Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College Part 7

Grace looked searchingly into the smiling, dark eyes of the dean.

"Thank you so much, Miss Wilder," she said earnestly. "I felt sure you would understand."

"We should like Professor Morton to open the bazaar, and would appreciate a speech from you also," added Arline.

"I shall be pleased to help the club in any way I can," a.s.sured Miss Wilder graciously as the two girls were about to leave the office. "I am certain that Professor Morton will echo my sentiments." Something in the older woman's quiet tones made Grace feel that the anonymous letter had entirely failed in its object.

CHAPTER VIII

ELFREDA PROPHESIES TROUBLE

Not until the two girls were well outside did either venture to speak.

Then their eyes met. "Did you receive my message?" asked Arline abruptly.

"Your message," repeated Grace. "No, I didn't receive any message. By whom did you send it?"

"Emma Dean," declared Arline. "She was at Morton House yesterday for luncheon, and I ran across her in the hall. I asked her to ask you if you would see Miss Wilder after cla.s.ses yesterday afternoon."

"Emma Dean again," laughed Grace. "Didn't you know, Arline, that the Dean messenger service is absolutely unreliable? Emma is always perfectly willing to deliver a message, but never remembers to deliver it. Only last week Elfreda made an engagement with a dressmaker who sews for Emma. In the meantime Emma went to the dressmaker's house for a fitting, and the woman asked her to tell Elfreda to come for her fitting on Thursday instead of Friday night. Emma forgot it before she was a block from the dressmaker's, and poor Elfreda dutifully trudged off to her fitting instead of accepting an invitation to a theatre party that the girls got up on Friday afternoon. The dressmaker wasn't in and Elfreda went home angry. Emma delivered the message the next day."

"No wonder you didn't receive mine then," laughed Arline.

"How did you happen to find me?" asked Grace.

"Oh, I wasn't looking for you," replied Arline. "I thought as long as I felt better, I had better call on Miss Wilder, too. But," said Arline, a puzzled look creeping into her eyes, "if you didn't receive my message, how did you happen to be in the dean's office?"

"I received a summons," answered Grace quietly. "The dean wished to see me about--well--" Grace hesitated. "I should like to tell you about it,"

she went on. "Miss Wilder did not ask me to keep the matter a secret.

That was understood, I suppose. But, Arline, I think it would be better to ask her permission before telling even you."

"Is it anything about me or about the club?" asked Arline curiously.

"It is something about the club," replied Grace enigmatically.

"Then suppose we go back and ask her now," proposed Arline.

"No," negatived Grace wisely, "it wouldn't do. Wait a little. I shall see her again in a day or two. Then I may have a chance to ask her."

"All right," sighed Arline disappointedly. "Now that we have permission we must go to work with a will. The 'Circus' must meet and plan the costumes. Each girl will have to furnish her own. Ruth said she thought she could design them all, and cut them out if the girls could do their own sewing."

"Ruth is doing too much," demurred Grace. "Remember she is going to help dress dolls for the doll shop."

"I know it," responded Arline, "but, thanks to the Semper Fidelis Club, she doesn't have to burden herself with mending. Besides, I keep her so busy with my clothes she doesn't have time to do anything for outsiders.

Some of the girls were so provoking. They used to give her their work at the eleventh hour, and then send for it before she had half a chance to finish it. They didn't exert themselves to pay her, however. It was weeks, sometimes, before they gave her the money. They usually forgot about it and spent their allowance money for something else. I think I have already told you that Father would adopt Ruth if she would consent to it. But she is a most stiff-necked young person. She says she must work out her own salvation, and that too much comfort might spoil her for doing good work in the world."

"Do you suppose her father is really dead?" asked Grace thoughtfully.

