  “My mother is coming.” Lilian Moore made the announcement to Peggy in a tone of mingled joy and reluctance. The Christmas holidays were over and the fearsome midyear examinations were things of the past. The dullest of the three terms had settled into full swing—day after day of white earth and grey sky. The Ambler House girls had been having a Wednesday evening frolic down in the parlor, with the piano banging and gay voices shouting out their musical defiance of dullness in general. “She writes that she’s coming for just a day to see a little bit of college for herself,” went on Lilian. “Peggy—she’ll—be disappointed in—my grandeur. You see, I raved so about everything when I was home at Christmas time. I guess it may hurt her feelings to see that I’m not—one of the foremost people in my class.” Lilian essayed a laugh that broke into a sob. Myra Whitewell, who stood near, impatiently turned away. “I never knew anybody to be so incessantly humble in my life. You really do make me tired, Lilian. Haven’t we all liked you for a long time——? You young Stupid, don’t you know that we all have to take some steps toward popularity ourselves? Don’t you know that we are all outsiders when we come here, and it depends at least partly on ourselves whether we ever become insiders? You are always bringing up the same thing.” Peggy laughed at these two who had never learned to become entirely reconciled to each other even after all the close association of living together in the same house. Myra was so impatient and so proud; so well equipped with a good opinion of herself, while Lilian was almost maddeningly willing to be trodden under foot on every occasion. “Mother says maybe she can absorb a little of college for herself,” Lilian mused, not heeding Myra’s cutting comment, for she had grown used to them. “When is she coming?” asked Katherine, who glanced around the room of singing girls, and tried to imagine what impression it might make on one who was not a girl any longer, and was seeing it for the first time. “To-morrow,” answered Lilian, with that same note of doubt in her voice. “Well,” said Katherine, her eyes still on the shouting young women who rocked to the music they sang, while the piano did its best to be heard above them, “I think we can show her a good time.” “Will you help me, girls?” cried Lilian, brightening in sudden gratitude. “Why, of course,” said Katherine, “any guest of any of us is a guest of the house—that is, if the one who is entertaining wants it to be so.” “I haven’t much for to-morrow,” said Peggy quickly. “I know you have several recitations, Lilian,—we’ll see that she is taken care of every minute from the time she arrives until she leaves us, weeping.” Peggy’s enthusiasm was beginning to carry her away. “Let’s go and plan out the hours,” she said to the rest of the group—“just like those schedules they publish in the papers of the way certain great people—and criminals—spend their days: thus, 9 a. m., has breakfast on tray; 10 a. m., sees dressmakers and milliners; 11 a. m., rides in automobile, under guard——” Lilian was laughing, all her doubts vanished. Even Myra entered into the plans with spirit. And never had a celebrity been met by a more enthusiastic crowd than was gathered at the Hampton station to meet the frail and fluttering little woman who stepped down from the 9:10. Her eyes, shy and yet full of anticipation, were searching for Lilian, who fairly flew down the platform, the happy bevy of girls keeping close behind. After Lilian had kissed her mother, each girl, as her name was spoken, wrung her hand with such goodwill and welcome that poor little Mrs. Moore realized that she would probably have rheumatism in her fingers for days, as a result. But her worn cheeks flushed with pleasure. Whose would not, at such a reception when she had expected to be merely a spectator during her single day’s stay? She was borne first to Lilian’s room. Entering Ambler House, her eyes glowed, and she turned her head to look after a merry group that came running down the steps, their books under their arms. Through the great hall, the floor shining and smooth, with handsome rugs to give color here and there—and up the broad stairs the little procession wended its way. And Lilian could hardly restrain a cry of surprise as she and her mother, followed by the faithful escort, stepped inside her room. On the dresser was an adorable bunch of violets with inviting purple