“So that’s the reason for these nods and becks and wreathed smiles!” Marjorie made an energetic grab at the square creamy envelope which Leila was waving slowly back and forth before her eyes. “I’ll assume it’s for me,” she said as her fingers closed around it. Leila purposely allowed the envelope to slip through her hand.

“Oh, it’s from Miss Susanna!” Marjorie gave a little joyful cry. “Now I know you must have seen her. There’s no stamp on the envelope.”

“Might not Jonas have brought the letter to the Hall?” Leila suggested.

“He might have, but he didn’t,” Marjorie cannily retorted. “You’ve been to Hamilton Arms.” Her eyes sparkled with the pleasure of her guess.

“So we have,” Vera corroborated as though quite surprised at the fact.

“Yes, ‘So we have,’” mimicked Marjorie as she hastily tore open the envelope and drew out the letter it contained. “I’m going to read you Miss Susanna’s letter. I shouldn’t, to pay you for teasing me. But, as Muriel loves to say, ‘I’m always amiable when I’m not peevish.’ I’m sure Miss Susanna would like you to hear it,” she added more seriously. She began:

“How dearly she loves you, Marjorie,” Robin said unenviously. “But then, how could she help it? So do we all. You have reason to be proud of having annexed the last of the Hamiltons to your train, Marvelous Manager.”

“I had nothing to do with it. No one could annex Miss Susanna to anything,” Marjorie disclaimed, shaking her head in sturdy fashion. “I always loved her from the first. She was like an odd, rare, lonely little bird to me. She was wonderful to me for her own dearness and still more wonderful because she was Brooke Hamilton’s great niece.”

“You’ve had nothing to do with any good work that has gone on on the campus in the past four years,” Leila agreed with satiric emphasis. “So you say. Now tell me, which of us could have softened Miss Susanna’s heart to the college? Never think you are not of small use in the world, Beauty.”

“I decline to think of it at all,” Marjorie evaded. “I’d rather think about when to go to see Miss Susanna. Why can’t we go to the Arms today? We’ve had such a late luncheon. Suppose we hurry along to the Hall, see Miss Remson for a little while then go to Hamilton Arms? By that time it will be six o’clock and Miss Susanna will have had tea. We can stay with her until about eight and stop at Baretti’s to dinner on the way to the Hall.”

“Fine, fine!” applauded Vera, “more marvelous managing by M. M. Dean.” At the same time, happening to catch Leila’s eye the two exchanged significant glances which Marjorie intercepted.

“There, I caught you exchanging eye messages!” she exclaimed in triumph. “You know something I ought to know that you haven’t told me.” She glanced quickly at Robin. “No, Robin doesn’t know this time, either.”

“What is this odd talk I’m hearing?” Leila inquired guilelessly. “Have I a thousand secrets because I give Midget a friendly eye-beam?”

“That was more than a merely friendly eye-beam,” disagreed Marjorie. “Besides, Midget had the mate to it ready.”

“Did she, indeed?” Leila’s black brows lifted with exaggerated interest. “You will have it that we are a designing pair. Only the stars know we’re not that. My luck is poor.” Leila sighed heavily. “How can I prove my words. Not a star will be around until tonight.”

“You’re worse than designing. You’re a fake,” emphasized Marjorie.

Leila received the assertion with the broad, ingenuous smile for which she was famed on the campus. “I believe you, Beauty,” she said with an admiring candor which produced ready laughter.

“We ought to make a start for the campus, girls.” Robin consulted her wrist watch.

“Away we go. Remember this is my feast.” Leila was on her feet, the luncheon check in one hand.

“Remember the Baretti dinner is to be mine,” Marjorie impressed upon her companions. “The Dean Entertainment fund must be used, you know.”

“Don’t forget the grand banquet at the Colonial tomorrow night,” Robin announced in a managerial voice. “You’re not the only person on the campus with an entertainment fund.”

“My treat will be a dinner at Orchard Inn,” Vera promised. “You two girls have never been to Orchard Inn. Wait until you see it.” She grew enthusiastic. “Leila and I just happened to discover it while we were out driving. There; that’s all I intend to tell you about it.”

“Is not Midget cruel?” Leila shook a disapproving head.

“Is not Leila aggravating,” retaliated Vera, imitating Leila’s tone.

“Since you ask outright; yes, to both questions. We couldn’t help thinking it, but we were too polite to say so,” declared Robin. “We’ve a grievance of our own against those two. Haven’t we, Marjorie?”

“I should say we had.” Marjorie laid stress on her reply.

“Ah, no; you only think you have,” retorted Leila.

