Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College Part 19

"I am so disappointed," Grace reflected. "I did wish to like her because she was Mabel's friend, but she is so--so--different." It cost Grace an effort to end her sentence mildly. "But I'm not going to gossip about her, even to myself."

After ringing three times Ruth's tired-eyed landlady opened the door to Grace with a mumbled apology about being in the attic when the bell rang. Grace hurried up the two flights of stairs and down the long, bare hall to Ruth's room. She paused an instant before knocking, half expecting to hear the sound of voices inside. All was still. Grace knocked twice, pausing between knocks. It was a signal Ruth and her intimate friends had adopted.

Ruth answered the signal, a book in her hand. She gave a little cry of delight at seeing Grace. "How funny! I was just thinking of you. Come in and take off your wraps. Did you come to help me cook supper? You promised me you would some day."

"No; I came to take you back to Wayne Hall with me. But, first of all, has Kathleen West been here to see you within the past half hour?" said Grace, stepping into the room and closing the door after her.

"No," replied Ruth wonderingly. "Why do you ask? But do sit down, Grace."

"I'm so glad," sighed Grace, sitting on the edge of the chair, "because she overheard something that I wish to tell you first."

"I don't understand," was Ruth's perplexed answer.

"I don't blame you for not understanding," smiled Grace. Then she rose, and, crossing the room, put her hands on her friend's shoulder. "Ruth,"

she said gently, "if you might have one wish granted to you, what would you wish?"

"To find my father," was the instant reply.

"That is what I thought you would say," returned Grace quietly. "Can you bear good news?"

"Yes." Ruth's face had turned very white. She pulled one of Grace's hands from her shoulder, holding it in hers. "Tell me," she whispered tensely.

Grace's gray eyes filled with tears. The hungry look in Ruth's eyes told its own story. "He is alive, Ruth," she said, steadying her voice. "At least he was alive less than six months ago. I'll begin at the very first and tell you everything."

It was half an hour later when the two friends set out for Wayne Hall.

"I am so happy; it seems as though I must be with you girls to-night,"

declared Ruth. "I am so anxious to see Arline. My Daffydowndilly will be happy, too, for my sake. And Grace, I have a strange presentiment that I shall see him before long. I can't think of him as anything but alive.

I'm so glad that you told me. It would have been a dreadful shock to have had the news come through Miss West or her friends."

"She hasn't the slightest idea that we know she was in the hall," said Grace. "I imagine you will hear of your father through half a dozen different sources in the morning. I don't believe she intended to tell you to-day. I think it was part of her plan to take you by surprise and completely unnerve you. Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton are efficient town criers," Grace added bitterly. "She depended on them to spread the news in the cruelest way."

"Why, Grace, I never heard you speak so bitterly of any one before!"

exclaimed Ruth.

"Ruth, to tell the honest truth, I am thoroughly disgusted with those two girls," confessed Grace wearily. "They have been at the bottom of every annoyance I have had since I came to Overton. It may not be charitable to say so, but I shall certainly not regret seeing them graduated and gone from Overton. I know it sounds selfish, but I can't help it. I mean it. And now we are going to talk only of delightful things. I think we ought to give a spread to-night in honor of you. It isn't every day one finds a long-lost father. Arline is going to stay to dinner, and, of course, she'll stay afterward."

Grace's proposal of a spread met with gleeful approval, and in spite of a hearty six-o'clock dinner, there was no lack of appet.i.te when at ten o'clock Elfreda, who insisted on taking the labor of the spread upon her own shoulders, appeared in the door announcing that it was ready. By borrowing Grace's table and using it in conjunction with her own, employing the bureau scarf for a centerpiece, and filling up the bare s.p.a.ces with paper napkins, the table a.s.sumed the dignity of a banqueting board. There were even gla.s.ses and plates and spoons enough to go round and one could have either grape juice or tea, Elfreda informed them.

"You'd better take tea first, though, because there are only two bottles of grape juice, and we need that for the toast to Ruth's father. Of course if you insist upon having grape juice----"

"Tea," was the judiciously lowered chorus from the obliging guests.

"Thank you," bowed Elfreda. "I wouldn't have given you the grape juice, at any rate."

