Now the dance was a thing of the past, and nothing was in sight in the way of entertainment except the reception and dance given by the sophomores to the freshmen.  This was a yearly event, and meant more to the freshmen than almost any other class celebration, for the sophomores, having thrown off freshman shackles, took a lively hand in the affairs of the members of the entering class.  It was sophomores who under pretense of sympathetic interest wormed out of unsuspecting freshmen their inmost secrets and gleefully spread them abroad among the upper classes.  It was also the sophomores who were the most active in enforcing the standard that erring freshmen were supposed to live up to.  The junior and senior classes as a rule allowed their sophomore sisters to regulate the conduct of the newcomers at Overton, only stepping in to interfere in extreme cases.

Grace and her friends had met nearly all the members of the sophomore class at the freshman dance, but in reality they had very few acquaintances among them that bade fair to become their friends.

“I don’t suppose we’ll have the honor of being escorted to the reception by sophomores,” remarked Grace several evenings before the event, as she and Miriam strolled out of the dining room.  “We’ll have to go in a crowd by ourselves and look as though we enjoyed it.”

“Why not stay at home?” yawned Miriam.  “I’m not as over-awed at the idea of this affair as I might be.”

“No,” replied Grace, shaking her head.  “It wouldn’t do.  We ought to go.  The dance is to be given in honor of the freshmen, and it’s their duty to turn out and make it a success.  Are you going to study your Livy to-night, Miriam?”

“If I can,” replied Miriam grimly.  “It depends on what my talkative roommate does.  If she elects to give me another instalment of the story of her life before she came here, Livy won’t stand much chance.  We have progressed as far as her twelfth year, and I was just on the point of learning how she survived scarlet fever when the doctor didn’t expect her to live, last night, when she happened to remember that she hadn’t looked at her history lesson and I was mercifully spared further torture.”

“Poor Miriam,” laughed Grace.  “But you could have said you didn’t want her the day Mrs. Elwood brought her here.  What made you decide to let her stay?  I saw by your face something interesting was going on in your mind.”

Miriam looked reflectively at Grace.  “I don’t know I’m sure just why I let her stay.  It wasn’t because I wished to please Mrs. Elwood, though she is so nice with all of us.  I had a curious feeling that I ought to take J. Elfreda in hand.  If it had been you whose room she invaded you wouldn’t have hesitated even for a second.  Ever since you and I settled our differences back in our high school days I’ve always held you up to myself as an example.  Now, honestly, Grace, you would have taken her in without a murmur, wouldn’t you?”