Rallied to duty by Alida Burton and Lola Elster, the Sans magnanimously stepped into the breach. They, in turn, brought certain of their junior and senior allies to the aid of the escortless. It was a sore point, however, among a number of freshmen who had voted for Miss Walbert that the sophomores had passed them by for mere off-the-campus students. It served as a quiet lesson by which a few of them afterward profited. Eager to regain her lost laurels, Natalie Weyman was insistent that Lola and Alida should ask the entertainment committee to give another Beauty contest. "What do you take me for?" was Lola's derisive reply when Natalie asked her for the third time to try to bring the contest about. "I'd just as soon ask Prexy Matthews to dye his hair pink as to ask those snippies to give a Beauty parade. Kiss yourself good-bye, Nat. You didn't win it last year. Nuff said." Whereupon Natalie took pains to confide to anyone who would listen to her that she thought Lola Elster the rudest, slangiest person she had ever had the misfortune to meet. Marjorie could not recall a festivity for which she had worked hard beforehand and enjoyed more than the preparation for the freshman hop. Going to the woods to gather the spicy, fragrant pine boughs and gorgeous armfuls of autumn leaves and scarlet mountain ash berries for decorations was purest pleasure. No less did she revel in the hours spent in beautifying the gymnasium in honor of the baby class. Everyone concerned in the labor was so good-natured and jolly that an atmosphere of harmony permeated the big room and hovered over it on the night of the frolic. Even the Sans appeared to imbibe a little of that genial atmosphere and behaved at the frolic with less arrogance than was their wont when appearing socially. Leslie Cairns alone of them flatly refused to be present. She wheedled Joan Myers into escorting Elizabeth Walbert to the dance and remained in her room in a magnificent fit of sulks. She was too greatly inflamed against Marjorie to endure going where she would be in close touch with her for an evening. She therefore amused herself that evening in planning the cherished move she intended to make against Marjorie. "Perhaps I ought not say it, but I had a good deal better time tonight than at the frolic last year," Muriel confided to her chums between yawns. Discipline being lax they had gathered in Ronny's and Lucy's room after the dance for a cup of hot chocolate and sweet crackers. "I know I had," emphasized Marjorie. "Everyone seemed to go in for a good time tonight." "The Sans unbent a little, didn't they?" commented Jerry. "That was because their boss stayed away. Those girls might become civilized in time without Leslie Cairns on the job."