Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College Part 4

"We'll go for our bags and suit cases, Mrs. Elwood," suggested Grace wickedly. "We left them in Miriam's room."

"Very well," returned the intrepid landlady. "Your room will be ready for you when you return."

"That is what I call a stroke of genius on your part, Grace," remarked Miriam, as they entered her room. "Mrs. Elwood can deal with the Anarchist more summarily without an audience."

"It must be very humiliating for that Miss Atkins," mused Anne, "but it's her own fault."

"Of course it's her own fault," emphasized Elfreda. "She doesn't appear to know when the pleasure of her company is requested elsewhere."

"Shall we go now?" asked Anne, lifting her heavy suit case preparatory to moving.

"Not yet," counseled Grace. "We must give her time enough to get out of sight before we appear."

Elfreda boldly took up her station at the door and reported faithfully the enemy's movements. After a twenty minutes' wait, the stout girl closed the door with a bang, exclaiming triumphantly: "She's gone! She just paraded down the hall carrying her goods and chattels. Mrs. Elwood stalked behind carrying a hat box. She looked like an avenging angel.

Hurry up, now, and move in before the Anarchist changes her mind and comes back to take possession all over again."

Grace and Anne lost no time in taking Elfreda's advice. Five minutes later they were back in their old room. "Stay here a while, girls,"

invited Grace. Miriam and Elfreda had a.s.sisted their friends with their luggage.

"How nice your room looks," praised Miriam. "I like that wall paper. It is so dainty. Your favorite blue, too, Grace. I wonder if Mrs. Elwood knew that blue was your color?"

"I suppose so," returned Grace. "Two-thirds of my clothes are blue, you know. I must run downstairs and thank her for championing our cause. I won't be gone five minutes."

"We must go," declared Miriam. "We are going to begin unpacking to-night."

Running lightly down the stairs, Grace thrust her head between the portieres that separated the living-room from the hall. Mrs. Elwood sat reading her magazine as placidly as though nothing had happened within the last hour to disturb her equanimity.

"Thank you ever so much, Mrs. Elwood," said Grace gratefully, walking up to the dignified matron and shyly offering her hand.

"Nonsense, child!" was the reply. "You have nothing for which to thank me. You don't suppose I would allow a new boarder to infringe upon the rights of my old girls, do you?"

"No," admitted Grace. "I'm sorry that things had to happen that way,"

she added regretfully.

"Don't you worry about it any more, Miss Harlowe," comforted the older woman. "It's nothing you are to blame for. You had the first right to the room. I gave this girl Miss Gaines's old room. Her roommate is to be a freshman, too. She hasn't arrived yet. Miss Atkins decided to pick out her own room, I imagine. Evidently she took a fancy to yours. As soon as you girls had gone, she gave me one awful look, gathered up her belongings, and went to the other room without another word. I picked up two or three things she dropped and carried them down for her. I wouldn't be sorry if she went to some other house to board. She looks like a trouble maker."

Grace was of the same opinion, but did not say so. Always eager to excuse other people's shortcomings, she found it hard to account for the feeling of strong dislike that had risen within her during her first encounter with the young woman Elfreda had laughingly named the Anarchist. She had hoped that the four freshmen at Wayne Hall would be girls whom it would be a pleasure to know. She had looked forward to meeting these newcomers and to a.s.sisting them in whatever way she could best give help. Now at least one of her castles in the air had been built in vain.

"Perhaps we may like Miss Atkins after we know her better," she said, trying hard to keep the doubt she felt out of her voice.

Mrs. Elwood shook her head. "I hope she will improve on acquaintance, but I doubt it. It isn't my principle, my dear, to speak slightingly of any student in my house, but I am certain that this is not the last time I shall have to lay down the law of Wayne Hall to Miss Atkins."

At this plain speaking Grace flushed but said nothing. She understood that Mrs. Elwood's words had been spoken in confidence.

