“I saw him over there in the window last night, and the girls were just saying that perhaps you would meet him,” replied Jane. “But please go on.”
“‘Norman Young, my secretary,’ said the old lady, looking inquiringly at us. Clarice supplied our names, and the youth bowed gravely. ‘Norman,’ she asked, ‘did you type the letter I dictated earlier this evening?’
“‘Not yet, Mrs. Brock,’ he said.
“‘You need not write it. That’s all,’ she added curtly, as the young man lingered a moment, eyeing Clarice. As soon as he had disappeared, she turned to us again. ‘You may go too,’ she announced abruptly; ‘and don’t let me hear such a rumpus over there again.’ Then Clarice spoke up. ‘Mrs. Brock, we told you we were sorry, and we are; but we can’t promise never to make another sound, when we have parties, or at any other time. There are forty-five girls in the house, and it’s unreasonable to expect us to be as quiet as deaf-mutes.’ Before she could get her breath to annihilate Clarice, which I thought she would do, I broke in and said that perhaps she’d like us and understand college life better if she came over to Arnold Hall some time and got acquainted with the girls and see how we live.
“‘Maybe I should,’ she replied slowly, and really her face changed so that I thought she was going to smile.”
“Now you have done it, Pats,” groaned Anne.
“Whatever possessed you to say that?” complained Betty.
“Who in creation is she, that she thinks she can take such a hand in our affairs?” demanded Katharine hotly.
“Well, I felt sorry for her,” contended Patricia stoutly. “She’s old, and all alone in that big house—”
“Oh, no, Pats, not alone; think of that attractive youth,” protested Hazel.