pins beside it. “Some one has sent you flowers?” cried little Mrs. Moore, noticing these, even before she took note of the dainty green and white curtains, and the green denim couch cover, that Peggy and Katherine had been inspired to supply. “No, they didn’t,” cried Peggy from the doorway. “They didn’t send her the flowers,—look on the card!” And when Mrs. Moore picked up the card that lay beside the pins, she read aloud, “For Mrs. Moore; welcome to Hampton, from one of Lilian’s friends, Myra Whitewell.” If you could have seen the look of pleasure with which the little woman lifted those fragrant flowers, and with shaking fingers fastened them to her girdle! Oh, precious first impression of college! How it crept into her heart with the fragrance of those violets—quite the nicest thing that had ever come to her in her care-worn, workaday life! Lilian’s own face was suffused. That Myra, of all people, should have been so dear and thoughtful! And, a moment since Lilian had been harboring a rather bitter and unkind thought against the black-haired freshman. For Myra was the only one of the Ambler House “crowd” who had not been at the station to meet her mother. Lilian felt hurt. But now, she remembered Myra’s chemistry laboratory, that was in full session at this moment—and to her, also, a new feeling came with the odor of those violets. She thought, with quick gratitude, that nothing she could ever do for Myra would be too much now to repay her for that glad and surprised light in her mother’s eyes. “And now, Mrs. Moore, you’re going to be handed from one to another of us, hour by hour,” laughingly explained Peggy. “Your daughter has some classes that she really feels she must attend. Ordinary classes we could all cut with pleasure, but Lilian’s this morning happen to include math, and Lilian is—well, she doesn’t know a triangle from a piece of fudge, Mrs. Moore——” She broke off, giggling, and fled down the corridor to escape Lilian, who pursued with pretended rage, at her daring thus to lay bare her mathematical shortcomings to her trusting mother. “So,” Katherine took up the story of the adventures that were to form Mrs. Moore’s great day, “you are to walk with me, please,—if you will, down Elm street and down West street a bit, and Green street, and then you will have seen all the part of town that belongs to college life that is outside Campus—invitation houses, undesirables and all. Then at eleven I shall turn you over to Peggy and Hazel Pilcher, at the campus gate, and they will show you through the new library and chapel and the Art building annex. That’s as far into the future as you are allowed to peep.” “It sounds very alluring,” murmured Mrs. Moore, whose eyes were still bulging, from the sight of her staid and quiet Lilian pursuing and pounding the fair-haired Peggy. The company of the girls was more to her than the sightseeing itself, and she found herself swept along by the gay hilarity of whoever happened to be her escort. She forgot that her hair was as grey as theirs was black or golden; she forgot that she had believed her time for gaiety was over. In the big library she paused, hushed, before the sight of many graceful figures bending in silent absorption over the volumes that lay in their laps or before them on the massive tables. She could not guess, in her awe of such an intellectual atmosphere, that fully a third of these diligent readers were bowed over Arnold Bennett and Gilbert Parker, instead of the volumes of deep learning she fancied. “I wonder if the matron will let me ask Mother to the House to lunch,” puzzled Lilian, a little later, when she met them, after the tour of the campus was complete. “I haven’t had time to ask her and there may not be a place.” “There will be lots of places, but your mother and we won’t be there to fill them,” said Peggy quickly. “Gloria has invited us down to Boyd’s for a real party.” “Beef steak and French fried potatoes—and peas?” cried Hazel. “A real one?” “That’s just it,” said Peggy, slightly disappointed that her friend had been so quick to guess. “How did you know? I was the only one with Gloria when she telephoned the order.” “How did I know!” scoffed Hazel, “as if anybody that knew what was best would dream of ordering anything else at Boyd’s.” Boyd’s was the popular restaurant, where the girls trooped in to luncheon whenever the allowance from home seemed to justify such a luxury, where they sat on Saturday