“Never blame us,” Leila said. “Weren’t those houses but a rubbish heap
the day we came, Midget?” She appealed to Vera for corroboration.
“Why, of course they were,” emphasized Vera. “We thought you’d be
surprised to see them torn down. We were.”
“Surprised?” Marjorie repeated exultantly. “I’m simply amazed,
astounded, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, stupefied by such a piece of good
fortune. It’s just what both Robin and I wanted.”
“We worried during Commencement week because we hadn’t the time then to
see a firm of Hamilton contractors about having those houses torn down.
You and Vera knew that, Leila Harper. You’re implicated in this surprise
somehow,” Robin accused.
“My word as an honorable Irishman, I had not a thing to do with it,”
protested Leila, though she laughed.
“But you haven’t said you didn’t know who had. Never mind. I know. It
was Miss Susanna. It must have been either she or President Matthews. He
wouldn’t have had——” Marjorie paused to think of a phrase which would
describe the stately president’s disinclination to intrude upon their
project.
“The nerve,” Vera supplied with a giggle.
Marjorie fell suddenly silent as she watched the busy workmen moving to
and fro in their task of demolishment. The work, hers and Robin’s great
enterprise, had begun. She was thrilled by the thought of it.
“Time to be going, Midget.”
Leila’s voice broke into Marjorie’s dream of the glory of work and the
romance of worthy deeds. Marjorie could not tear her glance from the
fascinating scene of labor. Yes; she and Robin had Miss Susanna to thank
for this unexpected lift in their program.
“No one but Miss Susanna could have thought of this and then gone ahead
and done it,” Vera now said in a tone that partook of reverence as she
started the car. “She wanted you and Robin to see what had been done as
soon as you set foot in Hamilton. She told us to make it our business to
lead you to it.”
“Oh, wait until I see her!” Marjorie looked happy anticipation. Now they
were coming into full sight of the velvety green campus. “Dear first
friend, how are you?” she cried, stretching a hand of greeting toward
the spread of living green.
Vera smiled in sympathy of the whimsical fancy. “You’re as full of
whimsies as Leila,” she said. “She can almost convince one that Ireland
is full of leprechauns and banshees.”
From the beginning of the campus wall the distance to the central gates
of the college was quickly covered by Vera’s car. In the tonneau of the
car Robin was still busy expressing her wonder to Leila of the surprise
Miss Susanna had given them. Marjorie, however, remained silent as the
roadster neared the main entrance. She was in the grip of many emotions.
Her mind reverted to a day when she and her four Sanford chums had
entered the gates of Hamilton College for the first time as explorers,
seeking the treasures of an unknown region.
“Remember the stranger within thy gates,” she was thinking. At first no
one had “remembered” them, to their grieved chagrin. Then had come Helen
Trent and then Leila and Vera. Their kindly offices had marked the
beginning of fellowship at a college where snobbery had been the order
of things instead of democracy which the founder, Brooke Hamilton, had
made every effort to establish. Now, at the beginning of her fifth
college year, she was returning to a Hamilton in which democracy had
become a watchword. She experienced a swift exultation of spirit in
thinking of the blessed change.
As the car passed between the massive stone gate posts Vera slackened
speed and continued more slowly along the central campus drive. Came a
turn to the left. Wayland Hall raised its handsome gray stone height
only a few yards distant. Against the emerald of its short cropped lawn
brilliant-hued verbenas, zenias and salvia flaunted beds of luxuriant
bloom. Later in the season, cannas, gold and scarlet, and summer’s
queen, who arrives late, the ever popular dahlia, would have sway. Still
later, hardy chrysanthemums would carry on the scheme of beauty.
Over one side of the veranda a late-flowering, creamy-pink climbing rose
trailed its double fragrant clusters. At an end of the veranda purple
and white clematis stars wove a mantle against a background of green.