A flash of familiarity came with the words “you only think you have,” but to Marjorie’s brain only. Now she remembered. That was precisely what Hal had said to her on their last boat ride when he had declared that she had never grown up. Her merry look, born of her companions’ repartee, faded, to be replaced by a faint pucker of brow. To think of Hal meant to recall the hurt expression on his handsome features as she had last seen them.

Quick as they had been to seek the cool inviting hospitality of the Ivy, the re-united friends were now as eager to depart from it upon their light-hearted way to the campus.

“I’m going to hit up a pace,” Vera slangily informed them, swaggering up to the roadster in an exact imitation of a racing motorcyclist she had recently seen.

Under her small practiced hands the smart roadster was presently whisking through the town of Hamilton at a rate just escaping that of speeding. Soon they had left the dignified town to its late afternoon drowsing and were skimming along Hamilton Highway. A short stretch of straight road then the highway began to wind in and out among the collection of handsome private properties known as Hamilton Estates. They were beautiful old-style manor houses for the most part surrounded by green rolling lawns and ancient trees.

“Oh, girls!” Marjorie called from her place on the front seat beside Vera. She and Robin had exchanged places for the ride to the campus. “Doesn’t Hamilton Arms look wonderful? As if it were trying to show summer off at its very best.”

“There’s not another place among Hamilton Estates that compares with the Arms,” was Vera’s positive opinion.

“And why not? Didn’t Brooke Hamilton plan it?” Leila made loyal demand. “Now maybe he knew Nature better than she knew herself. I have sometimes thought so.”

“What a splendid tribute to him, Leila!” was Marjorie’s admiring cry. “I must save that to tell Miss Susanna. How she will love it.”

“Ah-h.” Leila’s affable grin appeared. “Now you begin to take account of my smartness.”

“It seems almost unfriendly not to stop and go to Miss Susanna now, but I hate to disturb her before she has had her tea,” Marjorie commented with concern.

“Don’t worry, Beauty,” Leila said. “We’ll be coming back before long. We’ll not ’phone her from the Hall. She has a taste for surprises. She only knows you are soon to be here. She’ll be highly pleased to have you walk in on her.”

“I’ll surely do it,” Marjorie returned with a decided little nod. She half smiled as she recalled a time when she had waited patiently to receive a summons into the eccentric old lady’s presence. The peremptory invitation to appear at Hamilton Arms on a certain day to tea had filled her with the same sort of pleasant trepidation with which she would have received a summons to a royal court. Hamilton Arms was truly Miss Susanna’s castle, where she reigned supreme, a lonely little chatelaine of a big house.

The smile still lingered on the lieutenant’s lips as the car sped on and made the last turn in the highway before the end of Hamilton Estates was reached. Between the Estates and the campus of Hamilton College which had now come into view lay the strip of land on which was built the row of houses once used by the workmen who had erected the college buildings. Of the four occupants of the roadster Vera’s eyes were the only ones turned away from the territory at the left hand side of the road. The other three girls were gazing in that direction with varying expressions. Leila’s was purely mischievous. She was enjoying the amazement which Marjorie and Robin were showing.

“Why—what—who——?” Stupefied by what she was seeing Marjorie forgot to greet her old friend the campus in her usual devoted fashion.

Once, at this point along the straggling meadow road, dignified by the name of the street, had stood a shabby row of weather-stained houses. They had extended for a distance of what might be measured as two city blocks. An equally straggling cross lane divided the row almost in halves. Those above the cross lane looked more uncompromisingly ugly and faded than ever under the afternoon sun.

Those below the cross lane! Where were they? Where they had once stood were now huge heaps of broken brick, plaster, boards and the debris which always attends the tearing down of buildings. The ringing sound of many hammers in motion, the snapping of yielding wooden beams, the rattle of falling brick and plaster was in the air.

Above the cross lane the upper block of houses stood intact in its dingy loneliness. They appeared to frown upon the wreck of their companions of years.

Simultaneously Robin and Marjorie had raised a cry of astonishment. Vera promptly stopped the car in order to give them a chance to view the surprise at leisure. She dropped her hands from the wheel and with Leila enjoyed their amazement.

“Robin Page, can you believe your eyes?” Marjorie’s voice achieved bewildered heights.

“Seeing is believing. How did it happen? That’s what is bothering me.”

“These two know.” Marjorie turned in her seat, including Vera and Leila, in a comprehensive wave of the hand. “Now I understand what you two were so full of laugh about. I knew you had something else on your mind besides giving me Miss Susanna’s letter. There’s a new firm on the campus, it seems, Harper and Mason. And they’ve been very very busy!”