Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College Part 14

"True as can be," affirmed Anne. "I owe my greatest happiness to them. I couldn't desert them if I were asked to star in the whole Shakesperian repertoire." Her brown eyes looked tender loyalty at her three friends as she made this a.s.sertion.

"We couldn't get along without Anne," declared Miriam. "She is our balance wheel. She doesn't say much, but whatever she says counts."

"How ridiculous!" scoffed Anne. "These self-reliant persons don't need a balance wheel, Mabel."

"Some of us do," observed Grace, an expression of pain in her fine eyes.

"You don't," contradicted Elfreda pointedly.

Mabel eyed the two girls reflectively. "I'm a mind reader," she announced. "I understand both of you. After church this morning I am going to call a general welfare meeting in the library. Our universe needs regulating." She smiled gayly upon her guests, yet there was a hint of purpose in her tone as she added: "At least we can exchange valuable information and get down to cause and effect."

After breakfast, a great scurrying to get ready for church ensued, and an hour later their big, faithful motor carried them off to the Thanksgiving service.

"It doesn't seem a bit like Thanksgiving," commented Miriam, as they sped down Riverside Drive.

"More like Indian summer," observed Patience.

The day was glorious with sunshine. There was hardly a suspicion of frost in the air and the snowy setting considered so essential to a successful Thanksgiving Day was entirely absent.

"We never have this kind of Thanksgiving weather in Oakdale, do we, Grace?" asked Miriam.

"Neither do we in Fairview," put in Elfreda. "I can recall only one Thanksgiving that wasn't snowy, and I can remember that because I behaved so outrageously. I was a young barbarian of eight, who screamed and kicked my way to whatever I wanted. Two days before Thanksgiving Pa brought me home a sled. It was red with a white deer painted on it and underneath the deer was the word 'Fleet,' printed in big white letters.

I knew that with such a name it could hardly help being the best sled in Fairview. The night before Thanksgiving the rain came down in torrents and the next morning there wasn't a square inch of snow for miles around on which to try out my beloved sled.

"It was a bitter morning for me, and I proceeded to wreak my displeasure upon my family. I behaved like a savage all day and ended by being locked in Ma's room with my Thanksgiving dinner on a tray, minus dessert. I got even that night, though, for Ma had invited our minister and his wife to dinner. I waited until I had had my dinner and they had finished, too, and were sitting in the parlor. Then I began screaming down a register, which was right over them, my very candid opinion of them and of Thanksgiving Day in general.

"It was funny, wasn't it?" she chuckled in answer to the burst of laughter that greeted her recital. "But it was dreadful for poor Ma. The minister's wife never forgave me for it. She always referred to me behind my back as that 'terrible Briggs child.'"

"Another reminiscence for 'The Adventures of Elfreda,'" said Miriam.

"Elfreda is going to write a book of her early adventures and misadventures," explained Grace to Patience. "Did we ever tell you about it?"

"No; but in the event of its publication I speak now for an autographed copy," returned Patience, with twinkling eyes.

"I'll have one done up for you in crushed Levant," was Elfreda's prompt offer.

"This is our church," proclaimed Mabel. The car found a place for itself in the long line of automobiles drawn up at the curb, and, alighting from it, the party made their way sedately up the broad stone walk to the main entrance of the stately, gray stone edifice.

During the beautiful Thanksgiving service Grace's thoughts would drift into the same painful channel that she had inwardly vowed to avoid. The sweetness of the music made her think of home, and the earnest words of the minister sank deep into her heart. She, who had so much to thank her father and mother for, had carelessly allowed the name of Harlowe to be dragged into the limelight of police court news. She was unworthy of her parents' confidence. That she was unjustly severe in her self-arraignment did not occur to Grace. It was her first experience with real remorse and, as is usually the case, she did not allow herself the luxury of extenuating circ.u.mstances.

When she bowed her head during the concluding prayer her eyes were full of tears and it was only by desperate effort that she managed to wink them back.

"Father wants to see us now, you know," Mabel reminded her guests, as they took their places once more in the automobile. "To Father's office," she directed the chauffeur, and the car with its freight of happy girls glided down the avenue toward the section of the city in which Mr. Ashe's office was situated.

"Of course, Father's employees don't work to-day," explained Mabel as they rolled along. "His private secretary is with him, but his offices are closed. He wishes us to take luncheon with him, then we are to go for a drive through Central Park. You've taken that drive before, I suppose, but it is such a beautiful day and all New York will be in evidence. I thought you would enjoy seeing the world and his wife out for a holiday."

