Marjorie Dean, College Junior

The chums had left the table and proceeded as far as the hall, where their ways separated.

“Go straight over to the garage. Our two Old Reliables will be there with their buzz wagons. Be on time, too,” called Jerry, as with an “All right, much obliged, Jeremiah,” Muriel started up the stairs. Half way up she turned and asked, “What time?”

“Quarter past four. If you aren’t there on the dot we shall go without you. None of us know what we are going to buy, so we want all the time we can have to look around. Remember, we have to hustle back to the Hall, have dinner and dress.”

“I’ll remember.” With a wag of her head Muriel resumed her ascent of the stairs and quickly disappeared.

The others stopped briefly in the hall to talk. Marjorie was next to leave the group. She remembered she had intended to change her white linen frock, which did not look quite fresh enough for a trip to town. Her last recitation of the afternoon being chemistry, she knew she would have no time to return to the Hall before meeting her chums at the garage.

Alas for the pretty gown of delft blue pongee which she had donned with girlish satisfaction at luncheon time. An accident at the chemical desk sent a veritable deluge of discoloring liquid showering over her. Despite her apron, her frock was plentifully spotted by it.

Ordinarily she would have made light of the misfortune. As it was she felt ready to cry with vexation. She would have to change gowns again in order to be presentable for the trip to Hamilton. The girls had set four-fifteen as the starting time. She could not possibly make it before four-thirty.

Her first resolve was to hurry over to the garage immediately after the chemistry period and tell the the girls not to wait for her.

In spite of Jerry’s assertion to Muriel that they would not wait a moment after four-fifteen, Marjorie knew that they would strain a point and linger a little longer if she did not put in an appearance at the time appointed. Recalling the fact that Lucy was in the Biological Laboratory, situated across the hall from the Chemical Laboratory, Marjorie decided to try to catch Lucy before she left the building and send word to the others to go on without her. She could then hurry straight to the Hall, slip into another gown and hail a taxicab going to the town of Hamilton. There were usually two or three to be found in the immediate vicinity of the campus.

“Oh, there you are!” Marjorie hailed softly, when, at precisely four o’clock Lucy emerged from the laboratory across the hall. “I thought you would be out on the minute on account of going to town. I left chemistry five minutes earlier for fear of missing you. Just see what happened to me.” She displayed the results of the accident. “I am a sight. Tell the girls not to wait. I must go on to the Hall and make myself presentable. I’ll take a taxi and meet them at the Curio Shop. If they’re ready to go on before I reach there, tell them to leave word with the proprietor where they are going next.”

“All right. What a shame about your dress. Do you think those stains will come out?” Lucy scanned the unsightly spots and streaks with a dubious eye.

“I know they won’t.” Marjorie voiced rueful positiveness. “This is the first time I ever wore this frock. I gave it a nice baptism, didn’t I? Well, it can’t be helped now. I mustn’t stop.” The two had come to the outer entrance to Science Hall. “See you at the Curio Shop.” With a parting wave of the hand Marjorie ran lightly down the steps and trotted across the campus.

Always quick of action, it did not take her long, once she had gained her room, to discard the unlucky blue pongee gown for one of pink linen.

“Just half-past four. I didn’t do so badly,” she congratulated, consulting her wrist watch as she hastened down the driveway toward the west gate. “Now for a taxi.”

No taxicab was in sight, however. Three of these useful vehicles had recently reaped a harvest of students bound for town and started off with them. Five minutes passed and Marjorie grew more impatient. To undertake to walk to Hamilton would add greatly to the delay in joining the gift seekers. True she might meet a taxicab on the way. Whether the driver would turn back for a single fare she was not sure. She determined to walk on rather than stand still. If she were lucky enough to meet a taxicab on the highway she would offer its driver double fare to turn around and take her into town.

The brisk pace at which she walked soon brought her to the western end of the campus wall. Presently she had reached the beginning of Hamilton Estates. And still no sign of a taxicab!

“It looks as though I’d have to walk after all,” she remarked, half aloud. “How provoking!” She would reach the Curio Shop about the time the others were starting for the campus was her vexed calculation. Besides, there was Lucy, who would patiently wait for her when she might be going on with the others. They had planned to visit two or three shops.

