A SEMPER FIDELIS REUNION
"O frabjous day!" rejoiced Emma Dean, using her bath towel as a scarf and performing a weird dance about the room. "I know I shall go chortling through my classes this morning in a highly undignified manner. To think that dear old Semper Fidelis will hold forth again in the same old haunts! And the most beautiful part is that there will be no vacant chairs."
Emma's delight was reflected on Grace's face. It was the morning before Thanksgiving Day and the two young women were preparing to go to breakfast, full of happy anticipation, for the various afternoon trains were to bring to them their Semper Fidelis comrades. It had all begun with Elfreda's and Mabel Ashe's promises to spend Thanksgiving at Harlowe House. Then Elfreda had persuaded Arline Thayer, whom she saw frequently in New York, to join them. Arline had written to Ruth, who had come on to New York for a long visit to her chum in time to swell the band. Elfreda had promptly written Grace that if she would see that Miriam and Anne put in an appearance at the proper moment, the Briggs Helping Hand Society would guarantee that the other members should appear at Overton on the appointed day.
"Elfreda has taken rather a large contract on her hands," Grace had said to Emma, on receiving the letter. "She evidently knows what she's doing, so I had better write to Miriam and Anne."
Miriam's promise to come had been easily obtained, but Anne was not sure of attending the Semper Fidelis reunion, until the week before Thanksgiving, when Everett Southard, who was then playing in Shakespearian repertoire in New York, obligingly arranged to give the "Taming of the Shrew" on the day before Thanksgiving, and "King Richard III" on Thanksgiving Day. As Anne did not appear in either play, her Thanksgiving freedom was assured.
And now the great day had dawned at last! There were to be recitations in the morning, but college would close at noon, not to reopen until the following Monday. The Semper Fidelis girls were to be Elfreda's guests at Vinton's that night at a six o'clock dinner. On Thanksgiving morning they were to breakfast at the Tourraine as the guests of Ruth and Arline. Thanksgiving dinner at Martell's was to be Anne's and Miriam's part of the celebration, while Thanksgiving night Emma and Grace were to be hostesses at Vinton's, their favorite rendezvous.
Grace would have dearly loved to be hostess at the Thanksgiving dinner, but she felt that her duty lay with her household. She wondered whether it would be really right for her to remain away from Harlowe House for so many meals. After long and earnest discussion, she and Emma had arranged that she would give up eating Thanksgiving dinner with her friends, while Emma cheerfully agreed to preside at the Harlowe House breakfast table on Thanksgiving morning. It was decided that Louise Sampson, of whom Grace had grown extremely fond, was the best possible person to leave in charge during their absence on Thanksgiving night, for neither Grace nor Emma felt that they could bear to miss that last gathering together of their beloved Semper Fidelis friends.
"I wonder who will be first on the scene," speculated Grace.
"Consult the time table, my child," advised Emma. "I have no time for speculation. I am starting on a hunt in darkest Deanery for my cuff links. They are tucked away in some remote corner of the Dean territory, but which corner?"
"They are in one end of your handkerchief box. I saw you put them there yesterday, you ridiculous person," laughed Grace.
"Thank you, thank you! 'One good turn deserves another,'" quoted Emma fervently. "Bring forth the fateful time table and I'll sort out the trains and the order of arrival of the clan."
"I haven't a time table," confessed Grace.
"Then we'll have to let the trains run merrily on, and the railroad do its perfect work. I'm sorry I can't pay my debt of gratitude. I am always helpful. I was always helpful. I have been helpful. I would be helpful. I might have been helpful and I may yet be helpful," conjugated Emma hopefully, "but not without a time table."
"I appreciate your splendid spirit of helpfulness even though it isn't of any use at present," assured Grace satirically. "I suppose—"
A long reverberating ring of the bell cut short her remark.
The two friends exchanged questioning glances.
"It can't be one of the girls. It's only eight o'clock," was Emma's quick comment.
Grace opened the door and listened intently. Emma joined her, peering over her shoulder. Then Miss Duncan's dignified assistant in English gave an unmistakable, though subdued, war whoop, and, seizing Grace by the hand, made for the stairs. Grace needed no assistance. An instant later they brought up at the foot of the stairs and made a simultaneous rush for a tall, plump young woman, enveloping her in a tempestuous embrace.
"I might have known you'd be the first," cried Grace with joyful affection. "You must have taken a train in the middle of the night."
"I did," returned J. Elfreda Briggs calmly. "We are living in New York this winter, so Pa brought me to the station in his own pet car and saw me safely on my way. Emma Dean, you good old comrade, how are you?" Elfreda turned from Grace to Emma.
Emma surveyed Elfreda with fond eyes. "Just now I'm overcome at seeing you, J. Elfreda. How we have missed you!" Depth of feeling for the moment checked Emma's irrepressible flow of humor. Next to Grace, in her regard, came the one-time stout girl, now merely plump and extremely attractive.
Tears flashed across J. Elfreda's eyes as she stood looking into the faces of these friends, whom she loved so truly, yet saw so seldom. "Missing people has been my greatest cross this year," she said, her voice not quite steady. "There's no use in making a fuss, though. I'm beginning to learn that."
