But Molly had secret misgivings, in spite of Nance's assurances, and furthermore, she was convinced that the crafty Adele was well aware of these misgivings and that it gave her much private enjoyment to make Molly uncomfortable. "The trouble is I can't fight her with her own weapons," Molly thought. "I'm not clever enough, and besides I wouldn't if I could. After all, boys' methods of settling disputes by drawing a circle and fighting it out are somehow much more honest. It would be worth a black eye and a bloody nose to lay forever all that innuendo and sly insinuation." "She's hypnotized Judy into putting her up for the Shakespeareans and the Olla Podridas," said Nance. "And she'll get in. Nobody will dream of blackballing her, you'll see." Molly compressed her lips into a firm red line and said nothing, but she was almost led to wish that school societies did not exist at all. CHAPTER IX. THE SUBSTITUTE. Miss Walker had not failed to see the stinging article against women's colleges written by Miss Beatrice Slammer for a newspaper, and when she recalled that Miss Slammer had recently spent a day at Wellington as a guest of the college under plea of gathering material, she felt somewhat embittered. When, therefore, it came to her ears that the students intended to ask Miss Slammer to Wellington ostensibly for the purpose of hearing her views on anti-suffrage, she smiled and said nothing to anybody except Miss Pomeroy, who had raised some objections. "Don't worry over it, my dear," said Miss Walker, "they won't do anything to make us ashamed. It's Miss Slammer who will be ashamed, I rather imagine." Perhaps Miss Slammer was surprised at receiving an invitation from Wellington University after her lampoon of college girls. Whatever qualms she may have felt in writing it had been hushed to sleep with the insidious thought that the views, if not true, were at least sensational enough to catch the public eye; and this was more important to Miss Slammer than anything else. It flattered her to be asked to speak at this small but distinguished college. Of course they had never seen the article or they would never have sent the invitation. Miss Slammer had her doubts as to whether any person outside New York ever read a newspaper, especially a lot of college girls who had no interests beyond amateur plays and basket ball. So she promptly dispatched a polite note of acceptance to "Miss Julia Kean." Then at the last moment, only a few hours before train time, her courage failed her. "I can't do it," she said. "I simply haven't the nerve." "Do what?" asked Jimmy Lufton, glancing up from his typewriter to the somewhat battered and worn countenance of Miss Slammer. "Face a lot of women and talk to them about anti-suffrage."