By half-past ten nothing remained of the feast but the grape juice, and the guests began clamoring insistently for that.

"We are breaking the ten-thirty rule into microscopic pieces," declared Elfreda as she dropped slices of orange and pineapple on the ice in the bottom of the gla.s.ses, added orange juice, sugar and grape juice. "If it isn't sweet enough, help yourself to sugar. The bowl is on the table.

And you can only have one straw apiece. The commissary department is short on straws. A word of warning, don't drink the toast to Ruth's father through a straw," she ended with a giggle.

The giggle proved infectious and went the round of the table. Grace was the first to remember the toast to be drunk. Elfreda had just poured the sixth, her own gla.s.s of grape juice, and slipped into her place at the table. Rising to her feet Grace said simply, "To Ruth's father. May she see him soon." The toast was drunk standing. Ruth still looked rather dazed. She could not yet think of her father as a reality.

"I thank you all," she said tremulously, her eyes misty. "Of course you know I am not quite certain of my great happiness, but I am going to write to Father to-morrow, and perhaps before long I'll have a letter to show you."

"If Ruth is to be surprised now, some one will have to get up early in the morning," declared Elfreda with satisfaction, as she collected the dishes for was.h.i.+ng after the guests had departed.

"And that some one will be doomed to feel foolish," added Miriam.

CHAPTER XX

ELFREDA REALIZES HER AMBITION

Midyears, a season of terror to freshmen, a still alarming period to soph.o.m.ores, but no very great bugbear to the two upper cla.s.ses, came and went. During that strenuous week the usual amount of midnight oil was burnt, the usual amount of feverish reviewing done, and the usual amount of celebrating indulged in when the ordeal was pa.s.sed.

"Don't forget the game to-morrow," said J. Elfreda Briggs to the girls at her end of the breakfast table one morning in early March. "The only one this year in which the celebrated center, Miss Josephine Elfreda Briggs, will take part. Sounds like a grand opera announcement, doesn't it? Maybe it hasn't taken endless energy to keep that team together and up to the mark. But our captain is a hustler and we are marvels," she added modestly.

"I need no bard to sing my praises," began Miriam mischievously.

"I didn't say 'I,'" retorted Elfreda. "I said 'we.'"

"Meaning 'I'," interposed Emma Dean wickedly.

"As you like," flung back Elfreda sweetly. "You needn't come to the game, you know, if you think it is to be a one-player affair."

"Oh, I'll be there, never fear," Emma a.s.sured her. "I have a special banner of junior blue to wear."

Only one color had been chosen by 19-- for their junior year, one of the new shades of blue which Gertrude Wells had at once renamed "junior"

blue. It was greatly affected by the juniors for ties, belts, hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and girdles.

"Doesn't it seem strange not to be on the team this year, Miriam?" asked Grace. "That is, when one stops to think about it. It never occurred to me until this moment how much I have missed basketball. Mabel Ashe said that we'd just simply drift away from it this year, and so we have. Now we are going to cheer Elfreda on to victory."

"Elfreda is an artist in making baskets," commended Miriam.

"Much obliged," rejoined Elfreda, "but your praise doesn't turn my head in the least. You can judge better of my artistic qualities after the game."

"We hope to secure seats in the gallery," said Anne. "The front ones, of course, are reserved for the faculty, but if we go to the gym very early we may get good seats."

"I am not going to wait for you, if you don't mind, Miriam," remarked Elfreda, rising. "I must see our captain before going to chapel this morning."

"Run along," said Miriam. "I am not going to chapel this morning. I must have that extra time for my biology. I can use it to good advantage, too. There won't be any noise or disturbance in the room," she added slyly.

Elfreda gave Miriam a reproachful glance over her shoulder as she left the dining room. "You'll be sorry for 'them cruel words' some day," she declared. "For instance, the next time my services as a chef are desired," and was gone.

Miriam left the dining room a little later, going directly upstairs.

Grace and Anne lingered to talk with the girls still at breakfast, half expecting to hear the news of Ruth's father brought up. Nothing was said on the subject, however, and Grace wondered if Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton could possibly have come to their senses and refused to take part in whatever mischief Kathleen had planned. How glad she would be, she reflected, if the two seniors, who had caused her so many unpleasant thoughts and moments turned out well after all.