In the midst of her annoyance, the sound of a motor behind caused her to turn. To her surprise she recognized the driver and machine as being of the regular jitney service between the campus and the town. His only fare was a young man, evidently a salesman who had had business at the college. He was occupying the front seat beside the driver.

The latter stopped at Marjorie’s sign and opened the door of the tonneau for her. Very thankfully she stepped in. Engaged in conversation with the salesman, the man at the wheel drove along at a leisurely rate of speed. Marjorie could only wish that he would hurry a little faster.

Coming opposite to Hamilton Arms, Marjorie forgot her impatience as her eyes eagerly took in the estate she so greatly admired. The chrysanthemums had begun to throw out luxuriant bloom in border and bed, while the bronze and scarlet of fallen leaves lay lightly on the short-cropped grass.

Almost opposite the point where Hamilton Arms adjoined the next estate, Marjorie spied a small, familiar figure trotting along at the left of the highway. It was Miss Susanna Hamilton. In one hand she carried a good-sized splint basket from which nodded a colorful wealth of chrysanthemums in little individual flower pots. She was bare-headed, though over her black silk dress she wore the knitted scarlet shawl which gave her the odd likeness to a lively old robin.

Marjorie leaned forward a trifle as the machine came opposite Miss Susanna. She viewed the last of the Hamiltons with kindly, non-curious eyes. The taxicab had almost slid past the sturdy pedestrian when something happened. The handle of the splint basket treacherously gave way, landing the basket on the ground with force. It tipped side-ways. Two or three of the flower pots rolled out of it.

Forgetting everything but the mishap to Brooke Hamilton’s eccentric descendant, Marjorie called out on impulse: “Driver; please stop the taxi! I wish to get out here!”

CHAPTER VI – THE LAST OF THE HAMILTONS

The man promptly brought the machine to a slow stop. He was too well acquainted with the whims of “them girls from the college” to exhibit surprise. Having paid her fare on entering the taxicab, Marjorie now quitted it with alacrity and ran back to the scene of the mishap.

“Please let me help you,” she offered in a gracious fashion which came straight from her heart. “I saw the handle of that basket break and I made the driver stop and let me out of the taxi.”

Without waiting for Miss Susanna’s permission, Marjorie stooped and lay hold on one of the scattered flower pots. Thus far the old lady had made no effort to gather them in. She had stood eyeing the unstable basket with marked disgust.

“And who are you, may I ask?” The brisk manner of question reminded Marjorie of Miss Remson.

“Oh, I am Marjorie Dean from Hamilton College,” Marjorie said, straightening up with a smile.

For an instant the two pairs of dark eyes met. In the old lady’s appeared a gleam half resentful, half admiring. In the young girl’s shone a pleasant light, hard to resist.

“Yes; I supposed you were one of them,” nodded Miss Susanna. “Let me tell you, young woman, you are the first I have met in all these years from the college who had any claim on gentle breeding.”

Marjorie smiled. “There are a good many fine girls at Hamilton,” she defended without intent to be discourteous. “Any one of a number I know would have been glad to help you.”

“Then that doll shop has changed a good deal recently,” retorted the old lady with rapidity. “Nowadays it is nothing but drive flamboyant cars and spend money for frivolities over there. I hate the place.”

Marjorie was silent. She did not like to contradict further by saying pointedly that she loved Hamilton, neither could she bear the thought of not defending her Alma Mater.

“I can’t say that I hate Hamilton College, because I don’t,” she finally returned, before the pause between the two had grown embarrassing. “I am sure you must have good reason to dislike Hamilton and its students or you would not say so.”

The pink in her cheeks deepened. Marjorie bent and completed the task of returning the last spilled posy to the basket.

“There!” she exclaimed good-naturedly. “I have them all in the basket again, and not a single one of those little jars are broken. I wish you would let me carry the basket for you, Miss Hamilton. It is really a cumbersome affair without the handle.”

“You are quite a nice child, I must say.” Miss Susanna continued to regard Marjorie with her bright, bird-like gaze. “Where on earth were you brought up?”

Signally amused, Marjorie laughed outright. She had raised the basket from the ground. As she stood there, her lovely face full of light and laughter, arms full of flowers, Miss Susanna’s stubborn old heart softened a trifle toward girlhood.

“I come from Sanford, New York,” she answered. “This is my junior year at Hamilton. Four other girls from Sanford entered when I did.”

