It did not need Elaine’s party to cement more securely the friendship which existed between the Silvertonites and the group of Wayland Hallites who had co-operated with them so loyally from the first. They had fought side by side for principle. Now they were beginning to glimpse the lighter, happier side of affairs and experience the pleasure of discovering how much each group had to admire in the other.

“What we ought to do is organize a bureau of entertainment and give musicales, plays, revues and one thing or another,” Robin proposed to Marjorie as the two were returning from a trip to the town of Hamilton one afternoon in early October. “We would charge an admission fee, of course, and put the money to some good purpose. I don’t know what we would do with it. There are so few really needy students here. We’d find some worthy way of spending it. I know we would make a lot. The students simply mob the gym when there’s a basket-ball game. They’d be willing to part with their shekels for the kind of show we could give.”

“I think the same,” Marjorie made hearty response. “At home we gave a Campfire once, at Thanksgiving. We held it in the armory. We had booths and sold different things. We had a show, too. That was the time Ronny danced those two interpretative dances I told you of the other night. We made over a thousand dollars. Half of it went to the Sanford guards and the Lookouts got the other half.”

“We could make a couple of hundred dollars at one revue, I believe. We could give about three entertainments this year and three or four next,” planned Robin. “It would have to be a fund devoted to helping the students, I guess. Come to think of it, I would not care to get up a show unless our purpose was clearly stated in the beginning. A few unjust persons might start the story that we wanted the money for ourselves. By the way, the Sans are not interesting themselves in our affairs this year, are they? Do you ever clash with them at the Hall?”

“No; they never notice us and we never notice them. It isn’t much different in that respect than it was in the beginning. I’d feel rather queer about it sometimes if they hadn’t been so utterly heartless in so many ways. This is their last year. It will seem queer when we come back next fall as seniors to have almost an entirely new set of girls in the house. I can’t bear to think of losing Leila and Vera and Helen. Then there are Rosalind, Nella, Martha and Hortense; splendid girls, all of them. I wish they had been freshies with us. That’s the beauty of the Silvertonites. They will all be graduated together.”

“We are fortunate. Think of poor Phil! She is going to be lonesome when we all leave the good old port of Hamilton. To go back to the show idea. I’m going to talk it over with my old stand-bys at our house. You do the same at yours. Maybe some one of them will have a brilliant inspiration. I mean, about what we ought to do with the money, once we’ve made it.”

A sudden jolt of the taxicab in which they were riding, as it swung to the right, combined with an indignant yell of protest from its driver, startled them both. A blue and buff car had shot past them, barely missing the side of the taxicab.

“Look where you’re goin’ or get off the road!” bawled the man after it. His face was scarlet with anger, he turned in his seat, addressing his fares. “That blue car near smashed us,” he growled. “The young lady that drives it had better quit and give somebody else the wheel. This is the third time she near put my cab on the blink. She can’t drive for sour apples. I wisht, if you knew her, you’d tell her she’s gotta quit it. I don’t own this cab. I don’t wanta get mixed up in no smash-up. If she does it again I’ll go up to the college boss and report that car.”

“Neither of us know her well enough to give her your message,” Marjorie smiled faintly, as she pictured herself giving the irate driver’s warning to Elizabeth Walbert. She had recognized the girl at the wheel as the blue and buff car had passed her.

“I’ll stop her myself and tell her where she gets off at,” threatened the man. “I ain’t afraida her.”

“I think that would be a very good idea,” calmly agreed Marjorie. “There is no reason why you should not rebuke her for her recklessness. She was at fault; not you.”

“Do you imagine he really would report Miss Walbert to Doctor Matthews,” inquired Robin in discreetly lowered tones, as the driver resumed attention at the wheel.

“He might. He would be more likely to do his talking to her,” was Marjorie’s opinion. “I tried to encourage him in that idea. A report of that kind to Dr. Matthews might result in the banning of cars at Hamilton.”

“Did you hear last year, at the time Katherine was hurt, that Miss Cairns received a summons from Doctor Matthews? I was told that he gave her a severe lecture on reckless driving. She told some of the Sans and it came to Portia and I in a round-about way.”

“I believe it to be true.” Marjorie hesitated, then continued frankly. “Katherine did not report her.”

Unbound by any promise of secrecy to any person, Marjorie acquainted Robin with the way the report of the accident had been put before the president. She and her chums had heard the story from Lillian Wenderblatt, who had so ardently urged her father to take up the cudgels for Katherine directly after the accident.

