"Come on, then."
"I think I'll wait for you on the veranda, children," said Mrs. Gray. "Don't stay upstairs too long. I should like to go back to Mrs. Elwood's, telephone for a taxicab, and make a call upon Dr. Morton this morning."
"We'll hurry," promised Grace, as they ascended the open staircase which led to the second floor. "These are to be my quarters," she announced, opening a door at the end of the hall on the left side of the stairs. "This left wing was designed especially for me. The right wing has the same amount of space, but it is divided into two bedrooms. But the left has a sitting-room and bedroom, with a bathroom between the two. It seems selfish in me to have so much room, but Mrs. Gray insists that I need it and wishes me to be thoroughly comfortable. She wanted me to have circassian walnut bedroom furniture, but I chose oak. I don't wish my rooms to suggest luxury. It wouldn't seem in touch with the spirit of my undertaking."
Elfreda regarded Grace with loving admiration. "You're the squarest, fairest girl I ever knew or even expect to know, Grace," was her tribute. "And you deserve the best that the Harlowe House girls can give you."
CHAPTER III
AN UNEXPECTED CALLER
"'And if I do say it as shouldn't,' this room is a credit to our college and our own sweet native land," proclaimed Elfreda, as she viewed with critical eyes the long cheerful living-room, to which she and Grace had just put the final touches. The morning sunshine of a perfect midsummer day poured in at the windows flooding the scene with dazzling light, as though smiling its approval of the pretty room. The walls and ceilings were papered in cream color with a running border of green leaves. The floor rug was in two shades of green, and the window draperies were in green and white. The furniture was in mission oak, but there were several comfortable arm chairs and willow rockers scattered about the room. A long library table took up considerable space at one end of the room, and conveniently near it were rows of book shelves, lined with special books required by the Overton curriculum of study, which, in price, were out of reach of the more impecunious students, and were in such constant demand at the library that their temporary possession often meant weeks of waiting.
There was a piano, of course, but the crowning feature of the room, however, was the wide window seat built across the bow-window at its upper end. It was at least four feet wide, upholstered in thick green velvet and piled high with sofa pillows. It was indeed a cozy corner which invited rest, and Elfreda confidently predicted that it would be the most popular spot in the house.
The house itself had not followed the usual plan of modern architecture. In fact, it was distinctly old-fashioned and built for room rather than effect. The hall ran the length of the house to the kitchen, dividing it into two parts. The dining-room was on the side opposite the living-room, and had also a bow-window. Directly behind it lay the servants' quarters. Adjoining the living-room was Grace's little office and behind that was a room furnished with every convenience for the benefit of those girls who were obliged to launder their own clothing to save expense.