“I love it all!” Marjorie’s wide brown eyes had grown larger with emotion. She was meeting for the first time one that would later be her steadfast friend, changing only from one beauty to another—Hamilton Campus.
CHAPTER X.—AN AMIABLE SOPHOMORE.
“I cannot really help but feel that there must have been a mistake about our being ignored at the station.” Marjorie made this hopeful remark just as the taxicab passed through a wide driveway and swung into a drive that wound a circuitous course about the campus. “It is hard to believe that any student of this beloved old college wouldn’t be ready and willing to look after freshman strays like us.”
“I am afraid times have changed since Mr. Brooke Hamilton laid down the laws of courtesy,” Veronica made sceptical reply. “Beg your pardon, Sweet Marjoram, I should not have said that. I am just as much in love with Hamilton Campus as you are. I regret to say, I haven’t the same generous faith in Hamilton’s upper classmen. There has been a shirking of duty somewhere among them. I know a receiving committee when I see one, and there was none on that station platform, for I took a good look over it. I saw a number of students greeting others that they had come to the station purposely to meet, but that is all. Sounds disagreeably positive, doesn’t it? I do not mean to be so, though.”
“I can’t blame you for the way you feel about the whole business, Ronny,” Marjorie returned. “We had all looked forward to the pleasure of being taken under the wing of a friendly upper class girl until we knew our way about a little. Well, it didn’t happen, so there is no use in my mourning or spurting or worrying about it. I am going to forget it.”
“‘’Twere wiser to forget,’” quoted Ronny. Her brief irritation vanishing, her face broke into smiling beauty. “‘Don’t give up the ship.’ That’s another quotation, appropriate to you, Marjorie. You aren’t going to let such grouches as Jeremiah and I spoil your belief in the absent sophs and juniors. The seniors usually leave the welcoming job to them. Of course, there are a few seniors who have the freshmen’s welfare upon their consciences.”
The taxicab was now slowing down for a stop before a handsome four-story house of gray stone. It stood on what might be termed the crest of the campus, almost on a level with a very large building, a hundred rods away, which the newcomers guessed to be Hamilton Hall. An especially roomy and ornamental veranda extended around three sides of the first story of the house. Its tasteful wicker and willow chairs and tables, and large, comfortable-looking porch swings made it appear decidedly attractive to the somewhat disillusioned arriving party. Their new home, at least, was not a disappointment.
The lawns about the house were no less beautiful with autumn glory than those they had already seen. Marjorie in particular was charmed by the profusion of chrysanthemums, the small, old-fashioned variety of garden blooms. There were thick, blossoming clumps of them at the rounding corners of the veranda. They stood in the sturdy, colorful array as borders to two wide walks that led away from entrances to the Hall on both sides. At the left of the Hall, toward the rear of it, was an oblong bed of them, looking old-fashioned enough in its compact formation to have been planted by Brooke Hamilton himself.
The drive led straight up to the house, stopping in an open space in front of the veranda, wide enough to permit an automobile to turn comfortably. It was here that the Five Travelers alighted, bag and baggage.
“I wonder if we are early at college. The place seems to be deserted. Maybe our fellow residents are at dinner. No, they are not. It is only twenty minutes past six.” Jerry consulted her wrist watch. “The Hamilton bulletin states the dinner hour at Wayland Hall to be at six-thirty until the first of November. After that six o’clock until the first of April; then back to six-thirty again.”