evenings, their white shoulders gleaming above the white silk, green chiffon and blue crÊpe de Chine of their very best dresses. “Are we really—invited by—Gloria?” questioned Lilian, halting before the luminous name of the freshman president. “Isn’t that wonderful of her to give a party for Mother!” Gloria, adorable in white furs, met them at the doorway of Boyd’s, and greeted Mrs. Moore with her own delightful impulsiveness. “I’m so glad to know you, Mrs. Moore,” she said with that pretty earnestness for which Gloria was famed throughout the freshman class. “It was awfully good of the girls to let me have you for a luncheon party. You know, mothers are scarce around these parts, and if we can’t have our own, we lie awake nights planning the best way to ensnare somebody else’s, whenever one comes visiting. So please excuse us if we act as if you belonged to us all instead of just to Lilian.” And Mrs. Moore looked straight into the clear-blue eyes of the tall red-haired idol of the freshmen, and said she was only too glad to be adopted by any and all of her daughter’s friends. Something went grey and blank in Gloria’s wonderful eyes before her searching gaze, and the lashes swept down. The tall, graceful figure drew itself more erect, as if she were on guard in some way. And Mrs. Moore dropped the warm hand she had been holding, with a sigh. The beautiful hostess led the way upstairs into the dining room and was shown to a long table that had been reserved for her. With much throwing aside of velvet coats and furs, the friends seated themselves around the guest of honor and leaned forward, their elbows quite frankly on the table. Every girl was laughing and talking, with the single exception of Gloria herself. As the little luncheon progressed, with the whole table in a happy uproar, Gloria’s abstraction became more and more noticeable. Celebrities are entitled to their moods. So no one spoke of Gloria’s for some time. Then Peggy leaned over and whispered, “Come back to us, won’t you?” And Gloria’s face was swept with sudden color. She turned startled eyes on Peggy’s laughing face. Then she shook her shoulders as if she might free herself from some unpleasant thought. “I—wouldn’t be anywhere else—for a farm,” she said. “Oh, well,” murmured Peggy to herself, “it wasn’t anything but my imagination. What could Gloria possibly have to bother her? Maybe she didn’t have her history or her Greek to-day. She’s just the one to mind it a lot, if she didn’t always excel in the classroom.” After the wonderful ice-cream and the dear little French pastries had been consumed, with much delight by the girls and with wistful enjoyment on the part of Mrs. Moore, the check was laid by Gloria’s plate, with the deferential air the waitresses always used to a very good customer. Gloria, without glancing at the total, motioned for a pencil, and scribbled her name and the name of her house across it. Then she slid into the soft coat Katherine held for her, and while Peggy and Hazel and Myra were still busy patting Mrs. Moore into her things, she moved idly toward the stairs, her eyes glancing over the crowded dining-room as listlessly as if she were not a celebrity at all. Hushed groups watched her pass and admiration and affection shone in fifty pairs of eyes. “Honestly, girls,” she caught a distinct murmur, “I just can’t talk while she’s going by. Did you ever see anything so wonderful?” “She’s the best-looking girl in college,” came the rapt answer from another girl at the same table. But this incense drifted past Gloria without making any particular impression. The first few days of her presidency she had enjoyed with a frank egotism that had pleased Peggy and had caused Katherine many amused smiles. But she was accustomed to it all now. There is no class in college so breathlessly eager to bestow devotion as the first class, and when the admired person is one of their very own, an added quality of loyalty and unswerving devotion creeps in. “I just don’t believe that girl ever did a mean or silly thing in her life,” the voice followed Gloria as she started downstairs, with the rest of her party in her wake. “I don’t believe she’d have any use for a minute for a girl who didn’t live right up to her ideals. You know, she’s one of the advantages of college,—she and girls like her—we can see what we might be anyway, even if few of us really come within a mile of it.” Was there a trace of bitterness about that