On the veranda a small, wiry, familiar figure was watching the approach of the automobile and waving a preliminary greeting. Miss Remson’s thin pleasant face grew brighter with welcome as she stood at the head of the steps, her eyes on the car as it slid onto the open space before the house.
Marjorie was the first one out of the car. It had hardly stopped when she skipped agily from it and ran toward the erect waiting figure. Miss Remson came half way down the steps to meet her and the two embraced with joyful vigor.
“My dear Marjorie, you are so very welcome. How I have missed you and all of my girls this summer.” Miss Remson still held Marjorie’s hands in hers. “So glad you are to stay at the Hall with Marjorie, Robina.” She offered a cordial hand to Robin. “I am proud to have the illustrious firm of Page and Dean under my roof.”
“And what of the firm of Harper and Mason?” demanded Leila. “Ah, there’s a firm of note! Now tell me—where can you find it’s equal?”
“Where, indeed?” was Miss Remson’s question.
“They’re a couple of bandits. They held me up behind the station and Lawless Leila snatched my bag,” Marjorie accused. “While my supposed partner, here,” she indicated Robin, “helped the daylight robbers.”
“Shocking!” Miss Remson did not look in the least shocked. She entered into the spirit of teasing with zest. “I must be careful not to allow them inside the Hall. I’ll have their luggage brought down and set out on the lawn. I had no idea I was harboring two such desperadoes.”
“Arrah, don’t be hard on us now!” Leila became coaxingly Hibernian. “You should be thinking of how lonely you were before Midget and I came wandering into the Hall. Had you even a long-faced, would-be freshie for company? You had not.”
“I can afford to leave ‘lonely’ out of my vocabulary, now that I have some of my old household back again.” Miss Remson exulted.
“And for that you may escort our old friend, Bean, as Leslie Cairns would have it, into the Hall,” Leila graciously permitted. “Midget and I will be doing the same for our old friend Page.” Leila possessed herself of Robin’s traveling bag. Vera doughtily insisted on carrying Marjorie’s bag.