The spicy scent of garden pinks and tiger lilies was in the air. Wayland
Hall rejoiced in a riot of flowers of which Miss Remson, its energetic
little manager, took tender care. The buzzing of a select delegation of
bees engaged in a honey-hunting expedition seemed the drowsing, humming
voice of mid-summer itself.
On the veranda a small, wiry, familiar figure was watching the approach
of the automobile and waving a preliminary greeting. Miss Remson’s thin
pleasant face grew brighter with welcome as she stood at the head of the
steps, her eyes on the car as it slid onto the open space before the
house.
Marjorie was the first one out of the car. It had hardly stopped when
she skipped agily from it and ran toward the erect waiting figure. Miss
Remson came half way down the steps to meet her and the two embraced
with joyful vigor.
“My dear Marjorie, you are so very welcome. How I have missed you and
all of my girls this summer.” Miss Remson still held Marjorie’s hands in
hers. “So glad you are to stay at the Hall with Marjorie, Robina.” She
offered a cordial hand to Robin. “I am proud to have the illustrious
firm of Page and Dean under my roof.”
“And what of the firm of Harper and Mason?” demanded Leila. “Ah, there’s
a firm of note! Now tell me—where can you find it’s equal?”
“Where, indeed?” was Miss Remson’s question.
“They’re a couple of bandits. They held me up behind the station and
Lawless Leila snatched my bag,” Marjorie accused. “While my supposed
partner, here,” she indicated Robin, “helped the daylight robbers.”
“Shocking!” Miss Remson did not look in the least shocked. She entered
into the spirit of teasing with zest. “I must be careful not to allow
them inside the Hall. I’ll have their luggage brought down and set out
on the lawn. I had no idea I was harboring two such desperadoes.”
“Arrah, don’t be hard on us now!” Leila became coaxingly Hibernian. “You
should be thinking of how lonely you were before Midget and I came
wandering into the Hall. Had you even a long-faced, would-be freshie for
company? You had not.”
“I can afford to leave ‘lonely’ out of my vocabulary, now that I have
some of my old household back again.” Miss Remson exulted.
“And for that you may escort our old friend, Bean, as Leslie Cairns
would have it, into the Hall,” Leila graciously permitted. “Midget and I
will be doing the same for our old friend Page.” Leila possessed herself
of Robin’s traveling bag. Vera doughtily insisted on carrying Marjorie’s
bag.
“Set the bags in the hall, girls, and come into the dining room,” Miss
Remson directed as they entered the house. “I made a pitcher of
tutti-frutti nectar, your old favorite, and Ellen baked three-layer
cream cake this morning. Don’t tell me you have just had luncheon.”
“But we have,” Robin said regretfully. The others swelled the chorus.
Vera had an inspiration. It dawned while the tall frosted glasses were
being filled.
“Let us drink Miss Remson’s health in the nectar now and keep the cake
for a spread when we come home tonight. Shades of the ten-thirty rule!
We can’t even remember what you sound like.”
“There ain’t no such animal,” asserted Robin. “I thought we were to dine
at Baretti’s but the mind of this aggregation seems to have changed.”
“That sounded like Jerry. Wish she were here. Giuseppe will have to miss
seeing us tonight,” Vera said lightly. “I’m in favor of a spread instead
of dinner. I know the rest of you are or I’d have been drowned out with
objections when I proposed it.”
“The spread will be spread right here in the dining room,” Miss Remson
announced. “I’ll expect you when I see you. You’ll find me in the
office. As soon as you’re here the party will begin.”
“You are as good as gold to us, Miss Remson,” was Marjorie’s
appreciation. Taking up her glass of delicious amber-colored punch with
its tempting dashes of plump scarlet cherries she proposed a toast to
their kindly friend.
“We forgot to tell you where we were going, Miss Remson,” Marjorie said
apologetically when the commotion attending the drinking of the toast
had subsided. “We’re going to Hamilton Arms to see Miss Susanna. Robin
and I feel as though we could hardly go there soon enough to thank her
for her latest perfectly splendid kindness to us. You must know about
it?” She fixed inquiring eyes on the manager.
