Jest That Failed
by
“I think it is simply a disgrace to have a person like that in our class,” said Edna Hayden in an injured tone.
“And she doesn’t seem a bit ashamed of it, either,” said Agnes Walters.
“Rather proud of it, I should say,” returned her roommate, spitefully. “It seems to me that if I were so poor that I had to ‘room’ myself and dress as dowdily as she does that I really couldn’t look anybody in the face. What must the boys think of her? And if it wasn’t for her being in it, our class would be the smartest and dressiest in the college–even those top-lofty senior girls admit that.”
“It’s a shame,” said Agnes, conclusively. “But she needn’t expect to associate with our set. I, for one, won’t have anything to do with her.”
“Nor I. I think it is time she should be taught her place. If we could only manage to inflict some decided snub on her, she might take the hint and give up trying to poke herself in where she doesn’t belong. The idea of her consenting to be elected on the freshmen executive! But she seems impervious to snubs.”
“Edna, let’s play a joke on her. It will serve her right. Let us send an invitation in somebody’s name to the senior ‘prom.'”
“The very thing! And sign Sidney Hill’s name to it. He’s the handsomest and richest fellows at Payzant, and belongs to one of the best families in town, and he’s awfully fastidious besides. No doubt she will feel immensely flattered and, of course, she’ll accept. Just think how silly she’ll feel when she finds out he never sent it. Let’s write it now, and send it at once. There is no time to lose, for the ‘prom’ is on Thursday night.”
The freshmen co-eds at Payzant College did not like Grace Seeley–that is to say, the majority of them. They were a decidedly snobbish class that year. No one could deny that Grace was clever, but she was poor, dressed very plainly–“dowdily,” the girls said–and “roomed” herself, that phrase meaning that she rented a little unfurnished room and cooked her own meals over an oil stove.
The “senior prom,” as it was called, was the annual reception which the senior class gave in the middle of every autumn term. It was the smartest and gayest of all the college functions, and a Payzant co-ed who received an invitation to it counted herself fortunate. The senior girls were included as a matter of course, but a junior, soph, or freshie could not go unless one of the senior boys invited her.
Grace Seeley was studying Greek in her tiny room that afternoon when the invitation was brought to her. It was scrupulously orthodox in appearance and form, and Grace never doubted that it was genuine, although she felt much surprised that Sidney Hill, the leader of his class and the foremost figure in all college sports and societies, should have asked her to go with him to the senior prom.
But she was girlishly pleased at the prospect. She was as fond of a good time as any other girl, and she had secretly wished very much that she could go to the brilliant and much talked about senior prom.
Grace was quite unaware of her own unpopularity among her class co-eds, although she thought it was very hard to get acquainted with them. Without any false pride herself, and of a frank, independent nature, it never occurred to her that the other Payzant freshies could look down on her because she was poor, or resent her presence among them because she dressed plainly.
She straightway wrote a note of acceptance to Sidney Hill, and that young man naturally felt much mystified when he opened and read it in the college library next morning.
“Grace Seeley,” he pondered. “That’s the jolly girl with the brown eyes that I met at the philomathic the other night. She thanks me for my invitation to the senior prom, and accepts with pleasure. Why, I certainly never invited her or anyone else to go with me to the senior prom. There must be some mistake.”