CHAPTER II – THE RETURN OF THE “TRAVELERS”

“And is it yourselves, and no other? Where was I, may I ask, that I was not at the station to meet you?”

Leila Harper stood at the top of the front steps of Wayland Hall just long enough to thus interrogate the party of four girls who were advancing toward her. With a jubilant Irish whoop she made a sudden, forceful descent of the steps and landed among them with open arms.

“And I am that glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “Here I have been, melancholy as a roofless banshee, for two whole days. Vera, may the moon defend her and the sun lend her grace, was to be here today. Still no sign of our respected and regretted Midget!”

“Maybe we aren’t glad to see you, Leila Greatheart!” Marjorie was embracing Leila with a fervor that bespoke her affection for the genial Irish girl. “I would have wired you we were coming, but I hadn’t heard from you for three weeks, neglectful person, so I didn’t know where you were.”

“Now has it really been three weeks?” Leila inquired ingeniously, then laughed. “I’m guilty, Beauty. Forgive your Celtic friend. I am always meaning to write letters. It’s not lack of intention, but lack of execution that troubles me. But where is Ronny?” Making the round of greeting as she talked, Leila had now missed Veronica Lynne.

“Ronny hasn’t come from the West yet.” Muriel replied to the question. “This is the first year she hasn’t traveled to Hamilton with us. My, how I have missed her! We used to have such lovely squabbles on the train, all the way to college. It made things so pleasant and lively.” Muriel’s brown eyes danced as she forwarded this naive admission.

“Ronny and her father went on one of their long pony-riding trips,” Marjorie further enlightened Leila. “She may be on the way East now. I have not heard from her for over a month. Miss Archer, her God-mother, has only received one letter from her since the first of July. When she is on one of those trips she doesn’t write letters for she has no chance to mail them.”

“Who’s back, Leila?” eagerly inquired Jerry, as the party leisurely ascended the steps, Leila in the middle of the group.

“Hardly anyone, yet. It is early, you know. Mary Cornell and Eva Ingram are here; Kathie, too.”

“Hurrah!” Lucy Warner’s face lighted at this news. “How long since Kathie came, Leila?”

“Day before yesterday. She is staying at Lillian’s. I saw her when she got off the train. So did Lillian. Result – I haven’t seen her since.”

“I must call her on the telephone this very afternoon,” planned Lucy.

“I don’t know what I shall do without Hortense,” wailed Muriel. “I’ll be simply lost without her. I am glad I arranged for a single. I don't want a room-mate, so long as I can’t have good old Moretense.”

“Yes; and recall what a fuss you made when Miss Remson asked you to let good old Moretense have half of your room,” reminded Jerry.

“I was a grass-green, arrogant freshman, then,” Muriel loftily excused. “I had not yet attained to heights of wisdom and discernment which – er – ahem – became mine later.”

“When did this miracle you speak of take place?” Jerry affected deep interest. “First I’d heard of it. I never even suspected it.”

“I never answer foolish questions,” retaliated Muriel. “There are persons who make a practice of asking them. Such persons should not be encouraged.”

“Pay no attention to those two, Leila,” Marjorie advised. “Talk to Lucy and me. Tell me, are there any new arrivals at the Hall?”

“Two freshies. I haven’t asked Miss Remson their names. They have Leslie Cairns’ room. They are a noisy pair. I hear them giggling and talking in the halls at every turn.”

“That doesn’t sound as though you admired them, Leila.” Jerry had not lost what Leila had been saying.

“I do not. As a crusty old post graduate, I am hard to please.” Leila’s genial smile belied her words. “I have been too long used to distinguished company.”

“That means us. Bow to the lady.” Muriel gave Jerry a significant nudge.

“Do your own bowing and don’t interrupt. I want to hear who’s come back and who hasn’t. Go ahead and tell us some more, Leila. Never mind my friend here. She is what I should term ‘voluable.’” Jerry turned her back on Muriel.

“Let me see. Martha Merrick is coming back. With her, Vera, Helen and I, there will be four P. G’s. Five Lookouts, make nine of the old girls here. Eva and Mary make eleven, and there are six or seven more. In all, perhaps eighteen students who were here last year. The Hall holds forty-four girls, but Muriel has a single and Kathie’s room will stay empty unless some one wins the scholarship she won. That is not likely to happen.”

“I hope Kathie will have half as nice a room at Randolph House as she had here,” Lucy said. “I’m going to miss her dreadfully.”

Engaged to teach English at the college, Kathie had applied for admission to Randolph House the previous June. It was a campus house given over to members of the faculty.

“You will have to be on your best behavior when you go to see Kathie,” warned Jerry. “The eyes of the faculty will be upon you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Lucy fixed Jerry with a withering glance. “I know how to behave. I’m going into the house to see Miss Remson.” She reached for her suitcase and leather bag with an air of lofty disdain.

Girl-fashion, the group had reached the floor of the veranda only to gather about Leila and ask questions. Following Lucy’s example, they now repossessed themselves of their luggage and entered the house to pay their respects to Miss Remson.

She had already heard the babel of voices rising from the veranda. Recognizing Muriel’s peculiarly clear, high-pitched tones, she had delightedly hurried to the door. She met the arrivals on the threshold and gave them a hearty welcome.

