[Illustration: Surrounded by a love knot of friends, Marjorie opened
package after package.]
_(Page 161)_ _(Marjorie Dean Macy)_
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MARJORIE DEAN
MACY
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.
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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
MARJORIE DEAN MACY
Copyright, 1926
By A. L. BURT COMPANY
MARJORIE DEAN MACY
Made in “U. S. A.”
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MARJORIE DEAN MACY
CHAPTER I.
MANAÑA
“Here I am—all booted and spurred and ready to ride,” Marjorie Dean
called out gaily to Veronica Lynne as Ronny entered the cool spacious
patio of Lucero de la Manaña, the Lynnes’ beautiful ranch home in
southern California.
Marjorie was a feast for beauty-loving eyes as she sat on the wide stone
edge of the silver-spraying fountain with its musical murmur of water
splashing into a white marble basin. The mannish cut of her gray
knickered riding clothes merely made her look more than ever like a
little girl. From under her little round gray hat with its bit of
irridescent color her bright brown curls showed in a soft fluff. She sat
smiling at Ronny, a sleeve of her riding coat pushed back from one
rounded arm, one hand trailing idly in the clear water of the basin.
“You _sound_ like Paul Revere. At least, that is what he said,
supposedly, on the night of his famous ride. You _look_ like Leila
Harper’s friend, Beauty, even in riding togs.” Ronny came over to
Marjorie, smiling.
“I only remember Leila Harper.” Marjorie glanced up teasingly.
“You are altogether too forgetful,” Ronny lightly reproved.
She paused, looking amusedly down at her pretty chum. She was wearing a
white linen, knickered riding suit which was vastly becoming. Her wide
gray eyes gave out a happy light that her heart switched on every time
her gaze came to rest upon Marjorie.
Since first she had known Marjorie Dean, back in their senior high
school days at Sanford, she had cherished a pet dream. That dream had
come true six weeks previous when Marjorie, her father and mother had
arrived from the East to make Ronny a long deferred visit. To range the
great ranch, pony-back, with Marjorie riding beside her, ever a
gracious, inspiriting comrade, was Ronny’s highest desire toward
happiness.
“How long have you been waiting for me, Miss Paul Revere?” she playfully
questioned. “Why didn’t you come to Ronny’s room and hang around? Why so
unsociable?” Ronny drew down her face into an aggrieved expression which
her dancing eyes contradicted. “I’ve known you to be much more cordial
at old Wayland Hall.”
“Oh, I’ve only been here about three minutes. I’m miles more sociable
than I was at Wayland Hall,” laughed Marjorie. “I thought you’d be ready
and ahead of me. When I found you weren’t, I couldn’t resist stopping to
dabble my hand in the water. I love the patio, Ronny, and adore the
fountain. If I lived here three months longer I should be so steeped in
the beauty of Manaña that I’d forget the East—maybe.” Her “maybe” was
stronger than her light prediction.
“The magic spell of Manaña is upon you,” Ronny confidently asserted.
“There is a mystical, romantic beauty about Manaña. I have searched for
it over and over again in the East, but have never found it. It seems to
me our Manaña is Nature’s own ideal of grandeur and beauty. I think the
Spanish influence in the house and about the ranch heightens its claim
to the romantic. Hamilton Arms has a certain stateliness of beauty, all
its own. But has it anything more romantically beautiful than this
patio?”
“It’s true as you live, Ronny Lynne,” agreed Marjorie gaily.
“You couldn’t love the patio better than I do.” Ronny cast a fond glance
about the great square-covered court with its central crystal-spraying
fountain and its ancient stone floor, gay with rugs and colorful Navajo
blankets. The few inviting lounging chairs, the reading stand piled with
current magazines, the quaint leather-covered Spanish couch, long and
narrow, and heaped with gorgeous-hued silken cushions seemed only to
accentuate the primitive charm of the old-time inclosure. Above it a
railed-in Spanish balcony extended around the four sides. It was bright
with flowering plants and further beautified by the masses of trailing
vines which clambered over the old-time mahogany railing.
“I know it.” Marjorie gave a quick nod. “I’d not wish to love it as much
as Hamilton Arms. I never thought I could care more for the Arms than
dear Castle Dean. But I do. My whole heart is bound up in it, and
Hamilton. I hope that I—that—we—will—” Marjorie stopped, her color
deepening. “I hope Hal and I will live at Hamilton some day.” She
continued in shy haste to finish what she had begun to say when girlish
embarrassment had overtaken her.
“I believe Hamilton to be the one place for you and Hal to live,” Ronny
made hearty response. “It would be splendid if General and Captain
should decide to live in Hamilton Estates, too. ‘Where the treasure is,
there shall the heart be also,’ you know. You are General’s and
Captain’s treasure, and Hamilton is your treasure, so why shouldn’t you
all get together and be happy? None of you have really anything special
to bind you to Sanford. That is, not as you have at Hamilton.” Ronny
smiled very tenderly at Marjorie’s glowing face.
