Bred to thrive in the great outdoors the sturdy mistress of Hamilton Arms had enjoyed the winter picnic no less than her youthful companions. While there had been sufficient snow to permit the use of the bob sleds, it was of the frost-like crystallized kind. The sun had peered curiously forth from his winter quarters, had apparently approved the gay winter cavalcade. He had flashed in and out of fleecy clouds at them on their way to the woods. Later, when they had hilariously disposed themselves on the bob sleds for an al fresco luncheon he had come out in all his glory to shine on them.
What most amused the girls was the crush which Miss Susanna and Hal immediately developed for each other. Miss Hamilton and Hal had met at the June Commencement of Hamilton College of the previous summer. Devotion to Marjorie had formed an instant, though unspoken bond between them. Hal had somehow gained the comforting impression that Miss Susanna approved of him for Marjorie. The shrewd old lady had not miscalculated his worth. She had been too wise, however even to mention him to Marjorie. Nor had Marjorie ever mentioned Hal to her save as an old friend, or as Jerry’s brother.
The wise old Lady of the Arms had seen too much of heartache, misunderstanding and vain regret not to appreciate the wonder of the love which Hal held for Marjorie. Miss Susanna had had her own romance. It had ended summarily in her girlhood when she found the man she had loved unworthy. In true love itself she still believed, though she skeptically rated it as so rare as to be almost extinct. Then had come Hal, with his clean-cut good looks and wistful blue eyes. She could only receive him into her interested regard with the hope Marjorie might one day “wake up to love.”
Friends of Marjorie Dean knew the quartette of stories relative to her doings at Sanford High School. They form the “Marjorie Dean High School Series.” These friends have also followed her through her four years at Hamilton College by medium of the “Marjorie Dean College Series.” Her subsequent return to Hamilton campus as a post graduate has been set down in the first two volumes of the “Post Graduate Series,” entitled respectively: “Marjorie Dean, College Post Graduate,” and “Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager.”
“It has been a good day; now let it be—good night,” declaimed Leila with a dramatic gesture.
“Good night,” Vera sweetly responded. “So sorry you are going.” She smiled honeyed dismissal of Leila.
“But I am not going. Now why should you think I was? I see little sadness in your round face, Midget,” was the satiric retort.
“You said ‘good night.’ Of course, if you didn’t know what you were saying—” Vera shrugged eloquently.
“Can you not allow your Celtic friend to quote from that most celebrated of all playwrights, Leila Harper?” demanded Leila, with an air of deep injury. “Is not that the hero’s parting speech from my latest and best house play? I can prove it by Robin. Did I not nearly ruin my fine Irish voice drilling the hero to say it with expression?”
In process of delivering this scathing rebuke to Midget Leila bent down and swept Ruffle, Marjorie’s stately Angora cat, into her arms. “It is you and I who will now have a talk about Santa Claus,” she genially informed the struggling, fluffy-haired captive.