Marjorie Dean, College Senior Part 7

"They don't know what they want or what they don't want," calmly observed Jerry. "I am not enthusiastic over them, Marvelous Manager.

I'll try to be a conscientious elder sister to them, but it will be an awful struggle."

Marjorie laughed at this. Jerry chuckled faintly in unison. The unexpected invasion of Lucy, Katherine Langly and Lillian Wenderblatt put an end to confidence. The will to labor also languished and was lost in the ardor of meeting and greeting.

Invited to stay to luncheon, the ringing of the bell found Jerry's and Marjorie's room in a state of temporary disorder. Every available s.p.a.ce was piled with feminine effects.

"Things are in an awful uproar." Jerry waved her arm over the chaotic array. "The worst is over with our unpacking done. It won't take long after luncheon to put this stuff where it belongs. Glad you girls came to the Hall. It saves us the trouble of going after you."

Ronny and Muriel now appearing, the seven girls went happily down to luncheon. As a result of Jerry's and Marjorie's talk regarding the freshman arrivals at Wayland Hall, both were prepared to be conscientiously friendly on sight.

A trifle ahead of their companions in descending the stairs, at the foot of the staircase they encountered Augusta Forbes, Calista Wilmot and Florence Hart, the "tow-head," just entering the hall from the veranda.

The eyes of the two sets of girls met for an instant. Marjorie smiled in friendly, unaffected fas.h.i.+on, intending to speak. Jerry emulated her example. To their surprise Augusta Forbes put on an expression of extreme hauteur; Florence Hart stared icily out of two pale blue eyes.

Calista Wilmot, however, smiled cheerfully, taking no notice of her companions' frozen att.i.tude.

It was all done in a second or two. Marjorie's color heightened. She felt as though she had received a slap in the face. The smile fleeing from her lips, she treated the haughty pair to a steady, searching glance. Then she quietly withdrew her gaze.

CHAPTER VII-MAKING SURE PROGRESS

"Now what was the matter with them?" Jerry demanded, as she and Marjorie entered the dining room. "Were we properly snubbed? No mistake about it.

They must have heard what I said about them last night."

"I don't recall that you said anything very dreadful about them,"

returned Marjorie.

"I compared them to Comanches and expressed my general disapproval of their howls," confessed Jerry cheerfully. "Only they didn't hear me say anything. Leila said as much as I. Neither of us meant to be ill-natured. You know I usually say outright whatever I think in a case of that kind."

"Those two fres.h.i.+es acted as though they were angry with us for some unknown reason or other." Marjorie knitted her brows. "They'd hardly have behaved like that simply because they didn't know us and resented our smiling at them on that account."

"That _would_ be the height of sn.o.bbishness," replied Jerry. "We'd better tell the girls. They may try to be helpful and get a snubbing, same as we did."

Seated at table, Jerry proceeded to tell the others of the incident. Be it said to her credit she made no attempt to retail it as gossip. She bluntly stated what had happened and warned them to keep their helpfulness at home.

"That's too bad," Lillian Wenderblatt said sympathetically. "It puts you all at sea as to what to do next. You say the one girl returned your smile. Perhaps when you know her better you can find out what ails the other two."

"They can't have a grievance against us when they don't know us,"

Marjorie said. "I shall let those two alone for the present and confine my attention to some of the other fres.h.i.+es."

With this she dropped the incident from her thought and speech. After luncheon, as she redressed her hair to go to the station, it recurred to her disagreeably. She half formed the guess that Elizabeth Walbert might have made the acquaintance already of these two freshmen and prejudiced them against herself and her friends. Miss Walbert could not possibly have a just grievance against her. Their acquaintance had been too brief. As a former friend of Leslie Cairns, however, she probably held rancor against the Lookouts.

Marjorie st.u.r.dily dismissed this conjecture as not in keeping with her principles. She felt it unfair to accuse Elizabeth Walbert, even in thought, of such an act. She resolved to take Lillian Wenderblatt's advice and cultivate the acquaintance of the black-eyed girl who had shown signs of affability. She might then, eventually, learn wherein lay the difficulty.

A rollicking afternoon with her chums, crowded with meeting and welcoming at least twenty seniors who had returned to college on the same train as Helen Trent, drove the disquieting incident from her mind.

Helen was the last one of the nine girls, who had long been intimate friends, to return to Hamilton. Lillian now added as the tenth "Traveler," the band of friends were in high feather. Helen was triumphantly escorted to the Lotus from the station and there feted and made much of. Arriving at ten minutes past four o'clock, it was after six before she saw the inside of Wayland Hall. Three rounds of ices apiece had also dampened the ardor of all concerned for dinner.

