“Can you blame me?” Leslie had finally managed to make herself heard above the gale of laughter that had attended her mishap. She still sat on the floor, regarding her laughing companions with half sheepish reproach.

“No-o,” Leila made mirthful answer. “Let us be assisting the new manager to rise, Jeremiah, since we are the strongest of this crowd.”

“Thank you. I can assist myself.” Leslie sprang to her feet, resuming her former seat on the davenport. “You certainly have handed me a jolt, Leila Harper. It’s the last thing I ever thought of.”

“Then let it be the first now.” There was a vibration of earnestness in Leila’s reply. “Summed up in three little words: ‘I need you.’ There’s no other girl on the campus so well-fitted as you for the job. You’re a good business person, Leslie. Better still, you’re thoroughly cosmopolitan.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Flushing at the praise, Leslie shook her head. “It’s my self-assured manner that gives me the impression of knowing a whole lot more than I really do,” she explained frankly.

“Rubbish!” came energetically from Vera. “You are what you are, Leslie Cairns—clever as—as,” she groped mentally for a fitting comparison,—“as Leila.”

“Listen to that.” Leila made Vera a killingly appreciative bow.

“Nothing like it. I wish I were,” Leslie said regretfully.

“Let us have a contest, so that we may learn whether you are more clever than I, or, I than you,” Leila proposed blandly. “If you will have pity on a distracted Irish playwright, and help her out, then we shall both be in a fair way to out-do each other in cleverness.”

Leila had scented refusal of the honor she wished to do Leslie in the latter’s undecided manner. She now proposed to give her no chance to refuse. “We shall have fine times consulting together since we shall be near each other at Wayland Hall,” she smoothly pointed out.

“I’d love to manage the Playhouse, and I know Peter the Great would be delighted to have me do it, except for one thing.” Leslie spoke in her direct way. “There’d surely be ill-natured criticisms raised about it. Suppose it was said that Peter hadn’t been disinterested in giving the Playhouse to Hamilton College; that he had given it with the idea of making me foremost, and important, in campus affairs. Probably more spiteful remarks than that might be circulated.”

She stopped, staring half moodily at Leila. “‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’” She gave a short mirthless laugh. “Those first three years of mine on the campus were a mess. I behaved like a villain. Now it’s up to me to stand the gaff.”

“No, Leslie, it isn’t.” Marjorie cut in decidedly. “You have more than retrieved whatever mistakes you made during your first three years at Hamilton by what you did last year. Leila needs you this year. You would be an ideal manager for the Playhouse. Don’t allow anything else to matter. Depend upon it, Leila has already thought up some nice way of arrangement for you. I can see it in that beaming smile of hers.”

“I have fine arrangements for all occasions.” Leila was now grinning broadly. “When college opens I shall write an article for the ‘Campus Echo,’” she continued. “In it I shall outline the policy of the Playhouse, and give a resumÉ of what I intend to do in the way of plays during the college year. I shall also state that I have asked Leslie to assume the managership of the theatre, because of her extreme capability. Then let anyone start anything, and watch Irish Leila take the field, five feet at a bound, shillalah in hand.”

“Give us an imitation now of that five-foot bound,” coaxed Jerry.

“Not until I have first practiced it in private,” Leila declared with canny firmness. “And I suppose all is now settled, as amiably as you please, and the Playhouse has a new manager.” She turned ingratiatingly to Leslie, who could not help smiling, despite her doubts.

“I don’t know.” Leslie still demurred. “I——” she glanced about her at the little group of friendly, interested faces. She understood that her friends were hoping she might say “yes.” “I guess—so,” she said uncertainly. “Yes, I’ll accept the honor, mostly, though, to please you girls, and—Peter the Great.”

“Hurrah, hurray, hurroo!” Leila sent up a jubilant little cheer. “The world shall yet hear of us. Cairns and Harper, the greatest living promoters of high-class campus drama. That is what people will presently be saying about us.”

“Nothing succeeds like nerve,” Jerry declared.

“And it is experience that teaches the truth of that fine sentiment,” Leila came back with an innocent air that raised a general laugh at Jerry’s expense.

“I am a most thoughtless and inhospitable hostess!” Marjorie exclaimed as the wave of laughter subsided. “I should have told Delia to make ready a feast, and then——”

“Delia!” came in a concerted, delighted shriek from Leila and Vera.

