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diff --git a/old/53440-0.txt b/old/53440-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 393fd9d..0000000 --- a/old/53440-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6404 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marjorie Dean's Romance, 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's Romance - -Author: Pauline Lester - -Release Date: November 3, 2016 [EBook #53440] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARJORIE DEAN'S ROMANCE *** - - - - -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: - - The Travellers went down the stone walk waving - and calling gay good-byes to the small woman at the - head of the veranda steps. -] - - (_Page 36_) (_Marjorie Dean’s Romance_) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - MARJORIE DEAN’S - ROMANCE - - 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’S ROMANCE - - Made in “U. S. A.” - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - MARJORIE DEAN’S - ROMANCE - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - IN THE STUDY - - -The sun that pale spring afternoon had appeared only in brief, -tantalizing flashes. Of a sudden it burst through the curtain of ashen -gray clouds, behind which it had been hiding, into flaming glory. Its -warm rays rioted down through the long windows of Brooke Hamilton’s -study, filling the stately room with radiant light; transfiguring the -face of the single occupant. - -“Oh.” Marjorie Dean raised her brown eyes from the time-stained sheet of -paper she had been studying. She greeted the wealth of cheerful sunburst -with a fond friendly smile, blinking a little at its almost too-ardent -attention. It caught her, embraced her, caressed her lovely, smiling -face; splashed her bright brown curls with gold. - -“You’re an affectionatious old dear, even though you _did_ skulk behind -the clouds all morning.” She made a valiant but vain effort to fix her -eyes directly upon the king of day. “Can’t do it. You are altogether too -dazzling for me.” She raised a shielding hand to her eyes. “Anyway, I’m -glad you are here, full force. I saw you peeping out from behind the -gray quite a while ago. I was too busy then to be sociable.” - -“Please, Missus Biographeress, were you talking to me?” broke in an -inquiring, respectful voice. “I wasn’t always like this, so I wasn’t.” -Came an eloquent silence. - -Marjorie left off trying to stare the sun out of countenance. She -glanced about the study in half startled surprise. The door leading into -it from the hall was closed. She suddenly laughed, a merry little -gurgle. She fixed an expectant gaze on the study’s back wall. - -“I know where you are,” she called out. “No; I wasn’t talking to you. I -was talking to the sun.” - -“Then you must be crazy.” The voice was now minus respect. Instead it -harbored smothered laughter. - -“No, Jeremiah Macy; I am _not_ crazy. But I am _very very_ busy.” - -“That’s almost as bad as being crazy,” came the sympathetic opinion of -the still unseen conversationalist. “I hope you’re not too crazy, excuse -me, busy, to deign to grant your humble friend, Jeremiah, an interview. -Think of our happy bygone campus days and don’t be snippy. Be not only -great, Bean; be cordial.” - -“You win. Never dare call me snippy again. Since you are _right behind_ -the secret panel you may as well appear in the study.” Marjorie gave -laughing permission. - -“Thank you. Your cordiality sounds genuine. I trust nothing has gone -wrong with my hearing. Ahem. What?” - -The secret panel in the back wall of the study slid noiselessly to the -left; disappeared into its hidden groove. The square opening it left -framed Jerry Macy’s chubby, pink and white features decorated with a -pleasant smile. Her head was poked forward like that of a speculative -turkey. Her intensely blue eyes were trained upon Marjorie with an -expression of impudent mischief. - -“Here I come.” She bent her back and bundled through the aperture. -“Ah-h!” She straightened with satisfaction. “Always close the door after -you, Jeremiah.” She leaned forward; pressed the small oblong of wood -which formed the hidden mechanism of the sliding panel. Next instant the -opening had vanished. The high brown wainscoting again stretched -unbroken along the study’s rear wall. - -“That secret panel is certainly a comfort to my lonely old age, Bean.” -Jerry cast a grateful eye in its direction. “If I had come to the door -of this sacred haunt you might have chased me away. But you couldn’t -resist the panel method. Result—enter Jeremiah.” Jerry waved a -complacent hand. - -“That’s one version of how I happened to let you in,” teased Marjorie. -“Here’s another. I knew you knew something new on the campus that I -didn’t know. So I ‘deigned to grant’ you an interview.” - -“Hm-m. You’re not as noble as you might be. Never mind. We won’t speak -of that,” Jerry hurriedly assured. - -“So kind in you,” Marjorie murmured, “or rather, so wise.” - -“Precisely my own opinion. I may achieve greatness as soon as you.” -Without waiting for an invitation Jerry slid into a high-backed chair -exactly opposite that of Marjorie at the long library table. - -“The girls will be here at five,” she announced. “They’re going to take -us back to Wayland Hall with them. Leila has a new idea for a party. -We’re to stay to dinner at the Hall. Miss Susanna’s resigned to it. She -was invited, too, but she said she was ‘no buttinski.’ What do you think -of that? It shows I’ve accomplished some good since I came to the Arms. -I’ve taught Miss Susanna several pithy bits of slang, and Jonas is -learning fast.” - -“I should say he was. The other day when he took me to town in the car -he told a motorist, who tried to run in ahead of us to park, that he was -‘too fresh’ and to ‘cut out his nonsense.’” Marjorie gave a reminiscent -chuckle. - -Jerry smiled cheerful gratification of this news. “To make use of my own -pet vocabulary: It’s up to me to show a hot-foot,” she declared. “While -I enjoy lingering in this classic spot with you, beautiful Bean, I shall -not linger. You heard what I said about five o’clock. Heed my remarks. I -must go now.” She made a feeble pretense toward rising. She rolled -humorous, entreating eyes at Marjorie. - -“Oh, you may stay.” Marjorie became loftily tolerant. “First you may -tell me everything you know about Leila’s new stunt. Afterward, I have a -splendid job for you.” - -“I don’t know a single thing about Leila’s new stunt. She ’phoned me -about half an hour ago and said she and Vera would come for us with the -car at five. She said she had a fine idea but that we’d not hear a word -about it until after dinner at Wayland Hall tonight. Anything else I -might say on the subject I’d have to make up. You would not care to have -your faithful Jeremiah resort to fiction, would you?” - -“You’re a faithful goose. I’m not so news-hungry as to ask you to desert -the truth, Jeremiah,” was the merry assurance. “Leila, the rascal, knows -we’re eager for campus news and plans. She loves to create suspense and -keep it up till the very last minute. Now I’m going to set you to work. -You may sort some letters for me, if you will.” - -“Will I? My middle name is willing!” Jerry drew her chair closer to the -table with a grand flourish. A pleased light shone in her blue eyes. She -was very proud of having already assisted Marjorie on several occasions -in the work of arranging the data, prior to the writing of Brooke -Hamilton’s biography. - -Readers of the four volumes comprising the “MARJORIE DEAN HIGH SCHOOL -SERIES,” know Marjorie Dean as a high school girl. They have learned to -know her still better through the four volumes which comprise the -“MARJORIE DEAN COLLEGE SERIES.” - -Returned to Hamilton College as a post graduate her work in connection -with the building of a free dormitory for ambitious students in adverse -circumstances has already been recorded in the three preceding volumes -of the “MARJORIE DEAN POST GRADUATE SERIES,” respectively entitled -“MARJORIE DEAN, COLLEGE POST GRADUATE,” “MARJORIE DEAN, MARVELOUS -MANAGER” and “MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS.” - -Because Marjorie had deeply reverenced the memory of Brooke Hamilton, -the founder of Hamilton College, she had come into an intimate -friendship with his great-niece, Miss Susanna Hamilton, the only living -representative of the Hamilton family. For many years Miss Susanna had -been at enmity with the college board. Shortly after the death of her -distinguished great uncle, Brooke Hamilton, she had turned against -Hamilton College and refused to furnish the data for a biography of the -founder which was to have been written by the president of the college. - -Due entirely to Marjorie’s hopeful, sunny influence Miss Susanna had -eventually emerged from the shell in which she had lived for years. She -had decided that, since Marjorie had most revered the maxims and memory -of her great kinsman, she was therefore the one best equipped to present -him truly to the world in a biography. She had invited Marjorie to be -her guest indefinitely at Hamilton Arms and had turned over to the -youthful biographer the data for Brooke Hamilton’s life story. - -Marjorie had said good-bye regretfully to Wayland Hall, her college -residence of almost five years and moved to the Arms on the first day of -March. With her had gone a second cordially invited guest, Jerry Macy, -her roommate and chum of Sanford high school days. - -During their first week’s stay at the Arms the two girls had been the -center of a jolly little social whirl. Miss Susanna had insisted on -entertaining their intimate friends at tea, luncheon and dinner. The -festive week had ended with a reception to the dormitory girls at which -the Travelers, Jerry’s and Marjorie’s sorority, were the guests of -honor. - -Then had followed Marjorie’s introduction to Brooke Hamilton’s study as -her literary work shop. There she had been affectionately established by -Miss Susanna and supplied with a cabinet full of Brooke Hamilton’s -personal letters and documents. - -How long she might be engaged in the pleasantest task she had ever -undertaken Marjorie could not say. As a labor of volition it demanded -the best effort of thought and judgment that she could summon. With her -usual lack of vanity she was not attaching much importance to herself as -Brooke Hamilton’s biographer. Her whole heart was set upon doing justice -to a great American by a faithful presentation to the world of his -integrity and genius. - -“Do you realize, Jerry Macy, that we’ve been here at the Arms almost a -month?” Her back to Jerry, Marjorie asked the question as she delved -industriously among the packs of neatly tied letters on the top shelf of -the cabinet. “Today’s the twenty-fifth of March.” - -“I know it. How much of Brooke Hamilton’s story have you written?” Jerry -came back curiously. - -“Not any of it as I intend it shall finally stand,” Marjorie confessed. -“I’ve made plenty of notes, but they only complicate matters at present. -There is so much material, all intensely interesting. It would make a -twelve volume biography. Miss Susanna wishes it to be a one volume -story. My head is full of Hamilton history. It is positively maddening -sometimes to try to keep track of all I read, and plan how I shall -arrange it. I was never intended for a biographer, Jeremiah.” - -“You only think you weren’t,” Jerry encouraged. “After you have got away -with Brooke Hamilton’s history and covered your beautiful self with -glory you may take up biographing as a steady job. I’ll permit you to -jot down the story of my life. I’ll try to persuade my friends to -confide their life stories to you for publication. There’s old Hal, for -instance. He—. Oh, forgive me, Marjorie. I didn’t intend to be -personal.” Jerry’s instant apology was regretful. “I wasn’t thinking of -a thing, but the funny side of Hal’s having his biography written.” - -“Oh, never mind, Jeremiah.” Marjorie was more embarrassed by Jerry’s -apology than she was at mention of Hal’s name. Her face flushed hotly. -She kept it turned toward the cabinet, rather than let Jerry see her -confusion. A pause, then she added generously: “Hal is good enough to do -great things in the world. Perhaps _you_ may someday write his biography -as that of a personage. There! Found at last.” She affected deep -interest in two bundles of letters which she took from the cabinet. - -“No, Marvelous Manager; I can’t see myself as Hal’s biographer. He’d -insist upon seeing every line I biographed before it was hardly off the -bat. He wouldn’t like a thing I said about him. If I wrote words of -glorious praise, he’d say ‘stuff’ and ‘slush.’ If I failed to glorify -him as a baseball artist, a promoter of yacht races and a four-time -winner of the Sanford half-mile dash, he’d say I was stingy.” Jerry -retrieved her blunder with this humorous flow. “_No, siree._ My genius -runs toward jingling, not biographing. Get that? If Hal ever longs to -see the story of his life in print he’ll have to get busy and write it -himself.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - THE WORLD WIDE SECRET - - -Marjorie was laughing as she resumed her seat at the study table. She -was quick to understand the purpose of Jerry’s ridiculous and elaborate -objections to her really sincere words concerning Hal. Her flash of -self-conscious embarrassment had vanished in quick amusement of Jerry’s -remarks. - -“These are letters to Brooke Hamilton from friends,” she explained as -she shoved the two packs across the table to Jerry. - -“He must have been right in line for a popularity prize.” Jerry eyed the -tightly-bound, thick stacks of letters with comical respect. - -“They represent the correspondence of only four or five men. Each letter -isn’t from a different person, my child,” Marjorie said lightly. “Your -job is to put the letters of each person in separate piles. You may have -that end of the table all to yourself.” - -“I get you, Bean.” Jerry energetically gathered up the two packs of -letters and moved with them to the upper end of the table. “Watch my -speed, my efficiency, my celostrous usefulness. By the way, my new word -is on the gain. I’ve persuaded Jonas to use it, Miss Susanna thinks well -of it and Leila says it is clever enough to be Irish.” - -“It’s a good imitation. Celostrous—sounds like a real word, even though -it isn’t,” laughingly commented Marjorie. - -“Sh-h-h. Somebody might hear you.” Jerry held up a cautioning finger. -She cast a roguish smile toward a vividly handsome face which looked -down at her from a portrait on the wall. It was the face of Brooke -Hamilton. Life-size and life-like the deep blue eyes seemed almost to -twinkle an answer to Jerry’s mischievous smile as she continued to gaze -at the portrait. - -“He’s so real.” Marjorie turned her head over one shoulder to glance up -at the pictured face of a strong man in the noon of manhood. A friendly -smile played upon her lips. “I hope you haven’t minded my sitting with -my back to you this afternoon, Mr. Brooke,” she apologized. - -“If that was a magic portrait this is the way it would be. ‘Then the -enchanted portrait spoke from the wall and said: “Don’t mention it, -beautiful Bean. Go as far as you like. Even the back of your head is an -inspiration to me. I can never be grateful enough to you for writing my -biography. How is your friend, Miss Macy? She is a lovely girl and I—”’” - -“Jeremiah, you disrespecter of great persons!” Marjorie sprang from her -chair and made a frolicsome pounce upon Jerry. “Stop it this minute.” - -The two tussled gently for a brief instant, then fell laughingly apart. -The blue eyes of the man in the portrait seemed almost to be watching -the merry conflict. - -“You see how utterly you disrupt serious work,” Marjorie pointed out -severely. “I have half a mind to take the job I gave you away from you.” - -“You can’t. I have it cinched.” Jerry snatched up the two packs of -letters and tucked one under each arm. “I love the job. I’ll do better, -Bean. I promise on my sacred Jeremiah honor.” - -“I haven’t the heart to take those letters away from you,” Marjorie -jestingly conceded. - -“Glad of it. Kindly don’t bother me. I am going to give a violent -demonstration of the word ‘work.’ It’s three o’clock now.” Jerry peered -down at the tiny open-face, necklace watch she wore about her neck on a -fine-linked platinum chain. - -“I knew it was nearly three. I’ve learned to tell time by the sun since -I came to the Arms and began my work here.” There was no timepiece in -the study, nor would Marjorie wear a watch when she came into it to -work. She did not wish to reckon her daily faithful application to the -biography by time. She liked to lose herself in the thought that all -time was hers in which to do Brooke Hamilton’s memory honor. - -Jerry followed her announcement of industry by a business-like attack -upon one of the packs of letters. Soon she was deep in carrying out -Marjorie’s directions. Marjorie resumed a reading of the paper in which -she had been engrossed when Jerry had entered. It was a dissertation on -democracy in Brooke Hamilton’s fine, clear hand. - -Silence took up its reign in the study. Marjorie was deep in the -dissertation. Oblivious to all else Jerry interestedly sorted letters, -reading pertinent snatches of them. Neither saw the sliding panel in the -back wall of the study begin to move slowly. Neither saw Miss Susanna’s -head appear in the opened square. - -For fully a minute the old lady watched the industrious pair with -brooding, tender eyes. She had thought Marjorie alone in the study and -had come to her by the secret entrance in the same spirit of play which -had prompted Jerry to use the sliding panel. In one hand were three -letters for Marjorie which Jonas had just brought from the mail box at -the main gates of the Arms. - -As soundlessly as she had appeared in the secret doorway the visitant -disappeared. In noiseless obedience to her touch the panel slid once -more into place. Miss Susanna trotted down the long hall and on down the -wide staircase. Her small face was illumined by a bright smile. She -looked as though she had suddenly discovered the world-sought secret of -happiness. - -She continued on out the massive front door, down the steps and across -the lawn to where Jonas was clipping long sprays of furry pussy willows -for the two tall Chinese vases at each end of the sitting room mantel. - -“You ought to see them, Jonas,” she burst out happily. “They’re both in -the study, lost to the world among Uncle Brooke’s papers. I came away -without their knowing I saw them. I couldn’t bear to disturb his -helpers, Jonas. And I once thought no one but the president of Hamilton -College was fitted to write his biography!” - -“Strange things happen, Miss Susanna.” Jonas’s silver head wagged itself -solemnly over the huge bunch of pussy willows he was holding. “He’d be -better pleased, though, to have things as they are now. I believe he’d -rather the little girl would write his story.” - -Jonas invariably spoke of Brooke Hamilton as one alive, but traveling in -a far country, rather than of a man who had passed from earth. - -“I think so, too, Jonas.” The instant, eager response brought a pleased -gleam to the old man’s eyes. “He founded Hamilton College for the higher -education of girls. It seems as though Hamilton has at last shown -appreciation of him by raising up a student after his own heart. That -student is Marjorie Dean.” She paused, apparently taken with her own -fancy. She added sturdily: “All the more reason why she should be the -one to write his biography.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - TWO HAUNTING BLUE EYES - - -“Hurray for Wayland Hall!” Jerry sketched a lively step in front of the -dressing table mirror as she gave her reflection a last fleeting glance. -“The Arms is a magnificent, palatial roost, but where, oh, where, are -our little pals?” - -“At Wayland Hall. Sometimes I wonder if you might not be happier there -with the girls than here with me.” Marjorie brought a half wistful look -to bear upon Jerry. She stood gazing at her chum, a lovely contemplative -study in black and white. The straight cut of her white corduroy gown -with its wide rolling collar and deep cuffs of black satin was so simple -as to be exceptionally effective. - -“Want me to shake you until your curls bob straight off your head and -your teeth clatter like castanets,” Jerry growled menacingly. She made a -threatening advance upon Marjorie, her blue eyes set in a determined -stare. - -“No, indeed.” Marjorie promptly put a high-backed chair between herself -and Jerry. “I’ll protect my coiffure to the last gasp. I took pains to -put those curls precisely where I wanted them to be.” - -“Then don’t make any more foolish remarks, Bean.” Jerry halted. The set -expression of her eyes changed to one of dancing fun. “I’ll set you a -good example by not making any more myself that might even sound -foolish. I know my own follies as well as I know yours.” - -Marjorie leaned her arms on the crest of the tall-backed chair. She -smiled rather absently. How like Hal’s eyes Jerry’s were, she was -thinking. Recent mention of Hal had brought him to the foreground of her -mind. Now she thrust memory of him impatiently aside. - -“I’ll be nicer to you than you were to me,” she told Jerry. “You look -very celostrous, Jeremiah.” “Celostrous” was a pet word of Jerry’s own -coining. “Your dress matches your eyes and the silver beading on it -looks like fairy mist. It’s a frock of frocks.” Marjorie continued her -admiring survey of Jerry and her becoming finery. As she had remarked -the gentian blue of the crepe exactly matched her chum’s eyes. - -Again Hal’s handsome, resolute features sprang into memory. This time -memory played her an unkind trick. She saw Hal’s eyes as they had -appeared in that unforgettable, unguarded moment as he had paused before -the portrait of herself at Castle Dean on Christmas Day. - -She had then come into a very disturbing realization of how much pain -she was causing him through her lack of love for him. She had tried to -forget, knowing that she could offer no remedy. Work had largely driven -away that disturbing memory since her return to Hamilton. Those two -blue, despairing eyes returned to haunt her only upon receipt of a -letter from their possessor. There had been only two letters. Marjorie -had not answered either very promptly. She sometimes went so far as to -feel that she might be better pleased not to hear from Hal. Still she -did not wish to deny him friendship. - -“You are _too sweet_ for words.” Jerry broke in upon her train of -reflection. She purposely simpered so as to hide her pleased -embarrassment of Marjorie’s compliments. - -“Am I?” Marjorie was not even seeing Jerry now. She was seeing Jerry’s -brother who refused to retire from her somber reflections. No; she -valued Hal’s friendship as dearly as she did Leila’s, Jerry’s or that of -any of her chums. Her adoration was for her captain and her general -only. Now that she had a clearer understanding of Hal’s disappointment -she felt a more personal sorrow toward him. She had glimpsed the -desolation of a strong man’s soul. The revelation had awakened in her a -truer sympathy for him. - -“Come out of it.” Jerry had paused directly in front of the chair on -which Marjorie was leaning her elbows. She waved her arms making -vigorous passes before the day-dreamer’s face. “What is the matter, -Bean? Two minutes ago you were one grand sweet smile. Now your -expression is werry sad. You _have not_ lost your last friend, Bean. -Take heart. Jeremiah is here. Ah! I have it! Nothing like Bean Jingles -to put the chee in chirk. Here we go! - - “Celostrous day; rip whoop-ter-ray; - We celebrate with zest: - Your feathers preen, resplendent Bean, - All dressed up in your best.” - -“According to your jingle ‘resplendent Bean’ must resemble a vain, -strutting peacock.” Marjorie came out of her retrospective reverie with -a giggle. - -“No, indeed. I never meant to suggest such a thing. Regard yourself as a -bird of Paradise, dear Bean,” Jerry corrected. - -“I am not so conceited. Besides, I’m not dressed up in my best. This -particular set of feathers is far from gorgeous; and not even my second -best.” - -“Have a heart. Remember the claim of poetic license, and respect it. -Your practical, unpoetic criticism is _so_ discouraging. Don’t put on -the brake. There are more rhythmic inspirations to come. I feel them -whirling madly in my gifted brain. I merely stopped for breath. -Whir-r-r-r! Buzz-z-z-z! I’m off again. - - “Oh, forth we’ll hike, upon the pike, - Beyond the campus wall; - We’ll tread the green, sweet, agile Bean, - Until we hit the Hall. - - A charming pair, we’ll mount the stair; - Dear one, then take my arm: - Safe to fifteen, bewitching Bean - I’ll guide you without harm.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - THE SPRINGTIME OF THE HEART - - -“And you will please trouble yourself to recite that jingle again before -it vanishes into nothingness,” commanded a laughing voice from the -doorway of the large, old-fashioned sleeping room. Leila Harper stood in -the half-opened door, an attractive figure in the newest of English -leather motor coats and sports hats. - -“Leila Greatheart, what a _dandy_ coat and hat!” Marjorie cried. She -came forward, hands outstretched to meet Leila. - -“Here I come with a fine Irish dash.” Leila made a funny cat-like leap -into the room and caught Marjorie’s welcoming hands in hers. “It is a -hundred years since I saw you; or so it seems,” she said in her -whimsical way. “Now I shall say not a word more until I have taken down -Jeremiah’s jingle. I happen to have a pencil, and bewitching Bean -herself will furnish her Celtic friend with a bit of paper.” - -“At your service. Let me conduct you to the writing desk,” Marjorie took -Leila’s arm and escorted her to an open antique mahogany desk. She -motioned Leila into the mahogany chair before it. “There you are.” She -indicated several sizes of pale gray note paper bearing the monogram of -the Arms. “Isn’t this beautiful paper, Leila?” she commented. “Miss -Susanna put it here on purpose for us. She never uses it. She prefers -white. This was Mr. Brooke Hamilton’s own stationary.” - -“You are two lucky children in a fairy castle,” Leila declared. “Now say -me the jingle, Jeremiah. Then we will talk about everything and -anything.” - -“Ahem.” Jerry coughed importantly. “I may have to depend upon bewitching -Bean to help me. I never remember my own ravings—inspirations, I should -say. Inspiration is—it is—well, it just is.” - -“Is it?” Leila inquired with raised brows and an engaging grin. - -“It certainly is,” Jerry responded with a difficult solemnity. It broke -up in an amused high-keyed chuckle. Merely to glance at Leila, posed in -an attitude of expectant and ridiculous affability was to laugh. - -After one or two hitches and a little prompting from Marjorie who also -had designs on Jerry’s funny effusions, Leila managed to record the -three jingles, though she had arrived in time to hear only the last one -of them. - -“Now we have a beginning.” She exhibited open satisfaction of the -penciled copy of Jerry’s lively doggerel. She folded it twice and placed -it in a pocket of her leather motor coat. “I shall expect you to take -down and save me all future jingles of Jeremiah, Beauty, since you are -the inspiration. Never fail to do so. Now you may talk to me about -anything. I am so gracious.” - -“I have copies of two jingles that Jeremiah spouted last week on an -occasion when I brought her four letters from the mail-box. I’ll mail -you copies of them tomorrow. Where is Midget? I know she can’t be far -away.” - -Marjorie glanced inquiringly at Leila. - -“She is lost somewhere in space downstairs. She is but a small doll in -this great house. And you now promise me two more jingles. Two and two -are four, and four is better than two. Soon we shall have a book. It -must have a green crushed Levant binding with a portrait of Jeremiah -reciting one of her own jingles as a frontispiece and the story of her -life printed in gold letters on the front cover.” - -“It looks as though I might become as famous as Bean, Harper, Page or -any other campus high light if that crushed Levant edition doesn’t -flivver,” Jerry said hopefully. - -Full of their usual light-hearted raillery the trio of girls presently -went downstairs to find not only Vera Mason in the sitting room with -Miss Hamilton. Ronny Linde, Muriel Harding, Lucy Warner and Robin Page -as well were there, clustered around Miss Susanna. They greeted Jerry -and Marjorie with a concerted shout and rushed them affectionately. - -“How did the four of you manage to keep so quiet?” Jerry demanded. “I’m -amazed.” - -“You needn’t be. You were so noisy yourselves you didn’t hear us. But -_we_ heard _you_,” Vera assured. “We heard three different varieties of -giggle, all going at once. Leila was told to hurry upstairs and bring -you down instantly. Instead—” She cast an accusing glance at Leila. - -“Ah, but you were in good company, so I may be forgiven.” Leila made a -gallant bow to Miss Susanna. - -“You certainly are a fine Irish gentleman with your lordly manner and -nice leather overcoat,” complimented Miss Susanna, her brown eyes -dancing. - -“Am I not?” modestly agreed Leila. “What I need most to make me -impressive is a pair of green leather boots and a chimney pot hat.” - -“I’ll cast you as the romantic Irish hero of a play in precisely that -costume. See if I don’t,” Robin Page laughingly threatened. - -“Who will write the play?” Leila quizzed interestedly. - -“You of course.” Robin leveled a designating finger at Leila. “That’s a -bully idea; to give a romantic Irish play. And for once you may act as -well as be stage manager. So glad I happened to see you this afternoon -and hear about your green leather boots and chimney pot hat.” - -“As you will not require anything of me but to write the play, manage -the stage and play the leading part I’ll not change your gladness to -sorrow by snubbing you. Still I am wondering where I am to find the -boots and the hat. And let me add a condition of my own. I will not be -stage manager, actor or playwright unless Miss Susanna will promise to -come to the show.” Leila launched this proviso with her most -ingratiating smile in Miss Hamilton’s direction. - -“I’ll come,” the old lady obligingly promised. Now that she had -“surrendered,” as she humorously termed her change of heart toward -Hamilton College she was almost as eager as her girls to have some part -in campus fun and enterprise. “Will it be a house play?” - -“No it will not.” Marjorie and Robin spoke the same words, and almost -together. They looked at each other and laughed. The same thought had -prompted the same answer. - -“Wise Page and Dean. They see money in featuring Leila as the hero in -her green boots and chimney pot hat,” was Ronny’s light explanation of -the exchange of eye messages. - -“Do we? Well, _rather_!” Marjorie said with warmth. - -“Uh-huh,” emphasized Robin. “The campus dwellers will mob the gym to see -Irish Leila as an Irish hero in an Irish play. We’ll reap a bully -harvest of dollars for the dormitory.” - -“You and Vera can do that Irish contra dance you danced at Page and -Dean’s first show when we were junies.” Muriel grew animated. “In itself -it’s worth the price of admission.” - -“Oh, _do_ have it in the play, Leila,” rose the general plea. - -Leila bowed, hand over her heart. “How celebrated Midget and Leila are! -That means Midget must play the part of the maid from Lough Gur, of the -county Limerick. That is the place in Ireland where the fairies yet hold -their invisible revels. And I think Midget might be taken for one of the -Lough Gur fairy queens,” she said fancifully. “I am afraid to invite her -home with me to Ireland for fear the fairy folk may steal her and shut -her up in a mountain.” - -“Not if I see them first,” Vera was positive upon this point. - -“Midget is small, but valiant.” Leila rolled laughing eyes at her -friends. “Ah, but you would not _see_ the fairies, Midget, when they -slipped you away. You would not see them until you were safe inside the -mountain.” - -“Then I’ll keep far from Ireland. I’ll be Irish in plays only,” Vera -vowed. - -“Be sure and save a good part for Luciferous Warneriferous,” was -Muriel’s next thoughtful request. “She simply loves to act.” - -“Oh, I do not.” Lucy looked alarmed. A gale of laughter went up at her -horrified denial. “I can’t act. You know that, Muriel Harding.” - -“You should learn to act,” Muriel said with severity. “It is your duty. -_I_ am giving you good advice. These persons are laughing at you.” - -“Who made them laugh? Keep your advice. I’m furious with _you_. -Br-r-r-r!” Lucy shook her head savagely, thrust her chin forward and -fixed her greenish eyes upon Muriel in a frozen glare which convulsed -that delighted wag. She thoroughly enjoyed teasing dignified Lucy to the -point of retaliating. - -“Oh, splendid! You look every inch a villain!” Muriel simulated profound -admiration. “You have true histrionic ability, Luciferous. Let my -flattering opinion sink deep, and encourage you.” - -“I’ll let it go in one ear and out the other,” was Lucy’s derisive -retort. “Don’t _dare_ choose me even for a villager in your Irish play, -Leila Harper. I’ll be far more useful as a press agent. I’ll get up a -handbill about the play, and mimeograph it.” - -“Bully idea, Luciferous. Be sure and hit all the high spots. When you -have the handbills ready you may stand outside Hamilton Hall and -distribute them to the campus dwellers.” Jerry patted Lucy on the -shoulder with force. - -“Ouch! That’s one of my high spots you just hit.” Lucy dodged out of -Jerry’s reach, rubbing her assaulted shoulder. “I’d rather give out -handbills any time than act,” she declared with a defiant glance at -laughing Muriel. - -“Be calm, Luciferous,” soothed Leila with an assuring grin. “I would -rather have the handbills than you on the stage as a villain. It is -Matchless Muriel who may have the pleasure of playing that part. She -will have plenty of lines to learn.” Leila nodded significantly toward -Muriel who merely continued to smile. - -“Biographers, bill posters, stage managers, actors, et cetera; -attention!” Vera called out. She pointed to the tall floor clock, -imperturbably ticking off the minutes. “It’s five minutes to six. Too -bad I always have to be time crier for this reckless aggregation.” She -heaved a dismal sigh. “What _would_ you do without me?” - -“Be laggards all the rest of our lives, faithful Midget. You are one of -the world’s finest institutions.” Leila beamed patronizing appreciation -on her diminutive chum. - -“I know my own worth. I am surprised to find you have an inkling of it,” -Vera retorted with complacent dignity. - -“A dignified Midget is so impressive,” murmured Leila. “See how wrapped -up in her small self she is. She has forgotten about being town crier. I -see I must—.” - -“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m still on the job. It’s now five minutes -later than it was five minutes ago,” Vera hastily announced. - -“Come, good Travelers.” Muriel took the middle of the floor in a stiff -recitative attitude. Raising one arm she declaimed in a high stilted -voice: “Let us journey with all speed toward shelter ere dark night -o’ertakes us.” - -“Something like that,” was Ronny’s ultra modern agreement. “With so much -talk and so little action it may be midnight ere we see the Hall. I’m -not speaking of myself, or of Miss Susanna. We’re not loquacious.” - -“_You_ only miss being loquacious because you haven’t happened to start -an argument with Matchless Muriel. I should hope you _weren’t_ speaking -of Miss Susanna.” Jerry put on a shocked expression. - -“Don’t squabble over me,” Miss Hamilton said in a meek little voice. -Followed a burst of ready laughter. She said as it died out: “I’m going -to send you home now, children. Come back tomorrow evening to dinner. -Bring Kathie and Lillian with you. Robin, please invite Phil and -Barbara. Tell Phil to bring her fiddle. I will invite Peter and Anne -Graham, and Signor Baretti. He will like to come to our party. He and -Peter will be company for Jonas. I shall make Jonas sit at the table -with us.” - -The Travelers thought Miss Susanna’s sisterly regard for Jonas one of -her finest characteristics. While he had been a youthful servitor of the -Hamiltons during Brooke Hamilton’s declining years, he had filled the -triple role of brother, servitor and friend to the Lady of the Arms -during her long lonely reign in the great house. He was many years older -than Miss Susanna, but still a strong, sturdy man. - -Jonas looked upon Miss Susanna as an empress, to be reverenced and -obeyed. Miss Hamilton’s oft repeated assertion to him: “You are a direct -importation of Providence, Jonas, willed me by Uncle Brooke,” had made a -deep impression on him at first utterance. As a consequence, his one aim -in life was that of faithful service. Rarely could she coax him to -appear socially at the Arms, even among the few friends who knew his -worth. - -“You’re always thinking up something perfectly, splendidly hospitable!” -As she rose from her chair to see the Travelers to the front door -Marjorie pounced lovingly upon the Lady of the Arms, wrapping both arms -around her. - -“A hold up, a hold up!” cried Jerry. “I’m going to join in it.” She made -a playful attempt to pry Marjorie’s arms loose from about the old lady. -The others gathered around the pair, mischievous and laughing. They put -Miss Susanna through a gentle wooling which left her with ruffled hair, -her lace collar awry and her cheeks pink from the loving salutes of -fresh young lips. - -The Travelers went down the wide stone walk from the house looking back, -waving and calling gay good-byes to the small, alert woman at the head -of the veranda steps. The gate reached, Marjorie turned to wave her hand -again. She mentally contrasted Miss Susanna’s happy expression of the -present occasion with the sharp, doubting, half resentful gaze the -mistress of the Arms had turned upon her when she had first been ushered -into the library by Jonas to meet Brooke Hamilton’s kinswoman. Where -there had once been shadow, somber silence, loneliness, was now light of -love, gay friendly voices, sympathy, companionship. - -It had been Miss Susanna’s wish that Marjorie and Jerry should be at the -Arms to greet the return of Spring. Remembering this a rare, rapturous -flash of exaltation swept over Marjorie. She was thinking as she waved -her hand to the little old lady on the veranda that Spring had not only -returned to the Arms. It had miraculously returned to Miss Susanna’s -heart. