“Now,” Leslie began as the three friends seated themselves at their table, “I’ll tell you about Edgely Manor. Described in a few words, it’s a precious pet knowledge shop. It’s supposedly a prep school to college, but it’s really more on the order of a fashionable boarding school. The majority of the girls who enroll there are the daughters of society folks. Miss Tremaine, who is at the head of the school, is an outrageous snob. As a consequence, the Edgely Manor girls have an inflated opinion of themselves. I know this to be true, for my father picked the Manor for me as a prep school. I started in there, and managed to stand Miss Tremaine and her precious pets for two months. One Saturday afternoon I took a run into New York, and home. I’d had enough of the Manor. I balked, and wouldn’t go back. Peter the Great had to find another school for me. I met Natalie Wyman at the new school, and liked her. I hadn’t liked a single girl at the Manor. Nat was a frightful snob, and I developed snobbish tendencies from chumming with her. I know now that I wasn’t ever a snob at heart. I was a democrat, like my father. If I hadn’t been, I could never have climbed out of the pit I’d dug for myself. You girls remember the way the Sans ran things during their freshman year at Hamilton.” Leslie fixed her dark eyes soberly upon Leila.
“I am not likely to forget it,” Leila made honest reply. “I was strongly tempted not to come back to Hamilton the second year on that very account. It was love of Hamilton College, and all it stood for, that brought me back to it again as a soph. Then Marjorie came, Beauty set her good little feet on the campus, and you know the rest.” A gleam of sentiment shone in Leila’s eyes.
“Yes, I know the rest,” Leila nodded slowly. “Seeing this crowd of girls today brought back memory of the Sans. In this Miss Norris I saw myself again, leading my crowd, and behaving like a villain. You know what a lot of trouble I managed to stir up, at the Hall, and on the campus. I have a hunch that history is going to repeat itself; not on the campus. The battle for democracy has been fought and won there, thanks to Marjorie and you girls who stood by her so faithfully. Here at the Hall—look out.” Leslie laughed in her odd noiseless way. “Whatever starts here, I shall take a hand in. Because of the flivver I made five years ago I’m going to fight as hard for democracy this year as I once fought against it.”
CHAPTER XI
THE INTRUDER
The three P. G’s. were beginning their dessert when the freshman invasion upon the dining room occurred. The belated twelve, seen without motor coats and hats, were an attractive-looking lot of girls, smartly dressed to a degree. Assigned seats at table by Miss Remson, who had conducted the newcomers to the dining room, they made considerable noise in the way of talk and laughter, calling back and forth to one another across the three tables which seated them, precisely as though they might have been the only occupants of the dining room.
“What’s overtaken their chaperon, I wonder?” Leslie surveyed the chattering group of diners with an enigmatic face.
“Where is Jewel Marie?” counter-questioned Vera.
“Maybe taxi-cabbing it back to Hamilton town,” Leslie said ruminatively. “I left her to learn her fate from Miss Remson. She wouldn’t take my word for it, that the Hall was full up to the last half room. I still feel sorry for her, somehow, thinking her over after having thankfully passed her on to Miss Remson.”
Neither Mrs. Weatherly, nor Miss Ogden made an appearance in the dining room before Leila, Vera and Leslie had finished dessert.