It was the signal for the others to press about Leslie, shaking her hand, each one adding some pleasant plea for her return to the Hall. Marjorie was last of the group to clasp hands with Leslie. She merely said, as she regarded the other girl with a bright, winsome smile: “Won’t you please take 15, Leslie?”
“Yes.” Leslie’s tone was steady now. “How can I do otherwise? Not only because all of you wish me to do it. It’s best for me, though it may be the hard way for a while. You understand what I mean.”
“Yes. We all understand. We know what you wish most. You can make a stronger fight for it at the Hall than if you were to live off the campus. We’ll all stand by you.” Marjorie had taken Leslie’s other hand. The two girls faced each other, staunch comradeship in the pose.
“I’ll stand by myself.” Leslie’s characteristic independent spirit, obscured by emotion, flashed forth. “Not that I shan’t like to remember that I’ve true pals ready to fight for me. But it’s this way. Once I did a great deal of lawless damage on the campus. Now it’s up to me to repair it, and stand all criticisms while I’m at the repairing job.”
CHAPTER XVI.
PLANNING MISCHIEF
The appearance of Leslie Cairns the next week at Wayland Hall, followed by her trunk, temporarily drove Julia Peyton’s club ambitions far afield. To discover that Leslie, to whom Julia liked to refer in shocked tones to others as “that terrible Miss Cairns,” was to become a resident once more of Wayland Hall filled her with spiteful amazement and speculation.
“How do you suppose she ever got in here?” was the question she most frequently addressed to Clara Carter during the first two days following Leslie’s return to the Hall. Neither she nor Clara had been able to glean any information in the matter from other students at the Hall. Wayland Hall was filling up rapidly. The upper classmen were busy arranging their programs and looking up their friends. The entering freshmen at the Hall were busy either with entrance examinations or unpacking and straightening their belongings.
To add to Julia’s disgruntlement, Doris Monroe had been back at the Hall almost a week, yet not once had she noticed either Julia or Clara except by the distant courtesy of a bow or salutation whenever she chanced to encounter her two treacherous classmates.
Doris was far too greatly delighted with the way matters had shaped themselves for Leslie to think much of anything else. Of all the girls Leslie had known in her lawless days Doris had been the only one who had liked her for herself. From the day of Leslie’s reconciliation with her father Doris and Leslie had continued their growing friendship on an even better basis than before. At last, each of the two girls knew the joy of claiming a real “pal.”