“It’s true.” Robin accompanied the assurance with a gentle pinch. “Out of the darkness has come light. I wish we could do something for Miss Susanna to prove our gratitude.”
“I said that to her this morning,” Marjorie returned. “She said ‘there is only one thing any of you could do for me,—come back to Hamilton next year. Now I know you are not free to do that. It rests with your parents. I suppose you will not be coming back to college. Well, you can at least make me a visit; singly, doubly, severally, or all at once.’”
“Would you like to come back, Marjorie?” asked Phyllis. “I ask because I know how your heart has been set on furthering the dormitory project.”
“Yes, I should,” Marjorie answered honestly. “Now that this wonderful thing has happened, I can’t bear not to be here next year. I know that you and Barbara and the new Travelers we’ve chosen will look after things as well, if not better, than we have, but it seems hard to be so far away when the real work is going to begin. I understand why Mr. Brooke Hamilton wished to be near the campus when the college buildings were being erected.”
The “wonderful thing” to which Marjorie referred was in the nature of an announcement made at the Commencement exercises that morning. Miss Susanna Hamilton had, through the offices of President Matthews, presented to her young friend, Marjorie Dean, a clear title to the lower block of houses west of the campus, formerly owned by her.
“Miss Dean has devoted her earnest effort to securing a site on which to erect a dormitory to be devoted to the housing of students in reduced circumstances. Such students are entitled to their time for study rather than the performance of extra work in order to pay their expenses. It is my wish that Miss Dean shall use the properties with which I now present her as a site for the dormitory of her dreams.
“Signed,
“Susanna Craig Hamilton.”
This last paragraph of a letter, written to Doctor Matthews by Miss Hamilton, and read out at the exercises, produced a sensation in collegiate circles. Doctor Matthews had called on Miss Hamilton, shortly before Commencement Day, asking her to attend the exercises as his honored guest. The eccentric old lady had refused flatly.
“No, I haven’t forgiven the college, altogether. You must let me alone. I am what I am, and I don’t often change. I owed my little friend, Marjorie Dean, a reparation. I have made it in the way I thought she would like best. Personally, you are the most sensible and true gentleman I have known on a college staff since my great-uncle passed out. If they had all been like you—but they haven’t been.”