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - FOR THE GOOD OF THE “DORM” - - -“What’s on your mind, Leila Greatheart? You’ve thrown out tantalizing -little scraps of what I’d call non-information ever since we left the -Arms. Now stand, and deliver.” Marjorie made her plea for enlightenment -as Leila closed the door of her room and favored her chums with one of -her bland, wide smiles. - -Dinner over at the Hall, the eight Travelers had lingered in Miss -Remson’s snug office to talk to the little manager for a pleasant half -hour. They had just made port in Leila’s and Vera’s room for what -promised to be a most interesting session. - -“What’s on my mind, Beauty?” Leila regarded Marjorie owlishly. “More -than you might think, should you judge by appearance,” she said with -mock seriousness. “I am enchanted with myself because of my own schemes. -Sit in a circle around me and listen to the golden runes of Leila, the -witch woman. I see gold, gold, gol-l-d.” - -She made a sudden forward sweep of the arm toward Jerry who was about to -seat herself on Vera’s couch beside Lucy Warner. Jerry raised a mild -shriek of surprise, flopped against Lucy who was near the end of the -couch. Unprepared for such a jolt, Lucy rolled off the end of the couch -to the floor. Jerry clutched wildly at her arm. Her balance upset she -followed Lucy to the floor and sat down upon her amid shouts of -merriment from the six gleeful spectators to the double mishap. - -“Now see where you put me.” Jerry still sat on the floor regarding Leila -with an air of deep injury. Lucy had scrambled to her feet and made for -a chair. “The very least you can do is help me up. Give me your hands, -and don’t dare let go.” Jerry held up her hands to her still mirthful -hostess. - -Leila essayed the task of raising Jerry to her feet. Laughter robbed her -of power to lift Jerry. It also robbed Jerry of power to raise herself -from the floor. After three separate attempts at co-operation, all -mirthfully unsuccessful, Jerry was hoisted to her feet by the combined -efforts of Marjorie, Ronny and Muriel. - -“You are an awful hostess.” Jerry opened her mouth widely on “awful” and -ducked her head violently forward at Leila. “First you scare your guests -by making wild sweeping swoops at them. Then you laugh at them when they -come to grief. This time I’ll choose the middle of the couch, and be -safe.” Very cautiously she re-seated herself on the couch, squarely in -the center. - -“We’ll sit one on each side of you, Jeremiah, so that you can’t fall off -the couch again.” Ronny plumped down on the couch on one side of Jerry. -Muriel obligingly seated herself on the other side. - -“_I_ was shoved off that couch and sat upon by Jeremiah, yet no one -appears to remember it,” Lucy mournfully complained. - -“I remember it. You tipped me off your lap,” accused Jerry. - -“But you tipped me off the couch first,” reminded Lucy. “I forgive you, -but never again will I sit on a couch beside you.” - -“I always try to look upon everything that happens as for the best,” -Jerry returned with angelic sweetness. - -“There were no bones broken, but there was plenty of fuss made.” Leila -thus summed up the accident. “Now pay attention to me, and let us have -no more nonsense.” Whereupon she burst out laughing, thus starting her -companions’ merriment afresh. - -Quiet finally restored she began again. This time with the fine -earnestness which she could readily summon when occasion demanded. - -“Travelers, dear,” she addressed the now attentive seven, “we have left -only six days of March, then April, May and the early part of June in -which to earn money for the dormitory. We must give as many shows as we -can manage between now and Commencement. We must give the Irish play the -first week in May. I shall write it in one week. It will be nothing -startling, but it will be a play, I grant you that. I shall have a sorry -siege to make the cast learn their lines in two weeks. It must be done. -We must rehearse four nights in a week. Vera will make cunning Irish -token cards and we shall sell them for a silver quarter apiece.” - -“First I had heard of my new job, but I accept. May I inquire into the -mystery of an Irish token card?” Vera asked with an assumption of -profound respect. - -“You will draw many little pictures of the cast, Midget, on many little -cards,” was Leila’s somewhat indefinite answer. “You will learn more -about my Celtic schemes when I am not so busy.” - -“Oh, very well. See that _you_ don’t interrupt any of _my_ busy hours. -If you see me put up a busy sign on my side of the room, respect it,” -warned Vera. - -“See that _you_ do not again interrupt _me_,” flung back Leila, scowling -portentously at her diminutive roommate. - -Everyone else interrupted, however, and Leila had to come to a laughing -stop in her harangue until she had enlightened the party regarding -“Irish token cards.” - -Like her artist father, Vera was gifted with the ability to draw. -Leila’s idea of having small, head-and-shoulder, pen-and-ink sketches of -the various characters in the play drawn on oblong cards, three by one -and a half inches, was decidedly interesting from an artistic as well as -a financial standpoint. Below the sketch would appear the stage name of -the character, the true name and the date of the play. - -“Vera won’t be able to do many cards, Leila. She won’t have time. She -can’t make the rough sketches until we have our costumes and know -ourselves how we are going to look,” was Ronny’s doubtful view of the -feature. - -“Oh, I can draw the different characters as they ought to look. Leila -can show me the style of costume to be followed by the actors. I’ll draw -each character once, leaving out the features till I know who will be -who. Then I can fill in the blanks with the familiar eyes, noses, mouths -and ears of the illustrious cast. After that it will only mean hours and -hours of tedious copying my originals.” Vera made a triumphant -outspreading gesture of the arms indicative of her mastery of the -situation. - -“How we do miss Ethel Laird,” sighed Ronny. “She was so clever. Do you -remember how gorgeous those posters for the first show were that she -painted. What became of them, Marvelous Manager?” She looked quickly -toward Marjorie as though seized with a sudden idea. - -“They’re with the other properties in the Page and Dean section of the -garret,” Marjorie replied. “At least they were still there the last time -I was up garret. That was after the Valentine masquerade. What is it, -Ronny? I see you have something on your mind.” - -“Let’s have an auction,” eagerly proposed Ronny. - -“Not now; not until the first of June. We could clear up all the stuff -we have used for advertising the shows, and other treasures of our own -that have campus history, and auction them off. Let Jerry be the -auctioneer. Oh, lovely! What?” - -“Oh, lovely,” mimicked Jerry. “There is nothing very lovely about hard -labor.” - -“No use in pretending, Jeremiah. You know you’d revel in being an -auctioneer.” Ronny shook her finger at Jerry. - -“I’ve heard of worse stunts,” Jerry admitted with a grin. - -“I have nearly as good an opinion of you, Ronny, as I have of myself,” -Leila graciously conceded. “You and Jeremiah have my permission to -manage the auction. You may collect all the wares for it, and do all the -work. Between times, when you have little to do, you may dance in my -shows.” - -“_Your_ shows?” Ronny’s eyebrows ascended to a politely satiric height. - -“_My_ shows,” repeated Leila with great firmness. “Have you not yet -learned that Page and Dean amount to little without me. It is Harper and -Harper who should have all the credit.” - -“Right-o!” exclaimed Marjorie and Robin exactly together. - -“Now why did you agree with me?” Leila demanded, her tone full of -innocent Celtic surprise. “That was merely one of my Celtic jests.” - -“‘Many a true word,’ you know,” cited Robin. - -“We’ll make you senior partner in the firm, Leila Greatheart,” was -Marjorie’s generous proposal. “Harper, Page and Dean has a fine, -dignified sound.” - -“Away with you!” Leila waved off the suggestion. “I am deaf to such a -sound. Say no more, or I shall fly into one of my fierce frenzies. Now I -am here not to rage, but to keep Midget in order, and conduct this -meeting.” - -“_In order?_” Vera interrogated in an awful voice. “Kindly state _when_ -I have been out of order since this go-as-you-please session began.” - -“Not at all, Midget; not at all—as yet,” Leila laid significant stress -on “as yet.” “So we may hope for the best and change the subject,” she -hastily added. - -“It’s high time it was changed,” Vera said loftily. - -Leila turned comical eyes upon the company. Then she continued: “Now we -have the Irish play and the auction on the carpet. Soon we shall be -giving Kathie’s new play: ‘The Knight of the Northern Sun.’ Gentleman -Gus will be featured in that. Kathie had finished the writing of it. -Luciferous has already typed the parts. And I have picked a fine -heroine. The Ice Queen is to play the part of Nageda, the Norse -princess.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - A TANTALIZING GLIMPSE - - -“Where did you collect the nerve to ask that ask?” Jerry admiringly -demanded of Leila, following the shout of surprise from the others. - -“I have nerve for any occasion,” was the modest reply. - -“I believe you. What did the Ice Queen say to you, or was she too icily -iced for words? I get you that she must have made a ‘yes’ sign, in spite -of her freezing frozenness.” - -“She said ‘yes.’ I went straight to the point with plenty of coolness in -my own sweet Irish voice,” Leila answered with a touch of grimness. “She -loves to be a center of attraction. I have a good idea of her beauty and -cleverness. She knows that. We made the bargain like two veterans. She -does not wish for my friendship. I can live without hers. We have in -Ireland our own proverb of fair exchange. It is: ‘To exchange needs with -your neighbor is nothing lost to him or you.’” - -“In this instance it is everything gained,” Marjorie blithely asserted. -“You are the same old wonder, Leila Greatheart. I must make a list of -these coming attractions now.” She opened the small blue leather -notebook which she was seldom without now wherever she happened to go on -the campus. She wrote busily for a little, oblivious of the murmur of -discussion going on around her. - -“Three sure-fire attractions,” she exulted, as she presently glanced up -from her notebook. - -“I’ve something to report, too. I’ve at last persuaded Miss Oliver to -let us feature her in a musicale in Greek Hall. It’s to come off a week -from Friday evening.” Robin’s announcement was touched with pride. - -It was the signal for another little burst of surprise. While Candace -Oliver, the freshman musical genius who one of the Craig Hall girls had -discovered, had on several occasions reluctantly played for Robin and a -few other admiring students, she had steadily refused to appear on the -college stage as a pianiste. - -“Another obstacle surmounted. How did you do it? I thought I was too -persuasive to be resisted, but she turned me down,” commented Muriel. - -“Oh, I asked her to let us feature her, every time I met her. I used all -the nice pleasant arguments I could think of but without effect. The -other day I happened to meet her at Baretti’s. I introduced Signor -Baretti to her. I was sitting at the same table with her and Baretti -came up, as always, to speak to me. He only stayed a minute, but in that -minute I remarked to him that Miss Oliver was a wonderful pianiste. He -looked truly impressed and said in his odd way: ‘I like hear you play -som’time. When you play in Miss Page, Miss Dean’s show, for help the -dormitory. Miss Page, you come tell me when Miss Ol-ee-var play.’ I -smiled at Miss Oliver. She had turned red as a poppy. Then I said, sweet -as cream: ‘I surely _will_ let you know, Signor Baretti.’” - -“What did she say?” Ronny voiced the question that stood in six pairs of -bright eyes. - -“Oh, he trotted off just then, and I didn’t give her time to say a word. -I began telling her about him and how sincere his interest in the -dormitory was, and how he had fought for Page and Dean, and how -altogether great-spirited he was. She listened without saying much. She -was half through luncheon when I sat down at her table. She left the -restaurant as soon as she had finished her dessert. Next day I received -a four line note from her. She said in it that she had changed her mind -about not being featured at a musicale. ‘I wish to do my part to help -the dorm’ girls,’ was the line that made Robin execute a hornpipe.” - -“The infallible Guiseppe again to the rescue,” Vera said lightly, yet -with a certain pleased intonation which expressed the appreciation -underlying it. - -“Attraction number four.” Amid the gratified murmur which followed -Robin’s recital, Marjorie set down the musicale in her book. “What is -Miss Oliver’s program, Robin? Of course you’ve seen her since you -received her note.” Marjorie knew that Robin was sure of her prize. - -“Three Chopin numbers and Beethoven’s ‘Sonata Appassionata.’ Phil is -going to play one of Brahm’s Hungarian dances and Jensen’s ‘Romance.’ -Verna Burkett is going to sing. She has a glorious contralto voice, and -Reba Hoffman, that little blonde German dorm will give a ’cello number. -I am anxious to exploit dorm talent, too. It’s going to be a hummer of a -program. I think we ought to charge two dollars apiece for the tickets, -the same as we charge for our revues. What do you think about it, -Marjorie?” Robin earnestly consulted her partner. “You know we only -charged a dollar and a half for tickets for the last musicale.” - -“I don’t believe two dollars a seat will be considered robbery. We -always reserve free seats for the dormitory girls at all the shows. The -other Hamiltonites can afford to pay two dollars apiece for the kind of -entertainment we shall offer. They’d have to pay from two to three -dollars apiece for good seats at a special benefit musicale wherever -they might go,” was Marjorie’s candid reply. “I don’t wish to seem -priggish, but they could spend their allowance checks for no better -cause.” - -“True as truth, good partner,” Robin agreed, with a saucy little nod. -“Oh, dear,” she changed to plaintive in a twinkling. “I wish we might -use the Hamilton Concert Hall for the musicale. Think of the money we’d -take in. Greek Hall is hardly more than half as large.” - -“Why can’t you use it?” asked Lucy Warner with crisp suddenness. - -“No one has the nerve to ask Prexy for the use of it, my child.” Vera -bent a benign glance upon Lucy which contrasted oddly with her doll-like -daintiness. - -“Why not?” Lucy persisted. - -“Prexy has yet to come to one of our shows, Luciferous,” Marjorie said -quietly. “We’ve always sent him tickets, and Mrs. Prexy and her friends -have come to them. But he never has. He approves of the dormitory -enterprise. He has been friendly with me on all occasions, but—” -Marjorie smiled—“he never appears at our revues.” - -“It’s the one thorn on Page and Dean’s rosebush,” laughed Robin. -“Besides, Luciferous, we’ve never felt like trying to break into the -regular college lecture and concert programs with our shows. It’s more a -matter of deference than anything else. If he had ever offered the hall -to us, we’d have accepted the offer instanter. But he never has.” - -“I believe it never occurred to him,” Lucy said bluntly. “I wish I’d -known long ago. I’ll ask him tomorrow for the use of it.” - -“Lu-ciferous!” Muriel beamed on Lucy with a radiance too joyous to be -genuine. “You deserve a citation. That is you will deserve one if you -put the Prexy problem across. Do so, and I will cite your good conduct -tomorrow evening in this very room at precisely seven o’clock. You will -receive a tin star, three whacks on the shoulder and a ticket to the -Hamilton Movie Palace. Popcorn and pink lemonade will be served to all.” -Muriel effulgently included the rest of the party in the generous -invitation. - -The next five minutes were spent in jubilantly rushing Lucy. She -received approving pats on the shoulders, pats on the back and pats on -the head. Each Traveler tried to outdo the other in contributing funnily -approving remarks. Muriel smilingly proposed raising Lucy to Jerry’s and -her shoulders and parading about the room with her. Jerry and Lucy both -had strong objections to the honor walk. - -“I wouldn’t trust either of you to carry me two feet,” Lucy declared -mirthfully. “Now never mind rushing me further. Leila beguiled us here -with the promise of hearing something extraordinary. I have yet to hear -it.” - -“So I did.” Leila surveyed the Travelers, whose attention had quickly -returned to her, her bright blue eyes asparkle. “Now this is what I have -to say.” - -As she laid her plan before her chums, a constant chorus of gurgles, -giggles and chuckles accompanied her words. The instant she paused Jerry -raised a not too loud cheer of approbation which the others echoed. - -“I am indebted to you, Matchless Muriel, for suggesting the proper kind -of refreshments. You may believe that popcorn and pink lemonade will be -served at our party along with gum drops and peppermint sticks. I had -not yet thought of the eats until you spoke. Now I shall get up a fine -spread.” Leila’s tone conveyed her deep satisfaction. - -“It will be oceans of fun.” Muriel had already begun to laugh as she -thought of what her part in the event should be. - -“The gentlemen of the campus may have to hunt diligently for suitable -wardrobe. I shall see about mine at once.” Vera giggled softly. - -Her naive remark was the signal for a fresh explosion of mirth. In a -room further along the hall a girl moodily rested her pen to listen to -the breath of laughter wafted faintly to her through walls and closed -doors. Doris Monroe tried to frown at the distant sounds of harmonious -comradeship. She found that she was not angry. She was despondent -because she was lonely. She was beginning to glimpse a side of college -life, wholly desirable, but, unfortunately for her, beyond her reach. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - THE DARK TOWER - - -Doris Monroe had seen Marjorie and Jerry in the dining room of Wayland -Hall that evening. She knew the Travelers were holding a social session -in Leila’s and Vera’s room and somberly envied them their fun. Things -had been distressingly dull for her since her return from the holiday -vacation spent with Leslie Cairns in New York. - -She had thoroughly enjoyed herself in New York after Mrs. Gaylord, -Leslie’s chaperon, had appeared at the Essenden, the apartment hotel in -which Leslie had engaged the Dresden suite of rooms. Leslie, too, had -been more agreeable during that short, blissful two weeks of fine -dressing, expensive dinners, luncheons and theatres than Doris had known -her to be either before or since the vacation. - -The few times she had been in Leslie’s company after their return to -Hamilton, Leslie had been preoccupied, irritable and altogether -unpleasant. She had been so patently uncongenial that Doris had -preferred to keep away from her on the plea of study. This plea was at -least sound. Doris had had her hands full for a time in trying to stave -off being conditioned in mathematics. - -She had known nothing of Leslie’s downfall as a business woman. It was -at least three weeks after Leslie had reluctantly obeyed her father’s -mandate and left Hamilton for New York before she had written Doris a -letter from an apartment on Central Park West which Mrs. Gaylord had -secured for the two as a residence. - -In the letter Leslie had stated that she would return to Hamilton for a -few days early in April. She had not, however, explained her sudden -departure, nor had she mentioned the disruption of her garage -enterprise. Doris had answered the letter, feeling secretly relieved -that Leslie was not in Hamilton. She had a shrewd idea that Leslie’s -father might be responsible for Leslie’s return to New York. She had -heard enough of the conversation between Leslie and her chaperon on the -occasion, when Mrs. Gaylord had arrived unexpectedly at the Essenden, to -guess that Leslie and her father were not on very congenial terms. - -Leslie had left Doris the Dazzler, the white car she was so fond of -driving. She had said nothing in her letter about it, nor had she -mentioned the sum of money which she had placed to Doris’s account in a -Hamilton bank. Doris had not yet been able to return the seventy-five -dollars she had drawn of the five hundred Leslie had placed in bank to -her credit. She was resolved on doing so before the close of college in -June. Selfishly indifferent and indifferently selfish though she was she -had a certain standard of honor. She had not ceased to regret having -allowed Leslie to bank the five hundred dollars to her account. - -Doris was not so anxious to return the Dazzler to Leslie. True she had -no expectation of keeping it indefinitely. She hoped, however, that -Leslie would allow her to use it until the close of college. She was -able to pay for its up-keep from her allowance. Though she cared little -for the freshies and sophs who made much of her, she frequently took one -or more of them with her on her drives in the white car. Secretly she -preferred her own company to theirs. She regarded them as more or less -“silly” and continued to accept their adoration with bored sweetness. - -Unwillingly she had discovered in herself a growing interest for the -Travelers. Her keen perception could not fail to show her their -undeniable claim to originality and cleverness. She admired, even liked -Muriel, to whom she had, however, not spoken since before Christmas. -Before their misunderstanding she had been on the verge of real fondness -for Muriel. She now missed their former pleasant relation as roommates. -At times she was tempted to lay aside her grievance and try to restore -the old friendly footing. - -Leila had approached Doris at the psychological moment. Doris was weary -of being rushed by those for whom she entertained hardly more than -casual interest. She had not the diversion of Leslie Cairns’ -companionship. She had persistently turned “dig” to the extent of -putting herself beyond the immediate fear of a condition in mathematics. -She was therefore ready to entertain with secret pleasure Leila’s polite -request for her appearance in “The Knight of the Northern Sun.” She was -actually eager to take the part of Nageda, the Norseland princess. - -Outwardly she showed herself as coolly business-like as Leila during -their brief interview. After she and Leila had separated she experienced -a half sad regret because she appeared to be so thoroughly “out of it” -with clever Miss Harper. She was sure Miss Harper cared nothing about -her personally. She merely regarded her as a student; one best suited to -play the part of Nageda. - -“The Knight of the Northern Sun” was to be given on the evening of April -thirtieth. It would be presented at least three weeks in advance of -Leila’s Irish play. The Candace Oliver musicale was to take place on the -evening of April fourth. On the night of April eleventh Leila’s “great -idea” would furnish the entire college body of students with an -evening’s fun. - -Such was the program the Travelers drew up. After the meeting came the -usual spread, eaten in high spirits. Marjorie, Robin and Jerry stole -downstairs several minutes after inexorable old ten-thirty had shrilled -its loud emphatic nightly command for retiring. Very quietly the trio -let themselves out the front door into the moonlight. - -Marjorie and Jerry gallantly offered themselves as Robin’s escorts -across the moonlit campus to Silverton Hall. They took hold of her arms -and paraded her between them, expatiating to her as they rushed her -along at a hiking stride, on the value of their company. In front of -Silverton Hall they lingered briefly for a last animated exchange of -laughing pleasantries, then Jerry and Marjorie turned their steps toward -the entrance at the east end of the campus which gave on the pike toward -Hamilton Estates. - -“It seems strange to be walking out of the campus gates at this time of -night.” Marjorie made this light observation as the two Travelers -stepped from the college premises and out upon Hamilton Pike. - -“We’re enchanted, you know. We broke the spell for a little while this -evening. There’s the enchanted trail back to the good fairy’s castle.” -Jerry pointed to the pike, shining and white under the moon’s clear, -burning lamp. “That’s the way I’ve felt most of the time since we -settled ourselves at the Arms.” - -“So have I. It’s not only Hamilton Arms that seems enchanted. Hamilton -Estates is like a fairy-tale kingdom,” Marjorie added to Jerry’s fancy. - -“The Kingdom of Castles,” Jerry instantly supplied. “And in the heart of -the kingdom dwelt Goldendede, a fairy empress.” - -As they continued on their way to the Arms the pair amused themselves -with the weaving of a fairy tale about Miss Susanna, Hamilton Estates -and themselves as willing victims of enchantment. - -“Bing! that nearly shattered the enchantment,” grumbled Jerry as an -automobile whisked past them from the direction in which they had come. -“There’s nothing fairy-like about a buzz-buggy. That particular one -butted into our fairy tale and reu-ined it.” - -“Never mind. You’ve been truly inspired since we left the campus -tonight, Jeremiah,” Marjorie consoled. “Goldendede is a beautiful name -for Miss Susanna. The Kingdom of Castles exactly suits Hamilton Estates. -You couldn’t have named this aloof collection of turreted gabled houses -better.” - -“That’s higher commendation than you ever gave the Bean Jingles. It -makes up for your sad lack of appreciation of those gems. I am _so_ -mollified, Bean!” Jerry fairly purred gratification. - -“I’d appreciate your art of jingling more, Jeremiah, if it were -addressed to someone else. Leila or Ronny or Vera Jingles would be less -personal.” - -“You have a grudge against your charming self, Bean,” was Jerry’s -retort. “Forget it. Brooke Hamilton is to be celebrated in biography, -why shouldn’t Marjorie Dean be celebrated in verse. The first is not -greater than the last in her own little way. The—” - -“Say another word like that and I’ll run off and leave you in the -enchanted dark.” Marjorie placed a light hand over Jerry’s lips. - -Jerry gently removed the restraining fingers and gave them a friendly -squeeze. She kept Marjorie’s hand in hers and the two walked on, arms -swinging. “You’re a resplendent goose,” she said, “but you win. At least -you do until the next time.” - -“Jerry, did you notice Miss Susanna’s face today as she stood on the -veranda waving to us?” Marjorie changed the subject with abruptness. “It -was transfigured!” - -“I noticed. I thought then that there could not be anything quite so -wonderful as the return of happiness to a person who had been shut away -from happiness as long as she had.” Jerry turned suddenly serious. “And -you began it, Marvelous Manager. You were the leaven—” - -Marjorie dropped Jerry’s hand and flashed away from her along the pike, -a slim, flitting, shadowy figure. She was laughing softly to herself as -she ran on for a few yards. - -“I told you I’d run away from you.” she reminded, as Jerry came speeding -up to her. “I didn’t propose to stay after hearing myself compared to a -yeast cake.” - -The two had paused, breathless and laughing at one side of the pike. -Their run had brought them just beyond the brightly lighted gate posts -of Lenox Heath, a rambling, many gabled English manor house. Its -powerful gate lights illuminated the pike for several hundred feet. -Farther ahead of them it was dark and shadowy, in spite of the full -moon’s rays. - -A few more steps would bring them to the part of the highway which -skirted the Carden estate, forming its southern boundary. Formerly the -pike at this point had extended between irregular embankments of stony -earth which rose to a low height above the pike’s smooth bed. It was at -this particular part of the pike that Miss Susanna had narrowly escaped -being run over by Lillian Walbert’s car on a February afternoon of the -previous year. - -During the summer which followed the date of Miss Susanna’s near -accident, the right side of the pike which marked the northern boundary -of the Clements estate had been leveled with the road bed by order of -the Clements themselves. The low lumpy irregular ridge on the Carden -side of the pike remained, flaunting itself in the face of improvement, -a proof of Carden indifference and obstinacy. Because of it the Carden -house and grounds appeared even more neglected and unkempt. - -“It’s good and dark here in spite of the moon.” Jerry glanced up at the -great arching limbs of the trees on the Carden side of the pike. A row -of giant elms grew just inside the thick evergreen hedge which enclosed -the Carden premises and gave the estate its name. Though still bare of -leaves, the thick interlacing branches of the elms served as a screen -against the moon’s pale radiance. - -“What a gloomy old dump the Carden estate is!” was Jerry’s disapproving -exclamation. “It looks like a ghost ranch.” - -“It’s the Dark Tower in the Kingdom of Castles.” This time Marjorie did -the naming. “‘Two Travelers to the Dark Tower came,’” she laughingly -misquoted. - -“Let’s hope we don’t see the horrors Childe Roland was supposed to have -seen. Goodness knows _what_ bogie horrified him. I should call ‘Childe -Roland’ Browning’s most aggravating poem. But this eerie spot is no -place for a literary discussion. B-r-r-r! Let’s beat it. I saw a white -ghostly light flash out from behind that old house!” - -Jerry did not accept her own proposal. Instead she stopped short, eyes -trained on the pale flood of light. It emanated from a point behind the -house and whitened a space to the left of the gloomy gray stone -dwelling. - -“Here comes your ghost, and in an automobile.” Marjorie began to laugh. -Two white eyes of light had appeared around the left hand corner of the -house and were rapidly coming down the drive toward the watchers. “‘Two -goslings to the Dark Tower came—and saw a gasoline ghost,’” she mocked. - -The watchers came abreast of the entrance gateway of the estate just as -the car reached it. By its light they saw that the gates stood open. -They hurried past them and drew close to the uneven ridge of earth in -order to allow the automobile plenty of room to turn onto the pike. -Instead of driving on, the solitary occupant stopped the machine at the -edge of the pike just clear of the gateway. - -The machine itself was a long, rakish-looking racing car. Its driver was -a tall man, very broad of shoulder. He wore a long dark motor coat. A -leather motor cap was pulled down over his forehead. Intent on his own -affairs, he did not glance toward the two young women. He sprang from -the racer and strode back to close the gates. He slammed them shut with -an air which indicated proprietorship. Two or three long steps and he -had returned to his car. He leaped into it, started it and was gone -almost instantly around the curve of the pike which was the last outpost -of the Carden estate. Just on the other side of it the estate of -Hamilton Arms began. - -“_Some ghost._ That’s the first time I ever saw anyone emerge from that -gloom patch, day or night. Now who do you suppose he was? If he’s a -visitor at Carden Hedge he must be visiting either himself or spooks. -Maybe he’s a Carden. Not that I care a hoot who he is, but one must have -something to say about everyone.” Jerry left the rough ground on which -the two had been standing for the smoothness of the pike. “Come along, -Bean. It will be midnight before we hit the castle,” she predicted. -“Ronny was right about this pair of Travelers.” - -“I wonder if he was one of the Cardens?” Marjorie’s question contained a -certain amount of curiosity. Since she had taken up the work of -arranging the data for Brooke Hamilton’s biography she had found enough -allusions to the Carden family to give her a clear idea of what a thorn -Alec Carden had been to Brooke Hamilton’s flesh. - -“He may be the son of Alec Carden. I mean the son who inherited Carden -Hedge,” she continued musingly. “This man in the racer wasn’t young. I -caught a fair view of his face in spite of the way he had his cap pulled -down. Still he may be younger than I thought him at a glance, and the -grandson of old Alec Carden.” - -“Why worry about it?” teased Jerry. She had caught the note of puzzled -interest in Marjorie’s voice. - -“I’m not worrying. I’m wondering why that man’s face looked so familiar. -I’m sure I never saw him before.” - -“How can he look familiar to you if you’ve never before seen him?” -inquired Jerry, with a chuckle. - -“That’s precisely what I’m wondering. Perhaps he resembles some one I -know or have seen. I must ask Miss Susanna to describe John Carden, the -son who lives at the Hedge. Here we are at our own castle. Next time we -mustn’t stay out so late, Jeremiah. I hope Miss Susanna hasn’t stayed up -to wait for us. She likes her early bedtime, you know.” - -Miss Susanna had elected to “stay up” to hear about Leila’s “great” -idea. They found her waiting for them in the library, wrapped in a -trailing blue velvet dressing gown. She hustled them upstairs to don -negligees and ordered them down to the library when they should have -changed costume. There she brought them two little Chinese bowls of -chicken consommé and a plate of salty crackers. - -Both girls had eaten sparingly of the spread. After their moonlight walk -they were really hungry, and the consommé was delicious. As they ate it -and nibbled the crisp crackers they regaled Miss Susanna with a lively -account of the evening’s happenings. Interest in the Travelers’ new -plans for entertainments drove the incident of the unknown motorist -completely from Marjorie’s mind. Nor did she think of him again for some -time afterward. