“They never arrived, Miss Remson,” Leslie said. “This is Miss Ogden, also a freshman. She came in on the five-fifty, and we promptly captured her. The freshie twelve we went down there to meet must either have missed the train, or else changed their plans. At any rate, they failed to appear. Miss Ogden would like to talk with you about securing a room at the Hall. You will pardon me, Miss Ogden, if I leave you now. I will see you again at dinner, or else, afterward.” Leslie bowed to the freshman and made a quick escape from the office.
She went out on the veranda, there to await the coming of Leila and Vera from the garage. Her own car she had decided to leave parked on the drive in case she wished to go for an after-dinner spin. She dropped into one of the big porch chairs with an audible sigh of relief, mentally characterizing Jewel Marie Ogden as a “Razzberry.”
“Where is she? What have you done with her?” Vera Mason’s voice, low, and suspiciously near laughter, suddenly interrupted the mental analysis of the pert little freshie which Leslie was endeavoring to make.
“What?” she raised a surprised head from the hand that cupped her chin. “Where did you blow from? I never even heard you.”
“Oh, we came cross-lots, and then around the corner of the house. Where is she, Leslie?” Vera repeated, eyes roving toward the opened, screened door.
“In there, having a go with Miss Remson.” Leslie jerked her head toward the manager’s office, the beginning of her slow smile on her lips. “I introduced her to Miss Remson, then fled.”
“I should say so.” Vera’s small hands spread themselves in a gesture of comic hopelessness. “She’s a positive curiosity. I never before met another girl quite like her. What a find she would have been for a crowd of mischievous sophs. She surely would have read of herself afterward in the grind book. I didn’t dare look at either of you girls while she was talking to us.” Vera dropped, laughing, into a convenient rocker.
“She was lucky to have been met by three staid, old persons like us,” was Leila’s humorous opinion. “I am still full of pride and vainglory at having been taken for one of the faculty. And Miss Remson has yet to hear that she was guessed to be the registrar. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why Jewel Marie, and grant me, that is some name, should have made such a ridiculous mistake about Hamilton Hall. I do not understand the girl at all, and I have often thought myself an Irish lady of some understanding.”
“What I can’t understand is this. As a graduate of prep school she should be thoroughly familiar with college conditions. Hamilton Hall is sufficiently described in the Hamilton bulletin so as to differentiate it from the other campus houses. I simply couldn’t feel sympathetic with her when she admitted she had made a stupid mistake.” Vera made honest confession. “She had been so—so—well disagreeably inquisitive and self-centered. It’s not charitable to discuss her, even to you two, who saw her as I saw her, but——” Vera paused with a helpless little shrug.
“Her present manners will not carry her far at Hamilton, provided she should enroll here. I have my doubts whether she knows her own mind about it, and I have further doubts that she will be able to secure even half a room on the campus. It is a foregone conclusion that she will scorn the dormitory,” Leila predicted. “What was your opinion of her, Leslie?”