“Won’t you walk down the street with us, Miss Browning?” asked Jerry. “The rest of our crowd will be here in a minute. Here they come now,” she added as Muriel Harding, Irma Linton and Susan Atwell appeared to the accompaniment of the latter’s jolly giggle.
“Thank you. I should like to walk with you,” smiled the girl in gentle, well-bred fashion. “I hardly expected to meet any of my classmates so soon. I am lucky, I think.”
“It’s our duty as good seniors to make you feel at home,” asserted Marjorie, proceeding to present the last three arrivals. “Now that you know a few of us, suppose we move on. If Miss Merton happens to come this way she will hear us talking and feel it her duty to scatter us.”
Those who have read “Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman,” “Marjorie Dean, High School Sophomore,” and “Marjorie Dean, High School Junior,” need no special introduction to her and her friends. They already know the many events, happy and unhappy, that transpired during Marjorie’s three years at Sanford High School. Transplanted from her home in B—— at the very beginning of her freshman year, to the thriving little city of Sanford, Marjorie took up her school life there with a determination to find and hold fast to all that was finest and highest in it. Despite many trials and misunderstandings which fell to her lot, her resolve to be true to herself never faltered, and each year at high school brought fresh pledges of loyalty from those who had learned to know and love her.
Now, in the first week of her senior year, she was again exerting her kindly influence in behalf of the stranger within her gates.
As the bevy of girls moved through the corridor to the main entrance of the school, she slipped her arm through that of the new girl and said cheerily, “I am sure you will like Sanford High, Miss Browning. I felt quite lost when first I came here. Now I’d be more lost if I had to leave it. Where did you live before you came here?”
“In California,” answered Veronica. “I was born there. You know, I suppose, that I came East with—with—Miss—Archer.” She hesitated slightly on the last words. “I should like to tell you something,” she continued frankly. “I heard what that black-eyed girl was saying about me as I came into the locker room. Of course I wish to be friends with you and these nice girls you go with—but—well, perhaps you ought not to pay too much attention to—one—in my position.”
Marjorie gave Veronica’s arm a gentle little squeeze. “Now I am sure you don’t know us very well. We choose our friends for what they are, not because of social position or any such foolishness. You really mustn’t mind Mignon. She has been—well—brought up rather differently from the rest of us. We——” Marjorie stopped in confusion. “There are some things I can’t explain,” she went on slowly. “It seems rather queer in me to ask you to like Mignon, but if you will try to think of her as kindly as you can, it will help her a great deal. I’m afraid that’s not very clear,” she concluded in embarrassment.
“I think I understand,” nodded Veronica. A shade of the peculiar smile that Marjorie had noted on first sight of her at Miss Archer’s flickered briefly about her mobile lips. “After all, I am here for study. Under the circumstances I can’t really expect to take much part in the social side of high school. I have had so many——” She suddenly ceased speaking, with a little catch of breath.
“Oh, you must come to my home to see me and come to my parties, too,” put in Marjorie quickly. “I wish you to meet my mother and father. I call them General and Captain. I am a Lieutenant. So is Connie Stevens. We all belong to a little army of our own. It’s a game a friend of mine and I used to play when we were little girls and we’ve never outgrown it.”