“Sanford,” repeated her questioner. “I never heard of the place. If these girls are friends of yours I suppose they escape being barbarians.”

“They are the finest girls I ever knew,” Marjorie praised with sincerity.

“Well, well; I am pleased to hear it.” The old lady spoke with a brusquerie which seemed to indicate her wish to be done with the subject. “You insist on helping me, do you?”

“Yes; if it pleases you to allow me.”

“It’s to my advantage, so it ought to,” was the dry retort. “I am not particular about lugging that basket in my arms. I loaded it too heavily. Brian, the gardener, would have carried it for me, but I didn’t care to be bothered with him. I am carrying these down to an old man who used to work about the lawns. His days are numbered and he loves flowers better than anything else. He lives in a little house just outside the estate. It is still quite a walk. If you have anything else to do you had better consider it and not me.”

“I was on my way to town. It is too late to go now.” Marjorie explained the nature of her errand as they walked on. “The girls will probably come to the conclusion that I found it too late to go to Hamilton after I had changed my gown. One or another of them will buy me something pretty to give to Elaine,” she ended.

“It is a good many years since I bought a birthday gift for anyone. I always give my servants money on their birthdays. I have not received a birthday gift for over fifty years and I don’t want one. I do not allow my household to make me presents on any occasion.” Miss Susanna announced this with a touch of defiance.

“It seems as though my life has been full of presents. My father and mother have given me hundreds, I guess. My father is away from home a good deal. When he comes back from his long business trips he always brings Captain and I whole stacks of treasures.”

Marjorie was not sure that this was what she should have said. She found conversing with the last of the Hamiltons a trifle hazardous. She had no desire to contradict, yet she and her new acquaintance had thus far not agreed on a single point.

“Who is ‘Captain,’” was the inquiry, made with the curiosity of a child.

Marjorie turned rosy red. The pet appellation had slipped out before she thought.

“I call my mother ‘Captain,’” she informed, then went on to explain further of their fond home play. She fully expected Miss Susanna would criticize it as “silly.” She was already understanding a little of the lonely old gentlewoman’s bitterness of heart. Her earnest desire to know the last of the Hamiltons had arisen purely out of her great sympathy for Miss Susanna.

“You seem to have had a childhood,” was the surprising reception her explanation called forth. “I can’t endure the children of today. They are grown up in their minds at seven. I must say your father and mother are exceptional. No wonder you have good manners. That is, if they are genuine. I have seen some good imitations. Young girls are more deceitful than young men. I don’t like either. There is nothing I despise so much as the calloused selfishness of youth. It is far worse than crabbed age.”

“I know young girls are often selfish of their own pleasure,” Marjorie returned with sudden humility. “I try not to be. I know I am at times. Many of my girl friends are not. I wish I could begin to tell you of the beautiful, unselfish things some of my chums have done for others.”

Miss Susanna vouchsafed no reply to this little speech. She trotted along beside Marjorie for several rods without saying another word. When she spoke again it was to say briefly: “Here is where we turn off the road. Is that basket growing very heavy?”

“It is quite heavy. I believe I will set it down for a minute.” Marjorie carefully deposited her burden on the grass at the roadside and straightened up, stretching her aching arms. The basket had begun to be considerable of a burden on account of the manner in which it had to be carried.

“I couldn’t have lugged that myself,” Miss Susanna confessed. “I found it almost too much for me with the handle on. Ridiculous, the flimsy way in which things are put together today! Splint baskets of years ago would have stood any amount of strain. If you had not kindly come to my assistance, I intended to pick out as many of those jars as I could carry in my arms and go on with them. The others I would have set up against my own property fence and hoped no one would walk off with them before my return. I dislike anyone to have the flowers I own and have tended unless I give them away myself.”

“I have often seen you working among your flowers when I have passed Hamilton Arms. I knew you must love them dearly or you would not spend so much time with them.”

“Hm-m!” The interjection might have been an assent to Marjorie’s polite observation. It was not, however. Miss Susanna was understanding that this young girl who had shown her such unaffected courtesy had thought of her kindly as a stranger. She experienced a sudden desire to see Marjorie again. Her long and concentrated hatred against Hamilton College and its students forbade her to make any friendly advances. She had already shown more affability according to her ideas than she had intended. She wondered why she had not curtly refused Marjorie’s offer.

