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diff --git a/old/52626-0.txt b/old/52626-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7064281..0000000 --- a/old/52626-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6447 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms, by Pauline Lester - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms - -Author: Pauline Lester - -Release Date: July 23, 2016 [EBook #52626] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - - - - - - -[Illustration: - - Phil, as the fiddler, presently came forward to play for the dance. - (_Page 114_) (_Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms_) -] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - MARJORIE DEAN - AT HAMILTON ARMS - - BY PAULINE LESTER - - AUTHOR OF - - “The Marjorie Dean High School Series,” “The - Marjorie Dean College Series,” “The Marjorie - Dean Post-Graduate Series,” etc. - - [Illustration] - - A. L. BURT COMPANY - Publishers New York - Printed in U. S. A. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE MARJORIE DEAN - POST-GRADUATE SERIES - - - A SERIES FOR GIRLS 12 TO 18 YEARS OF AGE - - BY PAULINE LESTER - - MARJORIE DEAN, POST-GRADUATE - MARJORIE DEAN, MARVELOUS MANAGER - MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS - MARJORIE DEAN’S ROMANCE - - Copyright, 1925 - By A. L. BURT COMPANY - - MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS - - Made in “U. S. A.” - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - MARJORIE DEAN AT - HAMILTON ARMS - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - WAITING FOR MARJORIE - - -“They’ll be here before long.” Jerry Macy’s eyes calculatingly consulted -the wall clock. - -“And, oh, what a surprise!” Veronica Lynne spoke from the deeps of her -own mischievous enjoyment. - -“It’s going to be an occasion of surprises,” predicted Lucy Warner with -the solemnity of a young owl. “Now why are you laughing, Muriel?” This -very severely as she caught sight of Muriel Harding’s mirthful face and -heard sound of her soft chuckle. - -“Why am I laughing? You know better, Luciferous Warniferous, than ask me -such a—well—such a leading question.” Muriel failed to make her laughing -features match her reproving tones. - -“You’re both up to mischief. Think I don’t know the signs?” Jerry -accused with a long-suffering air. “Luciferous looks too solemn to be -true and _your_ special variety of giggle is a dead give-away.” - -“What special variety?” demanded Muriel with blank innocence. - -“I wouldn’t attempt to classify it,” was Jerry’s withering retort. “I -can only say, ‘it is.’” - -“Of course it is.” Muriel light-heartedly furnished a rippling little -sample. “Hark!” she held up an arresting hand. “Someone’s coming.” - -Three energetic raps on the door followed her announcement. Then the -door opened sufficiently to admit the laughing face of Leila Harper. - -“Enter the Empress of Wayland Hall,” Leila heralded. She flung the door -wide and bowed in Miss Remson. She and Vera Mason followed the little -manager. Dressed in her best black satin gown, Miss Remson appeared -signally amused at the honors done her. Leila was wearing an exquisite -frock of orchid broadcloth. Vera, doll-like and dainty, looked like a -cunning Dresden figure in a frock of gentian blue taffeta, the faint -blue field scattered thickly with tiny pink rosebuds. Their light-hued -dresses pointed to a celebration, as did those of the other girls -gathered in ever-hospitable Room 15. - -“The Empress of Wayland Hall.” Jerry bowed to the floor, pretended to -lose her balance, but miraculously recovered it without accident. “Allow -me to conduct you to the throne.” She offered her arm at a stiff angle. -“Bow down, all the rest of you. Where are your court manners?” She -briskly arraigned the smiling empress’s openly giggling subjects. - -“Kindly give us a sample of court etiquette,” Ronny begged with mock -humility. - -“I thought I had.” Jerry exhibited deep surprise. “Am I crazy, or are -you blind?” - -“Ahem! My eye-sight is exceptionally keen,” Ronny said sweetly. - -“I’ll have it out with you later,” promised Jerry. “Now don’t interrupt -me again in the midst of my royal duties. Will your majesty please be -seated?” She turned gallantly to the empress. “I would call your -attention to the throne. Observe it closely. Would you even suspect it -of having been ever anything but a throne?” - -“_Never_,” Miss Remson made gratifying assurance. She feigned the most -flattering admiration for the throne. It was composed of Jerry’s couch -as a foundation, with all the bedding from Marjorie’s couch stacked upon -it. Ronny had contributed a wonderful cloth of gold couch cover which -her father had lately sent her from Lower California. Each one of the -festive group had contributed her pet sofa pillows. Three fat velvet -ones had been laid on the floor in front of the dais. The throne had -blossomed into additional gorgeousness by the profusion of rich-hued -pillows which graced it. - -“It is a gorgeous and most imposing structure,” pronounced Miss Remson, -her eyes dancing as she surveyed the metamorphized couch. She prodded -its up-piled softness with an investigating hand, then raised herself -with a nimble little spring to the place on the right to which Jerry had -obsequiously bowed her. - -“Thank you for them kind words. Praise is sweet, particularly when there -are those about who are shy of proper appreciation. I won’t mention any -names, your Majesty. I’m not speaking of myself, or you, either. I have -too much delicacy to make disrespectful remarks about _us_.” Jerry -peered knowingly at her majesty who nodded significant return. - -“I trust your Majesty will not see fit to show partiality,” Ronny said -very severely. “All here are entitled to your royal favor.” - -“I see already the difficulties which attend royalty.” Miss Remson made -a dismayed gesture. - -“Don’t let it agitate you,” said Jerry. “Such—” She broke off to answer -the door. Robin Page flitted across the threshold with a frisky little -bounce. “Almost late! Not quite, thank fortune.” She glanced about the -room with visible relief. “They haven’t come yet. I was so afraid I’d -miss the fun. Two Craig Hall seniors called on me. They asked me to sing -at a musicale they intend to give after the holidays. Miss French, one -of them, has discovered a prodigy at Craig Hall. She’s a freshie named -Miss Oliver. She can play divinely on the piano. But she is shy, and -hangs backward when she should come forward. No one at Craig Hall -suspected her of being a musical genius until one night last week.” - -“Oh, I know her,” cried Muriel. “She’s a little girl with black straight -hair and gray-blue eyes. I danced with her at the freshman frolic. She -seemed to be rather timid, so I thought I’d encourage her by putting -down my name on her card for three dances. I danced one with her then -she suddenly disappeared and didn’t re-appear. I inquired for her. Some -of the freshies said she was shy. Some said she was snippy. I didn’t -think her the least bit snippy. I wrote a note to her on the strength of -her being shy. She answered it in about two lines. That was rather -snippy, I thought. Now I am all at sea about her. Is she shy, or is she -snippy? That is the question.” Muriel ended with a laugh. - -“She’s bashful,” Robin declared. “Wait until I salute the Empress of -Wayland Hall, and I’ll tell you more of her.” Robin knelt on a plump -blue velvet cushion at Miss Remson’s feet. The manager had thriftily set -a small foot on each side of the cushion rather than use it as a foot -rest. “Please pardon your admiring subject for being so neglectful.” She -kissed the manager’s hand in approved gallant style. “Let me venture to -remark, noble lady: Your throne is a daisy. Why oh, why, am I not of -royalty?” - -“Everyone can’t be. We’d not have thrones enough to accommodate the -royal gang, if you all qualified,” Jerry pertinently reminded. - -“Restrain your ambitions,” advised Lillian Wenderblatt cruelly. - -“I’ll make a stagger at it,” sighed Robin. “Now let me finish telling -you about my musical freshie before the rest of the royal party arrive. -Where was I?” - -“Your last remark on the subject was that no one had suspected Miss -Oliver of being a musical genius until one night last week,” repeated -Katherine Langly in her quiet, accurate fashion. “See what splendid -attention _I_ was paying to you.” - -“I’m charmed by it,” Robin gushed. “There are times, Kathie, when you -are almost respectful to me. One might think, that, having gained such -gratifying respect from a member of the faculty, I should be more than -entitled to marks of respect from lesser college lights. Not so.” Robin -looked vaguely about, not daring to allow her eyes to stop at any single -member of the grinning group of girls. - -“Another unhappy subject with a chip on her shoulder.” Jerry waved a -hand toward Robin, thumb out. - -“It behoves the lesser lights of college to be very careful upon whom -they shine.” Lillian’s chin was raised to a painfully dignified angle. - -“I wonder just _who_ the lesser lights of college are?” Muriel said in a -sweet child-like voice. - -“As Empress it appears my duty to quell such disturbances as may lead to -internal war in the kingdom,” put in the helpful Empress. - -“Please, your Majesty, I want to keep on talking,” instantly petitioned -Robin. “Kindly order this gang—pardon me, I mean your unruly subjects—to -listen to me. Make them understand that if they don’t listen _now_, I -sha’n’t tell them a single thing later.” - -“We got that, your Majesty. Will you allow me to implore your miffed -courtier to go right ahead. So pleased.” Jerry favored Robin with her -far-fetched conception of a gracious smile. - -“I can’t resist such a dazzling display of teeth and affability. May I -ask what toothpaste you use?” Robin’s own pearl-white teeth showed -themselves in an equally affable smile. - -“Same as you do. Now proceed with your tale. The great moment is rapidly -approaching.” Jerry indicated the clock. “Let us hear about this new -musical wonder before the reception begins all over again.” - -“One night last week,” Robin took up her narrative precisely where she -had left off, “Miss French heard someone playing the living room piano. -The Craig Hall girls had gone over to Hamilton Hall in a body to that -illustrated lecture: ‘America South of Us.’ Miss French had stayed in -her room. She had a severe headache. - -“When she suddenly heard some one playing Chopin’s Second Nocturne on -the piano in the most divine manner she slipped out of her room and -downstairs to see who it might be. It surprised her even more to find -there was no light in the living room. She was determined to find out -who was in there in the dark, playing so entrancingly, so she sat down -on the hall bench to wait for the unknown pianist to finish playing and -come out.” - -“And that odd little black-eyed freshie is a musician!” Muriel -exclaimed. “I knew she had it in her to be something unusual. She is a -dandy dancer. I suppose that is because of her well-developed sense of -rhythm.” - -“Yes, your black-eyed freshie is a musician. She’s more than that. She -will be the greatest woman pianist in this country, I believe, before -she is many years older,” Robin asserted with conviction. “She played -that marvelous concert waltz by Wieniawski while Miss French was -listening to her. Then she gave a little thing by Schumann, and -then”—Robin paused—“she came out of the living room into the hall and -Miss French _simply grabbed her_ and shook hands with her and told her -she was a genius.” - -“What did she say?” came as a general breathless query. - -“Oh, she was awfully confused. Miss French asked her to come to her and -Miss Neff’s room and spend the evening. She went. Miss French made -cocoa, and nobly drank some with Miss Oliver. She said she supposed it -would give her the headache all over again. Her headache had stopped -magically when she heard Miss Oliver playing. She surprised it out of -her system, maybe,” Robin said, laughing. “Anyhow she didn’t have a new -headache, which was a reward of virtue for being nice to Miss Oliver.” - -“Has anyone at Craig Hall been mean to her?” Muriel inquired rather -threateningly. - -“No; only the house has so many more sophs and juniors than freshies,” -Robin explained. “The juniors there are rather a smug self-satisfied -lot, it seems, and Miss Oliver says she knows the Craig Hall sophs think -her awfully stupid. She’s not used to being among a lot of girls. She -hardly knows how to talk about the things that interest them. She was -educated at home by her father and two older brothers. Her father is a -noted ornithologist. One of her brothers is a geologist and the other is -curator of a New York museum. Her father has given her the very best -musical advantages, but he insists that she shall put college before -even her music.” - -“The Olivers must be a decidedly interesting family,” was Kathie’s -opinion. - -“Miss Oliver’s mother died when Miss Oliver was a child. Her name is -Candace Oliver. Isn’t that a nice name?” Robin asked animatedly. - -There was a murmur of agreement. - -“Have you heard her play, Robin?” asked Miss Remson from her throne. The -manager of Wayland Hall was not a bit less interested in the “find” than -were the others. - -“Twice, Miss Remson. I can’t find words to describe her playing. You -must hear her. She is so obliging about playing. She loves to please. -She was too timid to touch the piano with a crowd of girls in the house. -She stayed at home purposely the other night for the opportunity to play -a little. I told her about my piano in my room, and advised her to have -one put in hers. She has a single, second story back. She said, ‘no,’ -her father would not like her to do so. That shows what an honorable -little person she is,” Robin concluded with approval. - -“To change the subject for only a minute, today is not the first time I -have heard ‘smug’ and ‘self-satisfied’ applied to the junior class. Such -conditions don’t help democracy along. I speak of it now because Robin -has mentioned it, too. A crowd of “comfies,” who are either too lazy or -else too well pleased with themselves to care what happens to the other -Hamilton students are as detrimental to democracy as are snobs.” Leila -advanced this opinion with considerable emphasis. - -“The juniors were enthusiastic enough about the Beauty contest,” -commented Muriel Harding. “I’m not disputing your opinion, Leila. They -made a lot of fuss over it, I suppose, because it happened to appeal to -them. If you consider the junies smug and self-satisfied, then they must -be. I never knew you to make a mistake, Irish Oracle, in going straight -to the root of a matter.” - -“I am not making one this time, Matchless Muriel.” Leila’s blue eyes -flashed Muriel a quick, bright glance. “This year’s junies are so -complacent of their new, high estate. They are pleased as children with -everything that happens so long as it suits their fancy. You may recall -they were much the same in disposition when we did station duty and -welcomed them to Hamilton as freshies.” - -“I remember _that_ of them,” declared Lillian Wenderblatt. “We thought -them so amiable and easy-going. Later in the year they grew to have a -kind of class stolidity that was positively exasperating at times.” - -“I have watched them this year as junies. They have not changed. They -are not interested in fighting for the right unless it might mean some -gain for the class. They are partial to glory, but not to principle. It -is a new weed patch in our democratic garden which we must root out.” -Leila’s mobile face showed a hint of her mental resolution. - -“Oh, what a job,” groaned Jerry. “Do you mean to tell me, Leila—” - -“Sh-h-h-h! They’re coming down the hall.” Vera breathed a sibilant -warning. “Ready, everyone with the new yell. Don’t one of you dare make -a flivver of it.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - AT HAMILTON HALL - - -While Marjorie’s chums were buoyantly preparing a surprise tea for her -she was seated beside Miss Susanna Hamilton in President Matthews’ -office at Hamilton Hall. An expression of quiet happiness radiated from -her lovely face as she listened to the heart-cheering words she had -never expected to hear from the embittered grand-niece of Brooke -Hamilton: “I have decided to give the world my great uncle’s biography.” - -It had all happened so quickly, she was thinking. She was glad Miss -Susanna had allowed her to tell her closest friends the good news. -Though it had been near to ten o’clock she had gathered them into Room -15, and enthusiastically imparted it to them. Jerry had heard it with -Marjorie’s first exclamatory utterance as she entered their room. It yet -remained to tell Kathie and Lillian the next morning. - -While she made an early morning call on them, the following morning, her -intimates gleefully arranged a tea for her. Into the midst of the -preparations came a surprise for Jerry, who was heading the tea -celebration. The welcome surprise was hastily bundled out of sight -before Jerry had a suspicion of it. Such lecture periods as claimed the -post graduates were, for once, to be ignored. Even Kathie had arranged -with an obliging member of the faculty to take her last class for the -afternoon. - -Marjorie, sitting demurely beside Miss Susanna in the president’s -office, a lovely symphony in warm brown velvet and furs, was wishing her -intimates could be with her on the great occasion. They had overflowed -with high spirits over this latest, greatest gift to Hamilton. Small -wonder they were elated. They had fought loyally for true college -spirit. - -Regarding herself as Brooke Hamilton’s biographer, Marjorie’s emotions -were jumbled. One moment she was exalted by Miss Hamilton’s steady -assertion that Marjorie Dean was the one best equipped mentally to -present her distinguished kinsman simply and truly to the world. Next -moment a wave of utter panic would follow, sweeping away her -newly-formed confidence in herself. She grew aghast at the bare idea of -presuming to take upon herself so difficult a task. She had never done -any notable theme work in college. How then could she hope to present -the world with a finished biography to which the great man, Brooke -Hamilton, was entitled? - -“I am amazed, Miss Hamilton!” President Matthews’ eyes were riveted upon -Miss Susanna’s face in polite bewilderment. They next strayed to -Marjorie. His thought became self-evident. Marjorie turned very pink. - -“Yes, Doctor Matthews; you are right,” the old lady said with a fleeting -smile. “I am here this afternoon because of Marjorie. Because of her, -you and I have come to speaking terms. The years were going fast, and I -was not growing less bitter against the college. Then I met this child. -She has led me back to old Hamilton Hall. I’m here at last, but still -selfish. I came here today to please myself, even more than her.” It was -as though Miss Susanna had uttered a grim kind of confession. - -“Miss Susanna is not selfish, Doctor Matthews,” Marjorie gently -contradicted. “She’s unselfish, and altogether splendid. She came here -to do honor to Mr. Brooke Hamilton’s memory, and give happiness to us -all. It has not been easy for her to thrust away the barrier of years. -Yet she has done it. She has been heroically unselfish.” Her voice rang -triumphantly. Her fond smile at Miss Susanna brought unbidden tears to -the old lady’s eyes. - -“I am happy in agreeing with you, Miss Dean. Miss Susanna has today -demonstrated her complete unselfishness.” The president bowed to Miss -Susanna. - -“I forbid you both to make any more personal remarks about me,” broke in -Miss Susanna’s concise utterance. “I have been selfish and unfair to -Uncle Brooke’s memory. It is time I did something to make up for it.” -She wagged her head ruefully. “May I ask, Doctor Matthews, have you ever -heard the story of my disagreement with the Board?” - -“I have heard a story which had to do with your being rudely treated, a -number of years ago, by a member of the Board whose estate adjoined -yours. The churlish behavior of this member of the Board was the cause -of your refusal to place in the hands of Dr. Burns, who had been -selected to write Brooke Hamilton’s biography, the data for the -biography,” the doctor stated in pleasant, impersonal tones. - -“True enough so far as it goes,” Miss Susanna acknowledged tersely. “The -member of the Board with whom I quarreled was Alec Carden. A greater -scamp never lived. We quarreled over Uncle Brooke’s will. It seems a -long long time ago.” She gave an impatient little sigh. - -“It was before I accepted the presidency of Hamilton College. I have -been informed by the two gentlemen, still serving on the Board, who were -members then, that it was a deplorable period for the college during -which the Board engaged in one wrangle after another. They frankly -criticized Mr. Carden as having behaved more like an unscrupulous -politician than as became a dignified member of a college board. I have -never doubted but that your grievance against the Board was sound.” The -doctor sat back in his chair and surveyed the little upright figure in -gray opposite him with one of his encouraging, kindly smiles. - -“Thank you, Doctor. The only way in which I may show proper appreciation -of your confidence in me is to tell you the story from beginning to -end.” Miss Susanna sat very still for a moment after her electrifying -announcement. It was as though she were trying to choose her words for a -beginning. - -An anticipatory silence hung over the president’s office. Dr. Matthews -awaited the revelation with profound relief. It would mark the laying of -the unwelcome ghost which had walked the campus all these years. -Marjorie found herself filled with an odd kind of astonishment. She was -at last to hear the story which for years Miss Hamilton had stubbornly -locked behind her lips. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - THE REAL GUARDIAN OF HAMILTON - - -“Alec Carden was a man of middle age when I was a young woman.” Miss -Susanna’s characteristically brusque tones shattered the brief silence. -“He had never liked Uncle Brooke, simply because Uncle Brooke was -upright and he was not. Neither had my uncle liked him. As an older man -of wide experience Uncle Brooke once or twice advised Alec Carden -against certain enterprises in which he had engaged. Each time the -advice was flouted. Carden chose to regard him as an interfering old -meddler. - -“Uncle Brooke made his will years before he died. He never changed it. -From the time he built Hamilton College he knew precisely what was -important to its welfare. He knew, too, what would be best for it in -time to come. He went over the will with me, often and carefully. He was -determined that I should thoroughly understand every clause of it.” -Every sentence of the old lady’s narrative fell clear-cut from her lips. - -“He had divided his wealth, which was very great, equally between me and -the college, aside from a few bequests to the servants and a special -legacy to Jonas. He used to say to me whimsically, on occasion: ‘I’ve -already given my college a large fortune, Susanna, and I’ve only given -you a home and a little spending money. But you can get along with a -little, and my college cannot. Besides, I’m here to look after you. When -I’m gone, it’s you and my college; share and share alike.’” - -“Miss Susanna,” Marjorie spoke as the old lady paused briefly, “may I -please put that in the biography?” Forgotten for the moment were all her -misgivings. She was not thinking of herself as biographer. She was -desirous that such valuable matter should not be left out of the -biography itself. - -“So you’ve decided to make the best of it,” laughed the old lady. “Oh, I -knew what I was doing when I chose you as his biographer. Since I’ve -surrendered, I’ve surrendered unconditionally. I wish the world to know -his little quirks and turns, his fancies and his whimsies.” - -“It is indeed a pleasure to contemplate the thought of Miss Dean as -Brooke Hamilton’s biographer,” gallantly supplemented President -Matthews. - -“I thank you both.” Marjorie’s sunshiny smile flashed briefly forth. It -faded, leaving her beautiful features unusually grave. “Perhaps hearing -these delightful personal memories of him will give me the inspiration -to do him justice,” she said very humbly. “I can only try to write his -story. If I fail—” - -“You can’t fail,” broke in Miss Hamilton. “There is no such word as fail -in your vocabulary.” She reached out and patted Marjorie’s arm. “Now you -and the doctor are to listen to a letter of instruction which Uncle -Brooke gave me, sealed, a year before he died.” - -She took from a morocco handbag a letter, held it up and pointed to the -superscription: “‘For Susanna. Not to be opened until after my death:’” -she read. She drew the letter from its envelope. “I prefer to read it to -you,” she explained. “You may examine it afterward as much as you like.” -She began: - - “DEAR SUSANNA: - - “I have just come from an afternoon spent with Mr. Walpole, my - lawyer. I have arranged with him in a codicil certain matters - pertaining to Hamilton College. I must now acquaint you with - these. You must be fitly equipped to carry out my wishes in - regard to my college when I have gone on to a world of blessed - fulfillment, which can never be here. - - “I love my college, Susanna. Because I love it I must leave - nothing undone to safeguard its welfare. My ancestors left me - the land. I gave the site, my money erected the buildings, - endowed the college. My brain, heart and mind acted as one in - bringing beauty to the campus. It is the child of my heart, - Susanna. It must not, shall not depart from the near perfection - to which I have raised it. I have gloried in the spirit of - democracy that has developed among the students as a result of - my own thoughtful planning. But the past three years have marked - a change. A certain element of arrogance and false pride has - stolen into the college with the enrollment of a few students - who come from homes of affluence. - - “The present Board are not in favor of conducting Hamilton - College on the basis of nobility which I believe should be - particularly the foundation of an institution of learning. They - are desirous of commercializing the campus. They are possessed - to ruin its natural beauty by dotting it thickly with ornate - halls and houses. Such as these for the accommodation of a few - students who can afford to pay extravagant prices for board and - lodging. These sordid schemers are eager to take advantage of - the fact that I have fitted and endowed Hamilton magnificently. - They intend to put their stupid, ignoble ideas into force as - soon as I am gone. I overheard one of them say to another at a - Board meeting not long ago: ‘When he is out of the running we - shall have a free sweep.’ They imagine that with my death - Hamilton College will achieve freedom from the direction of a - Hamilton, and with it a vast fortune. The board dreams of - unlimited power to spend my money, and with no restraint. - - “You are to assume my responsibility, Susanna. It is a great - deal to ask of you. But to whom else can I turn? You know I have - divided my wealth between you and the college. Its half of the - inheritance may be distributed to the Board as a whole, or in - payments; at your discretion. Nothing is to be either added or - taken away from the campus without your consent. You are to - retain the right to administrate my estate as you are convinced - would be pleasing to me. The fees of the college are never to be - increased. With Mr. Walpole you will find complete directions in - regard to the offering of various scholarships which I have - arranged to be offered in the course of time. I have also left, - with him certain other welfare plans for the college. It will be - your task to fulfill these for me should the Messenger come for - me before I have had the time and opportunity to act. - - “_Never allow the Board to intimidate you or beat you down._ It - is the old story of the man who took home the frozen viper and - warmed it, only to find that when life returned to it it had no - will save to sting. So it is with the very men I have helped to - present membership of the Board. There will one day be bitter - resentment when these same men learn that I have protected - Hamilton College against their vandalism. Remember, Susanna, - resentment can break no bones; neither can it change that which - was written to remain unchanged. I feel more at ease since I - have written this to you. I rely upon your pride as a Hamilton, - your loyalty and your good judgment to uphold the work of my - hands. - - “With constant affection, - “BROOKE HAMILTON.” - -“A letter in keeping with what we have known of Brooke Hamilton before -today,” was the president’s thoughtful attribute to the founder of -Hamilton College. - -“It was his mind in the matter. By it you can understand the situation -as it was then better than from an explanation of it on my part,” -rejoined Miss Hamilton. “It remains for me to tell you what happened -between the Board and me after Uncle Brooke had passed away. Mr. Walpole -appointed a day and hour for the reading of the will at the Arms. The -Board attended the reading to a member in the interest of Hamilton -College. They raised a hub-hub immediately they learned that Uncle -Brooke had secured the college against their commerciality. - -“Alec Carden was infuriated. He lost his temper, shook a fist in Mr. -Walpole’s and my face and shouted that no fool of a girl should stand -between the college and its rights. He rushed from the house shouting: -‘I’ll find a way to break that fool will!’” Miss Susanna’s eyes flashed -as she recalled the affront. “All but two of the Board members hurried -after him. William Graves and Caleb Frazer had taken no part in the -fuss. They had been true friends of Uncle Brooke’s. They assured Mr. -Walpole and me of their regret in the matter.” - -“Afterward, they refused to discuss the unfortunate incident with -anyone,” commented Dr. Matthews. “This I learned from Doctor Burns. They -were his staunch supporters during his long service as president of -Hamilton College. The doctor had a great deal of trouble with Mr. -Carden.” - -“I am aware of that,” nodded Miss Susanna. “It was frequently remarked -in the borough that how Alec Carden managed to keep himself on the -college Board was a mystery. He was a violent man. He quarreled -disgracefully with both of his sons. One of them stuck to him and -inherited Carden Hedge when his father died. The other took a package of -bonds which belonged to him from the family safe and ran off to -California. He changed his name, so the story goes, engaged in a lucky -speculation and grew rich. He never came back to Carden Hedge. His -father never saw him again, though he wrote him repeatedly to come home. -Alec died of apoplexy. Indulging in one of his fits of rage, he had a -seizure. John Carden still lives at the Hedge, off and on. He turned out -as disagreeable as was his father. Peter was a multimillionaire at last -accounts of him. - -“Alec Carden kept his word. He tried to break the will and have the -codicil set aside. Just when I needed his help most Mr. Walpole died. -Then I engaged Richard Garrett, a young lawyer, but very brilliant. He -stood between me and Carden’s worst attacks. But I had plenty of -disagreeable scenes with Alec Carden and his Board sympathizers. They -got it through their scheming heads at last that Uncle Brooke had been -too wise for them. Then they tried to patch up their quarrel with me and -wheedle me into letting them have their own way about things. I soon -sent them all about their business. From that time it was war to the -knife between us. I refused ever to admit the belligerents to the Arms -or to meet them elsewhere in the interests of college business. All -checks for disbursements and papers were forwarded to me by Richard -Garrett. - -“At the beginning of my trouble with Carden I had talked with Doctor -Burns about the writing of Uncle Brooke’s biography. Uncle Brooke had -greatly liked the doctor. I wished him to undertake the biography. -Before I had collected the data for it I got into the thick of the fight -with Carden and the Board. Carden circulated calumnious reports about -Uncle Brooke. Uncle Brooke had been a miser; he had made his fortune in -slave trading in the South Seas. He had also been suspected of piracy on -the high seas. He had commanded South American filibustering -expeditions. It was grossly false; outrageous. And all because he had -been in the exporting business in China. - -“Such reports reached the students of Hamilton College. I came in for -very brutal criticism from the girls there. I could not go for a walk -along the highway without meeting some of them and encountering -everything from covert to open ridicule. So I came to despise those whom -he had wished me to like. The story’s almost done.” Miss Susanna’s face, -shadowed by the sorrow of the past, brightened beautifully. - -“I still intended that Doctor Burns should begin the biography until one -day Alec Carden and I met on the highway near the Arms. He stopped me -and said I would be sorry if I attempted to publish a biography of Uncle -Brooke. He threatened to follow it with what he declared would be a true -story of ‘my sneak uncle’s pirate doings in the East.’ He said he had -gathered enough information against him to make a most interesting -pamphlet which he intended to have printed and published at his own -expense to follow the biography. He was as explosive in his talk as -usual. He declared that Doctor Burns was in sympathy with _him_, not me; -that he had merely consented to write the biography to keep in my good -graces. There was a chance that I might be flattered into turning over -to the Board the authority they lacked. - -“I did not believe a word he said. I told him so. I went straight to the -Arms and wrote to Doctor Burns.” The old lady paused. She brought one -small hand down over the other with a sharp little smack. “I never -received an answer to that letter. I wrote him two others. One I sent to -him at this office.” She glanced about the large pleasant room. “The -other I sent by Jonas to his campus residence. He was away at the time, -but his secretary, a young man, promised to give it to him as soon as he -returned. - -“When I had been ignored by him a third time, I closed my heart against -Hamilton College, forever, as I thought. I could not conceive of how a -man like Doctor Burns could be in sympathy with Carden’s cheap villainy. -Still, I had given him an opportunity to clear himself and he had made -no sign. He was therefore not the one to write Uncle Brooke’s biography, -and I knew no one else whom I considered qualified to do so. It was not -until years afterward, quite by accident, that I learned that Alec -Carden’s nephew was Doctor Burns’ secretary at that time. Then it was -too late. The years had passed, and Doctor Burns with them. I believe -now that he never received the letters I wrote him.” - -“I am sure he did not,” Doctor Matthews said quickly. “I am convinced -that he had no knowledge of such a calumnious pamphlet as Mr. Carden -threatened to have published. He attributed your failure to bring -forward the data for the biography as the result of your having had an -altercation with the Board. He was not in sympathy with the Board. You -had asked him to write the biography of your great uncle. He preferred -to await your pleasure.” - -“He died not more than a year before Alec Carden.” Miss Susanna’s -usually crisp tones were tinged with melancholy. “And he never knew!” - -Marjorie had sat listening to the last of the Hamilton’s story, a -lovely, absorbed figure. Her vivid imagination had visualized Miss -Susanna as she had probably been in girlhood. Across her brain flashed -the dramatic scenes which had occurred between Miss Susanna and the -hated Alec Carden. Here was a real story infinitely more fascinating -than one which was the product of imagination. - -“I think I never knew of a more deplorable misunderstanding.” There was -poignant regret in Doctor Matthews’ assertion. “We have, however one -thing for which to give thanks. No calumnious word was ever published -against the memory of Brooke Hamilton. Yet, if you had found the -opportunity to talk with Doctor Burns, he would have advised you to go -boldly ahead with the biography. I would say the same today in a similar -situation.” - -“Ah, that is precisely the point for which I blame myself!” the old lady -cried out regretfully. “I should never have given up until I had seen -the doctor. I have read Uncle Brooke’s letters and journals, over and -over. They are the essence of truth. No slanderous reports could live -beside them. I know that now. But I was young then, and alone in a great -empty castle. I was more or less bewildered by the responsibility which -had become mine. I despised Alec Carden, and I was full to the brim of -Hamilton pride. I had never talked with Uncle Brooke about the -biography. It was an issue that came to the fore after his passing. When -I had been rebuffed, as I thought, three times, I retreated into my -shell and stayed there.” - -“But you are out of it, forever, and ever!” Marjorie exclaimed, her -brown eyes beaming luminous warmth on the wistful old face of the -mistress of the Arms. “You’ve been out of it a good many times in the -past two years, too. All the years you were tucked away in it you were -true to the trust Mr. Brooke Hamilton placed in you. You felt that you -hated his college, but you guarded its welfare just as faithfully as -though you had loved it. You are the most amazing person in the whole -world, Miss Susanna. You’re the real guardian of Hamilton.