“Speak no word of it until we are in the dining room. Did I not hear you say you were hungry, Midget? I am that hungry myself, and that in spite of having been well snubbed,” Leila had dropped into colloquial Celticism. “It’s sadly hurt I should feel. Now why do I smile?” Her strong features were full of laughing amusement.
“One can’t take a flock of geese seriously,” Leslie answered.
“Not unless the whole flock comes hissing at once,” laughed Vera as they entered the house.
“Even then they are not dangerous, if one turns on them,” Leila declared contemptuously.
As the three P. G’s. crossed the hall on their way to the dining room they glimpsed the last of the procession of freshmen rounding the corner at the head of the staircase.
“They came, they saw, and they’re now safe in port. Why worry about them?” Leslie murmured satirically.
“I was wondering how you were going to end that time-worn quotation,” was Leila’s sly rejoinder.
“Well, I couldn’t say ‘they conquered,’ for they haven’t, and I had to say something,” Leslie defended with a grin.
“You remind me of an Irish woman on our estate who once said very impressively to me, ‘You may be knowin’ Miss Leila, that a watched pot never yet set the world on fire,’” Leila chuckled.
Laughing, the trio entered the long pleasant dining room to find it occupied, thus far, by only three students. Miss Duncan, the freshman of the previous year who had passed a perfect entrance examination which had entitled her to the “Brooke Hamilton honor room” at the Hall, had returned early to college in order to tutor such students as might desire her services. Miss Ryan and Miss Keller, sophs of the previous year, had also returned to take up their junior estate at Hamilton.