“Of course. How could the Deans and the Macys ever get along without Delia? She’s our own, heart and soul.”

“Lead us to her,” begged Leila. “We’re not famished, Beauty. We bumped into Leslie on the train, and the three of us had luncheon together. Ah, but there was a happy pow-wow when we met, subdued and ladylike you may be sure. So it is not Delia’s delectable eats, but delectable Delia herself we are bent upon seeing.”

“Come along then.” Marjorie waved them kitchenward.

The visiting party burst into the kitchen upon Delia who sat placidly in her kitchen rocker shelling peas and humming to herself.

“I knew you’d be askin’ right away for me, Miss Leila.” Delia sprang up, hastily dumping a lapful of pea shells into a nearby splint basket. She came forward to meet Leila, her face bright with beaming confidence. “I saw you from the kitchen garden when the taxi stopped on the drive. I just thought then how surprised Miss, I mean, Mrs. Macy must be to see you.” Delia giggled at her own slip of title. “I can’t remember to call Miss Marjorie by her married name,” she confessed.

“I’m not quite used myself to my new name,” was Marjorie’s laughing comment. “Once in a while Jerry calls me Mrs. Macy, but not with proper respect. I’m very fond of my Bean name.” She dimpled at Leslie whose answering smile was a mixture of amusement and confusion.

“The tea is ready now, Mrs. Macy. Everything’s on the tea wagon in the pantry. I thought you girls would need a little bit to eat until dinner. I was just goin’ to wheel the lunch into the livin’ room when you come out here. I feel so glad to think you come to see me,” Delia looked her pleased pride of the invasion.

“It’s here we shall take our tea, in honor of you,” Leila said. “I am the one to pour it, and we shall all wait on you.”

“Fine.” Jerry dashed for the pantry, to return trundling the tea wagon.

Vera was already bowing Delia back into her rocker. “Stay seated most magnificent and highly-esteemed Delia,” she directed grandly.

“Te, he, he,” Delia chuckled at the flowery encomium.

“Oh, Delia! I forgot you’d never before met Leslie. This is Leslie Cairns, Delia. Leslie shake hands with Delia.” Marjorie gaily performed the introduction. “Leslie is going to be our neighbor at Carden Hedge, at Christmas, Delia. Won’t that be fine?”

“It will,” Delia nodded, all smiles. “The more of Miss Marjorie’s friends that come to live near her, the better it is for her. I’m glad to know you, Miss Leslie.”

Leslie shook hands warmly with Delia, pleased by the maid’s friendly sincerity. She could not help mentally contrasting her present democratic attitude with that of her former snobbish contempt for persons in humbler circumstances than herself. “Cairns II, you’re improving,” was her whimsical thought. “There’s a lot of room yet for improvement, though, so don’t get chesty.”

The tea party proved to be a hilariously happy event, with Delia the guest of honor, despite her half-abashed, good-natured expostulations.

“I’m going to tear you all away from Delia now,” Marjorie finally made firm announcement. “I’m going to see you safely to your own little corners of Travelers’ Rest. Then I must come back to the kitchen and help Delia, or you won’t have any dinner tonight.” She shot Delia a mischievous glance.

“Oh, now, Miss Marjorie——” Delia began. “Jus’s though I couldn’t get along without Alice. It’s Alice’s day out,” she explained to the newly arrived guests, referring to the absent maid.

“Jerry can keep on playing porter. Only, I’ll be kind to you, and help you with the girls’ luggage, Jeremiah.”

“I’m the one to be helpin’ with the luggage,” Delia insisted.

“Be aisy.” Leila lapsed purposely into brogue. “It’s ourselves’ll be after luggin’ our own luggage up the stairs.”

They were soon ascending the broad open staircase at the back of the reception hall, their happy voices blending in cheerful harmony.

Having triumphantly established Leslie in her room, the rest of the gay party went on to the room which Leila and Vera were to occupy together.

“Close the door, Beauty; and close it softly,” Leila drew a long breath of sheer contentment as the four chums, who had stood shoulder to shoulder, through both adversity and joy, at Hamilton, were once more alone together. “Not that I love Leslie less, but Beauty and Jeremiah more,” she added in light explanation. “Try as I may, I am not yet altogether used to Leslie Cairns as one of us. I’m glad she is, but there’s still an odd strangeness about it. Who could possibly have guessed when we waged war against the San Soucians, for democracy’s sake, that we should one day capture and tame their ringleader?”

