Marjorie fell suddenly silent as she watched the busy workmen moving to and fro in their task of demolishment. The work, hers and Robin’s great enterprise, had begun. She was thrilled by the thought of it.
“Time to be going, Midget.”
Leila’s voice broke into Marjorie’s dream of the glory of work and the romance of worthy deeds. Marjorie could not tear her glance from the fascinating scene of labor. Yes; she and Robin had Miss Susanna to thank for this unexpected lift in their program.
“No one but Miss Susanna could have thought of this and then gone ahead and done it,” Vera now said in a tone that partook of reverence as she started the car. “She wanted you and Robin to see what had been done as soon as you set foot in Hamilton. She told us to make it our business to lead you to it.”
“Oh, wait until I see her!” Marjorie looked happy anticipation. Now they were coming into full sight of the velvety green campus. “Dear first friend, how are you?” she cried, stretching a hand of greeting toward the spread of living green.
Vera smiled in sympathy of the whimsical fancy. “You’re as full of whimsies as Leila,” she said. “She can almost convince one that Ireland is full of leprechauns and banshees.”
From the beginning of the campus wall the distance to the central gates of the college was quickly covered by Vera’s car. In the tonneau of the car Robin was still busy expressing her wonder to Leila of the surprise Miss Susanna had given them. Marjorie, however, remained silent as the roadster neared the main entrance. She was in the grip of many emotions. Her mind reverted to a day when she and her four Sanford chums had entered the gates of Hamilton College for the first time as explorers, seeking the treasures of an unknown region.
“Remember the stranger within thy gates,” she was thinking. At first no one had “remembered” them, to their grieved chagrin. Then had come Helen Trent and then Leila and Vera. Their kindly offices had marked the beginning of fellowship at a college where snobbery had been the order of things instead of democracy which the founder, Brooke Hamilton, had made every effort to establish. Now, at the beginning of her fifth college year, she was returning to a Hamilton in which democracy had become a watchword. She experienced a swift exultation of spirit in thinking of the blessed change.
As the car passed between the massive stone gate posts Vera slackened speed and continued more slowly along the central campus drive. Came a turn to the left. Wayland Hall raised its handsome gray stone height only a few yards distant. Against the emerald of its short cropped lawn brilliant-hued verbenas, zenias and salvia flaunted beds of luxuriant bloom. Later in the season, cannas, gold and scarlet, and summer’s queen, who arrives late, the ever popular dahlia, would have sway. Still later, hardy chrysanthemums would carry on the scheme of beauty.
Over one side of the veranda a late-flowering, creamy-pink climbing rose trailed its double fragrant clusters. At an end of the veranda purple and white clematis stars wove a mantle against a background of green. The spicy scent of garden pinks and tiger lilies was in the air. Wayland Hall rejoiced in a riot of flowers of which Miss Remson, its energetic little manager, took tender care. The buzzing of a select delegation of bees engaged in a honey-hunting expedition seemed the drowsing, humming voice of mid-summer itself.