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - OUR BELOVED GUESTS - - -“And now, Marvelous Manager, you and I will continue our walk on the -campus.” - -It was almost four by the chimes clock on Hamilton Hall when Marjorie -and Miss Susanna issued from the president’s house, arm in arm. Neither -would ever forget that wonderful afternoon. It marked for Miss Susanna -the re-union with a valued friend of long ago—Hamilton College. For -Marjorie it marked the answering of a most perplexing question. She -believed buoyantly that with the answer was bound to come a new era of -fellowship on the campus, far greater than had ever before manifested -itself among the students. - -“I can’t really believe it’s true, Miss Susanna,” she said happily; -“that you and I are actually walking together across the campus. I feel -as though, all of a sudden; whisk! there’d come a magic wind and you’d -disappear and I’d wake up to find myself walking along alone.” - -“Not quite so bad as that. Let me tell you, I’m very real.” Miss Susanna -gave Marjorie’s arm an only half gentle pinch. “There,” she said, “was -that hard enough to convince you that I am not a campus sprite. I’m a -crabbed old woman, ready to pinch if the occasion demands it.” - -“I’m glad as can be you are real. I’m glad I know more now of how -splendid you are than ever I knew before. I’m glad you’d rather have -your own Marvelous Manager write the biography than even Prexy Matthews. -I’m glad you have at last condescended to come and see me.” Marjorie had -begun enthusiastically, gathering more enthusiasm as she rushed from one -gladness on to another. She ended with a satisfied little exhalation of -breath. - -“You are a compendium of gladnesses, child.” Miss Hamilton smiled very -tenderly at the glowing, graceful girl at her side. “Well, it is good to -be here; to walk the old green again, even though it isn’t very green at -present. I used to love the campus, Marjorie. I experienced a queer -little thrill that day when you told me your best friend at Hamilton was -the campus. I loved it in the same way when I was a student here.” - -“And you never told me you were a graduate of Hamilton,” Marjorie -lightly reproached. She stopped short on the campus. “I think you ought -to be pinched on that account.” - -“You never asked me where I was educated,” Miss Susanna replied, -chuckling. - -“I always meant to. Somehow I never did.” Marjorie looked reflective. -“You see, at first, I never felt you would like me to ask you any -personal questions. After I came to know you well we had so many other -things to talk about I never again thought of asking you. That must be -the reason.” She gave a positive little nod. - -“It must be,” the old lady agreed half jestingly. “I know that I used to -be afraid you would say or do something, when first you came to the Arms -to see me, that might cause me to dislike you. But you never did until -the day we fell out about that snip of a girl who tried to run her car -over me. I was a pig-headed, obstinate old chump that day, child.” - -“Oh, no you weren’t. Now I _shall_ pinch you for calling yourself -names.” Marjorie affectionately made good her threat. “I’m going to keep -on with these crab-like nips until you promise never to mention such -ancient history again.” - -“I had no idea you were such a bully. I’ll have to pretend good -behavior. I never supposed anyone would care if I called myself -disrespectful names,” giggled the amused old lady. - -“You never know what may happen,” Marjorie blithely told her. “Look, -Miss Susanna.” She pointed out a mammoth elm tree just ahead of them at -their right. “That’s my favorite campus tree. During the spring and -summer, until late in the fall, there are seats placed underneath it. -Whenever I find a few minutes to relax and be downright lazy, I steer -straight for that tree. Jerry calls it the Bean tree and the seats the -Bean holders. She says all Bean supporters belong to the genus Bean. -Hence the name Bean holders.” - -Marjorie continued to entertain Miss Susanna in this gay strain as she -proudly conducted her across the campus and toward Wayland Hall. On the -stone walk leading up to the Hall the distinguished visitor halted for a -prolonged look around. - -“The same old Hall,” she half sighed. “I’ve lived for years almost in -sight of it without having once seen it. I’ve cared for it more than the -others because he liked it so well. And I never even suspected why he -cared until I went over some of his papers after he died. You’ll read -the story for yourself, Marjorie, when you come to the Arms to stay with -me and write the biography. When do you think that will be, child?” she -questioned, an eager, hungry light leaping into her eyes. - -“I—I don’t know, Miss Susanna.” Marjorie looked concerned. “Not really -to stay, perhaps, before spring. When we come back from Sanford after -the holidays I’ll try to come almost every afternoon to the Arms. I’ll -stay until about nine o’clock in the evening. Promise to give me my -dinner, and plenty of it, O, Lady of the Arms? I’m always ravenous when -dinner time comes.” She merrily endeavored to stave off disappointment -from Miss Susanna. - -“You may have a dozen dinners every night since that is all you demand,” -the old lady assured with reckless hospitality. The slight shadow, -called to her features by Marjorie’s first doubtful words of reply, -faded instantly. “‘Half a loaf is better than no bread,’” she quoted -with a kind of resigned content. “I hope you and Jerry will be able to -settle down with me at the Arms by the first of March. I’d like you to -see spring awaken at the old place. It is a memorable experience; to -live and breathe with the return of spring in a beauty spot like -Hamilton Arms. I look forward to and pass through it each year with -wonder and gratitude toward my Creator,” she ended reverently. - -“I promise you, Jerry and I will surely be with you at the Arms to greet -the spring,” Marjorie declared impulsively, imbued with the inspiration -of her elderly friend’s deep sentiment. “It’s so comforting to know that -Jerry is to come to the Arms with me. I’d hate so to leave her to room -alone. The other girls would baby her and rush her if I were not at the -Hall. She would miss me dreadfully, only she would try not to let me or -anyone else know it.” - -“Jerry can keep Jonas and me amused and in good humor,” Miss Susanna -said humorously. “I expect to enjoy her company hugely while you are -tucked demurely away in the study, living over life at Hamilton as Uncle -Brooke found it. I shall make Jerry help me organize a grand social -campaign. We’ll have the Travelers, old and new, here often to dinner -and tea. And we’ll entertain the dormitory girls some fine spring -afternoon and evening.” - -Marjorie drew a long, ecstatic breath. “Oh, splendid!” she cried. “It’s -simply one glorious good fortune piled on another for the Travelers, -Miss Susanna.” - -“You forget how much more it means to me. I am a greater gainer than the -Travelers. I’m still looking strictly out for my own interest,” was the -half joking reminder. - -“Oh, you!” Marjorie gave the arm she held a playful shake. “I wish you -felt it was strictly to your interest to go with me to Room 15, Wayland -Hall, to visit Jeremiah and me this afternoon.” - -Her inflection was wistfully coaxing. On the afternoon previous, Miss -Susanna had announced, that, on the following afternoon she and Marjorie -would together call upon President Matthews. Marjorie had then joyfully -urged her to take tea afterward in Room 15, Wayland Hall, at a -jollification in honor of her. The mistress of the Arms had refused, -saying rather pessimistically that she doubted if she would be in the -humor for a social tea after her interview with the president of -Hamilton College. She promised instead to walk across the campus as far -as Wayland Hall. She declared musingly that she would like to have a -good look at the Hall again. - -Now the momentous visit had been made and Miss Susanna was apparently in -a very delightful humor. Marjorie could not resist the golden -opportunity of making a last coaxing plea. - -“I have changed my mind about not going to your room with you, Marvelous -Manager,” the old lady announced, to Marjorie’s amazement. They were -still standing on the stone walk in front of the Hall. - -“I’m going to whisk you into the Hall before you have time to change it -again.” Marjorie took resolute hold of the arm she had just gently -shaken and began hurriedly marching the last of the Hamiltons up to the -veranda. - -Already she was planning an impromptu reception for her beloved guest. -She hoped Miss Remson would not answer her ring of the bell. She -frequently answered the bell if she chanced to be downstairs when it -rang. To summon Miss Remson to Room 15, and have the manager and Miss -Susanna meet there should be one feature of the reception. Tea should be -another. She would levy upon Leila for maccaroons from the five pound -box she had bought yesterday. Ronny still had plenty of Mexican candied -fruit on hand. Jerry should be stripped of a precious glass jar of -salted pecans. She would ruthlessly commandeer the jar of blackberry jam -which Lucy had that morning received from home, provided it hadn’t been -devoured already. There was always a supply of crackers, saltine and -soda, on hand in 15, she reflected comfortably. - -Nellie, one of the maids, answered the bell. Marjorie stretched forth a -hand and conducted Miss Susanna across the threshold in gallant fashion. -An impulse to tears rose within her as she saw an unbidden sadness steal -into her companion’s face the moment she stepped into the old-fashioned -hall. It passed instantly. Miss Susanna poked her head into the living -room and remarked on its tasteful furnishings in the most matter-of-fact -tones. - -“If I had dreamed that you would positively set your magnificent foot in -my kingdom today I would have made elaborate preparations for you,” -Marjorie presently apologized, her hand on the door knob of Room 15. “As -it is, I’ll have to seat you in state in my best easy chair and rush -Jerry out for Leila, Vera and the rest of the Sanfordites. There are -certainly going to be some decidedly surprised Travelers.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - A COLLEGE GIRL AGAIN - - -In the very next minute there was one decidedly surprised Traveler. As -Marjorie stepped after Miss Susanna into her room a rising tide of -jubilant sound assailed her ears. - - “Hamilton, Hamilton, staunch and true: - Great Brooke Hamilton founded you. - Great Brooke Hamilton—that’s his name! - Great Brooke Hamilton—sound his fame.” - -Twice the merry company shouted out this welcome. Miss Susanna -laughingly acknowledged the honor done her with a flourish of small -hands and many bobbing bows. Far from showing surprise at the festal -scene into which she and Marjorie had walked she irradiated only -chuckling amusement. - -“The Empress of Wayland Hall has already arrived and been conducted to -her place on the throne.” Ronny tripped to the middle of the room with -this announcement as soon as the hub-bub attending the new Hamilton yell -had subsided. She was attired in a green velvet page’s costume which she -had confiscated from a trunk in the attic. Her fair features were -animated with mischievous light as she went through a kind of -ceremonious dance before Miss Susanna. She gracefully beckoned the old -lady to the throne and grandiosely pointed out the middle vacant place -on it. - -“What is all this about?” demanded Marjorie. She grandly waved Ronny off -when the latter returned from escorting Miss Hamilton to the throne to -perform the same kind office for her. - -“Ask no questions, pretty maid, but gently follow your leader,” was -Ronny’s lofty advice. “You are about to be ranked with royalty.” - -“I shall remain a commoner all the rest of my life unless you explain -some of this thusness,” defied Marjorie threateningly with an anything -but threatening expression. “How did _you_ know Miss Susanna was coming -here today, when I didn’t? How does Miss Remson happen to be here to -meet her? You never made up that dandy Hamilton yell on the spur of the -moment. Look at this room! I know you’ve been fixing at it ever since I -went out to meet Miss Susanna. You’re all conspirators, the dearest, -bestest, dandiest old plotters under the sun. - -“_You’re_ as guilty as they are.” She leveled an accusing finger at Miss -Hamilton. “You didn’t know a thing about it last night. I guess a flock -of little birds flew over to the Arms this morning. That would account -for why you changed your mind.” - -“What a terrible tirade,” commented Ronny in a shocked tone. - -“Why don’t you introduce us to the royal party you’ve just called down?” -inquired Jerry, her cheerful smile in evidence. - -“Judging from the preparations you’ve made for her, I’d say you know her -better than I,” was Marjorie’s laughing rejoinder. “Now I’m going to do -something I’ve longed to do for two years. I’m going to introduce the -Empress of Wayland Hall to the Lady of Hamilton Arms.” - -Marjorie walked up to the make-shift throne and salaamed profoundly -before it to its two occupants. Then she lifted one of Miss Remson’s -hands and placed it in one of Miss Susanna’s. The crowd of laughing -girls had drawn close to the trio as she did thus. “We love you both so -much,” she said in her clear enunciation. “I know you are friends -already.” - -Approving applause went up from the more humble subjects. Their compact -movement toward the throne had not been without an object. Marjorie felt -herself suddenly seized and shoved into the throne’s vacant left-hand -place before she could make the least resistance. - -“Now will you be good?” Muriel Harding threatened the flushed giggling -addition to royalty. “Don’t fail to notice that I am hanging over you -with my most menacing air.” - -“You look about as menacing as a peaceful sheep,” Lillian Wenderblatt -promptly criticized. - -“If you had said a lamb I shouldn’t have minded. I’m very certain I _do -not_ look like a sheep, peaceful or ferocious,” Muriel asserted with -vast dignity. - -“A ferocious sheep,” pleasantly repeated Vera. “How very entertaining; -the idea, I mean.” - -“Oh, start on someone else. If you don’t treat me with more respect I -shall tell the royal party what the throne’s made of,” warned Muriel. - -“_I_ could do that, but I won’t.” Marjorie beamed knowingly at Jerry. -“How you must have hustled, Jeremiah Macy, to do all this.” A -comprehensive sweep of an arm not only included the throne, but also the -study table, flower-trimmed and set out with a tea service. There were -two gorgeous bunches of roses, one on each chiffonier. Scattered about -the room was the pick of decorative treasures from each Travelers’ room. - -“Oh, I hustled a little bit. The girls did a lot, too. After Leila and I -called up Miss—” She clapped her hand to her mouth in merry dismay. - -“So it _wasn’t_ a flock of birds that told you.” Marjorie bent a gaily -disapproving glance upon Miss Hamilton. “And I was the only one -surprised of all this crowd. I’m still more surprised at being royalty. -Would you mind mentioning my royal title.” - -“The Royal Countess of Bean,” Jerry instantly supplied. “I hope you like -and appreciate it.” - -“I’ll try to,” Marjorie promised with a plaintive meekness which -produced a gale of ready laughter in which she joined. - -Miss Remson and Miss Susanna had clasped hands and taken but one -straight survey, each of the other, before knowing that they were -destined to pass quickly from acquaintanceship to the estate of -friendship. “My girls,” as the old lady loved to call the special little -coterie to which Marjorie belonged, would be the fragrant, youthful bond -between these two elder sisters of Hamilton. - -While royalty took its ease on a plumped-up throne the hard working -subjects of the imperial trio prepared the feast. Leila made the tea, -boastfully asserting that no such tea had ever been made before in the -history of the world. - -“My, _such_ an equivocal statement! It might mean either the best or the -worst tea that was ever made,” Kathie pointed out, grave as a judge. - -“Rather sweeping, _I_ should say,” was Vera’s ironical opinion. - -“I am not sorry I praised my own tea. Now I know that nobody else would -have done it,” Leila remarked loudly to the teapot as she set it on the -table. “Even Midget has a grudge against my sayings.” - -“Oh, never mind about Midget. I approve of you and your sayings, Leila -Greatheart,” consoled Jerry. “Do say something to me now.” - -“That I will.” Leila dropped into a brogue. “I’ll be askin’ a favor of -you, Jeremiah.” There was a mirthful gleam in Leila’s blue eyes which -Jerry happened to miss. “Go to Marjorie’s closet and bring out of it the -box of maccaroons I placed there a while ago.” - -Jerry obediently started for the closet. Her progress was followed by -several pairs of laughing eyes. Leila watched her with an amused show of -white teeth. - -“Aa-h-h-h!” Jerry emitted a sharp yell and made a headlong dive into the -closet. She kicked the box of maccaroons, which reposed on the closet -floor at her feet, nearly overturning it. She had forgotten everything -except the tall slender girl stowed away in the closet whose unexpected -appearance in such a place had given her a startling surprise. Both -plump arms wound around Helen Trent. Jerry was now giving a bear-like -demonstration of affection. - -“Helen; good old Helen Trent!” she was crying out in delight. “How long -have you been lurking in that closet? Come out of it, this instant. -Leila Harper put you there, of course. That’s why she sent me for the -maccaroons.” - -Fondly escorted by Jerry, Helen emerged from Marjorie’s dress closet to -become the center of attraction in the room for the time being. - -“So glad to get out of that stuffy old closet,” she sighed, with her -ever attractive display of dimples. “Leila told me to stay in there -until she sent Jerry to let me out. I could hear all of you talking. How -I wanted to butt in. For Jeremiah’s sake I was noble and silent.” - -“Cut out being noble and silent. Talk,” urged Jerry. She was bubbling -over with good cheer at sight of pretty, easy-going Helen whose cheery -disposition was always toward the funny side of life. - -“I will. First let me hug Marjorie and Miss Susanna. I haven’t hugged -them yet. Then do give me some tea and a chair over which to drape my -weary frame.” Helen grew ridiculously pleading. - -“You talk like a one-piece dress,” Jerry snickered. - -“Well?” Helen lazily opened her limpid blue eyes. “You know you didn’t -specify as to the kind of talk, Jeremiah. You simply said: ‘Talk.’ It’s -werry fatiguing, Jeremiah, to stand up indefinitely in a dress closet. I -don’t aspire to a seat on the throne. I am too modest. I think your arm -chair might be nice.” Helen sent an ingratiating smile to Muriel who was -complacently occupying the coveted arm chair. - -“I’ll tip Muriel out immediately.” Jerry swaggered over to the grinning -occupant. “Vacate gracefully, or be tipped out bodily?” she asked with -dangerous suavity. - -“You can’t tip me out of what I’m not in.” Muriel made an agile bound -from the chair and dodged Jerry’s reaching hands. - -“Let Muriel have the chair. Take my place on the throne, Helen. Miss -Susanna wants to monopolize you.” Marjorie came forward and escorted -Helen to the dais. Muriel instantly retrieved the chair and jeered at -Jerry. - -“It’s a wonder you didn’t see me when I came in this morning,” Helen -laughingly told Marjorie. “I dodged into Miss Remson’s office just as -you came downstairs to go to the laboratory.” - -“I was too obliging to see what I wasn’t supposed to,” Marjorie made -jesting return. With her usual love of action she began helping Leila -serve the tea. The spread was a lap collation with the guests informally -occupying, for the most part, cushions on the floor. Paper napkins, -paper plates and tea cups balanced on knees were leading features. But -Leila’s tea was above reproach. The tiny toothsome sandwiches made by -Ronny and Vera disappeared like magic. Ellen’s famous caramel cake was -delicious as ever and the salted nuts, olives and cheese straws -appetizing relishes. - -None of the effervescently gay company in 15 was enjoying the party more -hugely than Miss Susanna. She ate the delectable fare offered her with -hungry heartiness, drank two cups of tea; laughed and chatted with the -happy abandon of girlhood. - -Because she loved these girls who had loved her and revered the memory -of her kinsman, the once-prejudiced, only living representative of a -grand old colonial family, suddenly experienced a new and overwhelming -sympathy toward all girlhood. Little by little the rusting bars of -prejudice had worn away against the friendly assaults of “her girls.” -For that she owed girlhood a debt which she purposed to pay. - -More than once as her eyes strayed to Marjorie, to rest with content on -the young girl’s glowing, sunshiny face she was reminded of the lines of -a favorite old song. She found exquisite happiness in fitting the -worshipping words to Marjorie. - - “Like the sun thy presence glowing - Clothes the meanest thing in light: - And when thou like him art going, - Loveliest objects fade in night. - All things look so bright above thee— - That they nothing seem without thee: - By that pure and lucid mind - Earthly visions are refined.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION - - -“Yes, Bean, there is nothing like efficiency. And I am _so_ efficient. I -didn’t hear you say a thing.” Jerry cupped a hand to an ear and eyed -Marjorie hopefully. Marjorie was frowningly occupied with a page of -maddeningly abstruse French. “I certainly have worked hard at this -schedule.” Jerry continued her self-laudatory remarks. “But the results -are _celostrous_, Bean; _simply celostrous_! Ha! I thought my new word -would prove irresistible!” she exclaimed in triumph as Marjorie looked -up in mild surprise at Jerry’s latest coining. - -“Something sounded new and queer,” Marjorie averred with the gurgling -little laugh Jerry liked to hear. - -“Now that I have your attention, never mind about my new descriptive -adjective. I’ve been frisking gaily about the room, dropping things on -the floor, growling as I picked them up. And why? On purpose to be -noticed by you. Seeing you’re now seeing me, may I venture to ask if you -know the reason for my nice new adjective?” Jerry pursued blandly. - -“I never heard you frisk a single frisk, Jeremiah, or drop a single -drop, or growl a single growl. This page of French is awful! It’s an odd -old religious argument between two Norman priests. I’d say it couldn’t -be lucidly translated into English, but it can, or we wouldn’t be stuck -with it for a study.” - -“Go and ask her frozenness, the Ice Queen, to give you a lift,” -innocently proposed Jerry. “Muriel says she is a wonder in French. Due -to having had a French governess ever since she could hot-foot it around -the nursery.” - -“I’d like to ask her about this very thing,” sighed Marjorie. “If I -wanted to know about it for someone else I suppose I might. I don’t feel -inclined to go to her on my own account.” - -“I get you, Bean. Don’t take my advice. I wouldn’t take it myself. You -could ask Muriel to ask her about it. That ain’t no way to do, either.” -She shook a reproving head at herself in her dressing table mirror in -front of which she had paused to fluff and pat her hair. - -“This translation would really be a good excuse for going to see Miss -Monroe,” Marjorie reflected aloud. “I wonder what she will do during the -holidays? She told Muriel she had no friends in the United States -besides the Hamilton girls she knows.” - -“I suppose she includes Leslie Hob-goblin Cairns among the Hamilton -aggregation.” Jerry swung disdainfully around from the mirror. - -“Um-m; probably.” Marjorie sat chin in hand, staring ruminatively at -Jerry. “Leslie Cairns may ask Miss Monroe to spend Christmas with her,” -she advanced after a moment’s silence. “I don’t mean in the town of -Hamilton, at the Hamilton Hotel. I mean away from there; New York or -Philadelphia, or even Chicago.” - -“She may have asked her long before this.” Jerry spoke rather -impatiently. “Suppose she hasn’t, Marvelous Manager?” - -“Then some of us should take her home with us,” Marjorie said with -conviction. - -“Uh-h-h-h. I knew it,” Jerry groaned. “But it can’t be you, and it won’t -be me. At least I hope it won’t. You ought not attempt to entertain Miss -Susanna at Castle Dean and run a welfare bureau there at the same time.” - -“You’re positively outrageous, Jeremiah, but there’s fatal truth in what -you say,” Marjorie smiled at Jerry’s humorous injunction. “It would -complicate things to have Miss Monroe visit me while Miss Susanna is at -the castle. I am so anxious, for Miss Susanna’s sake, to have the -perfect spirit of Christmas in the house. Leila, Vera and Robin will -help it along, but Miss Monroe wouldn’t. There’d be a strain on -everything that would spoil all the joy and dearness of Yuletide. It -would worry General and Captain. I—I couldn’t do it and be fair to -them.” The laughter had died out of her face. - -“How do you know she’d come if you asked her?” quizzed Jerry. “It’s only -recently that she’s discovered you are on the college map. She hasn’t -discovered me yet. Can you blame me for not being crazy to welcome her -to the Macy’s humble hut? Suppose I did, and she fell in love with Hal? -I’d have put myself in line for the lasting reproach of an injured -brother.” - -“You’re a nonsensical goose.” Marjorie felt her face grow rosy at -mention of Hal Macy. She was provoked with herself for blushing. - -“I suspect it, but you’ve said it. Nothing can be done about it either.” -Jerry drew a chair up to the study table. She sat down opposite -Marjorie, leaned her elbows on it in imitation of her chum and stared at -Marjorie with a refulgent smile. She drew from a pocket of her serge -dress a little blue book. “Every blessed thing we have to do, person we -have to see, or place we have to go on the campus within the next ten -days is down in this book,” she said with satisfaction. - -“Oh, let me see it!” Marjorie reached out eagerly for the book. She -examined it with growing enthusiasm. “It’s a treasure, Jerry. How did -you happen to think of doing it?” - -“Past sad experience, my child. I’m growing old.” Jerry gave a muffled -sob. “I can’t rush around and do ten days pre-Christmas celebrating, -shopping, calling, and get away with it, all within three hours before -train time. This lovely schedule includes everything and everybody who -it is up to us to include on the campus.” - -“It’s—” Marjorie paused: “celostrous,” she said with a laugh. “There, -Jeremiah, I remembered your new adjective. If we stick to that program -we’ll be wonders. If we half stick to it we’ll avoid a rush at the last -minute. I’m so glad the dormitory girls are beautifully taken care of. -That was another of your inspirations.” - -On the evening following Miss Susanna’s visit to Wayland Hall the -original Travelers had held a meeting in Leila’s and Vera’s room. Its -purpose was to discuss what should be done in the way of Christmas -entertainment on the campus for the students who expected to remain in -college during holidays. Persistent scouting for two weeks previous -among the students, by both chapters of the Travelers, had established -the fact that not more than a dozen girls on the campus would spend the -holidays at Hamilton College. Again the dormitory girls became the main -problem for consideration. - -Jerry had solved the problem by proposing that each Traveler should make -herself responsible for the holiday amusement of two dormitory girls. -“Find out what they’d like to do over the holidays and then help them do -it,” she had advised. “Some will want to spend Christmas in the city. -Others would probably love to be invited to spend the holidays in the -kind of homes we have, where there is lots of Christmas cheer. I’ll take -four dorms home with me. Let me hear from the rest of you.” - -Hailing Jerry’s suggestion with the good will attending the season, Page -and Dean, the dormitory girls’ main stand-bys, called a meeting of the -“dorms” in Greek Hall and electrified the off-campus girls with their -unexpected proposal. Before the favored company of students left Greek -Hall each had confided either to Robin or Marjorie her choice in regard -to how she would prefer to spend the Christmas vacation. Fifteen of the -dormitory girls had already made plans to spend the holidays at their -own homes or those of friends. Forty of them wistfully declared for the -joy of a family Christmas, but demurred in the same breath as being -“afraid of causing too much work and trouble for others.” The -comparatively small remainder consisted of the more independent and -adventurous contingent of “dorms” who welcomed the experience of seeing -New York, Philadelphia or Washington, D. C., the three cities among -which they were given choice. - -Leila, Vera, Kathie, Helen, Robin, Phil Moore and Barbara Severn were -among the Travelers Sanford bound. Leila, Vera and Robin were to be -Marjorie’s guests as well as Miss Susanna. Kathie was to be Lucy’s -company. Helen fell to Jerry, who would also entertain the four dorms. -Ronny had arranged to go to Miss Archer. Phil and Barbara would share -her hospitality. So would two of the dormitory girls. Lucy had also -invited Anna Towne and Verna Burkett. She was highly edified at the -prospect of entertaining three girls instead of one. - -Jerry’s whole-souled proposal had now been successfully carried out so -far as the preliminaries of choice went. It now remained to the -Travelers, original and of the new branch of the sorority, to look out -for the off-campus girls who longed for a home-like Christmas. As seven -of the Travelers themselves were to be guests of the Sanford girls they -could not be counted upon, therefore, to furnish the holiday pleasures -of home to the dormitory girls. They did their part by taking upon -themselves the financing of the modest city expeditions planned by the -off-campus girls. Nor would they allow their chums to contribute a penny -toward it. - -“You heard what I said, Jerry Macy.” Marjorie suddenly bounced up from -her chair and made one of her funny, little-girl rushes at Jerry. “Don’t -pretend you didn’t.” She pounced upon Jerry, threatening: “I’m going to -muss up your hair, since you took so much trouble to fix it. The only -way you can save your nice fluffy coiffure is to say: ‘Yes, Marjorie, it -was another of my inspirations.’ You may notice I don’t refer to my -precious self as ‘Bean,’ either.” - -“Sorry, but I never could talk like you, Bean.” To complete her defiance -up went Jerry’s hands in a backward reach. She caught Marjorie wrists. -The two girls were engaged in a friendly grapple when the door opened -and Muriel Harding came in, her arms piled high with packages, her smart -little hat set far back on her head, two or three loosened curling locks -of hair hanging over her face. - -“What have we here?” Jerry demanded pleasantly. “Just what one might -expect would drift in without knocking.” - -“You’re doing the knocking now; why worry,” chuckled Muriel. She walked -over to Jerry’s couch bed; dumped her packages upon it with a great sigh -of relief. “I made port at the front door with my cargo beautifully, but -I fell up two steps of the stairs. You can see what a wreck it made of -me.” She sat down on the couch beside her bundles, whipped off her hat -and began tucking up her unruly locks of bright hair. “Every last -present that I intend to buy for campus dwellers is in this heap,” she -declared with stress. - -“Is there anything for me there?” Jerry showed sudden flattering -interest in Muriel. “If so, let me see it.” - -“No, there’s nothing for you,” mimicked Muriel. “I’m going to buy your -Christmas present at home, in the Sanford ten-cent store.” - -“Perhaps we’ll meet there.” Jerry arched significant brows. “I had -thought of some nice little ten-cent token for—” She made an effective -pause. - -“I didn’t come here to talk to you.” Muriel tossed her head. “I came to -see Marjorie. I’ve had bad luck about my two Christmas dorms, Marvelous -Manager. The same nice thing has happened to them both. Their families -have sent them the money to go home for the holidays. Neither of them -had expected any such good fortune. The rest of the dorms have their -plans all made. Not a single, double, triple or quadruple dorm will -grace the would-be hospitable hearth of Harding. I’ll bet you couldn’t -make up a sentiment as effective as that, Jeremiah.” - -“A double dorm would be twins. A triple dorm would be a freak. A -quadruple dorm would constitute material for a side-show,” was Jerry’s -reflectively satirical observation. “Oh, I forgot. Kindly confine your -conversation to Bean.” - -“Go away, Jeremiah,” Muriel firmly requested. “Go and see Ronny. A big -box for her from California is downstairs in the hall. Tell her I saw it -first and politely sent you to hand her the news. It will show Ronny how -helpful my disposition is. You can square yourself with me at the same -time.” Muriel opened her eyes, showed her teeth and bobbed her head at -Jerry in what she termed her “delighted” expression. - -“Tell her yourself; I’m no news herald.” Jerry made no move to perform -the squaring act Muriel had suggested. In the next two minutes she -changed her mind and hustled to tell Ronny of the box. - -“I happen to remember that you are just the person I want to talk to, -Muriel,” Marjorie said. “Jerry and I have been wondering what Miss -Monroe is going to do over the holidays. Last time I asked you about her -you hadn’t been able to find out her plans. What do you know about them -now?” - -“Not a blessed thing except this. She said yesterday she might spend -Christmas in New York. I had asked her outright what she was going to do -over the holidays. It was inquisitive; maybe.” Muriel shrugged her -shoulders. “I knew you were anxious to know.” - -“If she is going to New York, it means Leslie Cairns has invited her. -That’s too bad; after the encouraging signs she’s shown lately of -thawing toward us.” Marjorie’s tone was rather gloomy. “It will quash -everything we’ve tried to do to draw her away from Leslie Cairns. I’d -invite her to go home with me for the holidays, but I have Miss Susanna -to consider first of all. If I hadn’t, Miss Monroe wouldn’t accept a -Christmas invitation from me,” Marjorie ended with a trace of -self-mockery. - -“To hear you talk one might think you were a tabooed character.” -Muriel’s gurgle of laughter brought a smile to Marjorie’s troubled -features. - -“I feel so cross sometimes when I think about that aggravating girl.” -Marjorie’s answer rang with vexation. “I’ve not been in your room since -you came back to Hamilton. Neither has Ronny, Jerry nor Lucy. She -snubbed the four of us thoroughly in the beginning. Now proper pride -won’t allow us to put ourselves in direct line for further snubs. She’s -been fairly nice to Robin. Yet Robin hasn’t cared to try calling on Miss -Monroe yet. She doesn’t wish to risk a snubbing, now that she’s made a -little headway with our enchanted princess.” - -“I could like her if she’d let me,” Muriel said bluntly. “We don’t meet -often in the room except just before old ten-thirty, and in the morning. -We’re both out a good deal. She is brilliant or she couldn’t cut study -the way she does and not be conditioned.” There was a hint of admiration -in Muriel’s observation. - -“Oh-h!” Marjorie swung round in her chair until she was facing Muriel. -“Why couldn’t—I wonder if you—It doesn’t seem fair to ask you, Muriel, -but, since both the dorms have gone back on you, would you care to ask -Miss Monroe to go home with you for Christmas?” - -Marjorie fairly held her breath as she finished asking the question. -This splendid way of helping the strange, beautiful girl in whom she had -become so thoroughly interested she was inclined to regard as a positive -dispensation of a kindly Providence. - -“I might.” Muriel stared contemplatively at the anxious questioner. “I -was so disappointed when my two dorms flivvered and renounced me I never -thought of my old friend the Ice Queen.” She looked rather sheepish then -smirked at Marjorie and said: “‘Charity begins at home.’ If I mentioned -Charity in my invitation to the Ice Queen, br-r-r, she’d freeze -Matchless Muriel solid at one glance. Then I couldn’t go home for -Christmas. Neither could she go with me. Think how sad it would be! Two -cold, shiny, slippery, glittery Ice Queens, friz solid over the -holidays.” - -Giggling at her own weird fancy, Muriel rose and began gathering up her -packages. “I’ll ask her directly, if she’s home, dear Bean. I’ll let you -know as soon as I can escape from her royal presence to tell you.” - -“You’re a darling, and the most obliging person in the universe. If -you’d said you’d rather not ask her, I shouldn’t have blamed you in the -least. I thought, after the idea popped into my head, that I ought to -ask you for Miss Monroe’s sake,” was Marjorie’s honest avowal. “Let me -give you a basket to put your stuff in. Here’s the laundry basket.” - -Marjorie proceeded to stack the piles of clean laundry on the couch and -place Muriel’s packages in the basket instead. The two girls performed -the little task with the usual amount of light talk and laughter. After -Muriel had gone Marjorie sat down again at the table to indulge in a -kindly little daydream which had to do with helping Muriel entertain -Doris Monroe should she become Muriel’s Christmas guest. - -Jerry presently drifted into the room to announce that Ronny had cruelly -refused to unpack the box from California before her and Lucy. “She made -us help her upstairs with it, then she coldly turned us out.” Jerry -complained plaintively. “I’d have raged like a gale at such treatment -only she gave me some Mexican candied fruit. It was very celostrous. My -new adjective just describes the candied banana I had. What became of -Matchless Muriel? I see she’s beaten it.” - -“She’ll return presently,” Marjorie made mysterious answer. - -But it was fully an hour afterward before Muriel suddenly popped into -the room, closing the door quickly but soundlessly after her. - -“Excuse my conspirator entrance,” she began just above a whisper. “I -didn’t care to have the Ice Queen know where I went. I ducked out of our -room without saying a word. I promised to tell you what she said, -Marjorie, to our plan.” Muriel’s eyes were bright with the importance of -her information. “Don’t turn all colors with surprise. She says she’ll -go to Sanford with me for Christmas.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - UNFLATTERING COMPARISON - - -While Marjorie Dean and Muriel Harding had been earnestly discussing a -welfare invitation for difficult Doris Monroe, the latter had been -spending a couple of very disagreeable hours with Leslie Cairns. Leslie -had seen fit to assume the particularly dictatorial air which of all her -category of unpleasant moods Doris most thoroughly detested. - -To begin with Leslie had come to meet Doris at the Colonial fresh from a -hot argument with the Italian, Sabatini, whom she had seen fit to call -on at his garage and scathingly upbraid for being a “cheating dago -quitter.” Leslie argued that, for the amount of money she had paid -Sabatini he should have stood out against the threats of Signor Baretti -and declined to put the busses back into service. - -“You are no lady, but the creza girl; thick head you have,” Sabatini had -finally shouted at Leslie when his temper broke all bounds. “You are the -foolish. I don’ run the busses when Baretti say I must, I get my -franchisa take from me. Then don’ run, anyhow. You get that through your -head, you can.” - -“Then give back part of that money, and cut out the pet names,” Leslie -had blazed back at him. “You’ll find out who you’re talking to, you -thieving dago, before you are many weeks older. I’ll _break you_. Put -you out of business. _Just like that!_” Leslie had given her usual -imitation of what she fondly believed would have been her father’s way -of dealing with the situation. - -As a matter of fact her father, Peter Cairns, would never have figured -personally in any such affair. He would have placed it in the hands of a -subordinate below his rank as financier, who would have in turn detailed -his subordinate to act and so on down until one competent to deal with -the Italian had been secured. - -Leslie was not ignorant of her father’s methods of procedure but she was -ambitious to prove her own power over people and circumstances. She was -determined to prove to her father that she could bring about any -consummation she desired either by her own clever maneuvering or by -force of will. Her idea of will power was—“make other people do as you -say.” - -Sabatini’s parting, furious speech had been: “You try make troubla I -make you the troubla, too. You see. I tell about you to the paper man. -Everabuddy read ’bout you in the paper.” He had already refused to -return a penny of the money she had given him. Leslie’s humor as she -lounged out of the garage with an air of lofty indifference was -ferocious. - -This had been her third and most trying interview with the Italian, -Sabatini, since the busses had again begun to run. She reflected -morosely as she drove her car along Hamilton Pike to keep her engagement -with Doris that not a single thing she had planned since first she had -come to Hamilton College as a student had ever turned out advantageously -to her. She did not in the least blame herself or her methods. She was -conceitedly sure of herself. Someone or something had always “butted in” -at the wrong time. Or else the persons on whom she depended to do their -parts in her various schemes had failed her. - -She wondered if her father had received the letter she had written him. -She was confident that it would be forwarded to him if he were not in -New York. She was particularly anxious to know where he was. She hoped -he was not in New York. For weeks, a scheme, the most ambitious plan to -make trouble which Leslie had yet concocted, had been foremost in her -thoughts. It had kept her busy ever since Thanksgiving, daily visiting -her garage property and prowling in the immediate neighborhood of the -dormitory building. The gray stone walls of the dormitory were well -started and steadily reaching upward, a fact which seemed to furnish -Leslie with deep though frowning interest. - -Coming within sight of the dormitory that afternoon she had glanced -toward it and given a short angry laugh. She had then stopped her car -for a moment to compare the activities on the dormitory lot with those -going on at her garage site. The operation of tearing down the old -houses in the block she had purchased, and afterward clearing the -ground, had gone very slowly. The contractor who had charge of that part -of the work had dragged it, so as to benefit himself. Under honest -management the operation should have been far enough advanced at least -to show the garage cellar dug. As it was the ground she owned was yet -partially littered with the debris of demolishment. - -When she had finally arrived at the Colonial there to find Doris waiting -for her at one of the tables she had reached a point where nothing could -please her. On the way from the dormitory site to the Colonial she had -decided to go to New York alone over the holidays. She had important -work to do. She did not propose to allow entertaining Doris to interfere -with it. - -Her first words to Doris on seating herself at the table had been: “The -trip to New York is off, Goldie. I can’t take you with me, I mean. I -have to go, but entirely on business, I must go alone.” - -Her disappointment very keen on hearing such depressing news, Doris had -received Leslie’s announcement with bad grace. More, she had accused -Leslie of not being a person of her word. The two girls had argued and -squabbled as was their wont. Doris was particularly incensed over the -fact that she had refused two invitations from adoring freshmen to go -home with them for the holidays. Three different sophs had also extended -her invitations. She had refused them all because she most fancied the -New York trip. Now Leslie had changed her mind and she, Doris Monroe, -would be the only loser. - -Leslie had relied on her most sarcastic, overbearing manner to cope with -Doris’s indignant explosion. As before, when they had stood out against -each other, Leslie found her match. Doris proved herself so utterly, -scornfully thorny that Leslie finally backed water and volunteered the -sulky promise that if she possibly could she would take Doris to New -York as she had first agreed. Doris herself had not asked it. Neither -had she appeared to take note of the promise. When she left Leslie at -the door of the Colonial, refusing to enter her car, she had merely said -“good-bye” in the iciest of tones. This did not worry Leslie. It was not -the first time Doris had walked away miffed. - -Doris, however, was not only angry at Leslie for her wilful -unreliability, she was experiencing a healthy contempt for Leslie -herself. She contrasted Leslie’s standards and ideals with those of the -girls on the campus whom she was beginning to know, understand and like. -She liked the jolly, worshipping freshmen who had made so much of her. -They were an honorable set. She liked Louise Walker, Calista Wilmot and -Charlotte Robbins particularly among the sophs. She admired Gussie -Forbes, though she never went near her. She knew Gussie to be devoted to -Marjorie Dean. She had quite a secret crush on Robin Page, though she -would have died rather than admit it. She liked Phyllis Moore and -Barbara Severn. She also liked Muriel and admired her for her sturdy -principles. She kept these likes to herself, however, pretending to be -more indifferent than she was. - -She could not be among such girls long without discerning the difference -between their ethical standards and those of Leslie Cairns. She detested -Leslie’s unscrupulousness, yet there were times when she admired the -ex-student’s sang froid. She saw the really humorous, clever side of -Leslie and felt vaguely sorry for her because she was so -unprepossessing. She realized Leslie’s power through money, but she had -lost her respect for the lawless girl on that head. - -She had hurried into the early winter twilight from the tea room feeling -as though she never wished to see Leslie Cairns again. All the way from -the campus gates to Wayland Hall she continued to think darkly of what -she had lost by Leslie’s selfish tactics. She had announced so -confidently, in refusing other Christmas invitations, that she expected -to spend the holidays in New York. Now she would not humble her pride by -letting it be known that she had been disappointed. - -In consequence Muriel’s invitation, delivered immediately after she -reached her room, came as a consoling surprise. Instantly followed -remembrance that Muriel was one of the Sanford five whom Leslie -detested. She recalled her own antagonism toward Marjorie Dean. To -accept a Christmas invitation to Muriel’s home meant the acceptance of -Muriel’s chums as friendly acquaintances. It flashed upon Doris in that -moment of self-examination that there was no reason why she should not -accept as her friends the four Sanford girls who were Muriel Harding’s -intimates. - -Following that illuminating flash came a thought far from noble. It took -strong hold of Doris. How piqued Leslie Cairns would be were she to -accept Muriel’s invitation. It would serve Leslie right. It would show -her that she, Doris Monroe, had the courage of independence. She had no -faith in Leslie’s final grudging assurance that the trip to New York -should be made as they had planned it. Leslie had changed her mind once, -she was likely to disappoint her again. - -Thought of Leslie and a resentful desire to exasperate her completely -outweighed consideration of the purely social side of Muriel’s -invitation. Doris’s momentary hesitation after Muriel had invited her -did not arise, as Muriel had surmised, from regretful embarrassment at -her lack of cordiality toward Muriel’s chums. Doris’s mind was fully -occupied with one idea—the beneficial effect her trip to Sanford would -have upon Leslie. She would write Leslie a note informing her of the -astonishing change in her Christmas plans. If Leslie chose to rage over -the matter, she must rage it out alone. Doris resolved that she would -not see Leslie again until after she had returned to the campus from the -trip to Sanford. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - LOOKING FOR TROUBLE - - -Doris’s thoughts were so entirely centered on the disagreeable effect -her decision would have upon Leslie Cairns she did not stop to consider -what her freshie and sophomore admirers might think of her change of -plans. She decided to wait two days before writing to Leslie. She had -been rather shaky in mathematics for a week past and needed to devote -herself assiduously to it until she was beyond a stage that courted -being conditioned. She had sweetly assured Muriel that she would not -change her mind at the last minute. - -She put off the writing of the note to Leslie until she had finished her -self-appointed review in mathematics. She wished to have a free mind in -which to write Leslie. Her note should be a triumph of cleverness. On -this point she was determined. - -In the meantime Muriel had circulated the news that Doris was to be her -Christmas guest, with an innocently smiling face. Clever Muriel did not -propose to give her sophomore catch an opportunity to wriggle out of her -agreement at the last minute. “It’s just as well to publish the Ice -Queen’s thaw from the housetops,” she gaily confided to Jerry and -Marjorie. “The amazing fact that the Ice Queen and I are chummy will -have a soothing, beneficial effect upon such revolutionists as the -Phonograph, the Prime Minister, and such.” - -“There is some truth in your disrespectful remarks about these erring -sophie sisters,” Jerry had reluctantly agreed. “We can only trust, -Matchless Muriel, that you may always get away with your reckless use of -pet names. I believe I’ve mentioned this hope before.” - -While Doris, having coolly mapped out her own course, was as coolly -pursuing her own way, Leslie was impatiently waiting to hear from her. -She believed that Doris was too greatly bent on going with her to New -York to remain miffed. Doris would soon write or call her on the -telephone. - -Instead of two days it took Doris three to complete her mathematical -review. During that time she kept a “Busy” sign in frequent display upon -the door, a proceeding which Muriel had advised her to do. Since her -acceptance of Muriel’s invitation the two girls had become far more -friendly than before. Both felt the relief attending the change and -welcomed the pleasant interest it permitted them to exhibit in each -other’s campus affairs. - -On the fourth afternoon following her quarrel with Leslie Cairns, Doris -hurried to her room from her trigonometry period, bent in writing the -letter to Leslie. It lacked only three days of the closing of Hamilton -College for the holidays. It was high time she wrote it, she reflected. -During the next three busy days there would be little opportunity. She -sighed audible satisfaction as she entered the room to find it deserted. -She hoped Muriel would remain away until dinner time. Prudently she -brought out the busy sign from its place in the table drawer and affixed -it with a brass tack to an outside panel of the door. - -Having finally settled herself at the study table to write she spent -several minutes in thoughtful deliberation before she wrote: - - “DEAR LESLIE: - - “You know, of course, in what an annoying position you placed me - by disappointing me about our New York vacation. I had been - invited by a number of other girls, some of them upper class, to - spend Christmas at their homes. I refused the invitations—saying - that I had already been invited by a dear friend to spend the - holidays in New York. Naturally, after you had failed me, I - could hardly have the bad taste to go to any one of these - friends, stating that I had changed my mind. - - “Since you disappointed me, Miss Harding, my roommate has - invited me to spend Christmas with her at her Sanford home. I - have accepted. Although you said, just before I left you the - other day at the Colonial, that you had re-considered, and would - try to arrange the New York trip, I was not impressed. I doubted - your intention to keep your word. You have a habit—” - -A forceful fist applied to the door, regardless of the “Busy” sign, -brought Doris to her feet with a displeased “Oh!” She stood for a brief -moment, hesitating, before she made any movement toward the door. While -the sign was warranted to keep away other students, it was not -prohibitive to Miss Remson, the maids or the laundress. - -“Oh!” she exclaimed again as her eyes took in the tall, severe figure of -Julia Peyton. - -The yellow-white of the sophomore’s complexion turned to dull red under -the bored scrutiny of Doris’s sea-green eyes. “I saw your sign.” She -rolled her black eyes toward it. “I simply had to disregard it. I knew -you were alone. It was too good a chance to miss. I really had to see -you.” - -“Why?” was Doris’s close-clipped question. She had not yet invited the -other girl into the room. She knew she was rude, but she did not care. -She did not like Julia Peyton, although Julia was one of her most -annoyingly devoted admirers. - -“Oh, for a very important reason. To prove to you that I am a true -friend, Doris,” Julia wagged her black head in time to her last four -emphatic words. - -“I don’t in the least understand you,” Doris returned stiffly. “Come in. -I am really awfully busy. I have an important letter to—” - -“I won’t stay long,” Julia assured, entering with an alacrity which -indicated the importance of her own mission. Without waiting to be -invited she sat down in a wicker chair and burst forth: “You’re not -really going home for Christmas with Miss Harding, are you? I was told -so yesterday, but I didn’t believe it. I heard the same silly report -today. It worried me. I simply had to come to you with it.” - -“Why should such a report worry you?” Doris demanded half in disdain. - -“Because I’d hate to see you put yourself in a position where you might -be ridiculed.” Julia eyed Doris with mysterious pity. - -“Ridiculed?” Doris’s greenish eyes widened in instant offense. Her -exclamation was one of haughty unbelief. “Do say what you are trying to -say, directly,” she commanded. “I have yet to place myself open to -ridicule.” - -“That’s just what I told Clara,” cried Julia. “I was sure you wouldn’t -go home for Christmas with that horrid Miss Harding.” - -“But I _am_ going home with her,” Doris returned with elaborate -unconcern. A tantalizing impulse to nettle Julia seized her. “She is not -horrid. She is clever, and rather good fun.” Doris drew the chair, in -which she had been sitting when Julia knocked, away from the table. She -sat down and cast a measuring glance at her tiresome caller. - -“You won’t think so after you know why she has invited you to her home.” -The sophomore’s black brows drew together. Her round black eyes assumed -their most “moony” appearance. “She invited you because she couldn’t -find anybody else at Hamilton to invite. I have found out positively -that she has invited four different off-campus girls _and everyone of -them has turned her down_.” Julia’s voice rose in shrill triumph. “What -do you think of that.” - -Without waiting to hear Doris’s opinion she rattled on maliciously. -“Miss Dean and that crowd Miss Harding is chummy with have been -pretending to be the ones who have invited those off-campus beggars to -their homes for the holidays. I know for a fact that none of them have -done much in that direction. Miss Dean, who’s supposed to be such a -sweet little model of goodness and generosity, is going to entertain at -home—not the off-campus frumps. Oh, no! She is going to take Miss -Harper, Miss Mason, Miss Page home with her. Miss Macy will lug home -that tall, blue-eyed, lazy-looking girl that’s visiting Miss Remson. -Miss Lynne has invited Miss Moore and Miss Severn. Even grouchy Miss -Warner is going to entertain Langly. That’s the way they benefit their -precious ‘dormitory girls’ that they are always crowing about.” - -“I fail to see how all this applies to me.” Doris showed plain signs of -becoming frosty. She was only half interested in Julia’s lengthy, -spiteful argument. - -“I’m only trying to show you how selfish and what fakes that crowd of -priggies are. Just the same what I said about Miss Harding having -invited you because she couldn’t get anyone else applies to you,” was -Julia’s dogged assertion. “I heard she felt sorry for you because -you—well, had no home influences—er—that you came clear from England -alone and—that—and—” Julia floundered desperately, then paused. - -“What does Miss Harding know of me? Nothing.” Doris sprang to her feet -in a swift blaze of wrath. “Who told you she said such things of me?” - -Julia solemnly shook her head. As a matter of truth she was merely -repeating several of her roommate’s, Clara Carter’s, vague suppositions. -“I can’t tell you that. She—er—I only heard she felt that way about you. -You see, Doris, I asked you to go home with me for the holidays, but you -said you were going to New York,” she reminded in reproachful tones. “I -supposed you would go with Miss Cairns. All of a sudden you turned -around and accepted Miss Harding’s invitation. I thought it rather -unfair in you, when I had asked you first of all. I thought you might at -least have come to me and said—” - -“I will not be lectured by anyone!” Doris cried out angrily. “I don’t -care what you thought. I could explain to you precisely why I accepted -an invitation from Miss Harding to spend Christmas with her at her home, -but I shall not do it.” - -“I shouldn’t call a friendly confidence, such as I’ve just given you, a -lecture. I’m sure I haven’t asked you to explain anything. I think I’d -better go now. I’ve done my duty as your friend, even if you can’t -understand that now. You will sometime soon, I hope.” Julia rose, -stalked to the door; a picture of offended dignity. “You’ll be sorry if -you go home with Miss Harding.” She could not resist this last fling. -“You’ll lose caste on the campus. Remember, she has invited you as a -last choice.” - -“I am _not_ going home with Miss Harding.” Doris brought one slippered -foot down with an angry stamp. “I suppose I ought to thank you for -telling me what you have. I don’t feel like thanking anyone for -anything. I shall go to New York for Christmas.” - -“With Miss Cairns?” eagerly quizzed Julia. - -“Yes, with Miss Cairns,” Doris answered; then added bitterly: “She has -invited me to go there with her because we are friends; not because she -feels sorry for me.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - DEFEATING HER OWN HAPPINESS - - -When the door had closed on her gossiping caller Doris sat down again at -the table. She leaned her beautiful head on her white, dimpled arms and -gave herself up to brief disconsolate reverie. Now that she was alone -she wondered whether what Julia Peyton had said about Muriel Harding was -strictly true. There was one way in which she could find out with -certainty. She would ask Muriel point-blank if it were true that four -off-campus girls had refused her invitation. She would ask Muriel, also, -where she had gained so much information regarding herself. When she -endeavored to recall Julia’s exact words she found they did not mean -much. Julia’s reluctant inflections, her stammering pauses, had implied -so much more than words. - -Julia’s object in warning Doris against Muriel had been double. Since -the evening when she had made complaint against the noise in Room 15 she -had shown marked hostility to the knot of post graduates at Wayland -Hall. She and Clara Carter had encouraged Doris in her half fancied -dislike for them. She had noted the new spirit of friendliness growing -between Doris and Muriel with every intention of crushing it if she -could. She kept up a zealous watching and longing for an opportunity to -create dissention between them. She had a habit of dropping in on Doris -in her room when Muriel was there purposely to see how things were -between the two. She never spoke to Muriel, however. - -About the time she had begun to despair of making mischief between them -she was delighted to overhear a group of chattering freshmen in the -gymnasium one afternoon gaily discussing their Christmas plans. What -most pleased her were the remarks of one of them: “Isn’t it too bad? -Miss Harding can’t find a single dorm to trot home with her. They are -all attached. It’s too bad for her. I mean. Of course it’s lovely for -the dorms.” - -The jealous, prejudiced girl had chosen to place an entirely different -construction upon the remarks from that intended by the merry little -freshman. By the time she had repeated the remarks to Clara Carter, her -roommate, with embellishments, they had assumed an ugly tone. Clara also -contributed a few opinions which did not improve matters. - -Added to this it needed but the rumor that Doris Monroe was going home -with Miss Harding for the holidays to set the mischief-making pair of -sophomores to work. Julia was of the opinion that since Doris had -planned to go home with Muriel she and Miss Cairns must have quarreled. -If she could only set Doris against her roommate then Doris would go -home for the vacation with her. She would have the pleasure of boasting -that she had entertained the college beauty. She was confident that she -would gain socially by having entertained Doris as her guest. With so -much to be gained to her interest Julia had picked her hour and boldly -braved the “Busy” sign and Doris’s “royal” manner. At the last she had -not dared propose to Doris that her wrathful classmate should spend the -vacation with her. She returned to her room to inform Clara, who was -watching for her, that she had just missed getting into an awful mess. - -With a pettish little jerk of her head Doris straightened in her chair. -She picked up the letter she had been writing from the table and began -reading it over. Then she sat staring reflectively at it, as though -deliberating some very special course. Next instant and she had torn the -unfinished letter in pieces. With the peculiar cresting of her golden -head, always a sign of defiance, she reached for her fountain pen where -it had rolled to one end of the table. - - “Dear Leslie:” she wrote, her green eyes darkening with her - unquiet thoughts. “If you really meant what you said when I left - you the other day at the Colonial, then I will take you at your - word. Miss Harding, my roommate, has invited me to go home with - her. I prefer to go to New York with you, provided you will not - feel that I am an incumbrance to your plans. Let me know - immediately what you wish to do. - - “Sincerely, - “DORIS MONROE.” - -She read the brief note, folded it and prepared it for mailing. Then she -tucked the envelope in her portfolio, but without a stamp. She glanced -up at the clock. It was nearing six. Muriel would soon arrive. Of late -she and Muriel had exchanged the cheerful, careless greetings of -girlhood when they met in their room or on the campus. She had lately -begun to find a roommate might be a congenial comfort instead of a -tiresome inconvenience. Now it was all spoiled. Muriel had pretended -pity for her to other students. Of all things detested, Doris most -disliked being pitied. - -In spite of her anger against Muriel, Doris could do no less than admit -to herself that Julia Peyton’s word was not to be taken above Muriel’s. -Yet she was sullenly convinced that Muriel must have said something -pitying about her to someone. How else could Julia have heard it? A -bright flush dyed her face as she thought of herself as being a -last-resort guest. Perhaps Muriel had been asked by Miss Dean to invite -her, merely as a welfare experiment. She had heard that Miss Dean was -fond of making such experiments. It was outrageous that _she_ should -have been selected as the victim of one. Other far-fetched, flashing -conjectures visited her troubled brain as she waited for Muriel’s -coming. She could not decide whether to treat Muriel with friendliness, -asking her frankly for an explanation, or to resort once again to her -old-time haughty indifference. - -Muriel’s sudden breezy entrance and accompanying cry: “Where, oh, where, -are the lickerish lights?” took Doris’s mind off herself for a moment. -Muriel had already pressed the switch near the door. She made such an -attractive study in her gray squirrel coat and cap, cheeks carnation -pink, dark eyes snapping with sheer love of life Doris had no desire to -be haughty. - -“I forgot the lights,” she said with a little shrug. She continued to -watch Muriel who was removing coat and cap. “I should like to ask you -something,” she said as Muriel hung up her wraps and commenced smoothing -her ruffled hair before a mirror. - -“Ask ahead.” Muriel waved affable permission with her hair brush. - -“Is there—are there—am I the only guest you have invited for Christmas?” -Unconsciously Doris’s voice had taken on a shade of its former icy -quality. - -“You’re the only one who’s coming,” laughed Muriel. “You’re by no means -the only one I invited.” - -“Oh!” Doris gave a queer little gasp. - -“Did you hear about my dormitory girls? I invited them, and they -accepted. Then they had unexpected checks sent them from home and away -they went. I wandered around looking for some checkless, invitationless -dorms. There were no such stoojents.” Muriel declared good-humoredly. “I -supposed of course you were dated ahead for the holidays. Then I asked -you, and found you weren’t. I was so glad. I’d have felt sorry to think -of you poking around the campus over Christmas alone. You’re so far from -home, you see. Marjorie said the same and—” - -“I don’t wish anyone to be sorry for me.” Doris’s almost fierce -utterance checked Muriel’s flow of cheery volubility. - -“All right. I’m not sorry a bit. You only dreamed I was,” she retorted -in a tone of gay raillery. - -“I’m not jesting. I am serious.” Doris drew herself up, a slim figure of -affronted dignity. All that Julia had said of Muriel was true. Only one -question, and Muriel had then practically admitted saying almost the -exact words Julia had quoted as hers. - -“Oh-h-h?” Muriel voiced the monosyllable questioningly. Her bright -expression faded into concern. “Serious about what?” she asked. - -“About not wishing you or Miss Dean or any of your friends to be sorry -for me. I have plenty of friends—delightful friends. Why, I’ve refused -half a dozen Christmas invitations! I have changed my mind about going -home with you. I’m not going. I shall go to New York instead. I might -have liked you, if you hadn’t tried to pity me behind my back. That was -worse than to my face. Please tell Miss Dean to mind her own affairs. I -am not a welfare experiment.” - -Doris delivered the long answer to Muriel’s question in a voice that -grew more scornful with each word. She busied herself as she sputtered -forth her displeasure with the donning of hat and coat. With -“experiment” she snatched the letter she had written to Leslie Cairns -from the portfolio, hastily affixed a stamp to the envelope and rushed -from the room. Muriel watched her go, divided between vexation and -perplexity. What under the sun had happened to the Ice Queen? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - THE COMING OF ST. NICK - - -“You know, if you are good, Santa Claus will surely visit you on -Christmas eve,” Marjorie was gravely saying to the bright-faced, alert -little old lady ensconced in a big cushiony chair before the cheerful -open fireplace. Marjorie emphasized her injunction with gentle little -shakes of a forefinger. - -“How good do I have to be? Will Santa Claus come down the chimney?” -anxiously questioned Miss Susanna in a high treble that evoked a burst -of merriment from the rest of the little group gathered about the fire. -“Miss Susanna’s bodyguard,” Vera had lightly named Leila, Robin, -Marjorie and herself. - -“How good do you think you can be?” Marjorie paused to allow her -question to take effect. - -“That will depend upon the reward of goodness,” chuckled the old lady. - -“You are altogether too precautious.” Marjorie simulated disapproval. -“But you can’t fool Santa. He will know the minute he sees you just what -sort of little girl you are.” - -Miss Susanna peeped through her fingers at Marjorie in a funny, abashed, -child-like fashion that elicited fresh laughter. “You can’t fool me, -either. He never _could_ come down the chimney and out of that -fireplace. I’m going to tell him what you said, when I see him. Then -maybe he won’t like you,” she predicted in juvenile triumph. - -“Oh, I didn’t say he’d come down _our_ chimney,” reprovingly corrected -Marjorie. “I only said he _might_ visit you. He always _used_ to come in -at that window over there.” She pointed to one of the living room east -windows which opened upon a side veranda. - -Miss Susanna appeared impressed at last. “Yes; he could get in here that -way. I guess I’d better be good.” A little shout greeted her reluctant -admission. “Such a day as I’ve had, children.” She gave a sigh of -perfect happiness. “I’m certainly beginning to make up for some of the -customs and rites of old Christmas I have missed.” - -The jolly Christmas company from Hamilton College had arrived in Sanford -in the evening of the previous day. They had separated briefly at the -station to go to their various destinations blithely promising Marjorie -to be on hand by ten o’clock the next morning to go to a neighboring -woods on a winter picnic. The express object of the picnic was the -securing and bringing home of the Christmas tree to Castle Dean. - -The hard labor part of the expedition had fallen to General Dean. He had -complained of the detail in a loud, ungeneral-like manner as a “one-man, -wood-chopping stunt,” and had immediately engaged the services of Hal -Macy, Charlie Stevens and Danny Seabrooke. The wages they demanded were: -“Lots of good eats, and a chance to hang around with the crowd.” The -wily general affably agreed to their demand without consulting either -the commissary or entertainment departments. - -It had proved a memorably merry day. The fun began when the rollicking, -cheering forest expedition had piled onto the two long bob sleds, each -drawn by four big, satin-coated field horses. It had continued until the -young foresters had come singing home through the dusk, the sleds laden -with fragrant balsam trees and boughs. - -Bred to thrive in the great outdoors the sturdy mistress of Hamilton -Arms had enjoyed the winter picnic no less than her youthful companions. -While there had been sufficient snow to permit the use of the bob sleds, -it was of the frost-like crystallized kind. The sun had peered curiously -forth from his winter quarters, had apparently approved the gay winter -cavalcade. He had flashed in and out of fleecy clouds at them on their -way to the woods. Later, when they had hilariously disposed themselves -on the bob sleds for an al fresco luncheon he had come out in all his -glory to shine on them. - -What most amused the girls was the crush which Miss Susanna and Hal -immediately developed for each other. Miss Hamilton and Hal had met at -the June Commencement of Hamilton College of the previous summer. -Devotion to Marjorie had formed an instant, though unspoken bond between -them. Hal had somehow gained the comforting impression that Miss Susanna -approved of him for Marjorie. The shrewd old lady had not miscalculated -his worth. She had been too wise, however even to mention him to -Marjorie. Nor had Marjorie ever mentioned Hal to her save as an old -friend, or as Jerry’s brother. - -The wise old Lady of the Arms had seen too much of heartache, -misunderstanding and vain regret not to appreciate the wonder of the -love which Hal held for Marjorie. Miss Susanna had had her own romance. -It had ended summarily in her girlhood when she found the man she had -loved unworthy. In true love itself she still believed, though she -skeptically rated it as so rare as to be almost extinct. Then had come -Hal, with his clean-cut good looks and wistful blue eyes. She could only -receive him into her interested regard with the hope Marjorie might one -day “wake up to love.” - -Friends of Marjorie Dean knew the quartette of stories relative to her -doings at Sanford High School. They form the “MARJORIE DEAN HIGH SCHOOL -SERIES.” These friends have also followed her through her four years at -Hamilton College by medium of the “MARJORIE DEAN COLLEGE SERIES.” Her -subsequent return to Hamilton campus as a post graduate has been set -down in the first two volumes of the “POST GRADUATE SERIES,” entitled -respectively: “MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE POST GRADUATE,” and “MARJORIE -DEAN, MARVELOUS MANAGER.” - -“It has been a good day; now let it be—good night,” declaimed Leila with -a dramatic gesture. - -“Good night,” Vera sweetly responded. “So sorry you are going.” She -smiled honeyed dismissal of Leila. - -“But I am not going. Now why should you think I was? I see little -sadness in your round face, Midget,” was the satiric retort. - -“You said ‘good night.’ Of course, if you didn’t know what you were -saying—” Vera shrugged eloquently. - -“Can you not allow your Celtic friend to quote from that most celebrated -of all playwrights, Leila Harper?” demanded Leila, with an air of deep -injury. “Is not that the hero’s parting speech from my latest and best -house play? I can prove it by Robin. Did I not nearly ruin my fine Irish -voice drilling the hero to say it with expression?” - -In process of delivering this scathing rebuke to Midget Leila bent down -and swept Ruffle, Marjorie’s stately Angora cat, into her arms. “It is -you and I who will now have a talk about Santa Claus,” she genially -informed the struggling, fluffy-haired captive. - -“N-n-u-u-u!” objected Ruffle in a deep displeased tone. - -“So you can say ‘no.’ Well, it is ‘yes’ you should say. Let me tell you -it is not about Santa Claus, but about Ruffle Claws we should be -talking. You have a fine sharp assortment.” Ruffle had threateningly -spread his claws but had refrained from using them. “You are more gentle -than I should be if some tall, wide person had the boldness to swing me -up off my feet.” Leila willingly released the big, handsome gray and -white puss. - -Ruffle immediately sidled over to Miss Susanna, waving his plumy tail. -He began a slow walk around her chair, keeping his luminous gray-green -eyes fastened persistently upon her. Presently deciding that his mute -plea was in vain he hopped up into her lap and settled himself upon it. - -“Here comes General. Look out, Miss Susanna. He is more dangerous than -Ruffle. He would as soon tip you out of that chair as not.” Marjorie -sent out this timely warning. - -“Oh, I heard you.” Mr. Dean had stepped briefly into the living room on -his way to the street. “I can’t stop to assert myself. Tomorrow I’ll -spend a Merry Christmas dumping usurpers out of my chair. Anyone found -sitting in it will be eligible to dumping. All persons thus dumped must -pick themselves up without the slightest assistance from me.” - -“Your hear that, Ruffle?” Robin Page laughingly reached forward and -gently tweaked one of Ruffle’s white whiskers. - -“Tomorrow never comes,” Marjorie said teasingly. “But, here’s an -unofficial order for you, General Dean;” she pointed a forceful finger -at her father. “Pick up your detachment as soon as you can and hike -for—you know where,” she added with mischievous lights dancing in her -brown eyes. - -“Yes, Lieutenant,” Mr. Dean saluted. “Never give your superior officer -orders. Under the circumstances, however, I will overlook your lack of -proper military respect.” - -“Thank you, General.” Marjorie saluted with a great show of respect. Her -parting injunction to her superior officer, delivered in the next breath -was deplorably lacking in that particular military requisite. “You’d -better overlook it and obey my order,” she called after him as he left -the room, laughing. - -“Something is going on here besides a possible visit from Saint Nick,” -asserted Vera positively. “The air of mystery in this barrack has been -growing ever since dinner. Why did Captain disappear so suddenly, right -after dinner, without a word to anyone? And Delia went with her. They -slid out the front door in such a rush!” - -“It’s Christmas Eve, you know.” Marjorie made this trite explanation -with great cheerfulness. “All sorts of remarkable things are likely to -happen on Christmas Eve.” - -“Then the rest of the crowd must have been lost in this mysterious -atmosphere,” commented Leila with naive conviction. “It is eight -o’clock, and not one of them here. I have my suspicions of you, Beauty. -You are too full of mystery to be reliable. Who knows what dark -Christmas contraption you have framed for the poor Lady of the Arms and -three more of us?” - -“Who knows but I?” Marjorie tantalized. “Oh, well; it wasn’t so very -long ago that I walked into a campus contraption all of you had set for -me. Please don’t forget to remember that.” - -The prolonged peal of the door bell sent her running on light feet to -the door. A sound of soft voices and smothered giggles in the hall, then -she and Muriel Harding entered the living room. - -“What is it you know that you think so funny?” Leila began on Muriel. “I -always supposed I knew more than you. It seems I do not.” - -“Of course you don’t,” Muriel was quick to assure. “You now see what -conceited delusions you’ve cherished. For further delusions consult the -stars.” - -“I should be ashamed to consult them about such foolishness.” Leila’s -smiling urbanity matched Muriel’s own bland assurance. “They might -choose to rate me as a dummy.” - -“Both doors into the drawing room are locked.” Robin Page now added to -the case against Lieutenant Dean. “I was going to charm you with an -after-dinner Christmas carol and, bing! Robin was locked out.” - -Muriel and Marjorie treated Robin’s plaintive announcement as a huge -joke. They locked arms, sat down on the davenport exactly together with -a frisky jounce and shed beaming effulgence on their companions. - -“There has been a villain’s convention somewhere,” growled Leila in the -deep rumble she called her “Celtic double-bass.” “Speak, Lady of the -Arms. Name the arch villain.” She made a sudden melodramatic lunge -toward Miss Susanna, who had been following the exchange of exuberant -raillery in enjoying silence. - -“Sh-h-h-h.” Miss Susanna raised a small, cautioning hand. “I’m trying to -be good. Don’t break the spell.” - -Simultaneous with her warning came a new sound. It proceeded from the -very window Marjorie had pointed out to Miss Susanna as a possible -entrance for Santa Claus. The window was slowly rising, shoved upward by -a pair of energetic arms. Came a flash of shiny black, cherry red and -snowy white. Into the room bounced Santa Claus, resplendent in high -black boots and long-coated scarlet suit. His rosy face was framed in -the venerable whiteness of luxurious cotton locks. His flaming costume -was also lavishly trimmed with the same useful cotton. - -“Good evening, all,” he piped in a high, cheerful voice. “I have come to -find a little girl named Susie Hamilton. I am going to take her and her -little playmates to the North Pole with me to spend Christmas Eve.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - OFF TO THE NORTH POLE - - -The amazed hush that followed Santa Claus’s hospitable declaration was -lifted by a gleeful chuckle from Miss Susanna. With the appearance into -the room of the fabled Kris Kringle she had hastily set Ruffle from her -lap to the floor and risen to her feet. Ruffle placidly took advantage -of the situation to gain the coveted chair. - -Leila and Vera were hardly less diverted over the sight of Santa Claus -than was the last of the Hamiltons. Neither of them knew home as -Marjorie, Robin, Muriel and their intimates knew its fond meaning. -Leila’s Celtic love of the mystic, fanciful and fictional, had been -shared by Vera during their years of comradeship at Hamilton College. - -“I’m that little girl. I’m Susie Hamilton.” Miss Susanna walked slowly -toward Santa Claus with a droll assumption of shyness. - -“You don’t say so? How are you, Susie?” Santa gave the supposed little -girl a gripping handshake. “I heard you had been very good. I hope these -other little girls have.” He turned very blue, very suspicious eyes upon -Muriel, who merely beamed at him familiarly and inquired: “Where’s your -friend?” - -“I see trouble ahead for one of these infants,” remarked a voice from -Santa’s beard that sounded strangely like that of Jerry Macy. -Immediately recovering his high-pitched voice Santa announced: “My -friend, the King of the North Pole is outside. As my reindeer are all -very busy tonight he is going to give me a lift.” - -The King of the North Pole evidently yearned for an introduction. A head -covered with a peaked, close-fitting hood of glistening, glittering -white, followed by a pair of broad shoulders, draped in the same -glittering, frost-like material, appeared in the window frame. The -reigning monarch of the North Pole, after a brief struggle in passage -with a voluminous white cape, landed triumphantly among the admiring -company. - -A conspicuous bulge in the right side of his glittering cape disappeared -as he drew forth a fluffy white worsted coat and held it open for Miss -Susanna to slip on. Next moment he had picked her up, carried her across -the room, swung her through the window and to her feet on the porch -floor. Gathering his cape closely about him, he launched through the -open frame after her. Again he caught her up, laughing and unresisting, -and ran down the walk with her to where a little, old-fashioned cutter, -painted bright red and with furry white lap robes awaited her. A large, -mild-eyed white horse was harnessed to the cutter, his harness gay with -scarlet ribbon rosettes. The King lifted Miss Susanna into the cutter, -tucked the furs about her then stood looking laughingly down at her. Nor -would he utter a sound. He merely waved a re-assuring hand toward Santa -Claus, who had dashed out the front door and was now running down the -walk at a kind of wild gallop. - -“You’re next,” Santa shrieked over a plump shoulder at the knot of -pursuing girls. Reaching the sleigh the juvenile patron saint made a -lively leap into it beside Miss Susanna, gathered up the reins, clucked -to the horse and whirled away with the Lady of the Arms. - -“No time like the present.” The King of the North Pole found his voice. -“Either get into my chariot, or be bundled in,” he threatened with -smiles. The chariot had been parked behind the sleigh. It greatly -resembled Jerry’s limousine. - -“I’m not ready to go to the North Pole, your Majesty,” blithely -petitioned Marjorie. “I haven’t yet locked up my castle.” - -“Delia was at the back door when I came in the window. Want to be -bundled in?” The King sent significant glances from the car to Marjorie -and back again. He had already gallantly assisted the other girls into -the limousine. - -“No, indeed.” Marjorie followed her companions into the back of the -machine. There they found a collection of Jerry’s wraps placed to meet -the emergency. Marjorie smiled to herself as she draped a wide fleecy -scarf over her silk-clad shoulders. As the King of the North Pole, Hal -had the old, teasing school-boy manner she liked best in him. She hoped -he would keep to it throughout her stay in Sanford. - -It presently developed that the King of the North Pole had decided to -move his icy domain over Christmas to the Macy’s ball room. There it was -that Santa also had his headquarters. Miss Susanna was whisked to the -top of the Macy’s big house in an elevator and escorted into the ball -room, now festally decorated from end to end with fragrant balsam -boughs, long trails of sturdy green ground pine and glossy-leaved -flaming-berried holly. From the central electric chandelier depended a -bunch of pearly mistletoe berries. - -Santa Claus’s eight reindeer had reached home ahead of their master. -Jerry’s four “dorms,” Ronny’s two, Lucy and Kathie, had chosen this -detail. Their costumes had been planned for them by Jerry and carried -out by Mrs. Dean and Mrs. Macy several days before the arrival at -Sanford of the celebrated reindeer themselves. Their brown cotton -flannel suits of bloomers and close-fitting knee coats, together with -brown hose and sneakers were quite realistic when topped by brown cotton -flannel antlered hoods. The antlers were triumphs of pasteboard -ingenuity. Their only drawback was their tendency to wabble at times, -thereby giving their wearers an appearance of recklessness not -attributed to the famous Santa Claus eight. Harnesses strung with little -bells completed their costumes. - -At the far end of the room in one corner stood an immense Christmas -tree, resplendent with its glitter of gilt, silver and gorgeous-hued -ornaments. At the foot of the tree was stacked a wealth of festively -wrapped, ribbon-bound bundles. The eight reindeer escorted Santa Claus -and Miss Susanna gaily up the hall to where a deep, garnet velvet Sleepy -Hollow chair stood awaiting an occupant. She had hardly been established -in it when the King of the North Pole and his party arrived. - -“My reindeer will entertain you with a song and dance,” Santa Claus -piped up, when the first buzz of voices and echoing laughter had died -out in the big room. “After that my fiddler will furnish music and we -will all have a dance. I will lead with my little friend, Susie. Please -don’t all try to dance at once with the King of the North Pole.” - -“No one except Jeremiah Macy would offer such simple advice,” Muriel -pleasantly told the king himself. “Too bad you have no gentleman friends -besides Santa Claus.” - -“Oh, but I have,” was the king’s cheering disclosure. - -“Really?” Muriel showed deep interest. “Where do you keep them?” - -“That’s a secret.” The king put on an aggravatingly wise expression. -“There are lots of good hiding places at the North Pole.” - -“Just as I thought!” Muriel exclaimed in triumph. “I knew you and -Jeremiah couldn’t stay away from home all day at the picnic and do this -decorating between dinner time and eight o’clock. You had help—h-e-l-p!” - -“Certainly I had,” the king admitted. “General and Captain were here and -helped the Governor and Mother trim the tree. So did Delia. But they’ve -gone home now to trim Marjorie’s tree.” He regarded Muriel with an -innocent candor which the sparkle in his eyes contradicted. - -“You can’t fool me, Mister King of the North Pole Macy,” she said as the -eight reindeer trotted out upon the waxed floor to do their bit toward -entertaining. Before they had time to begin their song Muriel’s fingers -flashed to her lips. Twice she sounded the sharp clear whistle which she -and Jerry had long ago made Hal teach them how to blow on the fingers. - -“Now you have done it!” The king laughed nevertheless as the ball room -door swung open and a troop of joyfully grinning young men filed in, led -by Danny Seabrooke. “Who told you the signal?” he demanded. - -“I knew if Danny Seabrooke was within hearing of it, he’d come at that -whistle. And he did,” laughed Muriel. “You had Danny and his crowd -tucked away in the garret next to the ball room.” - -“You should have seen them work after we brought the decorations up here -from the wagon. We had only about an hour and a half for the job and I -had to leave before it was finished and go with Jerry—Santa Claus, I -should say.” Hal exhibited boyish pride in the success of the -decorating. “I’d have invited the fellows anyway, on my own say-so. -Think Danny and I are crazy to be the only fellows in such an -aggregation of girls?” - -At sight of the troop of joyful intruders panic overtook two of the -reindeer and they fled to the safety of Miss Susanna’s protection. One -of them was Lucy Warner, who was noted for her bashful fear of young -men. The other was Neva Worden, an equally timid dormitory girl. Neither -would consent to perform for the benefit of the newcomers. Jerry and -Ronny, in giggling distraction over this unexpected hitch in the program -finally posed them, one on either side of Miss Susanna’s chair, -ostensibly as ornaments, while their six unabashed companions sang a -jolly English roundelay, at the same time executing a lively little -dance around the Lady of the Arms, waving their antlers and jingling -their bells. - -Phil, as the fiddler, presently came forward to play for the dance Santa -Claus had graciously announced. Her usual picturesque style was -intensified by a costume consisting of baggy black velvet knickers, a -velvet coat of forest green with a skull cap to match. Her white cotton -blouse fell away from her firm white throat in a wide rolling collar. -Two peacock feathers were thrust through her cap. Black stockings and -brown suede sandals lent the last touch of the artistic unusual to her. -Her violin swung from her shoulder on a broad green ribbon. Her bright -loosened hair under her tiny cap gave her a thoroughly Bohemian -appearance. - -Tucking her violin under her chin she drew forth the familiar -marshalling strains of the Virginia reel. She raised her head a little -from her violin and laughed softly as her quick ear caught the sound of -another violin besides her own. As she continued to play a slim -black-eyed boy with a shock of heavy black hair thrown off his forehead -came forward from where he had been concealed behind the Christmas tree. -Under his chin was a violin. He was playing the old reel in perfect time -with Phil. This was her introduction to Charlie Stevens, now a “big” boy -and qualified to play in “a big band.” - -Miss Susanna and Santa Claus led off in the reel. The King of the North -Pole followed with tiny Vera. Leila accepted Danny Seabrooke as a -partner and Robin fell to Miles Burton. Ronny danced it with Mr. Macy, -who had come up to “see the fun,” and Mrs. Macy danced with Harry Lenox. -The rest of the girls paired off with the remainder of Hal’s delegation -of Sanford boys, and the house rang with the laughter and cheer of the -occasion. - -Marjorie’s partner chanced to be Danny Seabrooke’s brother Donald, a -junior at Weston High. As she stood between Leila and Barbara Severn in -the merry line of girls awaiting her turn to dance she was reminded of -the changes that had taken place since the first time she had danced a -Virginia reel in the Macy’s ball room. She sorely missed Connie and -Laurie. This was the second Christmas Eve without them. She recalled how -she and Laurie and Connie had worked to make a happy Christmas for -little Charlie when first she had known Connie and him. Now here was -Charlie, a tall, sturdy boy, with not many years between him and -manhood. - -Three girls were missing tonight from the old happy sextette. Connie, -Irma and Susan Atwell. Connie was far away across the ocean. Irma was -visiting her aunt in New York and buying her trousseau. The Atwells had -moved to San Francisco. Harriet Delaney, the seventh chum the sextette -had invited into their close little band, had made a successful New York -debut in grand opera. Mary Raymond, her first chum, had long been in -distant Colorado. And Mary was going to be married! - -They were all dearer to her than ever, she reflected. A warmth of fresh -affection for her absent friends surged up in her heart. Followed a -sense of tender exultation as she looked up and down the rows of gay, -voluable dancers. How very rich in present friends she was! Present and -absent, they were all hers; to have and to hold. Surely love, the love -of which Hal had wistfully talked to her, could not be more wonderful -than friendship. - -Involuntarily her eyes strayed to Hal, vividly, romantically handsome in -his sparkling white regalia of the frozen zone. “He looks like the hero -of a Norse myth,” was her thought. “When we go back to Hamilton, I’m -going to ask Leila to write a Norse play and call it—” Marjorie -deliberated. Her gaze continued to rest unsentimentally on Hal as he -stood at the foot of the line, exchanging humorous sallies with the two -fiddlers. “The Knight of the Northern Sun,” she decided inspirationally. -“Gussie Forbes can play the part of the knight. Her shoulders are almost -as broad as Hal’s.” - -Occupied with the fun of the moment, Hal failed to note the admiring, -concentrated gaze of the sparkling brown eyes he loved best. He had -resolutely steeled himself to play the part for which Marjorie had cast -him in the drama of life—that of devoted friend. Nor did Marjorie dream -that in visualizing Hal as a magnificent Norse knight she had challenged -a romantic side of her nature of which she had not believed herself -possessed. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - CHRISTMAS AT CASTLE DEAN - - “Have peace my lambs on Christmas Day, - The white light shines across the way. - The angelkind look down and sing - Upon the little new-born King. - The manger’s straw—a sorry bed - For Him to lay His baby head; - Yet, sweet, my lambs, the light streamed free - Across man’s lost eternity.” - - -Miss Susanna awoke on Christmas morning with the sound of fresh, young, -tuneful voices in her delighted ears. Her door stood half open which -explained why she could understand so clearly the quaint words of the -old Irish carol which floated up to her on an harmonic tide from -downstairs. - -She was so raptly engaged in listening she neither heard Marjorie’s -light step or saw her witching face framed for a brief second in the -half-open doorway. Marjorie gleefully tiptoed down stairs to report the -awakening of the Lady of the Arms. - -“Let us sing Brooke Hamilton’s favorite, ‘God rest you merry, -gentlemen,’ though it is one merry little lady who will get no more rest -in bed this day,” Leila said drolly, after hearing Marjorie’s report. - -“You should have seen her! She was sitting straight up in bed, looking -so happy, and as though she was loving the music. After we sing this -carol, I’ll take her breakfast up to her. After breakfast we’ll escort -her downstairs to see our tree and—” - -“You can’t lose me,” remarked a matter-of-fact voice from the doorway. -Miss Susanna trotted toward the group at the piano, looking smaller than -ever in her warm, blue eider down dressing gown. - -“So we notice,” laughed Vera. - -“And I notice you have been booning, as the Irish say, with Jeremiah -Macy,” was Leila’s sly comment. “Such slang!” - -“Something like that,” impishly returned Miss Susanna. She showed marked -enjoyment of her own lapse into slang. - -“What is your pleasure first, Lady of the Arms?” Marjorie inquired, as -she led Miss Susanna to a brocade chaise lounge, the nearest seat to a -gorgeous heavily-laden Christmas tree. - -“Sing me his favorite carol.” Miss Susanna gently tweaked one of -Marjorie’s brown curls. To please the girls she had allowed her curls to -hang, decorated by a pale pink satin topknot bow, which matched her pale -pink negligee. - -“With pleasure.” Marjorie dropped a light kiss on the old lady’s hand, -then joined the group at the piano. Robin instantly touched the light -opening strains and started the stately English carol. - -They sang it as they had sung it many times before with all the -expression and animation of youth for its old-world charm. When they had -finished Robin slipped from the piano stool with: “No more carols after -that for a while. _N’est ce pas_, Miss Susanna.” - -“_Oui_,” responded the last of the Hamiltons absently. She glanced -immediately at Robin, however, with her quick bright smile. “I will tell -you some day why it was his favorite carol,” she said. “Not today. It is -too sad a story for today. I wish only to be happy while I am at Castle -Dean.” - -“And you’re going to be. The next happiness today will be breakfast. You -upset Captain’s and my plan to serve it to you in bed. And the next -happiness after that will be our Christmas tree.” Marjorie caught Miss -Susanna’s hands and pulled her to her feet with a frisky show of energy. -She placed light hands on the old lady’s shoulders and marched her ahead -to the dining room. - -Miss Hamilton was the only late breakfaster, the girls having been up -and stirring early. Each had had a mysterious visit to the drawing room -tree to make, there to deposit under its spreading branches her own -consignment of holiday bundles. Miss Susanna’s consignment had been -turned over to Captain Dean with due secrecy, shortly after her arrival -at Castle Dean. - -Her bodyguard trailed faithfully in her wake to the dining room there to -supplement the breakfast they had already eaten with sticky cinnamon -buns and coffee. “Not because we are stuffers,” Robin carefully -exonerated; “merely to keep you company, Miss Susanna.” - -Afterward they went upstairs in leisurely fashion to dress for the day. -It was to be “a regular dress parade,” each girl having brought with her -from Hamilton what she considered her prettiest afternoon gown. General -Dean had ordered assembly in the drawing room at eleven o’clock sharp. -He had placed conspicuously in the hall a large notice which stated: - - “The Army is hereby ordered to appear in the assembly room of - the barrack at eleven o’clock A.M. in full dress uniform. Any - one appearing in forage cap, sweater, boudoir cap or goloshes - will be severely disciplined. No carrying of canes, bumbershoots - or other civil impedimenta will be tolerated. Tardiness and - failure to comply with orders will be punished by loss of - presents. Forfeited presents will be confiscated by General Dean - as chief nabbing officer of the day. Signed. GENERAL DEAN.” - -The worthy general himself presently appeared and took a determined -stand in the hall where he could keep an eye on matters. Frequent -ringing of the door bell kept him occupied in hustling to the door. -Before long he had admitted Lucy, Kathie, Ronny, Jerry, Helen, Hal, -Charlie Stevens and Muriel. - -Upstairs Miss Susanna and the four girls wondered as they completed -their Christmas toilettes what was the occasion for the treble shrieks -of mirth which invariably followed the opening of the heavy front door. - -“What is that ridiculous general of yours up to now, I wonder?” Miss -Susanna said to Marjorie and her mother, who had come into the old -lady’s room to admire her in the beauty of an imported gown of wisteria -satin, paneled and further embellished with rose-patterned deep natural -silk lace. - -“Let’s find out this minute. Come, my fair lady in silk and lace.” -Marjorie crooked her arm invitingly to Miss Hamilton. “Ready, girls?” -she called back, as the two began a buoyant descent of the stairs, with -Captain, smiling indulgently, in their wake. - -“Te, he, he,” Miss Susanna’s own special chuckle was heard as she caught -sight of General Dean. - -The high executive of military maneuvers of the Dean Barrack had obeyed -his own order to appear in full dress. He wore a pair of leaf green -trousers and a scarlet uniform coat heavily trimmed with gilt braid. On -his head perched a bright green fez with a long scarlet plume curving -around it and far down on one shoulder. Added to the plume a sprig of -holly had been neatly fastened on the front of the fez. - -“I see nothing to laugh at,” he sternly reprimanded the mirthful trio on -the stairs. “I am giving what I consider a faithful representation of -the holiday spirit.” - -“You look like a chocolate nut nightmare,” Lieutenant Dean -disrespectfully compared. - -“I never saw one, so how can I possibly know how I look.” - -“A two-pound ration of chocolate nuts eaten before Taps will introduce -you to one,” retorted the lieutenant. - -“Two hours in the guard house for disrespect to a superior officer,” -penalized General Dean. “Forward march. Don’t block the highway. -Discipline must be preserved in the Army. Three at the head of the -stairs—quick time, March,” he rumbled as he spied Leila, Vera and Robin -about to descend. - -Miss Hamilton’s entrance into the drawing room was the signal for a -chorus of Christmas greetings from the lively company now in possession -of the apartment. Jerry led her under the mistletoe bough, which -decorated the top of the indirect dome, and kissed her on both cheeks. -The others followed her example. - -“What have you done with your guests?” she demanded of her affectionate -callers. “I am surprised at you for running away from them! What must -they think of you?” She drew down her small features in exaggerated -disapproval. Her bright, bird-like eyes wandered from one to another of -the frolicsome group. She read pleasant, suppressed excitement in every -face. She innocently attributed the cause of the mysterious, smiling air -of the callers to a probable delightful conspiracy on their part against -General and Captain Dean. She did not stop to consider herself. She was -of the grateful opinion that she had been already surfeited with -generous, loving attention. - -“We have to obey orders.” Lucy Warner volunteered this over-solemn -information. “‘Obedience is a soldier’s first duty,’” she quoted -tritely. - -“When the bugle calls, et cetera, et cetera, you know,” Jerry helped the -old saw along. She waved a plump hand by way of furthering her vague -explanation. - -“I never heard a bugle call et cetera, et cetera,” General Dean remarked -in interested wonder. “I shall investigate the matter as soon as I am -off duty.” - -“I’ll help you,” offered Miss Susanna, to the open and pronounced glee -of the high executive officer. “Such a phenomenon should be -investigated.” - -“We may need the services of these two civilians,” General Dean airily -indicated Hal and Charlie Stevens. “Let me see. What was it we were -going to investigate? I have so many important matters on my mind, I—” -He grew cheerfully apologetic. - -“Don’t try to implicate us,” warned Hal. - -“Please, sir, we’re only a couple of Christmas strays,” Charlie Stevens -rolled humorous black eyes at Mr. Dean. He was still the droll youngster -of early childhood days, but now coming into a boyish appreciation of -the spirit of humor which always prevailed in the little circle of young -folks unconsciously dominated by Marjorie’s friendly ways. - -“Sh-h-h! I know it.” The General whispered loudly to Charlie behind his -hand. “I hadn’t intended to mention it.” He elevated his heavy eyebrows -to an alarming degree. “Since you’ve given yourself and your partner -away you’d best try to become social successes.” - -“Much obliged, old top.” Hal indecorously lifted the General’s Christmas -fez from his head, then jammed it down again on the presiding officer’s -crown. “I’m going to offer the season’s greetings to my little lavender -Lady.” He and Charlie at once began to pay extravagant court to Miss -Susanna. - -General Dean continued to buzz about among the congenial little throng -with a great deal of loud remark concerning “the promoting of good -behavior in the Army.” At length he succeeded in seating the animated, -festive detachment to his liking. He assigned Miss Susanna to the center -of the gold brocade chaise lounge and ranged Marjorie and Leila on each -side of her. The others he ordered into an open group about the golden -dais. Finally he appeared satisfied. He crossed the room to the gift -tree at a magnificent military strut: - -“Attention,” he boomed in a voice so stentorian it set the chattering -formation to laughing. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - THE VIOLET GIRL - - -In spite of laughter the Army obeyed the command with gratifying -promptness. They stood up, saluted; remained standing. Every pair of -bright eyes was fixed on General Dean. Only one pair, however, betrayed -curious speculation. Their owner had suddenly become canny. Miss Susanna -decided the conspiracy was not against Mr. Dean, since he appeared to -head it. Captain looked as though she knew all about it, too. The old -lady concluded with affectionate vexation that it must be against -herself. - -General Dean had returned the salute. While the Army still remained at -standing he went over to the Christmas tree and took from it a large, -oval, canvas-wrapped object. He loosened the canvas wrapping, but did -not remove it. Then he came forward with it and took up a position still -well away from Miss Hamilton, but exactly opposite her. - -As he faced the sturdy little figure in the chaise lounge his levity -dropped from him. “Miss Susanna, the Eleven Travelers wish you a very -merry Christmas,” he said, his tone impressive in its pleasant -sincerity. “They have traveled far and wide in the country of College to -find a fitting expression of their love for you. They now feel sure they -have found the one thing under the sun which will please you most.” - -A sudden swift movement of one hand and the enveloping canvas fell from -the oval, plain gold setting of a portrait. Life size and wonderful from -out of the oval frame smiled a lovely, familiar face. There was a -life-like quality about the portrait of the beautiful girl in the -violet-shaded evening frock, with the huge bunch of purple English -violets pinned to the waist of her gown. It was so utterly natural as to -wring a sharp emotional little “Ah-h-h!” from Miss Susanna. It claimed a -united breath of admiration from the others as well. - -“I’m going to—to—cry, Marvelous Manager,” quavered Miss Susanna. “I -don’t—want—to—” - -“Cry right on Marjorie’s shoulder.” Marjorie cuddled the old lady’s head -against her breast. “Only I’d rather you laugh.” - -“I shall weep myself. Now I know why General set me foreninst Miss -Susanna,” Leila grew unduly Irish. “Now for my tears, and I know I can -weep the loudest.” She sent out a sudden melancholy banshee wail that -raised a shout from the Army and sent Miss Susanna into wild, hysterical -mirth. - -“Start something jolly and keep it going,” counseled Jerry of the other -girls. “We won’t give her a minute’s chance to be sad and splashy over -beloved Bean’s beloved portrait.” - -She stretched out a hand to Ronny, who took it and offered Muriel her -free one. Next minute she had gathered up Mrs. Dean, Helen, Lucy, Robin -and Kathie. They took hands and pranced about in front of the chaise -lounge. Jerry led them vocally, loudly and a trifle off key with: “Come -choose your east; come choose your west. These are the three we all love -best.” The dancers were soon singing it at top voice. - -General Dean, not to be outdone, hospitably formed another prancing -little circle with Hal, Charlie and Delia, which gyrated so rapidly -despite Delia’s giggling protests, and executed such quaint pas-seuls as -to turn what might have been a tearful moment into one of wild hilarity. - -“No, I couldn’t cry to save me,” Miss Hamilton presently declared. “I’m -glad of it. I hate tears as much as a man hates to see them. I shall -love my violet girl every day in the year, and hang her in my room where -I can see her first thing in the morning; last thing at night. It is a -magnificent study, child. Who painted it? When did you ever have time to -sit for it?” The old lady showed decided curiosity upon this point. - -“I posed for it at the beach last summer, Miss Susanna. The Travelers -thought you might like it best of anything we could choose. It was -Leila’s idea. We planned it at Commencement. Raoul Verlaine, a friend of -the General’s, painted it. He is famed for portraits. He was in Sanford -after I came back from Hamilton in the late summer. I gave him the last -sittings then. That’s all.” Marjorie paused, overtaken by the sense of -embarrassment which visited her whenever she stopped to realize that she -had figured as the central object in the affair. - -Placed upon a light easel which had held the portrait since completion, -the party of friends gathered around it to admire afresh both the work -and subject. Marjorie, overwhelmed by her own importance, left Miss -Susanna’s side and slipped from the room. She went into the living room, -and, standing at a window, looked out happily. She was glad to forget -herself in a rapt contemplation of the wide snow-covered lawn, the tall -bare trees, the deserted pagoda; all her treasures of home. She thought -Miss Susanna could not love Hamilton Arms better than she loved her own -Castle Dean. - -Reminded that the tree was yet to be stripped of its Christmas bloom, -she turned from the window to go back to the merry, buzzing company in -the drawing room. She slipped back into the room as quietly as she had -left it. General was calling for attention and making ready to bestir -himself as a kind of military Santa Claus. - -On the way across the room to her father, who was standing near the -tree, Marjorie’s eyes came to rest on Hal. He and Charlie Stevens were -standing back from the portrait in an interested viewing of it. Charlie -was talking animatedly and gesturing like a foreigner. Hal was listening -with apparent gravity. In his face, as he viewed the portrait, was an -expression of repression that cut Marjorie to the heart. It was the look -of a man, smiling under torture. She came into a new and depressing -understanding of the depth of Hal’s love for her. