“Of course you’ve never heard her say a word about it,” retorted Jerry, “or about anything else. She’s beyond me. I said when I first met her that I was going to find out the whys and wherefores of her. I’ve never found out a thing. Where she learned to dance so beautifully, where those two expensive dancing dresses came from, why she works for her board and looks like a princess, are mysteries I can’t ferret out. She’s a perfect dear and has helped the Lookouts a lot, but she’s the great enigma, just the same.”
“It’s rather queer about her,” mused Marjorie. “I used to think that she’d some day explain a few things. Perhaps there’s really nothing mysterious to explain. She is probably a natural dancer. Miss Archer must have given her those two beautiful dresses and she was born with the air of a princess.”
“That’s not the answer,” disagreed Jerry with a shake of her head. “I guess it’s the only one we’ll ever get, though, so why worry about it? I’m a baffled sleuth and I might as well own up to it. I can’t truthfully say now that I know everything about everybody.”
Jerry’s admitted mystification regarding Veronica Browning deepened considerably. When the club met at Marjorie’s home the next evening, the latter quietly assured her that she had no intention to try for the scholarship. The announcement of it and the details of the test examinations to be held to determine the winner, having been publicly made that very morning, it was freely discussed at the meeting. Of the Lookouts, it appeared that Lucy Warner was the only one to try for it. Several members of the senior class, outside the club, had also entered the lists.
The parting of the ways so near, the sextette of girls who had emerged from their freshman year, a devoted band, clung fondly to one another. Not even the glories of approaching Commencement and the consciousness of work well done could drive away the thought that their school days together would soon be a thing of the past. Commencement would witness a break in the fond little circle. The next fall Marjorie, Jerry and Muriel were to take up their new life at Hamilton College. Susan and Irma expected to enter Wellesley College, while Constance Stevens would begin her training for grand opera in New York City. It would indeed be a parting of the ways.
Although Harriet Delaney had not been of their original number, she was equally dear. It was a source of consolation to Marjorie that Harriet was also bound for the same conservatory as Constance. She reflected that, with Hamilton College not very far from New York, she would be always in direct touch with both girls. It was conceded by all that they would miss Veronica sorely. Several times Marjorie had questioned her regarding her future plans, only to receive evasive replies that discouraged further inquiry.
So while June laughed its fragrant, blossoming way toward the twenty-second of the month, the sextette of sworn friends became doubly endeared to one another as they took their last walks together to and from school. As Lookouts they would continue to meet regularly until their vacation flittings began, but as schoolmates their days were numbered. Having disposed of their final tests in January, they were free of the bugbear of examinations. The week preceding Commencement Day took on a singularly social tone. Jerry and Hal gave their long postponed dance. Constance gave an informal hop at Gray Gables. Muriel sent out invitations for a lawn party, and Marjorie entertained the Lookouts at a Saturday luncheon.
Commencement Day dawned with a cloudless blue sky and a lavish display of sunshine. More than one pair of anxious feet pattered to the window before seven o’clock that morning to view the weather prospects. To the members of the senior class it was thus far the most eventful day in their short lives. They considered it quite their due that Nature should put on her most radiantly smiling face in their honor.
Awake with dawn, Marjorie had slipped on a soft, pink negligee and curled herself up on her window seat for a quiet little session with herself. A pensive wistfulness lay in her brown eyes as she gazed dreamily out at the beauty of the sunlit morning. Her mind harked back to her first days at Sanford High School. Again she saw herself a timid outlander, entering the great study hall for the first time. It seemed ages ago. How quickly her four years at high school had sped! There had certainly been plenty of vicissitudes. Compared to the joys that had been hers, they paled to insignificance. She marveled that she should have been so abundantly blessed. Face to face with the end of her course, she could only regret that she had not done more to deserve these benefits. Untouched by false pride or vanity, she could not know how great a power for good she had been. Very humbly she bowed her head in a silent prayer of thankfulness to the Divine Source from whence all blessings flowed.
At breakfast, however, this retrospective mood was temporarily banished by her General’s teasing sallies. Later, as she donned her exquisite graduation gown of white chiffon, reverence again flowed over her like a mantle. When at ten o’clock her father assisted her into the waiting limousine with much ridiculous ceremony, she presented an unusually lovely vision of radiant girlhood. Only the faint brooding light in her eyes gave sign of the deeper emotion that lay behind them.