“She said nothing to me of having made such a mistake.” Miss Remson showed half smiling surprise. “How came she to make it, I wonder?”
“Hard to say. Maybe she only gave the bulletin a once-over, then threw it away,” was Leslie’s half jesting theory.
“A plausible guess.” Miss Remson’s eyes twinkled. “Well, I have done the best I can for her, poor child. I hope she will be able to find campus accommodations. Did you see her again at dinner? I lost track of her after I had shown her to Room Fourteen. I had my hands full with that crowd of freshmen. I grew quite out of patience with Miss Norris. She ordered me about as though I were a maid. A very arrogant young woman. Her treatment of Mrs. Weatherly, the chaperon, was really insufferable.”
“What became of the chaperon? I didn’t see her at dinner,” Leslie asked with a touch of curiosity.
“She saw her charges safely into the Hall, then telephoned for a taxicab to take her to the station. She said she wished to catch the eighty forty-five train to New York. I asked her to remain to dinner, but she declined my invitation. She complained of having a bad headache. It was hardly to be wondered. From the way her charges treated her, I judged her to be a paid chaperon.”
“I think she was,” Leslie nodded her conviction of the surmise. “Professional chaperons are quite the go in New York among society hounds. Papa is too busy playing the market, mamma, auntie and big sister can’t leave the social whirl. Enter the long-suffering chaperon. All on account of daughter, who regards her as a tiresome necessity, and bosses her to a standstill. I know. I used to boss poor Mrs. Gaylord unmercifully. I’ll say Mrs. Weatherly must have been glad to see the station taxi at the door.”
“I hope you won’t mind my saying it, Leslie, but these New York freshmen seem to me perilously like the Sans,” the manager observed soberly. “Perhaps I formed the impression simply because they came to the Hall together in a seemingly chummy crowd. They may turn out to be of an entirely different sort. Miss Norris was the only one among them who annoyed me.”
“They reminded me of the Sans in some respects,” Leslie replied after a moment of reflective silence.
“Deliver me from any more such experiences as I had with the Sans.” The little manager raised her hands in a prohibitive gesture.
“I will. I promise faithfully to deliver you from this freshie aggregation, if they should start any trouble.” Leslie laughed, but there was a ring of resolution in her words. She rose with: “I must go upstairs and write to Peter the Great. He’ll be leaving London soon for home, and I’d like him to have one more letter from me before he sails. Don’t lose any sleep over the freshie invasion. Just leave it to Leila, Vera and me to keep the democracy plant growing at the Hall.”