“I’m thinking,” Marjorie nodded. “Then that bus line started up like magic. Just what we needed, when we needed it! And the boarding houses for the off campus girls are fine. Now that they are so beautifully settled we can begin to pick up life on the campus. The freshies this year seem a dandy set of girls.”
“So Phil says. She’s not crazy over the sophs, though. She says she thinks they are chesty. Not Gussie Forbes and her crowd. Phil likes Gussie. She says there is a lack of college spirit among the others. She hasn’t discovered why as yet.” Robin looked thoughtful. “I dare say Gussie knows. She is such a live wire.”
“I must have a talk with her. Oh, gracious!” Marjorie sighed audibly. “I have so much to do I hardly know what to tackle first. I can’t start chemistry again for at least another week. That and French poetry are all I shall undertake this semester.”
“I’m going to send for my car,” Robin announced with sudden irrelevancy. “I’ve wasted time waiting for taxis to and from town. We really need my roadster.”
“I’d like to have a car here this year,” Marjorie admitted honestly. “This is a great secret, Robin. I haven’t told another person: General gave me a choice before I came back here between having a car and the money it would cost. I—I took the money. We need it for the dormitory. I know we are welcome to use as much of Ronny’s money as we like, but the self-respecting way is to raise it by earning it, or by self-denial.”
“You old dear!” Robin patted Marjorie’s arm. “You’ve taught all of us the self-denying way. I spent scads of money when first I came to Hamilton. Now I’ve turned positively stingy in my old age. I might as well have my car here as home. No one uses it there. I have an excuse for what the up-keep will cost.”
Robin was full of her plan to send home for her car. She began to calculate, as the two entered the campus and lingered there for a brief talk, on the saving of time it would mean as against the cost of up-keep. While the absorbed promoters stood talking together a group of half a dozen sophomores passed them. The sophs greeted the two girls’ pleasant salutation with a kind of admiring eagerness. Six pairs of bright eyes rested longest on Marjorie, however. One of the girls made a low-voiced remark to the others. There was a concerted shaking of heads as the group passed on.
They had not gone on far when Marjorie said good-bye to Robin and turned her face in the direction of Wayland Hall. The lively murmur of voices close behind her caused her to wheel suddenly. In the next instant a smiling band had surrounded her.
“Oh, Miss Dean, we’ve something special to ask you,” began the leader of the group, a small blue-eyed girl with a round rosy face and deep dimples. “You know the sophs have their election next week. Gussie Forbes is our candidate for president. We want to get up an election parade for her; a regular booster. We’d like to do something quite funny. Could you—would you—ask that awfully clever P. G. Miss Harper to—help—no I don’t mean exactly to help us. All we’d like is a suggestion from you two.”
“We’ve heard about Miss Harper’s wonderful stunts. We know what good shows you and Miss Page got up last year,” interposed a tall girl with a frank, boyish face. “We were going to ask you and Miss Page when we passed, then we were afraid of interrupting your conversation.”