"These joyful ice cream sociables are appet.i.te killers. There goes the dinner gong and yours truly is listening to it without a snark of enthusiasm. I think I'll forego dinner and finish straightening my traps," declared Jerry. Now returned to her room, Jerry viewed her still scattered possessions with distinct disfavor.

"You had better go down and eat something," advised Marjorie. "You will be ravenous about bedtime, if you don't. We haven't a thing here to eat except candy. As a late feed it's conducive of nightmares, Jeremiah."

"Wise and thoughtful Mentor, so it is," grinned Jerry. "I'll take your advice."

"If I see that black-eyed girl who smiled at me downstairs I shall speak to her and start things moving," Marjorie said with decision. "I won't ask her the very first thing what was the matter with her friends, but I'll do so as soon as I am a little bit acquainted with her."

Marjorie found no opportunity to put her resolve into execution that evening. The freshman in question was seated at a table the length of the room from the one at which she sat. The two freshmen who had shown such utter hauteur had seats at the same table as their black-eyed friend. Marjorie had not even an opportunity to catch the other girl's eye.

The following morning, as she started across the campus with Ronny for a stroll and a talk in the warm early autumn suns.h.i.+ne, fortune favored her. Seated on a rustic bench under a huge elm tree were two of the freshmen she was anxious to come into touch with. One was the black-eyed girl, the other the plump blonde.

"It's a splendid opportunity, Ronny." Marjorie took Ronny by the arm.

"Come along. I am going to speak to them. No time like the present, you know."

"All right, lead the way." Ronny obligingly allowed Marjorie to propel her toward the bench where the duo were seated.

"Good morning." Marjorie stopped fairly in front of the rustic seat, her brown eyes alight with gentle friendliness. "Isn't the campus wonderful today? This is one of its happy moods. I always say it changes in expression just as persons do."

"Good morning." The black-eyed girl's tones were as friendly as her own had been. The fair-haired girl also acknowledged the greeting with a nod and smile. "Truly, I agree with you. I think this campus is the most magnificent piece of lawn I ever saw or expect to see."

"I see where the good old campus has made another friend." Ronny now broke into the conversation nicely started between Marjorie and the freshmen. "Marjorie, this person here," Ronny playfully indicated her chum, "calls it her oldest friend at Hamilton."

"I don't wonder. I hadn't thought of it in that light before," returned the blonde freshman half shyly.

Both freshmen showed a certain pleasure mingled with reserve in having thus been addressed by the two seniors.

"If you don't mind, I am going to bring that seat over there up beside yours." Marjorie promptly got into action. "Then we can all have a sunny morning confab. It is high time we began to get acquainted with our little sisters," she finished laughingly.

Together she and Ronny carried the nearby seat to a place beside the one holding the two freshmen. Then conversation began afresh, a trifle stiffly at first. Soon the four were laughing merrily over Calista Wilmot's humorous narration of her first day at Bertram Preparatory School when the taxicab driver had, at the start, misunderstood her and carried her to the opposite end of the borough in which the school was situated.

"He landed me with a flourish in front of the main entrance to the Bertram Academy for young men," she related. "I saw a crowd of young men playing football on a side lawn. That was queer, I thought. I didn't see a sign of a single girl. He set my luggage down on the drive. In another minute he would have been off and away. I had paid him before we started. I called out to him to wait and asked him if he was sure it was the Bertram Preparatory School for Girls. Right then we came to an understanding. Maybe I didn't drive away from that school in a hurry. I had a perfect string of mishaps that day, big and little." She continued to relate them to her amused listeners.

An hour slipped away unheeded by the congenial quartette under the big elm. Marjorie made no approach to the subject on her mind. The two freshmen asked numerous impersonal questions regarding Hamilton College and its traditions. They made but scant reference to their own friends except to remark that there were twelve of them at Wayland Hall.

"Look, Ronny." Marjorie pointed to the chimes clock in the chapel tower which showed eleven. "We must go. I promised to go over to Silverton Hall to see Robin Page before luncheon. We'll have time just for a hurried call."

To her new acquaintances she explained: "Miss Page is a very dear friend. She came back to Hamilton on the seven-thirty train last night.

Would you like to go with us to Silverton Hall? I am sure she will be glad to meet you."

The two girls, thus invited, exchanged eager glances. It was evident both wished very much to go. Still, for some reason, they hesitated to accept.

"I don't know-" began Calista doubtfully. "Not today, I think." She adopted a tone of sudden decision.

"Some other day, I hope," supplemented Charlotte Robbins, the blonde girl. She looked almost appealingly at Marjorie.

"Any day," was Marjorie's cordial response. "My room, or rather Miss Macy's and my room is 15. Delighted to be of service to you. Miss Lynne and I will make you a real call some evening this week."

"Our number is 20. I hope you _will_ come and see us." Charlotte Robbins emphasized the will as though she had definitely made up her mind to be cordial.