“I am rested now.” Marjorie lifted the basket. The two skirted the northern boundary of Hamilton Arms, taking a narrow private road which lay between it and the neighboring estate. The road continued straight to a field where it ended. At the edge of the field stood a small cottage painted white. Miss Susanna pointed it out as their destination.

“I will carry this to the door and then leave you.” Marjorie had no desire to intrude upon Miss Susanna’s call at the cottage.

“Very well. I am obliged to you, Marjorie Dean.” Miss Susanna’s thanks were expressed in tones which sounded close to unfriendly. She was divided between appreciation of Marjorie’s courtesy and her dislike for girls.

“You are welcome.” They were now within a few yards of the cottage. Arriving at the low doorstep, Marjorie set the basket carefully upon it. “Goodbye, Miss Hamilton.” She held out her hand. “I am so glad to have met you.”

“What’s that? Oh, yes.” The old lady took Marjorie’s proffered hand. The evident sincerity of the words touched a hidden spring within, long sealed. “Goodbye, child. I am glad to have met at least one young girl with genuine manners.”

Marjorie smiled as she turned away. She had never before met an old person who so heartily detested youth. She knew her timely assistance had been appreciated. On that very account Miss Susanna had tried to smother, temporarily, her standing grudge against the younger generation.

Well, it had happened. She had achieved her heart’s desire. She had actually met and talked with the last of the Hamiltons.

CHAPTER VII – TWO KINDS OF GIRLS

“You are a dandy,” was Jerry’s greeting as Marjorie walked into their room at ten minutes past six. “Where were you? Lucy said you ruined your blue pongee with some horrid old chemical. It didn’t take you two hours to change it, did it? I see we have on our pink linen.”

“You know perfectly well it did not take me two hours to change it. A plain insinuation that I’m a slowpoke. Take it back.” In high good humor, Marjorie made a playful rush at her room-mate.

“Hold on. I am not made of wood, as Hal says when I occasionally hammer him in fun.” Jerry put up her hands in comic self-defense. “You certainly are in a fine humor after keeping your poor pals waiting for you for an hour and a half and then not even condescending to appear.”

“I’ve had an adventure, Jeremiah. That’s why I didn’t meet you girls in Hamilton. I started for there in a taxicab. Then I met a lady in distress, and, emulating the example of a gallant knight, I hopped out of the taxi to help her.”

“Wonderful! I suppose you met Phil Moore or some other Silvertonite with her arms full of bundles. About the time she saw you she dropped ’em. ‘With a sympathetic yell, Helpful Marjorie leaped from the taxicab to aid her overburdened but foolish friend.’ Quotation from the last best seller.” Jerry regarded Marjorie with a teasing smile.

“Your suppositions are about a mile off the track. I haven’t seen a Silvertonite this afternoon. The lady in distress I met was – ” Marjorie paused by way of making her revelation more effective, “Miss Susanna Hamilton.”

“What? You don’t say so.” Jerry exhibited the utmost astonishment. “Good thing you didn’t ask me to guess. She is the last person I would have thought of. Now how did it happen? I am glad of it for your sake. You’ve been so anxious to know her.”

Rapidly Marjorie recounted the afternoon’s adventure. As she talked she busied herself with the redressing of her hair. After dinner she would have no more than time to put on the white lingerie frock she intended to wear to Elaine’s birthday party.

Jerry listened without comment. While she had never taken the amount of interest in the owner of Hamilton Arms which Marjorie had evinced since entering Hamilton College, she had a certain curiosity regarding Miss Susanna.

“I knew you girls would wait and wonder what had delayed me. I am awfully sorry. You know that, Jeremiah,” Marjorie apologized. “But I couldn’t have gone on in the taxi after I saw what had happened to Miss Susanna. She couldn’t have carried the basket as I did clear over to that cottage. She said she would have picked up as many plant jars as she could carry in her arms and gone on with them.”

“One of the never-say-die sort, isn’t she? Very likely in the years she has lived near the college she has met with some rude girls. On the order of the Sans, you know. If, in the past twenty years, Hamilton was half as badly overrun with snobs as when we entered, one can imagine why she doesn’t adore students.”