"Oh, I think he must be," returned Arline quickly. "Even if he isn't dead, there is only one chance in a thousand of her finding him. When I went home last June I had one of my famous talks with Father. We decided that I needed a competent person to look after me in college, and Father asked Ruth to accept the position of companion. Then she could room with me and be free from this hateful sewing. But she wouldn't do it, the proud little thing! I like her all the better for her pride, though,"

concluded Arline in a burst of confidence.

"I think she is right about making her own way," declared Grace. "If I were placed in her circ.u.mstances I imagine I should look at the matter in the same light. Really, Arline, I often think that girls as happily situated as you and I do not half appreciate our benefits."

"I know it," agreed Arline. "Still, I am wide awake to the fact that a single room, pretty clothes and a generous allowance are not to be despised. I have grown so used to my way of living that to adopt Ruth's wouldn't be easy. I'd be worse off than she, for I don't know how to mend or sew or do anything else that is useful. I wonder if the girls would like me as well poor as rich," she said almost wistfully.

"Goose!" scoffed Grace. "Of course they would. How could any one help liking you? To change the subject, when shall we call a meeting of the bazaar specialists? We might as well post a notice on the big bulletin board. It will do more to advertise the bazaar than anything else."

"Grace, you are a born advertiser," cried Arline. "There will be a crowd around that bulletin board all day. Will you write the notice to-night?

Oh, did I tell you? I'm going to have my horse here this year. Father wants me to ride."

"How lovely!" exclaimed Grace with a little sigh. "How I wish I had a horse. I'd willingly use all my allowance to feed one, if Father could afford to buy him for me."

"Mabel Ashe has the handsomest horse I ever saw," said Arline. "He is black as jet. You know I often see her in New York during vacations. We have ridden together several times."

"You mean Elixir," returned Grace. "I have never seen him, but I have heard of him. That reminds me, Mabel is coming down here for Thanksgiving. I received a letter from her yesterday."

"I wish she could come down for the bazaar," sighed Arline regretfully.

"So do I," responded Grace heartily.

At the corner above Wayne Hall Arline left Grace with a warning, "Don't forget to post that notice." As Grace reached the steps of the Hall the front door opened and two girls stepped out on the porch, followed by an alert little figure whose small face wore an expression of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do come again," she was saying in clear, high tones. "I've heard some very interesting things this afternoon." Looking down, simultaneously, three pairs of eyes were leveled on Grace and conversation instantly ceased. Grace walked quietly up the steps and, with a courteous "good afternoon," pa.s.sed into the house and up the stairs to her room. Her face was unusually sober as she slowly pulled the hatpins from her hat. "How did Miss West happen to meet them?" she said half aloud.

"Meet whom?" asked Elfreda, who had come into the room in time to hear Grace's half musing question.

"Oh, Elfreda. How you startled me!" exclaimed Grace.

"How did Miss West meet whom? That's what I am curious to know,"

returned Elfreda, regarding Grace with lively interest.

"Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton, Inquisitive," answered Grace.

"Where did you see them?" asked Elfreda, exhibiting considerable excitement.

"On the front porch. They had evidently been making a call on Kathleen."

"Then look out," predicted Elfreda. "They began back in the freshman year with me. Last year it was Laura Atkins and Mildred Taylor. This year it will be Kathleen West, and you mark my word, she won't reform at the end of the year as the rest of us did."

"'Quoth the raven, "nevermore",'" laughed Grace.

"Well, you'll see," declared Elfreda gloomily. "I'm sorry Kathleen West lives here. I thought we were going to have a peaceful year. But every fall apparently brings its problem. Really, Grace, I can't help feeling terribly remorseful to think that it is I who have caused all this trouble. If I hadn't been such an idiot when I first came here, you and Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton might at least be on speaking terms."

"You mustn't think about such ancient history, Elfreda," admonished Grace. "We all do things for which we are afterward sorry. I daresay I should have offended those two girls in some other way before my freshman year was over. Both sides were to blame. I suppose we were naturally antagonistic."

"That is one way of putting it," muttered Elfreda, scowling over her past misdeeds.