  "At last!" exclaimed Grace triumphantly, as she extracted a letter from the Wayne Hall bulletin board addressed to her in Mabel Ashe's unmistakable handwriting. "Oh, I am so glad! I thought she had forgotten me." "Or had been persuaded to forget you," put in Elfreda Briggs, who had come downstairs to breakfast directly behind Grace. Grace looked frankly amazed. "How did you know?" "How do I find out everything I know?" demanded Elfreda. "Don't you suppose I noticed that you were worried about not hearing from Mabel? I could see you thought some one had made mischief." "Elfreda Briggs, will you please tell me your exact method of deduction!" exclaimed Grace in a half vexed tone. "Your ability for 'seeing things' is positively uncanny." "There was nothing very uncanny about seeing you look ready to cry every time Mabel's name was mentioned," retorted Elfreda. "We all knew that you hadn't received a letter from her. Put two and two together, what is the result? Ask me something harder. That's easy." "I make my bow to you, most observing of all observers," laughed Grace. "I have been worried over not receiving a letter from Mabel, but I hadn't breathed it to any one. Come into the living room before breakfast. No; let us have breakfast first. It is early yet and we shall have time to read the letter afterward in my room. Then Anne and Miriam can hear it, too. Here they come, the slow pokes." "A dillar, a dollar, a ten-o'clock scholar, Oh, why did you come so soon?" chanted Elfreda as Anne, followed by Miriam, appeared at the head of the stairs. "A ten-minutes-to-eight-o'clock scholar," calmly corrected Miriam. "We are early, but you and Grace are distressingly early. I suppose you found the fabled worm." "Here it is." Grace held up the letter. "If you are pleasant and respectful to us during breakfast, I will invite you to my room to hear it read." "Your half of the room," reminded Anne, with emphasis. "I beg your pardon, my half of the room," corrected Grace. "I might lease your half for the occasion, then I could turn you out if you proved a disturbing factor." "But I could refuse to lease my half," declared Anne. "Then I should be obliged to turn you out, at any rate. I am much stronger than you." "It sounds like a discussion between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, doesn't it?" commented Elfreda. "It has a true Alice in Wonderland tang," agreed Miriam solemnly. "In the meantime I am growing hungrier. On to breakfast!" After breakfast, the quartette lost no time in going upstairs to Grace's room to listen to Mabel's letter. Grace opened it, glanced hastily over the first page, then read: "My Dear Grace:— "Your faith in me as a correspondent must be shattered by this time. I've intended to write, but my days and nights, too, have been so crowded with work that I have almost forgotten that I am entitled to a little recreation. I'll try not to let it happen again, Grace, dear. I hoped to be able to run down for Thanksgiving, but I am afraid it won't be possible. "I am doing the clubs now, and there will be so much to write about them during Thanksgiving week that I am afraid I shall have to stay in town all week. Next week the opera begins, and, oh, joy! I am to help write it—along with my club duties. I went to almost every performance last year and loved them all. Why couldn't you girls make up a party and spend Thanksgiving with me? Isn't that a brilliant idea? I might succeed in getting a day off. "You might ask Miss West to come with you. Last summer I asked her all about you but could get no particular information regarding you. I saw very little of her during the summer, as she was given a number of important assignments and covered them splendidly. I am sorry to say she is not well liked among the other reporters. They say she is too hard and merciless and that she is terribly unfeeling. Of course, you would hardly see that side of her. I should imagine she must have quite a reputation at Overton by this time, she writes so well. Remember me to her when you see her and deliver my invitation. "I must stop instantly or lose my train home. Let me hear from you about Thanksgiving. Love to you and Elfreda, Miriam and Anne. "Yours, as ever, "Mabel. "P. S.—I saw Frances last week. She is engaged to be married. More about her when I see you." "Doesn't it sound exactly as she talks?" smiled Anne. "I like the Thanksgiving idea," declared Elfreda. "Of course, we'll go," said Grace, looking questioningly at her friends. "Of course," repeated Miriam. "But what of Miss West?" "We might ask Patience to break the news to her," proposed Anne. "She would be doubly angry with us and say we were afraid of her," said Elfreda. "I'll tell her if you want me to. Nothing she can say will injure my castiron feelings." "Why not put off the evil day? It is still three weeks until Thanksgiving. We can give her two weeks' notice, as they do in theatrical companies," laughed Anne. "Something might happen in the meantime to make us her bosom friends." Elfreda giggled derisively. "I'd like to see it happen, then. We could all pursue our favorite phantoms in peace for the rest of our senior year. She is the only disturber left. Mabel says she imagines Kathleen must have quite a reputation at Overton by this time. She has. There isn't a doubt of it." "Elfreda, be good," admonished Grace, laughing a little. "Be good, bad child, and let who will be naughty," paraphrased Elfreda in a piping, affected voice. "That sounded exactly like Hippy, didn't it?" said Miriam. Grace and Anne nodded. "We ought to call her Hippy the Second," suggested Anne. "Good gracious!" gasped Elfreda, pointing a warning finger at the mission clock on the wall. "Half-past eight, and here I sit gayly loitering as though I had nothing else to do. How about chapel this morning? I know you are going, Miriam. How about you, Grace and Anne?" "I am," said Anne. "Run along and get your wraps. I'll meet you downstairs." After the three girls had gone off to chapel Grace pulled her favorite chair over to the window and sat down to think things over. First of all came the disturbing problem of the newspaper girl and Mabel's invitation. From the tone of the letter it was evident that Mabel knew nothing of the real state of affairs. Kathleen had maintained a discreet silence. Grace felt dimly that the hard, self-centered girl had taken at least one step in the right direction. She had gone from her freshman year to her paper without telling tales. "I wish she'd hurry and take a whole lot more," Grace reflected moodily, as she tried to decide whether to write Mabel, asking her to send Kathleen a separate invitation, or to take matters into her own hands and deliver the invitation in person. "I know she won't go if we ask her. I can't settle that to-day. I shall have to see Patience first. She may be able to suggest something." Grace passed on to the next worry, which was over her misunderstanding with Arline. It was so extremely unfortunate that it should have happened just when they had begun to talk of the Semper Fidelis fancy dress party. She could not carry out her ideas successfully without Arline's co-operation and help. After changing her mind several times, Grace decided to go to Morton House and see Arline. "It really isn't my place," she ruminated, "but I can't bear to have Arline angry with me." Last of all, Grace was troubled over the notice she had read in the paper concerning "Larry, the Locksmith." She was certain that the man she had seen in front of the moving picture theatre on the evening of their little theatre party was none other than the robber in whose capture she had been instrumental during her senior year at high school. Should she notify the Overton authorities of her discovery? Perhaps by this time the thief was many miles from Overton. Grace disliked the idea of figuring even privately in the affair. Yet was it right to withhold her knowledge? She could not determine on any particular course of action, and with an impatient sigh at her own lack of decision in the matter she rose from her chair and prepared to go to her first class in anything but a cheerful frame of mind. |
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