If the single gesture had been a wizard’s charm, it could hardly have taken effect more quickly. A hush, almost painful, ensued. The roll of the spokesman’s announcing tones fairly jarred the absolute stillness.
“Upon our queste of Beautye brighte, we have not soughte in vaine. So manye maides of faire young pryde make hard the chosynge then. Nor had the taske been done e’en yet, walkyede Beautye not amongst ye. On Mystresse Marjorie, of the Deans, our critike favor falles. Beautye has she to bless the eye and satisfye the heart.”
A murmur of acclamation began with the announcement of Marjorie’s name. It increased in volume until it drowned the judge’s speech. “Delighted,” that dignitary managed to shout so as to be heard, and, with a profound bow, waited for the noise to subside.
Standing beside Leila, who was applauding vigorously, a positive Cheshire-cat grin on her usually indifferent face, Marjorie fervently wished that she might suddenly drop through the floor. Her embarrassment was so great that she hardly knew in which direction to look or what to do. When quiet again descended the judge went on with the rest of a very complimentary speech. It ended in a summons to come to the stand and be acclaimed Beautye and receive Beautye’s guerdon.
At this Marjorie absolutely balked. Neither could Leila nor several other students, who had gathered round her, persuade her to go forward. It ended by a flushed and half indignant Beautye being forcibly marched up to the stand by a crowd of laughing girls. The guerdon was an immense bunch of long-stemmed American Beauty roses. Marjorie made a never-to-be-forgotten picture, as surrounded by her body guard, she stood with her arms full of roses and listened to the quaint adjuration to Beautye.
Unbidden tears crowded to her eyes as the judge ended with fine dramatic expression: “Brede ye, therefore sweete maids, no vanitye of the mind, but, say ye raythere, at even, a prayer of thankfulnesse for the gifte of Beautye, by the grace of God.” The emotional side of her nature touched by the fineness of the sentiment, she forgot herself as its object.
A group of Silverton Hall girls, headed by Portia Graham and Robin Page, gathered to offer their warm congratulations. Entirely against her will, Marjorie Dean, Hamilton College freshman, had been accorded an honor which she had neither expected nor desired.
CHAPTER XX.—LIVING UP TO TRADITION.
To be ignored on one’s arrival at Hamilton and in less than six weeks to be acclaimed the college beauty seemed the very irony of fate to Marjorie. The week following the freshman frolic was a hard one for her. Used to going unostentatiously about with her chums, she now found herself continually in the limelight. Whenever she appeared on the campus she had the uncomfortable feeling that every movement of hers was being watched.
“You may thank your stars that you are at college where the newspapers aren’t allowed to trespass,” Ronny had laughingly assured her when she complained. Nevertheless she was far from pleased when a prominent illustrator wrote her a polite note asking permission to make sketches of her. Worse still, she received later a letter from a New York theatrical manager offering her an engagement in a musical comedy he was about to launch. How either man had come into knowledge of her name she could not imagine.