“Don’t remind me of my sins of omission,” Marjorie laughed, flushing a trifle. “I always mean to write, but somehow I never do. We didn’t know until the week before we came from the seashore that Mary would have to go so soon. We thought it wouldn’t be until November.” Again her tones quavered suspiciously.
“I see.” Jerry frowned to hide her own inclination to mourn. During the brief time they were thrown together, after the reunion of Marjorie and Mary, she had learned to know and love the real Mary Raymond. “I’m more sorry than I can say. I thought we’d all be together for our junior year at Sanford High.”
“Of course, I am anxious to be with mother and father,” put in Mary loyally, “but I hate to leave Sanford. There are lots of things I meant to do this year that I didn’t do last year.”
“But you can’t be in two places at once,” was Jerry’s blunt consolation. “Never mind, Mary, you can come back to visit us and we’ll write you lots of letters. Marjorie is such a splendid correspondent.” Her accompanying jolly chuckle robbed this last pertinent fling of offence. “We’ll write you all the news. That reminds me, I’ve some for you girls. You’ll never guess who stayed at the same hotel with us this summer. I didn’t write about it, because I wanted to have it to tell when I came home.”
Mary cast a sidelong glance at the stout girl. There had been a faint touch of disgust in Jerry’s intonation. “Was it—Mignon?” she asked, half hesitant.
“Right you are. How did you guess it?”
“Oh, I just wondered,” was Mary’s brief response. A tide of red had risen to her white skin, called there by distressing memories.
“Yes, it was our dear Mignon,” continued Jerry briskly. “And she has a friend, Rowena Farnham, who likewise stayed at our hotel. Believe me, they were a well-matched pair. You see the La Salles usually go to Severn Beach every summer, but they always stay at Cliff House. We always go to the Sea Gull. That’s the whole length of the beach from their hotel. Imagine how pleased I was to see Mignon come parading down to dinner one evening, after we’d been there about two weeks. I was so disgusted that I wanted my father to pack up and move us over to Cliff House. But he wouldn’t, the hard-hearted person.
“That is only part of my tale. The worst now comes trailing along. It’s about this Rowena Farnham. It seems that the Farnhams moved to Sanford last June just after school closed and——”
“Is this Rowena Farnham a very tall, pretty girl with perfectly gorgeous auburn hair and big black eyes?” broke in Mary abruptly.