vivid and gracious mouth of Gloria’s? Did she really hurry a little to be out of earshot of those praises that, however ridiculous, would once have been sweet? At the foot of the stairs she waited for Mrs. Moore. She bade her good-bye prettily, saying she must remain downtown for some shopping, and that she hoped they’d all see Mrs. Moore in Hampton again—a great many times. “My dear, I want to thank you for a beautiful luncheon,” Mrs. Moore smiled up into the lovely face with that quaint way she had. “I do indeed wish I might stay right now, and live in town somewhere so that I could get to know the girls better. And I think a sort of Everybody’s-Mother would be a good thing for many of the students.” But if she had hoped to bring a hint of the desire for confidence from Gloria she was disappointed. Gloria’s eyes took on that odd grey blankness again, and though she nodded politely and pressed Mrs. Moore’s hand warmly, there was not a trace of that electric circuit between them which it was so easy to establish with Peggy and Katherine or most of the other girls. “She’s very cold—and proud,” mused Mrs. Moore, glancing in a puzzled way at the retreating back of Gloria. Lilian was the sort of girl any one could understand. When she felt badly she would cry, when she didn’t she’d laugh. If she liked any one, she showed it, and if she disliked any one she nearly made faces at them, her distaste was so apparent. Gloria Hazeltine was a new specimen to Lilian’s mother. She discovered with her woman’s intuition that something was troubling the young girl. She wanted so much to help her. But she could do nothing before such icy reserve. “What—happens to me now?” she turned to Peggy and said, as they went to the outer door of the restaurant. “I suppose we go back to the college?” “No,” said Peggy, peering anxiously down the street outside. “No, your sightseeing goes on from here. But I don’t see—what ought to be here.” “Have you ordered a machine, Peggy?” asked Lilian in awe and happy expectation. Peggy’s laugh rang out. “Well, not exactly ordered it,” she explained, “but hinted for it. It’s Jim’s, and he promised to bring it over from Amherst and meet us here at 2 o’clock. He’s five minutes late. That’s—oh, there he is. Come on, Mrs. Moore, come on, Lilian and Katherine and Myra Whitewell and Doris Winterbean. Hazel, I’m sorry you have classes.” Unselfishly she handed Mrs. Moore into the front seat beside Jim, sure that it would add to the interest of everything for her, to have this good-looking young man explain things and deferentially point out new attractions. “Only an hour and a half, Jim. I want to get Mrs. Moore back to go to Thirteen with me, and Lilian has biology at that time. You don’t think that’s so good a show class as Thirteen, do you, Lilian?” “Mercy, no,” hastily answered Lilian. “Not so good a show class as any other. You don’t want to see grasshoppers cut up, do you, Mother?” Mrs. Moore protested that she had no interest in grasshoppers under any circumstances, so the plan to hear Thirteen stood. “We just want to show you as many of the dear places we love to visit as possible,” said Katherine, crossing her arms on the back of the seat Mrs. Moore occupied. “We could never walk to more than one, but with the machine you can see a number. Only you mustn’t suppose that we have machines when we see them. No, indeed, we walk or we hire a nice old poky horse and runabout from the livery stable. The horse may be almost an extinct animal in other places, but he’s still a great favorite up here.” Thus she was whirled along the river road, through their favorite picnic spots, from hamlet to hamlet while tea-house after tea-house flashed into view and were pointed out with accompanying tales of affectionate or funny reminiscences by the Hampton girls. At one, a large and ugly cat was always to be expected at every party. The woman who ran the tea-house had taken for her motto, “Love me, love my cat,” and its baleful green eyes watched hungrily every mouthful that passed through the patrons’ lips. Doris remembered an afternoon when she and Gloria and the great Mary Marvington, of the Junior class, had taken tea there, and Gloria had unwittingly put her foot on the cat’s tail under the table, the cat howled, and Gloria sat stonily, her face white, trying to think what that awful sound could be. “The cat wouldn’t stop howling, of course, because Gloria didn’t lift her foot, and Mary