She glanced about the table and saw Virginia Gaines watching her with a disagreeable smile.

The sophomore raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders as though to say, "So, you are going to allow her to order you about." Elfreda's face grew dark with angry purpose.

She leaned well forward across the table and said in a tone of suppressed fury: "Kindly keep your remarks to yourself.

I don't care to hear them." "Very well," replied Miriam coldly, although her eyes flashed and the temper that had been all but uncontrollable in days gone by threatened to burst forth in all its old fury.

Several girls smiled, and Virginia Gaines laughed aloud.
"A new declaration of independence has evidently been signed," she jeered.