Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

A NEW ARRIVAL

"Next to home, there is really nothing quite so satisfying as our dear old High School!" exclaimed Grace Harlowe, as she entered the locker-room and beamed on her three friends who stood near by.

"It does seem good to be back, even though we have had such a perfectly glorious summer," said Jessica Bright. "We are a notch higher, too. We're actually juniors. This locker-room is now our property, although I don't like it as well as the one we had last year."

"We'll get accustomed to it, and it will seem like home inside of two weeks," said Anne Pierson philosophically. "Everything is bound to change in this world, you know. 'We must put ourselves in harmony with the things among which our lot is cast.'"

"Well, Marcus Aurelius, we'll try to accept your teaching," laughed Grace, who immediately recognized the quotation as coming from a tiny "Marcus Aurelius Year Book" that Anne kept in her desk and frequently perused.

"I wonder what school will bring us this year?" mused Nora O'Malley, as she retied her bow for the fifth time before the mirror and critically surveyed the final effect. "We had a stormy enough time last year, goodness knows. Really, girls, it is hard to believe that Miriam Nesbit and Julia Crosby were at one time the banes of our existence. They come next to you three girls with me, now."

"I think that we all feel the same about them," replied Grace. "Miriam is a perfect dear now, and is just as enthusiastic over class matters as we are."

"It looks as though everything were going to be plain sailing this year," said Jessica. "There isn't a disturbing element in the class that I know of. Still, one can never tell."

"Oh, here come Eva Allen and Marian Barber," called Grace delightedly, and rushed over to the newcomers with outstretched hands.

By this time girls began to arrive rapidly, and soon the locker-room hummed with the sound of fresh, young voices. Coats of tan were compared and newly acquired freckles deplored, as the girls stood about in groups, talking of the delights of the summer vacation just ended.

To the readers of "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School," and "Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School," the girl chums have become familiar figures. It will be remembered how Grace Harlowe and her friends, Nora O'Malley and Jessica Bright, during their freshman year, became the firm of Anne Pierson, the brilliant young girl who won the freshman prize offered each year to the freshmen by Mrs. Gray. The reader will recall the repeated efforts of Miriam Nesbit, aided by Miss Leece, the algebra teacher, to disgrace Anne in the eyes of the faculty, and the way each attempt was frustrated by Grace Harlowe and her friends. Mrs. Gray's house party, the winter picnic in Upton Wood, and Anne Pierson's struggles to escape her unworthy father all contributed toward making the story stand out in the reader's mind.

In "Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year," the girl chums were found leading their class in athletics....