“It has been a perfect day and a perfect picnic,” declared Grace as she smiled lovingly at her friends. “We’ll never forget Elfreda’s house party.”
“I’m going to have you with me at this time every year if it is possible,” planned Elfreda. “So when September comes next year just mark off the last two weeks on the calendar as set aside for the Briggs’ reunion and arrange your affairs accordingly. Is it a go?”
“Hurrah for the Briggs’ reunion,” cheered Arline.
The cheers were given and the picnickers started up the hill to where their automobiles were stationed. Grace and Elfreda brought up the rear with the luncheon hamper.
“That’s dear in you to ask us here every year, Elfreda,” said Grace. “It’s a splendid way for us always to keep in touch with one another. You are forever doing nice things for others.”
“Others,” retorted Elfreda, gruffly. “I’m the most selfish person that ever lived. I’m not planning half so much to make you girls happy as I am to be happy myself. Every time I think that I might have gone to some other college and never have known you and Miriam and Anne, it nearly gives me nervous prostration. By the way, Grace, I have an idea Miriam is going to find her work pretty suddenly. I could see at commencement that Mr. Southard was in love with her. She didn’t know it then. She knows it now though, and she likes him.”
“You certainly can see what is hidden from the eyes of the rest of us. How do you know she knows it?”
“Oh, she was talking to me the other day about Anne, and she mentioned Mr. Southard’s name in a kind of self-conscious way, not in the least like her usual self. I could almost swear she blushed, but I couldn’t quite see that,” grinned Elfreda.
“I’m surprised,” laughed Grace; then she added slowly, “I’ve known for a long time that Mr. Southard was in love with Miriam. Anne discovered it at commencement, too. I hope Miriam does love him. Somehow they seem so perfectly suited to each other. I never could quite fancy she and Arnold Evans as being in love.”
“It looks as though you’d soon be the only unengaged member of the Originals,” remarked Elfreda innocently.