“Go up to your rooms, girls, and leave your luggage,” she directed, after a cordial hand-shaking all around, “then come down to the dining room. It is only four o’clock. You need something to eat. I will have tea ready for you. If I remember rightly, you Sanford girls have always arrived on a later train.”

“Yes; the five-fifty,” Jerry informed. “The train schedule has been changed. Our train left Sanford at twenty minutes past seven this morning. It was the only one we could take that would bring us here before dark.”

“You’re a dear, Miss Remson,” lauded Muriel. “The very thought of tea is inspiring. I’ve been hungry for the last hour.”

“So have I,” echoed Jerry. “No reason for it, either. We had luncheon on the train.”

“Yes, but at what time?” reminded Muriel. “Precisely twelve. Four hours’ ride after that on a bumpety-bumpety train is sufficient cause for a quick return of appetite.”

“Quite true, my dear Miss Harding,” allowed Jerry, favoring Muriel with a patronizing smile.

“So glad you agree with me. It might worry me if you didn’t.” Muriel returned the smile with one equally patronizing.

“Such smirking and beaming, and so deceitful, at that,” teased Leila.

“I’m merely trying to take Ronny’s place with Muriel,” defended Jerry. “She keeps complaining that she has no one to squabble with.”

“When do you think Veronica will be here?” Miss Remson had been listening in amusement to Jerry and Muriel. She was genuinely happy to have the Lookouts back at Wayland Hall again. “I received one long, delightful letter from her in July.”

“We don’t know,” answered Marjorie. She went on to tell the manager what she had already told Leila regarding Ronny.

Such information as she had concerning her missing chum given, the quartette, accompanied by Leila, went on up the staircase and once more made port in their familiar quarters.

“Oh, wow!” ejaculated Jerry, as she dropped her luggage to the floor and sank thankfully upon her own particular chair. “I’m glad I’m here. I hate leaving home, but, now that I’ve once more struck this fond, familiar spot, I find it pretty fair, Bean; pretty fair.”

“I echo your sentiments, Macy. I do, indeed; all except the Bean,” Marjorie retorted, giggling, nevertheless, at the appellation.

It was the derisive name which Leslie Cairns, the leader of the mischief-making Sans, had been pleased to apply to her. It never failed to make Marjorie laugh. There was something so utterly ridiculous about it. Jerry occasionally found amusement also in addressing her as “Bean.”

“You are always so good to us, Miss Remson,” Marjorie gratefully voiced, when presently the hungry travelers had gathered at a table in the long, cool dining room. The day being warm, the manager had thoughtfully provided a tall pitcher of iced tea and a large plate of chicken, olive and lettuce sandwiches.

“Don’t think me stingy for not offering you more of a spread. I wish you to have some appetite for dinner. This little bite will be just a help along the way until dinner time.”

“No wonder everybody is crazy to live at Wayland Hall,” commented Muriel, in appreciation of the manager’s kindly efforts.

“I am so sorry Anna Towne and the girls off the campus wouldn’t allow us to carry out our plan for them.” Marjorie looked her regret. “We wanted them here, you know.”

The “plan” to which she now referred had been one mapped out by herself and Robina Page during her junior year at Hamilton. They had agreed to save a part of their spending money through the college year and also the summer vacation. Object of their self-denial, to make it possible for Anna Towne, and one other off-the-campus girl whom Robin should select, to enjoy the comfort of Wayland Hall as a residence. Their particular friends had been quick to imitate the example they had set. Altogether fourteen girls had joined in the generous movement.

Marjorie and Robin had been detailed to put the offer before the girls each youthful benefactor had elected to help. Two weeks before the close of college Robin had invited them to a spread in her room and there explained matters. No amount of urging, however, on hers and Marjorie’s part, could persuade them to take advantage of the offer. It was with reluctance that they even consented to go on accepting assistance from the students’ beneficiary recently formed.

None of the young philanthropists had been sanguine of an acceptance of their generosity. At least it had been made in good faith. According to Jerry it was too bad they “couldn’t see it,” but it hadn’t done any special harm to cut out a few extravagances. The money each had saved to such a worthy end was collected by Robin and added to the sum on deposit as the Hamilton College Beneficiary Fund in a Hamilton Bank.

“Oh, well, no one could blame the girls for feeling as they did about letting us help them. In their position, I suppose it would have been the same with us,” was Muriel Harding’s opinion. “It would have been fine to have them at the Hall. They are a dandy lot of girls.”

“I am sorry, too, that they will not be here,” Miss Remson said. She had been signally interested in the idea at the time it had been agitated. “I expect sixteen freshmen here and eight upper class students. Two of these last are from Craig Hall, two from Acasia House, and four from Alston Terrace. I had a number of applications from students at other campus houses but took the first eight who applied.”

“Alston Terrace?” Leila interrogated, lively interest animating her expressive features. “Would you mind telling us, Miss Remson, who is coming from Alston Terrace?”

Every pair of eyes now fastened upon the manager, looked inquiry. The same thought had flashed through each brain.

“I have not familiarized myself with the new names as yet. I will go for my register. It will be a good plan to go over these names with you girls. The students from other campus houses are no doubt acquaintances, perhaps friends, of yours. As seniors, you will wish to know the names of the freshmen who are to be here. I depend on you to help them to feel at home.”

Miss Remson rose from her chair and left the room. A brief silence followed her exit, during which five girls regarded one another speculatively.