“Drop one acquaintance from Kill-’em-off Walbert’s list,” observed Jerry as the freshman departed. “That freshie is done with her for good and all. Too bad our amateur motorist didn’t enlist for overseas service in the late war. She would have done great execution driving a tank. She’d have sent the enemy fleeing in all directions.”
Marjorie could do no less than laugh at this far-fetched conceit. “I thought I had best warn Miss Everest of what she might expect,” she said, her face sobering. “What I said about Miss Walbert was deliberate. I mentioned Miss Susanna as my friend and I may never have a chance to speak to her again.” Marjorie added this with a kind of sad bitterness.
“Oh, yes, you will. Don’t be down-hearted, beautiful Bean,” hopefully assured Jerry. “Write your letter to your offended lady of the Arms and see what happens. She can’t misunderstand you after she reads it.”
“Maybe she won’t misunderstand me, but that doesn’t mean she will be friendly with me or even with you girls again. She detested girls until she met us. She’ll probably think she was foolish ever to bother with us. Even if she felt she had misjudged me, she is such an odd, proud little person she might not be able to bring herself to write me. If she doesn’t answer my letter, then I shall never write her again. I’ll understand that she did not care to continue the friendship.”
CHAPTER XXII—A DISMAYED PLOTTER
The author of the mischief, Elizabeth Walbert, was not concerning herself over what had occurred on Saturday afternoon on Hamilton Highway. She had not the remotest idea as to the identity of the elderly woman she had come so nearly injuring. She knew that Marjorie had been with the woman. Very scornfully she had derided Miss Everest’s worried conjectures as to who the woman might be, or, if she had been badly injured.
“An old scrub woman or some sort of servant, very likely,” she had airily said. “Don’t be a silly. Those two had no business to be walking along the middle of the pike. The pike is for autos, not pedestrians.” She had utterly flouted the suggestion that she go back and ascertain what had happened as the result of her reckless dash around a corner.
Afterward, when alone, she resolved not to bother again with Jane Everest. She was just another of those stupid freshies who had no daring or spirit in them. Elizabeth was at that very moment sulking because she could not persuade certain freshmen at Wayland Hall who had until recently been her allies to waylay Augusta Forbes some evening on the campus and give her the “good scare” she had fondly planned. Gussie often spent an evening at Acasia House with a freshman who recited Greek in her section. The two girls were wont to prepare the lesson together. Thus Gussie never started for Wayland Hall much before ten o’clock. Elizabeth had learned this fact from an Acasia House freshie. Her idea had been this: Half a dozen girls, headed by herself, were to dress in sheets and glide out upon Augusta from a huge clump of bushes which she must pass in taking the most direct route from the one campus house to the other. Gussie was then to be surrounded, hustled to a neighboring tree and tied to it. The industrious specters were then to leave her to free herself as best she could. The deed was to be done on a moonless night when the weather was not severely cold.
“Suppose she can’t free herself?” one of the freshmen had put to Elizabeth on hearing her plan. “We wouldn’t dare leave her there all night. You say you know she comes from Acasia House often at about ten. We’d not have time to come back and untie her before the ten-thirty bell.”
“It wouldn’t hurt her to stay out there awhile if it weren’t cold,” was the cruel response. “I would slip down and out of the Hall about midnight, creep up behind her and cut the rope with a very sharp knife.”