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - A RETURN TO A FORBIDDEN LAND - - -“Leslie, is it really you? I’d been wondering why you hadn’t answered my -letter. I wrote you soon after I received your note.” Doris Monroe’s -indifferent drawl was not in evidence as she answered the telephone. She -was surprised and more pleased than she had thought she could possibly -be to hear Leslie Cairns’ voice on the wire. Leslie’s arrival in -Hamilton meant an immediate brightening of the bored existence Doris had -been leading since her return from New York. - -“I wrote you I’d surely be here in April,” Leslie brusquely reminded, -“and here I am.” - -“I’m _awfully_ glad of it.” Doris spoke with pleasing sincerity. “Is -Mrs. Gaylord with you?” - -“Ye-es.” Leslie drawled the affirmation with exaggerated weariness. “How -she does wish she wasn’t. She nearly had a conniption when I told her we -were going to make a flying trip to Hamilton. I’ll meet you at the -Colonial at four this P. M. You’ll hear more of my history then. Bye.” -Leslie was gone. - -Doris’s beautiful face was a study as she turned from the telephone. She -was a trifle amazed at her distinct pleasure in Leslie’s unexpected -arrival at Hamilton. Leslie had been so moodily unbearable after their -return from the holiday vacation which they had spent in New York, Doris -had felt relieved at the former’s sudden disappearance from Hamilton and -the subsequent receipt of Leslie’s brief note from New York. - -It was only recently that she had begun to miss Leslie and wish for her -society. In spite of her ugly moods Leslie was possessed of an -originality which Doris found singularly enlivening. No one could say -more oddly funny things than Leslie when she chose to be humorous. -Leslie never hesitated to pay extravagantly for whatever she happened to -want. Doris admired in her what she considered Leslie’s “adventurous -spirit.” She had been brought up to know her father’s explorer friends. -They were hardy, intrepid world wanderers of daring. She had listened to -their tales of reckless adventuring into the unknown and gloried in the -doings of these splendid captains of adventure. There were occasions -when it appeared to her that Leslie showed something of the same -adventurous, undaunted spirit. - -As a matter of truth, Leslie was animated by this very spirit. She had -directed it, however, into ignoble channels. What she chose to regard as -strategy and daring were nothing other than trickery and lawlessness. - -Doris knew little or nothing of Leslie’s flagrant offenses as a student -at Hamilton College. She had learned of the latter’s expellment from -college from Leslie herself. She had consequently never heard the rights -of the affair. She had heard vague stories concerning it from Julia -Peyton, Clara Carter and one or two juniors. The knowledge of Leslie’s -immense wealth had hampered even their gossip about the ex-student. The -freshmen and the sophomores, who were Doris’s chief companions, had -entered Hamilton too late to be on the campus at the period before -Leslie’s and her chums’ expulsion from college. They, therefore, knew -not much about her. - -The present junior and senior classes had been respectively the freshman -and sophomore classes during Leslie’s senior year at Hamilton, which had -been also the year of her expulsion from college. At that particular -time the attitude of the two lower classes had been one of horrified -disapproval of the seventeen San Soucians who had been expelled from -Hamliton for hazing a student. That was almost as much as any of them -had ever learned about the affair. The girls who knew the disagreeable -truth were Marjorie Dean and her intimates. Silence with them was honor. -They knew a great many other derogatory facts about Leslie Cairns and -her methods which they kept strictly sub rosa. - -Doris was ready to welcome Leslie with warmth. She sorely lacked -companions of interest. She had begun to grow bored to satiety by -admiration. The freshies’ and sophs’ adoration for her was too -superficial to be satisfying. They enjoyed rushing the college beauty. -Each class liked to parade her on the campus and fête her at Baretti’s, -the Colonial or at their pet Hamilton tea shops as a triumphant class -trophy. She was selfish, but not shallow; indifferent, but not vapid. It -was in her composition to give as well as receive. Because she had been -surfeited with adulation she had lately experienced a vague unrestful -desire to turn from the knowledge of her own charms to an admiration of -some one else. - -First among the students of Hamilton she admired Leila Harper. Robin -Page was her second “crush.” Muriel made a third in a trio which had won -her difficult fancy. None of these, however, were likely to become her -friends. She would never make overtures to them. She was confident that -they would never make further friendly advances to her. - -Such a state of mind on her part augured a hearty welcome for Leslie. -Doris hurried to her room after her last afternoon class, hastily got -into the new fawn English walking suit, recently arrived from a Bond -Street shop, and made a buoyant exit from the Hall and to the garage for -the white car. It was a clear, sunshiny day. She thought Leslie might -like to take a ride in the Dazzler. Leslie had probably hired a taxicab -in which to come from town to the Colonial. - -It was a very short distance from the garage to the Colonial. Arrived -there, Doris saw a solitary car parked in front of the restaurant. It -was a black roadster of newest type and most expensive make. She jumped -to an instant conclusion that it must belong to Leslie. - -Doris parked the Dazzler behind the roadster and went into the tea room -to meet Leslie. She found her seated at one of the several square -mission oak tables engaged in a languid perusal of a menu card. - -“How are you, Goldie? Have a seat at the table and a bite with yours -truly.” Leslie waved Doris into the chair opposite her. Then she -stretched an arm lazily across the table and offered Doris her hand. - -“Very well, thank you, Leslie. How have you been getting along?” Doris -returned, with only a shade of her usual drawl. “I _am_ glad to see you. -I have missed you.” - -“A good miss.” Leslie shrugged an accompaniment to her laconic comment. -“Were you surprised to hear me on the ’phone?” - -“Of course. I was surprised when you wrote me from New York. I had no -idea you had left Hamilton. I was afraid of being conditioned in math. I -was studying like mad and hadn’t time just then to call you on the -telephone at the hotel. I knew you were very busy.” So far as she went -Doris was truthful. - -“Oh, forget it. I believe what you say, Goldie, but you might have added -that you were all fed up with me. I know I had a beastly grouch after -the New York trip. It had teeth and claws. I had business trouble. That -sneaking carpenter who is trying to swing the dormitory job for Bean and -her precious Beanstalks coaxed all my men over to the Beggar Ranch. He -told them a lot of fairy stories, I suppose. Anyway, I had to send for -one of my father’s best men, an Italian financier, who understands -Italian peasants. Even he couldn’t undo the mischief that scamp, Graham, -had done. - -“I finally had to send for my father. He fired the whole shooting match. -I’m done with that garage flivver. My father said it wouldn’t pay me -very well in the end. He was sore at me for wasting my time around this -burg. He tried to make me promise I’d go to New York and never think -about Hamilton again. He can’t stand the college since the precious -Board gave me such an unfair deal.” - -“Why, that’s dreadful, Leslie; about your garage I mean.” Doris had a -certain amount of sympathy for Leslie. She was not specially interested -in business, but she decided that Leslie had been badly treated. - -“I’ll say it is,” Leslie made grim response. “Oh, never mind. I’m still -worth a few dollars. Did you see my new car out in front?” - -“Yes—I had an idea that car must belong to you. It suggested you to me -at first sight.” Doris smiled across the table at her returned friend. -“I had no idea you’d have a car. I brought the Dazzler on purpose. I -thought we might like to take a ride.” - -“Gaylord and I came here from New York in that car,” Leslie informed -with an inflection of pride. “My father doesn’t know I’m here. He sailed -for Europe last Thursday. I know positively that he went, too. I was at -the dock and saw his steamer cut loose from Manhattan.” - -“Were you?” Doris exhibited her usual polite reticence regarding -Leslie’s father. Long since she had discovered that Leslie did not like -to answer questions about him. “It is rather a long drive from New York, -isn’t it. Your motor coat and hat are chic.” - -“So is your suit. I suppose it floated straight across the pond to you. -My coat came from the Clayham, in New York. But it’s some bang-up -English shop, now let me tell you.” Leslie showed brightening -satisfaction of her own greenish-gray motor coat and round hat of the -same material. - -Leslie’s own remarks about her father were “fairy stories” so far as her -having seen him entered into them. She had not seen him, nor had she -received any letters from him other than the peremptory one in which he -had scathingly reprimanded her and ordered her to New York. Nevertheless -she _had_ seen him sail for Europe in the “_Arcadia_,” though he had not -known of her presence on the dock when the steamer cleared. - -She had gone to the dock in a cheap tan rain-coat, a red worsted Tam -o’Shanter cap and a pair of shell-rimmed glasses. Mingling with the -crowd on the dock she was confident her disguise was effective. Her -father’s manager, Mr. Carrington, had furnished her with the information -of the date and hour of her father’s departure for Europe. She had not -seen him since the day when she had called at her father’s offices. -Neither had he seen her father for more than a few minutes at a time -during which no mention of Leslie had been made. He had been led by her -to believe that she had planned a pleasant steamer surprise for her -father. He had therefore kept his own counsel and his promise to Leslie. -He had sent her a note to the Essenden which had been duly forwarded to -her new address. - -“I should think you’d rather be in New York than here.” Doris gave a -half envious sigh. “There’s nothing here of interest off the campus.” - -“Oh, I had to come here while Peter the Great was away.” Leslie -volunteered this much of an explanation of her visit. “I must get a line -on what was done on the garage so I’ll know just how much money I put -into it. My father will want to know that right off the bat if he offers -it for sale as it stands. You and I will have some bully rides and -drives while I’m here, Goldie. I shan’t be such a grouch as I was right -after Christmas. How are things at the knowledge shop? How is Bean? Had -any fusses with her or her Beanstalks lately?” Leslie’s expression grew -lowering as she mentioned Marjorie. - -“Miss Dean and Miss Macy aren’t at Wayland Hall now. They’re staying at -Hamilton Arms. I don’t know whether they are coming back to the Hall -again or not.” Doris had expected the information might elicit surprise -from her companion. She smiled in faint amusement of Leslie’s astonished -features, then added the crowning bit of news. “Miss Dean was chosen by -Miss Hamilton to write Brooke Hamilton’s biography.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - A WILD PLAN - - -“What-t? Do you know what you’re saying?” Leslie’s tones rose higher. - -“I ought to know. I’ve heard nothing else since she left the Hall for -Hamilton Arms.” Doris’s tone was the acme of weariness. “It wouldn’t -have been surprising to hear that President Matthews had been asked to -write Brooke Hamilton’s biography,” she continued. “The idea of _Miss -Dean_ as his biographer is, well—_ridiculous_.” - -“It’s pure bosh,” Leslie said contemptuously. “She’s a tricky little -hypocrite. She’s managed to curry favor with that wizened old frump at -Hamilton Arms. The last of the Hamiltons! She looks it. I heard when I -was at Hamilton that she was sore at the college; that she had all the -dope for Brooke Hamilton’s biography but wouldn’t come across with it. I -presume Bean slathered her with deceitful sweetness until she grew dizzy -with her own importance and renigged.” - -“I don’t like Miss Dean.” Doris’s fair face clouded. “I’m glad she’s not -at the Hall any longer. Miss Harper and her other friends don’t appear -to miss her much, or Miss Macy either. They have parties in one -another’s rooms almost every night.” - -“They have found they can live without her,” was Leslie’s satiric -opinion. “You certainly have handed me news, Goldie.” - -“Oh, that’s only a beginning,” Doris declared, well pleased with -Leslie’s appreciation. “The other night Miss Dean and Miss Macy were at -the Hall to dinner. Afterward they were in Miss Harper’s room with their -crowd. They had a high old time talking and laughing. I could hear them, -but not very plainly. They were planning shows, though. Since then a -notice for a piano recital, featuring Candace Oliver, a freshie musical -genius, has appeared on all the bulletin boards. Since that notice there -has come another of an Irish play by Miss Harper. It’s to be given in -May. The name of the play and the cast hasn’t yet been announced. Miss -Harper is awfully tantalizing. She always waits until campus curiosity -is at fever height about her plays before she gives out any more -information.” - -“She’s a foxy proposition.” Leslie showed signs of growing sulkiness. -Her earlier affability had begun to wane at first mention of Marjorie -Dean. Next to Marjorie, Leila Harper was registered in her black books. - -“She’s clever, Leslie; not foxy,” Doris calmly corrected. She went on to -tell Leslie of the part Leila had asked her to play in “The Knight of -the Northern Sun.” - -Leslie’s deep-rooted jealousy of the two girls who were college -successes where she had been a rank failure rushed to the surface. -“Leila Harper has nerve to ask you to be in a play when she knows you -are a friend of mine. I see her game. She knows just how useful you can -be to her in her confounded old play. It’s some feather in her theatre -bonnet to keep the college beauty at her beck and call. She has planned -to break up our friendship by flattering you into believing you are a -dramatic wonder. Bean is probably back of Harper’s scheme. She can’t and -never could bear to see me enjoy myself.” - -Leslie jerked out the final sentence of her tirade against Leila with -angry force. Her face had darkened in the jealous way which invariably -reminded Doris of the driving of thunder clouds across a graying sky. - -“Miss Harper was impersonal in asking me to be in the play,” Doris -defended. The sea shell pink in her cheeks had deepened perceptibly. -“She dislikes me. I know she wants me in the cast because she thinks I’d -be a feature. You see I’m the true Norse type. The heroine of the play -is a Norse princess. I want to be in the play because I like to be in -things. I’ll enjoy the praise and the excitement. I may go on the -English stage when I have been graduated from Hamilton. My father would -not object if I were to play in a high class London company.” - -“The same old Goldie who cares for nobody but herself.” Leslie gave vent -to a sarcastic little snicker. “Why not take up with Bean, too?” - -“Oh, Leslie, don’t be hateful,” Doris said with an air of resigned -patience. “You know I detest Miss Dean. Nothing could induce me to take -up with her. It’s different with Miss Harper. She’s not American, you -know. She is so cosmopolitan in manner. She is really more my own style. -But, of course, she’s hopelessly devoted to that Sanford crowd of -girls.” - -“Don’t mention Sanford to me. I hate the name of that collection of -one-story huts,” Leslie exploded fiercely. “You ought to detest Bean, -considering the way she has treated me. If she had been half as square -as she pretends to be she would have put the kibosh on old Graham, just -like that, when he began hiring my men away from my architects. My -father said the whole business was a disgrace. He said there was no use -in my trying to buck against an institution. That’s what Bean’s pull -amounts to. She has both Prexy and that ancient Hamilton relict to back -her.” - -“If Miss Dean knew that her architect was hiring your men away from your -architects, and ignored the fact for her own business interests then she -must be thoroughly dishonorable,” Doris said flatly. - -“If—if—There you go,” sputtered Leslie, wagging her head, her shaggy -eye-brows drawn together. “No ‘if’ about it. She knew. You talk as -though you wanted to believe her honorable. Well, she isn’t, never was; -never will be. It makes me furious to think that she should go nipping -around the campus as a college arc light while I wasn’t even allowed a -look at a sheepskin. Too bad I couldn’t have learned some of her pretty -little dodges. I’d have been able to slide out of the hazing racket. -I’ll tell you something you don’t know. Bean could have helped us when -the Board sent for her by refusing to go to Hamilton Hall to the -inquiry. Not Bean. She went, and made such a fuss about pretending she -didn’t care to talk that it made us appear ten times as much to blame as -we really were.” - -“If—” Doris hastily checked herself. “She seems to have tried her best -to down you, Leslie. But, why?” Her green eyes directed themselves upon -Leslie with a disconcerting steadiness. - -Leslie gave a short laugh. “I used to ask myself that,” she replied with -a sarcastic straightening of her lips. “Now I understand her better. She -was jealous and wanted to be the whole show, all the time. She is deep -as a well. Take my word for it. I know her better than I wish I knew -her.” She shook her head with slow effective regret. - -“I’ll surely remember what you’ve said about her.” Doris meant what she -said. She had been distinctly shocked at both instances which Leslie had -cited of Marjorie Dean’s treachery. What she desired most now was that -Leslie should drop the discussion of her grievances. - -This Leslie was not ready to do. She continued on the depressing topic -for several more minutes. Then she began asking Doris questions -concerning the subject of Brooke Hamilton’s biography. Doris knew only -what she had already imparted to Leslie concerning it. - -“None of the students know the details concerning it except Miss—I mean, -the Travelers,” she finally said desperately. She stopped short of -mentioning Marjorie’s name again. She did not care to start Leslie anew. -“I imagine there really isn’t much else to know besides what I’ve -already told you.” - -“Don’t you ever believe it,” was the skeptical retort. “But I don’t -blame you, Goldie, for what you don’t know.” - -“Thank you.” Doris shrugged satiric gratitude. Glad to turn the -conversation into a lighter strain she continued gaily: “We’re soon -going to have a general lark on the campus. The whole college crowd is -to be in it. It’s to be a ‘Rustic Romp.’ One-half of the girls are to -dress up as country maids; the other half as country swains. In order to -be sure of an even number of couples each student has to register her -choice as maid or swain. If not enough girls register as swains then -some of the maids will have to change their minds and do duty as -gallants. Miss Evans, a rather nice senior, has charge of the -registration. And it’s to be a masquerade!” Doris’s exclamation -contained pleased anticipation. - -“Wonderful.” Leslie chose to be derisive. Underneath envious interest -prompted her to ask; “Whose fond, fertile flight of foolishness was -that? Mickie Harper’s or Pudge and Beans?” - -“I don’t know whose inspiration it was. Probably the seniors had the -most to do with it.” Doris again steered the talk toward peaceful -channels. - -“Hm-m.” Leslie glanced at Doris, then at the luncheon which the waitress -was now placing before them on the table. She gazed abstractedly at the -appetizing repast. Her eyes traveled slowly back to Doris. Suddenly she -broke into one of her fits of silent, hob-goblin merriment. “I think -I’ll attend that hayseed carnival myself,” she announced in a tone of -defiant boldness. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - CLAIMING A PROMISE - - -“What do you mean?” Slightly mystified for an instant it then broke upon -Doris that Leslie was in earnest. She was actually entertaining a wild -idea of attending the coming romp behind the shelter of a mask. “You -couldn’t do that—er—it would be—unwise,” she stammered. Dismay flashed -into her green eyes. - -“Why couldn’t I?” The question vibrated with obstinacy. “Who except you -would know me?” - -“U-m-m; no one would know you while you were masked, I suppose. When it -came time to unmask—” - -“I’d not be in the gym at unmasking time,” Leslie interrupted -decisively. “I’d be out of that barn and away before the signal came to -unmask.” - -Doris eyed Leslie doubtfully. Her first shock of dismay at the -announcement had subsided. She was still swayed by caution as she said -slowly: “It would be awfully risky for you. At the Valentine masquerade -no one knew when the call to unmask was coming. That’s the way it will -be at the romp.” - -“At the Valentine masquerade when _I_ was at Hamilton the time for -unmasking was nine-thirty.” The corners of Leslie’s wide mouth took on -an ugly droop. - -“I know that is the way it used to be,” Doris hastily re-assured. “At -the last masquerade the freshies asked the junior committee to make the -unmasking time a surprise. It proved to be a lot of fun. It will be done -again this time. I’m almost sure it will.” - -“What if it should be? Don’t imagine that I can’t watch my step. I’d not -be caught.” - -“Suppose you were dancing when the call to unmask came? You’d have to -leave your partner instantly and run like a deer for the door. Suppose -you were caught on the way to the door and unmasked by a crowd of girls? -The freshies are terrors at that sort of thing. They are always out for -tom-boy fun. You’d not care to have such an embarrassing thing happen to -you.” Doris chose to present to Leslie a plain supposition of what might -happen to her as an uninvited masker at the romp. - -“Leave it to me to make a clever get-away,” was Leslie’s boast. “I’d be -safe for five or six dances. That would be as long as I’d care to stay -in the gym. It’s wearing a hayrick costume that strikes me as having -some pep to it. The adventure of breaking into the knowledge shop and -enjoying myself under the noses of Prigville, without any of the -inhabitants knowing who I am, appeals to me.” - -Unwittingly she had appealed to the side of Doris most in sympathy with -her bold plan. Doris had been born and bred to understanding and -approval of adventure. “I understand the way you feel about it, Leslie,” -she began. “If I were certain that—” - -“Oh, forget that I mentioned dressing up to you!” Leslie exclaimed with -savage impatience. “You’ve said more than once that you’d be pleased to -do anything you could for me, _at any time_. I thought you would help me -a little to play this joke on Prigville. Never mind. I’ll ask only one -thing of you. If you _should_ happen to recognize me on the night of the -haytime hobble, kindly don’t publish it among the prigs.” - -“Leslie.” Doris put dignified reproach into the response. “You know I -would never betray you. I’m perfectly willing to help you carry out your -plan, provided there’s no danger to either of us in it.” - -“Danger of what?” came the sarcastic question. “No danger to you. Let me -do a little supposing. Suppose we went together to the gym; you as a -maid, and I as your swain. Suppose I failed to make a get-away and was -unmasked by a bunch of smart Alecs. I’d probably not be near you when -the signal came to unmask. I’d not bother you after the grand march. -There’d be so many hey Rubes in the gym no one would remember our coming -in together. That lets you out, doesn’t it? You should falter. Have a -heart, Goldie!” Leslie had grown satirically persuasive. - -Doris sat studying the situation in silence. She had colored afresh at -Leslie’s pointed inference that she was more concerned for her own -security from possible mishap at the romp than for that of Leslie -herself. She hated the sarcastic reminder flung at her by Leslie that -she had promised a favor on demand and was now not willing to keep her -word. As Leslie had presented the situation to her there could be no -risk to her. Leslie was more than able to look out for her own -interests. To help Leslie now meant not only the keeping of her promise. -It was a singularly easy way of keeping it. - -“I’d rather you’d turn me down now than next year,” Leslie sneered as -Doris continued silent. - -“I’ll help you, Leslie.” Doris spoke stiffly, ignoring her disgruntled -companion’s sneer. - -“Come again.” Leslie cupped an ear with her hand, mockery in the -gesture, but triumph in her small dark eyes. - -“I said I would help you.” Doris repeated her first statement in an even -stiffer tone. She would not permit Leslie to break down her poise. - -“Good for you. You won’t be sorry. Help me to put over this stunt on -Prigville and I’ll give you the Dazzler for your own.” Leslie was -buoyantly generous in her delight at having gained her own way. - -“I don’t want any such reward. That’s just the trouble with you, Leslie. -You are always offering me so much more than I can ever return. I wish -you were going to the dance, to stay all evening and have a good time -with the others.” Doris sincerely meant the wish. - -“You know whose fault it is that I can’t.” Leslie shrugged -significantly. “Now I must plan my costume.” She straightened in her -chair with a faint sigh. “I’ll sport blue overalls, a brown and red -gingham shirt, large plaid, with no collar; a turkey-red cotton hankie, -a big floppy hayseed hat and a striped umbrella.” She chuckled as she -enumerated these items of costume. - -“I had thought seriously of going as a swain, but decided against it. -I’d rather look pretty. I have a certain reputation to keep up on the -campus. I’d prefer not to caricature myself.” - -“You make me smile, Goldie. How you worship that precious beauty -reputation of yours! You may be right about it. I presume you are.” - -Leslie’s rugged face grew momentarily downcast. She was thinking -morosely that if, like Doris, she had been half as careful in whom she -trusted and to what risks she lent herself when at Hamilton she might -have escaped disgrace. - -“I know I am.” Doris was emphatical. She noted the gloomy change in -Leslie’s features and understood partly what had occasioned it. Those -four words, “I presume you are,” made more impression on Doris than any -other reference to her college trouble or against Marjorie Dean, which -she had ever before heard Leslie make. It held a compelling, resigned -inference of unfair treatment at the hands of others. Those others were -of course Miss Dean and her friends. Doris allowed herself to jump to -that conclusion. She had fostered jealous disdain of Marjorie until it -had become antipathy. She knew Leslie’s faults, but she chose to -overlook them. She had sometimes regarded Leslie’s accusations against -“Bean” as overdrawn. Now she felt more in sympathy with Leslie’s -standing grudge against Marjorie Dean than at any time since she had -known Leslie. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - A RUSTIC DISASTER - - -The evening of April eleventh saw Hamilton campus in the possession of a -social throng, large, rural and hilarious. The spring twilight was -scarcely ready to drop faint lavender shades over departed day when from -the various student houses on the big green issued veritable country -bumpkins in festival attire. They appeared singly, in twos, threes, -quartettes and straggling groups. - -Fortunately for the rovingly-inclined bands of rural pleasure-seekers -the night was warm and balmy. In the mild fragrant spring air, the -giggling maids flaunted their bright calicos and ginghams, unhidden in -their cotton glory by shawl, coat or cape. - -The gallant swains who dotingly accompanied the flower-hatted or -sun-bonneted, aproned ladies were a sturdy, rugged-looking lot in their -blue or brown overalls, flannel or gingham shirts, brilliant cotton neck -handkerchiefs and wide-brimmed straw field hats or weather-stained -sombreros. A few ambitious rustic youths had appeared in their own fond -weird conception of party attire. They were amazing and wonderful to -behold. - -“These happy hecks at Hamilton certainly have small feet,” remarked a -stocky rustic in a faded pink gingham shirt, a blue and white checked -overall, broad, square-toed low shoes, a bright green neckerchief and a -narrow-rimmed, round straw hat with a hole in the crown through which a -lock of brown hair appeared, standing straight up. The accompanying mask -was a round false face with very red cheeks and high arching brows. - -“Well, they can’t help it. If they hide ’em with brogans how can they -dance with the lady hecks?” demanded a tall bumpkin in what he was now -proudly exhibiting on the campus as “my horse clothes.” - -“Te, he he,” giggled the stocky rustic. “Truly, Muriel Harding, I never -saw you look so funny before in all my life.” - -“Sh-h-h, Jeremiah. I don’t know how you knew me. Since you do, keep it -dark. Some horse clothes! Have one of my cards.” Muriel handed Jerry a -correspondence card in a violent shade of pink. In the center of it was -written: “Horsefield Hanks, Jockey and Post Master, Jayville.” - -Jerry continued to giggle at Horsefield Hanks’ gala adornment. It -consisted of a bright blue flannel shirt, a broad red leather belt, -baggy brown trousers tucked into a pair of boot-modeled goloshes, a -rusty black cutaway coat and a red and white striped jockey cap with a -wide front peak. The mask was a false face of particularly ferocious -expression. To look at Horsefield Hanks was not only to laugh. It was a -signal to keep on laughing. - -“Where is Marjorie?” Muriel inquired as she turned from bending a -killing glance upon two hurrying maids, evidently intent on joining -their swains. The two called a mirthful: “Hello, sweetness. Where did -your face grow?” and whisked on their way. - -“Gone over to the Hall to meet Robin. She has on a fine check yellow and -white gingham dress trimmed with little yellow ruffles, white stockings -and slippers and a white ruffled organdie hat with long yellow ribbon -strings.” - -“I’ll certainly know her if I see her. Vera is too cute for words. She -has two overalls on, one over the other, to make her look fat. They’re -blue and her blouse is white. She has a black alpaca coat on, too. She -managed to get hold of a funny little pair of copper-toed boots. She has -built them up inside until she is at least three inches taller. She -won’t be easily recognized.” Muriel rattled off the description in a low -laughing voice. “Ronny has on a pale blue calico. It comes down to her -heels. She has black slippers and stockings, a ruffled blue sunbonnet -and a white kerchief folded across her shoulders. Lucy’s dressed in the -same style except her dress is lavender. Leila is a maid, but I haven’t -been able to pick her out yet. Now how in the world did you know that I -was I?” Muriel demanded. - -“I knew the most ridiculous costume I saw would be yours,” chuckled -Jerry. “You’re so funny, you’re positively idiotic.” - -“Then I’m likely to win the prize for having the funniest costume. Won’t -that be nice? Come on, Hayfoot, that’s what you look like. Let’s go out -in the world and hunt up Strawfoot. I presume we’ll be mobbed before -we’ve gone far for not having our rustic maids along with us. Anyhow -let’s brave the jays and jayesses as long as we can.” Muriel politely -offered Jerry an arm. “I’m to meet Candace Oliver at seven-thirty at the -Bean holder. I’m a gentleman jockey of leisure until then. The post -office was closed early today. Jayville will have to wait for its mail.” - -The gallant pair had not proceeded fifty feet from their reconnoitering -place before they were surrounded by a crowd of swains and maids and -rushed over the green as prisoners to be apportioned to the first two -swainless maids the company chanced to encounter. - -Meanwhile a rustic gentleman in wearing apparel becoming to one of his -lowly station had just made a very stealthy entrance to the campus from -the extreme eastern gates. He had cautiously stepped from a smart black -roadster which was parked a little way from the gates, but well off the -highway. Before he had ventured to step from the car he had left the -steering seat and disappeared into the tonneau of the machine, then -simply a motorist in a voluminous leather motor coat, goggles and a -leather cap. - -From the back of the car had presently emerged a typical jay in blue -overalls, and a loud-plaided, collarless, gingham shirt of green, blue -and red mixture. He wore a turkey-red handkerchief, knotted about the -neck, an immense flopping hat of yellowish straw, white socks and carpet -slippers with worsted embroidered fronts. In one hand he clutched firmly -a huge red and yellow striped umbrella. The mask, which Leslie had -ordered sent to her from New York, was a very pink and white face, -utterly insipid, with three flat golden curls pasted on the low -forehead. Its expression, one of cheerful idiocy, was as distinctly as -mirth-inspiring as was the fierce face of Horsefield Hanks. In fact it -would have been hard to decide which of the two get-ups was the funnier. - -One swift glance about her to assure herself of a clear coast and Leslie -made a dash for the campus gates. She was through the gateway in a -twinkling. She did not stop until she had put a little distance between -herself and the gates. Then she paused, turned, critically surveyed the -highway, the portion of the campus immediate to her and lastly her car. -She was hardly content to leave it there, but there was no other way. It -was well out of the path of other machines, either coming or going on -the pike. She could but hope that no one would make off