She had lost all interest in leadership at Hamilton. Her one idea now was to end her college course creditably and thus earn her father’s approval. Natalie Weyman was on better terms with her than were the other Sans. They found her moody indifference harder to combat than her bullying. She was interested in nothing the club did or wished to do. “Go as far as you like, but let me alone,” became her pet answer to her chums’ appeals for advice or an expression of opinion.
“The Sans have become so exclusive they’ve nearly effaced themselves from the college map,” Jerry remarked to Marjorie several days after their return from the Christmas vacation at home.
“They have had to settle down and do some studying, I presume,” was Marjorie’s opinion. “They used to be out evenings a good deal oftener than ever we were. I’ve wondered how they kept up at all.”
“Leila said that Miss Vale had been conditioned two or three times, and had to hire a tutor to help pull her through. I notice she doesn’t go around with any of the Sans. You remember I spoke of her having changed her seat at table the next day after that fuss up in Miss Cairns’ room.”
“I have seen her with Miss Walbert a good deal lately. It seems odd, Jeremiah, that, after all the trouble we had with those girls as freshies and sophs, we should be almost free of them this year. It has been such a beautiful, peaceful year, thus far. We’ve had the gayest, happiest kind of times. If only we could keep Leila, Vera, Kathie and Helen with us next year everything would be perfect.”
“Would it? Well, I rather guess so. Gives me the blues every time I stop to think about losing them. Just when we are traveling along so pleasantly, too. Here we are, victorious democrats. We know Miss Susanna, even if we don’t dare boast of it. We’ve been entertained at Hamilton Arms; something President Matthews can’t say. You and Robin are successful theatrical managers. Oh, I can tell you, everything is upward striving.
“’Tis as easy now for hearts to be true,
As for grass to be green and skies to be blue.
’Tis the natural way of living”
gayly quoted Marjorie, patting Jerry’s plump shoulder in her walk across the room to find a pencil she had mislaid.
“I wish we would hear from Miss Susanna,” she continued, a little wistful note in the utterance. “Perhaps she did not like our Christmas remembrance. She doesn’t like birthday observances. She loves flowers, though. So she couldn’t really regard those we sent her as a present. And that letter was delightful, I thought. We may have made a mistake in sending the wreath.”
The letter to which Marjorie referred was a composite. Each of the nine girls had contributed a paragraph. They had tucked it into a box of long-stemmed red roses which they had selected as a Yule-tide offering to the last of the Hamiltons. With it had gone a laurel wreath, to which was attached a large bunch of double, purple violets. They had asked that the wreath be hung in Brooke Hamilton’s study above the oblong which contained the founder’s sayings.