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE - - -Muriel Harding had gone home on the Christmas vacation more puzzled than -hurt over Doris Monroe’s sudden swerve from affability to hostility. It -was not in Muriel’s easy-going nature to trouble long over anything, no -matter how serious. - -Since Marjorie had wished her to invite Doris to go with them to Sanford -she had promptly acquainted her chum with “the Ice Queen’s return to the -glacial period.” When Marjorie had perplexedly questioned “Why?” Muriel -had replied with good-natured impatience: “Why does it rain? Because it -does? Why is the Ice Queen? Because she is.” - -During the last two or three busy days before vacation claimed them -Doris and Muriel had employed monosyllables in addressing each other. Of -the two Doris was the more greatly disturbed over the strained relations -she had brought about. She had more real liking for Muriel than for any -other student on the campus. Underneath her cold, indifferent exterior -she had a critical appreciation of Muriel’s quick wit and extreme -cleverness. The majority of the students whom she graciously allowed to -admire her she took small interest in. Her approach and Muriel’s toward -mutual friendliness had been very slow. It had progressed, however, in -spite of the groundless dislike she persisted in holding against -Muriel’s intimates. - -She had gone furiously out of the Hall to mail the letter to Leslie -Cairns vowing that she would never speak to Muriel again. Her -tempestuous resolve was not so much the result of anger as of wounded -pride. What a poor opinion Muriel Harding must have of her had been her -chagrined thought as she crossed the campus to the mail box. Muriel had -invited those wretched, beggarly off-campus students to her home first. -_She_ had only served Muriel as a last resort. Besides Muriel had -discussed her with Marjorie Dean; no doubt had belittled her. Miss Dean -had chosen to regard her as a welfare problem. Very likely Miss Dean was -jealous of her because she had won the Beauty contest. - -Though Doris did not suspect it the full-grown soul she possessed was -awakening and beginning to clamor for attention. The true depths of her -nature were trying to rise and overflow her more superficial side. -Selfish indifference alone was the barrier that stood between her and a -fuller, freer, happier college life. - -She had found the admiration she had been accorded, first at the -old-time hop, later at the Beauty contest, far more satisfying than -merely being trotted about the campus by over-fond freshies as a -“crush.” There had been a spirit of fun and frolic about both social -affairs which had appealed to her girlish imagination. She was only -eighteen and in spite of her bored, sophisticated air rather childish at -heart. - -For this very reason she had never really approved of Leslie Cairns or -her unscrupulous, high-handed methods. She had been a little dazzled at -first by Leslie’s expensive clothes, lavish expenditures of money and -apparently boundless liberty. At the time when Leslie had offered her -the use of the white car she had named the Dazzler, Doris had felt some -degree of liking for the ex-student of Hamilton. She had more -reluctantly accepted the gift of the smart white costume and furs which -Leslie had insisted upon giving her. She had demurred even more strongly -against allowing Leslie to open an account for her at the Hamilton -Reserve Bank. Leslie had over-ruled her in the matter and had deposited -in the bank five hundred dollars to the account of Doris Monroe. She had -assured Doris that she regarded the transaction as “a business -proposition.” - -Her chief argument had invariably been: “Make yourself popular on the -campus and it will be worth a lot more to me than a few dollars, togs or -buzz-wagons. I need you to keep me posted as to what goes on at the -knowledge shop. Leave Bean and her Beanstalks alone, though. When I need -news of them you can get it in a roundabout way. I’ll help you, and I’ll -expect you to help me—when I need you.” - -Just what Leslie meant by frequent covert allusions to a future day when -she would need Doris’s help was something Doris occasionally pondered. -She had firmly refused to interest herself in the tentative proposal -Leslie had once made that certain anonymous letters should be written -and sent to Marjorie Dean. Since that occasion Leslie had never -suggested any other unscrupulous work for Doris to do. - -While Doris accepted dinner and luncheons from Leslie and allowed Leslie -to pay for the upkeep of the Dazzler, she was wary about spending -Leslie’s money. She knew her father would be righteously enraged with -her for accepting a penny from either stranger or friend. Her own -allowance was a comfortable one for a girl of her age. The money she -saved by sharing her room with Muriel also augmented it. She had a very -fair wardrobe and had therefore done no shopping in particular since -entering Hamilton. She developed no crushes. Consequently she did not -spend much money. She was not mean or stingy in this respect. She was -too selfishly indifferent and too indifferently selfish to care to give -pleasure to others. Her beauty had always demanded for her, and met no -denial. - -Since she had come to Hamilton College she had cherished two ambitions. -The first had been toward popularity. The second was to achieve a trip -to New York City. Popularity, because of her beauty, had quickly found -her. The trip to New York had not been so easy of fulfillment. She had -hoped to go to New York with Leslie at Thanksgiving. Leslie had -disappointed her. More, she had utterly discouraged the idea when Doris -had defiantly asserted that she would visit the metropolis alone. -Leslie’s half sincere promise to show Doris about New York during the -Christmas vacation was one on which Doris had fondly built. Her anger, -on hearing from Leslie that she did not intend to fulfill the promise, -had been so scathing as to cause Leslie to reconsider and try to make -peace with wrathful “Goldie.” - -Muriel’s invitation had been offered at the psychological moment in -Doris’s affairs. The step in the right direction which she had planned -to take would have wrought an admirable change in her before the dawn of -New Years. Instead Doris had received a call from Julia Peyton which had -completely uprooted her healthily growing good will toward Muriel and -again thrown her upon the society of Leslie Cairns for amusement. - -Leslie had received Doris’s note with a silent hobgoblin laugh and a -contemptuous: “Pouf; I thought she wouldn’t stay peeved.” Deciding to -keep the sophomore in suspense she had not answered the note until the -very last moment. It had reached Doris on the morning of the day when -college closed for the holidays, leaving her barely time to pack a trunk -and arrange her affairs. Long since determined on the New York trip at -some time or other, Leslie or no Leslie, Doris had saved a certain sum -each month from her allowance. She had not therefore drawn on the -account in Hamilton bank for the trip, nor did she intend to do so. The -very sight of the bank book in the top drawer of her chiffonier gave her -a feeling of uneasiness. At the time when she had burst upon the campus -in her white suit, furs and shining white car she had used in the -neighborhood of seventy-five dollars of the sum in bank to her credit. -Since then she and Leslie had quarreled and bickered so much she wished -she had never used a cent of the five hundred. She planned to return it -from her own income after the trip to New York was over. - -“I wish you had let me know sooner what you intended to do,” had been -Leslie’s grumbling words to Doris as the two met at the Hamilton -station. On receipt of Leslie’s belated note Doris had obeyed its -instructions to call Leslie on the telephone at the Hamilton House. Over -the telephone the trip had been hurriedly arranged. - -“Why didn’t you let me know?” had been the ruffled sophomore’s strongly -emphasized question. “You could have answered my note sooner than you -did.” - -“You should have written me long before you did.” Leslie’s emphasis had -been stronger and more displeased than had Doris’s. “I told you before -you left me at the Colonial that I would go to New York. You never said -a word. It’s your own fault, Goldie, that you had to rush around like -mad at the last minute.” - -Such had been the discordant basis upon which the two girls had met at a -time when all the world of light and love was pleading for “Peace on -earth, good will toward men.” Once they had settled down in the train -for the journey they had grown a trifle more amiable. They were both too -fond of pleasure not to look forward to a two weeks’ stay in New York. -Leslie had soon miraculously recovered her good humor and had proceeded -to lay out a program of amusements for the first week of their stay in -the metropolis. She had decided privately to “ship Goldie back to the -campus the day after New Years.” That would leave her a few brief days -in New York alone to go about her own affairs. Time was flying. She had -difficult and important work to do which must be done soon. - -She planned to humor Doris to a round of holiday gaieties. They would -dine and lunch at the smartest restaurants and tea rooms. They would -occupy box seats at the theatres, and at the opera. Leslie even -considered introducing Doris to Natalie Weyman. That would mean an -entree for Doris into New York’s most exclusive younger set. Her -objection to this proposal was that Nat was “such a snip when she was -jealous.” Of course she would be jealous of Doris. She was capable of -“snubbing Doris off the face of the earth.” That would mean Doris in a -towering rage again. - -Leslie was not anxious to arouse a fresh spirit of antagonism in Doris. -The self-willed sophomore was her only reliable source of campus -information. Besides, Doris was more truthful than the majority of girls -with whom she had chummed. She had also the virtue of silence. Goldie -could be trusted not to “tell everything she knew, and a lot she didn’t -know, to the mob.” Like the majority of untruthful persons, Leslie was -quick to note and appreciate truth in someone else. Again, she did not -fancy losing the companionship of the one girl intimate she had at -Hamilton. She had spent time, patience, effort and money in cultivating -Doris’s friendship. She did not propose to be a loser. - -Beyond the usual brief letter which Leslie had received every Monday -morning from Mrs. Gaylord, her obligingly absent chaperon might as well -have been a myth. Since Leslie had settled down for a protracted stay in -Hamilton, and at the Hamilton House, Mrs. Gaylord had spent an enjoyable -period of visiting her relatives and friends. Leslie demanded a weekly -letter from the chaperon. She answered it only as she felt inclined. It -had been earlier arranged between them that, should anything of moment -occur suddenly of an adverse nature to either, the other was to be -immediately notified by telegram. - -The one contingency which both feared was the sudden wrathful -interference of Peter Cairns. Such a calamity must be shrewdly guarded -against. Neither was desirous of giving up an arrangement which suited -both so admirably. They had prepared a telegram against the emergency. -It was: “Hamilton House Central.” It signified that they were to meet in -Hamilton at the Hamilton House as soon as possible. - -On the Sunday before Christmas Leslie had seen fit to write Mrs. Gaylord -at Greenwold, where she was visiting a friend, informing her of the -proposed trip to New York. - -“Now don’t think you have to drop everything and hit up a pace for New -York,” she had written with slang insolence. She had stopped to snicker -after setting down thus much as she pictured plump, dignified Mrs. -Gaylord proceeding on foot toward the metropolis at racing speed. “My -sophy pal, Miss Monroe, and I, will stay at the Essenden. It’s exclusive -enough to suit even P. G. He’ll never know we’re there, so you should -fidget. I shan’t look up Nat. Deliver me from soreheads like her. At -least she would be one, if she saw me with a new chum. That will cut out -the society part, so don’t throw a scare over that. I think the grand -old grump is out of town. Since he can’t see me in the family circle I’d -rather he’d sail across the pond and disappear for a while. I heard he -was going to London soon. Don’t know. I’ll write you from New York. Do -as I say, and stay where you are, unless we have to telegraph. Get me? -L.” - -Although Leslie had put the pertinent proviso, “unless we have to -telegraph,” in her letter to Mrs. Gaylord she did not anticipate any -such contingency. She had a comfortable conviction that her father was -probably too deep in his own affairs to think of her. Mrs. Gaylord had -not heard from him. She was sure of that. Her chaperon had had -instructions, in case Mr. Cairns were to write her, to inform Leslie of -this by the statement: “X equals the unknown quantity.” Safeguarded by -what Leslie chose to consider her own great cleverness, she felt herself -a match for even her financier father. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - “I USED TO KNOW HIM” - - -Quite the contrary, Mrs. Gaylord did not share Leslie’s optimism. She -received Leslie’s characteristic letter with lively misgivings. She knew -she had no right to accept a handsome salary from Peter Cairns for -chaperoning his daughter without living up to the position to the -letter. Prodding conscience jarringly informed her that she had abused -and was now abusing the financier’s confidence in her. Should he -discover the fact he was more than likely to dismiss her and make it -hard for her to find another such position. - -She had intended to return to Leslie at Hamilton directly after the -holidays, there to remain. She had been growing daily more and more -uneasy for fear Peter Cairns might have discovered her delinquency. -Continued silence on his part seemed an assurance that she had not been -under a surveillance ordered by him. She knew that he might resort to -such methods. He had engaged her privately to watch Leslie after Leslie -had engaged her as a chaperon. He was quite likely to keep in close -touch with her comings and goings. - -She thought it very rash and inconsiderate in Leslie to go to New York -with “one of those reckless, hair-brained students” for company instead -of asking her to go. Mrs. Gaylord had no great fondness for girls. Of -the Hamilton students she had met only Lillian Walbert, Alida Burton and -Lola Elster; not a representative trio of Hamilton girls. She frowningly -wondered who Miss Monroe was. She had not been in Hamilton enough during -the fall and winter to meet Doris. She was now doubly vexed because she -was fond of New York. Much as she enjoyed visiting among her small town -friends she liked better the life and stir of the great eastern city. - -She at once wrote Leslie an indignant letter expressing her displeasure -at Leslie’s new move and accusing her of taking an undue advantage of -her leniency. She was not sanguine that Leslie would receive the letter -before she started for New York. She supposed it would have small effect -upon her if she should receive it. She knew that Leslie would be furious -with her if she took it upon herself to go to New York and resume her -duties of chaperon when they were not welcome. - -Mrs. Gaylord had met Leslie’s father, Peter Cairns, only once. He had -sent for her to come to his New York offices not long after Leslie had -engaged her as chaperon. She had walked through a maze of shining -mahogany furnished offices to one behind the rest, plain and almost bare -in its austerity. There she had talked with the great financier, a tall, -broad-shouldered, gray-eyed man with a stern mouth and a thatch of black -hair tossed off his forehead. He had said very little to her, but she -had understood precisely what he expected of her. She had left the -office feeling decidedly in awe of him. She discovered afterward that -was the only vivid recollection she had of him. - -Mrs. Gaylord resignedly resolved to make the best of the annoying -situation and return to Leslie as soon as her lawless charge should -return to Hamilton. She could only hope Leslie would not stay in New -York beyond New Years. What a selfish girl Leslie was! She had not even -wished her a Merry Christmas. Suppose Leslie were to run across her -father in New York, and Mr. Cairns should inquire for her? Mrs. Gaylord -felt a kind of chill go up and down her spine each time that -particularly unpleasant supposition occurred to her mind. There was only -one grain of comfort. Leslie would not let him know the true -circumstances if she could help it. It would be to her own interest to -protect those of her chaperon. - -The day after Christmas Mrs. Gaylord received a letter which threw her -into a panic of despair. It was a three-line letter from Peter Cairns, -in his own black, jagged handwriting, ordering her to join his daughter, -Leslie, in New York, immediately. He had also furnished her with -Leslie’s address at the Essenden, the exclusive apartment hotel at which -Leslie and Doris were registered as guests. - -The uncompromising brevity of the letter was dismaying in itself. Not a -word more than was necessary to convey the order had been employed. It -contained neither address nor date. The envelope bore a New York -postmark. She assumed that it had been written in New York. She had the -office address of the financier. He had given it to her with the -injunction that any letter which she might feel called upon to write him -should be sealed and marked: “Personal, by order of Peter Cairns.” She -resolved to write him, explaining matters. She soon found she could -summon no satisfactory explanation of her absence from Leslie. The -financier had engaged her to watch over his daughter; not allow her to -do as she chose, regardless of convention. - -Mrs. Gaylord arrived in New York and at the Essenden on the evening -after the receipt of Peter Cairns’ curt message. She was tired and cross -after her long journey and resentfully ready to tell Leslie a few plain -truths. Her one consoling thought was that Leslie had had the good -judgment to register for herself and companion at the Essenden. It was -at least above the criticism of even Peter Cairns. - -Leslie had taken Doris to dine at the Luxe-Garins, a vast marble pile of -a hotel which New York boasted as its latest triumph in hostelry. The -two girls had sallied forth to dinner in a hotel taxicab much to -Leslie’s disapproval. “There are a dozen cars in our garage at the town -house, and we own enough others scattered about this burg,” she had said -with snappish resentment. “Just because my father—.” She had stopped -abruptly, recollecting in time that Doris knew nothing of her -estrangement from her father. - -Doris, lovely in her crystal-beaded white frock, which was Parisian, had -attracted more attention at dinner than any other woman in the room. She -seemed in truth a dazzling fairy-tale princess with Leslie opposite her -as a wicked wizard. Leslie had chosen to wear a white velvet gown, -banded with black velvet and fur. It had a beaded, oddly-cut bodice and -was bizarre in effect. It lent her a dark, sinister appearance which -Doris’s white beauty made more noticeable. - -The two girls had so much enjoyed the flattering notice their presence -in the luxurious restaurant had created they dawdled over their dinner -until it was too late to go to the theatre. Both would have liked to -join the dancers on the perfectly polished floor, but knew no one. -Leslie had an odd excess of family pride quite at variance with the rest -of her lawless nature. She could always be trusted never to form -acquaintances whose social standing she did not know. When they had -finished their demi-tasse she marched Doris from the restaurant like an -attendant dragon without so much as a glance at more than one plainly -admiring young man. Leslie cared nothing whatever about either sentiment -or young men. What she had enjoyed was the little stir Doris’s golden -beauty had created. - -“Tomorrow, Goldie, we’ll go to luncheon at the Gilbraithe. It’s a wonder -of an eat shop. It’s the spiffiest tea room I know in New York.” - -Leslie made the announcement as they stepped from the walk into the -waiting taxicab. She had engaged a car from the Essenden for the evening -and had planned a ride up Fifth Avenue by way of showing Doris a glimpse -of the great city after dark. - -“We’ll never get clear of that string of hay carts,” she predicted, -motioning her head in the direction of the waiting line of automobiles. -At the corner above, where the line began, the starter was working -diligently to put the line in motion. - -Doris merely glanced at her and again turned eager eyes to the street. -They sparkled with pleasure as she took in the beautiful main entrance -of the white marble hotel at her leisure. - -“Ah, on the move at last.” Leslie gave a kind of satisfied growl as she -felt the taxicab begin to move. It started, then came to a quick jarring -stop. The starter shouted out a sharp order. It mingled with the -chugging purr of the engine and the voice of the taxi driver, raised to -an incensed yell at some progress-impeding object. - -With her usual impatience Leslie jerked open the nearest door of the -machine. She was too much of a motorist not to investigate. Her driver’s -start had been blocked by a car which had been parked in front of it. -The driver of the other car had boldly attempted to get under way first. -She bent forward and leaned far out of the open doorway to see what was -going on. The starter and her driver had united in abusing “that fresh -boob.” She grinned sardonically as her driver flung a last word or two -at the disappearing car. With a sharp, surprised “What?” she suddenly -dodged back and into the sheltering darkness of the tonneau. - -From the ornamental main entrance of the Luxe-Garins she had spied a man -emerging. He stood before the great entrance doors briskly turning up -the collar of his brown fur motor coat and pulling a brown fur cap down -over his head as though preparing for a high-speed spin. He was a tall -man, broad-shouldered, with gray eyes and a stern mouth. - -From the dim cavern of the tonneau Leslie peered out at him with a -curious, reverend timidity. She was careful to keep the ermine collar of -her evening wrap well up about her face. So her father was in New York -instead of Europe. Leslie watched him, her dark features lighting to -wistful admiration. How she wished she dared open the door of the car -and call out to him! No; that could not be. There was only one way to -bring back his love for her. That way was to work and win it. She drew -an audible sighing breath. - -“What is the matter, Leslie?” Doris had heard her companion’s surprised -exclamation. Now she heard the sigh. - -“Oh, nothing,” Leslie affected carelessness of tone. Her gaze was still -on her father. She kept hungry eyes riveted on him as he left the hotel -entrance, swung down the broad stone walk and out of her sight. “Did you -notice a man standing in front of the hotel with a brown fur coat and -cap?” She forced a casual question. - -“No; I didn’t. I didn’t notice anyone. I was thinking about whether I -liked New York better than London. Of course I could never like it as -well as Paris. It is a wonderful city though,” Doris said honestly. “I -wish we knew some interesting men here like the explorers my father -knows. He and I often have had luncheon and dinner with Jacques Fandor, -the great French explorer. Do you know the man you asked me about, -Leslie?” she added with intent to be polite. - -Leslie did not reply at once. She hesitated for a moment then said in an -odd, repressed tone: “I think I used to know him.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - ONLY OBEYING ORDERS - - -“Will you kindly tell me why you are here?” Leslie Cairns surveyed her -chaperon, Mrs. Gaylord, with an anything but welcoming face. “Didn’t you -understand my letter? It was written in English. At least, I thought I -wrote English.” Leslie used sarcastic emphasis. - -“Yes, Leslie, your letter was in English, I suppose your rude slang -might be classed as English.” The chaperon’s voice was bitingly dry. Her -florid, usually placid features were stiff with resentment of Leslie’s -cavalier manner. “You took advantage of me in a most unfair way. Instead -of writing me that you thought of going to New York to spend the -holidays, you simply notified me at the last minute, completely ignoring -me as your chaperon.” - -“Oh, cut out the lecture!” Leslie made a derisive motion as though to -push further rebuke from her. “What is the matter with you? Doesn’t our -agreement hold good in New York as well as in Hamilton? Couldn’t we have -got together in a few hours if necessary? I allowed for all that when I -wrote you. I didn’t think it urgent to put it down in black and white. I -gave you credit for having some gray matter. Who engaged you in the -first place, my father, or I? He saw fit to butt in to my arrangement -with you. Of course I’m not supposed to know that. Still it wouldn’t -take me long to remind him of it, if he began to be fussy with me.” -Displeasure of her father’s private understanding with Mrs. Gaylord -momentarily banished Leslie’s regret of their estrangement. - -“_Leslie!_ I hope you would not be so treacherous as to let your father -know that you—that he—that you know he and I have a private -understanding about you,” stammered the chaperon in reproachful alarm. -“_That_ is a secret agreement between him and me.” - -“Was a secret, you mean,” satirized Leslie, laughing with a kind of -grotesque amusement. “A secret isn’t much of a secret after it goes as -far as a third party.” - -“_Leslie!_” Mrs. Gaylord repeated the name with exclamatory half-hearted -wrath. - -“Yes, ‘Leslie,’” mimicked her amused charge. “What’s the use of puffing, -Gaylord? You know you always lose out with me in a talk contest. Sit -down, take off your hat and your head will cool off. Registered at our -village inn?” she raised ironic eyebrows at her chaperon. - -“Yes; I have registered,” was the frigid return. Mrs. Gaylord tried not -to show approval of the dainty Dresden apartment she was in. She had -caught only a fleecing glimpse of Doris. The latter had promptly -retreated to the bed-room she was to occupy of the expensive Dresden -suite of small salon, two sleeping rooms and bath which Leslie had -extravagantly engaged. “I engaged a room with bath on this floor, but—” -She glanced about the smart salon. - -“No room here,” supplied Leslie. “Oh, you are welcome, of course, to -inhabit the salon with Goldie and me,” she added flippantly. - -“Thank you. You know, Leslie, that I have tried not to stand in your -way.” Mrs. Gaylord spoke with reproving bitterness. “I am here now, not -because I wish to be, but because—” The chaperon made an impressive -pause. - -“Now we are getting down to brass tacks.” Leslie simulated genial -encouragement. - -Mrs. Gaylord frowned, but resisted bandying further words. “Your father -ordered me to come to New York, Leslie,” she said with a direct -simplicity which had more effect on her discourteous charge than had her -air of affront. - -“What?” Leslie almost screamed the question. - -From the adjoining bed-room Doris heard the cry and wondered. She knew -that Leslie had a chaperon, named Mrs. Gaylord, who amiably permitted -Leslie to do as she pleased. While she had retired to her bed-room and -closed the door, on the arrival of the chaperon, she had caught enough -of the salutatory remarks between Leslie and the other woman to -establish Mrs. Gaylord’s identity in her own mind. The fact that the -caller had come at so late an hour further convinced her. - -“Just what I say,” stiffly confirmed the chaperon. “I received this -letter from him. You might as well see it.” She had opened her small -seal traveling bag as she spoke. Now she handed Leslie the letter from -Peter Cairns. - -“Uh-h-h-h!” Leslie dropped down on a gilt-framed, pale-hued Dresden -settee with a pretense of total collapse. Next second she sat up with a -jerk. “Gaylord, I beg your pardon for ragging you. You seem to be a good -sport,” was her half-humorous apology. - -Mrs. Gaylord with difficulty maintained a grave face. Strangely enough, -at heart she did not dislike Leslie. Constant companionship with the -financier’s long-neglected daughter from the standpoint of a duenna had -shown her plainly all Leslie’s faults and virtues. When first she had -come to Leslie she had resentfully labeled her as having all faults and -no virtues. Presently she discovered that Leslie was generous, not of -spirit, but in a material way. She also had a virtue of minding her own -affairs beyond that of any other girl or woman of Mrs. Gaylord’s -acquaintance. Of Leslie’s intriguing, unscrupulous side the chaperon -knew little. She admired the girl’s peculiar originality and thought her -sayings distinctively clever or funny. She respected Leslie for being -neither foolishly sentimental nor flirtatious. Leslie’s rudenesses she -soon learned to overlook because Leslie was as civil to her as to anyone -else, perhaps more civil. - -“What are you going to do about it?” Leslie inquired with rueful -curiosity. “He’s in New York. I saw him last night in front of the -Luxe-Garins. Don’t think he saw me. I was in a taxi. Goldie and I had -been there to dinner.” - -“You shouldn’t have gone there—just you two young girls!” cried out the -chaperon despairingly. - -“Oh, stuff. I’m not a minor. Think the Luxe-Garins is a jungle full of -black-whiskered lions and unicorns? We didn’t dance, or speak to a soul. -We only had eats. That’s not a social blunder, is it?” - -“No-o-o.” There was a certain amount of relief in the reply. “I shall do -nothing, Leslie. Your father has ordered me to come here to look after -you. I am here. I thought before I came I would write him and explain -why we were not together. I could find no proper explanation. I dare say -he is very angry with me.” Mrs. Gaylord’s tone grew rather plaintive. -“As your chaperon I should insist on your compliance with strict -convention at all times. But it is as you say. You are not a minor, you -have the right to go where you please and do as you please. Since your -father has—well—has—.” The chaperon halted lamely. - -“Cut me off his card index,” supplied Leslie with forceful moroseness. - -Both chaperon and charge had spoken louder than they were aware. In the -next room the last few sentences of their talk had come clearly to -Doris’s ears. While she was not specially curious she could not help -being impressed by what she heard. - -“If I had been like some of the girls I’ve known I’d not have engaged a -chaperon at all after he turned me down,” Leslie defended darkly. “I’m -supposed not to know he has ever showed a spark of interest in me since -he cut me out of his life. Don’t you let him call you down because I -told you to visit your head off if you liked among your friends while I -was at Hamilton. You may tell him I hired you and chased you away from -me when I felt like being alone for a while. He owes you a debt of -gratitude for telling me that he didn’t quite efface himself from my -map. Tell him,” she snickered faintly, “that I pay you a salary for -acting as a friend instead of a priggish frump. Tell him he ought to -double your salary from his end of the deal for the same reason.” - -“Why—Leslie!” Grateful amazement this time prompted the chaperon’s -exclamation. “I had no idea you felt that way about me.” - -“I had no idea myself,” Leslie retorted. She cast a half sheepish glance -toward Mrs. Gaylord. She was experiencing the peculiar sensation of -physical glow which invariably attends the moral defense of another -person. For the first time in her wayward career she felt moved to -defend someone for whose offense she was strictly to blame. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - “NERVE” - - -Mrs. Gaylord took up her temporary abode at the Essenden expecting at -almost any hour to be summoned to Peter Cairns’s offices or else receive -a call from him at the hotel. Neither the summons nor the call came. - -Following her spirited moment of defense of her chaperon Leslie returned -to her usual half domineering, always wilful manner. Since her father -had seen fit to order Mrs. Gaylord on the scene, she had decided that -the chaperon would be more of an asset than a hindrance. Under Mrs. -Gaylord’s wing she and Doris could go about more freely to tea rooms and -hotel restaurants, and the theatres. They could stay out later in the -evening with a certain feeling of assurance which neither had possessed -during their first evening venture into New York’s gaieties. - -The day after New Years Leslie announced to her chaperon and Doris that -she wished they would go where they pleased and do as they pleased -through the days that remained to them of the Christmas holiday, but -without her company. - -“Gaylord can show you the village as well as I can; maybe better,” she -assured Doris with a droll twist of her mouth. “She won’t be peevish -with you. I would, if you made me sore, which you’d probably do. I have -special business to tend to here in the next few days. It concerns my -garage proposition and is very important. I’ll hustle around through the -days so as to go out to dinner with you in the evenings.” - -Doris was as well pleased with Leslie’s new arrangement though she kept -her satisfaction carefully hidden behind her politely indifferent -features. She and Mrs. Gaylord had grown friendly from the start. The -chaperon admired the sophomore’s unusual beauty and enjoyed the covert -appreciation it drew wherever they went. She thought Doris’s poise -remarkably high-bred and was satisfied that Peter Cairns could but -approve of her as a friend for his daughter. He was still in the city, -she believed. Leslie was of the same belief. “Don’t doubt he knows our -middle names and what time we come back to the hotel every night,” was -her shrewdly humorous opinion. - -The special business to which she devoted her days was typical of the -intriguing side of Leslie. While her father was presumably keeping an -eye on her, she was even more anxious to trace his movements. She burned -to know how long he intended to stay in New York, and whether he was -staying at the family residence far out on Riverside Drive, or at his -club. - -There was another man, too, besides her father, whose whereabouts in New -York she was eager to learn. He was a man to whom her father had more -than once intrusted certain business about which she thought she knew a -good deal. This man had come to their home twice as a dinner guest. He -was tall, slim, with aquiline, foreign features, deep set dark eyes and -iron gray hair. She could recall distinctly his courtly manners. What -she could not recall was his full name. It was Anton—. There memory -failed her. - -After she had unsuccessfully racked her brain for the missing surname -she came into startled knowledge of a way to gain it. Dared she take it? -Leslie’s heart beat faster every time she thought about it. She could -not make up her mind to take it until she had definite information -concerning her father’s plans. She decided that she would at once try to -obtain it from his offices. - -On the day after New Years she left Mrs. Gaylord and Doris directly -after breakfast and hurried from the Essenden to start on the trail of -the “special” business. It was a fairly long drive from the Essenden to -her father’s downtown offices. Leslie grew perceptibly nervous as she -neared her destination. There was no one to witness her uneasiness, -however. There was only one chance against a hundred that she might -encounter her father. She could not imagine what she would do if she -were to come suddenly face to face with him. And in this thought lay her -inclination to panic. - -She arrived at last before the skyscraper, two floors of which housed -the executive and clerical forces necessary to Peter Cairns’s several -speculative interests. Leslie ordered the driver of the taxicab to wait -and made a bold entrance into the building. She could hear her heart -begin to thump against her side as she dodged into the cage of a waiting -elevator and dodged out again at the third floor. Presently she had -walked a little way down a wide corridor and opened a door which in the -past she had opened many times. - -It led to an outer office, given over to the keeping of a solitary -office boy. When she inquired for Mr. Carrington, one of her father’s -important managers, and gave the youngster her name, he stared at her -with blue startled eyes and made a zealous dash for a door leading to an -inner office. - -“How are you, Mr. Carrington?” she drawled to a clean-cut pleasant man -of perhaps forty, who had instantly emerged from the office to greet her -and now ushered her into his private business domain. - -“Very well, Miss Cairns; thank you. And you? It has been a long time -since you visited these offices.” - -“Yes;” Leslie smiled affably. She was speculating how long it might take -to “pump Carrington, and beat it.” “I was at college for several -winters, you know, and away from New York summers. I’m not at the -Riverside Drive house much. It doesn’t pay to keep it open. My father is -there so seldom for any length of time.” - -“So he tells me. He doesn’t stay even in New York for any length of -time, for that matter,” laughed the manager. “It isn’t an easy -proposition, getting hold of him when I need him.” - -“I should imagine not.” Leslie smiled in apparent sympathy. “Even I lose -track of him for days at a time. I am at the Essenden, at present with -my chaperon, Mrs. Gaylord. I came down town this morning to see if you -would help me with a little steamer surprise I am planning to give my -father. That is, if he goes to England soon. I thought you would let me -know the day and hour he’d plan to sail. Then I wouldn’t need to ask him -a single question, beforehand. He is likely to start for England in a -hurry without coming to the hotel to say good-bye. Then where would my -surprise be?” Leslie put just the right amount of dejection into the -question. - -“Oh, he has changed his mind about the trip to England, Miss Cairns. He -doesn’t intend to go across the pond until he comes back from the coast. -That will be two weeks at least. I will let you know, nearer the date of -sailing,” was the pleasant promise. - -“The western trip? Oh, yes.” Leslie nodded wisely. “I have no surprise -ready for him for that. There’d hardly be time for one, would there?” -she asked innocently. - -“Hardly.” The manager consulted his watch as though amused at his own -reply. “His car was to pull out from the B. R. P. at noon today. It’s -almost noon now.” - -“You mean for the west; to the coast?” was Leslie’s double question. It -was asked with a drawling inflection that nearly robbed it of -interrogation. - -“Yes. Where shall I address you, Miss Cairns, about the England matter?” -Mr. Carrington questioned courteously. - -“At the Essenden. Thank you so much, Mr. Carrington. You are always so -kind to me. Not a word to my father that I was here!” She raised a -playful forefinger. “You understand why.” - -“Absolutely discreet, Miss Cairns.” The manager raised a hand as though -taking an oath. - -After a further brief exchange of pleasantries Leslie rose to depart. -She was in nervous haste to be gone. It had taken “nerve,” according to -her way of thinking, to lead up to the information she had sought, then -to ask the right questions at the right time. She had not devised until -the last moment a way of exacting secrecy from the manager that would -not arouse him to suspicion against her. She knew that her father’s -lieutenants of years were chary of speech and still more chary of -information. It was evident that her father’s harsh stand in regard to -herself was not known in his offices. Since Mr. Carrington did not know -it, Leslie was sure he did not, then none other of his staff of -financiers knew. - -She would have liked to ask Mr. Carrington to give her the surname of -the man, Anton. She remembered that the manager had once dined with them -on the same evening as the foreigner. She had not dared ask about him. -Nor did she believe it would be wise to call again at her father’s -offices to interrogate Mr. Carrington further. She recalled the old -fable of the pitcher that went once too often to the well and was -broken. She did not intend to risk losing what she had already gained. -There was still the other way of learning the name. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN - - -Leslie stopped for luncheon at an odd French restaurant, the -Fontainebleau. It was a Gallic triumph in soft grays and rated as being -more Parisian than any other restaurant in New York. After luncheon she -ordered the driver of the taxicab she was using to take her for a spin -on Riverside Drive. - -“Keep on going out Riverside till I tell you to turn around,” she -ordered the man. “If you hear me tell you to go slow, then go slow. I’m -interested in certain properties out on the Drive.” - -Even by prosaic daylight Leslie felt a strange new sentiment for New -York which had never before visited her. What a wonderful life she might -have in the splendid city of her birth if only she were her father’s -assistant. Perhaps she might be, and before another year had passed. If -she could successfully carry out at Hamilton the project which was now -occupying her thoughts he would be forced to admire her for her audacity -and brilliancy. How he would laugh at a certain feature of her -undertaking. Not unless she were clever enough “to get away with it.” -That was a foregone conclusion. - -Leslie’s swarthy features stiffened with stubborn determination. This -time there was to be no failure. Her small dark eyes were engaged in -keeping a concentrated watch on the residences lining the Drive as the -taxicab slipped easily along on the smooth paving. - -It would be a great day for her when her father forgave her and took her -back into his confidence. Before she devoted herself wholly to a career -in finance under her father’s generalship she would make him take her -for a long cruise to the South Seas in his superb, clean-lined yacht, -the _White Swallow_. So Leslie promised herself as the car sped on. - -Presently she had come within pleasantly familiar territory. Since -earliest childhood she had seen the palaces she was now passing. In them -lived families she had known and associated with as neighbors. She had -played with the girls and boys of these vast, cheerless castles. They -had all had the same dancing masters; had attended one another’s -parties. They had later formed the younger set with whom she had moved -socially. Like herself many of them lived only to please themselves. - -There it was; her old home! It was the house in which she had been born; -the house from which her mother had passed to Heaven, leaving behind a -baby girl to be brought up by nurses and governesses and surfeited with -riches out of all healthy proportion. - -Leslie snatched the speaking tube from its accustomed place and called -through it to the driver. “Slow down,” she ordered, “but keep on going.” -She had spied the house from a distance of half a block away. In -consequence the driver had begun to slacken speed before the machine had -passed the “show shop,” as Leslie had whimsically named her home because -of its ornate splendor of architecture and breadth of rare-shrubbed -lawn. - -“Go ahead and park,” she again ordered through the speaking tube. “Any -place along here will do.” The instant he had obeyed her and brought the -machine to a stop she hopped out of it and quickly gained the sidewalk. -The Cairns’s residence took up a half of one block. Another massive gray -stone residence claimed the remaining half of the same block. - -“Thank fortune,” she muttered as she strolled along at the slow swagger -she affected. “There’s no place like home, Leslie, old top. Peter the -Great can lead a merry life at the show shop, but _I_ should fidget, for -all _he_ cares,” was her bitter reflection. “Rather that than see the -place boarded up like a disused barn. Gee whiz! Then I would have my -troubles. Wonder how much of the menagerie is at large inside?” - -Leslie paraded up and down the entire block several times. From the -street she could see nothing about the exterior of the house to -challenge her interest. An ornamental iron fence squared the Cairns’s -property. The entrance gates were closed, apparently locked. She stopped -before them during one of her patrols and pretended to lean against -them. As she did so she investigated them. They were securely fastened. - -She stood eyeing them with sullen dismay, her forehead corrugated by a -deep scowl. Of a sudden she appeared to have laid hold of a forgotten -fact. Her brows cleared like magic. Thanks to a crafty provision against -such an emergency in time past she could cope with this latest obstacle. - -She lingered at the gates as long as she thought prudent, her avid -glance roving from point to point of the house, searching for signs of -the servants about the place. She smiled grimly to herself as she -recalled how often in her childhood days bright-eyed groups of “common -kids” would pause on the sidewalk outside to peer wistfully through the -iron interstices of the fence at the spring glory of crocuses, hyacinths -and tulips which graced the Cairns’s garden beds in colorful, fragrant -loveliness. How contemptuous she had been of the famished little beauty -worshippers! Now she was “on the outside, looking in.” She was “on the -wrong side of the fence.” She was “barred out” of the show shop as -effectively as had been “those common kids.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE - - -Next day Leslie repeated the visit to her home. The second expedition to -it was made in a small black car which she boldly requisitioned from a -garage located not far from her father’s offices. There he kept several -cars, immediate to the use of himself and one or two of his lieutenants. - -The call Leslie had made at her father’s offices had proved advantageous -to her. She had not only gained important information from Mr. -Carrington, she had also received a fresh supply of temerity to bolster -her for further daring deeds. She knew the manager of the garage to -which she went only slightly. He had treated her request with the -respect due Peter Cairns’s daughter. She calculated there was small -possibility that the proprietor and her father would ever discuss her -visit to the garage. She preferred that risk to the annoyance of being -watched by a curious taxicab driver. - -On the second occasion she was free to park her own car. She made one -deliberate patrol of the block. Then paused before the gates. From a -pocket of the leather motor coat she wore she pulled a heavy -medium-sized brass key suspended from a brass ring. Without an instant’s -hesitation she fitted the key to a fat brass padlock which secured the -gates against intruders. - -“Whuh-h-h!” Leslie blew a breath of relief. “Easiest thing I ever tried -to do,” she murmured with satisfaction. “Wonder who’s home, or if anyone -saw me?” She drew the key from the open padlock, fastened it in place -from the inside of the gates through which she had just triumphantly -passed and snapped it energetically back on guard. “This time,” she -laughed her silent selfish laugh, “I’m on the inside, looking out.” - -In spite of her bold manner and ready laughter Leslie was experiencing a -certain amount of trepidation. She fought it down with all the sternness -she could summon against herself. The night before, long after Doris and -Mrs. Gaylord had retired, Leslie had sat at a little table in her room -arranging the peculiar expedition to which she had now committed -herself. She had drawn a sketchy little plan of the first and second -floors of her home. With a lead pencil she had lightly traced on the -plan precisely the course by which she would proceed when she had once -passed through the vestibule of her home and had set foot in the great -entrance hall with its lofty ceiling and grand stairway. - -Knowing her father’s secretive nature she was reasonably sure that such -of the servants as might be in the house knew nothing of the strained -relations between herself and her father. Parsons, the steward, might be -there, possibly the second cook and two or three of the maids. The -others had probably been sent to the country house on Long Island which -was never closed. When in or near New York, summer or winter, this was -her father’s favorite haunt. - -Leslie had resolved to brazen matters out, if, when she entered the -house, she should suddenly encounter any of the servants. Her objective -was a certain room on the second floor. It held something she wanted; -needed; must have. - -“Go to it,” she mutteringly encouraged the reluctant side of her brain. -With this spur to action she sauntered away from the gate and up to the -short drive which soon curved to the left and continued on to the garage -behind the house. She left the drive for the wide stone walk leading up -to the deep, central pillared veranda. Her cool, self-possessed manner, -her walk, indifferent, swaggering, was at variance with the excited -beating of her heart and her private distaste for the visit she was -about to make. This distaste was not of moral persuasion. Leslie was -merely afraid that her father might have changed his mind about going -west at the last minute. It was “Peter the Great,” not the servant she -dreaded encountering. If her father were afterward to learn from any of -the servants whom she might encounter of her visit to the house, it -would show him that she was a force not easy to control. - -To gain access to the house itself would be a simple matter since the -doors and windows had not been sealed. Leslie had several latch keys on -a special ring which fitted various doors of her stately home. She was -well prepared, but chose to use the main entrance for the sake of -appearances, should she be observed. - -She stepped presently into the great rosewood reception hall with its -vast crystal sheet of mirror, occupying the whole lower end of the -apartment; its two grim guardian Norman suits of armor. A richly -cushioned bench extended the length of one side of it. Leslie paused -beside the bench, listening for sounds of human presence other than the -thump of her heart and the excited sigh of her own breath. Not a sound -disturbed the church-like quiet which pervaded the hall. - -She dropped down on the bench and carefully restored to a small leather -handbag the latch key she had just used and which she still held in one -hand. For as much as ten minutes she sat still, watching, waiting, -listening, hoping no one might come. During that time her eyes roved -ceaselessly about the hall and from the magnificent archway, lightly -draped with velvet of a rosewood tint, to a lower smaller arch at the -rear of the hall which stood open into a sun parlor. - -She rose, at length slipped silently as an Indian to the grand archway -and made a comprehensive survey of the French salon beyond the arch. -Satisfied that no one was there to spy upon her she next inspected the -sun parlor. There her father always established himself in the morning, -when at home, with the morning papers. The long mahogany library table -was stacked with an orderly array of newspapers and magazines. That in -itself was significant proof to Leslie that “Peter the Great” was -“missing from the show shop.” - -Without pausing to explore further the main floor of the house she -turned and darted noiselessly back into the hall and up the grand -stairway. Straight as an arrow she directed her steps on reaching the -second floor landing to a wide solid looking door of black walnut which -stood part way down a short wide corridor hung on both sides with -nothing but marine paintings. It was Peter Cairns’s famous marine -collection; the pride of his heart. Leslie ran her fingers up and down -one side of the knobless black walnut door. Silently it slid to the -left, disappearing into a space cleverly designed to receive it. She was -across the threshold in one long step and the door was moving back into -place again. - -This time she indulged in a burst of silent merriment as she collapsed -into an immense leather arm chair. She “had got away with it.” She was -now safe from any possible intrusion of servants. She was in Peter the -Great’s own den. No one other than they two knew the secret mechanism of -the walnut door. When she left the house it would be by a private -stairway leading directly to a side veranda which no one but herself and -her father ever used. She had not been able to enter by this means. -There was only one key to the veranda entrance to the stairway and this -was carried by the financier. The long room behind the walnut door, -furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, was Peter Cairns’s den. -In it were his rarest books, a collection of priceless ancient coins, -one of cameos, and numbers of unique treasures picked up in all parts of -the world. Leslie could open the door from the inside by manipulation of -a little steel knob, like that of a safe. The door would close after -her, securing itself automatically. - -When her flash of victorious amusement had subsided she let her gaze -travel slowly about her. Quickly her features changed to a somber cast. -She was once more in the good old “playroom” of happier days. It was in -this very room that she had best learned to understand her father. Peter -Cairns had then treated her more as though she were his son instead of -his daughter. Her grotesquely plain little face and lawless domineering -ways as a youngster had appeared to please and entertain him. He had -called her his “ugly little beauty kid” and “the boss” and “Cairns II.” -He had, as she had grown older, and come home from prep school, then -college, spent long hours with her in the den. Sometimes they had played -chess or backgammon of which they were both fond. Again he would talk -freely to her of his financial operations. It was a school into which -the maxims of Brooke Hamilton would not have fitted. Peter Cairns had -made Leslie’s mind up to his own way of living as he was one day to -learn. - -Realizing the flight of time she gathered herself together for the final -episode of her surreptitious errand. She rose, crossed the room to where -a rare etching hung and lifted it from its hook. The space thus left -vacant showed the indentation of a wall safe. Leslie manipulated the -tiny knob with sure fingers. She next pulled open the safe’s door and -moved a tiny switch inside the cavity. A bright light flooded it. She -ran a finger down a stack of small, black, leather-bound notebooks, -bindings out, lettered in gilt, A to Z. She drew the third book, I to M, -from the little pile and sat down with it in the nearest chair. - -“So that’s his name—Lavigne! It sounds French, but he looked more like a -dago. He’s probably forgotten his real name,” Leslie mused satirically. -“All right, Anton. I’ll proceed to tell your fortune. You are going to -receive a visit from a dark woman who knows all about you.” - -Leslie copied the address from her father’s very private directory into -a note book of her own. She replaced the little black book, closed and -locked the safe and made business-like preparations to depart. She -purposed to call at the address she had obtained that same afternoon. It -was not yet four o’clock. She could reach Anton Lavigne at the Central -Park West address in good season if she started promptly. If he were not -at home she would leave a note of appointment with him for ten o’clock -the next morning. - -She let herself out of Peter the Great’s den by a curtained door at the -back of the room. It also had a spring lock, its key was also in the -financier’s possession. The stairway was in darkness but Leslie knew her -way without switching on a light at the head of the stairs. Sure-footed, -she quickly made the descent and went cautiously onto the veranda. Still -no one in sight. - -Leslie kept as close to the house as she could until she reached its -front. There she crossed a strip of frozen lawn to the drive and -hurriedly followed it to the gates. She could hardly believe as she got -back into the car that she had spent over an hour in the show shop -without having seen sign of a servant. The house was in perfect order. -She was confident that Parsons was still caretaker. She had seen signs -of the steward’s expert domestic management as soon as she stepped -inside. She moodily wondered when she would see home again. She -afterward brightened a little under the dogged determination to “make -things come her way.” - -When she reached the somewhat garish apartment hotel which housed Anton -Lavigne she was of the opinion that her good fortune had held. She -received the cheering information that Mr. Lavigne was in and was soon -shaking hands with the dark-faced, suave, but keen-eyed foreigner. He -came downstairs to the lounge to greet her and conduct her to the family -apartment on the fifth floor. He inquired with the courtliness Leslie so -well remembered in him for her father. He had not seen or heard from him -in some time. He waited with admirable reserve for Leslie to state her -errand. - -“My father is away from New York at present,” Leslie began when he had -ushered her into a small reception hall furnished in a manner which -suggested its use as office as well. “I am through college now and -starting a business career for myself.” - -“Indeed,” Lavigne raised polite commendatory brows. “May I ask, how long -you have been engaged in such an enterprise. You American girls are so -amazing. The English girls, too, for that matter. In France every woman -is a business woman, so we say, but American girls are the business -adventurers. They plan business on a large scale, and really accomplish -what they plan.” - -“I hope I shall,” was Leslie’s fervent reply. “My father isn’t helping -me at all. I don’t wish him to do so. I am using my own money, and he -isn’t giving me a word of advice. All I claim from him is a free use of -some of his most private successful methods. That is why I am here. I -know you can be as useful to me as you have been to him.” She suddenly -fixed her eyes on Lavigne with an expression startlingly like that of -Peter Cairns, though she bore small physical resemblance to him. - -“You speak with great confidence—with frankness.” Lavigne’s thick dark -brows drew together. “I knew when you were announced that you wished -something out of the usual. Only your father, Mr. Peter Cairns, and a -few of my special friends have this address.” He gazed steadily at her -as though waiting to hear a certain assurance from her which his foreign -mind toward caution demanded. - -“I have just come from the house on Riverside Drive. I took your address -from its usual place. Do you get me?” Leslie spoke in the best imitation -of her father she could muster. - -“Ah, yes.” There was relief in the response. “I understand the -situation, I believe. What can I do for you, Miss Cairns?” It had long -been known to Lavigne that Peter Cairns’s greatest interest in life was -his daughter. Such a calamity as an estrangement between the two would -have seemed impossible to this man who had been one of the financier’s -ablest allies for many years. He now believed that his best interests -lay in serving Leslie. - -Leslie could tell nothing of the man’s thoughts by watching his face. No -expression or emotion contrary to Lavigne’s will was allowed to appear -on his dark features. - -“My business operation is the building of a garage not far from the -campus of Hamilton College. Hamilton is my—er—the college I went to.” -Leslie always stuck at the words “Alma Mater.” “I had a good deal of -trouble obtaining the site, due to the underhandedness of a crowd of -would-be welfare students who tried to make me give it up to them. They -wanted it for a dormitory.” - -Lavigne smiled with heartening sympathy and made a gesture of -understanding regret for Leslie’s troubles. - -“I found out what their scheme was and managed to get into touch with -the owner of the property before they did. Before he closed with me they -let him know they wanted the site and he charged me sixty thousand -dollars for what I should have paid not more than thirty-five or forty -thousand. When they discovered I had won out over them they made a great -fuss. They circulated very hateful gossip about how dishonorable I was, -and so forth. A rich old crank at Hamilton, the last of the Hamilton -family, sided with these students against me, though she’d never met me, -and presented them with a dormitory site right next to the property I -had bought. Can you beat that?” Leslie had forgotten dignity in slangy -disgust for the way the matter had turned out. - -“Incredible, yet true.” Lavigne lightly raised a hand. “But proceed, -Miss Cairns. I am deeply interested.” - -Leslie went on to explain regarding the old houses standing on both -pieces of property. “These students have the advantage of the services -of the only builder and architect of ability in that part of the -country. He knows the labor situation there. He has had plenty of men -since the start. I have a New York firm on the job and they are -slackers. They claim they can’t get the laborers. My ground hasn’t been -cleared off yet. My garage building isn’t started. The old dormitory is -half up. I must do something about it. Two-thirds of those laborers are -Italians, from an Italian colony outside Hamilton. I want them to work -for me. I’ll pay them double, triple, if necessary, to quit the other -operation.” - -She stopped. Not for an instant did her gaze leave Lavigne’s face. He -was now looking at her very shrewdly, an odd gleam in his black eyes. -Leslie thought they twinkled. It put her on her mettle. - -“This isn’t a schoolgirl quarrel I’ve had with these other students, Mr. -Lavigne,” she said a trifle sullenly. “If you want to know the secret -truth it’s a fight between another student and myself for—to bring about -a certain result. I have as much right to the use of these men as she—as -they—these students have. I don’t care what I pay you to have you help -me. I have a large fortune in my own right. I can soon prove it to you. -This business is really a race to see which side wins. I’ll win, if -you’ll help me. No one need even suspect you of being concerned in the -matter. I want you to engineer it. That’s the way you’ve always worked -for my father, isn’t it?” Leslie asked the question with innocent -ingenuousness. She understood, however, precisely how much depended upon -it. - -“Your father’s and my transactions have always been conducted with great -discretion,” was the indirect admission. - -“I know that. I know _all about certain deals between you and him in the -past_. If I didn’t, would I be here now? It’s not simply a question of -the garage operation with me. I’m fighting to assert myself. I’m going -to follow my father’s methods. They’ve been absolutely successful. What -I want I intend to get, if those who can give it to me are willing to -sell out.” Leslie asserted boldly. - -“Of course, of course. You are like your father. You are not a minor, -Miss Cairns?” Lavigne inquired tentatively. - -“Hardly.” Leslie smiled. “And you don’t have to consult my father. He -has told me to do as I pleased with my own money. I’ll ask you to -observe absolute secrecy in the matter. When the battle is won, then he -is to be told.” - -“You may trust me to serve you as best I can, Miss Cairns,” Lavigne -declared with flattering sincerity. “In a few days I will go to Hamilton -and look over the situation. I can tell you then what ought to be done. -Where shall I address you?” - -“At the Essenden until day after tomorrow. Then I’m going back to -Hamilton. My address there is the Hamilton House.” Leslie rose to -conclude her call. She was reminded that her father’s interviews with -others were always brief. She was experiencing all the sweetness of -vengeful exultation. At last she was going to “get back at Bean.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - - MARJORIE’S CALLER - - -“I thought you were never coming back, Jerry Macy!” Marjorie dropped -into the depths of the near-by arm chair with a weary little flop. “I’ve -worked like mad for as much as an hour getting up my share of the eats -for Ronny’s birthday spread.” She poked out her red under lip and tried -hard to look aggrieved. The sparkle in her eyes contradicted the -pretence. - -“How could you harbor such disloyal thoughts of me, Beautiful Bean? You -are beautiful, even if your lip is away out of place,” Jerry tenderly -assured. - -“Being beautiful doesn’t make me feel rested.” Marjorie still searched -for cause to complain. “For why did you stay away so long, Jurry-miar?” - -“There’s the cause of my lingering longering.” Jerry held up a -good-sized pasteboard box tied with stout string. “Just wait till you -see it. I had to toddle all around Hamilton in search of a cake. When -all seemed lost we bumped into this glorious, scrumptious cocoanut layer -cake.” She set the box on the table and untied the string. - -“It’s a white splendor.” Marjorie stood beside Jerry peeping at the cake -as her chum removed the box lid. “I’ve made the sandwiches.” She nodded -toward a side table carefully covered with a snowy lunch cloth. “I -cracked the walnuts for the brown bread ones and also my thumb.” She -ruefully put the injured member in her mouth. - -“How you must have suffered!” Jerry solemnly exclaimed. Both girls began -to laugh. “Leila was in one of her fine frenzies because we couldn’t -find a real cake or any stuffed dates.” - -“I was that,” notified an affable agreeing voice from the opened door. -“Did not the people of Hamilton all have their mouths set for sweet -cakes today?” Leila closed the door and joined her chums. “We could find -nothing we wanted.” - -“Until in despair we went over to a new bakery on Gorman Street that -just opened yesterday. The woman who keeps it is German. She has yellow -hair and looks just like a pound cake,” Jerry described with enthusiasm. - -“And our dream of a cake was in the window!” exclaimed Leila. “We -thought we would eat it ourselves and tell no one, but we have such -honor about us. We could not bear to think of those who would have no -cake.” She smiled broadly upon Marjorie. - -“You are a pair of fakes. You’ve been out having a fine spin while I’ve -been in working hard. The minute dinner’s over you two may make the -fruit salad. That will be your job,” Marjorie sternly pronounced -sentence on the buoyant, hilarious pair. - -“I will make forty fruit salads to please you, Beauty, though I do not -know how to make one. Behold in me a helpful Harper.” - -“You mean a harpful helper,” corrected Jerry. - -“If you mean I am a harp, then I must tell you you are right. I do not -know how you guessed it.” Leila gazed at Jerry in mock admiration. - -“Dinner won’t mean much to us tonight,” commented Marjorie as she -proudly raised the lunch cloth to allow the girls to see the tempting -generous stacks of small, three-cornered sandwiches, the relishes and -various other toothsome viands always welcomed by girlhood at a spread. -“Remember, we are to take nothing but soup at dinner. It’s to be cream -of celery. I asked Ellen.” - -“Oh, Marjorie, I almost forgot to tell you,” Jerry suddenly cried out. -“Something has happened to the Hob-goblin’s Folly.” This was Jerry’s pet -name for Leslie’s garage enterprise. - -“Happened?” Marjorie’s question contained little interest. - -“Yep. There’s a new gang of men at work on the garage. Leila and I -noticed them when we went to town. They were gone when we came back, but -it was after five-thirty. There were as many as your gang on the -dormitory. I think they were Italians. Don’t you, Leila?” - -Leila nodded. “They must be a new addition to the Italian quarter,” she -surmised. “Signor Baretti said last fall that nearly all the men of the -quarter were working on the dormitory. He said they had refused to work -for Leslie Cairns’s builders. They would not pay them enough by the day. -Perhaps the new ones are glad of the work. But how can I judge when I am -no boss of Italians, or of any one but Midget. I shall certainly give -her a tart and terrible lecture when I see her again. I left her -entertaining Gentleman Gus. Now I believe they have eloped.” - -Leila’s dark suspicion of Vera set the three girls laughing. Gussie was -the tallest girl at Wayland Hall and Vera the tiniest. The elopement of -the pair was a joy to contemplate. - -“I haven’t been near the dormitory for three whole days,” Marjorie -confessed ruefully. “I’ve been so busy since we came back from Sanford -trying to make up for a lot of things I let slide before I went that I’m -a no good manager. Robin is coming early tonight, so she’ll know what -has been going on over there. We may thank our stars we have such a -splendid manager as Mr. Graham to look after the dormitory for us.” - -“And such a Marvelous Manager as Bean to look after the sandwiches for -us,” supplemented Jerry, imitating Marjorie’s tone. - -“I thank my stars they’re made, and made without your help, Jeremiah -Macy.” Marjorie waved a finger before Jerry’s face. “There’s Robin now, -I’m sure.” She sprang from her chair and ran to the door. - -“Were you at the dormitory today?” Her lips framed the question before -Robin had more than stepped into the room. - -“No-o.” Robin’s tone was one of self-accusation. “It’s neglectful in me, -but I’ve not been there since day before yesterday. I must turn over a -new leaf tomorrow. What about you, Dean? I know you’ve done better than -I.” - -“But I haven’t,” Marjorie protested. “I’m a day behind you, Pagie. Jerry -and Leila saw Leslie Cairns’s builders have at last gathered up a supply -of workmen. The girls noticed them today when they drove to town.” - -“Her garage will be about as successful there as it would be in Thibet,” -predicted Robin scornfully. “It’s too far from the campus to be -convenient.” - -“I wonder if she intends to run it herself?” remarked Jerry. “I can see -the Hob-goblin proudly marching around her own car roost.” - -Conversation about Leslie Cairns came to a halt with Jerry’s remarks. -None of the Travelers liked to discuss her. When they did it was because -of some way in which her affairs chanced to touch theirs. - -The lively entrance into the room of the “elopers” who had gone for a -ride in Vera’s car, and returned at the last minute before dinner, -brought a welcome diversity of subject. - -“What do you care whether we have dinner or not? Think of the spread we -have for Ronny.” Jerry reminded them. “You may have only soup for -dinner. We’re going to have the eats soon after the party begins so that -nightmares won’t be popular along the hall tonight.” - -“You try to be kind-hearted, don’t you, Jeremiah?” said Vera, with a -patronizing smile. - -“Oh, yes, I try,” mimicked Jerry. “It’s not my fault if my -kindheartedness doesn’t register. Some people are positively thick, -and—” - -The ringing of the dinner gong sent Vera and Gussie scurrying to their -rooms to remove their wraps. Marjorie, Jerry, Leila and Robin made -leisurely way down stairs to the dining room. Dinner began and ended -with soup for the Travelers. The ten original Travelers were invited to -the spread, as were also Phil Moore and Barbara Severn. Marjorie had -invited both of the latter to come over early to “soup.” Both had nobly -refused in favor of study so as to be free to spend the evening at -Wayland Hall without including “unprepared” in next day’s vocabulary. - -“The first thing for us to do to start the party is to move the eats -into Ronny’s and Lucy’s room.” was Marjorie’s brisk decision, as she and -Jerry returned to Room 15 from the dining room. - -Robin had strolled down the hall to see Ronny and give her a birthday -present of a curious, vellum-bound book in Spanish, which she had -commissioned her dilettante uncle to buy for her in Washington at a -fancy price. - -“We might all heave-ho and lug the table into the other room with the -eats on it,” proposed Jerry dubiously. “On the other hand, there might -be a grand heave-ho-ing of eats on the floor. I don’t like to take such -a risk, Bean. Think of my goloptious, celostrous cocoanut cake.” Jerry -had added “goloptious” to her new vocabulary of one word. - -“Think of my scrumptious, splendiferous sandwiches,” retaliated Bean -with promptitude. - -“I’m thinking about them,” Jerry said mournfully. “I could eat one now, -if I had it. So near and yet so far.” She lifted the lunch cloth and -made eyes at the stacks of sandwiches. “This is the result of only soup -for supper. I yearn to gobble the spread.” - -“I’ll feed you a sandwich with my own hand.” Marjorie proffered a nut -sandwich, Jerry’s favorite kind, to her hungry roommate. - -“Thanks, kind lady. I wasn’t—” - -“I know all about you,” cut in Marjorie with an unsympathetic laugh. -“Hurry up, and eat that sandwich. Then help me move the eats; by hand; -not by table.” - -Marjorie went to the door and opened it. She came back to the table, -picked up two plates of sandwiches and started with them for Ronny’s -room. Part way to it she encountered Annie, one of the maids. - -“Oh, Miss Dean, I was just coming after you.” The maid’s broad -good-humored features broke into a pleased smile. “There’s a gentleman -down stairs in the living room wants to see you.