“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,” Gerry returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose you can call her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she does preside over our dances all afternoon, leads any special ones, and we pay her whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t you, Cecil, or any other human being at this table start reciting: ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not for that tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May Queen one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose because it is so ridiculously easy to remember.”
As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the table, her guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all settled,” she exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup, “so let us drink to Olive as our next queen and to the other ranch girls.”
“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,” Frieda suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And Gerry’s hearty “Of course,” ended the pretty scene.
For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made their way again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group Jean was the last to leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.
“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My sister tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our cottage on the Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you are going to be jolly enough to come, for I should enjoy it most awfully.”
“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?” Jean’s eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she ended prettily, extending her hand to the young man.
Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore. “No, it is not what I would call good of me,” he replied quietly. “I thought I told you at our house at Christmas that I liked you and that if there wasn’t any fellow out West, I would like to see more of you anyhow. Do say you will make us the visit?”
With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped develop in her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “I have already explained to Margaret that I shan’t be able to come to her this summer. You see, my cousin, Jack Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to leave the hospital in New York early in June and then we expect to go back to the Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who knows where?”
The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now running in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the soft, spring dusk the travelers could see the old school carryall and in another carriage Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting to drive the party back to Primrose Hall. But before anybody was allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had solemnly whispered to each one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not to hear a single, solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up to the very last minute.”