AN INVITATION TO AN "OFFICE PARTY."
"I'm very, very sleepy, Jeremiah, but I shall try to keep awake for the chimes. It would be unkind not to greet my second friend tonight." Marjorie made these whimsical statements between yawns.
"Wait for 'em, then, if you can," returned Jerry. "The minute my head touches the pillow I shall be dead to the world. You'll never keep awake. You are yawning now."
"I shall," firmly avowed Marjorie. Tired out by the long railway journey, her eyes would close. Nevertheless she slipped into a silk negligee and curled up on the floor beside a window, to wait for the welcoming voice of her loved friend. The light in the room extinguished, the white moonlight touched her sweet face, lending it a new and wistful beauty. From her post at the window she could see Hamilton Hall, a magnificent gray pile in the moonbeams. The campus stretched away on all sides of it like an enchanted emerald carpet full of lights and shadows.
Marjorie momentarily forgot her desire for sleep as she looked on the silent loveliness which night had enhanced. It filled her with all sorts of vague inspirations which she could sense but not analyze. She could only understand herself as being earnestly desirous of showing greater loyalty to her Alma Mater than ever before.
Then upon her inspirited musings fell the voice of her old, familiar friend, clear and silvery as ever. She sat very still, almost breathlessly, listening to the clarion, welcoming prelude. Followed the measured stroke of eleven. "I am so happy to hear you again, dear friend. Good night." Marjorie rose, and, with a last, sleepy, but loving, glance at the fairylike outdoors trotted to her couch bed. She had scarcely found its grateful comfort before she was fast asleep.
She awoke the next morning with the sunshine pouring in upon her to find Jerry, kimono-clad, standing meditatively beside her couch.
"Why—um—what—where——" she mumbled. "Oh, goodness, Jerry! have I overslept? What time is it? That wall clock stopped last night just after we came in, and I forgot to wind it and set it again." She sat up hastily.
"Be calm," replied Jerry, with a reassuring grin. "It is only five minutes to seven. I was wondering whether I could let you sleep fifteen minutes more. I'd decided to call you when you woke of your own accord."
"I'd rather be up." Marjorie arose with her customary energy and reached for her negligee. "I have a lot to do today. Our trunks will be here by noon, I hope. I want to unpack and be all straightened out before the five o'clock train. Leila and Vera are anxious for us to go with them to meet it. We ought to meet it at any rate. We are both on the sophomore committee for welcoming freshies."
Marjorie made this reminder with open satisfaction. During Commencement week, the previous June, the sophomore class elect had gathered for a special meeting. Its object had been to discuss ways and means of helping entering freshmen at the re-opening of college in the fall. Marjorie and Jerry had been appointed to it as Wayland Hall representatives, together with two students from Acasia House and three from Silverton Hall.
"I imagine we are the only ones on that committee who have come back to Hamilton," Marjorie continued. "Oh, no; Ethel Laird is on it. Let me see. Grace Dearborn was the other Acasia House girl appointed. Blanche Scott, Elaine Hunter and Miss Peyton were the three from Silverton Hall. Ronny said none of them had returned."
"I am almost sorry I did not make arrangements to have a car here this year." Jerry looked slightly regretful. "It would come in handy now. Still, I believe it is more democratic to do without one. Besides, I ought to walk rather than ride. It keeps my weight down. There is Ronny. She could have a dozen cars here if she wanted them. She won't have one. She is a real democrat, isn't she?"
Marjorie nodded. "She is the most unassuming very rich girl I have ever known. I think if the Sans really knew her circumstances they would try to take her up, even after what happened last spring."
"They would give it up as too hard a job about five minutes after Ronny found out what they were trying to do," predicted Jerry. "I have an idea that the Sans think we don't amount to much financially. My father is worth a whole lot of money, yet it's not generally known in Sanford. He never tried to keep it a secret, but you see we have never gone in for anything but the quiet family life. So people don't think much about us, except that we are old Sanford residents."
"That is a fine way to live," thoughtfully approved Marjorie. "Well, I couldn't afford to have a car here if I wanted one ever so much. The majority of the girls at Hamilton are probably from families in about the same circumstances as the Deans. Leila said yesterday that about a third of the girls here last year had their own automobiles. She said she would have been terribly lonely during her freshman year if she had not had her car. She didn't send for it for quite awhile after she entered college. Vera sent for hers, too, and hardly drove it. Most of the freshmen they were friendly with had their own cars, so they seldom needed to drive both cars at the same time."
As she talked, Marjorie had been leisurely but steadily gathering up her toilet accessories preparatory to making her morning ablutions. Jerry, who stood idly watching her chum, suddenly realized that time was on the wing.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "Here I stand like a dummy when I ought to be hiking for the lavatory myself. We'll both be late for breakfast, in spite of my early rising, if we stop to talk any longer. After breakfast we had better 'phone the baggage master about our trunks. Otherwise they may forget all about us and not deliver them before tomorrow. I haven't the trusting faith in baggage masters that I might have."
