Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College Part 3

The registrar was writing busily, her head bent intently over her work, when Grace led the way into her office. "Good morning, Miss Sheldon,"

she began. "This is Miss Eliot of the----" Grace was about to say freshman cla.s.s when the registrar rose and came toward them with outstretched hand.

"My dear Patience!" she exclaimed cordially, "I am so glad you arrived at last. How is your father?"

"Much better, thank you," replied the tall girl. "We still have two nurses, but I think he is out of danger now. I hated to leave him, but he was so worried because I had missed the first two weeks of college, that he insisted I should come on here at once. I arrived last night and went directly to Holland House, but the matron there thought I had given up coming, and the room I engaged by letter had been given to some one else only yesterday morning. She directed me to Wayne Hall, where, by the merest luck, I managed to secure half a room."

During this flow of explanations, delivered in Miss Eliot's crisp, business-like tones, Grace had listened in open amazement. This tall freshman's manner of addressing Miss Sheldon, the dignified registrar, betokened long acquaintance, while the registrar looked as delighted as though she had found a long-lost relative.

"I see you have fallen into good hands," said the registrar, a pleasant smile lighting her rather austere face as she glanced at Grace.

"I am quite sure of that," responded Miss Eliot heartily. "I also brought disaster upon myself." An account of the morning's accident followed.

"I believe you were born to disaster, Patience Eliot," laughed Miss Sheldon.

"I shouldn't be at all surprised," was the dry response.

"Miss Harlowe, I have known Miss Eliot since she was a little girl,"

explained Miss Sheldon. "I am pleased to know that she is to live at Wayne Hall. I am sure she will be happy there. I understand that the Wayne Hall girls make a very congenial household."

"We try to," said Grace with a frank smile. "My three friends and I have never lived in any other house since our freshman days. Perhaps Miss Eliot will find her freshman year there as delightful as we found ours."

"My freshman year!" exclaimed Miss Eliot in evident surprise.

"Yes," returned Grace rather blankly. "Aren't you a freshman? I don't know why I thought so, but I supposed, of course, that----" She paused irresolutely.

Miss Sheldon and the tall girl exchanged openly smiling glances, then the latter turned toward Grace almost apologetically. "I am a freshman in one sense," she said. "I have never before been to college, but as far as work goes I studied with my father and was lucky enough to pa.s.s up the freshman year. I ran down here last June to talk things over and find where I stood. I'm a soph.o.m.ore, if you please."

Grace burst into merry laughter. "Won't the girls be surprised!" she exclaimed. "We all thought you were a freshman."

"I hadn't stopped to think of what any one else thought of me," said Patience, "or I might have enlightened the girls at the breakfast table as to my superior soph.o.m.ore estate. They'll find out soon enough. I have a great mind to let them stumble upon the truth gradually."

"Oh, do," begged Grace gleefully. "It will be great fun to let matters take their own course."

Miss Sheldon smiled indulgently, but made no comment. She was versed in the ways of college girls. She, too, had been a student at Overton.

"I should like to stay longer, Miss Sheldon, but I know you are very busy." Patience rose at last to go, Grace following her example. "Now that I have come to headquarters, been identified, had my thumb marks registered and become a unit in this great and glorious organization,"

went on the tall girl calmly, "I shall feel free to go forth and replace Mrs. Elwood's demolished china. I should like to put the new set on the washstand before I tell her of the accident. Good-bye, Miss Sheldon."

She held out her hand. "May I come to see you soon?"

"You know you will always be welcome, my dear."

"I wish you wouldn't tell even your roommate that I am a soph.o.m.ore,"

said Patience Eliot as they left the campus and turned into College Street.

"I won't," promised Grace. "I'll be a positive clam. But what about your roommate? She will be sure to find out first, and then----" Remembering Patience Eliot's roommate Grace broke off suddenly.

"And then what?" asked the tall girl with disconcerting directness.

"Nothing," murmured Grace.

"Then we don't need to become alarmed, do we?" was the next question.

"No, not in the least," said Grace, smiling faintly. She was trying to decide whether or not she ought even to intimate to the tall, matter-of-fact girl, whom she already liked, that Kathleen West was likely to prove a disappointment in the way of a roommate.

But the decision was not left to her, for Patience Eliot said with calm amus.e.m.e.nt in her tones: "I have a better idea of what you are thinking than you know. All I have to say is, don't waste a minute worrying over me. Patience Eliot will take care of herself regardless of who her roommate may be."

CHAPTER IV

PATIENCE PROMISES TO STAND BY

For the next three days Patience Eliot pa.s.sed successfully for a freshman. Then came the sudden dismaying rumor that she was registered in the soph.o.m.ore theme cla.s.s. A little later it was announced positively that she had pa.s.sed up freshman French. The truth suddenly burst upon certain members of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s who had selected Miss Eliot as a splendid subject for soph.o.m.ore grinds, when, on the occasion of their first cla.s.s meeting, she walked quietly into the cla.s.s room where it was to be held, and took her place with a cheerful, matter-of-course air that was very disturbing to various abashed soph.o.m.ores who had planned mischief.

Far from being angry, the astonished soph.o.m.ores treated the New England girl's mild deception as a joke, and by it she sprang into instant popularity with her cla.s.s. There were a few disgruntled students who criticized her, but these were so far in the minority that they counted for little. Kathleen West was among this minority. On the evening when the girl from New England had been shown into the room at the end of the hall, Kathleen had conceived a strong dislike for this calm-faced, independent young woman, whose quiet self-a.s.surance nettled her, and mentally decided that she belonged to the preaching, narrow-minded cla.s.s of girls who made life a burden for those who did not live up to a certain impossible standard. Patience Eliot had been even less favorably impressed with the newspaper girl. "She has a frightful temper," had been her mental observation, "and looks the reverse of agreeable." Aside from a brief exchange of conversation, silence had reigned in the room, and remembering the happy faces of the girls she had seen at the breakfast table that morning, Patience had felt not wholly pleased with her new quarters and not a little lonely.