"We have hardly seen enough of Central Park to grow tired of it," smiled Grace. "Anne is a seasoned New Yorker and so is Elfreda, but Miriam and I never stayed here for any length of time. Patience will have to answer for herself."

"My knowledge of the metropolis is vague, and my experience here has consisted largely in being rushed from the depot to the hotel, and from the hotel to the depot. So you can readily see that Central Park is in the nature of an innovation, to me," responded Patience.

Luncheon was eaten in a restaurant whose extreme exclusiveness made it an especially desirable place for Mr. Ashe to entertain his daughter and her guests. The drive through Central Park came next, and it was after four o'clock before they turned into Riverside Drive for home.

"Please come down to the library as soon as you take off your wraps,"

directed Mabel. "The time for the council has arrived."

"Only Campfire girls have councils," retorted Miriam.

"What do you know about Campfire girls?" demanded Mabel.

"A whole lot," put in Grace. "We met five girls last summer who had just been on a trip through the White Mountains. They called themselves the 'Meadow-Brook Girls,' but they were real Campfire girls. They had spent a summer in camp and had won whole strings of beads for their achievements."

"They spent a day or two in Oakdale," explained Miriam. "One of them, a funny little girl who lisped, was a cousin of Hippy Wingate. Her name was Grace Thompson, but her three chums called her Tommy. They had a guardian with them, too, a Miss Elting."

"I liked the tall one, Miss Burrell, best," continued Grace, "but they were all interesting. The girl who owned the car was a Miss McCarthy, a true Irish colleen and awfully witty. She and Nora O'Malley swore friendship on sight. Then there was a stout girl whose nickname was 'Buster,' and a quiet, brown-eyed girl named Hazel Holland. They write to me occasionally and they are all going to Overton when they have finished high school."

"Why did they call themselves the 'Meadow-Brook Girls'?"

"Oh, that was the name of their home town."

"What good times they must have had," commented Mabel.

"They did, and all sorts of hairbreadth escapes as well. They won ever so many honor beads for bravery and prompt action in time of danger. But to return to the subject of our council. Don't you think we had better put our wraps away and convene? That's what councils do, isn't it?"

"Convene is correct," Elfreda a.s.sured her gravely. "Allow me to head the procession upstairs. The sooner we go up the sooner we shall come down."

A little later they cl.u.s.tered about the cheerful open fireplace in the library. Mabel, who was seated on a stool at one side of the fire, reached forward for the poker and prodded the half-burnt log energetically. The others watched her in silence until she laid down the poker with a suddenness that caused them all to start, and turning about said almost brusquely: "I wish you girls to tell me frankly everything about Kathleen West. Until that 'Larry, the Locksmith' story came out I hadn't the slightest idea that there was anything save the pleasantest relations between her and Grace. That story set me to thinking. I knew something was wrong, for Grace had told me the Oakdale part of it in strict confidence. When I received a cold little note from Miss West declining my invitation, I was sure of it. Whatever it is, I feel responsible, for I asked you to look out for Miss West in the first place. Won't you please tell me all about it?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: They Cl.u.s.tered About the Fireplace.]

Mabel's frank appeal was irresistible.

"I am sure it would be better to tell Mabel everything from the beginning," said Anne in a decided tone.

"I agree with Anne," came from Miriam.

"Of course she ought to know it," declared Elfreda. "Didn't I say so last year?"

"Last year!" exclaimed Mabel. "How long has this unpleasant state of affairs been going on?"

"Ever since the early part of our junior year," admitted Grace. "I disliked to write you of it. We thought she would change. We did everything we could to please her, but she is not in the least like any other girl I have ever known. Ask Patience about her. She rooms with Miss West."

"Do you?" Mabel turned her amazed glance upon Patience. "And not one of you said a word to me of it."

"We thought it better not to mention Miss West," said Grace slowly. "You can readily understand our att.i.tude, Mabel. I feel as though I ought to tell you that she came to New York on the same train with us. She was in the car ahead of ours."

"Then I shall surely see her before she goes back to Overton. I suppose she came down purposely to be patted on the back for her big story. Now begin the terrible tale of how it all happened."

Grace began with their meeting of Kathleen West at the Overton station and of their ready acceptance of the newspaper girl for Mabel's sake.

When she told of Kathleen's sudden avoidance of her and the other members of the Semper Fidelis Club, and of her subsequent intimacy with Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton, Mabel exclaimed impatiently: "Those girls again! They were born trouble-makers, weren't they?"