as bad as we think,” consoled Terry. “It’s like going in for a swim the first day of the season. The first is always the worst.”

“Don’t talk to me about dives and swimming!” snapped Sim. “I’m cheated, and I resent it!”

“Oh, Sim!” murmured Arden helplessly.

“I don’t mean you, my dear. It’s just hard times and whoever is responsible for storing vegetables in the pool that I’m sore against!”

“Well, come on!” urged Terry. “Let’s get it over with.”

With hearts momentarily beating faster, the three stepped into the recreation hall on their floor. It was a big room that was rapidly filling with girls, girls, and more girls.

“Just group yourselves about, young ladies. I shall not detain you very long,” said Miss Tidbury Anklon, the dean, with a half smile as she stood teetering upon her toes on the platform at the end of the room. Miss Anklon was a small woman, dark of complexion, and thin. This intermittent raising of herself on her toes as she talked seemed to be an effort to make herself taller and more impressive. Her severity and keen words at times, however, made her sufficiently respected and not a little feared. She was now trying to bring about some semblance of order in the inevitable chaos of the first assembly of new pupils.

“Quiet, please!” Miss Anklon tapped her knuckles on a convenient table. “There are a few things I must explain to you freshmen girls on your first night in Cedar Ridge.”

But, in spite of her promise, the dean did keep them rather long, until Sim found herself standing first on one foot and then on the other. Arden leaned quite frankly on Terry, who in turn rested herself against the nearest wall. It hadn’t seemed worth while to sit down at first. Now it was too late to take chairs. The dean generalized.

The freshmen must always “sign in and out” when leaving the college grounds and returning. They would find the registry book in the lower vestibule hall. They might go to town, if the time of their classes would permit. But if in going to town a class period was missed, the offending ones would be “campused” for a week.

“Not allowed to leave the college precincts,” Miss Anklon took pains to translate.

Arden, her chums, and the others were told of the “honor system,” of “upper classmen” and “lower classmen,” and of rules and regulations, until many of the girls began to wonder how they could possibly remember it all.

One thing was deeply impressed upon them. Here, at Cedar Ridge, they were, for the time being, freshmen. However great had been their standing at their local high or preparatory schools, now they were the lowest of the low. The dean didn’t say that in so many words, but this was the impression she created.

Miss Anklon, “Tiddy” to the initiated, implied that as far as instructions along those lines went, the sophomores would not be long in making such matters clear to the freshmen. But it was all to be taken in a sporting manner and in the end would do much to cement friendships and foster school spirit, smiled Tiddy.

Terry was busy looking about the room, selecting girls who, she thought, looked like her friends at home. Arden was wondering what Sim was going to do now that there was no pool, and Sim, while also looking about, was debating with herself just how much the loss of the swimming she had counted on was going to mean to her.

Arden Blake, Theodosia (Terry) Landry and Bernice (Sim) Westover had been chums through their primary, grammar, and Vincent Prep days. Their friendships began very early, when all three, living near one another in the small city of Pentville, found themselves in the same class. Their association was further cemented when all three graduated at the same time from Vincent, which was an unofficial “feeder” for Cedar Ridge College.

Addison Blake, the father of Arden, was a prosperous automobile dealer in Pentville. Terry was the daughter of Mrs. Nelson Landry, a widow with a fairly good income even through the depression. Sim had for her parents Mr. and Mrs. Benson Westover. Mr. Westover owned a large department store, with branches in several cities. Mr. Westover had wanted a boy and his wife a girl, when the daughter was born, and Sim’s nickname was a combination of She and Him. It fitted her perfectly. She was clever and popular in the trio and outside of it, more especially as she was in a position to obtain from the grocery department in her father’s store many good things to eat—food more or less forbidden at surreptitious school feasts.

“There’s Mary Todd,” whispered Arden as the talk of the dean was obviously drawing to a close.

“Yes, and Ethel Anderson and Jane Randall,” added Sim.

These were three other girls from Vincent, but they lived in a New York suburb. They were friends with but not exactly chums of Arden and her two close companions. They had not made up their minds to come to Cedar Ridge until after the three inseparables had made their announcement.

“Now, my dear young ladies,” Miss Anklon finally concluded, “you will go to the dining room and be assigned your tables for the term.”

Instantly a flood of conversation was loosed. Arden and Sim clung together, and Terry, who had been momentarily separated from them, pushed her way through a throng of strange girls to reach her two friends.

Dean Anklon led the way, and all the freshmen followed down the five dark flights of stairs to the large dining room that was brilliantly lighted. At the door the dean was called aside by one of the teachers, and the bewildered freshies, swarming in, were left huddled together like a troop of new soldiers whose commander had deserted them.

Terry, at this point, took matters into her own hands, and, motioning to her chums to follow, selected a chair at a pleasant table about halfway down the length of the dining room and near a window. Some other freshies followed the lead of the more bold three, and the chairs were all quickly filled.

Terry looked at Arden, obviously well pleased with herself at so soon having become a class leader. Her joy was short-lived, however. A none too gentle tap on her shoulder caused her to look up.

“You freshies! What do you mean by sitting at our table?”

It was Toots Everett, with Jessica Darglan and Priscilla MacGovern standing behind her. All were glaring at the offending freshmen.

“A pretty good start, I must say!” sneered Jessica. “Your table is down there!” Dramatically she pointed to the far-distant lower end of the room.

“Go down there,” Priscilla said a little more gently. “You know you freshmen will have to think, now that you are in college. I’m afraid this means, for you three, the picking of lots of apples.”

Without a word, but deeply humiliated, the freshmen all rose and followed the lead of Terry, Arden, and Sim to their own proper table. Other freshmen, who had not made this social error, as well as the assembled sophomores, juniors and seniors, looked on, smiling.

“What did she mean—picking a lot of apples?” whispered Arden.

“How do I know?” gasped Sim. “Oh, is my face red!”

The three and the other freshmen quickly seated themselves in the proper chairs, and a chatter of conversation, more or less coherent, began. Most of the girls were strangers among strangers, but, realizing that they were all under the same roof and would be for some time to come, they soon began talking together, introducing themselves and a friendly spirit was quickly engendered.

“Oh, Arden! What a dreadful thing to do!” gasped