“Yes; Leila and Vera told me. We thought you would go to see her first
of all.”
“I wish you were going with us,” Marjorie said regretfully.
“This isn’t the age of miracles,” the manager retorted with dry humor.
“Some have come to pass. There are sure to be more some day.” Marjorie
chose to take this hopeful view. She knew of no two persons whom she
would rather bring together than Miss Remson and Miss Susanna Hamilton.
She wished each to discover and appreciate the other’s manifold virtues.
Miss Susanna, however, refused to extend her acquaintance on the campus.
Aside from the two or three formal interviews she had had with President
Matthews none but the nine girls who were Marjorie’s intimates had been
accorded her favor.
“Into the midst of the toast drinking now dashed a slender, brown-haired
girl in a white linen frock. Her color ran high with happy anticipation;
her eyes were dancing. Marjorie set her half-filled glass of nectar on
the table in time to prevent a spill and gathered in the newcomer.
“Katherine Langly, and such a whirlwind! Who’d ever suspect you of being
faculty?” she cried. “Leila was going to telephone you.”
“Who told you to come here? Now I know you met a leprechaun hiding
behind a tree on the campus and he whispered in your ear and slipped
away.” Leila looked uncanny wisdom.
“I never saw sign of one, but I did see old Amos. I was over at
Wenderblatts and he came there to mow the lawn. He’d been mowing the
campus just below the Hall and he told Lillian and me that he had seen
Miss Dean and some more young ladies getting out of a car in front of
the Hall. As soon as I heard I ran for the Hall. Lillian had callers so
she couldn’t come. She sent her dearest love.” Katherine poured forth
this explanation with an animation she had never possessed in her
freshman and sophomore days at Hamilton.
Marjorie watched her in fascination. She was well content with the
change in Katherine. Once she had been a sad, subdued, retiring mouse of
a girl. She had now blossomed into a lively, high-spirited young woman.
The youngest member of the faculty she was respected by her colleagues
for her brilliant mentality. She had also won high honors in the Silver
Pen, a literary sorority, as an author of unusual promise.
Kathie’s arrival was the signal for a second round of nectar.
“I’ll have to be it, much as I hate to,” Vera presently mourned her tone
particularly despairing.
“What is it you must be? Nothing your Celtic friend can save you from,”
was Leila’s solicitous but rash promise.
“A time clock,” sighed Vera. “I’m the only one of this fivesome who has
any idea of the value of time. If we don’t start for the Arms soon it
may be Miss Susanna’s bedtime before we arrive there.”
“You must go with us, Kathie,” declared Marjorie. “The more Travelers,
the merrier. We’re five of the old crowd, and I think it’s great to have
even that number together again.”
“Of course I’ll go. You don’t think I’d let you run off to the Arms
without me, do you?” Kathie’s eyes sparkled with the gaiety of the
occasion.
“We’d never do that; never-r-r!” Vera assured with a dramatic roll of
“r.”
“You must have known what Robin and I did not know until this
afternoon,” Marjorie said happily. “When were you at the Arms last,
Kathie?”
“Last Tuesday afternoon to tea. Yes, I knew.” Kathie flashed Marjorie a
radiant look. “I was so glad. It was splendid in her.”
Before Marjorie could reply Vera called out a second warning. “Shoo,
shoo, shoo!” she cried, whisking in and out among her chums and
relentlessly driving them toward the dining room door. Laughing, Miss
Remson strolled after the fleeing, giggling girls.
The little manager was about to call a last word to the party as they
began to descend the steps when the purr of an approaching automobile
brought all eyes to bear upon it. One of the railway station taxicabs
was now coming to a stop before the Hall. The instant it stopped the
driver sprang from it to open the tonneau door. Next a girl in a silver
gray dust coat and close-lined gray hat which suggested Paris emerged
from the machine. She cast a slow unhurried glance toward the group on
the veranda, then turned toward the driver in leisurely fashion and
addressed him.
