Following Jerry’s ominous prophecy, nothing of any special moment occurred to mar the Five Travelers’ peace of mind during their first week at Hamilton. So occupied were they in choosing their subjects, arranging their recitation periods and adapting themselves to the new life that they paid small attention to the comings and goings of the coterie of millionaire’s purse-proud daughters which Wayland Hall housed.

The Sans Soucians were deep in a round of sociabilities, to which it appeared that only a few juniors and seniors were eligible. To the other girls of the sophomore class, they accorded a cool shoulder. A handful of moneyed freshmen found favor with them and were therefore made much of. The Lookouts, however, were not among these. They had been privately rated by their quondam callers as plebians and dropped.

While Marjorie and Muriel had chosen the classical course, Lucy and Jerry had decided on the scientific and Ronny on the philosophical. As they had arrived at Hamilton three days before the official opening of the college, they had plenty of time to discuss together the respective merits of their chosen courses and arrange satisfactorily their recitation periods.

The making of these necessary arrangements, together with unpacking their trunks and attention to the countless details relative to their physical comfort, left them little time during those first busy days for social amenities outside their own intimate circle.

With Helen Trent, Martha Merrick and Rosalind Black they had become fairly friendly. Helen, in particular, had already become a welcome visitor to their rooms. She had a habit of dropping in on one or another of them with a bit of lively, but harmless, college gossip, that was infinitely diverting. She never prolonged her visits to the wearisome point. She was never in the way. In fact, she was usually in a hurry. The difficulty lay in trying to hold her, never in wishing for her to depart.

Thanks to Miss Remson, the five girls had been given places at one table in the dining room. At meal time they were, therefore, a close corporation. Muriel’s acquaintance with the two freshmen, Mary Cornell and Eva Ingram, both from New York City, had flourished to the extent that they had made her one evening call which she had returned. Like herself, they had made no acquaintances outside the Hall since their arrival and relied on each other for company.

Toward the end of the Sanford girls’ second week at Hamilton a number of things happened. First of all, Muriel acquired a room-mate as a result of persistent “buzzing” on the part of the manager. When first asked to share her room with the dissatisfied junior, Miss Barlow, Muriel had thought it over and decided in the negative. Miss Barlow was not to be thus easily balked of her desire. She persisted with Miss Remson and Miss Remson persisted with Muriel until the latter finally revoked her earlier refusal.

“Anything to have the subject off my mind,” she confided to her chums. “I’m tired of being waylaid by Miss Remson. I don’t blame Jeremiah for calling her Busy Buzzy. Just wait until you see my room-mate! Her name is Hortense. It ought to be Moretense. She is the stiffest person I ever saw. She walks as though she were wired and then starched for the occasion. I had a lovely conversation with her last night. She moved in after classes yesterday. I talked quite a lot. All she said was ‘Yes,’ ‘Do you?’ and ‘I believe not.’”

The name “Moretense” found instant favor with Jerry, while the other three Lookouts had hard work to keep their faces straight when they chanced to encounter dignified Miss Barlow about the Hall. Very tall and straight to rigidity, her set features never seemed to relax. Even an abundant head of blue black hair, loosely coiffed, did not serve to soften the wax-like immobility of her rather broad face. Whether her disposition and temperament matched her peculiar physical presence was something Muriel had not had time to fathom.

Muriel’s room-mate, nevertheless, was of more interest to the Five Travelers than the notice of the class election which was to take place at the beginning of their third week at Hamilton. They had long since learned that the majority of the freshmen had made harbor at Acasia House and Silverton Hall, both noted as freshmen domiciles. Recitations had familiarized them with the other members of their class, which was a small one for Hamilton, numbering only eighty-two students. Still they had not become much acquainted with their classmates and they had not yet reached a stage of active interest in their class.

Summoned to election one windy Tuesday afternoon, following recitations, the Lookouts began to experience the beginning of class enthusiasm. The majority of 19— were bright-faced, bright-eyed girls who reminded Marjorie of her class at Sanford High. It was seeing them together that brought to her a tardy realization that she had been too entirely wrapped up in her own affairs to cultivate a proper class spirit. Had she entered Hamilton College alone, she would have made acquaintances in her class more quickly. Surrounded by four of her intimate friends, her hours of leisure were always spent with them. Of the five girls, she had the peculiar personality which invites friendship. Muriel came next in this, Ronny was not interested in acquiring new friends. Jerry was hard to please, and Lucy was too reserved. A large number of freshmen at Wayland Hall would have also made a difference. As this was not the case, the Lookouts were obliged to admit among themselves that they had been lacking in class spirit.