"I'm so glad to see you again, Mrs. Elwood," she smiled, bent on changing the subject.

"And I to see you, my dear," was the hearty response. "I have missed my Oakdale girls this summer."

After a few moments' conversation Grace said good night and went slowly upstairs. In spite of her satisfaction at being back at Overton she could not repress a sigh of regret over the recent unpleasantness.

"The unforeseen always happens," she reflected, pausing for a moment on the top step. "I hope the Anarchist will 'stay put' this time." She laughed softly at the idea of the Anarchist standing stiff and stationary in her new room. Then the ridiculous side of the encounter dawning on her, she sat down on the stairs and gave way to sudden silent laughter.

"What did Mrs. Elwood say?" asked Anne as Grace entered the room.

"I am afraid Mrs. Elwood is not, and never will be, an admirer of the Anarchist," said Grace. "Seriously speaking, she is half inclined to ask her to leave Wayne Hall. She believes she will have further trouble with her. Perhaps we should have waited. We might have tried, later, to gain possession of our room," added Grace doubtfully.

Anne shook her head. "We would be waiting still, if we had attempted to settle matters without Mrs. Elwood."

"But it seems too bad to begin one's soph.o.m.ore year so unpleasantly. All summer I had been planning how helpful I would try to be to entering freshmen, and this is the way my splendid visions have materialized."

Grace eyed Anne rather dejectedly.

"Never mind," soothed Anne. "By to-morrow this little unpleasantness will have completely blown over. Perhaps the Anarchist," Anne smiled over the t.i.tle Elfreda had bestowed upon the disturbing freshman, "will discover that she can make friends more quickly by being pleasant. She may reform over night. Stranger things have happened."

"But nothing of that sort will happen in her case," declared Grace. "You said just a moment ago if it hadn't been for Mrs. Elwood we would still be out in the hall clamoring for a room, didn't you!"

"I did," smiled Anne.

"That was equivalent to accusing the Anarchist of stubbornness, wasn't it?"

"It was."

"Very well. If she is half as stubborn as I believe her to be, she won't be different to-night, to-morrow or for a long time afterward."

CHAPTER IV

THE BELATED FRESHMAN

"The first thing I shall do this morning after breakfast is to unpack,"

announced Grace Harlowe with decision, as she gave her hair a last pat preparatory to going downstairs to breakfast. "Last year I was so excited over what studies I intended to take and meeting new girls that I unpacked by fits and starts. It was weeks before I knew where to find things. But I've reformed, now. I'm going to put every last article in place before I set foot outside Wayne Hall. Do you wish the chiffonier or the bureau this year, Anne, for your things?"

"The chiffonier, I think," replied Anne, after due reflection. "I haven't as much to stow away as you have. It will do nicely for me."

"There goes the breakfast bell!" exclaimed Grace. "Come along, Anne, I'm hungry. Besides, I'd like the same seat at the table that I had last year."

Outside their door they were joined by Miriam and Elfreda, and the four friends stopped to talk before going downstairs.

"Were you haunted by nightmares in which glowering Anarchists pranced about?" asked Miriam, her eyes twinkling.

"No," replied Grace. "I slept too soundly even to dream."

"I dreamed that I went into the registrar's office to get my chapel card," began Elfreda impressively. "When she handed it to me it was three times larger than the others. On it in big red letters was printed, 'The Anarchist, Her Card.' I thought I handed it back to her and tried to explain that I wasn't an anarchist because I had neither bushy eyebrows nor a scowl. She just sat and glared at me, saying over and over, 'Look in your mirror, look in your mirror,' until I grew so angry I threw the card at her. It hit her and she fell backward. That frightened me, although it seemed so strange that a little, light piece of pasteboard could strike with such force. I tried to lift her, but she grew heavier and heavier. Then--"

"Yes, 'then,'" interposed Miriam, "I awoke in time to save myself from landing on the floor with a thump. Elfreda mistook me for the registrar.

She was walking in her sleep."