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - “WE MUST WORK TOGETHER” - - -“A gentleman to see me?” Marjorie repeated wonderingly. She turned a -look of mild inquiry upon the maid. “Didn’t he give you his name, -Annie?” Marjorie’s thoughts at once flashed to her general. Perhaps he -had come to Hamilton to give her a surprise. Business might have brought -him near the campus. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes sparkled at the fond -thought. - -“Please, Miss Dean, I asked him his name once and he said it, but I -couldn’t understand what he said. He said it kind of low and rumbly. I -hated to ask him again,” Annie confessed, looking her confusion. - -“Oh, never mind, Annie.” Marjorie smiled away the maid’s discomfiture -with winsome good nature. “I’ll go down and see for myself. Please say -to the gentleman that I will be down directly.” - -Marjorie returned to 15 with the two plates of sandwiches. If she -carried them on into Ronny’s room she would not go down stairs for the -next ten minutes. Oddly enough she thought also of Hal as a possible -visitor. - -“Have you changed your mind about letting Ronny have these sandwiches?” -Jerry asked humorously as Marjorie hastily re-placed them on the table. - -“No, I haven’t, Jeering Jeremiah,” Marjorie laughed. “You are to have -the sandwich-moving job. There’s a gentleman downstairs to see me.” - -“What?” Jerry showed mild surprise. “A gentleman in this girl-inhabited -burg! It takes my breath. I mean to have one call on you at the Hall. -Who is he, or is that a secret?” - -“I don’t know who he is. I’m going down to see.” - -“It might be a book agent who has just heard that you go to college. It -might be a tin peddler who suspects we cook in our room and wants us to -try his tin dishes. It might be a carpet sweeper pest who has a carpet -sweeper that operates in mid air and simply coaxes the dust up from the -floor. Only those gentlemen always hunt by day. It might be—” - -“Good-bye. I’m going downstairs. I can’t stop to listen to any more of -your weird theories, Jeremiah. I’ll be back soon, I hope.” Smiling over -Jerry’s ridiculous suppositions, Marjorie made a hasty start for -downstairs. - -The man who rose to greet her as she entered the living room bore no -resemblance to either her general or Hal. Her caller was Peter Graham. - -“Why, good evening, Mr. Graham.” She held out her hand. “This _is_ a -surprise, but always a pleasant one. You must have wondered what had -become of Miss Page and me.” - -“No, I knew you were busy, Miss Marjorie.” Peter Graham’s fine face -lighted beautifully at sight of her. “You and Miss Robin have been very -faithful. It has been of the greatest assistance to me. Now we must work -together, more than ever.” - -He ceased speaking and looked at her with an intensity of expression -which somehow filled her with vague alarm. - -“What is it, Mr. Graham?” Her mind would have instantly formed the -conclusion that this call had to do with some serious crisis in his -personal affairs if he had not said: “Now we must work together more -than ever.” - -“The majority of my workers have left me, Miss Marjorie,” he said with a -straight simplicity which marked him as a man worth while. “They have -gone over to the garage operation. There is no question in my mind as to -how the whole thing happened.” - -“Leslie Cairns.” The words leaped involuntarily to Marjorie’s lips. -Immediately what Leila and Jerry had said before dinner returned to her -mind with a rush. How precisely it fitted with that one pertinent -sentence: “They have gone over to the garage operation.” - -“Yes, Miss Cairns is responsible.” He spoke with quiet surety. “Still, I -cannot understand how she managed so cleverly to keep me in the dark -about her treacherous work until the mischief was done. Day before -yesterday my entire force was at work on the dormitory. Yesterday three -or four of my most useful Italians did not come to work. By noon today I -was deserted except for four Hamilton carpenters and builders whom I -have known and worked with for years. These four stood by me. Every last -one of the others went over to the garage.” - -“Was there—did these men give their reason for going?” Marjorie asked -with admirable composure. “Before you answer, Mr. Graham, may I go -upstairs for Miss Page? She happens to be here this evening. It is her -right to hear as well as mine.” - -“I am glad she is here. It is most fortunate for us. We shall be able to -decide what we can do that much the sooner.” The builder bowed -abstracted acknowledgment as Marjorie excused herself and hurried -upstairs. Peter Graham’s mind had dwelt upon nothing else but what might -be done to clear away the ugly situation resulting from Leslie Cairns’s -malice. - -She found Robin in the midst of the party group in Ronny’s room. Under -Jerry’s laughable supervision the eats had been transferred without -accident to the immediate scene of the festivity. Ronny, as -hostess-guest of honor, was in high feather. She was hospitably -concocting a delectable mixture which she called “Encanta Manaña” as she -chatted animatedly with her friends. It was a fruit punch founded on -lemons and oranges and further improved by a blending of fruit syrups. -These syrups had been made from the fruits of her ranch home and put up -in the ranch laboratory. They were as welcome at a spread as was Leila’s -imported ginger ale. - -Her own little coterie of friends had remembered her birthday that -morning with lavish giving. The top of her chiffonier was covered with -affectionate remembrances, each one selected with a view to Ronny’s -peculiarly strong, attractive individuality. - -“I can’t stay up here one minute, girls,” Marjorie hastily told the -revelers. They had listened in blank silence to her as she acquainted -Robin with the dismaying situation. “Go ahead, and have a good time, -minus Page and Dean. We’ll be back within an hour, I think; perhaps -before then.” - -A buzzing murmur arose from the group as the partners exchanged eye -messages of undying loyalty, linked arms and marched together from the -room. Page and Dean would fight gallantly beside Peter Graham for the -good of the dormitory. - -Entering the living room Peter Graham shook hands with Robin. The -partners seated themselves side by side on a small settee, while Peter -Graham drew a wicker rocker close enough to them to permit of low-toned -conversation. - -The builder then began an account of the chief happenings on the day -before the trouble became evident. He followed it with a more detailed -description of the desertion, first of the three or four Italians, then -the rest of the force, except the four Hamilton carpenters. - -“When I saw those fellows I had tried to do well by over on the other -lot I knew there was only one thing had taken them there. They’d been -offered a good deal more money than we were paying them. I knew Thorne & -Foster hadn’t offered it to them.” The builder smiled, a quiet, scornful -smile. “They are niggards. - -“I decided to go over and have a talk with Pedro Tomasi, one of the -older men of the quarter. He had always seemed very well disposed toward -me. I went only as far as the edge of the garage excavation.” He -laughed, but in his laugh he showed his deep-lying indignation. “I was -ordered off the lot by Thorne & Foster’s foreman. What construction -would you place on such an act on their part after what I just remarked -of them.” He looked levelly from Marjorie to Robin. - -“There is only one can be placed upon it,” Marjorie said tranquilly. -“They are simply obeying Miss Cairns’s orders and pocketing more of her -money.” - -“That’s it,” nodded Peter Graham. “It will cost her a pretty penny -before she is through with the affair. I’d like to know how long this -business was brewing before it came to a head. Neither Thorne or Foster -have been in town for weeks. Conlon, their foreman, is hated by the -workmen, especially the Italians. What I can’t understand is the smooth -quietness of the whole outrage. They walked out of our employ and into -that of Miss Cairns’s like a carefully organized body of strikers. If -Miss Cairns managed the walk-out she must have a certain amount of -unscrupulous cleverness,” he ended with grudging honestness. - -“I haven’t the least doubt but that she managed it,” Robin made -indignant assertion. “She has been known to go to great pains to gain -her own way. On the campus, when she was a student here, she had a -reputation for that sort of thing.” Robin’s information was meant to be -impersonal. It was Peter Graham’s right to know Leslie Cairns’ measure -as a mischievous force. - -Marjorie had listened to Robin and the builder, her mind weighing every -word she heard. As Robin finished with an angry little sputtered: “Oh, -will we ever be free of that Jonah?” the gravity of Marjorie’s beautiful -face changed to meditative resolution. - -“Mr. Graham,” she said, “when first you told me of this I was really -dismayed for a few minutes. I can understand how you feel in the matter. -It is far harder on you than on us. Still, you know, and Page and Dean -know, that nothing is going to stop us from finishing the dormitory -outside God’s will. I am sure we have that. We are building toward good, -not evil. I suppose we couldn’t get these men we’ve lost back again, no -matter how hard we tried. They’ve gone the way of more money. We paid -them all we can afford or will pay in future. We must not needlessly -increase the dormitory obligation for the Travelers who come after our -chapter.” - -“I wouldn’t advise taking back any of these men at a cent more than we -have been paying them. We have given them better wages than they ever -before received,” broke in the builder, defensive of the Travelers’ -rights. “I am glad we are of the same mind, Miss Dean. And you, Miss -Page?” He turned to Robin, relief written large on his strong features. - -“What is Page without Dean,” laughed Robin. “What are we both without -Graham?” She made a charming gesture of deference which pleased and -heartened the white-haired builder. - -“Whatever you think wise for us to do, we will do. We rest our case with -you, Mr. Graham,” Marjorie’s voice rang with fine loyalty. - -“Thank you both for your support,” was the grateful response. “Our case -will have to rest,” he continued, his face wonderfully brighter, “until -I can secure other workmen to take the places of those gone. It may be a -long time before I can collect another force like the one we had. They -were able fellows, and knew their business. I warn you, the dormitory -cannot be completed in time for the re-opening of college next fall -unless we should have the good fortune to find a new crew of men at -once. That is the situation.” - -“We accept it with good grace.” Marjorie’s kindly cheeriness did much to -lighten the secret dejection of the builder. “Don’t worry over it, Mr. -Graham. We sha’n’t. We have had trouble with Leslie Cairns before. On -each occasion she has been a loser. We have gone on, the stronger for -experience. We shall rise above this vicissitude, just as we have risen -above the others. Leslie Cairns never seems even to do wrong -successfully.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - GUISEPPE BARETTI’S THEORY - - -Regardless of her optimistic assertion to Robin and Peter Graham that -right must triumph in the end, Marjorie found it hard to resign herself -to watchful inaction in regard to the dormitory. The winter days came -and went with no change in the situation save perhaps the addition of a -dozen men to Peter Graham’s working force. It consisted of himself and -his quartette of carpenters. He scoured the region extending for -twenty-five miles about Hamilton for men. Labor happened to be scarce. -Workmen invariably demanded twice as much money for their services as he -would pay. The affair of the walk-out had been circulated far and wide -in that section. The numbers of workmen he talked with demanded as much -as “the Thorne and Foster crew” were receiving. - -Miss Susanna Hamilton sputtered volubly to Jonas, Peter Graham and -Marjorie at the dire situation. She sent for Marjorie, Robin and the -builder on an average of once in every three or four days to discuss the -situation. She was at first for bringing in a crew of workmen from one -of the large cities and paying them their own price within a certain -limit to hurry the completion of the dormitory. She offered to pay the -sum needed to do this from her own resources. To this neither Page and -Dean nor Peter Graham would hear. In the end they won her over to their -way of thinking. - -Marjorie’s chief private disappointment lay in the fact that she could -not conscientiously begin the compilation of Brooke Hamilton’s papers, -prior to writing his biography, until the dormitory question was settled -and off her mind. This had been the chief reason for Miss Susanna’s -generous proposal. - -“I want you and Jerry to come to the Arms in March, sure and certain,” -she said more than once to Marjorie. “You are such a conscientious -child! You will not humor me at all. Suppose Peter should have to -cripple along all spring with a handful of men? Then you and Jerry will -miss the dawn of spring at the Arms. Let me tell you you will miss -something.” - -“Miss Susanna, I’ve made up my mind to come to the Arms the first of -March, whether or not the dormitory business is settled.” Marjorie -finally made this concession one February afternoon while taking tea -with the old lady. - -“You are my own Marvelous Manager, and a dear child.” Miss Susanna -unexpectedly left her chair, walked around the tea table to Marjorie and -hugged her. - -“And you are the dearest of dears. I ought to come here by the first of -March. I feel it as my duty. And I shall love to be with you. The girls -are resigned to Jerry’s and my move. They’ll be here about half the -time. I give you warning beforehand. I’ve nothing but chemistry on my -list since the beginning of the semester. I only devote a few hours a -week to it now. I do wish something would happen to bring some more -workmen to the dormitory,” Marjorie ended wistfully. - -“Yes, so do I. I could take that Cairns girl and treat her to a good -shaking with my own strength of arm.” Miss Susanna resentfully -straightened up from her embrace of Marjorie and vengefully worked her -arms. “And to think, I’ve never seen her except once, and at a -distance.” Miss Susanna resumed her chair and continued: “It is too bad -Baretti can do nothing with those Italians at the quarter. It’s the old -story. Money changes the color of everything.” - -“I was hopeful of Signor Baretti,” Marjorie said, faint disappointment -in her reply. “He went over to the quarter several times. He said some -one besides Leslie Cairns herself had been influencing the Italians. He -thought she might have hired someone. The Italians swore that only -Thorne and Foster were responsible for the walk-out. They told Signor -Baretti the bosses had offered much money to have the work done quickly. -He says they are not telling the truth, but he can’t get at the truth -among them. I had a talk with him yesterday. Robin and I stopped at the -inn for ice cream. He says he will try again after a while to make the -Italians tell him the truth.” - -“He is a fine little man,” Miss Susanna said, nodding approval of the -odd, whole-souled Italian. “He won’t forget that promise, either.” - -Guiseppe Baretti had no intention of forgetting the, to him, solemn -promise he had made Page and Dean. The nearly perfect management of his -restaurant to which he had long since attained left him a good deal of -time to spend as he pleased. Usually he pleased to be busy in the inn -where he had achieved affluence. It was his workshop, and he loved it. -Now that the “dorm,” also grown into his peculiar affection, was in -difficulties it behoved him to become a knight errant. - -Imbued with this high purpose he went again and again to the Italian -quarter, a patient, open-eared watchful little questioner or listener, -as the case might be. February was almost ended when he at last learned -something of importance. He came one evening upon Pedro Tomaso and -Francisco Vesseli engaged in heated argument. He gathered from the -torrent of angry words each hurled at the other the information he was -seeking. There had been a “Maestro” at the quarter, it seemed. He had -arranged the new scale of wages. Baretti heard over and over again the -name “Ravenzo.” When he left the quarter it was with four points fixed -in his mind. There had been a “Maestro” at the quarter. His name was -Ravenzo. He had come from New York. Then had come the desertion of the -“dorm” by the workmen. - -What Baretti entertained as a positive belief, the Italians knew nothing -of. This was Leslie Cairns’s part in the dormitory trouble. They placed -the odium on Thorne and Foster. The long-headed Italian inn keeper laid -the primary blame upon Miss “Car-rins.” He firmly believed if “that one” -were made to “behave good” the troubles of the dorm would end. He had -gleaned here and there enough of Leslie’s past history to know that she -was the only child of Peter Cairns, a well-known financier, and that her -home was in New York. - -After his fruitful visit to the quarter he sat down in his tiny private -office at the inn and wrote a long letter in Italian to a countryman of -his in New York connected with an Italian confidential agency. The -purpose of the letter was to establish the identity and business of one, -Ravenzo. - -When he had finished the letter he sat very still for a long time and -thought about Leslie Cairns. Ever since he had first seen her as a -freshman at Hamilton, he had detested her. Now he put her through a -mental revue which did not redound to her credit. He wondered how her -father could allow her to “boss herself all wrong.” Perhaps her father -did not know half she did. There were many such cases. He reflected with -old-world wisdom that. “A father don’ want his childr’n do wrong.” He -was also of the conviction that, “A father, he can’t punish his childr’n -they do wrong, he don’ know they do it.” Guiseppe Baretti was sure that -Mr. Car-rins “don’ know much ’bout what his daughter do.” - -His knowledge of Italian nature told him that if the scale of wages on -the Cairns’s garage was dropped to what it had been when begun by Thorne -and Foster, the men of the quarter as well as the American and Irish -workman would be glad to go back to the fair employ of Page and Dean -under the management of Peter Graham. If Miss Car-rins’s father knew her -as she really was perhaps he would come and take her away from Hamilton. -Miss Car-rins was of age, but a father was a father. Her father was a -“big” man. He probably would have ways to make his daughter behave. - -Such was Baretti’s view of the problem he was trying to solve. The next -day he sat down and went over the same train of thought with the same -deliberation. On the third day thereafter he resigned himself to the -composition of a letter in Italian. It was a very long letter and the -first draft of it did not please him. For several days he kept patiently -at it, re-writing and re-vising. Finally he gave it into the keeping of -his Italian manager who was also a high school graduate. Two days -afterward the manager returned a neatly typed, well-phrased letter in -polite English to the little proprietor. Guiseppe had the pleasure of -addressing an envelope to Peter Cairns at his New York offices. -Baretti’s last thought in sending the letter was one of consideration -for Leslie’s father. He wrote on the lower, left-hand side of the -envelope: “For Peter Cairns only.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - MOVING DAY - - -“Today’s moving day, Jeremiah! We’d better pack before noon so that the -man can come for our trunks soon after lunch. I shall pack for keeps. -Truly, Jerry, we don’t know whether we’ll be back here again this year -or not.” Marjorie turned from a yawning trunk which she had pulled into -the middle of the room and surveyed Jerry solemnly. - -“Well, if not this spring, then next fall,” Jerry said quickly. “Don’t -weep, Bean. You will make me weep, too. I want to go to the Arms, -though, and you have to go. Would you go if you weren’t going to write -the biography?” - -“For a little while, but not for more than that,” Marjorie said very -honestly. “I’m going to miss the girls terribly, and so will you. We’ll -see them often, but this is a kind of break in the good old democrat’s -platform.” - -“‘For larger hopes and graver fears,’” Jerry quoted. “That’s the way -things are. We have to go on, you know. Life hates loiterers.” - -“You’re just as melancholy over this change as I am, Jeremiah Macy!” -Marjorie cried out. “It’s not fair to Miss Susanna.” - -“She’ll never know it,” was Jerry’s consoling rejoinder. - -“Indeed, she never shall,” Marjorie vowed energetically. “I am still a -tiny bit blue about the dormitory trouble. I wish it had come to an end -before we started our stay at the Arms. Mr. Graham feels worse about it -than either Robin or I. I don’t allow myself to dwell on the subject of -Leslie Cairns. I feel like joining Miss Susanna in giving the Hob-goblin -a good shaking.” - -“Your temper is certainly going to lead you to violence some day, Bean. -That’s the first time I ever heard you address the Hob-goblin by her -household name. It shows rising ire on your part. Let me calm you by -reciting a few Bean Jingles. Ahem! - - “Oh, do not rave, then long you’ll wave; - Or with the goblin fight: - Just keep serene, beloved Bean, - You will come out all right. - - I am your friend, unto the end, - I’ll stick to you like glue - On me just lean, entrancing Bean - And I will see you through.” - -“Thank you, oh, thank you!” was Marjorie’s grateful reception of Jerry’s -improvised tribute. “I’d love to have a book of Bean Jingles.” - -“You’ll have to take them down as they are ground out, then, Bean. I -never can remember them afterward. ‘I consider them rather sweet little -things.’ Now I must stop entertaining you and get busy. If you hear -blood-curdling wails outside the door today, don’t collapse. Leila says -she may give a farewell exhibition of true grief in the hall.” - -The very prospect of Leila’s wails set the two girls to laughing. In -spite of the coming separation from their close friends the both felt -lighter of spirit as a result of Jerry’s nonsense. - -As the morning sped toward noon, one by one, Ronny, Muriel, Lucy, Leila -and Vera sought Room 15, the headquarters of all their college years. -They were invited to the Arms to dinner that night in honor of Jerry’s -and Marjorie’s arrival. Now they hovered about Marjorie and Jerry, -trying to be cheerful at the blow that had fallen. They had agreed among -themselves not to flivver in the slightest particular. “But after -they’re gone,” Leila had said somberly to Vera, “I shall howl my Irish -head off.” Anna Towne and Verna Burkett had been invited to take up -their abode at Wayland Hall in Room 15 until either college closed or -the two Travelers came back again to the Hall. - -“Robin wanted me to have lunch with her today at Baretti’s, but I told -her I’d meet her there afterward,” Marjorie commented to her chum -audience as she continued to pack. “She forgot for a minute that this -would be Jerry’s and my last luncheon at the Hall for awhile. I say -that, but I’ll probably be over for dinner or lunch about day after -tomorrow.” Marjorie straightened up and viewed her friends with a smile -so full of sunshiny good-will Ronny exclaimed rather shakily: - -“How silly in us to let ourselves be sad about losing you, Marjorie -Dean. We sit here looking like a set of sad sentimental old geese. I -will not do so. Here, let’s dance.” She pirouetted to the middle of the -floor in her inimitable fashion and began one of the utterly original, -graceful dances for which she was famed on the campus. Soon she had -swept the others into it and they were all romping like children. - -“If we’re reported for this racket it won’t do the reporter any good. -We’re vacating today. I suppose the Phonograph, the Prime Minister and -the Ice Queen will be so pleased to know we’ve vamoosed.” Jerry smirked -derisively in the direction of Julia Peyton’s room. - -Marjorie’s face shadowed slightly at mention of Doris Monroe. Muriel was -still in the dark regarding Doris’s sudden change from gracious to -hostile. Since her Christmas trip to New York with Leslie Cairns, Doris -had been associating constantly with Leslie. More than once when driving -with one or another of her chums Marjorie had seen the white car flash -past them with Doris at the wheel and Leslie beside her. She sometimes -wondered half scornfully whether Doris had not a very fair understanding -of Leslie and her unfair methods. Then she would quickly reproach -herself as having been suspicious and mean-spirited. - -After lunch Jerry promised to see the trunks safely into the keeping of -an expressman, leaving Marjorie free to meet Robin at Baretti’s. - -“I cut dessert at the Hall today,” was Robin’s salutatory remark as -Marjorie presently breezed into the restaurant, her cheeks pure -carnation pink from the sharp winter air. “I thought I’d like to have it -here with you. I want some Nesselrode pudding. You know my weakness for -it. Have some? What will you have?” - -“I ought to say nothing, but I’ll eat an apricot ice with you. Thank -you, Page, for your invitation.” Marjorie sat down opposite Robin at the -table the latter had chosen. “I finished my packing before lunch. It -seems queer to be going to Hamilton Arms to live for a while. None of us -dared say much about it at the Hall today. A flood was in the offing. -But no one flivvered after all. We smiled at each other at lunch like a -whole collection of Cheshire pusses.” - -“The girls will miss you so dreadfully, Marjorie,” Robin said with -sudden soberness. She looked across the table at her partner and -wondered if there could ever be anyone more likeable than Marjorie. - -“I’ll miss them, Robin. Jerry and I were ready to cry this morning until -Jerry fell back on Bean Jingles and we laughed instead. Here comes -Signor Baretti.” Marjorie held out a gracious hand. - -“What have you hear about the dorm?” was the Italian’s first question -after he had accepted the partners’s united invitation to sit. - -“Nothing encouraging,” Robin answered with a dejected little shrug. “We -are going over there today to try to keep Mr. Graham in good spirits. He -has such frightful fits of the blues over this miserable set-back to the -dormitory.” - -“Yes; the dorm has a verra bad time. I feel verra sorry. I have try to -help you in some ways, Miss Page, Miss Dean. Maybe one thing I do have -good after while. I don’ know.” The Italian did not offer to explain his -somewhat mysterious reference. - -“We know you are always ready to help us,” Marjorie said with grateful -earnestness. “Would you like to go over to the dormitory with us today, -Signor Baretti? I am sure Mr. Graham would be pleased to see you. You -know Robin and I would enjoy your company?” - -“I think I go with you.” The little proprietor accepted with a dash of -pleased red in his brown cheeks. “I have bought the new roadster. I like -you to ride in it, Miss Page, Miss Dean.” - -“Thank you for suggesting such a dandy way to escape the wind,” smiled -Marjorie. “The first day of March, and a real March wind. Miss Macy and -I are going to Hamilton Arms today to stay all spring, Signor Baretti. -You remember I told you before Christmas that I was going there in the -spring.” - -“Yes, yes! I remem’er. You are to write somethin’ ’bout this Brooke -Hamilton. He is name for the college. Miss Macy—she make another write -’bout him, too?” - -“No; she is going to the Arms with me because she is my roommate. I -couldn’t leave her behind. Miss Susanna wished both of us to come.” - -“I think your friends in the house you live on the campus verra sorry -you go,” commented the Italian. - -“Thank you very much.” Marjorie made him an arch little bow. - -“You are the quite welcome.” The solemn little man beamed happily upon -her. Her merry graciousness put him at his ease. - -He showed not a little curiosity regarding the biography of Brooke -Hamilton. He asked a number of questions about the founder of Hamilton -College and listened eagerly as Marjorie explained as lucidly as she -could regarding the biography of the great man which she was to write. - -When the partners had finished their ices Baretti escorted them, with -proud lights in his black eyes, to his roadster, parked in front of the -restaurant in shining newness. It was only a short run from the inn to -the dormitory. The cutting sharpness of the east wind, however, made -riding preferable to walking. Seated in the tonneau of the car Robin and -Marjorie had hardly exchanged a dozen sentences when the car had reached -the dormitory site and was slowing down for a stop. - -“Look, Robin! What can the matter be?” Marjorie cried in an alarmed -tone. Glancing out from the glassed door nearest to her she beheld a -good-sized crowd of men collected in front of the dormitory building. - -Before Robin could reply, Baretti brought the car to a stop and was out -of it and at the door of the tonneau to assist them. - -“What happen, I wonder?” he asked excitedly. “Mebbe is Mr. Graham or one -his men hurt. You stay here. I go an’ see. You don’ go up there till I -come tell you all is right. Mebbe is the fight.” - -“We will wait for you here,” Marjorie cast concerned eyes toward the -crowd of men in an endeavor to pick out Peter Graham in their midst. - -As her gaze grew more searching she picked out the builder at the back -of the crowd. He seemed to be the main object of attention. His hat was -off and his thick white hair was being fluffed out on his head by the -wind. He was waving an arm and wagging his head as though making a -speech. Far from fighting, the gathering of dark-faced men was orderly. -They were evidently listening to Peter Graham in an almost complete -silence. - -“Marjorie, is it—do you suppose Mr. Graham has been able to gather that -crowd of men to work for him? I hardly dare believe it, but, oh, -gracious, if it should be true—.” Robin clasped her hands. - -“If it should be,” Marjorie repeated, hope flashing into her anxious -face. “They are Italians—mostly.” She added the last word as she made -the discovery that a sprinkling of the crowd were American. Simultaneous -with it she made another discovery. The tall Italian at the edge of the -group was Pedro Tomaso. She began to recognize others among that -attentive throng who had formerly been Peter Graham’s men. - -“They’re not _new_ men, Robin!” she exclaimed. “They are the same ones -who went over to Leslie Cairns’s lot.” - -“There certainly doesn’t appear to be any one left over at the garage.” -As Marjorie called out her discovery Robin had directed her attention -toward the garage foundation which had risen since Page and Dean’s -workmen had gone over to the other enterprise. Only a few days before it -had been humming with activity. Now the silence of a tomb hovered over -it. Not a man was to be seen nearer to it than those who made up the -crowd in front of the dormitory. - -“If Signor Baretti doesn’t come back this minute we’ll simply have to -join the crowd.” Marjorie’s voice was freighted with eagerness. -“Something’s gone wrong over at the garage and these men have fallen -back on Mr. Graham. It must be that. See how respectful they are. Ah-h, -here he comes.” - -“Oh, Miss Page; Miss Dean; you see there!” The inn keeper pointed -joyously to the crowd. “They are the ones to leave Mr. Gra’m. Now it is -good enough for them. They have no job atall. Come a man this morning -early. Fire these Italianos, fire the Americans, fire these men, Thorne -an’ Foster. Mebbe fire Miss Car-rins, too, she was here.” He vented a -funny little chuckle on the last remark. - -“That is the most amazing thing I ever heard.” Robin stared in a puzzled -way at the deserted garage enterprise. “The only one I should imagine -who could discharge the whole crowd of men would be Leslie Cairns -herself. Perhaps she has sold the operation as it stands.” - -“No; she don’t sell it.” A curiously triumphant expression sprang into -the Italian’s face. “I don’t talk yet to Mr. Gra’m, for he is too busy. -I talk a little to Tomaso. He tell me this man who fires everybody come -to the lot with Thorne and Foster. They both looked scare. He look here, -look there. He is verra smart, big tall man. He laugh verra mad. He say -to Thorne and Foster: ‘You are the couple of skins. You done. Be glad I -don’t put you in jail. Now you get out!’ Then Tomaso hear Foster say: -‘You don’t understan’, Mr. Car-rins.’ The big man say: ‘Yes; understan’ -you two thieves.’ So, that is Mr. Car-rins who come here. He is the -father Miss Car-rins. Then mebbe he can fire Miss Car-rins so she don’t -come here more.