Inwardly Marjorie breathed a sigh of thanksgiving. She hoped fervently that “Sam” was gone for good.
All the rest of the troop were already assembled in the scout room, and Marjorie felt something of the joyousness of homecoming in her welcome. There was no doubt about their genuine pleasure in her return. She felt hopeful about launching her new plans.
The girls, however, were eager to talk of basket-ball; they wanted to hear Marjorie’s opinion of the match game, and Jack’s; they demanded the rest of their League schedule, and they insisted upon discussing their opponents.
“The whole thing is arranged very fortunately for us,” remarked Marjorie. “We have two easy teams to play next—at least I hope they’ll be easy—from Troop Thirty-five, and Troop Eighteen. Then in February we meet Troop Six, and the very last League game of the season is our team against One-Sixty One!”
“Hooray!” shouted Queenie gleefully. “Lady Luck sure is with us! Remember I said we’d whitewash Sixteen and Thirty-five? Well, there’s no doubt about it now, after we trimmed Ninety-seven so neat!”
“I have one sad piece of news for our troop, though,” interrupted Marjorie: “Miss Andrews has announced her engagement to Mr. Roberts, and feels that she hasn’t time enough to play on our team any longer. She wants to be with her fiancé on Saturday evenings.”
“Good night!” cried Stella in dismay. “What did she have to go and get engaged for—just when our team was pullin’ together so good!”
“Anyway we can be glad it ain’t—isn’t—you, Miss Wilkinson!” observed Queenie.
“Or you!” returned Marjorie meaningly.
“And it’s a good thing we got Sophia. But say, we’ve got a get another sub. Any of you kids done any work over Christmas?”