Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE BELDEN HOUSE " INITIATION PARTY " Lucile Merrifield, Betty's stately sophomore cousin, and Polly Eastman, Lucile's roommate and dearest friend, sat on Madeline Ayres's bed and munched Madeline's sweet chocolate complacently. " Wish I had cousins in Paris that would send me ' eats' as good as this," sighed Polly. " Isn't it just too delicious ! " agreed Lucille. " I say, Madeline, I'm on the sophomore reception committee and there aren't half enough sophomores to go round among the freshmen. Won't you take somebody ? " " I ? Hardly." Madeline shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. " Don't you know, child, that I detest girl-dances—any dances for that matter. Ask me to do something amusing." " You ought to want to do something useful," said Polly reproachfully. " Think of all those poor little friendless freshmen ! " " What kind of a class is it this year?" inquired Madeline, lazily, breaking up more chocolate. " Any fun ? " " The chief thing I've noticed about them," said Lucile, " is that they're so horribly numerous." " Fresh ? " asked Madeline. " Yes, indeed," declared Polly emphatically, " dreadfully fresh. But somehow,—I'm on the grind committee, you know,—and they don't do anything funny. They just do quantities and quantities of stupid, commonplace things, like mistaking the young faculty for freshmen and expecting Miss Raymond to help them look up their English references. I just wish they'd think of something original," ended Polly dolefully. "Why don't you make up something?" asked Madeline. Polly stared. " Oh, I don't think that would do at all. The grinds are supposed to be true, aren't they ? They'd be sure to find out and then they'd always dislike us." Polly smiled luminously. " I've got a good many freshmen friend...