He dived into the tonneau, reappearing with a large leather
label-spattered bag. The new arrival handed him his fare with the barest
glance at him. He picked up the bag and started with it toward the
veranda. She followed him, wearing an expression of such utter boredom
it impressed itself upon the knot of girls to whom she was a stranger.
One other point also impressed them. That point was her unusual beauty.
It seemed to Marjorie that she had never seen a girl so beautiful, and
in such an unusual way. Her thick fine hair was like pale spun gold as
it showed itself from under her small hat. Her skin was dazzling in its
purity. Her eyes reminded Marjorie of the sea on a calm day. Only she
could not be sure whether they were blue or green. Her features were not
small but were admirably regular. She carried herself with the lovely,
indifferent grace of a princess. Into Marjorie’s fanciful mind suddenly
popped the old-time fairy-tale beginning: “Once upon a time there was a
lovely princess.”
“Now whom have we here?” muttered Leila in Marjorie’s ear.
Marjorie could not reply. The girl had reached the steps and was now
composedly mounting them. She paid no more attention to the group on the
steps than if they had not been there. She made an authoritative motion
to the taxicab driver to place her bag on the veranda floor beside the
door. She found the bell and rang it, looking even more bored.
As the stranger’s fingers pressed the electric button Miss Remson
stepped to her side. “I am Miss Remson, the manager of Wayland Hall.
What can I do for you?” she asked courteously.
“Oh, are you Miss Remson?” She regarded the brisk, little woman with
indolent blue-green eyes. Her sweet, indifferent drawl went perfectly
with her unconcerned appearance. “I am Miss Monroe. You have my father’s
correspondence. I am here a trifle earlier than he mentioned in his
letter to you. That need not signify,” she added carelessly.
Careful not to intrude the Five Travelers had moved on down the steps
and away from the Hall. Vera had parked the car farther down the drive.
“What a perfectly beautiful girl!” Marjorie softly exclaimed when they
got out of earshot of the Hall.
A murmur of agreement answered her.
“I suppose she’s a would-be,” speculated Vera. “Still, she can’t be.
Miss Remson said yesterday that she didn’t intend to take any would-be’s
until the week before the entrance exams. Then, only those who had
applied for board at Wayland Hall. She never takes stray would-be’s.”
“Whoever she may be, she comes from afar,” informed Leila shrewdly. “Her
traveling bag is English, via Paris. She has the bored air of the
English, but, set me down in the streets of Paris, and I’ll soon be at
the shop which furnished her hat and coat. If it is not one in the Rue
de la Pais called L’harmonie, then I am no witch woman. The latest color
plates they sent me show a coat like that gray.”
“Perhaps she is a friend of Miss Remson’s,” was Kathie’s suggestion.
As the five had not heard the brief exchange of words between the
stranger and the manager they impersonally concurred with Kathie. Again
hustled into the roadster by Vera they soon dropped the subject of the
beautiful arrival at the Hall for the more personal one of Miss
Susanna’s gracious and unlooked-for help in the dormitory project.
Meanwhile, at Wayland Hall, Miss Monroe of London and Paris was lounging
gracefully in a roomy willow rocker in the living room. She was
appraising her surroundings through two limpid, but distinctly shrewd
blue-green eyes and mentally ticketing them “not half bad.”
In her office Miss Remson was frowning as she industriously consulted
her letter file for the desired correspondence. The perturbed manager
was very certain that she had not agreed to admit Miss Monroe, or any
other strange young woman, to Wayland Hall in the middle of the summer.
She gave a kind of annoyed cluck as she finally found the desired
correspondence between herself and the newcomer’s father, who had signed
his letters, “Herbert Cecil Monroe.” They had been written from a Paris
address and had been accompanied by satisfactory references. In them,
however, her permission had not been asked, nor had she agreed to admit
the daughter of her correspondent to Wayland Hall before the formal
opening of Hamilton College.