Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman

E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

Poising herself on the bank, she cut the water in a clean, sharp dive. Page 234. Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman
Copyright, 1917 By A. L. Burt Company
MARJORIE DEAN, HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN

What am I going to do without you, Marjorie? Mary Raymond's blue eyes looked suspiciously misty as she solemnly regarded her chum.
What am I going to do without you , you mean, corrected Marjorie Dean, with a wistful smile. Please, please don't let's talk of it. I simply can't bear it.
One, two—only two more weeks now, sighed Mary. You'll surely write to me, Marjorie?
Of course, silly girl, returned Marjorie, patting her friend's arm affectionately. I'll write at least once a week.
Marjorie Dean's merry face looked unusually sober as she walked down the corridor beside Mary and into the locker room of the Franklin High School. The two friends put on their wraps almost in silence. The majority of the girl students of the big city high school had passed out some little time before. Marjorie had lingered for a last talk with Miss Fielding, who taught English and was the idol of the school, while Mary had hung about outside the classroom to wait for her chum. It seemed to Mary that the greatest sorrow of her sixteen years had come. Marjorie, her sworn ally and confidante, was going away for good and all.
When, six years before, a brown-eyed little girl of nine, with long golden-brown curls, had moved into the house next door to the Raymonds, Mary had lost no time in making her acquaintance. They had begun with shy little nods and smiles, which soon developed into doorstep confidences. Within two weeks Mary, whose eyes were very blue, and whose short yellow curls reminded one of the golden petals of a daffodil, had become Marjorie's adorer and slave. She it was who had escorted Marjorie to the Lincoln Grammar School and seen her triumphantly through her first week there. She had thrilled with unselfish pride to see how quickly the other little girls of the school had succumbed to Marjorie's charm. She had felt a most delightful sense of pardonable vanity when, as the year progressed, Marjorie had preferred her above all the others. She had clung to Mary, even though Alice Lawton, who rode to school every day in a shining limousine, had tried her utmost to be best friends with the brown-eyed little girl whose pretty face and lovable personality had soon made her the pet of the school.