“Lillian explained to her father that Katherine utterly refused to take the matter up. He reported it to the doctor of his own accord, saying that Katherine wished the affair closed. So Doctor Matthews didn’t send for her at all. While he never referred to the subject afterward to Professor Wenderblatt, he said at the time of their talk that he would send Miss Cairns a summons to his office. Lillian’s father said the doctor’s word was equivalent to the summons. So I believe she received one. None of us who are Kathie’s close friends ever mentioned it to others. Lillian told no one but us. She did not ask us to keep it a secret. We simply did not talk about it. That’s why I felt free to tell you, since you asked me a direct question.”

“Strange, isn’t it, that the Sans can’t even be loyal to one another,” Robin commented. “Very likely Leslie Cairns told them in confidence, not expecting it would be betrayed. She may not know to this day that a girl of her own crowd told tales.”

“She is not honorable herself. Her intimates know that.” Marjorie’s rejoinder held sternness. “There is nothing truer than the Bible verse: ‘As ye sow, so must ye also reap.’ She tries to gain whatever she happens to want by dishonorable methods. In turn, her chums behave dishonorably toward her.

“An unhappy state of affairs.” Robin shrugged her disfavor. “Phil says Miss Walbert is a talker; that she is becoming unpopular with the sophs who voted for her last year because she gossips.”

Marjorie smiled whimsically. “Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if she were to turn the half of her class who were for her last year against her by her own unworthiness? After Miss Cairns worked so hard to establish her too! There’s surely a greater inclination toward democracy than last year, or Phil wouldn’t have won the sophomore presidency.”

“Yes; and she won it by eighteen votes this year over Miss Keene, and she is one of Miss Walbert’s pals. Last year she lost it by nine. Some difference!” Robin looked her pride of her lovable cousin. “I think there is a great change for the better in Hamilton since we were freshies, don’t you?”

Marjorie made quick assent. “You Silverites have done the most for Hamilton,” she commended. “We Lookouts have tried our hardest, but we couldn’t have done much if you hadn’t been behind us like a solid wall.”

“You Lookouts deserve as much credit as we. You girls are social successes in the nicest way, because you have all been so friendly and sweet to everyone. Then you have fought shoulder to shoulder with us. Now that we have begun to make our influence felt, we should follow it up by giving entertainments in which the whole college can have a part.”

“Let’s do this,” Marjorie proposed. “Bring the orchestra and Hope Morris, she’s so nice, over to Wayland Hall on Saturday evening. I’ll have a spread. Then we can plan something to give in the near future. Here’s my getting-off place. Goodbye.”

The taxicab having reached a point on the main campus drive where two other drives branched off right and left, the machine slowed down. She rarely troubled the driver to take her to the door of the Hall, it being but a few rods distant from this point.

Swinging up the drive and into the Hall in her usual energetic fashion, Marjorie’s first move was toward the bulletin board. Three letters was the delightful harvest she reaped from it. One in Constance’s small fine hand, one from General. The third she eyed rather suspiciously. It was in an unfamiliar hand and bore the address, “Marjorie Dean, Hamilton College.”

“An advertisement, I guess,” was her frowning reflection as she went on upstairs. “Anyone I know, well enough to receive a letter from, would know my house address.”

Anxious to relieve her arms of several bundles containing purchases made at Hamilton before opening her letters, Marjorie did not stop to examine her mail on the landing. Entering her room, she found it deserted of Jerry’s always congenial company. Immediately she dropped her packages on the center table and plumped down to enjoy her letters.

Second glance at the letter informed her that the envelope was of fine expensive paper. This fact dismissed the advertisement idea. Marjorie toyed with it rather nervously. In the past she had received enough annoying letters to make her dread the sight of her address in unfamiliar handwriting. On the verge of reveling in the other two whose contents she was sure to love, she hated the idea of a disagreeable shock. She knew of no reason why she should be the recipient of any such letter. That, however, would not prevent an unworthy person from writing one.

Determined to read it first and have it over with, Marjorie tore open an end of the envelope and extracted the missive from it. A hasty glance at the end and she vented a relieved “A-h-h!” Turning back to the beginning, she read with rising color:

“Marjorie Dean,

Hamilton College.

“Dear Child:

“Will you come to Hamilton Arms to tea next Thursday afternoon at five o’clock? I find I have the wish to see and talk with you again. I prefer you to keep the matter of your visit from your girl friends. I am not on good terms with Hamilton College and its students, and the information that I had invited you to tea would form a choice bit of campus gossip.

“Yours sincerely,

“Susanna Craig Hamilton.”