“I get you. I feel about the same as you sometimes in regard to Leslie,” Jerry said quickly. “How about you, Vera?”

“I like her immensely,” Vera responded with a little emphatic nod. “I believe she has tried, harder than any other student who has ever enrolled at Hamilton, to conquer her faults. Leila feels the same, only she’s handicapped by a certain sardonic sense of humor.”

“It is the truth,” Leila affirmed solemnly, then she began to smile. “I look at her as she is now, and for the life of me I cannot help remembering the dance she led us for three years about the campus. And it is at her amazing reform that I am ignoble enough, at times, to grin. Only, I shall have a care to grin over it strictly in private,” she finished, her broad, humorous smile still in mischievous evidence.

“Just the same it is splendid in you to wish Leslie to be manager of the Playhouse.” Marjorie spoke with admiring warmth. “Think what it will mean to her, girls.” She turned to Jerry and Vera. “Her father will be so proud of her.”

“And think of the hard work it will save me,” Leila adroitly shunted off Marjorie’s compliment.

“Don’t try to slide out of your good deeds, Leila Greatheart. You’re the same slippery person, when it comes to that, you always were.” Marjorie made one of her funny little-girl rushes at Leila, arms widespread. She caught Leila about the neck and gave her a bear hug.

“Now I thought I had changed for the better.” Leila cocked her head to one side, looking down at Marjorie with her own particular quizzical air. “But you, Beauty, I see little sign in you of the sedate dignity of a Mrs. with a newly-acquired husband, and a manor house.”

“Bean is Bean,” Jerry cut in, “so much the same old Beanie that I was inspired to chant a jingle to her this afternoon.”

“Where then is the jingle?” Leila held out a demanding hand for a copy of it.

“Now you know perfectly well I never set down my works of genius. Apply to Marjorie for it. She got it before we both for-got it.”

“I saved it for you, Leila,” Marjorie assured.

“Uh-h-h.” Leila received the assurance with a gratified gurgle.

“Oh, girls, it’s so satisfying to see you both again, and the four of us have such a lot to talk about,” Marjorie said with a happy little intake of breath, “but,” she paused, her eyes unconsciously roving in the direction of Leslie’s room. “It’s a case of ‘Remember the stranger within thy gates.’” She went on brightly. “We’ve plenty of time before dinner for one of our famous confabs, but it’s apt to be more or less noisy. If Leslie should hear us laughing and talking, it might make her feel—well, rather out of things here. She’s grown as sensitive as she used to be hard since she found herself. We must make it our special pleasure to show her we like to have her with us.”

“The confab is hereby postponed, but it will keep.” Leila nodded understandingly.

“We were going to shoo you two out of here, anyway,” Vera mercilessly announced. “If you were to continue to hang around in here until we unpacked our bags you might see”—she put on a mysterious air,—“well, something that you’re not to see, until later.”

Before Marjorie could reply in kind the loud honk, honk of a motor horn came up to the four friends from the drive.

“Oh, that’s Hal. He’s home earlier than I had expected. I won’t wait to be shooed out of here.” The color had deepened charmingly in Marjorie’s pink cheeks. A warm tender light had leaped into her brown eyes. “Pardon me, children. I’ll see you again in a little while.” She was at the door as she spoke.

An insistent repetition of the call sent her scurrying down the stairs and on to a side door of the house that opened upon the drive.

“Come here, girls, if you want to see—er—well—my ideal of perfect love.” Jerry had crossed the room to one of the windows, which looked down upon the drive, and was beckoning to Leila and Vera.

Peering down, the three girls were just in time to see the meeting between the two who had once so nearly drifted apart forever, but had at the last found love in all its tender glory.

Marjorie had run down the steps of the veranda in the same instant in which Hal had sprung from the driver’s seat of the roadster. They met midway on the walk, catching hold of hands, and laughing like two children. No embrace passed between them, other than the cling of hands, but there was a light upon both young faces that told its own story.

“You know whereof you speak, Jeremiah.” It was Leila who lifted the brief silence that had fallen upon the three unseen watchers at the window after Hal had taken Marjorie by an arm and piloted her fondly up the steps and into the house. “There is an old Irish saying,” she continued: “‘Love is like a four-leaved shamrock, hard to find, but of great good luck to the finder.’ And it’s easy to point out the two lucky finders.”