“Lucy feels afraid she may not find any kind of work at Hamilton to help her out with her personal expenses,” Marjorie continued. “She can tutor in either Latin or mathematics. She has saved nearly two hundred dollars from her work last year and this summer. If she should enter Hamilton this fall her mother will do practical nursing. Then she will be earning quite a good deal of money and she won’t be so lonely. That’s the way things are with Lucy. I wish she would enter college with the rest of us. It would be easier for her and nice for us to be freshmen together.”

“Would Lucy accept financial help from you? You may offer it to her if you think best, Lieutenant.” Mrs. Dean’s generous proposal arose from a relieved mind. She could make it with absolute freedom of spirit.

“No, Captain. I am the last one Lucy would allow to help her. If Ronny were here she might be able to make Lucy see things in the right light. Ronny is the only one, I feel sure, who could convince her. She would not give up until she had. But goodness knows when we shall see Ronny again!”

An anxious little pucker appeared between Marjorie’s brows. Not since the first of July had she heard word from Veronica Lynne, Miss Archer’s God-child. Ronny had left Sanford a few days after Commencement, and had written her a lengthy train letter, en route for California. This Marjorie had answered, using a San Francisco address Ronny had given her. For one reason or another, Ronny had not replied to it.

“I wish Ronny would write me,” she said. “She promised me she’d write me if she didn’t write anyone else. I know she will keep her word; but when?”

During their confidential talk, Marjorie had remained seated on her mother’s lap. Tardy recollection that she was altogether too heavy for comfort brought her to her feet.

“Poor, dear Captain!” she exclaimed. “You can’t help but be tired from holding a great, heavy elephant like me! We had so much to talk about. I forgot everything except how nice it was to snuggle close to you and be comforted. That’s the very hardest part of being away from you. I won’t have my superior officers near by to report to.”

“You will have to tuck your reports away in your mind and have a reporting session when you come home on your vacations,” her mother suggested.

“Yes; and I promise you, Captain, that all my vacations will be spent with you.” Marjorie pointed an emphatic finger at her mother. “I’ll never desert my Captain and my General when I have a furlough. No, sir!”

“I think I shall hold you to that promise, Lieutenant. You have made it of your own accord. I would rather have it a free will promise. You will be away the greater part of the year. Those precious vacations belong to us. I know General feels the same.”

“I wish you both to be very stingy of me. Then I shall be sure you love me a lot,” Marjorie replied with playful emphasis. She no longer felt like crying. While outdoors the rain continued to beat down; indoors the sun had broken through the clouds.

“Once, oh, very long ago, you spoke of reading me Jerry’s letter,” Mrs. Dean presently reminded. “Then the rain descended and the floods came, and – ”

“We forgot all about it,” supplemented Marjorie. “All right, my dearest Captain, I will proceed to read it to you this minute.” This time she picked it up from the floor. It had dropped from her hand when she had briefly descended into the valley of woe. Settling herself in an easy chair, she unfolded the letter and promptly began:

“‘Magnificent Marjoram:

“‘I want to go home! It is hot here. This part of the globe is getting ready to burn down. The beach is hot; the hotel is hotter and the sun is hottest. It was nice and cool here until about a week ago. Then the sun came rambling along and started to smile. After that he beamed. Now he is on the job all day with a broad grin. Maybe we don’t notice it! Still our family love to linger in this hot berg. Hal hates to give up the bathing. Mother and Father are deep in a series of old-fashioned whist. They meet the same friends here each year, and they always play whist. They are anxious to stay for the last game in the series.

“‘I’m the only one who longs for home. I offered to go home by myself and keep Lonesome Hall. Mother said, “Nay, nay!” I pleaded that you would feed and nourish me and let me sleep in your garage until she came home. That didn’t go. Here I languish while some of the Macys swim in the surf and others of them hold up a hand at whist.

“‘Everyone at Severn Beach is growling about the heat. It has never been like this before. While I’m sitting squarely in front of an electric fan, I’m moderately cool. The minute I move off from it, I’m wilted. The last leaf of the last rose of summer was beautiful as compared to me at the end of a perfect day down here.

“‘Next year, we are going to the mountains. I don’t know which mountains the folks intend to put up on, but I know where Jeremiah is going. I’m going straight to the top of Mount Everest, which our good old geography used to inform us was the highest peak on earth. Five miles high! Think of it! I shall go clear to the top and roost there all summer. I shall have my meals brought up to me three times a day. That means five miles per meal for somebody. I certainly shall not go after them myself. It will be a wonderful vacation! So restful! Tell you more about it when I see you. You may go along if you happen to need perfect peace and rest.