Marvington was in hysterics, so I leaned under the table and removed poor Gloria’s foot from the poor cat’s tail, and I think old Tabby is running yet.” Lilian, Katherine and Peggy screamed with delight at Doris’ very much embellished story. Mrs. Moore’s eyes were sparkling now, and she almost had to pinch herself to realize that she was, for the first time in her life, in college. When Jim set them down outside the big recitation hall, where she was actually to attend class with Peggy, she smoothed her coat with happy anticipation, and perhaps the full wonder of Thirteen came to this shabby little woman, with grey in her hair, as radiantly as it came twice a week to these Hampton girls, who picked up snatches of everything under the sun, and who learned without the miserable grind, an easy style of writing that set them apart from the girls who had never had Thirteen. “If all their classes are like this,” thought Mrs. Moore, “I should think they’d rave in their letters about the school part of it more than anything else.” But alas! Their classes all like that! Only one was like it. The others were too apt to be nightmares of mathematics or agonies of Greek tragedy and Lyric poets or merciless written lessons in medieval history. Dinner at Ambler House was the next thing on Mrs. Moore’s program, and she listened to that roar of conversation and laughter that always began as soon as grace had been said in the dormitory dining-rooms. Fifty-four girls, all talking and joking at once, and yet one never heard a loud voice. “They are nice girls,” thought Mrs. Moore. After dinner it had been planned that Lilian should have her mother alone until theater time, when they were all going to a musical comedy which happened to be in town that night, direct from New York. But Mrs. Moore, who noticed that Peggy was already dressed for the theater, asked her quietly to come also. “It’s about your friend; I hoped I’d have a word with you,” little Mrs. Moore began when she and her daughter and Peggy were comfortably propped against the cushions. “Myra?” asked Peggy, doubtfully, for she was the only person who might possibly occasion the sad and foreboding expression in the older woman’s eyes. “Myra!” echoed Mrs. Moore in astonishment, fingering the violets at her waist, which had been revived for wear to the play. “Myra! No, indeed. No, it was Gloria Hazeltine I was troubling over.” Peggy laughed. “Oh, it would be very foolish troubling over her,” she said; “she’s freshman president, you know——” “Yes, I know.” “And the prettiest girl in Hampton.” “Undoubtedly.” “And she’s the best dressed——” “Of course, my notions of dress are old fashioned, but even I could see that.” “And she’s rich——” “Well, I can’t help it, Peggy; I saw into that girl’s heart to-day—a mother can—even though I’m not her mother—and she’s not happy.” “Mother!” cried Lilian. “Why, Gloria is simply bubbling with happiness. Don’t you think anybody would be perfectly radiant who had all she has?” “I wonder if you couldn’t find it out, Lilian, and see if you couldn’t help her in some way—she——” Peggy brushed away the thought of the incongruity of Lilian Moore, very much one of the masses in Hampton, acting as confidante and comforter to the lofty Gloria, whose position set her up to twinkle before the worshipful freshmen, star fashion. “I don’t think anything is really bothering Gloria,” she said gently, “and there’d be no way for any of us to find out what it was if there were.” And she changed the subject to the entertainment before them. Ambler House had taken the first row in the balcony, for from this vantage point the girls, their bare arms leaning on the polished rail, could stare down and pick out their faculty friends and their celebrity acquaintances, and, also, they got a better view of the stage, and could hear the music to better advantage than from any other seats. One of the girls of the house was given an orchestra ticket and was thus bought off from her position in the theater’s “rubber row,” as their chosen place was most inelegantly called. “Now, Mrs. Moore, I’ll just take your coat and then you lean over and look at anybody you like. Nobody minds being stared at. Everybody’s used to it, and if a girl downstairs is wearing an especially good-looking dress, she’ll stand up and turn around and gaze about the audience for a moment so that we can be sure to get its effect. That’s what always happens,” Peggy explained blithely