In the lavatory they encountered Muriel and Ronny. Lucy had already preceded them and gone to pay Katherine a morning call. Presently the Five Travelers and Katherine trooped down the wide stairway to breakfast, their bright, youthful faces and clear, laughing tones lending new life to staid Wayland Hall. At the foot of the stairway they met Miss Remson and hailed her with a concerted "Good morning."
Her small, shrewd eyes softened, as she received the gay salute with a smile and returned it. Her liking for this particular sextette of students was very sincere.
"Girls," she began abruptly, her smile fading, to be replaced by an expression of sternness, "Will you come into my office after breakfast? I have something to show you and also something to tell you." Her lips tightened to grimness as she made this announcement. "That's all." With a little nod she passed them and hurried on up the staircase.
As she had been busily engaged with the affairs of the Hall on their arrival of the preceding afternoon, they had had opportunity only to greet her and be assigned to their old rooms and places at table.
Entering the dining room, Vera and Leila called "Good morning" from the next table to their own.
"Be with you in a minute," Leila informed them. "I've something to report, Lieutenant." This directly to Marjorie. During the Easter visit she and Vera had made Marjorie, she had taken delightedly to the army idea as carried out by the Deans. Afterward she frequently addressed Marjorie as "Lieutenant."
"I know what it is," promptly returned Jerry. "So have we. We just saw Miss Remson. Is that what you are driving at?"
"It is. Now what shall I do to you for snapping my news from my mouth?" Leila asked severely.
"Maybe I don't know as much as you do, so you needn't feel grieved," conciliated Jerry. "Come over here and we will compare notes. I may know something you don't know. You may know something I don't know. Think what a wonderful information session we shall have."
Hurriedly finishing her coffee, Leila rose and joined the Lookouts. "I won't sit down," she declined, as Ronny motioned her to draw up a nearby chair. "Miss Remson asked Vera and I to stop at her office after breakfast."
"She asked us, too. There, I took Jerry's news away from her. That pays up for what she did to you." Muriel glanced teasingly at Jerry.
"Oh, go as far as you like." Jerry waved an elaborately careless hand. "Like the race in Alice in Wonderland: 'All won.' Perhaps one of you wise women of Hamilton can tell us if anyone else is invited to Busy Buzzy's office party."
"Silence was the answer," put in Marjorie mischievously, as no one essayed a reply to Jerry's satirical question.
"Helen ought to be," Jerry said stoutly. "She was with us to the letter last spring. I guess she'll be there. Miss Remson is fond of her."
One and all the eight girls were experiencing inward satisfaction at the summons to Miss Remson's office. Confident that it had to do with the readmittance or denial of the Sans to Wayland Hall, they were glad that the odd little manager had chosen to give them her confidence.
"I'm going over to the garage to see if the new tire is on my car. It blew out yesterday while I was driving it to cover after I left you girls. I'll be back by the time you girls have finished breakfast. Going with me, Midget?" Leila turned to Vera.
"No, Ireland," she declined, with the little rippling smile which was one of her chief charms. "I am still hungry. I want another cup of coffee and a nice fat cinnamon bun. By the time I put them away you will be back."
As Leila went out, Helen Trent appeared, a slightly sleepy look in her blue eyes. Her arrival was greeted with acclamation. Aside from Vera and Leila, the long pleasant dining room was empty of students when the Lookouts and Katherine had entered it. In consequence, they were more free to laugh and talk. The presence of the Sans in the room during meals quenched the spirit of comradarie that was so marked at Silverton Hall.
"Have you seen Miss Remson?" was hurled at Helen in chorus. She dimpled engagingly and nodded her head.
"I saw her last night after I left you girls. I had to have a new bulb for one of my lights."
"Glad of it." Jerry beamed at Helen. She had not wished her junior friend left out of Miss Remson's confidence. "If she had not told you, I was going to ask her if you might be in on it," she assured.
"Faithful old Jeremiah." Helen reached over from where she had paused beside the Lookouts' table and patted Jerry on the shoulder.
"One might think you were addressing a valued family watch dog," remarked Lucy Warner. Helen's dimples deepened. "You don't say much, Luciferous, but what you say is amazin'. I hadn't the slightest intention of ranking my respected pardner, Jeremiah, as an animal friend. With this apologetic explanation, I shall insist that you drop all such thoughts."
"Oh, I did not say I thought so," calmly corrected Lucy. "I merely said, 'One might think.'" Lucy's features were purposely austere. Her greenish eyes were dancing. Long since her chums had discovered that her sense of humor was as keen as her sense of criticism.
Leila presently returned to find the breakfasters feasting on hot, old-fashioned cinnamon buns. These buns were a specialty at Wayland Hall, and, with coffee, were a tempting meal in themselves. Another ten minutes, and they left the dining-room en masse, bound for the little manager's office, there to learn what they might or might not expect from the Sans during the coming college year.