A brief silence fell upon the three classmates.
"Have you had your breakfast, Elfreda?" asked Grace, almost abruptly.
"Are there waffles?" counter-questioned Elfreda.
"There can be. The Harlowe House kitchen boasts of waffle irons, bought with this occasion in view."
"Then I am heart and soul for breakfast," avowed Elfreda. "I ate my usual sumptuous repast of half a grape fruit and a piece of dry toast, plus one small cup of black coffee, on the train. I haven't had a waffle since I was here in August. I wonder how they would taste," she added innocently.
"You'll know before long," promised Grace. "Emma take Elfreda upstairs to our room, while I ask Sarah to make the waffles."
Half an hour later they sat around the breakfast table, a contented trio. After Emma had left them to go to her work, Grace and Elfreda had a long confidential conversation over their coffee. The noon train brought Mabel Ashe, Arline and Ruth, while from off the afternoon trains stepped Anne and Miriam, the smiling Emerson twins, Elizabeth Wade, Marian Cummings and Elsie Wilton.
It was a congenial and talkative company that, as Elfreda's guests, graced Vinton's at six o'clock dinner that night. Kathleen West, who had been prevailed upon to spend at least one Thanksgiving at Overton, instead of on duty on her paper, was one of three guests of honor, Mabel Ashe and Patience Eliot were the others. By special arrangement a table that would seat fifteen persons had been set in their favorite rendezvous, the mission alcove. Elfreda, Grace, Anne and Miriam, rejoicing in their reunion, had made a tour of the stores together that afternoon, and gleefully carrying the fruits of their shopping to Vinton's had decorated the table with flowers, ribbons and funny little favors.
The Overton girls that happened to drop into Vinton's that night smiled appreciatively at the gay little company in the alcove. A glance in that direction on the part of the upper class girls was sufficient. They knew that Semper Fidelis, the darling of the Overton clubs, was making merry. The freshmen, however, had to have matters explained to them by their friends.
"That Semper Fidelis club was the life of Overton," Althea Parker explained to Evelyn Ward. "That's one reason I asked you to come here with me to-night. I wanted you to see them together." The two were seated at a small table not far from that of the Sempers.
Evelyn made no response. Her eyes were fixed upon the mission alcove. She knew, only too well, that Althea's invitation to dinner had not been disinterested. She had learned to know that Althea was not only snobbish, but self-seeking as well. For whatever she gave she demanded value received. Evelyn had been in the living-room when Grace and Elfreda returned from their shopping. She had heard them discussing the dinner, and had lost no time in slipping on her wraps and carrying the news to Althea, who, as she had hoped, had at once invited her to dinner at Vinton's.
"Althea thinks I'll attract the attention of those girls," Evelyn had speculated shrewdly.
Meanwhile the girls in the alcove, quite unconscious of the discussion going on about them at the other tables, were in their element. One after another the dear wraiths of their Overton days were summoned, to be laughingly and lovingly reviewed, then lingeringly laid to rest again.
"Girls, do you remember the dinner we gave here after the ghost party?" asked Mabel Ashe, her brown eyes alight with mischief. "Some of you girls weren't here that night, but at least half of you were."
"I ought to remember it," declared Elfreda significantly.
"Yes, Elfreda, it was in honor of you, I believe," laughed Arline. The dinner to which Mabel referred belonged to Elfreda's freshman year at Overton.
"It was indeed," affirmed Anne Pierson. "Every one of our four years brought its own parties."
"And its own problems," supplemented Miriam.
"Of whom we were which," murmured J. Elfreda.
Every one laughed at this naive assertion.
"But we've all turned out creditably," smiled Miriam Nesbit, "thanks to our Loyalheart. She opened the way to good comradeship for me, long ago, in my high school days."
"She found my father for me!" said Ruth Denton, her eyes eloquent.
"She stood by me when I needed her most," said Anne.
"Girls, I won't—" Grace half rose from her chair, but was gently shoved into it again.
"Sit still and hear the rest of your misdeeds," commanded Mabel. "Go on, Arline."
"She helped me to be unselfish and to think of others," was Arline's sweet tribute.
"She made me over," asserted Elfreda with emphasis.
"She taught me college spirit," said Kathleen softly.
"Sara and I didn't like college and never had much fun until Grace asked us to join the Sempers," declared Sue Emerson.
"She was the first to welcome me to Overton, and has given me countless good times since then," said Patience.
"She taught me to look for the best rather than the worst, even in my enemies," declared Mabel Ashe.
Elizabeth Wade, Marian Cummings and Elsie Wilton each added their tribute.
"Girls, if you only knew how terribly this embarrasses me," pleaded Grace. "Every one of you have done the nicest sort of things for me. I think—"
"You are not allowed to think," put in Miriam. "We will do the thinking for the next two minutes. Besides J. Elfreda has something to say. Go ahead, Elfreda."
"Grace, you've heard what we all had to say about you, but there is a whole lot that we can never find words for. Each of us knows best what you've been to us, as individuals, and we all know that there will never be any other girl quite as dear, and true, and loyal as you are to us. So we decided to give our Loyalheart a loyalty token, and here it is. Hold out your arm," commanded Elfreda.
