Dinner was on when she reached Wayland Hall. Marjorie had fared too well on hot muffins, jam, cakes, and the most delicious tea she had ever drunk, to care for anything more to eat.
“Where, may I ask, have you been keeping yourself?” saluted Jerry about twenty minutes after Marjorie’s return. Coming into their room she beheld her missing room-mate calmly preparing her French lesson for the next day. “Why don’t you go and have your dinner? Or have you had it?”
“I have had tea instead of dinner. I couldn’t eat another mouthful to save me. ‘An’ ye hae been where I hae been,’” hummed Marjorie mischievously.
“Something like that,” satirized Jerry. “Where did you say you were? Never mind. I am sure you will tell me some day.” She simpered at Marjorie. “You should have been with Helen and I today. Something awfully funny happened. Not to us. The girls are coming up to hear about it soon. Helen and I didn’t care to tell it at the table on account of the Sans.”
“Then farewell to my peaceful study hour.” Marjorie laid away the translation she had been making.
“You can chase the girls away at eight-thirty, that will give you time enough. If you don’t, I will. I have studying of my own to do.”
“As long as the gang will be here I may as well save my remarks until then.”
A buzz of voices outside the door announced the “gang.” Beside the three Lookouts and Katherine were the beloved trio, Helen, Leila and Vera. The entire crowd pounced upon Marjorie, demanding to know where she had been. It was unusual for her to be away without having left word with some one of them.
“Will I tell you where I was? Certainly! It’s no secret; at least not now,” she added tantalizingly. “Don’t you want to hear Jerry’s tale first? I do.”
“Nothing doing. You go ahead and relieve our anxious minds. We didn’t know but maybe you had been spirited away by a bogus note again.”