“Well, Peter, the years have dealt lightly with you,” was Miss Susanna’s greeting as she held out a hand to Alec Carden’s runaway son.

She had heard from Marjorie of the recent agreeable change in Leslie Cairns. Marjorie had felt it only fair to Leslie to acquaint Miss Susanna with that change. The old lady now divined that Peter Carden had come to the Arms on a friendly errand. Her quick brain had instantly arrived at the truth as she glanced from Leslie to Peter Carden. Leslie was his daughter. Followed immediately the recollection of the financier’s altered name.

“So you changed your name to Cairns, and this is your daughter,” she continued with abruptness. In her astonishment she momentarily forgot to make introductions.

“Yes.” Peter Cairns showed admiration of the intrepid little woman who had successfully fought off his bullying father and a college board largely composed of rascals. His keen eyes registered an expression of deference which he seldom accorded either men or women. “This is my daughter, Leslie, Miss Susanna.” He drew Leslie gently forward. “She came to meet you and to see Miss Dean. I came to see you.”

“I’m glad you have. I might not have said that years ago, but I can say it now.” Miss Susanna introduced Peter Cairns and Leslie to Mrs. Dean, and the financier to Marjorie. The latter and Leslie had already exchanged friendly salutations.

Marjorie thought she had never before seen Leslie look so well. Beauty, even prettiness of the regulation type she would never have. There was a new expression of light and animation on her face, however, which made her what her father had often called her as a child: “his ugly beauty.” The loose, unprepossessing droop to her mouth which Marjorie had formerly most disliked in her features was gone. A half humorous little quirk had taken the place of the ugly droop. It brightened her face wonderfully. Always of extremely symmetrical figure she was at her best today in a pale blue broadcloth dress. The softening grace of a wide summer fur draped her shoulders. Every detail of her apparently simple toilet had been carefully chosen. Leslie was a model of smart attiring.

“I don’t feel much older than when I was Peter Harum-scarum, as John used to call me,” smiled the financier. “I have had many a good and many a bad time at the Hedge. It has been mine for two years. I bought it from John. I am glad old Alec died. A hard thing to say of one’s own father, perhaps. He had a hard hand, and a hard nature. I was glad to hear that you fought things to a finish with him.”

“You may say what you please to me about Alec Carden, Peter. I know it will be the truth. I dislike to hear a man who was detested by his children while he lived hypocritically mourned by them after Providence has mercifully removed him from their midst,” Miss Hamilton declared with candid relish. “Come up to the house and have luncheon with us. I hear you are a king of finance. Your history after you ran away from home must be interesting. You weren’t more than twenty-four when you went, were you?”

“Twenty-five.” Peter Cairns laughed, a short bitter sound. “Thank you for the invitation, Miss Hamilton. Some other day we’ll accept with pleasure. We have a business engagement today with a man named Peter Graham.” He and Leslie looked at each other and laughed.

Her glance toward him was a vivid brightening of feature which Marjorie thought beautiful. “Won’t you come over and sit down under the big tulip tree?” she invited winningly. “We have been sitting there in the sunshine loving the spring outdoors.”

“Yes, do. Peter, go and bring that seat over here under the tulip tree with the other,” directed Miss Susanna pointing out a nearby rustic seat.

“Yes’m.” The usually silent, taciturn man, who kept his large office force in a state of continual awe, ran like a boy to bring up the rustic bench and place it under the tulip tree opposite the other.

“Now, Peter, what in the world prompted you to come to see me?” the old lady inquired briskly, as she re-seated herself on the bench. Mrs. Dean courteously excused herself and walked on to the house. She decided that the four she had left would get along better without her. Miss Susanna and Leslie sat on one seat. Marjorie and Peter Cairns on the other.

“Oh, a number of things,” Peter Cairns replied with an odd little duck of the head which Miss Susanna recalled him as a boy.

“You two,” she indicated father and daughter, “are full of pleasant mystery. Your faces give you away.”

“It is pleasant mystery; very pleasant,” he replied with friendly conviction. “This is what it’s all about.” In his short-cut fashion he quickly outlined what he had already informed Leslie regarding the ownership of the site she had chosen on which to build the garage.

“I took the property away from Leslie because I was not pleased with her,” he continued frankly. “Saxe refunded the money. He was entirely innocent in the matter. I took the sixty thousand dollars refund and invested it for Leslie. It was her money. She had paid far too much for the site. As the site belonged to the Carden estate and the Carden estate belonged to me I took over the whole garage enterprise. Leslie had to bear the loss of the money she had used for construction and other foolish purposes. I wanted to show her what a flivver she’d made.

