Part 13 (1/2)

”Wait until I make certain my shoe is tight,” cried Grace.

”And wait until I get my cap fastened on,” added Nan.

”No primping now!” exclaimed Laura. ”Everybody ready?”

”What's the prize?” questioned Bess. ”I can't run well unless I know it's worth it.”

”You get the hole out of a doughnut,” said Nan. ”All sugared over, too.”

”And a gla.s.s of frozen ice-water,” added Grace.

”This is all the way around the campus,” went on Laura. ”No cutting corners, remember. You must follow the trees and the hedge. One cent fine if you don't. All ready? One--two--three, go!”

With wild shouts and much laughter the race around the campus was on.

Nan won ”by a nose,” as Laura rather slangily put it, and the girls, glowing and breathless, looked like anything else than confessed law-breakers doing penance.

The sight of their happy faces was too much for Linda, who, with Cora, was pa.s.sing them, drawing the _Gay Girl_ and carrying their skates over their shoulders.

”Some people try mighty hard to show that they're having a good time,”

she remarked to her companion.

”Blessings brighten as they take their flight, as the girl said when she couldn't leave the campus,” grinned Cora maliciously.

”Well,” countered Nan, ”at least we're not doing penance for sneaking in the dark and listening at doors.”

The flush on Linda's face showed that the shot had reached the mark.

”You think you know a lot, don't you?” she mocked, as she and Cora went on.

”How I detest that Nan Sherwood,” hissed Linda. ”I'll get square with her some day, and that day isn't so far off either. I know just how I'm going to fix her.”

”Why do you keep on being so mysterious?” asked Cora impatiently.

”You're always hinting and getting my curiosity aroused and then stopping short. Go on and tell me now.”

But Linda refused, saying that she wanted to be sure first that her plans would go through all right.

”When I do spring things,” she said, ”I'll square up all accounts.”

Cora sulked, but had to submit.

Several days later, as Nan and Bess were studying in their room, Bess wrote the final word in a French translation with a sigh of relief.

”Didn't you say once, Nan,” she queried, ”that you had somewhere a book of model French conversations?”

”Yes,” answered Nan, looking up from her work. ”Do you want it?”

”I'd like it ever so much,” Bess answered. ”I think it would help me with these wretched idioms that puzzle me so. Could you get it for me?”