with it. She -reflected with a wry smile that there were still a few more cars to be -bought, though she might happen to lose that one. As usual she was -prepared to pay lavishly for her fun. - -She hurried straight on across the campus past Silverton Hall and in the -direction of Acasia House. It was the most remote from the gymnasium of -all the campus houses. She and Doris had agreed to meet there, making -the appointment late enough to miss Acasia House rustics when they -should set out for the gymnasium. Doris had telephoned her that -afternoon and made the final arrangement for their rendezvous. They were -to meet behind a huge clump of lilac bushes just budding into leaf. - -As she came abreast of the lilac bushes a dainty figure in white dimity, -imprinted with bunches of violets stepped forth to meet her. Doris’s -charming frock had a wide dimity sash and her dimity hat, trimmed with -bunches of silk violets, had long violet ribbon strings. She wore -flat-heeled black kid slippers and white silk stockings of which only a -glimpse showed beneath her long gown. - -One look at Leslie’s inane false face and she burst into laughter. “Such -a face!” she gasped mirthfully. “The funniest one I’ve seen since I left -the Hall tonight.” - -Leslie lifted the spreading hat and disclosed to Doris a yellow wig -which matched the curls pasted to her mask. “My face is my fortune,” she -announced humorously. - -“It’s too funny for words. I’m almost afraid we may be rushed.” Doris -cast an anxious glance at the not far distant crowd. - -“Am I so funny as all that?” Leslie asked in gratification. - -“You are quite extraordinarily funny,” Doris assured. “The crowd on the -campus has been going it strong ever since dinner. They’re awfully -frisky. Once they get into the gym they’ll be wanting to dance. Then we -won’t be in danger. There’s to be a prize given for the funniest -costume. Too bad you can’t stay in the gym long enough to win it.” - -“Oh, I don’t want it. I only want a little fun,” Leslie said. - -Warily the pair skirted the crowd and went on to the gymnasium. Leslie’s -funny face immediately challenged the attention of a number of frisky -couples parading the great room. They began flocking about herself and -Doris, asking foolish questions in a gleeful effort to learn her -identity. She remained mute for which Doris was thankful. Her vacant -smiling mask merely continued to beam upon her hilarious questioners. - -The Hamtown Gilt Medal Band and Orkestry were already in their corner, -importantly ensconced behind a white pasteboard picket fence. They alone -of the ruralites were unmasked. They were simple geniuses of music in -overalls, gay-checked shirts and high-crowned haying hats of rough -straw, speckled green and red. Strings of richly gilded pasteboard -medals struggled across each musician’s manly chest; they testified -eloquently of past musical achievement. A large gilt-lettered sign, high -on a standard flaunted the proud legend: “We have won all the medals in -Hamtown for the past forty years. The only other band was a hand organ. -Notice our decorations.” - -The leader and first violin of this renowned group of musicians was tall -and rather blonde, with an imposing blonde goatee and an artistic sweep -of curled blonde mustache. His companion players were hardly less well -supplied with whiskers, mustaches and even side burns. In direct -apposition to the rustic youths of the community of Hamtown they -presented a decidedly mature, dignified appearance. They seemed -complacently well aware of their musical superiority over their humbler -companions and gave themselves plenty of airs. - -At intervals about the spacious gym were little open booths where -popcorn fritters, salted peanuts, stick candy, apples and oranges, -molasses taffy and pink lemonade were sold. In each booth a masked -rustic maid presided, keeping a lynx eye on her wares. - -After the orchestra had tuned up with considerable scraping, sawing and -tooting they burst into the rallying strains of the grand march. Doris -heard the sound of the music with patent relief. She had grown more and -more uneasy for fear that Leslie might forget her role of silence and -blurt out a remark in her characteristic fashion. Anyone who had known -her in the past would be likely to recognize her voice. - -Doris had suggested that it would be better for they two to dance -together the few numbers before the unmasking for which Leslie dared -remain. To this Leslie would not hear. She craved freedom to roam about -the gymnasium by herself and dance with whom she fancied. She and Doris -walked through the grand march together and danced the first number. -Then Leslie left Doris, who was being singled out by two or three husky -farmer boys for attention, and strolled down the gymnasium, her striped -umbrella under one arm. - -Behind the fatuously-smiling blonde face her small dark eyes were -keeping a bright watch on the revelers. She wondered where Bean and her -Beanstalks were and tried to pick them out by height and figure. She -decided that a maid in a pale pink lawn frock was Marjorie and promptly -kept away from her. When the music for the second dance began she made -her bow to a slim sprite in fluffy white who accepted with a genuine -freshie giggle. - -Encouraged by her success as a beau Leslie danced the next and still the -next, each time with a different partner. She was a good dancer, and led -with a sureness and ease quite masculine. After a couple of turns about -the room Leslie had been obliged to discard her umbrella. She had boldly -set it up inside the orchestra’s picket fence where it would be less -likely to attract the attention of prankish wags. - -At the beginning of the fifth dance Leslie was not yet ready to go. She -glanced at the wall clock which stood at five minutes to nine. It was -still too early for unmasking. She believed herself safe for at least -two more dances after the one about to begin. She started toward a group -of two or three disengaged maids. - -Suddenly from the farther end of the gymnasium a cry arose which Leslie -mistook for “Unmask.” It threw her into a panic. She forgot in her -dismay that Doris had said the signal for unmasking would be the blast -of a whistle. What she remembered instead was her striped umbrella. She -was only a few steps from the orchestra corner. She made a frantic rush -to it, reached over the low picket fence and snatched up the umbrella. -She turned away, not noticing that she had laid low a section of the -fence. She hurried across the floor, bent only on reaching the door. - -“Oh!” A forceful exclamation went up as she crashed against a couple who -had begun to dance. The force of the collision fairly took the breath of -all three girls. Leslie made an unintentional backward step. The -umbrella slid from under her arm toward the floor just as the jostled -swain and his lady were about to move on. It tripped the rustic gallant -neatly and he sprawled forward full length on the highly waxed floor, -dragging his partner with him. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - A RANK OUTSIDER - - -“What a clumsy creature you are!” The fallen gallant scrambled up from -the floor and delivered the opinion in a feminine voice. It was shrill -and wrathful. It rose in its shrillness above the rhythmic melody of the -orchestra. “It’s both inconsiderate and dangerous in you to carry such a -large umbrella onto the floor. Your face and your behavior go nicely -together.” - -“Beg your pardon for upsetting you, but keep your opinion to yourself.” -Leslie began the reply with forced politeness, but ended her words -almost in a hiss. Behind her simpering mask she was a dark fury. “I -never allow anyone to speak in that tone to me.” - -“How do you propose to prevent my saying what I please?” came back -tauntingly from the belligerent swain. His partner, a slender, graceful -figure in a pale yellow gingham gown placed a gently arresting hand on -her angry gallant’s arm. It was shaken off with instant hateful -impatience. - -“I don’t propose to do that. Nothing short of a clamp could keep you -from shrieking.” Leslie had changed in a twinkling to rude insolence. -“I’ll have mercy on my ear drums and beat it.” - -“Wha-a-t?” The angry swain’s voice had suddenly changed key. It had -lowered in a mixture of amazed, disapproving conviction. - -The utterance of that one amazed word acted upon Leslie like a sudden -dash of cold water. She wheeled and swaggered on down the room with an -air of elaborate unconcern. It was entirely make-believe. Her heart was -thumping with dismay. She had spoken after having vowed within herself -that whatever might happen at the romp she would remain mute. More, she -was afraid she had been recognized by the student whom she had -unwittingly tripped up with her umbrella. Something in those higher -pitched tones had sounded familiar. She could not then remember, -however, of whom they reminded her. - -She had turned away from the quarrel just in time. Attracted by the -commotion at that part of the gymnasium more than one pair of dancers -had steered toward the accident center. Some of these now headed Leslie -off in her perturbed journey down the room. They collected about her -with mischievous intent, hemming her in and calling out to her. - -“Such a pretty boy!” “Hello, April smiles!” “Wait a minute, -puddeny-woodeny!” “I’m crazy about you!” were some of the pleasantries -hurled at her. Under other circumstances Leslie would have laughed at -the extravagances. Now she was growing worried for her own security from -identification. She was now in precisely the situation against which -Doris had warned her. Suppose the call to unmask were to come just then? -She resolved desperately that, unheeding it, she would bolt for the -door. - -Meanwhile the tripped-up rustic was sputtering to his dainty partner in -a manner which indicated trouble to come for Leslie. - -“I wouldn’t stand such insolence from another student, much less from an -intruder,” Julia Peyton was saying wrathfully. “I wouldn’t—” - -“Try to forget the matter, Miss Peyton,” urged a soft voice. - -“I shan’t. Who are you, and how do you happen to know me?” demanded -Julia rudely. “_You_ don’t know who that mask is. I _do_. She has no -invitation or right to be here tonight. It’s against all Hamilton -tradition. Doris Monroe is to blame for this outrage. She has helped -that horrid Miss Ca—” - -“I am Miss Dean, Miss Peyton,” came the interruption, low, but vibrating -with sternness. “You will please not mention the name you were going to -say.” - -“I’ll do as I please about that. I’ll do more. I’ll expose that Miss -Cairns before she has a chance to leave here. I know who’s to blow the -whistle for unmasking. She is a sophie friend of mine. I’ll ask her to -blow it now. Then we’ll see what Miss Cairns will do.” - -Before Marjorie could stop her she had started up the room on a hunt for -the sophomore who had been detailed to blow the unmasking whistle. A -dismayed glance after Julia, then Marjorie followed her. There was but -one thing she could do. She must follow Julia and discover to which -sophomore had been intrusted the signal detail. Each class had been -given a certain amount of the details for the romp. Among sophomore -details was the sounding of the unmasking signal. - -Unaware that she was being followed by Marjorie, Julia had gone on a -tour of the room, searching this way and that, with spiteful eagerness. -She now had a stronger motive for exposing Leslie than the latter’s -offense against tradition. She was determined to be even with Doris for -having “almost” snubbed her on numerous occasions. It would not reflect -to Doris’s credit to be named as the student who had smuggled into the -gym a girl who had been expelled from Hamilton. - -The sophomore who was to blow the whistle was Jane Everest. Dressed in a -befrilled frock of apricot dotted swiss, Jane formed a bright spot of -color among the pale blues and pinks which was easily picked out. Julia -had little trouble locating her. Marjorie, now not more than three yards -behind Julia, reached the pair almost as soon as Julia hailed Jane. The -two had met before that evening. Each knew the other’s costume. - -“Who do you think is here tonight?” Julia caught Jane’s arm. This time -she took the precaution of whispering to her. “Leslie Cairns,” she -answered before Jane could speak. “_Isn’t that outrageous._ I want _you_ -to blow the whistle this instant. She’s down there in the middle of a -crowd. She won’t be able to get free of it. She _must_ be exposed Jane. -It’s necessary to the interest of the whole college that she should be -sternly dealt with. Imagine her sneaking in here under the cover of a -mask.” - -“Why—That _is_ really dreadful, Julia,” Jane whispered back. “Are you -sure? Some of the freshies don’t want the whistle blown until ten -o’clock. The committee says it had better be after the next dance. I -ought to do as they wish, you know. Where is she?” - -“Down there.” Julia nodded sulkily toward a group of enjoying wags at -the far end of the gymnasium. Those who composed it were finding more -sport in teasing Leslie than in dancing. - -Marjorie was waiting until Julia should have finished whispering to the -apricot mask before soliciting the latter’s attention. She was uneasily -watching the fun going on around Leslie. She could not be sure that the -mask to whom Julia was whispering was the one to blow the unmasking -whistle. For all she knew Julia might have stopped to cite her grievance -to one of her particular friends. - -“Is she that ridiculous, silly-faced mask?” Jane cried. “_She’s_ awfully -droll.” - -“I fail to see it.” Julia was haughtily contradictory. “Will you please -blow the whistle now, Jane? You know she shouldn’t be here.” - -“Please pardon me, I must speak to you.” Marjorie had made up her mind -to act. If the apricot mask were the soph detailed to blow the whistle, -then she must be asked to delay blowing it until Leslie could be steered -from the gym without discovery. If she were not the one appointed -Marjorie decided that she would hurry down to Leslie and inform her of -the danger. - -“You have no—” Julia began angrily. - -“I am Miss Dean,” ignoring Julia, Marjorie serenely continued. “Will you -please tell me who you are?” - -“Yours truly, Jane Everest, Marjorie.” A little laugh rippled out from -behind the concealing mask. - -“Oh, Jane!” There was inexpressible relief in the exclamation. “I’m so -glad it’s you. Are you the soph who is to blow the unmasking whistle? If -you are, don’t blow it for at least ten minutes yet.” - -“I insist that Miss Everest shall blow it, and at once,” burst forth -Julia Peyton furiously. “She has just promised _me_ that she will.” - -“No, I haven’t promised to blow the whistle at once, Julia,” Jane -steadily corrected. - -“What right have _you_ to interfere in our fun? Post graduates are not -supposed to interest themselves too closely in class affairs.” Julia -tossed her head in withering disdain of Marjorie. “What right have _you_ -to prevent _me_ from exposing that detestable Miss Cairns. Do you -consider it honorable or fair to the traditions of Hamilton to permit a -former student who was expelled to come on the campus socially?” - -“How do you know, Miss Peyton, that Miss Cairns, a former student of -Hamilton, is present in the gymnasium, or has been here this evening?” -Marjorie inquired with a cool evenness that made Julia gasp. “Have you -seen her?” - -“I _know_, and so do you. Didn’t she trip us with her umbrella? Didn’t -we hear her voice. _I_ recognized it. _You_ may not have.” The answer -was freighted with sarcasm. - -“A masker carrying an umbrella tripped us. When she spoke her voice -sounded like that of Miss Cairns,” Marjorie stated impersonally. “I did -not see the masker’s face. Did you?” - -“What difference does _that_ make?” sharply countered Julia. “We both -recognized her by her voice.” - -“Since we did not see her face how can we be sure that we recognized -her. Lacking the evidence of our own eyes our best plan is to launch no -accusations against Miss Cairns. Jane,” Marjorie turned to the -sophomore, “when are you going to blow the unmasking whistle?” - -“After the next dance. This dance is ending now, I think.” Jane turned -momentary attention to the music, which was beating to a syncopated end. -“That is the time the floor committee has set. I can change it if you -like, Marjorie.” - -“No, thank you. That suits me nicely. I must go now, but I’ll see you -soon after unmasking, Jane.” With a slight, courteous inclination of the -head to Miss Peyton, Marjorie walked composedly down the great room to -where Leslie stood, still surrounded. - -Marjorie had not spoken to Leslie Cairns more than two or three times -during the long period of time in which they had been students together -at Hamilton. She had never spoken to Leslie since Leslie had been away -from the college. She now wondered what she could say to the uninvited -masker which might not be too humiliating to her. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - A FRIENDLY TURN - - -Circling the group around Leslie she approached the latter from the left -side. Simultaneous with her approach the opening strains of a fox trot -broke up the group. Not more than half a dozen persistent “rushers” -lingered. - -“Let’s move on,” she breathed to Leslie. She adopted a soft almost -babyish tone. As she spoke she took light hold of Leslie’s arm and began -to steer her gently free of the few masks who were mischievously trying -to detain the foolish-faced swain. - -“Surest thing you know, sweetums,” Leslie returned in a deep gruff -voice. “You’re the little kid who fell over my amberil. I didn’t go for -to trip you up, peaches. Want to dance?” - -“Not yet. Let’s go walking up the hall so folks can see your han’some -face.” Obeying an impish impulse Marjorie added, “It is simply -celostrous. It’s the only one you have, isn’t it?” - -“By cricky, it is. I ought to be proud of it.” Leslie was oddly pleased -to have the partner of “that screech owl” single her out for friendly -attention. “I knowed you wasn’t mad at me, kid,” she next volunteered. - -“No, I wasn’t.” The small soft voice held positiveness. - -“That’s fine. I _know_ you’ve got a kind face.” Both girls indulged in a -smothered giggle at this inane tribute. - -“Fade away,” Leslie waved a careless hand toward two or three lingering -tormentors. “Can’t you let me and my girl alone?” She brandished her -umbrella at them and swaggered out of their ken with Marjorie on an arm. - -They looked after her, laughing, but did not pursue the pair. Leslie -thought it extremely lucky that she should have been singled out for -attention by “friendly ruffles.” She had no idea where in the big room -to look for Doris. She dared not linger to search for her. Her one -thought now was to gain the safety of outdoors before unmasking time -came. - -Up the room the pair now strolled with an air of rustic gaiety. It was -simulated by both with difficulty. They kept fairly close to the west -wall of the gymnasium so as to be well out of the path of the dancers. -Neither appeared to be in a hurry. Both were battling against a strong -desire to break into a run. - -They were nearing the door before a knowledge of what to say to Leslie -came to little “friendly ruffles.” Marjorie came into a sudden -understanding that Leslie was as anxious as she to reach the door. With -unspoken intent both had steered directly for it. - -Lightly withdrawing her fingers from her escort’s arm Marjorie said in a -very low, distinct tone. “The unmasking will take place after this -dance. There will be a short intermission then. The girls will probably -go parading about the campus.” - -“Who are you? Do you know me?” Leslie had instantly caught the hidden -inference. Her partner knew her to be an outsider. - -“Does it matter who we are? I must go. Good night.” Followed the -gracious addition. “Your costume was much the funniest at the romp.” - -In the second of silence which succeeded the compliment the two maskers -faced each other, Leslie across the threshold now, Marjorie still inside -the vestibule. - -“Thank you, and double thank you,” Leslie said in an odd muffled voice. -“Good night.” She turned and started across the campus at a swinging -stride which might have belonged to a true country boy. - -“Thank goodness,” breathed Marjorie. She watched the lonely figure fast -disappearing into the darkness and a feeling of pity rose in her heart -because Leslie could not remain at the romp and enjoy the fun of winning -the prize her ludicrous get-up merited. - -It had taken longer than she thought to conduct Leslie to the door. -Marjorie decided it to be hardly worth while to renew her search for -Robin Page, whom thus far she had not been able to pick out among the -rustic throng. She had not more than re-entered the ball room when the -unmasking whistle blew shrilly. Its high, piercing blasts were -immediately drowned by waves of echoing laughter as masks were removed -and identities jubilantly made known. - -Marjorie made a swift rush forward to meet an Irish country woman who -was jogging peacefully along, a small, covered, green and white basket -on her arm. She was dressed in a voluminous bright-figured brown -cretonne dress. Over her shoulders was a green and red plaid shawl, on -her head a white mob cap with a full white outstanding ruffle and a huge -green satin bow decorating the front of it. Wide flat black slippers, -green and red plaid hosiery which her ankle length dress permitted a -glimpse of and a bright green umbrella completed her gay attire. - -“Now for the sake av ould Ireland, is it yerself I am finding forninst -me?” demanded the delighted Hibernian lady, offering Marjorie one end of -her umbrella to shake instead of her hand. - -“Yes, it is certainly myself and no other. But _where_ have you been? -Not out on the floor. I never saw sign of you in that costume until this -minute. You tricky old Celt. You appeared late on purpose, _that’s_ what -you did,” Marjorie accused. - -Leila smiled widely and cheerfully. “Now how can you blame me? Since I -am Irish then how could I appear in the gym in an Irish costume of my -own special fancy and not have the campus dwellers add two and two? So I -have had a fine, exciting time sitting up in my room twirling my Irish -thumbs until time for me to set out for the festival.” - -“What a mean thing to do; to put your friends to so much needless -trouble. How long have you been on the floor?” - -Leila looked thoughtful then beamed again: “Perhaps three minutes,” she -admitted. “I have not yet met a Traveler except you, Beauty. You are the -same beauty-bright colleen as ever. You would be that though dressed in -canvas bags.” - -“You are direct from County Blarney,” Marjorie made a gesture of -unbelief. “Jerry and I picked out Muriel first thing. She is so funny. I -knew Ronny and Lucy, too, and Lillian. I’m sorry Kathie couldn’t be in -this. That’s the penalty she pays for being of the faculty. Let’s go -Traveler hunting, Leila.” She took Leila’s arm and the two strolled on -together further to investigate the many groups of mirthful, chattering -rustics who crowded the spacious room. - -It was not long before Leila and Marjorie were the center of a group of -their own composed of Muriel, Vera, Lillian, Lucy, Barbara Severn, Ronny -and Jerry. Leila circulated among them, beaming affably. She announced -mysteriously that she had something nice to give each one. - -“It’s a gift basket which I stole from a leprechaun and in it is a magic -charm for each and all. Be pleased to hold one hand behind your back -when I give out the charms. Shut your fingers tight down on the charm so -it can not vanish away. When I give the word you may look at them. Now -be fair and do not peep at them until I give you the word.” - -With this glib injunction Leila slid a hand into the basket and drew it -out tightly closed about some small object. She ordered the company to -stand in a circle, each with a hand behind her back. - -“What is it?” cried Muriel as her hand received and tightly clutched the -small smooth round object. - -“Now you shall see how fond I am of you.” Leila had hurriedly given out -the rest of the charms. “You may all look.” - -A chorus of derisive groans mingled with laughter followed the gracious -permission. Each Traveler had been presented with a small potato. Its -new pale skin had been scrubbed to immaculate cleanness. - -“A charming charm, I must say,” giggled Muriel. “Let’s forcibly lead the -Celtic sorceress out on the campus and peg at her with these praties. If -she isn’t hit by any of them we shall know that they are either -bewitched or else we can’t throw straight.” - -In the midst of the fun her friends were having over Leila’s charms, -remembrance of Leslie Cairns and her constrained flight from the scene -of fun returned to Marjorie. She had sufficient cause to regard Leslie -as an enemy, yet she did not hold her as such. Now she was feeling -nothing but a kind regret that Leslie had barred herself out of Hamilton -and all its pleasures. She decided that she would not tell even Jerry of -the incident. Common sense whispered to her that Doris Monroe must have -aided Leslie in the escapade. They had probably met on the campus and -gone to the gymnasium together. Marjorie knit her brows in an effort to -recall a dancing partner of Leslie’s. She herself had noticed and -repeatedly laughed at the foolish-faced farmer before the collision with -Leslie. - -“What are you scowling about?” Jerry happened to note Marjorie’s -puckered brows. “Let me sweeten your disposition by treating you to -wintergreen lozenges and crimson lemonade.” - -“I accept your generous offer. I hope you have money enough to treat -lavishly,” Marjorie accepted Jerry with this pertinent hint, after -having been affectionately jabbed in the side with Jerry’s elbow. - -“I got cash,” Jerry boasted, thrusting her free hand into a pocket of -her overalls. “I still got some ’o my Fourthy July money. I didn’t spend -nothing that day hardly. It rained lickety whoop. Silas Pratt near got -swept off the speaker’s stand a deliverin’ his Fourthy July ration. I -heerd at the last the stand floated right off in the woods a carryin’ -the Hamtown choir, Revern’d Skiggs and three boys as was sittn’ on the -bottom steps of it.” - -Marjorie and Jerry headed gaily for the lemonade stand calling back -buoyant invitations to their friends to join them. As they drew near the -stand a girl turned away from it and glanced at them. She was -golden-haired and lovely in her white dimity frock scattered thickly -with violets. Neither Marjorie nor Jerry could do other than admire her -and her becoming costume. The trio did not exchange salutations. - -Doris Monroe had not spoken to Jerry more than once or twice since -coming to Hamilton. She had not even bowed to Marjorie since her own -refusal to go to Sanford with Muriel on a Christmas vacation. Now she -stared at Marjorie’s costume, rather than at Marjorie herself, in -dismayed fascination. She had made a discovery which was anything but -pleasing to her. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - A DISHEARTENING SITUATION - - -The discovery that Marjorie was the rustic maid in the pale yellow -gingham gown who had accompanied Leslie Cairns to the door of the -gymnasium was a distinct shock to Doris. Following the Rustic Romp she -received a second jolt when Julia Peyton waylaid her on the campus to -inform her triumphantly that she had something “very important to say -about Miss Cairns.” - -“Whatever it may be, say it now,” Doris commanded, keeping curiosity and -interest well out of her tone. During the progression of her sophomore -year she had grown to dislike Julia more and more. In the beginning she -had tolerated resignedly Julia’s jealous preference for her society. Now -she did not care whether either Julia or Clara Carter liked her or not. - -“I couldn’t _think_ of saying it now. I haven’t time. It’s something -confidential.” Julia crested her black head importantly. Her black, -moon-like eyes fixed themselves upon Doris in a mysterious stare. - -“Now, or not at all.” Doris stood firm. “I’d prefer not to invite you to -my room because of Miss Harding. I don’t like to go to yours. You and -Miss Carter nearly always quarrel. It’s such a bore to listen to you.” -She affected a weary expression. - -Julia cast a frowning glance about her. She glanced hastily up at the -clock tower and said doggedly: “I must go. I’ll meet you at the big -green seat near the west side of the campus at five this afternoon. I -have your welfare at heart, even though you don’t think so,” she flung -this reproachfully at Doris. “I simply _must_ speak to you about Miss -Cairns.” - -Doris knew nothing of Julia’s unfortunate fall over Leslie’s umbrella. -She had gone outdoors after a spirited dancing number, in company with -half a dozen merry masks, for a breath of the sweet spring air. The -spill had occurred while she was outside. When she had returned she had -been immediately claimed for the next dance. A little later while -dancing she had caught sight of Leslie surrounded by hilarious maskers. -She had hurried to extricate her from her difficulties as soon as the -dance was over. She had then spied Leslie moving towards the vestibule -door in company with the mask in yellow gingham. It filled her with an -immeasurable relief to know that Leslie had, as she supposed, escaped -discovery and was then on her way to leaving the frolic. - -To learn soon afterward that Marjorie Dean had been Leslie’s companion -to the door was not re-assuring. Her heart sank at the very thought -until her first agitation had passed. She had recollected that, masked, -Miss Dean might not have recognized Leslie. Leslie had promised not to -talk. She and Marjorie were as strangers to each other; had been for -some time. Doris could only marvel at the queer twist of fortune which -had brought Leslie and Marjorie together. According to Leslie’s accounts -the two were bitter enemies. Masked, they had paraded up the gymnasium -together on apparently congenial terms. - -This latest thought completely re-assured Doris. Of course they had not -recognized each other! Knowingly, neither would have gone a step with -the other. Leslie had undoubtedly managed to free herself from her -partner before reaching the door. Directly after the unmasking Doris had -skipped a dance purposely to make a careful search on the floor for -Leslie. Leslie had disappeared, completely and satisfactorily. - -Doris had not said to Julia Peyton whether or not she would meet her at -the big green campus bench near the west entrance. She changed her mind -about going half a dozen times before five o’clock came. She had -expected to hear from Leslie on the telephone through the day. No call -from Leslie came until a quarter to five that afternoon. The message was -a fairly polite invitation from Leslie to drive to Orchard Inn to -dinner. She agreed to meet Doris on Hamilton Pike in front of the -central campus gates. - -Since she had come downstairs to answer the telephone Doris decided to -walk over to the campus bench and learn what Julia had to say about -Leslie. She was to meet Leslie at half past five. She would not spend -more than ten or fifteen minutes in Julia’s company. Since the romp was -over, and nothing of mishap had occurred to Leslie on the frolicsome -occasion, Doris was not inclined to borrow trouble over whatever Julia -might have to say of Leslie. - -“I’m glad you came.” Julia rolled her black eyes at Doris in an -expression of spiteful satisfaction. “You must have _some_ idea of what -I have to say, after what happened last night.” - -“I didn’t intend to come. I happened to be downstairs, so I changed my -mind about meeting you. I do not know what you mean by saying ‘after -what happened last night.’ How can I possibly know what you are going to -say?” Doris asked the question with a suspicion of sarcasm in her tone. - -“Are you pretending you don’t know what happened?” Julia asked -offendedly. “Weren’t you on the floor most of the time before the -unmasking?” - -“Yes, but I saw nothing happen, either remarkable or dreadful. You told -me this morning you had something to say to me about Miss Cairns. -Whatever happened last night has nothing to do with her,” Doris said -coldly. - -“I don’t understand you at all, Doris,” Julia cried resentfully. “Didn’t -you know that Miss Cairns tripped Miss Dean and me last night while we -were dancing, and that we both fell?” - -Doris shook her head in blank amazement. “I did not know,” she said very -positively. “When did that happen? I went outdoors for a few minutes -about two numbers before unmasking time. Was it then, I wonder?” - -“Maybe it was. You admit then that Miss Cairns was in the gym,” was the -triumphant return. - -“I admit nothing.” Doris managed to keep up her cold composure. Anger -gleamed in her green eyes. - -“She was there, even if you won’t admit it. She behaved like a boor to -me. She crashed into us like a locomotive and poked a miserable umbrella -she carried squarely between our feet. How could we help but fall? I -simply said I thought it wasn’t best for her to carry such a large -umbrella on the dancing floor. You should have heard the insulting -things she said to me, and to Miss Dean. She was in a terrible rage. I -had all I could do to keep my temper.” Julia endeavored to look very -superior. - -Doris did not make the mistake of uttering a word. She purposed to hear -Julia out before speaking. The sophomore was more than satisfied to be -allowed to do all the talking. - -“I knew it was Miss Cairns by her voice. I was _so_ shocked. After she -had abused us both she swaggered off down the room. Then my partner told -me that she was Miss Dean. I was _so_ surprised. She said we had best -not tell anyone just then that Miss Cairns was on the floor—the best way -to do was not to mention names, but to order her out of the gym quietly. -She did that very thing herself. Just before the unmasking I saw Miss -Dean walking Miss Cairns up the gym and to the vestibule door. In two or -three minutes Miss Dean came back alone.” Julia gave out this -information with malicious relish. “But that’s not _all_ Miss Dean did. -She played a trick on the whole college which I think very ignoble.” She -paused to note the effect on Doris of this remarkable news. - -“Go on,” Doris commanded with bored amusement. “Your tale of the Rustic -Mask is growing interesting.” - -“You may find it more so.” A dull angry red overspread Julia’s -pasty-white complexion. “I haven’t come to your part in it yet.” - -“No?” Doris smilingly tilted her golden head and raised polite brows. - -“Miss Dean acted entirely against the traditions of Hamilton,” she -continued sullenly. “She went straight to Jane Everest, who was detailed -to blow the whistle for unmasking and asked her not to blow it until -she, Miss Dean, gave her the signal. She told Jane why, too. She had -asked _me_ not to say a word to a soul about Miss Cairns.” - -“How do you happen to know all this?” Doris asked in a quick sharp tone. - -“I was with Miss Dean. I—er—I didn’t—I couldn’t get away from her just -then. So I heard the whole thing.” Julia floundered briefly, but ended -in triumph. - -“What did Miss Everest say?” - -“She said she would wait to blow it. I was so disgusted with them both -for their disloyalty to tradition I simply turned and left them. You -know, Doris, that Miss Dean had no business to ask Jane Everest to -disobey the order of the senior dance committee. They had set the time -for unmasking. It was very dishonorable for her to try to shield an -expelled student who had taken advantage of the masquerade to trick her -way into the gym. Miss Cairns couldn’t possibly ever again have hoped to -take part in a college frolic after the way she left Hamilton. She was -considered utterly lawless by the Board, Prexy and the faculty. I’ve -heard _volumes_ against her since I came to Hamilton. - -“Miss Dean knows more against Miss Cairns, so I’ve been told, than any -other student at Hamilton. She and Miss Cairns were rivals for -popularity while Miss Cairns was on the campus. They used to play all -sorts of dishonorable tricks upon each other, I suspect,” Julia eyed -Doris darkly, “that Miss Dean didn’t have the—the—courage to expose Miss -Cairns. It would take a person of very high principle to expose Miss -Cairns openly on the floor of the gym, as she should have been exposed. -I hope, for _your_ sake, Miss Dean won’t tell her pals about it. If she -does, it will soon be campus gossip.” - -“Why for my sake?” Doris still refused to be included in Julia’s -implications. - -“It’s sweet in you to try to protect Miss Cairns, Doris, I honor you for -it.” Julia said, her reply reeking acidity. “But you can’t deceive me. I -know the farmer with the striped umbrella was Miss Cairns. I saw you go -through the grand march and dance the first dance with her. I knew you -by your walk and I came up close to you on purpose and took a good look -at you to make sure. I know your emerald ring and I saw some of your -hair fluffing out from under your hat.” - -“I went through the grand march and danced the first number with a -rustic swain,” Doris stated with deliberate coldness. “I did not see my -partner’s face. Did you?” - -“That’s not the point,” Julia evaded, stung to exasperation by her -classmate’s cool reception of her revelation. “What I came here -_specially_ to tell you is that you had better not be seen going around -with Miss Cairns. This story will travel, I feel sure. You’ll be -severely criticized and dropped by most of the students. Even your good -looks won’t save you. It was very inconsiderate and selfish of Miss -Cairns to put you in such a risky position. She is certainly not your -friend. The crowd last night was frisky. If the girls had had the least -idea of whom she was they would have ripped off her mask, hooted her -from the gym and maybe the campus. How would you have felt then?” - -“I only know the way I feel now. I don’t like you, Miss Peyton, and I -never have.” Doris chose to be drastically candid. “If a story such as -you have just told me should go the round of the campus, I should not -blame Miss Dean or Miss Everest for having started it. I should blame -you. I intend to be silent. Let me give you a piece of advice. You had -best be silent, too, about what you _believe_ you know against Miss -Cairns.