“It doesn’t hurt my feelings to hear her say she disliked girls. I only felt sorry for her. It must be dreadful to be old and lonely. She is lonely, even if she doesn’t know it. She has deliberately shut the door between herself and happiness. I am so glad we’re young, Jeremiah.” Marjorie sighed her gratitude for the gift of youth. “I hope always to be young at heart.”

“I sha’n’t wear a cap and spectacles and walk with a cane until I have to, believe me,” was Jerry’s emphatic rejoinder. “Are you ready to go down to dinner? My hair is done, too. I shall dress after I’ve been fed. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I bought you a present to give Elaine. We bought every last thing we are going to give her at the Curio Shop.”

“You are a dear. I knew some of the girls would help me out. I supposed it would be you, though. Do let me see my present.”

“There it is on my chiffonier. You’d better examine it after dinner. It is a hand-painted chocolate pot; a beauty, too. Looks like a bit of spring time.”

“I’ll look at it the minute I come back. I’m oceans obliged to you.” Marjorie cast a longing glance at the tall package on the chiffonier, as the two girls left the room.

At dinner that night Marjorie’s adventure of the afternoon excited the interest of her chums. She was obliged to repeat, as nearly as she could what she said to Miss Susanna and what Miss Susanna had said to her.

“Did she mention the May basket?” quizzed Muriel with a giggle.

“Now why should she?” counter-questioned Marjorie.

“Well; she was talking about not receiving a birthday present for over fifty years. She might have said, ‘But some kind-hearted person hung a beautiful violet basket on my door on May day evening!’”

“Only she didn’t. That flight of fancy was wasted,” Jerry informed Muriel.

“Wasted on you. You haven’t proper sentiment,” flung back Muriel.

“I’ll never acquire it in your company,” Jerry assured. The subdued laughter the tilt evoked reached the table occupied by Leslie Cairns, Natalie Weyman, Dulcie Vale and three others of the Sans.

“Those girls seem to find enough to laugh at,” commented Dulcie Vale half enviously.

“Simpletons!” muttered Leslie Cairns. She was out of sorts with the world in general that evening. “They sit there and ‘ha-ha-ha’ at their meals until I can hardly stand it sometimes. I hate eating dinner here. I’d dine at the Colonial every evening, but it takes too much time. I really must study hard this year to get through. I certainly will be happy to see the last of this treadmill. I’m going to take a year after I’m graduated just to sail around and have a good time. After that I shall help my father in business.”

“There’s one thing you ought to know, Leslie, and that is you had better be careful what you do this year. I have heard two or three rumors that sound as though those girls over there had told about what happened the night of the masquerade. I wouldn’t take part in another affair of that kind for millions of dollars.”

Dulcie Vale assumed an air of virtuous resolve as she delivered herself of this warning to Leslie.

“Don’t worry. There won’t be any occasion. I don’t believe those muffs ever told a thing outside of their own crowd. They’re a close corporation. I wish I could say the same of us.” Leslie laughed this arrow with cool deliberation.

“What do you mean?” Harriet Stephens said sharply. “Who of us would be silly enough to tell our private affairs?”

“I hope you wouldn’t.” Leslie’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “I have heard one or two things myself which may or may not be true. I am not ready to say anything further just now. My advice to all of you is to keep your affairs to yourselves. If you are foolish enough to babble your own about the campus, on your head be it. Be sure you will hear from me if you tell tales. Besides, you are apt to lose your diplomas by it. A word to the wise, you know. I have a recitation in psychology in the morning. I must put in a quiet evening. Kindly let me alone, all of you.” She rose and sauntered from the room, leaving her satellites to discuss her open insinuation and wonder what she had heard to put her in such an “outrageous” humor.

CHAPTER VIII – A FROLIC AT SILVERTON HALL

The “simpletons” finished their dinner amid much merriment, quite unconscious of their lack of sense, and hustled up to their rooms to dress for the party. Leila, Vera, Helen, Hortense Barlow, Eva Ingram, Nella Sherman and Mary Cornell had also been invited. Shortly after seven the elect started for Silverton Hall, primed for a jubilant evening. Besides their gifts, each girl carried a small nosegay of mixed flowers. The flowers had been purchased in bulk by Helen, Eva and Mary. The trio had made them up into dainty, round bouquets. These were to be showered upon Elaine, immediately she appeared among them. Helen had also composed a Nonsense Ode which she said had cost her more mental effort than forty themes.