The incident of the broken china had been fortunate in that it had brought about a friendly, informal meeting between Grace and herself.

After that everything had glided smoothly along. Patience and Grace received an invitation to take dinner with Miss Sheldon the following Sunday, and this occasion served to strengthen the New England girl's favorable impression of Grace to such an extent that by the end of the week the knot of friendship between them had been firmly tied.

From the moment of Kathleen West's discovery that her roommate was fast becoming friendly with the very girls she affected to despise, she adopted an aggressive manner toward the New England girl which the latter was quick to perceive and tactfully ignore. Patience had an unusually keen insight into character, and she had made up her mind not to get beyond the point of exchanging common civilities with the disgruntled young woman who seemed determined to go through college with her eyes tightly closed to her own interests.

That the newspaper girl possessed a fondness for study and never neglected her lessons was a point in her favor, in Patience's eyes. As the daughter of a well-known man of letters she had inherited her father's love of study and an appreciation of that same love in others.

She frequently smiled at the clever, caustic remarks the strange, moody girl was wont to make about everything and everybody, and occasionally she surprised even Kathleen herself by her ready appreciation of the themes the latter wrote.

It was several weeks before the two young women even became accustomed to each other. During that time Kathleen learned that Patience was proof against her aggressiveness, and not half so narrow-minded as she had thought; while Patience discovered, to her dismay, that in spite of Kathleen's undoubted wit and brilliancy, she disliked her rather more, if anything, than on first acquaintance.

"I feel quite conscience-stricken over it," she confided to Grace one afternoon as they started down College Street for a short walk before dinner. "I wouldn't tell any one else, Grace, but I simply can't like Miss West. I've tried, and I can't. I am equally sure she doesn't like me. Imagine us sharing the intimacy of one room, and at the same time disliking each other cordially. I suppose there isn't the slightest chance for me to make a change this year. Besides, I don't wish to leave Wayne Hall."

"Oh, you mustn't think of leaving Wayne Hall!" exclaimed Grace in dismay. "I am so sorry about Miss West. She is a peculiar girl. None of the girls here pretend to understand her. When first she came here as a freshman she was friendly enough with us. Then something occurred for which we were not to blame, or rather, we did not know that Miss West considered us at fault," corrected Grace conscientiously. "At any rate, she suddenly began to avoid us. For a long time we didn't know the reason." Grace paused for an instant. "By the time we found out, it was too late. Other things had happened. I can't really tell you much about that part of it," she added, reddening, "but in fairness to myself and my friends I will say that we were not to blame for what followed.

There, that isn't very definite, is it? But I know you won't ask any questions."

"Not one," returned Patience gravely. "I knew, of course, that relations between you two were strained, but hadn't the slightest idea of the cause of it all. I believe I understand something of the situation now."

They tramped along in silence for a time. Grace was thinking almost resentfully that even in her senior year she seemed unable to free herself from a sense of responsibility toward Kathleen West. Her great affection for Mabel Ashe had undoubtedly been at the bottom of it, but, deep in her heart, Grace knew that had there been no Mabel to pave the way for Kathleen, she would have done whatever lay in her power to help this strange girl, who had no conception of, and was not likely ever to imbibe, that intangible and yet wholly necessary principle, college spirit. She wondered a little sadly why Mabel Ashe had not written her.

Could it be possible that Mabel had heard unkind, untruthful tales of her from the newspaper girl? Grace impatiently accused herself of being suspicious and tried to shake off the impression.

While she was pursuing this uncomfortable train of thought, Patience Eliot was covertly watching her companion's face. The expression she saw there evidently did not please her, and with a slightly determined set of her lips and a gleam of sudden purpose in her frank eyes, she promised herself that, beginning that very day, she would try to study Kathleen from an entirely different standpoint than heretofore. Laying her hand on Grace's shoulder she said warmly: "Don't worry, Grace. I will take back what I said about leaving Wayne Hall. I'm going to stay there until the last day of my soph.o.m.ore year, at least. And as long as I stay I shall no doubt go on rooming with Miss West. There, does that make you feel better?"

"It is positively n.o.ble in you to say that, Patience," responded Grace gratefully. "I know you are bound to be put to endless personal inconvenience on account of it. I feel peculiarly responsible for Miss West, because I promised Mabel Ashe, who knows her, that I would help her to like college. I have told you all about Mabel before. Next to Anne and Miriam, Mabel was my best friend here at Overton. I can't begin to tell you how I missed her last year. When Miss West first came to Overton I thought it would be perfectly splendid to have a real newspaper reporter with us, and because she was Mabel's friend I felt doubly sure of liking her.

"Mabel had sent me a telegram asking me to go to the station to meet her. Anne and I didn't allow any gra.s.s to grow under our feet. We rushed off post haste to the station. Confidentially, we were dreadfully disappointed in her. She was not in the least the sort of girl that I had expected to meet. I suppose I entertained an almost exaggerated idea of what a newspaper woman should be. I've always enjoyed reading stories about clever women who covered important a.s.signments and made good on newspapers. You know the kind of stories I mean."

Patience nodded understandingly. "Real people are never like people in books," she commented. "Usually the real folks do far more startling things than the book people ever thought of doing."

"I know it," agreed Grace, with a rueful smile. "Suppose I say what you just said happens to apply to this case, and leave the rest to your imagination."

"Very neatly put," was Patience's grim answer. "My imagination is quite equal to the strain. As her roommate, I can draw upon fact rather than imagination."