“It’s different with me,” Ronny continued. “My treasure is Father. So
Manaña means most of any place on earth to me. I love Hamilton
devotedly. Remember, there are plenty of Travelers to help complete the
dormitory, but only one Traveler to comfort a lonely man. Father has
considered me above himself always. Now I must begin to consider him.”
Marjorie sprang up from her seat upon the fountain’s stone edge. “It’s
odd to me still, Ronny—being engaged to be married to Hal,” she
confessed as she shyly busied herself with the drying of her wet hand
with her handkerchief.
Ronny nodded sympathetically. “I always believed it would happen some
day,” she said. “You can’t help but feel strange about it, though.
You’ve hardly seen him since college closed.”
“But I’m going to see him soon.” The note of unmistakable happiness in
Marjorie’s reply was in itself convincing of the true state of the
little Lieutenant’s heart.
The two friends had now passed through the arched stone doorway of the
patio and stepped out upon the lawn. They crossed it to the ancient
brick drive and followed the drive toward a point near the heavy iron
entrance gates, where a young Mexican boy stood holding the bridles of
two horses. The girls were going for a ride before sunset.
“_Bueno; muy bueno, Ramon. Muchas gracias_ (Good; very good, Ramon.
Thank you very much),” Ronny brightly smiled her further thanks at the
pleased groom.
Ramon showed white teeth, acknowledging her thanks in Spanish. Due to
her love of action Marjorie had learned to ride with a readiness which
delighted and amazed Ronny. She had picked for Marjorie a handsome white
pony which she had fancifully named Dawn. Pony and rider had quickly
become fast friends. Ronny’s own pet mount, Lightning, a soft black
thoroughbred that deserved his name, was the admiration and the despair
of the majority of the cowboys on the ranch. Few besides Ronny and Mr.
Lynne had been able to stay long upon his back. He obeyed Ronny because
he loved her.
“Your going home will leave a horrible blank space at my hearthstone,”
Ronny regretfully told Marjorie as they rode their ponies slowly through
the opened gates and out onto a broad trail which descended gradually in
an easterly direction.
“I wish you could be in two places at once,” Marjorie returned with a
soft little sigh. “I hate to leave you, Ronny. What are we going to do
without you on the campus? What are Page and Dean without their greatest
show feature? Think of all you’ve done as a Traveler for the good of
Hamilton. I haven’t dared write Miss Susanna and the girls that you
weren’t coming back. Does your father know yet what good fortune’s in
store for him?”
“No; I’ve not broached the subject to him yet. Before long he will
probably ask me when I think of going East. Then I shall say ‘Not at
all,’ and stick to it.”
“You’ll simply _have_ to come East to—to—” She paused, her eyes meeting
Ronny’s with a significantly happy light.
“Oh, of course, _then_,” Ronny smilingly emphasized.
“You are to be one of my bridesmaids, Ronny,” Marjorie decreed. “I’ve
been thinking quite a lot about my wedding. I have an idea that it will
be different from most weddings, I’d like to have gathered around me
that day the girls I’ve known and loved best. I’m going to try to find a
place for them all in my bridal procession. I’ve not settled upon a
single thing yet, but I have just one inspiration that I hope I can
carry out.”
“When is it to be, Marjorie?” Ronny questioned with the lighting of her
fair face which Marjorie loved to see.
“I don’t quite know yet. It will all depend on when the dormitory is
finished. I—I haven’t made any plans for it except I’ve thought to
myself about the kind of wedding I’d like to have. I’ve said more to you
than I have even to Captain,” Marjorie declared with a shy laugh.
“I am highly honored, Marvelous Manager.” Ronny leaned to the right in
her saddle with a respectful bow. “Having marvelously managed everything
and everybody for a period of years on the campus, may we not expect you
to manage your own wedding with _eclat_?”
“Don’t expect too much,” Marjorie warned laughingly.
As they talked the ponies had been impatiently enduring the slow walk to
which their riders, absorbed in confidences, had put them. The trail was
broad and smooth; wide enough for two ponies to run on, side by side. It
dipped gradually down into a green valley of oak, larch and aspen trees.
There the trail narrowed to a bridle path, winding in and out among
wooded growths, and overhanging steep ravines. After half a mile it
emerged from shadowed woods into the sunshine of the open country,
growing wider again.
“There he is!” Ronny had been keeping up a bright look-out ahead. Her
white-clad arm began a vigorous signaling to a horseman who had reined
in near a large rock some distance ahead of them. He was sitting on a
big bay horse, waiting for the riders to come up.
Every day, since Marjorie had learned to ride the two girls had gone
pony-back at sunset to meet Mr. Lynne on his return from the daily
supervision of the planting of a peach orchard of choice variety.
“I’ll race you,” Ronny challenged. She started her horse, Lightning,
with a quick pat of her hand on his silky neck. He shot forward like a
veritable streak of lightning, glad of a chance to run.
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