to their guest. Mrs. Moore hadn’t been to the theater often, anywhere. So that, in itself, was a pleasure. But to sit in a theater crowded with girls, all in evening dress as they would have gone to a ball, their throats and arms white in the glare of the electric lights, was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. The play was a dashing affair, all beauty and melody, and the irrepressible audience hummed the catchy airs between acts. Also there was the customary promenade during the intermission. The girls from the balcony went downstairs, and, threading their way through the crowded aisles in which the girls were chatting, found the seat of some friend and leaned gracefully near her for a few moments. And the talk usually ambled along something like this: “My dear! Aren’t you crazy about it? Honestly I never heard anything like that chorus—hm, hm, hm, hm,——” “Those costumes! My dear, did you ever see anything so fragile? Perfectly hectic! But the colors—I’d give anything to have a winter suit made on that grey and silver motif——” “Her voice!” “His eyes!” “That step they did was perfectly beautiful—don’t you think we could work it out by ourselves? Watch carefully if they bring it in again; I can follow it all up to that little kick she does and the half turn in the air——” “What a perfectly stunning gown! Why in the world didn’t you save it for Junior Prom? Well, you may have others, but I’m sure I never saw you in anything more becoming—it’s a darling, Dotty; look at Helen’s cute gown!” “They say this made an awful hit in New York—do you think it’s true that May Hastings is really going on the stage when she graduates? Why, I should think her people would feel terribly. But it would be a thrilling life, wouldn’t it?” With a final burst of music, the entire company crowded the stage in one of those hurrahing finales, and the girls from Ambler House gathered up their wraps and made all haste for the stairs. Outside Peggy summoned a taxi, and Mrs. Moore, Lilian, Katherine and herself climbed in. “The station in time for the 11:10!” she called to the chauffeur, and in an instant Mrs. Moore was being whisked away from her one bright day of college. For she had not felt like incurring the extra expense of staying longer, and Peggy and Katherine had been unable to think of a tactful means of arranging that part of it themselves. So they had simply crowded all they could for her into one day so that she would have a typical picture of the rush of college life to take back to her small town with her. “Well,” said Peggy, holding up her face to be kissed just as the train came in, “how did you like college? What impression did it make on you?” And little faded Mrs. Moore clasped her hands before her while her eyes shone mistily. “Why, I think”—her voice came huskily mingled with the throb of the engine—“it is better than any of my dreams, and you dear girls have been the best of all.” And then she kissed Peggy. CHAPTER XI A SERIOUS DISCUSSION
The egotistical song of Hampton came out to Peggy from the door of Myra’s room when she stopped before it on her way home from class. A comfortable fudge-eating group looked up from the Morris chair and the couch as she entered. “’Lo, Peggy,” said Gertie Van Gorder, interrupting the song and waving with a piece of fudge towards an unoccupied chair. “Sit down, Peg.” “Can’t,” said Peggy. “Is Katherine here?” “Nope,” said Katherine’s voice from behind a pillow. “I’m up at gym having a—c-c—brr-r—” the pillow was made to shiver—“a cold shower!” “Come on home, Kat, you wretch,” laughed Peggy; “I’ve had a present from Mr. Huntington.” “Who,” demanded Gertie, impertinently, “is Mr. Huntington?—and why didn’t you have him to our house dance?” Peggy and Katherine laughed. “He’s an old man, silly,—and one of my very best friends; in fact, he sent me to college, and his grandson is Jim that you all met, because I did have him to the house dance.” “Well, then,” pursued Gertie still inquisitive, “what was his present?” “Something good?” inquired Myra, sliding to the edge of her seat. “If it is, we’re all coming,” smiled Gertie graciously. “Well,” Peggy admitted, “it’s—salted almonds. Five pounds of them—I suppose———” But she was the last one in the room. The group had fled with a rushing sound down the hall and were already murmuring their appreciation in Suite 22. “Save some for me,” mocked Peggy, when she overtook them. “Nice Mr. Huntington,” said Gertie amiably, “nice, poor cheated Peggy. Her shall have one—just one, mamma said,—slap your wrists———” “Gertie, I’m going to put you up on the hill one of these days,” laughed Peggy. On the hill was a certain state institution which visitors to the town were always annoyingly mistaking for the college. “But then, visitors are always funny,” as Gloria had once explained. “One of them asked me where I came from and I said Iowa. She looked at me a minute and then said, ‘Will you please say that again?’ Obligingly I repeated ‘Iowa.’ ‘Isn’t that odd?’ she said then. ‘How strangely you do pronounce it. Now I’ve always heard it called Ohio.’” At the thought of Gloria, the salted almonds became bitter in Peggy’s mouth, and she made a little face of distress. “Kaddie, do you think Gloria isn’t as happy as she might be?” she inquired of her room-mate. With the quick facility of college girls for jumping from the most inane and frivolous pleasantries to the most serious attitude of mind, Katherine answered thoughtfully. “Peggy, how could she help being happy?” This question certainly appeared a staggerer on the face of things. “Happy?” trilled Doris Winterbean, “Why, I saw her yesterday going to vespers in the loveliest Belgian blue velvet suit mine eyes have ever beheld. Happy! My dear! I’m free to say that if my own friend Self had been clad in such Consider-the-Lilies raiment, I’d have gone to vespers dancing!” “Don’t be silly,” said Peggy. “Well,” finished Doris defiantly. “Please satisfy our curiosity and show us how such a suspicion ever crept into that woolly little head of yours.” She dodged Peggy’s pillow as it came hurtling at her with good aim, and then sat pensively with hands clasped over her knees as if to listen to a tearful tale. “I’d never have noticed it, I admit,” said Peggy. “Of course not,” chorused the nut-eaters. “You know,” interposed Katherine, “sometimes I think people who aren’t in college, you know,—like Mrs. Moore, just can’t imagine a life like ours, all happy and independent and so arranged that nothing serious could possibly creep in to trouble us. So if a girl seems abstracted, or just resentful of too close scrutiny, as perhaps Gloria was, she is apt to jump———” “No, no, I can’t believe that,” said the foolish voice of Doris. “Mrs. Moore wouldn’t jump. Anything that is less a tax on our credulity, Kathie, but not that,—not jump.” “Take the nuts away from that girl. They are beginning to have a bad effect, in fact, nutty,” shrilled Peggy. “As I was going to say,” continued Katherine imperturbably, “people like Mrs. Moore jump at conclusions———” “O-oh,” murmured Doris. “That explains it. I wish you’d said that before. It’s quite all right, Kathie, now that you’ve made yourself clear. The fault was all mine.” “Doris,” snapped Myra Whitewell, pinching her, “will you be serious?” “I’m so serious, I’m going home. You hurt.” “Oh, Doris, do come back; don’t act like—like———” “Like a freshman, I suppose? Well, I am a freshman. And I guess I will go back to my room and be serious all by myself.” “You needn’t go and be mad, Doris.” “Well, you needn’t pinch me.” Such comic dismay was registered on the faces of the group that Doris’ intention to play the spoilsport fled in a burst of laughter from her pouting lips. “Gooses!” she cried at them. “Doris, you mean geese,” corrected Myra, “but it is no term to apply to a group of perfect ladies anyway.” They were back again in the favorite freshman style of badinage, and the atmosphere that had threatened to become tense was eased perfectly. “To go back———” began Peggy. The rippling notes of irresponsible song came from Gertie. “Do you think there’s any intelligence in this group of highly cultured persons?” complained Peggy. “Because I don’t. I wanted to have you girls help me about a real problem——” “But not our problem, Peggy,” reminded Katherine; “in fact it’s none of our business.” “It’s Glory’s, Glory’s, hallelujah’s,” chanted Doris as an apropos contribution to the talk. “Oh, I never heard anything so perfectly baffling as you people,” cried Peggy in despair. “Here I was going to have a serious discussion——” “Serious discussion!” gasped Gertie Van Gorder. “Quick, girls, pass Peggy some more of her own nuts.” Even while the box was being passed, the irrepressible roomful took up the Hampton song where Peggy had interrupted them when she found them in Myra’s room.
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