tennis, or even baseball, or yet to the lake, but a run was inevitable.  And so they ran.

CHAPTER IV

THRILLING NEWS

Did you read your note, Dinksy?” Judith asked Jane, using the particular pet name adopted because of its very remote distance from the original.

“You know I did, Pally.”  This was from Pal, of course.

“A bomb threat?”

“Not quite.”  Jane’s hair was rebellious this morning and just now received a real cuffing at its owner’s hands.

“How perfectly peachy you would look bobbed, Dinksy.  That color and those smooth silky curls!  How the angels must have loved you.  Know this line?

  “’Methinks some cherub holds thee fair,
    For kissing down thy sunny hair
    I find his ringlets tangled there!’”

“You would,” interrupted Jane sacrilegiously.  “More than his ringlets tangled here this morning,” with a final jab of the strongest variety of golden bone hair-pin.  “Aunt Mary always said my mood (she meant temper) affected my hair.  And I am sure she was always right about it.”

“Well, you don’t have to tell me about the note if you don’t want to, Janie,” pouted Judith.  “But my idea is, you need counsel and I am as ever the expert.”

“Fair Portia, thou shalt be my counsel ever.  I had no thought of hiding the little note,” insisted Jane, “but it is horribly disappointing.  Wait until I rescue it from the basket.  There’s always a charm about the original.”  “Don’t bother, please, Jane,” begged Judith.  “We are almost late and I hope for a set of tennis before class.  I need it every day to keep off the heartbreak.  Darlink Sanzie,” she sniffled.  “To think he will nary again bat a ball in my black eye.”