“‘Oh, Marjorie, I am so anxious to see you and talk my head off! There isn’t a single girl at the beach this year that amounts to a handful of popcorn. They are so terribly grown-up and foolish; idiotic I might better say. They make eyes at poor old Hal and he gets so wrathy. Every time he sees one coming towards him, when he is down on the main veranda, you ought to see him arise and vanish. Sometimes, when he gets so disgusted he has to talk, he comes around and tells me how silly he thinks they are. Then, to tease him, I tell him he shouldn’t be so beautiful. You ought to hear him rave. If there is anything he hates it is to be called “beautiful.”

“‘By the way, how are you enjoying this letter? Great, isn’t it? I am trying to tell you all the news, only there is none to tell. Oh, I almost forgot. I must tell you of the lovely walk I had one day last week. I came in from bathing one morning and thought I would take a walk around the town. It had been raining early in the morning and then had grown quite cool for this furnace.

“‘I dressed up in a new white pongee suit, which is very becoming to Jeremiah, and I wore my best round white hemp hat. It is imported and cost money.

“‘I started out and walked briskly up one avenue and briskly down another. Fast walking is supposed to be good exercise for people who weigh one hundred and forty pounds, when they are hoping to weigh one twenty-five. I won’t speak of myself. The streets of this town were paved just after paving was invented, as an advertisement, I suspect, and they have never been touched since. With this explanation, as Miss Flint was fond of remarking, I will proceed with my story.

“‘I was about half way across one of these ancient, hobblety-gobble outrages, when I came to grief. My feet slipped on a slimy brick and I landed flat on my back in a puddle of dirty water. I hit my poor head an awful bang. I’m speaking of myself all right enough now. I was so mad I couldn’t think of anything to say. All my choicest slang flew away when I whacked my head. My nice round hemp hat was saved a ducking. It jumped off my head and almost across the street. Some little jumper, that hat! An obliging breeze caught it, and it scuttled off around the corner and would have been home ahead of me if it hadn’t collided with a horse block. It sat down with a flop and waited for me.

“‘The spectators to Jeremiah’s fall were three children, a horse, and an old green and yellow parrot. The kiddies weren’t impressed, but the parrot yelled and ha-ha-ed and enjoyed himself a whole lot. He was in a cage hung on a porch right near where I fell. I don’t know what the horse thought. He behaved like a gentleman, though. He didn’t either rubber or laugh. That’s more than I can say of the other witnesses to my disaster.

“‘But, on with my narrative. I’ll leave you to imagine how I looked. My white pongee suit was no longer suitable. It was a disgrace to the noble house of Macy. I had to get home, just the same, so I faced about and hit up a pace for the hotel. I had gone about two blocks when I met a jitney. I never enjoyed meeting anyone so much before as that jitney man. Of course the hotel verandas were full of people. It was just before luncheon and folks were sitting around, hopefully waiting for the dining rooms to open.

“‘Fortunately it was my back that had suffered injury from the mud. I gave one look to see who was behind me. There was no one but an old man in a wheel chair and a couple of spoons. They were so busy beaming on each other that I was a blank to them. I made a dash for the side entrance to the hotel and caught the elevator going up. I went with it. Thus ends the tale of Jeremiah’s fateful walk. Thus ends my news also. When you hear from me again, it will probably be in person. I shall hit the trail for Sanford, first chance I have. I must stop now and go to dinner. I send you the faithful devotion of a loyal Lookout. That is no mean little dab of affection. Remember me to your mother and pat Ruffle for me. Now that I’m ending this letter, I can think of a lot of things to tell you. Oh, well, I’ll write ’em another day or else say ’em.

“‘Lovingly your friend,

“‘Jerry Macy.’”

Marjorie had stopped reading to laugh more than once at Jerry’s droll phrasing. “Isn’t Jerry funny, Mother?” she exclaimed. “Hal is funny, too. Still he isn’t so funny as Jerry. I think – ”

Whatever Marjorie might have further said regarding Jerry’s letter remained unspoken. Her gaze chancing to travel to a window, she sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise. Next she ran to the window and peered curiously out. A taxicab from the station had stopped before the gate. From the house it was not easy to distinguish, through the driving rain, the identity of the solitary fare, for whom the driver had left his machine to open the gate. It was a slim girlish figure, too slender to be Jerry. Through the mist Marjorie caught the smart lines of a navy blue rain coat, buttoned to the chin and a gleam of bright hair under a tight-lined blue hat.

Could it be? Marjorie’s heart began a tattoo of joy. It didn’t seem possible – yet the blue-clad figure, making for the house at a run, was unmistakable.

“Captain, it’s Ronny!” she shrieked in a high jubilant treble. “She just got out of a taxicab and she’s here!”

Without stopping to make further explanation, Marjorie rushed to the front door to welcome the last person she had expected to see on that stormy morning, Veronica Lynne.