“We agreed to tell this tale together. I’ve told my part of it. Now Leslie will tell hers. Your turn, Cairns II,” he raised his heavy brows meaningly at Leslie.

“My father told me if I could think up a good reason for having my garage site back again, he would give it to me. The requirements were that whatever I wanted it for must benefit Hamilton College and all connected with it. He said it must be an original reason.” Leslie came to the point with the same celerity as was Peter Cairns’s habit.

“I tried at first to think of something that would work out with your plans, Miss Dean,” she now addressed Marjorie. “I knew you had long since provided against emergency. Every time I thought of the word originality I thought of Leila Harper. I used to think when I was at Hamilton that she was originality.” Leslie smiled briefly. “Miss Monroe raves over her. She says she is a dramatist, stage manager, actor and so forth. This is my idea. I’d like to build a theatre on the garage site. I’d call it the Leila Harper Playhouse. I’d present it to Hamilton College with the proviso that Miss Harper should always control the theatre and the policy of the plays. I would like to will her to Hamilton College as a rare dramatist, actor and manager.” Leslie paused. Once fairly started on her proposal she had grown more and more animated.

“You take my breath!” Marjorie gave a little rapturous gasp. “I should say your plan was original. I think it’s the very heart of gracious generosity. I love Leila, Miss Cairns, and wish more than I can say to have her appreciated and honored at Hamilton.”

“She ought to be appreciated. She is going to be. You see a theatre will be of benefit to all the campus folks. It will be a source of amusement and pleasure to all. The money resulting from the plays should go to help the dormitory along. It will train girls who have histrionic ability for the stage. It will encourage students to play-writing. There will be prizes offered, so many each year for the best in plays, perhaps for exceptionally fine acting. My father will endow it. I shall put a part of my money into the endowment provided my idea is accepted by the Travelers. My name is not to be mentioned in it. My father doesn’t wish his to be, either.”

“None of the Travelers could or would refuse such an offer, Miss Cairns. Remember it is first of all for Leila. She has worked so hard to give the campus good plays. Not to mention all the splendid things she’s done for Hamilton as a Traveler.” Marjorie sang Leila’s praises with a high heart. “Yet none of us would wish yours or your father’s name to be withheld. It would be our grateful pleasure to tell others of your splendid gift.”

“You make it seem the thing for us to do—I don’t know. Let me come again and talk with you about it. My father and I are partners now,” she threw him a fond comradely glance. He and Miss Susanna had listened and let youth talk out its own matters of interest.

It was an hour later when Peter Cairns and Leslie left the Arms, happy in the long step that had been taken that day toward the partnership of which they had talked and dreamed in bygone years in New York.

“Miss Susanna has changed more than any other person I ever knew,” were the financier’s first words to Leslie as they drove away from Hamilton Arms. “She was a sweet woman until after she had so much trouble with my father and that rascally board. I was only a little boy then. I never saw her again after I left Carden Hedge until a few years ago when I came up here to see John. She looked like a fierce, sullen little creature of the wild, ready to snarl at a word. Now she is charming. She looks as though she had found what we have—happiness.”

“Blame it on Bean,” Leslie said with a shadow of her old satiric smile. “She can change anything. She even put over the great transformation on me.”

Back at the Arms Jerry, who had successfully put dozens of plump dahlia tubers into the soft brown earth under Jonas’s somewhat critical eye, was now racing across the lawn to the tulip tree.

“I saw the company from afar. Who were they?” she called out when within a few feet of the rustic benches where Miss Susanna and Marjorie had reseated themselves. “No one I ever saw before. I couldn’t label either one of them.”

“You have seen them both before, Jeremiah,” Marjorie calmly assured. “The young lady was Leslie Cairns. The man was—our gasoline bogie.”

“What-t? Has one hob-goblin wed another. Don’t tell me the grand Hob-goblin is married!” Jerry looked ridiculous consternation.

“Who said anything about being married. The gasoline bogie is Leslie Cairns’s father.”

“Then he must be a house robber. What was he doing around the Carden estate at that hour of the night?” Jerry demanded.

“He is not a house robber.” Marjorie was now laughing. “He is a house owner. He owns Carden Hedge, and his name is Peter Carden. He is the Carden son who ran away from home and changed his name to Peter Cairns.

“Good night.” Her eyes on Marjorie, Jerry went to sit down on the end of one of the two benches. She missed the bench and sat down forcefully on the soft grass.

“Can you beat it?” she giggled as she scrambled to her feet and dropped down beside Marjorie, this time in the middle of the bench. “Can you blame me for that flivver? I’ve heard of being overcome by astonishment. It just happened to Jeremiah.”