Satisfied to have made Marjorie laugh Jerry subsided. Presently a final prayer was said by the Reverend Greene, and the large company joined in the singing of the Doxology. Following the exercises the enthusiastic throng moved forward to inspect the new dormitory, the massive entrance doors of which stood open as though inviting visitors.
Among the few students who did not follow the crowd were Julia Peyton and Mildred Ferguson. Mildred was frankly contemptuous over the whole affair. She was not interested in a dormitory for the use of needy students, nor did she care anything about Brooke Hamilton as the founder of the college.
“Shucks,” she commented disdainfully to Julia as the two turned away from the animated scene. “Let’s go back to the campus. Somebody had to found Hamilton. Why should there be so much fuss made over it?”
“That small woman on the platform!” Julia exclaimed in consternation. “That was Miss Susanna Hamilton! I saw her at the Hall and thought she was Miss Remson’s sister.”
“Well, she doesn’t know it,” shrugged Mildred.
Julia, however, was anything but at ease in mind. Ever since the dismal failure of the attempt to force Leslie Cairns from Wayland Hall she had been more or less gloomy and morose. She had haughtily declared on the day after Muriel’s “show” that she would not any longer keep the presidency of the club. She would not even attend any future meetings. She wrote a resignation as president and intrusted it to Mildred to read to the club.
Mildred read it out to the members at the next meeting of the Orchid Club. It was accepted with such alacrity, and a new president so promptly elected, that she decided she would not be so foolish as risk her membership in the club by offering to resign. She was inwardly peeved in that she had not been appointed president and another girl elected as vice-president. Only her ability to brazen things out kept her in a club in which the attitude of its other members toward her was one of polite endurance.
Julia’s club troubles were less to her, however, than Clara Carter’s defection. Clara still roomed with her, but paid very little attention to her. The red-haired girl was trying to model her acts on a higher basis. She was completely out of sympathy with her former intimate.
Julia also had another worry which had at first seemed too remote for anxiety. Her mother had written her that her father had met with severe losses in his manipulations of stocks. She had paid little attention to this news from home. Her father frequently engaged in the daring raids on the market which had earned him the name of “Wolf Peyton.” Later, her mother had written her again of her father’s critical financial situation. This time Julia had heeded the alarm of her mother’s sounding. She knew it to be serious from the very fact that her mother had written her twice on the subject.
The day after the dedication of the dormitory she received a third letter from home that sent her into a panic. She let it overcome her to the extent of cutting her classes for the day and staying in her room to weep dismally over the Peytons’ changed prospects.