The freshmen from Silverton Hall, about thirty in number, were, to all appearances, taking the lead in the class election. Three of the candidates nominated for office who won, respectively, the presidency, vice-presidency and secretaryship were from there. As the candidates were obliged to come up to the front of Science Hall where the meeting was held, the Lookouts had at least the opportunity to see the nominees and judge their fitness, as nearly as they could, from their personal appearance. All five approved in particular the new president, Miss Graham, a fair-haired, pink-cheeked young woman with sparkling brown eyes and a ready, sunshiny smile.

The treasurer-elect was an Acasia House girl, while the various committees were about equally divided between the two houses. While the Lookouts were entirely satisfied with the result of the election, they felt, nevertheless, a trifle out of things. They had had no part in the merry electioneering which had evidently gone on under their very noses. More, it appeared that another class meeting had been held before this, of which they had seen no notice on the Hall bulletin board, neither had they received a written or verbal summons to it.

During a recess after the election granted for the purpose of shaking hands with the officers, Marjorie found the golden brown eyes of the president fixed very kindly on her.

“You are at Wayland Hall, aren’t you? I know you are Miss Dean, for I saw you on the campus over two weeks ago and made inquiry about you. It is too bad we don’t have any of the same recitation periods. I would have met you before this. I thought you would be at our other class meeting, but neither you nor your four friends came. I haven’t time to talk any more now. Observe that line of congratulators. After the meeting, if you will wait for me, several of the Silverton girls would like to meet you and your friends.”

“Of course we will wait, and feel highly honored.” Marjorie flashed the president a winsome smile, albeit she was nonplussed as to why pretty Miss Graham had been so anxious to meet her, in particular. She was also bent on learning more of the other class meeting from which they had in some strange manner been cut out.

The meeting over, the Sanford quintette stood off to one side, waiting for Miss Graham. She presently came up to them, accompanied by half a dozen freshmen, evidently close friends of hers. An introducing session ensued, punctuated by laughter and gay pleasantries. It produced a more comforting effect on the Five Travelers than had anything since the day when Helen Trent, by her kindly manner, had taken the strain off their arrival.

“What do you think of that, girls? Miss Dean and her friends did not know a thing about the other class meeting we held here! We sent notices to all the campus houses, requesting them bulletined. There was a notice on the big bulletin board, too. The one outside Hamilton Hall, you know.”

“Why, Portia, don’t you remember? It was awfully windy that day and some one came into the Hall and said that there wasn’t a sign of our notice on the large board. It must have blown away. That was at noon. We were to put out another and I believe it was forgotten.” This information came from a small girl with very wide-open gray eyes and brown hair, cropped close to her head. She had the face of a mischievous, small boy.

“Yes, Robin, I do recall it, now that you have reminded me. Much obliged. That explains, perhaps, why you did not see it on the main bulletin board. It seems strange that the notice we sent to Wayland Hall was not posted there. Miss Remson, I understand, is always particularly careful to post the notices sent her.”

“If Miss Remson received it, she would not fail to post it,” asserted Marjorie. “Was it mailed or delivered by a freshman messenger?”

“I took it to Wayland Hall.” It was the girl Miss Graham addressed as Robin who answered. “I handed it to a maid in a sealed envelope, addressed to Miss Remson.”

“Perhaps some of the sophs saw it on the bulletin board and nabbed it for a joke,” suggested a tall, handsome brunette who had been introduced to the Lookouts as Miss Scott.

“A poor sort of joke, I should say,” Robin Page said, a trifle contemptuously.

“Well, we were told we might expect——” Blanche Scott broke off short, with a significant twitch of compressed lips.

“It was unfortunate, of course,” Portia Graham hastily remarked, “but we’ll hope no more notices go astray. You freshmen at the Hall had better keep in closer touch with us. That means come over to our house and be sociable. How many more freshmen besides yourselves live at Wayland Hall?”

“Two; Miss Cornell and Miss Ingram.” Muriel supplied this information. “They were sitting toward the back of the hall when the meeting began. There they are!” She located the two at a short distance from them, talking earnestly to the student who had been elected to the vice-presidency. She bore a slight resemblance to Irma Linton. The Lookouts often saw her on the campus and during recitation periods, but did not know her name.

“Oh; I see them. They are in good hands.” Miss Graham looked relieved. “Elaine Hunter is the sweetest girl in the whole world, I believe. Just to be in the same house with her is to love her.”

