eluded Judith.  “That yarn will stand telling for months to come.  I’ve noticed your variations, however, and can see the effort wearies you.  But say, Dinksy, tonight is the night and Lenox is the place.  After that, if you like, I’ll take up the thread of your famous ghost story, and you may refer all inquiries to me.”  The last word of this peroration was all but lost on stone walls, for the oncoming horde seized Jane and, exactly as she feared, demanded further details of the big night.

“And did you really see a ghost?” begged Winifred Ayres with a perfectly flagrant relish of the sordid details.

“Packs of ’em,” evaded Jane.

“Safety in numbers,” remarked Nettie Brocton.  “That’s my mother’s argument for large gatherings.  All right, Jane, we’ll let you off, but we have our opinion of such utter selfishness.  There’s the scrub team all lined up outside the gym.  I suppose they also are waiting to hear the story.”

“Save me from my audience!” wailed Jane, falling into convenient arms.  “Why not install a ghost in Madison if you are all so keen on it?  I can’t see how you expect one paltry spook to cover the entire campus.”

“Oh, Jane!  Miss Allen, Jane!” called the girls from that basketball line.  “We’ve decided to beg off from practice this afternoon, if you don’t mind.  We all want to go to the village to see the sights.”  It was Inez Wilson who acted as spokesman and Inez was quite capable of organizing “a lot of fun” in seeing the village sights.

“What’s new?” demanded Judith.

“Oh, something,” insinuated Mabel Peters.

“Are we debarred?  Too old and cranky or something like that?” teased Jane.  Her hair was bursting from her cap like an over-ripe thistle, and her cheeks were velvety in a rich glow of early winter tints.  She hardly looked too old even for skipping rope just then.

“Of course everyone may come who wants to,” Inez condescended, “but juniors usually don’t enjoy henning (shopping).”

“I adore it,” insisted Jane.  “Do let us tag on and we’ll buy the peanuts.  But this really was to be an important afternoon at the baskets.  However do you children expect to maintain the honor of Wellington if you do not keep fit?  Now when I was center—­”

“Hear!  Hear!  Hear!” interrupted Mabel.  “Remember that famous song, ’I know a girl and her name was Jane’!”

“A rebold ribald rowdy!” shouted a chorus.

But Jane was escaping—­running down the walk with hands clapped over her ears to shut out the memories of her earlier years when that refrain was quite too popular to be enjoyable.

Outside the big gate an auto horn honked, and the students drew back to give the big car approaching full sweep of the country roadway.  Then another horn sounded, and from the opposite direction a smart little run-about was seen cutting in at high speed.  Both drivers saw their danger and both jammed brakes.  The big car rolled to the gutter while the runabout picked up speed and shot by safely.  This brought the touring car to the curb where the Wellingtons stood watching, and a glance at the seats showed these occupants: