The girl and her chaperon had been deposited early in the desirable second-story windowin Durfee, looking down on the tree. Brant was a senior and a "Bones" man, and so had aleading part to play in the afternoon's drama. He must get the girl and the chaperon offhis hands, and be at his business. This was "Tap Day." It is perhaps well to explain what"Tap Day" means; there are people who have not been at Yale or had sons or sweetheartsthere.In New Haven, on the last Thursday of May, toward five in the afternoon, one becomesaware that the sea of boys which ripples always over the little city has condensed into ariver flowing into the campus. There the flood divides and re-divides; the junior class isseparating and gathering from all directions into a solid mass about the nucleus of a large,low-hanging oak tree inside the college fence in front of Durfee Hall. The three seniorsocieties of Yale, Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, and Wolf's Head, choose to-dayfifteen members each from the junior class, the fifteen members of the outgoing seniorclass making the choice. Each senior is allotted his man of the juniors, and must find himin the crowd at the tree and tap him on the shoulder and give him the order to go to hisroom. Followed by his sponsor he obeys and what happens at the room no one but themen of the society know. With shining face the lad comes back later and is slapped on theshoulder and told, "good work, old man," cordially and whole-heartedly by every friendand acquaintanceby lads who have "made" every honor possible, by lads who have"made" nothing, just as heartily. For that is the spirit of Yale.Only juniors room in Durfee Hall. On Tap Day an outsider is lucky who has a friendthere, for a window is a proscenium box for the playthe play which is a tragedy to allbut forty-five of the three hundred and odd juniors. The windows of every story of thegray stone facade are crowded with a deeply interested audience; grizzled heads of oldgraduates mix with flowery hats of women; every one is watching every detail, everyarrival. In front of the Hall is a drive, and room for perhaps a dozen carriages next thefencethe famous fence of Yalewhich rails the campus round. Just inside it, at thenorth-east corner, rises the tree. People stand up in the carriages, women and men; thefence is loaded with people, often standing, too, to see that tree.All over the campus surges a crowd; students of the other classes, seniors who last yearstood in the compact gathering at the tree and left it sore-hearted, not having been"taken"; sophomores who will stand there next year, who already are hoping for anddreading their Tap Day; little freshmen, each one sure that he, at least, will be of theelect; and again the iron-gray heads, the interested faces of old Yale men, and the gayspring hats like bouquets of flowers.It is, perhaps, the most critical single day of the four years' course at the University. Itshows to the world whether or no a boy, after three years of college life, has in the eyesof the student body "made good." It is a crucial test, a heart-rending test for a boy oftwenty years.The girl sitting in the window of Durfee understood thoroughly the character and thechances of the day. The seniors at the tree wear derby hats; the juniors none at all; it iseasier by this sign to distinguish the classmen, and to keep track of the tapping. The girlknew of what society was each black-hatted man who twisted through the bareheadedthrong; in that sea of tense faces she recognized many; she could find a familiar headalmost anywhere in the mass and tell as much as an outsider might what hope washovering over it. She came of Yale people; Brant, her brother, would graduate this year;she was staying at the house of a Yale professor; she was in the atmosphere.There, near the edge of the pack, was Bob Floyd, captain of the crew, a fair, square facewith quiet blue eyes, whose tranquil gaze was characteristic. To-day it was not tranquil; itflashed anxiously here and there, and the girl smiled. She knew as certainly as if thefifteen seniors had told her that Floyd would be "tapped for Bones." The crew captain andthe foot-ball captain are almost inevitably taken for Skull and Bones. Yet five yearsbefore Jack Emmett, captain of the crew, had not been taken; only two years back BertConnolly, captain of the foot-ball team, had not been taken. The girl, watching the bigchap's unconscious face, knew well what was in his mind. "What chance have I againstall these bully fellows," he was saying to himself in his soul, "even if I do happen to becrew captain? Connolly was a muttcouldn't take himbut Jack Emmettthere wasn'tany reason to be seen for that. And it's just muscles I've gotI'm not cleverI don't hit itoff with the crowdI've done nothing for Yale, but just for the crew. Why the dickensshould they take me?" But the girl knew.The great height and refined, supercilious face of another boy towered nearLionelArnold, a born litterateur, and an artisthe looked more confident than most. It seemedto the girl he felt sure of being taken; sure that his name and position and, more than all,his developed, finished personality must count as much as that. And the girl knew that inthe direct, unsophisticated judgments of the judges these things did not count at all.So she gunned over the swarm which gathered to the oak tree as bees to a hive, able totell often what was to happen. Even to her young eyes all these anxious, upturned faces,watching silently with throbbing pulses for this first vital decision of their lives, was astirring sight."I can't bear it for the ones who aren't taken," she cried out, and the chaperon did notsmile.