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - - LESLIE TENDS TO BUSINESS - - -The arrival of the father of Leslie Cairns upon the scene of her -business activities was, indeed, as Robin had declared, in the light of -amazing. More, that he should have suddenly appeared like a devastating -whirlwind and summarily discharged the working force engaged in the -building of the garage seemed little short of incredible. - -“Come on back to the car.” Marjorie caught Robin by an arm. “I know you -would like to join Mr. Graham, Signor Baretti. Don’t think you must stay -here with us. That’s a man’s meeting up there,” she nodded toward the -crowd. “They wouldn’t feel at ease if we went up there. We might spoil -the good effect upon them that Mr. Graham is trying for. We’ll sit in -the car and wait for you two. You go, and help him. You understand the -Italian workmen better even than he.” - -“I go. That is what I want do, but I think I must stay by you.” Baretti -grew radiant. “Pretty soon I come back with Mr. Gra’m. Then you will -hear more that he know.” The inn keeper hustled toward the crowd of -workmen. Page and Dean picked their way to the car over the rough frozen -earth. - -It was fifteen minutes later, and the amazement of the Italian’s report -had not yet died out between the partners, when the throng around Peter -Graham broke up and the workmen went their several ways. As a result of -their unexpected discharge from their “fat” job they were a crestfallen -set of men. - -The Italians had led the movement of return to Peter Graham. With the -stolidity of the foreign laborer, a job was a job. If they were thrown -out of work in one place, they must find work in another. It mattered -not at all to them that they had treacherously deserted Peter Graham. -They waited on the scene of their disaster only long enough to learn -from Conner, the foreman, that they would be able to collect their pay -checks next day at the Hamilton office of Thorne and Foster. Their next -move was straight to the dormitory. There they hung about in the cold -until the arrival of Peter Graham, which had not been until shortly -before Signor Baretti and the partners had arrived. - -The builder had on that day been on an unfruitful and discouraging hunt -for men. His surprise at finding a sheepish but anxious delegation of -jobless men awaiting him had been mixed with grim amusement. He had -seized the advantage which he had at once saw was his to lay down the -law to them. Of the early morning episode which had brought him his old -corps of workmen he had not yet a clear story. He was more interested -just then in the effect rather than the cause. The men had asked to be -allowed to take up their old work that day. The builder refused the -request, and sent them home. “Don’t come back tomorrow unless you feel -that you are going to stick to me until this job is done,” were his -parting words to them. - -A little later the builder and Signor Baretti were walking toward the -roadster where the partners patiently waited to congratulate Peter -Graham on the sudden silver lining that a very gray sky had turned out. -The inn keeper insisted that his three friends should go to the inn for -something hot to eat and drink. Peter Graham had been too busy to stop -for luncheon. He hailed the invitation. Page and Dean found hot -chocolate and marguerites appetizing after their stay out in the cold. -Even Baretti broke his rule and drank a cup of very strong black coffee. - -Around the table the four discussed the unexpected eclipse of the garage -operation at length. They hoped to arrive at a logical conclusion -regarding the reason for Peter Cairns’s high-handed procedure against -his daughter’s business venture. Greater than the knowledge that their -work could now go on, was the wonder of the partners at the summary -defeat of Leslie Cairns’s dishonorable scheme. Peter Graham was more -concerned with the return of the workmen than anything else. He had not -passed through three trying years on the campus with Leslie Cairns -always a menace. Guiseppe Baretti was filled with secret bliss over one -lovely fact. Peter Car-rins had received his letter. - -Meanwhile Baretti’s new roadster had hardly made port at the inn when -Leslie Cairns turned her car into Hamilton Pike, bent on a visit to her -garage site. Her special interest, however, was in viewing the dormitory -and exulting in the “crimp” she had “handed the prigs and digs.” She was -well pleased at having “put one over on that cotton-topped carpenter.” - -With her affairs progressing so smoothly Leslie had not troubled herself -to visit the garage site for several days. All that Anton Lavigne had -promised to do he had done. She had seen him but once in Hamilton. Then -he had visited the Italian quarter as Ravenzo. He had telephoned her to -pick him up with her car at a rather lonely spot on Hamilton Pike. A -small mustache, shell-rimmed glasses and rough tweed clothing so changed -his appearance that she had hardly known him. He had talked with her -only as long as it took to reach the railway station where he took the -first train for New York. He had assured her of having done his work -thoroughly. As the winter wore on toward March and the situation he had -promoted remained unchanged she grew more and more pleased with herself. -She was not specially pleased with Thorne and Stone. In spite of plenty -of help they dragged the building of the garage. She quarreled with them -about it whenever she saw either partner. She retained them because of -their lack of principle. - -Leslie spun her car along the pike with her usual disregard for speed -laws. It was cold and she was not anxious to remain out long in the -sharp wind. She resolved to give the “flivver” and the “success” the -“once over,” then drive to the Colonial, telephone Doris and invite her -to go back to town with her for the rest of the afternoon and evening. - -The surprise which had met Robin and Marjorie on reaching the dormitory -was a surprise. The situation which Leslie found herself facing was a -shock. Her first glance of scowling consternation deepened as she went -nearer the garage foundation and neither heard nor saw even a solitary -workman. The stillness of the place depressed her. What had happened to -her gang of men? Ah! She had it. Thorne and Foster had perhaps laid the -men off for a day. She would be charged for the day’s work they had not -done. The builders would collect it and keep it. Nothing doing! She -would drive to their town office and have it out with them. - -Leslie shivered as a blast of wind cut through even her fur coat. She -ran back to her car and sprang into it. She heard the sound of a hammer -tapping away in the dormitory. She grinned derisively as she glanced up -at the half completed edifice. Thanks to Lavigne, Bean’s settlement -house would go a long time without a roof. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - - THE LETTER - - -Following on the heels of her first shock came disappointment. She -reached the three story building where Thorne and Foster had established -temporary office to find the door of the office locked and a sign tacked -to the outside door panel which bore the information: “Gone for the -day.” - -“Who told them they could go?” she sulkily muttered. “Wait till I see -that pair. All they do is loaf and rob me. They’re slackers. That old -cotton-top Bean has working for her is worth more than a dozen of these -slackers.” - -Leslie swung petulantly down the one flight of stairs to the street. The -wind whistled in her face causing her to duck her head into her high fur -collar. - -“It’s too cold to drive back to the campus,” she concluded. “I’ll run -the car into the garage and hunt for cover. The hotel for me tonight. -I’ll go there and stay there.” She promised herself that next day she -would make it a point to go to the garage site and see what was going -on. She could pick up Doris then at the Colonial and take her back to -town. - -She drove to the garage, saw the car housed and battled her way against -the wind the distance of one block to the hotel. At the desk the clerk -handed her a letter. Leslie stared at the address in fascination. Her -face turned as nearly white as its swarthiness would permit. Her lips -moved as though she were trying to speak and could not. Her hands shook -so violently she dropped the letter on the tessellated marble floor. - -She bent to retrieve it, and nearly lost her balance. Sight of certain -black, jagged handwriting all but drained her of strength. She walked to -the door of the elevator steadily enough, but her knees weakened under -her as she stood and waited for what seemed an age for the descending -cage. - -“Great Scott!” she breathed in a voice not quite steady as the door of -her room closed behind her. She stumbled over to a chair and fell into -it. “I never had such a wobbly time in all my life before,” she said -aloud again. “I’m glad to see that writing.” - -Leslie was so staggered at seeing again the characteristic handwriting -of Peter Cairns she had only one idea. Her father had written her a -letter. In the exultant glow she experienced as she tore open the -envelope she lost her first panic of agitation. - -Her hands began to tremble anew as she hastily tore the envelope across, -in order to quickly get at the letter inside it. Two sheets of his club -paper brought a sparkle to her eyes. She unfolded them and read with -hungry concentration: - - “LESLIE: - - “So long as you minded your own affairs and did not involve - others in your ridiculous schemes I decided to let you go on and - see if you had any common sense. You have shown so little of - this necessary quality I have been compelled to interfere and - undo, if possible, the mischief you have done. - - “There are two ways of doing business; a wise way and a foolish - way. Business enterprises are conducted in order to bring wealth - to their promoters; not for the purpose of “getting even” with - another, or others. I know precisely what you have been doing - since you disgraced yourself and me at college. I have not once - approved of you. Your purchase of a certain piece of property - near the college was typical of your business idiocy. Some day - you may learn why. - - “When you were a youngster I had some hope of helping you to the - career you fancied. You are very far away from that point of - intelligence now. Prudence should have taught you never to buck - against an institution of learning of the traditional worth and - material wealth of Hamilton College. - - “I have put a definite end to your silly, wasteful garage - venture. You chose the last site suitable for a public garage. - If you make an effort, no matter how small, or as you may - believe, secret, to carry on this enterprise or to have another - carry it on for you, I will wipe out your fortune and send you - to business college. You have shown sufficient lack of gray - matter to insure my closer guardianship over you, as your - father. For the present Mrs. Gaylord will remain your chaperon. - You thought no doubt in the beginning that you engaged her. I - daresay you know differently now. Women seldom keep their - secrets. You will arrange to be in New York not later than the - fifteenth of this month. You are not to return to Hamilton. I - have seen Lavigne and had matters out with him. You deceived - him, but he should have known better than to bother with you. He - has changed his address. You may be interested in this news. - - “In New York you will select a suitable apartment for yourself - and Mrs. Gaylord and resume your friendship with Natalie Weyman. - She is a shallow creature, but at least has social pride. You - are to devote yourself to society for a while. Perhaps in that - way you may get over your business fallacy. - - “PETER CAIRNS.” - -With a kind of howl such as a mourning, solitary creature of the wild -might utter, Leslie dropped her head on her arms. She had ever been -careless of the feelings of others; always ready to sneer at even her -friends. Now for the first time in her selfish life she had been cut to -the heart by words. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI. - - AT THE ARMS - - -A few days of work on the part of a steady and greatly chastened crew of -men convinced Peter Graham that his return to good fortune was not a -dream. At the garage site nothing stirred save the wind-swept branches -of the trees and drifting dead leaves or swaying frozen weeds. - -Leslie Cairns had not waited in Hamilton for the coming of the fifteenth -of March. She and Mrs. Gaylord had gone to New York on the day following -the receipt of her letter. She had not said good-bye to Doris. She -intended to write the sophomore. Further she would go back to Hamilton -later, if she chose. Her first grief at her father’s cutting letter had -changed into a slow-kindling resentment. It promised presently to -dominate her future acts. She had determined to learn for herself when -she returned to New York if her father could wipe out her entire -fortune. It consisted of several gilt-edged investments. She was -confident she would find a way to secure at least a part of it from him. -She would fight him through the courts, should he try to impoverish her. -He had cast her out of his affections. She would stamp out her regard -for him. - -While she vengefully sulked and prepared for a hasty departure from -Hamilton, Marjorie and Jerry Macy had joined the household at Hamilton -Arms. Their first sensations had been those of strangeness of their -roomy quarters after the closer confinement of Wayland Hall. They had a -somberly beautiful suite of sitting room, immense sleeping room with -twin carved mahogany beds and bathroom containing the luxury of a sunken -bath. - -They had made a triumphal entry into the Arms surrounded by their chums -who had been invited to celebrate the arrival of the beloved guests. The -Travelers had delivered Marjorie and Jerry into Miss Susanna’s keeping -with an exuberance of joy resulting from their appreciation of the -triumph of Page and Dean over Leslie Cairns. From Baretti’s, Robin and -Marjorie had hurried to Wayland Hall, gathered their chums into Room 15, -and joyfully told them the news. In consequence, the elation attending -the disclosure served to banish the wrench of parting. - -The Saturday afternoon following their move to the Arms Miss Susanna -gave a reception in honor of the Travelers to the dormitory girls. The -guests of honor assembled on Friday night, burdened with their reception -finery. They stayed that night at the Arms and did their own decorating -of the stately rooms the next morning. In honor of their senior “dorms” -a flower scheme of daffodils and violets had been carried out in -fragrant profusion in all the rooms and at the tables of the famous -Chinese tea room where sweets, ices and tea were served. Purple and gold -were the senior colors and the modest senior dorms were inclined to be -somewhat abashed at this compliment to them. Anna Towne plaintively -expressed their opinion when she said: “All this attention makes us -believe we count. I hope we do!” - -Marjorie had been at the Arms a week before Miss Susanna mentioned -Brooke Hamilton in connection with the literary labor to be performed. -She understood Miss Hamilton well enough to guess that the peculiar old -lady was not yet ready to talk about the biography Marjorie was to -write. - -“I suppose you’ve been wondering, Marvelous Manager, why you haven’t -been set to work as an author and biographer,” Miss Hamilton addressed -Marjorie from the sunny bow window of the old-time sitting room where -she had been watering a fragrant rosy mass of window box sweet peas. She -picked half a dozen dainty clusters of them and trotted over to Marjorie -with them. She tucked them into Marjorie’s thick curls, rolled up at the -back of her shapely young head. “There, you look like the awakening of -spring, child,” she declared. “Come, now, you and I will go up to the -study.” - -“Really, Miss Susanna?” Marjorie sprang up from her chair, radiant at -the prospect. - -“Yes, really. You’re not polite, or you’d take what I say for granted.” - -“Always, in future,” promised Marjorie, holding up one hand. She wound -her other arm about Miss Hamilton’s waist. - -“Jerry has gone to the garage with Jonas for the car. While she is -bringing it up I am going to do something for you which seems important -to me. I am going to introduce you to Uncle Brooke. He will welcome you -as a friend and make over to you all his papers.” - -Miss Susanna paused, her eyes searching Marjorie’s face in the bright, -bird-like way which meant accurate appraisal. - -“Go on; please do,” Marjorie breathed, showing her utter fascination of -the supernatural-sounding announcement. “It is such a beautiful thought, -that of going with you to his study to be introduced to him as a friend. -Afterward I will gradually come to the point where I can look over his -papers and not feel—” Marjorie studied an instant “—like an old Paul -Pry,” she added, smiling. - -“Precisely my idea,” emphasized the mistress of the Arms. “Let’s be on -our way.” She wound an arm around Marjorie’s waist. Wise youth and -youthful age paraded out into the hall and up the broad staircase, -clinging to each other in fond, school girl way. - -The door of the study was a little ajar, as though someone within the -room had anticipated the visit of Miss Susanna. The study door was -generally closed. Marjorie knew Miss Susanna had set it to suit her -fancy. - -The two paused before the door. Miss Hamilton gently drew herself free -from Marjorie’s arm. She lifted a hand and rapped lightly on a door -panel. Then she stood in an attitude of alert listening. Marjorie knew -she was re-acting a daily episode of the long ago. “He is there,” she -said softly to Marjorie. “I will go first. Follow me.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII. - - THE INTRODUCTION - - -“Good morning, Uncle Brooke. I have brought my friend, Marjorie Dean to -meet you. I hope you are feeling your splendid best today.” - -Miss Susanna’s voice, gently modulated until nothing remained of its -natural quick, brisk quality, filled Marjorie with an impulse to cry. It -was not that gentle voice alone which awoke her emotion. She was looking -straight toward a face, strong, proud, with an almost haughty set of -noble dark head on broad but sloping shoulders. Eyes, startling in their -blueness, a firm mouth, somehow suggesting humor and shaded by a -close-clipped dark mustache. - -Marjorie had seen portraits of Brooke Hamilton. She had never before -seen this particular painting of him. She understood, instantly she -beheld it, why Miss Susanna should take pleasure in regarding it as -life-like enough to merit an introduction. It had been evidently painted -when he was perhaps thirty and in the glory of his manhood. It was a -life-size study of head and shoulders far finer than any other of him -she had previously seen at the Arms. - -A choking sensation rose in her throat. She fought it back, clenching -her hands and resisting sturdily the impulse to cry. It seemed an age -since Miss Susanna had spoken. In reality it was not more than two -minutes. - -“Uncle Brooke, let me introduce Marjorie Dean. You wrote the fourteenth -maxim for her, though you did not then know it. Marjorie Dean, let me -present you to my great uncle, Brooke Hamilton. He wishes to give you -his confidence.” Again Miss Susanna’s voice rose and fell gently on the -sunlit study. - -“Good morning, my friend, Brooke Hamilton. I accept your confidence as -sacred. I will never disturb the inner deeps.” Marjorie gazed at the -handsome manly face through a mist. - -“Because I have called you friend I will neither measure out friendship -to you in quantity nor lay a restriction upon it.” It was Miss Susanna -who followed Marjorie’s exalted promise with Brooke Hamilton’s own creed -of friendship. - -“I thank you, Mr. Brooke Hamilton.” Marjorie bowed sedately. Next -instant her sedate air broke up in a winsome smile. She thought the man -in the portrait looked as though he might have enjoyed fun and laughter -as well as profound consciousness of responsibility. - -“And now you’ve been introduced,” Miss Susanna said naively. “I had -Jonas put this portrait away for awhile. It used to hang in my private -sitting room. I was afraid you might see it before I was ready to have -you. It was painted by a young Frenchman named Blaneau. He died at -twenty-seven. He would have no doubt been ranked as the greatest -portrait painter of his time had he lived. Such is the history of the -most natural picture of my uncle I have. He claimed it to be such. If -you like it, it is to stay here and be your inspiration. Truly, I think -the presence of it in the room will help you.” - -“I know it will.” Marjorie said fervently. “Oh, Miss Susanna, do you -think I am great enough of spirit to do him justice?” - -“I know you are.” Miss Hamilton’s tone was victoriously certain. “Would -you be amazed if I were to say that you are like him in some respects? -You are. Your ideals are in keeping with his. He believed most of all in -the romance of deeds, rather than of love. He gloried in action; the -kind that would most benefit the most people. Yet he found after all -that love was love, that the romance of men and women—” - -Miss Susanna stopped. Came a tense hush. The idea of Brooke Hamilton as -in love had never before presented itself to Marjorie. “The romance of -men and women” repeated itself in Marjorie’s brain. There it was again. -It was not for her. She would write the biography of Brooke Hamilton, -promote the interests of the dormitory. She would continue to hug the -romance of deeds to her heart. - -She did not know that romance was still waiting patiently for her around -a future corner. - -She did not know that beauty and romance hate separation; that true love -seeks true natures. She had yet to earn that true romance was the inner -heart of love. Her bold sister, adventure, belonged to deeds. How she -learned the lesson of love from one who had learned it too late for -happiness will be told in “MARJORIE DEAN’S ROMANCE.” - - - THE END. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _SAVE THE WRAPPER!_ - - -_If_ you have enjoyed reading about the adventures of the new friends -you have made in this book and would like to read more clean, wholesome -stories of their entertaining experiences, turn to the book jacket—on -the inside of it, a comprehensive list of Burt’s fine series of -carefully selected books for young people has been placed for your -convenience. - -_Orders for these books, placed with your bookstore or sent to the -Publishers, will receive prompt attention._ - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - THE - - Ann Sterling Series - - By HARRIET PYNE GROVE - - Stories of Ranch and College Life - For Girls 12 to 16 Years - - _Handsome Cloth Binding with - Attractive Jackets in Color_ - -ANN STERLING - - The strange gift of Old Never-Run, an Indian whom she has - befriended, brings exciting events into Ann’s life. - -THE COURAGE OF ANN - - Ann makes many new, worthwhile friends during her first year at - Forest Hill College. - -ANN AND THE JOLLY SIX - - At the close of their Freshman year Ann and the Jolly Six enjoy a - house party at the Sterling’s mountain ranch. - -ANN CROSSES A SECRET TRAIL - - The Sterling family, with a group of friends, spend a thrilling - vacation under the southern Pines of Florida. - -ANN’S SEARCH REWARDED - - In solving the disappearance of her father, Ann finds exciting - adventures, Indians and bandits in the West. - -ANN’S AMBITIONS - - The end of her Senior year at Forest Hill brings a whirl of new - events into the career of “Ann of the Singing Fingers.” - -ANN’S STERLING HEART - - Ann returns home, after completing a busy year of musical study - abroad. - - A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers, - 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - Books for Girls - - By GRACE MAY NORTH - - Author of - THE VIRGINIA DAVIS SERIES - - All Clothbound. Copyright Titles. - - _With Individual Jackets in Colors_ - - -MEG OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN - - This story tells of the summer vacation some young people spent in - the mountains and how they cleared up the mystery of the lost cabin - at Crazy Creek Mine. - -RILLA OF THE LIGHTHOUSE - - “Rilla” had lived all her life with only her grandfather and “Uncle - Barney” as companions, but finally, at High Cliff Seminary, her - great test came and the lovable girl from Windy Island Lighthouse - met it brilliantly. - -NAN OF THE GYPSIES - - In this tale of a wandering gypsy band, Nan, who has spent her - childhood with the gypsies, is adopted by a woman of wealth, and by - her love and loyalty to her, she proves her fine character and true - worth. - -SISTERS - - The personal characteristics and incidents in the lives of two - girls—one thoughtless and proud, the other devoted and - self-sacrificing—are vividly described in this story, told as it is - with sympathy and understanding for both. - - A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers, - 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - The Camp Fire - Girls Series - - By HILDEGARD G. FREY - - A Series of Outdoor Stories for - Girls 12 to 16 Years. - - All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles - - PRICE 50 CENTS EACH - Postage 10c. Extra. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS’ LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN’S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure at - Carver House. - -THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles. - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - The - Girl Scouts - Series - - BY EDITH LAVELL - -A new copyright series of Girl Scouts stories by an author of wide -experience in Scouts’ craft, as Director of Girl Scouts of Philadelphia. - - Clothbound, with Attractive Color Designs. - - PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH - POSTAGE 10c EXTRA - - THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS ALLEN’S SCHOOL - THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ GOOD TURN - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ CANOE TRIP - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ RIVALS - THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ VACATION ADVENTURES - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ MOTOR TRIP - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ CAPTAIN - THE GIRL SCOUTS’ DIRECTOR - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - The - Greycliff Girls - Series - - By HARRIET PYNE GROVE - -Stories of Adventure, Fun, Study and Personalities of girls attending -Greycliff School. - - For Girls 10 to 15 Years - - PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH - - POSTAGE 10c EXTRA - - Cloth bound, with Individual Jackets in Color. - - CATHALINA AT GREYCLIFF - THE GIRLS OF GREYCLIFF - GREYCLIFF WINGS - GREYCLIFF GIRLS IN CAMP - GREYCLIFF HEROINES - GREYCLIFF GIRLS IN GEORGIA - GREYCLIFF GIRLS’ RANCHING - GREYCLIFF GIRLS’ GREAT ADVENTURE - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - Marjorie Dean - High School - Series - - BY PAULINE LESTER - - Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean College Series - -These are clean, wholesome stories that will be of great interest to all -girls of high school age. - - All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles - - PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH - - Postage 10c. Extra. - - MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN - MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE - MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR - MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - Marjorie Dean - College - Series - - BY PAULINE LESTER. - - Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean High School Series - - -Those who have read the Marjorie Dean High School Series will be eager -to read this new series, as Marjorie Dean continues to be the heroine in -these stories. - - All Clothbound. Copyright Titles. - - PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH - - POSTAGE 10c EXTRA - - MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE FRESHMAN - MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SOPHOMORE - MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE JUNIOR - MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE SENIOR - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE MERRY LYNN - SERIES - - By HARRIET PYNE GROVE - - Cloth Bound. Jackets in Colors. - -The charm of school and camp life, out-door sports and European travel -is found in these winning tales of Merilyn and her friends at boarding -school and college. These realistic stories of the everyday life, the -fun, frolic and special adventures of the Beechwood girls will be -enjoyed by all girls of high school age. - - MERILYN ENTERS BEECHWOLD - MERILYN AT CAMP MEENAHGA - MERILYN TESTS LOYALTY - MERILYN’S NEW ADVENTURE - MERILYN FORRESTER, CO-ED. - THE “MERRY LYNN” MINE - - A. L. BURT COMPANY, _Publishers_ - - 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -[Illustration] - - The - Virginia Davis - Series - - By GRACE MAY NORTH - - Clean, Wholesome Stories of Ranch Life. - - For Girls 12 to 16 Years. - - All Clothbound. - - _With Individual Jackets in Colors._ - - PRICE, 75 CENTS EACH - - POSTAGE 10c EXTRA - - VIRGINIA OF V. M. RANCH - VIRGINIA AT VINE HAVEN - VIRGINIA’S ADVENTURE CLUB - VIRGINIA’S RANCH NEIGHBORS - VIRGINIA’S ROMANCE - - For sale by all booksellers, - or sent on receipt of price by the Publishers - A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 E. 23d St., NEW YORK - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s note: - -Page 3, comma inserted after ‘Warniferous,’ “better, Luciferous -Warniferous, than” - -Page 7, full stop struck after ‘Such—,’ “Jerry. “Such—” She broke” - -Page 8, comma changed to full stop following ‘laugh,’ “ended with a -laugh.” - -Page 8, ‘Remsen’s’ changed to ‘Remson’s,’ “cushion at Miss Remson’s” - -Page 8, ‘thriftly’ changed to ‘thriftily,’ “had thriftily set a small” - -Page 10, opening double quote struck before ‘Make,’ “me. Make them -understand” - -Page 11, ‘rythm’ changed to ‘rhythm,’ “sense of rhythm” - -Page 11, ‘Wienawski’ changed to ‘Wieniawski,’ “waltz by Wieniawski -while” - -Page 11, ‘querry’ changed to ‘query,’ “general breathless query” - -Page 14, opening double quote struck before ‘They,’ “Leila. They made a” - -Page 14, ‘Lelia’ changed to ‘Leila,’ “your opinion, Leila” - -Page 17, ‘menber’ changed to ‘member,’ “an obliging member of” - -Page 18, opening double quote inserted before ‘I,’ “smile. “I am here” - -Page 18, opening double quote inserted before ‘She’s,’ “contradicted. -“She’s unselfish” - -Page 24, ‘Mamilton’ changed to ‘Hamilton,’ “broke in Miss Hamilton” - -Page 32, opening double quote inserted before ‘The,’ “room. “The other I -sent” - -Page 33, ‘vizualized’ changed to ‘visualized,’ “had visualized Miss -Susanna” - -Page 36, comma changed to full stop following ‘question,’ “question. She -believed” - -Page 38, opening double quote inserted before ‘I,’ ““I know that I used” - -Page 39, opening double quote inserted before ‘That’s,’ “right. “That’s -my favorite” - -Page 41, ‘embued’ changed to ‘imbued,’ “impulsively, imbued with the” - -Page 41, opening double quote inserted before ‘It’s,’ “sentiment. “It’s -so comforting” - -Page 43, ‘Hamilton’s’ changed to ‘Hamiltons,’ “last of the Hamiltons” - -Page 44, ‘magnificant’ changed to ‘magnificent,’ “your magnificent foot -in” - -Page 44, opening double quote inserted before ‘As,’ “Room 15. “As it is” - -Page 46, ‘o’ changed to ‘a,’ “Through a kind of” - -Page 52, opening double quote inserted before ‘Vacate,’ “occupant. -“Vacate gracefully,” - -Page 63, ‘flatter’ changed to ‘flattering,’ “sudden flattering interest” - -Page 67, opening double quote inserted before ‘‘Charity,’ “said: -“‘Charity begins at” - -Page 68, closing double quote inserted after ‘out.,’ “us out.” Jerry -complained” - -Page 70, ‘disagreable’ changed to ‘disagreeable,’ “of very disagreeable -hours” - -Page 71, ‘manuevering’ changed to ‘maneuvering,’ “her own clever -maneuvering” - -Page 74, closing double quote inserted after ‘alone.,’ “I must go -alone.”” - -Page 77, ‘Muried’ changed to ‘Muriel,’ “after Muriel had invited” - -Page 80, ‘sich’ changed to ‘such,’ “Minister, and such” - -Page 84, ‘Judia’ changed to ‘Julia,’ “when Julia knocked” - -Page 93, ‘commenecd’ changed to ‘commenced,’ “her wraps and commenced” - -Page 98, ‘Christmass’ changed to ‘Christmas,’ “of the Christmas tree” - -Page 98, ‘Lot’s’ changed to ‘Lots,’ “Lots of good eats” - -Page 99, ‘crystalized’ changed to ‘crystallized,’ “the frost-like -crystalized” - -Page 100, ‘Shool’ changed to ‘School,’ “at Sanford High School” - -Page 103, opening double quote struck before ‘Why,’ “since dinner. Why -did” - -Page 104, ‘Lelia’ changed to ‘Leila,’ “commented Leila with” - -Page 104, second ‘stars.”’ struck, “consult the stars.”” - -Page 105, ‘exhuberent’ changed to ‘exuberant,’ “of exuberant raillery” - -Page 107, ‘grippng’ changed to ‘gripping,’ “girl a gripping handshake” - -Page 108, ‘volumious’ changed to ‘voluminous,’ “with a voluminous white” - -Page 109, ‘threatend’ changed to ‘threatened,’ “he threatened with -smiles” - -Page 111, opening double quote struck before ‘Santa,’ “Santa Claus’s -eight reindeer” - -Page 111, ‘therby’ changed to ‘thereby,’ “times, thereby giving” - -Page 115, ‘intrduction’ changed to ‘introduction,’ “was her introduction -to” - -Page 115, ‘pardner’ changed to ‘partner,’ “Seabrooke as a partner” - -Page 116, ‘pardner’ changed to ‘partner,’ “Marjorie’s partner chanced” - -Page 120, ‘you, merry’ changed to ‘you merry,’ “God rest you merry,” - -Page 121, comma changed to full stop following ‘Susanna,’ “N’est ce pas, -Miss Susanna.” - -Page 121, ‘Hamilton’s’ changed to ‘Hamiltons,’ “the last of the -Hamiltons” - -Page 123, ‘impedementa’ changed to ‘impedimenta,’ “other civil -impedimenta will” - -Page 123, ‘consficated’ changed to ‘confiscated,’ “will be confiscated -by” - -Page 124, ‘bouyant’ changed to ‘buoyant,’ “began a buoyant descent” - -Page 124, ‘manuevers’ changed to ‘maneuvers,’ “military maneuvers of -the” - -Page 125, ‘misletoe’ changed to ‘mistletoe,’ “under the mistletoe bough” - -Page 126, full stop inserted after ‘tritely,’ “she quoted tritely.” - -Page 127, ‘apolegetic’ changed to ‘apologetic,’ “He grew cheerfully -apologetic” - -Page 127, ‘pardner’ changed to ‘partner,’ “and your partner away” - -Page 128, ‘daiz’ changed to ‘dais,’ “about the golden dais” - -Page 130, ‘to-to’ changed to ‘to—to,’ “going to—to—cry” - -Page 131, ‘gryated’ changed to ‘gyrated,’ “which gyrated so rapidly” - -Page 140, ‘uneasines’ changed to ‘uneasiness,’ “a feeling of uneasiness” - -Page 147, ‘decidely’ changed to ‘decidedly,’ “feeling decidedly in awe” - -Page 149, full stop inserted after ‘truths,’ “plain truths. Her one” - -Page 150, ‘dwaddled’ changed to ‘dawdled,’ “they dawdled over their” - -Page 153, comma inserted after ‘about,’ “asked me about, Leslie” - -Page 161, ‘temperary’ changed to ‘temporary,’ “her temporary abode” - -Page 176, semicolon changed to comma after ‘indifferent,’ “walk, -indifferent, swaggering” - -Page 180, ‘back gammon’ changed to ‘backgammon,’ “chess or backgammon -of” - -Page 182, comma inserted after ‘dark-faced,’ “the dark-faced, suave” - -Page 187, ‘fightng’ changed to ‘fighting,’ “fighting to assert” - -Page 191, ‘thought’ changed to ‘though,’ “Beauty, though I do not” - -Page 191, ‘prouldy’ changed to ‘proudly,’ “as she proudly raised” - -Page 192, opening double quote inserted before ‘Signor,’ “she surmised. -“Signor Baretti” - -Page 193, opening double quote inserted before ‘She,’ “I’m sure. “She -sprang” - -Page 194, ‘Traveles’ changed to ‘Travelers,’ “None of the Travelers” - -Page 196, ‘room-mate’ changed to ‘roommate,’ “her hungry roommate” - -Page 200, ‘speakng’ changed to ‘speaking,’ “He ceased speaking and” - -Page 205, ‘unscupulous’ changed to ‘unscrupulous,’ “of unscrupulous -cleverness” - -Page 206, opening double quote inserted before ‘What,’ “laughed Robin. -“What are” - -Page 208, ‘voluably’ changed to ‘volubly,’ “sputtered volubly to” - -Page 209, ‘conscienciously’ changed to ‘conscientiously,’ “not -conscientiously begin” - -Page 209, ‘consciencious’ changed to ‘conscientious,’ “such a -conscientious child” - -Page 211, ‘behooved’ changed to ‘behoved,’ “it behoved him to” - -Page 213, ‘allaw’ changed to ‘allow,’ “her father could allaw” - -Page 215, ‘she’ inserted before ‘had,’ “which she had pulled” - -Page 215, ‘Jerrry’ changed to ‘Jerry,’ “Jerry said quickly.” - -Page 215, opening double quote inserted before ‘Don’t,’ “quickly. “Don’t -weep, Bean” - -Page 217, full stop changed to comma following ‘you,’ “Thank you, oh, -thank” - -Page 217, ‘It’ changed to ‘If,’ “If you hear blood-curdling” - -Page 220, ‘pardners’s’ changed to ‘partners’s,’ “the partners’s united” - -Page 221, ‘room-mate’ changed to ‘roommate,’ “she is my roommate” - -Page 227, comma inserted after ‘declared,’ “declared, in the light” - -Page 228, ‘pardners’ changed to ‘partners,’ “between the partners, when” - -Page 228, ‘pardners’ changed to ‘partners,’ “and the partners had” - -Page 229, ‘stiick’ changed to ‘stick,’ “going to stick to me” - -Page 231, ‘afternon’ changed to ‘afternoon,’ “of the afternoon and” - -Page 232, ‘Lesliie’ changed to ‘Leslie,’ “which Leslie found herself” - -Page 234, ‘latter’ changed to ‘letter,’ “handed her a letter” - -Page 234, ‘tessalated’ changed to ‘tessellated,’ “the tessellated marble -floor” - -Page 234, ‘She’ inserted before ‘stumbled,’ “behind her. She stumbled” - -Page 240, ‘Sussana’ changed to ‘Susanna,’ “Miss Susanna mentioned” - -Page 241, opening double quote inserted before ‘There,’ “head. “There, -you look” - -Page 241, opening double quote inserted before ‘Come,’ “declared. “Come, -now, you” - -Page 242, dash inserted before ‘like,’ “—like an old Paul” - -Page 244, comma inserted after ‘Dean,’ “Marjorie Dean, let me” - -Page 244, ‘Majorie’ changed to ‘Marjorie,’ “Marjorie gazed at” - -Page 245, comma inserted after ‘Susanna,’ “Miss Susanna, do you” - -Ad Page 4, ‘ALLENS’ changed to ‘ALLEN’S,’ “AT MISS ALLEN’S SCHOOL” - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms, by Pauline Lester - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS *** - -***** This file should be named 52626-0.txt or 52626-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/6/2/52626/ - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was -produced from images made available by the HathiTrust -Digital Library.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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