Readers of the Marjorie Dean High School, College and Post Graduate Series can already claim Marjorie and her intimate girl-associates as old friends. They have followed the fortunes of this particular band of devoted chums through both bright and stormy days.
Marjorie Dean Macy saw the happy culmination of the romance between Marjorie and Hal Macy in her marriage to him, on a balmy May Day evening at Hamilton Arms, the home of her friend, Miss Susanna Hamilton.
It was now the last of August. Marjorie and Hal had taken possession of their new home the middle of August in order to see Mr. and Mrs. Dean off for a two weeks’ stay at their old standby, Severn Beach. Jerry Macy, deep in preparations for her marriage to Danny Seabrooke to take place on the eighth of September, had been unable to resist Marjorie’s affectionate invitation to come to her and Hal’s new home as the first guest to enter the hospitable portals of “Travelers’ Rest.”
“I’ve been here over a week, Mrs. M. D. Macy,” she announced as Marjorie returned to the veranda with a pencil and small leather note book. “I simply must hit the trail for Sanford, not later than day after tomorrow. Danny’ll think I’ve lost interest in the marriage idea, and quit him cold.”
“I know you ought to go,” Marjorie nodded. “I’ve loved having you here with Hal and me.”
“You might have a worse sister-in-law,” Jerry pointed out with a sly grin.
“I couldn’t have a better one. I know that,” came with quick loyalty from Marjorie. “What a lot of wonderful things have happened to the Big Six since they paraded home from high school together in good old Sanford.”
“Um-m-m. I should say there had. But, do you know, Marjorie, I used to hope, back in those days that some day you’d marry Hal, and become my sister-in-law. After we entered Hamilton and you seemed to care nothing at all for him, except as a friend, it made me feel blue as sixty, at times. Honestly, I never believed then you would finally wake up and fall in love with him.” Jerry’s chubby features grew reminiscently solemn.
“I wonder now that I could have been so hard-hearted,” Marjorie made frank reply. “How could I have hurt Hal so deeply? That’s what I ask myself sometimes in the midst of the happiness his love has brought me. I can understand now how Brooke Hamilton must have grieved over Angela. It was his diary that woke me up. And to think! I almost missed love.” Marjorie was looking very sober herself.
“Here we sit, solemn as two owls, talking about what didn’t happen, thank goodness.” Jerry’s roguish smile crinkled her lips. “While we’re on the subject, I’ll tell you a secret. It was the way you turned Hal down that started me to thinking seriously about Danny. I’d always liked Danny a whole lot, but, somehow, I could never take him seriously. Whenever he’d show signs of growing serious, I’d laugh at him. Finally, when you and Hal flivvered, it worried both Danny and me. We did manage one or two serious talks about that. It drew us closer together in sympathy, somehow, and the night we went sailing in the Oriole, you remember that night, I realized that he meant a great deal more to me than I’d believed he could. That very night, while we were at the wheel together, I fell in love with him. And you’re the first person I ever told it to, and you’ll be the last. Believe me, I never let him suspect it, though, until a whole year later.”