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - THE TRUTH ABOUT “BEAN” - - -Doris had only time enough to hurry back to the Hall for her wraps -before starting out again to meet Leslie. She did not regret her blunt -words to Julia. The gossiping, jealous sophomore had deserved them. -Doris had grown tired of Julia’s impudent interference into her personal -affairs. This time Julia had gone too far. Doris had decided to drop -her, oblivious of what the sophomore might afterward say of her. She -believed sturdily that she could defend her own position at Hamilton. - -“You certainly deserted me,” was Leslie’s greeting as Doris stepped into -the roadster, parked at the central gates. “Last night, I mean,” she -added with her slow smile. - -“I never meant to,” Doris apologized. “You said you preferred to look -out for yourself. I saw you in the middle of that crowd of freshies and -was worried about you. By the time I could get free of my partner to go -to you I saw you on the way out of the gym.” - -“Thanks to little yellow gingham ruffles, Leslie Adoree broke away from -the merry rustic scene with colors flying and her false face still on. I -had a good time, though, while it lasted.” - -“Did that unwieldy umbrella really trip a couple who were dancing?” -Doris inquired abruptly. She was anxious to learn whether Julia had told -her the truth in the matter. - -“It really did.” Leslie’s face suddenly lost its half humorous -expression. “One of them was a screech owl posing as a rustic youth. Her -voice had a familiar sound. Still there are so many varieties of screech -owl on the campus,” she ended sarcastically. - -“The ‘screech owl’ was Miss Peyton. The other girl was—” - -“Miss Peyton. No wonder I felt like pitching in and fighting her while I -had my farm togs on.” Leslie’s tone indicated her disgust. “She was -outrageous, Goldie. I tried to stay dumb, but I couldn’t. I finally said -two or three pithy things to her. Little yellow gingham ruffles was all -right. She tried to keep us from fussing. Afterward she came down to -where I was and walked me away from a gang who had been trying to rag -me. She walked me up the gym to the vestibule door and joked with me all -the way. She had on a pale yellow gingham dress with little yellow -ruffles and a white hat with— - -“What did she say to you, Leslie?” was Doris’s anxious interruption. “I -mean when you reached the door.” - -“That was the queer part. She knew me. I’m almost sure of it. She didn’t -say a word about my going, but she knew I wanted to get out of the gym -before unmasking. She went to the door with me to keep off trouble. She -was a good sport; an upper class girl probably. Some one I may have met. -I know a few juniors and seniors who were freshies and sophs when I was -a senior.” Leslie gave an inaudible sigh. Last night’s frolic had -brought back vividly the memory of her failure as a student. - -“The girl in the yellow gingham ruffled dress was Miss Dean,” Doris said -in a peculiar tone. - -“What?” In her surprise Leslie allowed the roadster to run off the -course on the pike she was keeping by several inches. She instantly -brought the machine back to course. Apparently struck dumb, she leaned -forward, staring interestedly at the road ahead. Just then she could -think of nothing to say. Presently she found speech again. - -“Yes, it was Bean,” she said dully. “I know it now. Why didn’t you come -and walk me away from her when you saw us together?” Leslie demanded, -her accent displeased. - -“I didn’t know then that the mask you were with was Miss Dean. I didn’t -know it until I saw her after the unmasking.” - -“She did me a good turn.” Leslie stopped, her face reddening. It was the -first time she had ever said a good word for Marjorie to any one. “How -soon after I got away from the gym did the whistle blow?” she inquired -soberly. - -“Not more than two or three minutes. You got away just in time. I didn’t -know about Miss Peyton and Miss Dean and the umbrella business until -this afternoon. Miss Peyton told me. I must have been outside the gym -when it happened. I was out on the campus with a crowd for a few -minutes.” - -Doris had wisely decided not to tell Leslie of what Julia Peyton had -said. Julia was fond of telling her friends and classmates anything -disagreeable which she might have heard of them. Doris abhorred the -pernicious habit. Instead she began to quiz her companion about the -umbrella mishap. She had a curiosity to know Julia Peyton’s exact part -in it. She had not wholly credited the sophomore’s side of the story. - -Leslie answered, at first rather abstractedly. Her mind was still -centered on the “good turn” which “Bean” had done her. Presently she -dropped into a humorous account of the accident which made Doris laugh. -Julia had declared Leslie to be lawless and dishonorable. Doris wondered -if it were really true of her. Leslie had treated her fairly. She began -to believe she liked Leslie despite the latter’s occasional spells of -domineering insolence. She made up her mind then and there to learn if -she could the history of Leslie’s and Marjorie Dean’s enmity from its -beginning. - -Leslie’s account of the umbrella incident, humorous and truthful, -differed considerably from that of Julia Peyton. Doris wondered if Julia -had not also misrepresented matters to her about Muriel at Christmas -time. Then she remembered regretfully that Muriel had admitted having -said the very things which had offended her pride. In the present -instance she chose to believe Leslie rather than Julia. - -“Miss Harding won the prize for having the funniest costume,” Doris -ended a little silent interval between the two girls. “She had on that -ridiculous imitation of a riding costume. You remember we were laughing -at her? The prize was a large jar of stick candy. Your costume was -really funnier than hers. Your mask was so screamingly silly.” - -“Bean said I had the funniest costume,” Leslie commented shortly. Her -dark face grew darker as she sent the roadster speeding over the smooth -pike. So it had been the girl she most disliked who had conducted her -merrily and surely out of an embarrassing situation for which only -herself was to blame. Her mind began suggesting petty spiteful reasons -for Marjorie’s kindly act. She dismissed them in the instant of their -birth. None of them were honest. - -Only one conclusion remained to be drawn in the matter. Leslie faced it -unwillingly. To give it credence meant the crashing down of all the -carefully built-up cases against “Bean” which she had cherished for over -four years. In spite of the wilful and malicious attempts she had made -against Marjorie’s welfare and peace of mind, “Bean,” it now appeared, -had no grudge against her. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - THE JOURNAL - - -“That settles things for me, Jeremiah. For the first time since I -entered Hamilton I’m not going home for the Easter vacation. General -can’t come home for a month from that Canadian trip. So Captain’s coming -here for Easter. Oh, joy! Tra, la, la, la, too, roo, re, lay!” Marjorie -whisked up and down her’s and Jerry’s quarters at the Arms in frisky -delight. A letter from her captain had furnished impetus for the dance. - -“It’s a good thing for us that Irma has changed the date of her wedding -from Easter until the last week in June. That lets us completely out of -going home. Not that I don’t want to see the Macy family. I do; I do. -But I must stick to you, Bean, till all is over. Then the Macys will -have the pleasure of seeing Jeremiah for the rest of their lives. I feel -a jingle beginning to sprout. Aha!” Jerry turned an imaginary crank on -one side of her head and recited: - - “Oh, let us sing, like anything, - And warble, too, re, lay. - No Feejee queen compares with Bean; - With Bean I choose to stay.” - -“You are a loyal Jeremiah as I’ve told you in the past, seven thousand -times, more or less.” Marjorie stopped her frisky prance to pat Jerry on -the head. “Have you stopped to consider the feelings of the Macy family? -They may strongly object to an Easter without Jeremiah.” - -“They’ll have to bear it. It’ll be the first long vacation for Jeremiah -away from Macyville.” - -“And my first one away from Castle Dean. I promised Captain all the long -Hamilton vacations before ever I entered college. I’ve kept my word. I -would have this one, too,” Marjorie declared earnestly. “Now Captain’s -coming to the Arms, and everything is more celostrous than ever.” - -“So it is, Bean; so it is,” Jerry assured in what she liked to term her -“most middle-aged, gentlemanly” voice. - -“I should have felt like a shirker about going home at Easter. Leila, -Vera, Robin, Ronny and Lucy say they can’t spare the time away from the -campus. It would have broken up my work on the biography a little, and -I’d have hated to leave Miss Susanna. Still I would have gone. Captain -first, you know.” Marjorie lovingly patted her mother’s letter. - -“I’d have gone home with you and risked being called a shirker by the -gang. I’d have borne it. I’m as noble as you are, noble Bean. Here is a -copy of my latest jingle.” Jerry tendered Marjorie a sheet of paper. “I -caught it while you were busy praising me.” - -“Thoughtful bard,” Marjorie commended, flourishingly accepting the -paper. “May I inquire what you intend to do today?” - -“I’m going over to the campus right after breakfast. Leila and I are -going to make Norse helmets for Norse warriors of buckram and silver -paper. With the help of our fertile brains and a little invincible glue -we shall win. What are you going to do to while the day away?” Jerry -inquired innocently. - -“Oh, nothing special,” Marjorie waved an airy hand. “That’s the way it -seems sometimes,” she added, her face sobering, “when I write all day -and then find at evening that I haven’t done more than a page of good -work. I’ve divided the material for the biography into two parts. I wish -to call the first part ‘Inspiration.’ The second part will be -‘Realization.’” - -“It sounds good to me.” Jerry waited breathlessly to hear more. It was -the first time Marjorie had volunteered her any information on the -subject of her own writing. Jerry watched her as she might have a rare -song bird, which had poised itself near her and was ready to take flight -at the tiniest movement on her part. - -“‘Inspiration’ is to be the story of his youth, hopes and dreams. -‘Realization’ is to be the story of the man, Brooke Hamilton, and his -achievement.” - -“Does Miss Susanna know what you’ve just told me? You have such -clam-like tendencies, Bean.” Jerry smirked at her chum. - -“Yes, I told her about it several days ago. I only thought of it one day -last week. I like the idea.” Marjorie’s accompanying smile was utterly -without vanity. “If I could write as well as Kathie, or Leila, or you, -Jeremiah, I’d be happy. Really, I have to dig out almost every sentence -I write.” - -“Hooh!” derided Jerry. “I can’t write. You’re simply trying to be polite -to present company. So deceitful!” She raised a hand in shocked -reproach. - -“I never allow anyone to call me deceitful.” Marjorie charged upon -Jerry, who nimbly eluded her and ran for the door. She whisked out into -the hall and down the broad staircase with her vengeful pursuer close -behind her. - -The pair breezed around the corner of the newel post just in time to -crash into Jonas, who was coming through the hall with a large feather -duster which one of the maids had accidentally left on the hall rack. - -“Mercy on us!” Jonas raised a startled arm. He poked the duster full -into Jerry’s face, to Marjorie’s noisy delight. - -“Ker-choo! I’m not the hall rack, Jonas, and I don’t think I resemble -the newel post, either,” Jerry reproved. - -“No, you don’t quite look like either of ’em,” Jonas agreed, chuckling. -“Excuse me for dusting you,” taking a leaf from Jerry’s own book of -etiquette he slyly added, “and blame yourself.” - -“Fine, Jonas, you’re learning,” Jerry heartily encouraged. - -The frolicsome pair lingered in the hall for a little exchanging of -merry repartee with Jonas. He now looked forward to such lively -encounters as a part of his day’s program. - -At breakfast that morning Mrs. Dean’s letter formed the main topic of -conversation. Marjorie was bubbling over with happiness at the highly -agreeable way in which her affairs had worked out. - -“I’m the person fortune has singled out for attention,” Miss Susanna -crisply asserted. “All I need do is stay quietly at home and watch my -friends gravitate to the Arms. Last Easter you girls all went away from -Hamilton and left poor Susanna without a single playmate. This year -Susanna has them all, and with one more to come from another land.” - -“It’s wonderful to know that Captain will soon be here.” Marjorie’s -voice was full of tender expectation. “Her presence will furnish me with -oceans of fresh literary impetus. I shall need it for ‘Realization,’ the -second part of the biography. It will be a good deal longer than the -first part. I wish they might have been of equal length.” - -“The inspiration to build Hamilton College was his life. At least he -made it that,” Miss Susanna said rather absently. She appeared to be -immersed in thought far remote from her spoken words. - -“That’s precisely why the first part of the biography will be so much -shorter than the second,” Marjorie cried, her forehead puckering in -faint disapproval. “His very interesting years in China, the building of -Hamilton, all his work belongs in ‘Realization.’ He had begun to work, -then, you see, entirely toward realizing his splendid plans. I’d love to -have more data about his youth. There is a great deal of the China data -which would have been lost if you hadn’t written down the stories he -told you of his life in the Orient,” she nodded gratefully to Miss -Susanna. - -“There may be some earlier data that I can let you have for that first -part,” was Miss Hamilton’s vague promise. “I’ll see what I can find for -you.” - -Marjorie presently went to the study wondering not a little as to what -the data might be which Miss Hamilton had promised. She surmised from -the old lady’s preoccupied air during the remainder of the meal that -Miss Susanna was mentally trying to decide whether or not to give her -for the biography certain incidents in the life of Brooke Hamilton which -she had thus far withheld. - -“I wish you could really speak and tell me something about yourself,” -she said fancifully to Brooke Hamilton’s portrait. “What were your -favorite sports when you were a very young man? Riding, of course, and -probably swimming. Did you—let me think”—she stared reflectively at the -portrait—“did you ever win a hundred yard dash, or—a yacht race?” She -colored self-consciously at her own question. Her thoughts had veered -suddenly from Brooke Hamilton to Hal Macy. - -Thought of Hal next reminded her that she would not see Hal at Easter. -That would be best for them both. Still she visualized Hal’s -disappointment, not only at not seeing her—he would miss Jerry’s -comradely companionship. It would be of no use to tell Jerry she ought -to go to Sanford for Easter on Hal’s account. Jerry would hoot at the -idea. Marjorie decided that she would write Hal a particularly cordial -Easter letter to try to make up for her absence. - -She brought her mind summarily back to the subject of Brooke Hamilton. -What was it Miss Susanna had once said of him concerning love? And when -was it she had said it? An instant, and Marjorie recalled the occasion. -It was the only time the mistress of the Arms had ever mentioned Brooke -Hamilton as having loved. She had said on the occasion of Marjorie’s -introduction to the portrait of her kinsman in the study that Brooke -Hamilton had believed in the romance of deeds; not the romance of love. -She had also said that he had “found after all that love was love. That -the romance of men and women—” - -Miss Susanna had stopped at this juncture and had never again renewed -the subject. Marjorie grew inwardly vexed with herself for having -permitted her thoughts to run toward love. Because, unfortunately, Hal -had fallen in love with her, the thought of Hal must ever bring reminder -of the unwelcome fact. She was glad that Brooke Hamilton’s history was -one of deeds. In the mass of data she had handled there had been -personal mention made of only his mother, Faith Gretney Hamilton, and -Miss Susanna. - -“I’ve been mooning,” she informed the handsome, blue-eyed man in the -gilt frame. “Now I am going to work hard. I must leave you in July for -two whole months. I wish you would come down from the wall and finish -writing your own story before I come back. Wouldn’t that be a lovely -magic surprise for Marjorie?” - -A light tap on the study door sent her scurrying to open it. Miss -Susanna walked into the study an odd look on her small shrewd features. -In her hands she carried a rosewood box. It was perhaps eight by ten -inches and not more than three inches deep. It was a lock box with a -beautifully executed leaf border and a simple, artistically carved -monogram on the shining surface of the lid. - -“Marjorie, I have brought you Uncle Brooke’s journal,” Miss Susanna -began without preamble. “I hadn’t intended to let you or anyone else -ever see it, much less permit a line of it to be published. Since you -have been at the Arms I have wondered several times whether I was doing -right in keeping it from you. How can you acquire a true conception of -him unless you know him as his journal reveals him?” - -As she talked Miss Susanna busied herself with the turning of a tiny key -in the lock. She set the box on the study table, opened it. Inside it -lay an oblong notebook bound in black leather. It was not very thick. -Around it was a wide black rubber band. - -“Here it is.” The old lady lifted it from the box with a sadly reverent -air; handed it to Marjorie. She accepted it, saying nothing. “It is a -love story you are going to read in this old black book, Marvelous -Manager; the love story of your friend, Brooke Hamilton. He was a -marvelous manager, too, child. There was only one thing he did not know -how to manage. That was his heart.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - BROOKE HAMILTON’S ANGELA - - -Marjorie looked from Miss Susanna to the portrait and back again. The -mistress of the Arms was eyeing the portrait, too, with an expression of -dark melancholy. - -“There’s no use in my staying here to talk with you about this journal, -child. I’ve read it several times and almost cried my eyes out over it. -In fact, I don’t want to talk about it at all. I’m going. After you have -read it, I’ll have something else to say. Not until then.” - -“Thank you, Miss Susanna,” Marjorie had only time to call after the -sturdy little woman as the latter hurried from the room, furtively -wiping her eyes with her hem-stitched handkerchief. - -The young girl, who stood on the threshold of life and love, even as -Brooke Hamilton had once stood, was equally the stranger to love that he -had been. Marjorie regarded the black leather book with a glance of -timid fascination. Between the loose black covers, broken apart from -much handling, in that small space, was the record of a love which had -not been a happy one. Over a happy love idyl Miss Susanna would never -have “almost cried her eyes out.” - -She understood that her remark at the breakfast table concerning her -lack of material for ‘Inspiration’ had set the question of the giving of -the journal to her going again in Miss Susanna’s mind. Marjorie felt as -though she stood on the brink of the unknown. The love story of Brooke -Hamilton could not but be different from that of any of which she had -read or heard. - -She swept aside the pad of paper on which she had been writing and -carefully laid the journal on the table before her. Slowly she removed -the wide rubber band and opened the book to the first page. There in his -clear handwriting stood a foreword: - -“May 1,” it began. “This is my birthday, though not even the servants -know it. Well, I have purchased myself a gift; this black book. It shall -not be a black book in an evil sense. It shall only record my doings -which I shall hope to make ever of purpose and right. Should I live to -be a very old man this journal will preserve for me facts which memory -will have long grown weary of holding. I shall call this book a present -from my mother. I do not approve of making presents to myself.” - -Marjorie smiled at the final sentence of the foreword. It sounded so -like Miss Susanna. The little preamble was distinctly boyish, she -thought. It had the dignity, however, belonging to one brought up in -loneliness. - -She turned the page. The next item was brief and dated three years -later, but again May 1, it stated: - -“My birthday again. I found this book today in my desk. I had forgotten -its use until I opened it. I shall try once more to keep a record of -personal events. Three years between the two entries. How time passes.” - -To her surprise the next entry was dated July tenth, eight years later. -It was humorously rueful. - -“I appear to be most unsuccessful as a journalist. I have the will to -record my doings but not the execution. Tonight I am in an oddly -pleasant state of mind over the day’s events. The Vernons, of Vernon -Lodge, gave an archery meet this afternoon. They held the meet in honor -of a cousin, Miss Angela Vernon, who has come to make her home with -them. Miss Vernon is an orphan with a pleasing girlish face and soft -chestnut curls. Her voice is low and sweet and she has a merry fashion -of showing her small white teeth in laughing which is captivating. I -enjoyed her company, which I cannot state to be the truth of the -majority of young women whom I have met. I have no fault to find with -these except that they seem to be possessed of so little depth. What a -pretty name Angela is. I like it far better than Rachel, Maria, Abagail, -Betsy or other feminine names similarly plain and ugly.” - -The Vernons’ archery meet had staged the opening incidents in Brooke -Hamilton’s love affair. After the entry of July tenth, followed others, -in somewhat scattered dating of the same year. Hardly one of these but -that made mention of Angela Vernon. The young, attentive Brooke Hamilton -had been horseback riding with Angela. He had escorted her to a lawn -party. He had danced repeatedly with her at the Hamilton country-side -ball. He wrote at some length in his journal of the pleasure he derived -from her company. Yet into his writing never crept the word love. - -Marjorie read on and on, forgetful of all but the world the journal -conjured for her in which the author and Angela Vernon had once lived -and played their parts. Thus far she had experienced no desire toward -tears. Instead she was inclined to signal annoyance at Brooke Hamilton -for his attitude of complacency toward charming Angela Vernon. At first -she had been amused by his naive admissions to his journal, so utterly -devoid of sentimentality. She had not then specially sympathized with -Angela. From his written comments she could guess nothing of the young -girl’s mind toward him. An entry dated almost two years later than the -fateful archery meet brought an odd aching sadness to Marjorie’s heart. - -“May 10. Life has moved very agreeably for me in my ancestral home -during the years of my adolescence. Since my meeting with the Marquis de -Lafayette, however, all within me is changed. There was a time to dance, -to play, to be irresponsibly youthful. That time has past. I am facing -the great problem of how one day to carry out my dream of founding a -democratic college for young women in loving memory of my mother. In -order to do this I shall require great riches. These I have not, though -my father is not counted less than rich. I have a plan by which I may -attain wealth in time. It must needs carry me far from home. So be it. I -am a free spirit. I am bound by no pledge of love or duty. - -“I am well satisfied that Angela and I are not more than friends. -Sometimes I wonder if we are even such. She seems often cold, restrained -in my presence where formerly she was invariably light and cordially -gay. I confess I do not always understand young women. I shall soon be -without her comradely company. She is going to Philadelphia to visit the -Vernons there and dance at the Assembly Ball. She is very charming. She -says she will never marry. Such a statement is not to be taken -seriously. I have frequently assured her that she will no doubt wed a -man high in the affairs of the United States. She is fitted for -diplomatic society.” - -Followed other entries of a similar nature. Marjorie could not but -marvel at the blindness of young Brooke Hamilton to Angela Vernon’s love -for him. Unversed in the ways of young women the very comments he wrote -concerning her variable moods toward him Marjorie translated as the -attempts of a girl in love to hide her unrequited affection from its -indifferent object of worship. - -Then came an entry made on shipboard on the day when the founder of -Hamilton had embarked from New York on his first voyage to China. Her -eyes misted with sudden tears as she read: - -“Out at sea, the world before me! When I wonder shall I see the Arms -again? Not, I am resolved until the battle’s won, my fortune made, my -dream become a reality. I have brought with me my black book, a link -between me and my younger, lighter hours of life. ‘When I became a man, -I put away childish things.’ So it is with me now. I must strive and -accomplish in the world of deeds. Its only creed is action, and still -more action. I shall keep my book now as the path back to youth’s -pleasant orchard. - -“Angela gave me a utility case of dark blue silk which she herself made. -She also gave me a small daguerrotype of herself. I was greatly touched -by her remembrance of me. She rode down to the little station on her -pony to wish me ‘_bon voyage_.’ It was hardly more than dawn. Hers was -the last face I saw among the home friends. She had been crying. She -said so quite frankly. I had no idea she cared for me so fondly. She has -flouted me roundly at times. God knows when we shall meet again. It -appears strange that my friendliest comrade should have been a young -woman rather than a young man. Angela has been such to me. I said to her -in jest: ‘You will have perhaps married and forgotten me, Angela, by the -time I return to my country and the Arms.’ She said: ‘I shall never -forget you, and I shall never marry.’ So she thinks, but time creates -many changes. I am weary of the pitching of the ship. I have not yet -felt any indication of seasickness. I shall close you, black book, and -seek my rest. You must be my comrade hereafter.” - -The part of the journal immediately following Brooke Hamilton’s -embarkation to the Orient continued with brief notes on the voyage. From -that point on the entries dealt with the young fortune-seeker’s life in -China. These entries in themselves Marjorie found valuable as aids in -completing the somewhat sparse data she already had regarding the young -man’s Oriental enterprise. Among them she found odd bits of Chinese -wisdom which he quoted as the sayings of the several Chinese -philosophers who had become his intimate friends. These original twists -of mind, together with the numerous stories of her kinsman’s life in -China which Miss Susanna had dictated to her would beautifully round out -the earlier chapters of “Realization.” - -Marjorie was presently surprised to find that the China entries covered -a period of over ten years. Brooke Hamilton had evidently proved himself -as irregular a journalist abroad as at home. While the entries were -fuller than the earlier vaguer comments of youth, a year in time was -often covered by three or four entries. - -She read steadily through the record of commercial achievement which had -brought him not only immense wealth but honor and distinction among a -philosophical, far-seeing race rarely understood by Europeans or -Americans. The Chinese had liked him for his truth and honesty. Because -they had liked him they had helped him to his goal of attainment. - -There was very little of Angela in this part of the record. Now and -again her name would appear in, “I received a letter last week from -Angela. It has been many weeks on the way to me, judging from the date -of writing,” or, “Angela writes that she believes I may never go back to -America. How little a girl understands a man’s high aspirations. My -absence from home is merely a necessary part of my great plan. I shall -try to make Angela understand. Hers is a fine mind. She should not lend -it to such trivial conjectures. My return to America, God sparing my -life, is certain.” - -Marjorie’s sympathies were now firmly enlisted toward Angela. She -marveled that a man possessed of Brooke Hamilton’s fine spirit and high -ideals should have so blindly passed by an unswerving devotion like -Angela’s. He had not loved her, and had been honestly unaware that she -loved him. He had been too completely centered in the giant labor he had -set himself to perform to stop by the way for flower gathering. - -The last entry of the China group inspired Marjorie with somber -consternation. It had been penned only a few months before the -successful man of affairs had returned to America and Hamilton Arms. - -“I nearly lost Angela, my little comrade.” Followed a blank; as though -the writer had paused in horror of his own words. “She has been near -death of pneumonia. I am shocked beyond expression. I cannot image home -without her to welcome me. Since receiving the bad news in a letter from -her cousin, Adele Vernon, I have thought of Angela night and day. I -shall leave my business interests here in Woo Fah’s hands and sail on -the next mail steamer. It is three months since Adele’s letter was -written. God knows what may have happened to my little girl.” - -Marjorie cast a sorrowful upward glance at the portrait. She thought she -knew the tragic end of the blue-eyed man’s love idyl. Nothing but the -rustle of the notebook’s leaf as she turned it broke the hush pervading -the study. Her eyes met that which wrung from her a little cry of -gladness. - -“I have found love. I know its meaning now. I have come from the other -side of the world to learn the wonder of all wonders. It is not the -wonder of deeds. It is the wonder of a woman’s love, changeless in its -white glory. I walked in darkness, without knowing. Now I have come into -the light. She always loved me, from the first day. How could I have -been so blind? There was a woman, my mother, who loved me. There is a -woman, Angela, who loves me now. I know only these two. - -“We shall be married at Easter. That time seems far off. Angela tells me -it is only five months away. From November until April I shall endeavor -to lavish upon her the devotion she says she feared might never be hers. -I chose achievement instead of love. Yet love did not forsake me. I have -been magnificently favored by God.” - -The lovely, changeful face of the absorbed reader lightened a little -over the cheerful turn in the story. Her faint smile died with the stark -remembrance that Brooke Hamilton had not married. She continued reading -with a sigh: - -“Christmas Eve, eleven o’clock. I have just returned from Vernon Lodge. -Early this evening I heard my favorite carol, ‘God Rest You Merry -Gentlemen’ coming sweetly from the sitting room bow window. Angela, -Adele and Bobby Vernon were the carolers. Angela’s high, entrancing -soprano voice still lingers in my ears. I think I shall never wish to -hear a truer, sweeter voice singing the carol my mother so greatly -loved. - -“Of course I caught them, brought them into the house, kissed Angela’s -lips, under the mistletoe, kissed Adele’s hand and shook hands with -Bobby. I would have entertained them at the Arms but they marched me off -to Vernon Lodge. There we had one more divinely happy evening together. -Angela is always so full of life, so brimming over with charm. I tell -her sometimes she is too charming for her strength. She is rather frail -still from the ravages of pneumonia. When we are married we shall go -overseas on a long honeymoon voyage. This I believe will restore her to -her former strength of constitution.” - -Marjorie hastily turned the leaf. She was prepared for disaster, but it -came with a relentlessness which made her heart ache: - -“May first. My birthday. I am alone. It is two months since Angela died. -Is that a long, or a short space of time? I do not know. I know only she -is gone. She complained of being weary in the evening. Next morning they -found her asleep, her dear little crinkling smile on her lips. Pneumonia -had weakened her heart. Even she did not know to what extent. This -afternoon I gathered quantities of the double, fragrant purple violets -for which the Arms has been famed since my grandmother’s day. I took -them all to the Vernon vault, my offering to love. Angela was not there, -naturally. Her radiant spirit had long since transcended earth. - -“I, Brooke Hamilton, a strong man, remain here. If only I had earlier -understood love. I might have, had I not been so closely wrapped in my -own dreams of achievement. What even greater things I might have -accomplished with her by my side. Great love is the impetus to noble -achievement. I know it now. Dear Angela! I bruised her tender heart with -my selfish indifference to her love for me. God in mercy willed that I -should not break it. Out of long years, four months! Forgive me, sweet. -I shall never write in this book again.” - -Marjorie put her curly head down on the table and cried. She had lived -and suffered that balmy spring morning with Brooke Hamilton. She had a -sad impression that she had forever passed out of the comfortable state -of disinterest with which she had formerly looked upon love. Nothing -would ever be the same again. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - ON THE ROAD TO ORCHARD INN - - -Mechanically, Marjorie closed the journal of Brooke Hamilton and slipped -the rubber around it. She felt as though she never wished to open it -again. What a tragedy lay between those black, worn, leather covers. -Brooke Hamilton had suffered too greatly she thought for that which he -was not really to blame. - -He had not understood that Angela loved him. Still, he had upbraided -himself with the remorseful thought that he might have understood, if he -had tried. Angela had always loved him. She had known that she loved -him. He had not in the beginning loved her, or at least he had given no -thought to love. The last despairing entry in the journal held strong -accusation against himself for not having given love a place in his -life. Mind had dominated heart, when instead heart and mind should have -gone seeking love and achievement together. - -Then the thought which had been pounding at the walls of her brain for -admittance entered her consciousness. Suppose that, some day, too late, -she were to discover she really loved Hal? She had the same friendly -regard for Hal which Brooke Hamilton had entertained for Angela. Hal -loved her truly. Angela had truly loved Brooke Hamilton. - -The mere idea of such a far-fetched catastrophe filled the sober-faced, -lately tearful lieutenant with panic. She took the sad little history of -a man’s ambition and misunderstanding and hurriedly replaced it in the -rosewood box. She turned the key, then placed the box in the cabinet. -Having now read it, she could not bear to talk with Miss Susanna again -about it that day. She longed to go out in the bright spring weather and -walk until she had shaken off the deep-seated melancholy which had -invaded her young heart. The quotation from Thanatopsis: “Go forth, -under the open sky, and list to nature’s teachings,” recurred to her -with force. - -“It’s almost time for luncheon,” she murmured. “I can’t help it. I must -go outdoors for awhile. I shan’t write a line today. Maybe not tomorrow. -I’ll scribble a note to Miss Susanna and give it to Jonas to hand to -her. Jerry’ll survive my desertion for once.” - -Luncheon at the Arms was at one o’clock. It lacked only a few minutes of -one when Marjorie came downstairs to find Jonas and deliver her note -into his hands. She had stopped only long enough to bathe her slightly -pinkish eye-lids and draw on a pretty buff sports coat and hat. - -She had hardly progressed the length of the long stone walk leading to -the gate when her drooping spirits began to revive. She was not shallow, -in that she could lightly throw off the impression of the morning’s -reading. She was strong-willed enough not to allow it to gain a -distressing hold upon her. Most of all she wished to forget her dejected -suppositions which concerned Hal. - -Outside the gates of the Arms she paused to decide on which way to go. -Should she walk to the town of Hamilton, or toward the campus. A walk -into staid, drowsy Hamilton meant nothing more than a lonely prowling up -and down the main streets. To go toward the campus! There was no telling -who she might meet. Marjorie chose the campus, and variety. - -“Now by King John’s castle where may you be going?” Leila Harper called -out the salutation as she swept past Marjorie in her car. A moment and -it had stopped. Leila leaned far out of it, beckoning. “Have the feet to -hurry,” she ordered. “I have just been to town, but I’ll take you back -again in a trice, if you say.” - -“I don’t want to go to town.” Marjorie shook an emphatic head. “Take me -for a spin, Leila Greatheart. I’ve quit biographing for the day and I -wish to be amused; wish to be, and hope to be.” - -“I am that amusing! And you must have heard it. Now who told it to you?” -Leila cocked her head to one side and smilingly awaited an answer. - -“Leila Harper,” laughed Marjorie. “I hope she knew what she was talking -about.” - -“I hope so,” Leila echoed fervently. “Let us take a ride, Beauty, to -Orchard Inn. I should be busy with my Irish play this afternoon. I have -no thoughts for it. We are both less gifted than we might be.” - -“Orchard Inn to luncheon sounds comforting.” Marjorie was settling -herself beside Leila in the car. “It’s a glorious day for a drive. I’ve -not seen you for more than a few minutes at a time since the Rustic -Romp. I’ve only seen Robin once. She came over to the Arms the day after -the Romp to tell me we made nearly a thousand dollars from it.” - -“Did you not hear, Beauty? Someone dropped a hundred dollar note into -the cash box. Miss Dow had charge of the box. She had no idea who the -generous rustic might be.” - -“Oh-h!” Marjorie’s exclamation died in a soft breath. She had made a -quick flashing guess as to the donor. Leslie Cairns, of course. What an -odd proceeding on her part! Nevertheless Marjorie gave her the benefit -of having been animated by a generous motive. She had undoubtedly come -prepared to give such a sum. Marjorie was also of the opinion that Doris -Monroe had paved the way for Leslie’s lark. - -“It is not a campus performance to give such wealth,” smiled Leila. “I -mean outside the Travelers and a few such princes as Gentleman Gus and -her train of hearties. I thought Ronny might be the one. She accuses -Vera; and so it goes.” - -“Whoever gave it must have wished her identity to be a secret.” Marjorie -would have liked to tell Leila of Leslie’s lark. She had made up her -mind that night, however, to be silent. Three persons besides herself -knew it. No, only one, Doris Monroe. Jane Everest and Julia Peyton -lacked the evidence of their own eyes. Unless Julia Peyton should -gossip, Leslie’s uninvited presence in the gymnasium would not be known. - -“Since we have the gold, why should we seek the miner,” Leila said -genially. “‘The Knight of the Northern Sun’ is coming on grandly. Next -Tuesday evening we shall give a full rehearsal. I trust our spear proof -silver buckram helmets will fit our Norse warriors. Kathie is a true -playwright, but I am a Celtic fake. It is hard to glorify my hero, since -I am to be the hero myself. I am in a fine dilemma,” she complained -drolly. “Why did I ever imagine I could write an Irish play?” - -It was an hour’s run by automobile to Orchard Inn. It was the most -distant from the campus of the coterie of tea rooms dear to the hearts -of the Hamilton girls. The route lay for the most part over Hamilton -Pike. The last three miles of the journey had to be made over a dirt -road. It was fairly smooth and easily traveled except when roughened by -heavy rains. - -The two girls kept up a low steady stream of conversation as the car -sped on toward the Inn. Both were feeling the pleasantness of a brief -freedom from everything connected with even their beloved work. Neither -had expected to take a trip to the Inn when she had started out. As a -consequence, both were jubilant over the little excursion. - -“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you something very important, Leila. We -were so busy talking about the Travelers’ stunts it almost slipped my -mind. Captain’s coming to the Arms for Easter.” Marjorie’s voice rang -with joy. “That means I can stay here. Jerry is going to stay, too.” - -“May I ask whose marvelous managing that is?” Leila’s eyes grew starry. -She adored Mrs. Dean. - -“Captain’s. You see General will be away on a trip. Captain knows how -much I have to do here, so she is going to help me by coming to the -Arms. Miss Susanna is delighted. It’s a case of Captain Bean making -Lieutenant Bean and all the Beanstalks happy.” - -“We should start a Beanstalk colony here at Hamilton and remain here all -our days. Would it not be a credit to the township and a satisfaction to -my old age?” - -“I’d love to live in Hamilton Estates, Leila,” Marjorie confessed. “I -care for Sanford because of Jerry, Muriel, Lucy and a few other chums of -my high school days. If Jerry, Lucy, Muriel and a few more could be -transplanted to Hamilton, I’d move Castle Dean here, too. Sanford has -always meant a great deal to me. Hamilton means more.” - -“I understand. Midget and I have sometimes romanced of building -ourselves a hut in the land of college.” Leila looked dreamily away for -an instant at the peaceful spring landscape. There was a touch of home -hunger in her reply. She was silent for a little, her attention riveted -on picking as smooth a route as was possible on the dirt road for the -car. The machine had struck a rough, narrow stretch of ground not more -than wide enough for two cars to pass each other. - -“Hey, ho,” she said, coming back to practicality; “I am not anxious to -meet any cars on this cattle path.” The words had scarcely left her lips -when a low frame, black roadster, built for speed, appeared in sight -upon the brow of an incline ahead of them. “Do you see that, Beauty? I -had but to speak when a listening jinxie whisked a black hob-goblin into -my path,” Leila cried out in mild vexation. - -Marjorie watched the approaching car with more than casual interest. A -comprehensive glance at it had informed her as to the identity of the -driver. A young woman was at the wheel, the car’s sole occupant. -Marjorie did not miss seeing the peculiar expression which showed itself -in the other’s face as she glanced at Leila’s car and prepared to keep -strictly to the proper side of the narrow road. - -Instead of starting down the low hill the other motorist stopped her car -at the top of the little rise of ground and waited for Leila’s roadster -to come up. As Leila’s car came abreast of her automobile she leaned out -and cried: “Will you please stop your car? I’d like to speak to Miss -Dean.” - -“Has the world come to an end?” Leila muttered in Marjorie’s ear as she -complied with the other girl’s request. “The Hob-goblin is no myth, as -you can see for yourself, Beauty.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - I’M SORRY - - -With Leila’s muttered comments in her ears Marjorie had hard work to -keep a sober face and maintain an air of pleasant impersonality toward -Leslie Cairns. She could think of no reason why Leslie Cairns should -speak to her. She thought Leslie could hardly have guessed her identity -since the Romp. Certainly on that night Leslie had not recognized her. -The fact that she had amiably permitted Marjorie to conduct her to the -door and freedom was sufficient proof in itself. - -“Good afternoon, Miss Dean.” Leslie’s salutation was laconic. Marjorie -thought she was looking particularly well in a sports suit and hat of -bright brown English weave. Her irregular, dark features bore no trace -of ill humor. Instead her face was singularly impassive. - -“Good afternoon, Miss Cairns.” Marjorie’s clear brown eyes looked -straight into Leslie’s small black ones. She could think of nothing to -say. She therefore waited for Leslie to make the next advance in -conversation. - -“It’s about the other night, I’d like to speak to you,” Leslie declared -with somber steadiness. - -“Pardon me. I am willing to listen to whatever you may wish to say to -me, Miss Cairns, but—I am with Miss Harper,” Marjorie reminded with -candid courtesy. - -“Miss Harper is welcome to hear what I have to say to you. She probably -knows already that I—” - -“She knows nothing of—of—certain things from me. Pardon me for -interrupting you.” Marjorie smiled friendly warning. - -“I am sure she doesn’t,” Leslie agreed with an odd energy which brought -a faint flush of surprise to Marjorie’s cheeks. “She must have heard it -somewhere on the campus, though. I thought possibly that screech -owl—I’ll say Miss Peyton, one’s her natural name, the other only a -surname, had published me on the main bulletin board before this.” -Mention of Julia Peyton filled Leslie’s tones with contemptuous sarcasm. - -“Hardly.” The quick sturdiness of the retort brought a peculiar gleam to -Leslie’s eyes. - -“It was a mistake—losing my temper as I did.” Leslie’s next speech came -with shamed apology. “I don’t know that it matters specially—now. The -mischief’s done. I had no business in the gym that night.” She looked at -Marjorie as though asking for an opinion. - -Leila sat the picture of immobility. Her hands loosely clasped the -wheel. Her blue eyes stared straight ahead. She affected deep interest -in the immediate road ahead of the car. She had had no inkling of what -Leslie meant until the latter had made pertinent allusion to the -gymnasium. Light had then broken upon her acute Irish intelligence. -Comprehension threatened to break up her immobile expression. - -“That is of course true from—from a certain standpoint,” Marjorie -admitted. “If you wish my personal opinion,” she smiled; “I can’t see -but that your presence there was an added attraction to the crowd. I -have fought for democracy at Hamilton, Miss Cairns. I can only feel my -attitude to be democratic now. I believe that you went to the Romp -merely to have fun. There could be no harm in such a motive.” - -“There wasn’t!” Leslie cried in sharply anxious agreement. “I had grown -tired of myself and only wanted to have a good time. I wouldn’t do such -a stunt, again, though. I’m through with such performances. I’m through -with everything,” she added with a dull kind of desperation. - -“I think I understand how you felt about going to the Romp,” Marjorie -said gently. - -“Still you wouldn’t have done so. That’s the difference between your -disposition and mine. Never mind about that. I’ve just one thing to tell -you. I wish you’d believe me. I’m all through trying to make trouble for -you at Hamilton or any place else.” Leslie’s earnestness was -unmistakable. - -“It—truly, Miss Cairns, it doesn’t make—” Marjorie colored with growing -confusion. - -“Oh, but it does. I want you to know, Bean—” It was Leslie who now -turned very red. Before she could offer an abashed apology Marjorie’s -merry laugh rang out. - -“Please don’t.” She gaily warded off apology. “You can’t imagine how -truly fond I’ve become of being called ‘Bean.’ It’s funniest of two or -three pet names the girls have given me. Miss Macy has even composed -some funny verses which she calls ‘Jingles to Bean.’” - -“What?” A slow smile succeeded Leslie’s momentary air of uncertainty as -to whether she had heard aright. - -“You have a keen sense of humor, Miss Cairns,” Marjorie generously -continued. “Your costume the other night showed your appreciation of -funny things. You spoke of Miss Peyton. She was unfair with you at the -dance. I was glad you walked away from her, and sorry that you should -have been aggravated by her to the point of answering.” Marjorie tried -to lead the subject away from intimate personalities. She disliked to -make apologies. She disliked far more to receive them. She desired no -promise of future rectitude from Leslie. - -“Leila,” she addressed Leila’s clear-cut Irish profile, “have you heard -that Miss Cairns was masked at the Romp?” - -“I have not.” Leila slowly turned her face toward Leslie. “May I inquire -what your costume was? I was not in the gym until a very few minutes -before the unmasking,” she explained. - -“I was just a farmer, blue overalls, gingham shirt and all that sort of -thing,” Leslie described briefly. “I happened to get hold of a -particularly silly-looking mask. That was the funny part of the -costume.” - -“And now I will tell you the funny part of your adventure.” Leila -regarded the girl she had ranked as her pet aversion with a not unkindly -glance. “I have heard nothing about you in connection with this -funny-face farmer, but I have heard plenty of myself. It seems I had the -credit for being that one. I was not on the floor while you were. I -waited in my room so as to tease the girls. I had bet with a crowd of -freshies that none of them could pick me out in that rustic mob.” - -“Why, that,—” Marjorie began. - -“Is why there was a crowd at my heels all the time,” finished Leslie -rather excitedly. She and Marjorie both laughed. - -Even Leila’s austerity of feature relaxed into an amused smile. “I must -have come into the gym when you were preparing to leave it for I caught -not even a glimpse of such a costume as you had. Now a rumor is drifting -merrily about the campus that I was the funny mask, but that I changed -to an Irish peasant costume to puzzle the freshies.” - -“How utterly providential!” Marjorie’s opinion was cordially hearty. “I -am afraid I shall be too busy from now on to enlighten the campus -dwellers concerning their fond delusion.” - -“I have plenty to do myself,” was Leila’s vague inference. - -Leslie’s eyes traveled from one to the other of the pair of amused -faces. Were these the two Hamilton girls she had hated so unreasonably -when a student in college with them? She now dejectedly wondered why she -had hated them. - -“There’s something I must say to you,” she persisted to Marjorie. “I -used to hate you. That is, I thought I hated you. After I found out who -you were I knew I could never hate you any more. You took with you all -my weapons of offense. Why should I ever have hated you? The answer goes -back to myself. You ought to hate me. But I know you don’t. That makes -me double hate myself.” Leslie made an impatient movement of the head, -indicating her distaste for herself. - -“I never hated you, Miss Cairns. I’ve felt dreadfully exasperated with -you at times,” Marjorie honestly admitted. “I haven’t felt that way -toward you for a long time,” she added with her winsome smile. - -“That’s good news.” Leslie faintly answered the smile. Her hands began -to tighten on the wheel. “Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Miss Monroe had -nothing to do with my campus lark. I planned it myself. She knew of it, -but it wouldn’t be fair to censure her for what I would have done -anyway. Will you stand by her if—if any gossip should start about the -affair?” Leslie looked almost appealingly from one to the other of the -two Travelers. - -“You need have no fears in that respect,” Marjorie promised staunchly. - -“There will be little or nothing said,” was Leila’s dryly authoritative -prediction. - -“Thank you both. That’s all, I believe, except—I’m sorry. I’m saying it, -though about five years too late,” Leslie declared bitterly. - -Marjorie made no verbal reply. She bent upon Leslie a glance brimming -with toleration. Its frank kindness made Leslie feel like bursting into -tears. Pride alone kept her from it. - -After a moment Marjorie said: “We have something to thank you for, Miss -Cairns; the hundred dollar note you dropped into the money box the -evening of the Romp. We understand and appreciate the spirit that -prompted the gift. When I say we, I mean the Travelers.” - -Marjorie made the assumption boldly, hoping thus to take Leslie -unawares. She succeeded. Leslie colored hotly. Hastily she started the -motor. “Good-bye.” She smiled a queer, wry smile; nodded first to Leila, -then to Marjorie. Next instant her car had passed theirs and was -speeding away from them. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - - BEGINNING TO GROW UP - - -“Can that be Leslie Cairns?” marveled Leila. “You will now kindly tell -me a great many facts about her recent history which I have somehow -missed. You intended to tell me about them, did you not?” She regarded -Marjorie with laughing suspicion. - -“I had not intended to tell you or anyone else that she attended the -Romp,” Marjorie said emphatically. “I never even mentioned it to Jerry. -You see what a good secret keeper I am. Since you have heard a part of -the story from the heroine herself, I may as well tell you the rest.” - -“Leslie Cairns’s wits are as ready as Jerry’s when it come to giving out -names,” was Leila’s comment after Marjorie had informed her of the set -of circumstance at the Romp in which Leslie had so prominently figured. -“Jerry and Muriel named Miss Peyton the Prime Minister. That was -appropriate enough last fall when she tried so earnestly to dictate a -policy of her own to we poor timid P. G.’s. It seems she has practiced -screeching as well as dictating. And she looks like an owl!” Leila’s -intonation was full of false enthusiasm. - -“I made up my mind not to tell Miss Cairns about Miss Peyton and Jane -Everest. It wasn’t necessary. She is worried now for fear Miss Monroe -may be blamed. It seems odd, Leila, that Leslie Cairns should have shown -consideration for another. I say it candidly; not spitefully. She ought -to be protected if only for that change toward growth.” Marjorie was -very earnest in her conviction regarding Leslie. - -“It is a nine days’ wonder to me.” Leila was impressed in spite of her -earlier impulse to be skeptical. “If nothing is brought up against -Leslie Cairns now on the campus, nothing will be later. The time of -interest for a rumor is just before, at the time, or just after -something supposedly happens. The Romp is now almost a memory. Soon -along will come something new and amusing to crowd that memory out.” - -“There is still the other side of it, Leila.” Marjorie grew grave. “It -was against good taste in Leslie Cairns to step into the social side of -Hamilton College under cover of a mask. She had forfeited the right to -do so when she left Hamilton two years ago.” - -“Still it is the most harmless piece of mischief that she ever carried -out. And she dragged no one else into it,” Leila said thoughtfully. - -“Precisely the point, Leila. I’ve felt so about it ever since I went to -the door of the gym with her that night.” Marjorie spoke her mind -forcefully. “I couldn’t regard her lark as anything but a lark. Her -costume was so funny and she behaved in such a funny, original way. She -was more like a child than a young woman. It was as if she had slipped -through the gate of a high fence, and into a forbidden yard. She acted -as if she were having a fine time playing. Perhaps she went over a -rustic road to childhood that night, and when she came back found -herself changed?” Marjorie made fanciful suggestion. - -“It may be so. All the fairy tales are not hatched in the Emerald Isle.” -Leila cast a sly smile toward her fanciful chum. “More’s the pity that I -instead of she should be given credit for her costume. For that I shall -see to it that she gains in another direction. Ah-h-h!” Leila gave the -wheel an inspired jerk which sent the car bumping into a rut. “I have -just thought of a plan to keep the Screech Owl from screeching on the -campus.” - -“Have you? I’m glad to hear it.” There was a hint of grim enthusiasm in -the reply. “What will you do?” - -“I shall have to try it out on her first and tell you my method -afterward. It is only the ghost of a plan yet.” Leila made evasive -answer. - -Marjorie did not inquire further into Leila’s “ghost” of a plan. “All -right. Keep it to yourself. I only hope it will be effective. It’s hard -to believe, isn’t it, that we should be planning now to protect Leslie -Cairns? When one stops to remember that she—” - -“Never did anything but harass and torment us,” supplied Leila, “it is -that amazin’.” Her accent became strongly Hibernian. - -“That’s not quite what I meant to say, but it’s true. We can afford to -be generous to her, Leila.” - -“Ah, yes. It is more becoming to old age,” sighed Leila, then chuckled. -“As ancient, tottering P. G.’s we are so merciful!” - -“That’s one explanation. It will do as well as another,” laughed -Marjorie. - -“We have an old Irish saw that runs: ‘What is the gain in beating a -knave after the hangman has him?’” Leila lightly quoted the quaint -Celtic inquiry. - -“What is the use? That is exactly the question,” Marjorie smiled in -sympathy with the pertinent old query. “Leslie Cairns has made things -far harder for herself than for us.” - -The two girls fell silent after Marjorie’s remark. Both were thinking of -the past five years in which Leslie Cairns had figured so unpleasantly. -Neither cared to continue the conversation with Leslie as the chief -topic. The lure of Spring had chained them both to dreamy admiration of -her budding beauty. - -The automobile had swung into the last lap of the road to Orchard Inn -which wound in and out like a pale brown ribbon among orchard belts of -fragrant pink and white bloom. Orchard Inn itself to which they would -presently come, was a staunch brick relic of colony days, set down in -the midst of thick-trunked, gnarled apple trees. Just then they were -burgeoning in rose and snow, scented with Spring’s own perfume. - -Marjorie had always been a devoted worshipper at the shrine of Spring. -The glorious resurrection each year of earth, which had lain stark and -drear under winter’s death-like cloak, seemed to her the mystery of -mysteries. Today the very sight of brown fields turning to emerald, -apple, pear and cherry trees rioting in ravishing bloom, the twitter of -nesting birds, busy putting the last touches to their tiny homes, filled -her with retrospection. Sight of a peach tree, a luxuriant bouquet of -vivid pink gave her a sensation of unutterable sadness. - -She understood dimly that her mood of wistful sadness was born of more -than her ardent love of Spring. She was still gripped by the supreme -tragedy of Brooke Hamilton’s love story. She almost wished she had not -read it. She was sure that she could never bear to read it over again. -In the next breath she made sturdy resolve that she would. She would not -allow herself to be affected to such an extent even by a story as sad as -was Brooke Hamilton’s. - -Then, without invitation, Hal invaded her thoughts. She was no nearer -being in love with him than she had ever been, she reflected with an -almost naughty satisfaction. Nevertheless, the moment she began to think -about love, he appeared, a blue-eyed image of her mind, always regarding -her in the same sorrowful way, in which she had caught him viewing the -portrait of the “Violet Girl.” - -Marjorie had no suspicion that she had changed a great deal in mind -since the evening at Severn Beach when she and Hal had walked together -with their friends along the moonlit sands and Constance had sung -“Across the Years.” She had listened to the sadly beautiful song, which -had breathed of blighted hopes and love’s misunderstandings without -either sentimentality or sentiment of mind. Hal had characterized her -faithfully when he had told her that she had not yet grown up. - -Neither he nor she knew that the growing-up miracle had begun when she -had laid her childishly curly head on the study table and cried out her -heart over Brooke Hamilton’s tragic love affair. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - THE MEETING - - -While Marjorie and Leila rode on through fragrant spring bloom to -Orchard Inn, Leslie Cairns drove slowly toward the town of Hamilton. She -was filled with many emotions, but the chief one was that of surprise at -the way in which she had been received by “Bean” and Leila Harper. She -had always stood a trifle in awe of Leila and her cleverness when the -two had been classmates though she had affected to despise the gifted -Irish girl. Marjorie she had hated from the first meeting. Or thus she -had narrowly believed until she had come into the knowledge that “little -friend ruffles” and Marjorie were one and the same. She had also come -into a knowledge of Marjorie which she could not ever again overlook. - -A friendly act on Marjorie’s part, the prompting of a broad tolerant -spirit had been the magic which had worked a well-nigh unbelievable -change in Leslie. It is often the small, seemingly unimportant -happenings in life which frequently are instrumental in working the most -amazing transformations. - -While Marjorie was going through one process of growing up Leslie was -going through another widely different phase of the same process. Leslie -had begun to learn that: “He who breaks, pays.” Until her garage failure -she had been childishly stubborn in her belief that she could -successfully “get away with” whatever she undertook to accomplish. She -had suffered untold mortification of spirit over the ignominious end her -father had put to her business venture. She had read and re-read the -letter which her father had at that time written her until she knew -every scathing word of it by heart. This in itself had produced a -beneficial effect upon Leslie’s wayward character. In time to come she -would regard that particular letter as the turning point in her life. - -The downfall of her business hopes had furnished her with gloomy -retrospection for long days after she had returned to New York. With all -the fancied grudges she had against Marjorie she was obliged to admit to -herself that “Bean” had certainly not been responsible for her father’s -unexpected visit to Hamilton. Neither was she to know until years -afterward that a “Bean-inspired” advocate of justice in the person of -Signor Guiseppe Baretti had proven her business Waterloo. - -Sullenly obeying her father’s stern command to renew her intimacy with -Natalie Weyman, Leslie had reluctantly got into touch again with -Natalie. Natalie, however, was betrothed to a young English baronet. She -was consequently interested in nothing but herself, her fiancé and an -elaborate trousseau of which she was imperiously directing the -preparation. - -Leslie felt utterly “out of it” at Nat’s playhouse. She lounged in and -out of the Weyman’s imposing Long Island palace with the enthusiasm of a -wooden Indian. She listened in morose silence to Natalie’s fulsome -eulogies upon her fiancé, Lord Kenneth Hawtrey, the Hawtrey ancestral -tree, her own trousseau and the two-million dollar settlement her father -proposed to make over to her as a bridal gift. Leslie mentally tabulated -each of these fond topics upon her bored brain and learned to know by -the signs just when each of them would be complacently brought forward -by her former college chum. - -When she could stand the strain no longer she had announced to Mrs. -Gaylord that her father had gone to Europe and that she intended to buy -a new roadster and drive to Hamilton. “You can stay here or go along, -Gaylord. Suit yourself. My advice to you is to stick to me. Peter the -Great will approve of such devotion on your part. He knows I’d go, even -if you were to try to squash the expedition. Your part is ‘Never desert -Leslie,’” was the succinct counsel she gave her chaperon. - -While Leslie was engaged in driving slowly toward Hamilton wrapped in -her own half sad, half relieved mixture of thoughts, a tall man in a -leather motor coat and cap ran down the steps of the Hamilton House and -sprang into a rakish-looking racing car parked in front of the hotel. -His heavy dark brows were corrugated in a frown. His lips though firmly -set harbored a grim smile. - -He had driven through the sunny streets of sedate Hamilton that -afternoon as one who knew the place but had been long away from it. This -was his second call at the hotel. On both occasions he had seen and -talked with Mrs. Gaylord. His business, beyond a few, dry unreproving -sentences, was with Leslie Cairns. As Leslie confidently believed him to -be in Europe she was scheduled to receive a decided shock. - -Peter Cairns, for the man in the racer was he, was soon speeding over -Hamilton Pike, through Hamilton estates and on past the college wall -toward a squat stone building which had the appearance of an old-time -inn. In front of it he parked the racer again and strode up the long -stone walk toward the quaint low door with its swinging wrought iron -lamp. - -Within the restaurant Signor Guiseppe Baretti was in earnest -consultation with his manager. He glanced up at the newcomer, who, -instead of choosing a table and making for it, headed directly for him. -That the little, shrewd-eyed proprietor of the restaurant and the -broad-shouldered financier had a bond in common was plainly evident from -the way in which they shook hands at the close of the financier’s short -call. - -“What you think? What you think?” the Italian excitedly demanded, -catching his manager’s arm as the door closed behind his caller. “This -is the father the girl we write the letter about. When he comes here, -just now, a little while, he says to me: ‘How’r you? You don’t know me. -I am Peter Car-rins.’ I think this mebbe where I get the hard beat, -cause I have tol’ this man what trouble his daughter make Miss Page, -Miss Dean. But this is what say: ‘I am to thank you for your letter. I -have not the time today talk much with you. Before long I come here -again. Then I tell you som’thin’ su’prise you verra much.’ - -“I say then to him I think he come to give me the good beat for my -letter. He laugh. He say: ‘No, no.’ Put up his hand like that.” Baretti -illustrated. “‘I un’erstand you verra well. I have been much in Italy. I -know the Italiano.’ Then he speak me good Italiano. Now that is the -father Miss Car-rins. What you think? She is here in Hamilton again. -Mebbe her father don’ know it. I believ’ he don’. Mebbe she don’ know he -is here. When both find out, then oo-oo, much fuss I guess. Mebbe Miss -Car-rins get a good beat,” he predicted with a hard-hearted chuckle. - -If he had walked to the door after Peter Cairns instead of lingering to -acquaint his faithful little countryman with the identity of the -stranger, he would have seen something interesting. He would have seen a -trim-lined black roadster slow down to a sudden stop as the result of a -peremptory hail from a racing car which had drawn up alongside. In -short, Baretti would have seen Leslie Cairns and Peter Cairns meet -precisely in front of the east-end gates of the campus. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - A BUSINESS PROPOSAL - - -“Run your car off to one side where it won’t interfere with the -traffic.” The financier ordered Leslie about precisely as he might have -ordered one of his men. His tones reached her, coldly concise, entirely -devoid of affection. “There, that will do.” He skillfully manipulated -the racer to a point parallel with her car, but out of the way of -passing automobiles. - -“What do you want?” Leslie inquired with sulky coolness. - -“What are you doing here?” sternly countered her father. - -“Nothing. You took away my job.” - -“A good thing I did. I ordered you to stay in New York. Why are you not -there? Why didn’t you obey me? You’re courting business college, it -would seem.” - -“Things are not always what they seem,” Leslie came back laconically. - -The financier set his lips anew. It was either that or smile. Leslie was -regarding him with the curiously unafraid expression which had most -amused him in her as a child. - -“Why can’t you behave properly?” he demanded with vexed displeasure. - -“I don’t know. I have been trying to find that out for myself lately. -It’s a hard job, Peter.” She purposely called him Peter. It had been -another of her laughable childish mannerisms. - -It brought a smile, reluctant and fleeting to his face. An odd light -burned in his eyes for an instant. He turned his head to avoid her -penetrating gaze. He had never before heard Leslie make an allusion to -self-analysis. The knowledge that she had begun to try to fathom her -forward motives was encouraging. - -“What mischief have you done since you came up here?” he next asked. -“Why could not you have cultivated Natalie instead of racing over the -country up here in a car?” - -“Nat is going to be married to a monocle and an English title. She is -hopeless. I couldn’t stand her. I fled to the country, Peter. I knew you -wouldn’t wish to have me die of being bored. Don’t rag Gaylord for it. I -made her come here. She’s a good, ladylike sport, who knows how to stick -to me and yet mind her own affairs. You may think you picked her for me. -No, no; I saw her first. That gives me a prior claim to bossing her. I’m -glad I met you, if only to settle that little point in your mind.” -Leslie’s hands busied themselves with the wheel. “I think I’ll go on,” -she declared tranquilly. “Don’t worry, Peter, I won’t do anything more -to disgrace you. I’m going to lead a noble life from now on.” - -She was fighting desperately to maintain humorous indifference. It was -the side of her character which Peter Cairns most appreciated. She was -now fighting to regain the proud interest he had once taken in her ready -wit and irresistible humor. Her reprehensible behavior had amounted to -stupidity. Peter Cairns most hated stupidity in man or woman. - -Peter Cairns repressed an audible chuckle at this latest news from his -lawless daughter. “This is not the place to discuss ethics,” he said -dryly. “Run your car into town and meet me in the hotel lounge.” - -“Race you in; cross town, or any old way?” Leslie proposed on impulse. -She eyed her father doubtfully. - -For a long moment the two stared into each other’s faces, as though each -were endeavoring to determine the strength or weakness of the other. - -“I’ll go you.” Peter Cairns spoke with a finality which set Leslie’s -heart to pounding violently. - -“My car was built for speed and I know how to get the speed out of it -without arousing the natives. Look out, and don’t get pinched.” Leslie -brought her car up on an exact line with the racer. “One, two, three, go -to it,” she called animatedly. Then she was off over the pike on not -only a go-as-you please race to Hamilton. She was on the first lap of -what she hoped would be the quick road back to her father’s heart. - -Leslie won the race. Peter Cairns was not familiar with the short cut -she took. It bumped her car over a stretch of uneven paved street but -brought her triumphantly to the entrance of the Hamilton House at least -a minute ahead of her father’s car. - -“Why did you pick Hamilton of all places to come back to?” Peter Cairns -was presently demanding of her. The two had seated themselves opposite -each other in a deserted corner of the lounge. - -“Probably the scene of my many crimes held a fascination for me,” Leslie -advanced with a reflective air that completely upset the financier’s -hitherto carefully preserved gravity. He laughed outright. - -“What did this Miss Dean against whom I understand you had so much spite -ever do to you that was unfair or dishonorable?” His alert features had -quickly returned to their customary aloof cast. - -“Not a blamed thing, Peter,” she said in a tone of sober humiliation. -“You were right. I am several kinds of idiot, bound in one volume. The -war’s over. I surrendered this afternoon, just before I met you. -Whatever you know about Bean and me is probably true.” - -“Who is Bean?” demanded Peter Cairns. - -Leslie enlightened him. At the same time she quoted Marjorie’s own -recent remarks on the subject. “You can see from that why I quit,” she -said. “There was nothing else to do. Some day, when I’ve really put over -a good square business enterprise I’ll tell you the story of Bean, her -Beanstalks and Leslie Adoree.” - -“Your first business ought to be to repair the mischief you made,” was -the severely judicial response. “Unfortunately you can’t undo the -anxious, troubled hours which your malice has imposed upon others. You -have taught me a lesson. I needed it. My code of finance has been that -of a hawk. I have revised it on more humane lines. I’d rather not have -learned it from your mistakes. But it’s been learned now. I am not sorry -I cut you off from me. Perhaps it was not the way to do. I don’t know. I -loved you very tenderly as a child, Leslie. I was proud of you as a -youngster. I should like to be proud of you as a young woman. What are -the prospects?” - -“Good, Peter. The best since the days when I was your pal and we planned -to conquer the universe together. I’m trying to think of a way to make -amends.” She met her father’s measuring glance with an air of patience -quite foreign to her old wayward self. “I like it up here. I’ve a girl -friend on the campus. I really like her. I want you to meet her. Gaylord -approves of her. What more can you ask?” - -“I’ll take you at your word.” For the first time since meeting her -father he held out his hand. Leslie placed her right hand in his strong -fingers. Her left reached out very timidly and covered the hand she -held. It was the silent ratification of affection between Peter and -Peter Cairns’ daughter. - -“How did you know I was here?” she asked after a brief silence. - -“I told Wilkins, my secretary, to keep track of you. I made only a -flying trip to Europe. He told me you were here. I drove here soon after -leaving the steamer. I had business at Hamilton Estates.” - -“What are you going to do with my garage flivver?” A gleam of intense -curiosity lived in Leslie’s eyes. “You said in your letter that some day -I’d know why I had no business to buy the property for the site. Is -today the day?” - -“It may as well be.” Peter Cairns looked away, his mind evidently -engaged in choosing the words for his next utterance. “My name isn’t -Peter Cairns,” he said deliberately. “It’s Peter Carden. Alec Carden was -my father. I ran away from him and his harsh tyranny. I changed my name -to Cairns. The old Scotch name of our family was Cairrens. It became -Carden in James the First’s time.” - -“What?” Force of surprise brought out Leslie’s habitual monosyllable. -She wondered if she were awake or dreaming. Had her father, a lord of -finance, once been a hot-headed rebellious boy who had changed his name -and run away from Carden Hedge? - -“Yes, what?” her father repeated half ironically. “My father left Carden -Hedge to John, along with all he had. He disinherited me. When I went I -took with me a bundle of bonds from the safe. They were mine; left me by -my mother. I went to New York and made good. All this by the way of -explaining about the garage site. You paid John Saxe sixty thousand -dollars for a site that belonged to the Carden Estate. Not a foot of it -belonged to the Saxe Estate. I had it surveyed and proved the Carden -right to it. Saxe refunded the money. He was innocent in the matter.” - -Leslie’s downcast reception of this last crushing surprise touched her -father. “Buck up, Cairns II.,” he said in the hearty, affectionate tone -which Leslie had been dreading, yet longing, to hear. “I know I handed -you a hummer. Now there’s not much more to say, except that I bought -Carden Hedge over two years ago of John. I’ve let him live there off and -on, simply to have someone look after the property a little. I thought -once of living there myself. I changed my mind. It’s a pretty country up -here. I liked it when I was a boy, and do still. I must be on my way -tomorrow. How long would you like to stay in Hamilton?” He questioned -with the old deference he had formerly observed to her wishes. - -“I’d rather go back to New York with you.” Leslie fought to keep her -voice steady. “I can’t. I want to stay on here a little and try to find -a way to do something for the dormitory, or the college or the -students—anything I can do to make up for—” She paused, regained -composure, went on. “I’m to blame for keeping you out of happiness. I -cheated myself, too. How could you care to live at the Hedge after what -I did at Hamilton? I have learned the big lesson this time. I’d go back -to college and begin all over again in spite of what might be said, if I -could, Peter. I’d do it for you.” - -Peter Cairns saw a white-winged evanescent grace called happiness flit -before his eyes. It had whisked away the day he had learned of Leslie’s -expulsion from college. “Perhaps we’ll yet live at the Hedge, Leslie,” -he said. “We can do that much, if we can’t go back in other ways. Now -I’ll make a bargain with you. If you can find any good and original -reason for keeping your flivver I’ll give the whole business to you as -it stands. It must be original, though. That’s the chief requirement. -And it must be something that will benefit Hamilton College students, -faculty, dormitory—in fact the whole aggregation. Go to it. You perfect -the plan. I’ll finance it for you. Nothing but the best will be accepted -by me in the idea line. I’m going to try to prove that my girl has as -good a brain as there is going.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - A GREAT DAY FOR THE CAMPUS - - -Julia Peyton could have forgiven Doris Monroe for disagreeing with her. -To be told by Doris that she was an object of dislike to the lovely -sophomore was not to be borne. She held frequent indignant consultations -with her roommate, Clara Carter, on the double subject of the -ingratitude of Doris and the snippiness of Marjorie Dean. Julia had not -forgiven Marjorie for her “interference” at the Rustic Romp. - -Thus far she had not voiced the gossip on the campus that the -foolish-faced farmer at the hop had been Leslie Cairns. She was a little -afraid that such a bit of gossip on her part might bring down upon her -Marjorie’s displeasure. She knew in her heart that she was the only one -of the four girls who would be likely to spread the story. Later on, -when the Romp had been forgotten she would tell her friends about that -horrid Miss Cairns and how she had stealthily slipped into the social -side of Hamilton under cover. - -Finding the desire to gossip irresistible she and Clara Carter -entertained a soph with the tale one evening in their room. The soph, -Lena Marsden, a quiet studious girl, had a flourishing crush on Doris. -She promptly acquainted Doris with the ill news under promise of -secrecy. “If some one like Miss Mason or Miss Harper, or any of the P. -G.’s who have poise and influence would reprimand Miss Peyton, maybe -she’d not talk about it any more.” was Lena’s opinion. - -Leslie’s repeated unkind and untruthful estimate of Marjorie had tended -to destroy Doris’s confidence in her, at least. Julia herself had spoken -slightingly of Hamilton’s most popular post graduate. Doris decided that -of the seven post graduates she knew the two most likely to command the -difficult silence of Julia were Veronica Lynne and Leila Harper. Her -final choice fell upon Leila. She and Leila had grown quite friendly as -the rehearsals of “The Knight of the Northern Sun” progressed. As her -Norse lover, Godoran, Augusta Forbes and Doris had also progressed from -stiff civility to real friendliness. - -“Will you come to my room this afternoon about five, Miss Harper?” Doris -requested on the day before that of a complete rehearsal of the play. In -the act of leaving the dining room after luncheon Doris paused for an -instant behind Leila’s chair. - -“With pleasure. I may be a little late, but I won’t fail to come,” Leila -assured. Supposing Doris’s request had something to do with the -approaching rehearsal, Leila thought nothing further about it. It was -twenty minutes past five that afternoon when she knocked on the door of -Doris’s room. It was the first time she had been asked to enter it by -Doris. Muriel never entertained her chums there, “for fear of freezing -them,” she always said. - -“There’s something I must ask you, Miss Harper,” Doris opened the -conversation with an anxious little rush. She went on to lay the case of -Julia’s spite against Leslie before Leila. “I am sorry to have to -mention Miss Cairns’s name even to you. There seemed only this one way. -I know I can trust you. I know you can suggest something.” - -Leila listened with laughter in her blue eyes. She had already been -agitating her resourceful brain on the matter of Julia’s garrulity. The -plan she had dimly formed on the day when she and Marjorie had driven to -Orchard Inn had developed better even than she had expected. - -“I think I have a way of managing her,” she said with a flashing smile -of confidence. - -“She is not easy to manage,” warned Doris. “It will take something -unusual to make an impression on her. She is envious and jealous and -that blinds her to see much good in any one.” - -“I will see her when I leave you. I have seen Miss Cairns, Miss Monroe. -Miss Dean and I met her on the way from Orchard Inn several days ago. -She spoke to Miss Dean in my presence of the Romp. She is your friend, I -believe, and is anxious that you shall not be blamed for anything. That -is really all I wish to say in the matter.” Leila gave Doris a straight, -significant glance. - -Doris settled back limply in her chair, “I—I—am surprised,” she -stammered. “I wish you—no, I don’t, either. I’ll ask Leslie. She will -tell me what it’s all about. I like Leslie, Miss Harper.” - -“I like her myself better than I used to,” was Leila’s careful answer. - -“Have you—” - -Doris did not finish. The door was flung open and a breezy, delighted -shout of “Leila Greatheart!” ascended as Muriel Harding rushed upon -Leila and hugged her. “Welcome to our cubicle! Why didn’t you tell me -you were coming to see me?” - -“I cannot tell a lie. I didn’t come here to see you at all, at all. I -came to see Miss Monroe. Now I must be going. You may both come to see -Midget and me this evening.” - -“Oh, I can’t—that is—not this evening,” Doris protested weakly. She -dearly wished to accept the invitation. - -“She means she won’t come if I do,” Muriel cheerfully supplied. Muriel’s -tone did not accord with her feelings. She was actually hurt, but gamely -refused to show it. - -“I meant nothing of the sort,” Doris contradicted. Instantly she -reflected that she had meant precisely that. “I beg your pardon,” she -addressed Muriel stiffly. “I did mean that. I don’t now. I will come -this evening, Miss Harper.” - -“Good night! I shall expect you both.” Leila flashed out of the door, -hurriedly closing it after her. Left to themselves the two girls might -effect an understanding. She knew that Muriel was still vague as to why -Doris had suddenly turned against her. - -“Suppose we have it out this time, just to see how wrathful we can be,” -Muriel proposed, a shade of satire in the proposal. “That’s the only way -I know to break up a situation that’s been hard on both of us. I’ve -always thought the wires were crossed somewhere in Harding’s and -Monroe’s last fight, but I couldn’t prove it. Harding’s and Monroe’s -last fight! Doesn’t that sound thrilling? It makes one think of Indians, -cowboys, rattlesnakes, buffaloes, prairies and—geese,” she ended with a -laugh. - -“I hope it will be Harding’s and Monroe’s last fight,” Doris said with -sudden energy. “I know now that a certain other person was to blame for -most of it. I know that you were not trying to be kind to me or belittle -me. I’m not so sure about Miss Dean.” - -“She loves you, Doris Monroe.” Muriel sprang into affectionate defense -of Marjorie. “You never had a more faithful crush. She is the one who -started the name of the fairy-tale princess for you. She has adored your -beauty and wanted you to be in theatricals so that you could be seen and -admired. She was the judge who delivered the adjuration to Beauty at the -beauty contest. She is the best friend you have on the—” - -Muriel stopped at sound of an odd little murmur from Doris. The -fairy-tale princess had dropped into a chair with her golden head -pillowed on one arm. Muriel’s torrent of loving defense had fallen upon -Doris like verbal hailstones. In fending for Marjorie she had forgotten -her own side of the estrangement. - -While the two were deep in amiable and verbose adjustment of their -disagreement Leila was calling upon Julia Peyton. As she afterward -confided to Vera: “I was there, Midget, with my tongue in my cheek.” - -Her interview with moon-eyed Julia appeared to be eminently -satisfactory. She soon left the garrulous sophomore’s room, followed by -Julia to the door. Leila managed to walk down the hall to her own room -after the interview with an air of dignity becoming to a post graduate. -She was well aware that Julia stood in the doorway of her room watching -her. When she was safely within the walls of her own domicile she -astonished Vera by making a laughing dive for her couch bed. She flung -herself upon it and gave way to merriment. - -“You should have been with me, Midget,” she gasped. “I have had a lively -time with the Screech Owl and the Phonograph. I have written a part for -Miss Peyton in my new Irish play of ‘Desmond O’Dowd.’ It is that of -Derina, the village gossip. She has not read it yet. When she does, I -may have the part but no Screech Owl to play it. If you wish to tie your -enemy’s hands, offer him an honor. I have written the part of Derina -especially to show this soph what she is. By the time she has rehearsed -the part several dozen times she will wish to be any body but this one. -I shall give her my personal attention. You know what that means. She -may need a rehearsal every day. Hard on Leila. But think of the good to -humanity!” - -“Ingenious, you old star worshipper,” laughed Vera. “Do you know she is, -I believe, almost the only gossip on the campus. That’s fine for -Hamilton, isn’t it? Every day we are growing better and better. Speaking -of goodness reminds me of our own Marjorie. She and Jerry are coming -over this evening.” - -“And I am expecting company; Matchless Muriel and the Ice Queen. Are -they not a fine combination?” Leila cast a sly smile of triumph toward -Vera. “How do you like my news, Midget?” - -“I’m flabbergasted. Honestly, Leila, have those two patched up their -quarrel?” Vera exhibited delighted wonder. - -“Honestly, they have. Know, Midget, that I am always honest.” She drew -down a disapproving face. “How can you ask me such a question?” -Immediately her engaging smile broke forth. “I have certainly a cheering -budget of news for Beauty tonight. What with the thawing of the Ice -Queen and the taming of the Screech Owl this has been a grander day on -the campus than that of the Kerriberry Fair, in County Kerry, ould -Ireland.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - - THE HAPPIEST PERSON - - -Easter vacation brought Captain Dean to Hamilton Arms and tumultuous -happiness to Marjorie’s heart. Greatly as she had come to love the Arms -for its stately marvelous beauty and comfort, the loving devotion of -Miss Susanna and the fact that it had been the home of Brooke Hamilton, -she now loved it more strongly because it was graced by her adored -captain’s presence. - -Since the morning when she had read the journal of Brooke Hamilton she -had not written another word of his biography. “I can’t write,” she -plaintively complained to Miss Susanna. “Spring and Captain and Brooke -Hamilton’s journal have all got into my brain and won’t be shoved back. -I’ll have to get all over the strenuousness of them before I can go on -writing.” - -“I think I shall lock up the study for a while, anyway,” Miss Susanna -threatened. “The Army owes a duty to its superior officer. I shall order -Lieutenant Dean out on guide duty to Captain Dean. Ensign Hamilton and -Corporal Macy will go along for company.” - -“_Corporal Macy._” Jerry elevated her nose in deep disgust. “I’m a -lieutenant myself. Kindly remember it. An ensign doesn’t belong to the -Army. An ensign belongs properly to the Navy.” - -“I shall be the great exception,” persisted Miss Susanna, laughing. -“Ensign sounds well with ‘Hamilton.’ It is not seemly for youth to -scornfully contradict age.” - -“First show me age,” retorted Jerry. “There ain’t no such animal around -here.” - -“I’m going to take Captain for a walk around the estate this morning,” -Marjorie announced. “There are oceans of things I want to show her and -talk about. Almost every bush or tree at the Arms has an interesting -history, all its own. Ensign Hamilton and, ahem, Corporal Macy are -cordially invited to join the walk around.” - -“_Lieutenant_ Macy doesn’t regret that she has an engagement with Major -Jonas Kent to plant dahlias this morning. Major Kent is far more polite -than certain other officers of the detachment of far lesser rank,” Jerry -declined with significance. - -“I ought to be, and I am, the happiest person in the world, I believe.” -Marjorie later voiced this fervent opinion as she sat on a rustic bench -between her Captain and Miss Hamilton. - -The three had seated themselves in the sweet spring sunlight at indolent -ease after a long ramble about the magnificently kept grounds of the -Arms. Under their feet the young green grass wove a soft living carpet. -Over their heads spread the iron-strong branches of a mammoth tulip -tree. - -“Just because I am so happy, every once in a while I think of Mr. -Brooke, Miss Susanna. Then I grow sad for a little. How beautiful it -would have been for Angela and him to live here year after year in the -perfect happiness of love! I often wonder how he had the courage to go -through so many weary years after she left him. He chose such a patient, -brave-hearted way.” - -“Perhaps he accomplished more of good because of such a sorrow than he -might have wrought without it,” sighed Miss Hamilton. “From the time of -Angela’s death he centered himself more than ever on the founding of -Hamilton College. It might well be called a monument to the two women he -loved. The nobility of plan and execution were inspired by his mother. -But the beauty of nature which he cultivated and carried out with such -rare taste and sentiment on the campus is his tribute to Angela. Day -after day, early and late, he busied himself with enhancing the beauty -of that overgrown grass plot. Perhaps his spirit communed with hers as -he worked. This was before my time. You will find a packet of what he -named, ‘My garden letters,’ among the data. If you haven’t already been -over it, you have a joy in store for you.” - -Miss Susanna stared absently out over the sea of living green splashed -with the pale pinks, yellows and scarlets of early blooming shrubs. Mrs. -Dean had taken no part in the conversation, preferring to listen. -Marjorie’s wistful observation regarding Brooke Hamilton and Angela -Vernon had raised a feeling of surprise in her mind. It was the most -sentimental word she had ever heard Marjorie utter. - -Since her arrival at the Arms she had been permitted by Miss Hamilton to -read the journal over which she had heard the Lady of the Arms and her -lieutenant have several long discussions. Jerry had also been permitted -to read it. She had at first cried over it, then impatiently -characterized stately Brooke Hamilton as a “lovable old stupid” for not -“getting it across” first thing that Angela was in love with him. - -“I have a perfectly celostrous idea, children.” Marjorie thus gaily -designated the two beside her. “It came out of what you just said of Mr. -Brooke and the campus.” She lightly clasped Miss Susanna’s arm. “I’ll -put Mr. Brooke’s love idyl in ‘Realization,’ together with his nature -work on the campus. That will do away with having to write of how he -made Angela unhappy for so many years because he didn’t know he loved -her. I will state only that they met first when very young, and without -knowing their own hearts. I think I will keep the entry about her riding -down to the station with the picture to say good-bye to him.” Marjorie -turned to Miss Susanna, her eyes questioning. - -“You are to do as you please, Marvelous Manager.” Miss Susanna smiled -into the beautiful, colorful face so near her own. “If you wished to -publish the journal verbatim, I’d not gainsay you.” - -“I know you wouldn’t, Goldendede.” Marjorie returned the smile with -interest. “I don’t wish him to be misunderstood. He was not -intentionally selfish. He was simply wrapped in his own great dream. The -world, were it to read that journal, might call him hard-hearted. Even -he reproached himself after he found that he loved Angela. I will leave -out anything that I should not care to say of him myself. I pledged -friendship with him in the beginning, you remember.” - -“I am glad you feel as I do about his love affair.” Miss Susanna said -with a grateful little nod. “I have always thought mention of it, at -least, important in a biography of him. I was not sure what to do. I had -thought, at the time when I talked with President Burns of having it -prepared for publication, of submitting only a brief paragraph or two -about Angela Vernon. I leave the matter contentedly to you.” - -“That’s enough to bring back my lost inspiration,” was the blithe -declaration. “Come on, both of you.” Marjorie sprang to her feet. She -stretched an inviting hand to both her mother and Miss Susanna. “I shall -proceed to hustle you about the rest of the grounds before luncheon. I’m -going to the study to work this afternoon. Don’t dare lock it up.” She -laid energetic command upon Miss Hamilton. - -“What’s to become of my sight-seeing tour?” doughtily demanded Miss -Susanna. - -“Corporal Macy will conduct it. Order her to it, and promise her a -commission of major,” Marjorie merrily proposed. - -“Yes, genius is really beginning to burn again,” Miss Susanna teasingly -commented. “Jerry shall earn her commission.” As she spoke she had -allowed Marjorie to pull her to her feet. - -“Let’s walk down by the gate,” Marjorie proposed. “I wish Captain to see -that wonderful Chinese white lilac bush that once grew in the royal -Chinese gardens.” - -They were not more than halfway across the space of lawn intervening -between the rustic seat and the white, feathery plumed lilac bush when -the eyes of all three picked up the trim lines of a small black roadster -which had stopped at the entrance gates. There were two persons in the -roadster. One of them, a tall, broad-shouldered man in gray tweeds and -motor hat to match, was already out of the car. He had turned to give an -assisting hand to a young woman who vaguely resembled him. She smiled -happily at him as she stepped lightly to the ground. The two turned -their backs on the car and approached the gates. - -“It’s Leslie Cairns!” Marjorie said in a low, astounded tone. - -“It’s—Can it be?” Miss Susanna shaded her eyes from the sun with a -small, sturdy hand. “I believe it is—Peter Carden!” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - - UNDER THE TULIP TREE - - -“Well, Peter, the years have dealt lightly with you,” was Miss Susanna’s -greeting as she held out a hand to Alec Carden’s runaway son. - -She had heard from Marjorie of the recent agreeable change in Leslie -Cairns. Marjorie had felt it only fair to Leslie to acquaint Miss -Susanna with that change. The old lady now divined that Peter Carden had -come to the Arms on a friendly errand. Her quick brain had instantly -arrived at the truth as she glanced from Leslie to Peter Carden. Leslie -was his daughter. Followed immediately the recollection of the -financier’s altered name. - -“So you changed your name to Cairns, and this is your daughter,” she -continued with abruptness. In her astonishment she momentarily forgot to -make introductions. - -“Yes.” Peter Cairns showed admiration of the intrepid little woman who -had successfully fought off his bullying father and a college board -largely composed of rascals. His keen eyes registered an expression of -deference which he seldom accorded either men or women. “This is my -daughter, Leslie, Miss Susanna.” He drew Leslie gently forward. “She -came to meet you and to see Miss Dean. I came to see you.” - -“I’m glad you have. I might not have said that years ago, but I can say -it now.” Miss Susanna introduced Peter Cairns and Leslie to Mrs. Dean, -and the financier to Marjorie. The latter and Leslie had already -exchanged friendly salutations. - -Marjorie thought she had never before seen Leslie look so well. Beauty, -even prettiness of the regulation type she would never have. There was a -new expression of light and animation on her face, however, which made -her what her father had often called her as a child: “his ugly beauty.” -The loose, unprepossessing droop to her mouth which Marjorie had -formerly most disliked in her features was gone. A half humorous little -quirk had taken the place of the ugly droop. It brightened her face -wonderfully. Always of extremely symmetrical figure she was at her best -today in a pale blue broadcloth dress. The softening grace of a wide -summer fur draped her shoulders. Every detail of her apparently simple -toilet had been carefully chosen. Leslie was a model of smart attiring. - -“I don’t feel much older than when I was Peter Harum-scarum, as John -used to call me,” smiled the financier. “I have had many a good and many -a bad time at the Hedge. It has been mine for two years. I bought it -from John. I am glad old Alec died. A hard thing to say of one’s own -father, perhaps. He had a hard hand, and a hard nature. I was glad to -hear that you fought things to a finish with him.” - -“You may say what you please to me about Alec Carden, Peter. I know it -will be the truth. I dislike to hear a man who was detested by his -children while he lived hypocritically mourned by them after Providence -has mercifully removed him from their midst,” Miss Hamilton declared -with candid relish. “Come up to the house and have luncheon with us. I -hear you are a king of finance. Your history after you ran away from -home must be interesting. You weren’t more than twenty-four when you -went, were you?” - -“Twenty-five.” Peter Cairns laughed, a short bitter sound. “Thank you -for the invitation, Miss Hamilton. Some other day we’ll accept with -pleasure. We have a business engagement today with a man named Peter -Graham.” He and Leslie looked at each other and laughed. - -Her glance toward him was a vivid brightening of feature which Marjorie -thought beautiful. “Won’t you come over and sit down under the big tulip -tree?” she invited winningly. “We have been sitting there in the -sunshine loving the spring outdoors.” - -“Yes, do. Peter, go and bring that seat over here under the tulip tree -with the other,” directed Miss Susanna pointing out a nearby rustic -seat. - -“Yes’m.” The usually silent, taciturn man, who kept his large office -force in a state of continual awe, ran like a boy to bring up the rustic -bench and place it under the tulip tree opposite the other. - -“Now, Peter, what in the world prompted you to come to see me?” the old -lady inquired briskly, as she re-seated herself on the bench. Mrs. Dean -courteously excused herself and walked on to the house. She decided that -the four she had left would get along better without her. Miss Susanna -and Leslie sat on one seat. Marjorie and Peter Cairns on the other. - -“Oh, a number of things,” Peter Cairns replied with an odd little duck -of the head which Miss Susanna recalled him as a boy. - -“You two,” she indicated father and daughter, “are full of pleasant -mystery. Your faces give you away.” - -“It is pleasant mystery; very pleasant,” he replied with friendly -conviction. “This is what it’s all about.” In his short-cut fashion he -quickly outlined what he had already informed Leslie regarding the -ownership of the site she had chosen on which to build the garage. - -“I took the property away from Leslie because I was not pleased with -her,” he continued frankly. “Saxe refunded the money. He was entirely -innocent in the matter. I took the sixty thousand dollars refund and -invested it for Leslie. It was her money. She had paid far too much for -the site. As the site belonged to the Carden estate and the Carden -estate belonged to me I took over the whole garage enterprise. Leslie -had to bear the loss of the money she had used for construction and -other foolish purposes. I wanted to show her what a flivver she’d made. - -“We agreed to tell this tale together. I’ve told my part of it. Now -Leslie will tell hers. Your turn, Cairns II,” he raised his heavy brows -meaningly at Leslie. - -“My father told me if I could think up a good reason for having my -garage site back again, he would give it to me. The requirements were -that whatever I wanted it for must benefit Hamilton College and all -connected with it. He said it must be an original reason.” Leslie came -to the point with the same celerity as was Peter Cairns’s habit. - -“I tried at first to think of something that would work out with your -plans, Miss Dean,” she now addressed Marjorie. “I knew you had long -since provided against emergency. Every time I thought of the word -originality I thought of Leila Harper. I used to think when I was at -Hamilton that she _was_ originality.” Leslie smiled briefly. “Miss -Monroe raves over her. She says she is a dramatist, stage manager, actor -and so forth. This is my idea. I’d like to build a theatre on the garage -site. I’d call it the Leila Harper Playhouse. I’d present it to Hamilton -College with the proviso that Miss Harper should always control the -theatre and the policy of the plays. I would like to will her to -Hamilton College as a rare dramatist, actor and manager.” Leslie paused. -Once fairly started on her proposal she had grown more and more -animated. - -“You take my breath!” Marjorie gave a little rapturous gasp. “I should -say your plan was original. I think it’s the very heart of gracious -generosity. I love Leila, Miss Cairns, and wish more than I can say to -have her appreciated and honored at Hamilton.” - -“She ought to be appreciated. She is going to be. You see a theatre will -be of benefit to all the campus folks. It will be a source of amusement -and pleasure to all. The money resulting from the plays should go to -help the dormitory along. It will train girls who have histrionic -ability for the stage. It will encourage students to play-writing. There -will be prizes offered, so many each year for the best in plays, perhaps -for exceptionally fine acting. My father will endow it. I shall put a -part of my money into the endowment provided my idea is accepted by the -Travelers. My name is not to be mentioned in it. My father doesn’t wish -his to be, either.” - -“None of the Travelers could or would refuse such an offer, Miss Cairns. -Remember it is first of all for Leila. She has worked so hard to give -the campus good plays. Not to mention all the splendid things she’s done -for Hamilton as a Traveler.” Marjorie sang Leila’s praises with a high -heart. “Yet none of us would wish yours or your father’s name to be -withheld. It would be our grateful pleasure to tell others of your -splendid gift.” - -“You make it seem the thing for us to do—I don’t know. Let me come again -and talk with you about it. My father and I are partners now,” she threw -him a fond comradely glance. He and Miss Susanna had listened and let -youth talk out its own matters of interest. - -It was an hour later when Peter Cairns and Leslie left the Arms, happy -in the long step that had been taken that day toward the partnership of -which they had talked and dreamed in bygone years in New York. - -“Miss Susanna has changed more than any other person I ever knew,” were -the financier’s first words to Leslie as they drove away from Hamilton -Arms. “She was a sweet woman until after she had so much trouble with my -father and that rascally board. I was only a little boy then. I never -saw her again after I left Carden Hedge until a few years ago when I -came up here to see John. She looked like a fierce, sullen little -creature of the wild, ready to snarl at a word. Now she is charming. She -looks as though she had found what we have—happiness.” - -“Blame it on Bean,” Leslie said with a shadow of her old satiric smile. -“She can change anything. She even put over the great transformation on -me.” - -Back at the Arms Jerry, who had successfully put dozens of plump dahlia -tubers into the soft brown earth under Jonas’s somewhat critical eye, -was now racing across the lawn to the tulip tree. - -“I saw the company from afar. Who were they?” she called out when within -a few feet of the rustic benches where Miss Susanna and Marjorie had -reseated themselves. “No one I ever saw before. I couldn’t label either -one of them.” - -“You have seen them both before, Jeremiah,” Marjorie calmly assured. -“The young lady was Leslie Cairns. The man was—our gasoline bogie.” - -“What-t? Has one hob-goblin wed another. Don’t tell me the grand -Hob-goblin is married!” Jerry looked ridiculous consternation. - -“Who said anything about being married. The gasoline bogie is Leslie -Cairns’s father.” - -“Then he must be a house robber. What was he doing around the Carden -estate at that hour of the night?” Jerry demanded. - -“He is not a house robber.” Marjorie was now laughing. “He is a house -owner. He owns Carden Hedge, and his name is Peter Carden. He is the -Carden son who ran away from home and changed his name to Peter Cairns. - -“Good night.” Her eyes on Marjorie, Jerry went to sit down on the end of -one of the two benches. She missed the bench and sat down forcefully on -the soft grass. - -“Can you beat it?” she giggled as she scrambled to her feet and dropped -down beside Marjorie, this time in the middle of the bench. “Can you -blame me for that flivver? I’ve heard of being overcome by astonishment. -It just happened to Jeremiah.” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI. - - THE IRISH MINUET - - -The Travelers presented “The Knight of the Northern Sun” at the Hamilton -Concert Hall on the evening after that of the re-opening day of college -following the Easter vacation. Lucy Warner had asked and received -President Matthews’s hearty permission to use the hall for the Norse -play and afterwards for any other attractions which Page and Dean might -wish to offer. - -The Norse play was the most ambitious drama the Travelers had yet -undertaken. They had gone to great trouble and pains to costume and -produce the play inexpensively, but with realism. Nor was the audience -which crowded the large hall to the doors composed entirely of students. -Since the presentation of the first show by Page and Dean almost two -years previous, interested citizens of the town of Hamilton and -residents of Hamilton Estates had shown flattering eagerness to obtain -seats for Page and Dean’s shows. - -Augusta Forbes scored heavily as Godoran, the Norse hero, who, until he -met the fair Nageda, boasted that he had looked earnestly at no woman’s -face save his mother’s. Doris was the lovely, golden-haired Nageda, who -fell in love with Godoran at sight but was carried off as a hostage by -barbarian hordes on the day of her initial meeting with her hero. - -The play netted the dormitory fund over a thousand dollars. Augusta and -Doris stepped into the spot light of campus admiration and were fêted by -their friends for upwards of a week afterward. Marjorie attended the -presentation of the drama with her mother, Jerry, Miss Susanna and -Jonas. It was her mother’s last evening at the Arms and this sad -knowledge put her in a rather forlorn mood. Then, too, she could not -help thinking of Hal. She had suggested the title of the play as a -result of seeing the costume of polar knight Hal Macy had worn at the -merry-making in Sanford on Christmas Eve. Now she saw Hal as the knight, -rather than Gussie. - -She wondered vexedly why she always thought of Hal in connection with -the sentimental. It was because he had told her he loved her, she -supposed. She watched fascinatedly the progress of the play and listened -with half impatient sadness to the impassioned words of love which -Katherine Langly, who knew nothing about love, had put into the mouth of -Godoran. - -Following the play and her mother’s departure for Sanford, Marjorie -returned with conscientious interest to the work of the biography. Since -the love story of Brooke Hamilton had entered into it she had -revolutionized her whole idea of the plan. Now she plunged once more -into the journal, working at it diligently. She tried to use every -sentence of it which did not touch too personally on the side of the -great man’s romance which belonged to him and not to the world. - -After a time it seemed to her that she knew every line of the journal by -heart. She worked steadily on through the bright spring weather until -she had arranged the delicate matter to suit her critical mind. Miss -Susanna was greatly pleased over Marjorie’s arranging of the sentimental -part of her great-uncle’s history. She had taken a notion to edit the -garden letters herself, and the two friends worked together in the study -at the long library table, each with the same fond spirit toward the man -in the portrait. - -On the campus Leila Harper in fancy had ceased to be a post graduate. -Instead she was living through an exciting period of Irish history as -she rehearsed the heroic part of Desmond O’Dowd. As the time drew near -for the presentation of the Irish drama she grew more pleased with the -work of the cast than she had ever been with that of any other group of -actors whom she had formerly used in her plays. Vera, as Mona of Lough -Gur, the Irish maid from County Limerick, promised to be the chief -attraction. - -One thing to perfect her production Leila lacked. She needed a real man, -one with an exceptionally sweet tenor voice to sing words to the minuet -tune that accompanied the Irish minuet she and Vera were to give in the -first act of the play. As the hero it was really Leila’s place to sing -the quaint words as she danced. Not being possessed of a tenor voice she -could not carry out this part of the program. She decided after much -thought to place a singer in the wings to voice the pretty Irish words. - -Next difficulty was to obtain the singer. Following a brief season of -despairing calculation as to whether a church singer in Hamilton might -not undertake the solo, Leila hit upon another plan that brought a true -Cheshire cat grin to her keen Celtic features. She hastily mailed a very -ragged piece of Irish music to Hal Macy with a short accompanying -letter, and buoyantly awaited results. - -Leila’s plan to bring Hal from Sanford to sing behind the scenes for her -on the night of her play was not entirely one of self-interest. She had -often thought Marjorie was nothing less than a sleeping beauty slated to -awaken suddenly from a dream of life to reality and a lover’s kiss. She -had long guessed for herself that Hal loved Marjorie. She had also been -the only one besides Marjorie who had seen Hal’s heart-broken expression -as he had stood before Marjorie’s portrait. - -Of late Leila had shrewdly thought she had noticed signs of -absent-minded dreaming on Marjorie’s part which might or might not have -to do with Hal. Miss Susanna had decreed that Marjorie might tell the -original Travelers of the journal if she wished. Leila had listened to -Marjorie’s sad account of it and her wistful remarks afterward with her -head on one side. She had there and then made up her mind to try out an -experiment of her own upon Hal and Marjorie. - -In due time Hal’s answer returned. Yes, he would be pleased to help her -with her play in any way he could. He would make it a point to keep out -of sight until after the performance. This Leila had also requested. He -had learned the Irish song and thought it very pretty. Leila was tempted -more than once to tell Jerry. She triumphantly fought off the desire and -cannily kept her own counsel. - -Now wholly engaged in what promised to completely outdo “The Knight of -the Northern Sun,” Leila paid little attention to anything else. As she -worked steadily and patiently toward perfecting the various actors in -the difficult Celtic characters they were to represent she did not dream -that she had already been selected as an object for honor. - -Leslie Cairns had determined that Leila should receive her gift, and her -father’s, of a theatre on the last day of chapel. Leslie had always -remembered and been impressed by the various honor citations which she -had witnessed when a student at Hamilton. She believed that Leila would -prefer to be honored in the company of her fellow students in chapel -than at the regular Commencement exercises. She argued that the gift she -wished to offer Leila was germane to the traditional side of the -college. - -While Leila was carrying on a lively correspondence with Hal, Marjorie -was wondering now and then why she had not heard from him. With Hal so -much in her mind of late it was not strange that she should notice his -delay in writing. She had written him over a month ago. He had not -written to Jerry, either. Perhaps he had been away, or had been ill. No; -if he had been ill Jerry’s mother would have mentioned it to Jerry in a -letter. Marjorie realized, all of a sudden, that she had grown quite -concerned in the matter. She chided herself for being silly, and -dismissed Hal from her thoughts—until he happened to walk into them -again. - -“Say, have you heard from old Hal lately?” Jerry asked her on the -evening of Leila’s play, as the two girls were dressing for the event. -“Because I’m going to wear my turquoise necklace I happened to think of -him. He gave it to me, you know.” - -“I’ve wondered myself why he hasn’t answered my last letter.” Marjorie -stood before the long wall mirror surveying herself with a critical and -unenthusiastic eye. She was dressed in the shaded violet frock of -Chinese crepe which she had owned for five years and which was still a -la mode. She had worn it only on rare occasions. It was still fresh and -charming as on the night when she had worn it as a freshman to the -Beauty contest. Leila had begged her to wear it “in honor of your Celtic -friend and Irish playwright,” she had laughingly stipulated. - -“He’s probably away on a business trip for the governor.” Jerry -delivered this opinion as she poked her arms into her white fur evening -coat. “Don’t forget your violets.” She patted the huge bunch of scented -purple beauties at her own corsage. - -Marjorie turned from the mirror. She took her own bunch of violets from -the water, dried the stems and pinned them on. The faint exquisite -perfume of them all but brought tears to her eyes. She thought of -Angela, of Brooke Hamilton, of how they had loved violets. And then—back -went her mind to the winter day when Hal had stood before the portrait -of a girl who wore violets. - -“I’m going for a long, long walk tomorrow,” she announced. “My head is -full of cobwebs. I shall let the fresh air sweep it clear. I hope there -will be a good old high wind blowing. I’ll love to walk out and fight -with it.” - -“I’ll go with you. Bean. Never believe you can lose me.” - -“I look upon you as a permanent fixture,” Marjorie graciously assured. - -“Make the most of me tonight. I’m going to leave you tomorrow. I happen -to remember that I can’t be always with you.” Jerry trailed out the -remark in a melancholy tone. “I like the permanent fixture idea, but I -can’t be it. I have to go the round of the campus houses tomorrow and -see what I can gather up for the auction. There are times when I wish I -were not quite so necessary to Hamilton,” was Jerry’s regretfully modest -ending. - -“You don’t know what you are talking about.” Marjorie gave a funny -little chuckle. “First you said I couldn’t lose you. Then you said just -the opposite.” - -“I know it. I seem to be like that, don’t I?” Jerry beamed foolishly -upon her lovely chum. - -Marjorie got into her own evening coat, a springtime affair of pale -tinted silk and lace, and the pair paraded downstairs arm in arm. -Jerry’s nonsense had served to restore Marjorie’s lighter spirits to -normal light-heartedness. During the short ride in the limousine to -Hamilton Concert Hall an energetic conversation occupied the attention -of all three. It concerned the library which was to be presented to the -dormitory girls when the dormitory should be completed. - -Miss Susanna was determined that the students who were now the dormitory -seniors should be present the next fall when the dormitory would be -finished and opened. She had just announced her intention of defraying -the railway expenses of the graduate “dorms” wherever they might be. - -All three were also happy over Guiseppe Baretti’s present to the -dormitory. He had long announced his intention of giving the “dorm a -nice present.” A few days previous he had sent for Robin and Marjorie -and solemnly informed them that he wished to take the expense of -furnishing the dorm with the best grill room that money could secure. “I -buy all for it; all,” he declared with an inclusive spread of the arms. -“Then I do this. What you want buy. You give me the list ev’ry week. I -buy for the dorm same I buy for me. This don’ cost me half’s much it -cost the dorm.” His offer was accepted with the same deep gratitude -which it seemed to Marjorie that the Travelers owed almost everyone. - -The orchestra pit of the hall looked like a florist’s shop. As the trio -entered the fragrance of roses and violets was wafted to their nostrils. - -“Um-m. All the actors are in line for a donation,” muttered Jerry. “I -hope our offerings to the bunch haven’t been side tracked.” The -Travelers had gathered up among themselves a goodly sum of money for the -purpose of honoring the members of the cast with flowers. Vera’s dainty -pen and ink were all gone before the Hamilton Arms detail reached there. - -“Miss Mason said to tell you that she had saved some sketches for you,” -was the comforting assurance that met the party at the door. The message -was delivered by a sophomore who was doing usher duty. - -Seats of honor well up front had been reserved for the mistress of the -Arms and her bodyguard. Seated in the brilliantly lighted room, the -perfume of flowers on the air, the pleasant, well-bred murmur of subdued -voices in her ears Marjorie thrilled to it all as she had always -vibrated to the social side of Hamilton College. - -She loved to think of herself as a part of it, alive and moving along -with that busy, mind-profitable life. She was glad that she had such -clever, wonderful friends. Not one of her chums but that had specialized -in some particular talent or craft. She alone was the only one who had -no hold on the fine arts beyond being an appreciative worshipper of -those who were talented. Thus her thoughts ran until the rise of the -curtain on “Desmond O’Dowd.” - -From then on she thought only of the play itself. Leila herself had -arranged the most of the setting for the first act. The opening scene -was laid in the old-fashioned hall of an Irish country house of early -eighteenth century. Desmond O’Dowd, the hero, whose free thinking and -free speech had placed him in disfavor with the Earl of Claflin, had -come to Claflin Eyrie, the earl’s home, in the hope of seeing Mona, the -earl’s niece. He wished to say goodbye to her before joining a -revolutionary political party which he believed to be the only one -working for the good of Ireland. - -It was during this act that Leila and Vera were to dance the Irish -minuet of which the Hamilton girls were so fond. The play opened with a -number of young men and women of Mona’s acquaintance gathered for a -little evening party. The high-waisted, comparatively simple costumes of -the young women were dainty foils for the dark knee trousers, square cut -coats, silk stockings, fancy low shoes and lace falls of the young men. -Shoulder length hair, ribbon-tied, formed a part of the picturesque -dressing of the young Irish gentlemen of this period. - -After a gay little dance in which the whole company joined, came the -entrance into the hall of Desmond. Leila played the part with true -Celtic intensity and understanding. Vera who took color from constant -association with Leila, was no less convincing in the role of dainty -Mona. Marjorie leaned forward in her seat breathlessly waiting for the -moment to come which would introduce the minuet. She had seen it danced -by the two a number of times and never tired of it. She was particularly -fond of the charming setting of words that went with a part of the tune. -The minuet had special music which Leila had brought from Ireland and -which was very old. - -“Leila can’t sing the words this time,” Marjorie whispered to Jerry. -“She was grumbling to me about it not so very long ago. She can’t sing -like a man and she doesn’t care to sing them in her own voice.” - -The pleading, persuasive voice of Desmond to Mona, saying: “Just one -dance, acushla. Tomorrow I’ll be far away across the lakes and with only -the thought of you and your love to keep my poor heart from breaking.” - -Marjorie breathed a long sigh of anticipatory pleasure as the -preliminary strains of the minuet rose from the orchestra pit where -Phillys Moore was conducting her own capable ten piece orchestra. With -the usual number of deep, courtly bows the minuet began. Followed the -gradual advance down the center of the pair of dancers. The odd, dainty -stepping, dignified in its deliberateness. Each step in perfect accord -with each note of the music combined to make a poetry of motion -difficult to describe. Then—From somewhere off stage a voice suddenly -began to sing: - - “Down the center little one, - Life for us has just begun: - Down the center, step together, - Only you and I are one forever. - Colin he is watching me, - His love you can never be, - Step together, part we never - Sweetheart wee.” - -It was a high, sweet tenor voice, vigorous of tone yet giving the Irish -lilt the true lyric delicacy necessary to the rendering of any Irish -song. Marjorie listened to it, entranced, yet with the vague impression -that she had heard it somewhere before. - - “Forward, forward, - Higher, sweeter, sounds the measure, - You for me, my small white treasure - You for me, for now and aye, love.” - -The voice sang on, seeming to grow more and more impassioned. The tender -import of the love words brought a quick veil of tears to Marjorie’s -eyes. It was all so real. The two lovers, surrounded in the very -beginning with unsurmountable difficulties, their brave attempt to defy -life and fate. Ardent Desmond pleading for the constancy of his “small -white treasure.” Then that voice, ringing, a thread of defiant laughter -running through its music. - -Marjorie came back to reality in time to hear an excited voice in her -ear growling softly: “Old Hal. Now can you beat that. It is Hal that’s -doing the singing. I know it. That’s some of Leila Harper’s work. -Oh-h-h. Wait until I grab both of them. I’m going behind the scenes the -minute the show’s over. I’d go at the end of the first act, but I might -make a nuisance of myself. If Hal Macy knows what is good for him he -will march himself out front like a kind and loving brother.” - -Marjorie heard Jerry’s words in a kind of pleased daze. She was -conscious of one emotion above everything else. She would be very glad -to see Hal. She wished he would soon come to them. But Hal did not -appear. Wily Leila had enlisted his services in helping with a mob scene -at the end of the second act. She needed him again to direct another -third-act ensemble where the revolutionists gather about their chief, -Desmond O’Dowd, in the haunted house at the foot of the Cragsmore cliff. -Leila knew precisely what she was about in keeping Hal from Marjorie. -She was certain both Jerry and Marjorie must have recognized his singing -voice. - -When the final curtain had descended after Leila and the cast had been -surfeited with flowers and curtain calls, and after Leila had made a -speech of few and embarrassed words, Hal had still not appeared. - -“Let him go.” Jerry had grown out of patience. “I disown him. I never -had a brother. I’ll will old Hal to Leila Harper for a stage hand. She -has kept him back on the stage and made him work. She—” Jerry suddenly -subsided with an articulate murmur. - -Marjorie looked blank. She had never before thought of Leila Harper in -conjunction with Hal. How had Hal happened to know the words to the old -Irish song? Leila must have sent them to him by letter. No, she must -have sent the music for the minuet. She thought that he had not been in -Hamilton more than a few hours. Still he might have been on the campus -all day and she had never— - -There she stopped. Leila was her most devoted friend. She was glad that -Hal had at last shown a preference for some one beside herself. Marjorie -stopped the thought process again. She found she did not wish to think -about Hal and Leila as being interested in each other. She wondered next -if they had been corresponding long. Leila had never mentioned in her -presence that she had received a letter from Hal. Leila had— - -“Marjorie.” The sound of the voice whose tender cadences had lately -thrilled her was now speaking her name, and in the same ardent tone. - -“Oh, Hal.” Involuntarily both hands went out to meet the strong warm -ones which clasped her slender fingers close. - -“You gave us a positive electric shock,” complained Jerry. “How long -have you been here? Give an account of yourself.” - -“Not very long.” Hal relinquished Marjorie’s hands slowly, deliberately. -She stood looking at him with an expression of sweet welcome which came -to him vaguely as something he had not hitherto seen in her face. - -He had already warmly greeted Miss Susanna. She was now engaged in -conversation with Professor Wenderblatt, who had come up to speak to -her. - -“There’s Lillian Wenderblatt over by the orchestra pit talking to Phil. -I must see her about the auction. Back in a minute.” Jerry had not -noticed any difference in Marjorie’s demeanor toward Hal. She left the -two together on general principles. - -“Were you surprised to hear my voice before you saw me?” Hal asked with -a smile. He was trying to tell himself that he must not show Marjorie -that he loved her. She did not like that. - -“Yes; I didn’t recognize it for a minute. I only knew it was -familiar—and beautiful,” she added with her charming lighting up of -feature. - -“Thank you. How are you, Marjorie, and the biography? You are the -portrait girl tonight, aren’t you?” Hal was struggling valiantly to be -impersonal. He wished instead to say to this lovely violet girl: “I love -you. I love you.” The grace of her beauty was in his heart. The perfume -from the violets at her waist was a breath of sweetness to his hungry -soul. - -“Yes, I am wearing my violet dress. I am well. The biography is -progressing very slowly.” Marjorie felt an odd little chill at Hal’s -pleasant inquiries. - -“I’m going to the Arms with you,” Hal announced. “Miss Susanna insists -that I shall stay there tonight. I must be on my way tomorrow. I’m -planning a trip to Alaska. Expect to be gone all summer. I’ll go over to -the campus tomorrow before I leave and call on Leila. She certainly is a -grand old comrade.” - -“I love Leila Greatheart, Hal,” Marjorie said loyally. “I’m so glad you -came here to help her with her play.” - -“Aren’t you just a little bit glad to see me for myself, Marjorie?” Hal -could not resist putting this one question. - -“You know I am.” Marjorie attempted to look into his face with her -old-time frank smile. She smiled, but the smile was one of shyness. Her -brown eyes rested on Hal only an instant. The rose deepened in her -cheeks. Hal looked at her, and wondered. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII. - - ROMANCE - - - “The magic of yon sailing moon - Lures my poor heartstrings out of me; - God’s moonshine whitens the lagoon: - The earth’s a silver mystery.” - -“Why, Hal, I didn’t know you knew that poem!” Marjorie stood beside Hal -at the top of the veranda steps bathed in the white moonlight. Looking -at her, Hal had quoted the verse of old Irish poetry. “Leila must have -taught you that.” She smiled, but there was a tiny ache in her heart. - -“_You_ taught me that. You recited it one night when we were down on the -beach. That was last summer. It seems longer ago.” - -“So I did. I had forgotten.” For some unknown reason Marjorie felt -lighter of heart. The tiny pain was gone. - -“That was a white moonlight night. So is this. Come and take a walk.” -Hal stretched out a hand to Marjorie. - -“Just a little way.” She followed him down the steps, but laughingly -refused his hand. “I know this place better than you. I don’t need a -guide,” she said. “We mustn’t go far from the veranda. I am hungry. We -are soon going to have a midnight supper, especially for you.” - -“I’m grateful for hospitality. What a corking old piece of magnificence -the Arms is! I wish I had time to see it thoroughly. I’d invade your -study and bother you. I give you fair warning.” - -“Why can’t you stay at the Arms for a few days, Hal? Jerry will be so -disappointed. You can’t know as I know how much she loves you.” - -“I know.” Hal nodded. “Jerry will be home before long. But you won’t be -home for—” He paused. “Are you coming home in June?” - -“I don’t know.” The answer came doubtfully. “The biography won’t be -finished until some time next winter. I must come back to Hamilton next -fall to see to our dormitory interest. There are other things, too. -Captain and General wish me at home, and Miss Susanna wishes me here, -and— - -“I want you myself, Marjorie.” Hal’s quick utterance had the virile -quality now which had thrilled her when he sang. “Why do I tell you this -again when I’ve sworn to myself I’d never trouble you? I don’t know. I -only know that you seem to me tonight to be—kinder.” - -“Hal, I—” They were crossing the lawn now strolling aimlessly along -under the moon’s pale rays. They came to an immense flowering almond -bush. It lifted burgeoning pink clusters, a mass of rioting bloom under -the white light. - -“Hal, I always mean to be kind to you.” Marjorie did better this time. -“I wish you wouldn’t feel that you have troubled me. I have read Brooke -Hamilton’s love story. I understand more of love than I used. I know -that true love is—it is—” - -“What do you know of love?” Hal’s hands suddenly dropped lightly upon -her shoulders. The two had stopped before the great pink bush, facing -each other, their young features set with the terrific earnestness of -youth. “Have you grown up? Do you love me?” - -“I—have grown up this much—I—understand the worth of true love, Hal. -That is—” - -“Not loving me yet, but very near it,” came the tender interruption. -Hal’s hands slipped from Marjorie’s shoulders. “I love you,” he said. “I -love you.” - -Marjorie regarded him silently. She knew that Hal was fighting against -loving her. That in a moment of emotion he had spoken again the words he -had tried to forget. He would instantly go back to his role of devoted -friend. She did not wish him to go back. She loved him. How greatly she -loved him she could not then guess. She knew only that she loved him. - -“What is it, Marjorie?” Hal reached for her hands, caught them, held -them unresisting in his own. - -Came a silence. A faint vagrant night breeze stirred the trees, touched -the faces of the two besides the almond bush. Very gently Hal drew his -Violet Girl into his arms. - -“It must be a whole year from now, Hal,” Marjorie said later with -charming practicality. They were walking toward the house now in answer -to at least five minutes’ intermittent whistling of Jerry from the -veranda. - -“Stop a minute.” Hal drew Marjorie into the shadow of a tall shrub. - -“I have oceans to do. I told you all about it a little while ago. Work -is work. It can’t be done in a minute. But it can be accomplished by -next June. Then I’ll be—I’ll be—” - -“Marjorie Dean Macy,” Hal said, and he punctuated these three euphonic -words in true lover’s fashion. The story of that eventful year of -accomplishment and triumph, which ended in the dawn of a perfect wedding -day for Marjorie, will be told in: “MARJORIE DEAN MACY.” - - - 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] - - Princess - Polly Series - - By AMY BROOKS - - Author of “Dorothy Dainty” series, Etc. - Stories of Sweet-Tempered, Sunny, - Lovable Little “Princess Polly.” - For girls 12 to 16 years. - Each Volume Illustrated. - - Cloth Bound - - _With Individual Jackets in Colors._ - - PRICE, 75 CENTS EACH - POSTAGE 10c EXTRA - - PRINCESS POLLY - PRINCESS POLLY’S PLAYMATES - PRINCESS POLLY AT SCHOOL - PRINCESS POLLY BY THE SEA - PRINCESS POLLY’S GAY WINTER - PRINCESS POLLY AT PLAY - PRINCESS POLLY AT CLIFFMORE - - 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 - 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 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - 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. 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L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers, - 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Transcriber’s note: - -Chapter headings have been regularized. - -Page 6, double quote inserted before ‘Here’s,’ “teased Marjorie. “Here’s -another.” - -Page 24, ‘paricular’ changed to ‘particular,’ “This particular set of” - -Page 25, full stop struck following ‘HEART,’ “THE SPRINGTIME OF THE -HEART” - -Page 25, double quote inserted before ‘Now,’ “way. “Now I shall” - -Page 28, comma changed to full stop after ‘Hamilton,’ “room with Miss -Hamilton.” - -Page 31, ‘simple’ changed to ‘simply,’ “She simply loves to act” - -Page 34, ‘maybe’ changed to ‘may be,’ “it may be midnight ere” - -Page 35, ‘Hamilton’s’ changed to ‘Hamiltons,’ “servitor of the -Hamiltons” - -Page 37, comma inserted after ‘Hall,’ “at the Hall, the eight” - -Page 43, ‘admited’ changed to ‘admitted,’ “Jerry admitted with” - -Page 47, single quote inserted after ‘Baretti,’ “know, Signor Baretti.’” - -Page 48, ‘Appasionata’ changed to ‘Appassionata,’ “Beethoven’s ‘Sonata -Appassionata.’” - -Page 50, ‘anythings’ changed to ‘anything,’ “deference than anything -else” - -Page 54, comma struck after ‘Doris,’ “left Doris the Dazzler” - -Page 56, full stop inserted after ‘personally,’ “about her personally.” - -Page 58, ‘Sussanna’ changed to ‘Susanna,’ “about Miss Susanna” - -Page 69, ‘a’ struck after ‘been,’ “had been respectively” - -Page 71, ‘bouyant’ changed to ‘buoyant,’ “made a buoyant exit” - -Page 73, em-dash inserted between ‘Yes’ and ‘I,’ “Yes—I had an idea” - -Page 79, single quote changed to double quote before ‘Miss,’ ““Miss -Harper was impersonal” - -Page 80, double quote inserted after ‘girls,’ “Sanford crowd of girls.”” - -Page 86, second full stop struck after ‘romp,’ “be at the romp.” - -Page 86, ‘invited’ changed to ‘uninvited,’ “as an uninvited masker at” - -Page 88, ‘let’s’ changed to ‘lets,’ “That lets you out” - -Page 90, full stop inserted after ‘are,’ “I presume you are.” - -Page 90, ‘three’ changed to ‘four,’ “Those four words, “I presume you -are,”” - -Page 90, double quote struck after ‘Leslie,’ “had known Leslie.” - -Page 97, ‘wont’ changed to ‘won’t,’ “we won’t be in” - -Page 98, ‘they’ inserted before ‘testified,’ “manly chest; they -testified eloquently” - -Page 106, ‘horried’ changed to ‘horrid,’ “helped that horrid Miss” - -Page 106, ‘sopohomore’ changed to ‘sophomore,’ “Among sophomore details” - -Page 113, ‘umberella’ changed to ‘umbrella,’ “She brandished her -umbrella” - -Page 118, ‘hurridly’ changed to ‘hurriedly,’ “Leila had hurriedly given” - -Page 119, ‘losenges’ changed to ‘lozenges,’ “lozenges and crimson” - -Page 122, double quote inserted after ‘all,’ “not at all.” Doris” - -Page 122, double quote struck before ‘Julia,’ “Julia cast a frowning” - -Page 123, ‘re-asssuring’ changed to ‘re-assuring,’ “was not re-assuring” - -Page 130, full stop inserted after ‘have,’ “and I never have.” - -Page 132, ‘unwieldly’ changed to ‘unwieldy,’ “that unwieldy umbrella” - -Page 133, ‘is’ changed to ‘it,’ “Yes, it was Bean” - -Page 137, ‘Hamiliton’ changed to ‘Hamilton,’ “since I entered Hamilton” - -Page 144, ‘mistresss’ changed to ‘mistress,’ “the mistress of the Arms” - -Page 153, ‘daguerrotype’ changed to ‘daguerreotype,’ “me a small -daguerreotype” - -Page 153, single quote inserted after ‘Arms,’ “the Arms.’ She said” - -Page 156, ‘prevading’ changed to ‘pervading,’ “broke the hush pervading” - -Page 162, ‘choose’ changed to ‘chose,’ “Marjorie chose the campus” - -Page 163, double quote struck before ‘I’ve,’ “a drive. I’ve not” - -Page 165, ‘be’ inserted before ‘made,’ “had to be made over” - -Page 165, ‘jubiliant’ changed to ‘jubilant,’ “both were jubilant over” - -Page 166, ‘lieutenant’ changed to ‘Lieutenant,’ “Bean making Lieutenant -Bean” - -Page 176, ‘authoratative’ changed to ‘authoritative,’ “dryly -authoritative prediction” - -Page 178, ‘Lelia’ changed to ‘Leila,’ “side of it, Leila” - -Page 180, ‘harrass’ changed to ‘harass,’ “but harass and torment” - -Page 180, single quote and full stop transposed after ‘amazin,’ “it is -that amazin’.” - -Page 180, double quote inserted before ‘We,’ ““We have an old” - -Page 180, single quote inserted after ‘him,’ “the hangman has him?’” - -Page 184, second ‘been’ struck, “she had been received” - -Page 185, double quote inserted after ‘with,’ ““get away with” whatever” - -Page 187, ‘succint’ changed to ‘succinct,’ “was the succinct counsel” - -Page 189, single quote struck after ‘Cairns,’ “after Peter Cairns -instead” - -Page 194, ‘caste’ changed to ‘cast,’ “their customary aloof cast” - -Page 196, ‘chosing’ changed to ‘choosing,’ “in choosing the words” - -Page 197, double quote inserted after ‘for,’ “to make up for—”” - -Page 203, ‘off’ changed to ‘of,’ “flashed out of the door” - -Page 208, ‘tumultous’ changed to ‘tumultuous,’ “Arms and tumultuous -happiness” - -Page 226, ‘dilligently’ changed to ‘diligently,’ “at it diligently. She” - -Page 229, ‘f’ changed to ‘of,’ “The Knight of the Northern Sun” - -Page 229, full stop changed to comma after ‘Sun,’ “the Northern Sun,” -Leila paid” - -Page 235, ‘neice’ changed to ‘niece,’ “Mona, the earl’s niece” - -Page 240, ‘converstation’ changed to ‘conversation,’ “engaged in -conversation with” - -Page 241, ‘planing’ changed to ‘planning,’ “I’m planning a trip” - -Page 242, ‘Hall’ changed to ‘Hal,’ “Hal could not resist” - -Page 243, double quote inserted before ‘Why,’ ““Why, Hal, I didn’t” - -Page 245, ‘terrfic’ changed to ‘terrific,’ “with the terrific -earnestness” - -Ad Page 5, ‘ALLENS’ changed to ‘ALLEN’S,’ “THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS -ALLEN’S SCHOOL” - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Marjorie Dean's Romance, by Pauline Lester - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARJORIE DEAN'S ROMANCE *** - -***** This file should be named 53440-0.txt or 53440-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/4/4/53440/ - -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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