“She reminds us of a friend of ours at home.” Jerry glanced very approvingly toward the pretty freshman. “We have noticed her on the campus. If she is as fine as Irma Linton, our friend, she is worth knowing. We were sorry that Irma didn’t choose Hamilton, but her mother was a Wellesley graduate and anxious for Irma to enter Wellesley.”

“I know how that goes,” nodded Miss Graham. “My dearest friend was packed off to Smith College to please her family. She didn’t care to enter Smith, but went as a matter of duty.”

At this juncture, Elaine Hunter, accompanied by Miss Cornell and Miss Ingram, joined the group around the president and more introducing followed. Presently the whole party trooped out of Science Hall and across the wide campus together, making the still autumn dusk ring with their clear young voices.

From the Silverton Hall girls the Lookouts learned that the regular freshman dance, which the sophomores gave each year to their younger sisters, was soon to take place. The date had not yet been given out. It was the autumn event at Hamilton. The juniors and seniors could come to it if they chose. On St. Valentine’s night the juniors always gave a masquerade to all three of the other classes. Washington’s birthday the seniors claimed as theirs and gave either a play or a costume dance. To the freshmen belonged the Apple Blossom hop, a dance given by them each spring in the time of apple blossoms.

When the seven freshmen bade their congenial classmates good-bye, and struck off across the campus for Wayland Hall, it was with a new and delightful sense of fellowship and cheer. Like the Lookouts, the two girls from New York City had been disappointed at the lack of cordiality they had met with at Hamilton. Neither had known of the first class meeting until after it had been held, and both were a trifle hurt at having been ignored. As the Lookouts had known nothing at all about it, they at least could not be blamed for not having passed word of it along.

“Well, we are at last beginning to meet the folks,” Jerry said with a certain touch of grim satisfaction, as the five girls settled themselves in Ronny’s and Lucy’s room for a few moment’s private chat before the dinner bell sounded.

“If we were living at Silverton Hall or Acasia House we would be far more in touch with college matters,” commented Ronny reflectively.

“You may blame me for choosing Wayland Hall,” Marjorie reminded. “I liked the picture of it better than the others.”

“Yes; you picked this stately old lemon and we followed your lead.” Jerry favored her room-mate with a genial grin which the latter returned in kind. “We forgive you for it. How could you guess who else beside Busy Buzzy lived here? I like the Hall. The rooms are good, the meals are gooder, and the conveniences are goodest of all. It has the prettiest lawn and veranda of them all, too.”

“It’s a blue-ribbon place or Moretense wouldn’t have besieged Miss Remson to let her in here. I decline to say Busy Buzzy for fear of getting the habit. I am too careless to apply it to her only in privacy. I’m likely to come to grief,” Muriel said lightly.

“It’s no worse than ‘Moretense,’” argued Jerry. “You say that all the time. I hope, for your sake, you won’t get caught saying that.”

“It sounds so much like ‘Hortense’ that I could get away with it,” retorted Muriel. “Anyway, I like to name people according to their lights and so do you. Long may we wave with no embarrassing accidents.” Whereupon Jerry and Muriel solemnly shook hands.

“Isn’t it time we had a meeting of the Five Travelers?” Lucy Warner broke in irrelevantly. “On the train we said we would have one once a week. This is our third week here and we haven’t had even one.”

“Quite true, Lucificus Warneriferous, sage and philosopher,” agreed Jerry, with a gravity which would have been admirable on any other occasion.

“Jeremiah is all taken up with the naming habit,” put in Ronny slyly.

“Ain’t I jist,” chuckled Jerry. “Our cook always says that when I ask her if she is going to the movies on Saturday night.”

“We are away off the subject.” Marjorie had done little but laugh since the five had sat down to talk.

“Certainly, we are.” Lucy regarded Jerry with pretended severity. “We never keep to a subject when Geraldine Macy is present.” Though she spoke in jest there was a curious light in Lucy’s green eyes which no one present except Marjorie understood. It always appeared when Lucy was anxious to impart a confidence.

“You have something special to tell us, haven’t you, Lucy?” Marjorie quietly asked.

“Yes, I have, but I wish it to be a confidence made to the Five Travelers,” Lucy said with stiff positiveness. “While what I have to tell you is not anything which touches us personally, it is something which should be brought to your attention. I don’t wish to tell you until we have a meeting. I think we had better have that meeting no later than tomorrow night.”