CHAPTER I
WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE

"Come on in, Connie. The water's fine!" invited Marjorie Dean, beckoning with one round, dripping arm to the girl on the sands, while with the other she kept herself lazily afloat.

The sun of a perfect August morning poured down upon the white beach, dotted here and there with ambitious bathers, who had grasped Time firmly by his venerated forelock, and fared forth with the proverbial early bird for a morning dip in a deceitfully dimpled and smiling sea.

It was not yet nine o'clock, but, fearful of losing a minute of her precious seaside vacation, Marjorie Dean had come down to her favorite playground for her usual early morning swim.

"I know it's fine," laughed Constance Stevens, "but this nice white sand is even finer."

"You'll never learn to swim if you just sit on the beach and dream," reminded Marjorie. "I feel that it's my stern duty to see that your education as a water paddler is not neglected. So here goes!"

With a few skilful strokes she brought up in shallow water. There was a quick rush of lithe feet, the sound of sweet, high laughter, then a little, good-natured gurgle of protest from the golden-haired, blue-eyed girl curled up on the sand as she found herself being dragged into the water by a pair of sturdy young arms.

"Now – sink or swim, survive or perish!" panted Marjorie, as the lapping shallows broke over the yielding figure of her friend. "You'll simply have to be a water baby, Connie, dear. It's as important as being a sophomore in Sanford High, and you know just how important that is! Now, watch me and do likewise."

Her day dream thus rudely interrupted, Constance Stevens laughingly resigned herself to Marjorie's energetic commands, and, now thoroughly awake to the important business at hand, tried her best to follow her friend's instructions. A fifteen minutes' lesson in the art of learning to float followed, and at the end of that time, by common consent, the two girls waded ashore and flung themselves on the warm sand.

"I'll never learn to swim. I feel it in my bones," asserted Constance, as she lazily rose, wrung the water from her bathing suit and seated herself on the white beach beside Marjorie, who lay stretched at full length, her head propped upon her elbows, her alert gaze upon the few bathers who were disporting themselves in the water.

"Then your bones are false prophets," declared Marjorie calmly. "You know how to float already, and that's half the battle. We'll rest a little and talk some more, and then we'll try it again. Next time I'll teach you an easy stroke. Isn't it funny, Connie, we never seem to get 'talked out.' We've been here together five whole weeks and yet there always seems to be something new to say. You are really a most entertaining person."

"That's precisely my opinion of you." Constance's blue eyes twinkled.

The two girls laughed joyously. Two wet hands stretched forth and met in a loving little squeeze.

"It's been wonderful to be here with you, Marjorie. Last year at this time I never dreamed that anything so wonderful could possibly happen to me." The golden-haired girl's voice was not quite steady.

"And I've loved being here with you. What a lot of things can happen in a year," mused Marjorie. "Why, at this time last year I never even knew that there was a town called Sanford on the map, and when I found out there was really such a place, and that I was going to live there instead of staying in B – and going to Franklin High, I felt perfectly awful about it."

It had, indeed, been a most unhappy period for sunny, lovable Marjorie Dean when the call of her father's business had made it necessary for him to remove his family from the beautiful city of B – , where Marjorie had been born and lived sixteen untroubled years of life, to the smaller northern city of Sanford, where she didn't know a soul.

All that happened to Marjorie Dean from the first day in her new home has been faithfully recorded in "Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman." In that narrative was set forth her trials, which had been many, and her triumphs, which had been proportionately greater, as a freshman in Sanford High School. How she had become acquainted with Constance Stevens and how, after never-to-be-forgotten days of storm and sunshine, the friendship between the two young girls had flowered into perfect understanding, formed a story of more than ordinary interest.

Now, after several happy weeks at the seashore, where the Deans had rented a cottage and were spending their usual summer outing with Constance as their guest, the two friends were enjoying the last perfect days of mid-summer before returning to Sanford, where, in September, Constance and Marjorie were to enter the delightful realm of the sophomore, to which they had won admission the previous June.

There had been only one shadow to mar Marjorie's bliss. She had hoped that her childhood friend and companion, Mary Raymond, might be with them at the seashore, but, owing to the ill-health of Mary's mother, the Raymonds had been obliged to summer in the mountains, where Mary was needed at her mother's side. That Constance and Mary should meet and become friends had ever been Marjorie's most ardent desire. It was Constance's remarkable resemblance to Mary that had drawn her toward the girl in the very beginning.

"It's all been so perfectly beautiful, Connie." Marjorie gave a little sigh of sheer happiness. "I've only one regret."

"I know – you mean your chum, Mary," supplemented Constance, with quick sympathy.

Marjorie nodded.

"It seems strange I haven't heard from her. She hasn't written me for over two weeks. I hope her mother isn't worse."

"No news is good news," comforted Constance.

"Perhaps there will be a letter for me from her when we get back to the cottage. Suppose there should be! Wouldn't that be glorious?"

"Perhaps we'd better go up now and see," suggested Constance. "It must be time for the postman."

"We're not going until after you've had fifteen more minutes' instruction in the noble art of swimming, you rascal," laughed Marjorie. "See how self-sacrificing I am! You don't appreciate my noble efforts in your direction."

"Of course I appreciate them, Marjorie Dean." Constance's habitually wistful expression broke up in a radiant smile that set her blue eyes dancing. "But I must confess, this minute, that I can live and be happy if I never learn to swim."

"That settles it. In you go again."

Marjorie sprang energetically to her feet, and began dragging her protesting friend down the beach to the water. Another fifteen minutes' instruction followed, punctuated by much laughter on the part of the two girls.

"There! I'll let you off for to-day," conceded Marjorie, at last. "Now, come on. I have a hunch that there is a letter for me. I haven't had any letters for two whole days."

It was only a few rods from the bathing beach to the "Sea Gull," the cottage in which the Deans were living. As they neared it, a gray-uniformed figure was seen hurrying down the walk.

"It's the postman! What did I tell you?" Marjorie broke into a run, Constance following close at her heels.

The two girls brought up flushed and laughing at the pretty, vine-covered veranda, where Mrs. Dean sat, in the act of opening a letter. Half a dozen other postmarked envelopes lay in her lap.

"Oh, Captain," Marjorie touched a hand to her bathing cap, "how many of them are for me?"

"All of them except this, Lieutenant," smiled her mother, holding up the letter she had been reading. "But why all this haste? I hardly expected you back so soon. Five minutes before luncheon is your usual time for reappearing," she slyly reminded.

"Oh, I had an unmistakable hunch that there was a letter here for me from Mary, so I let Connie off easy on her lesson. I'll make up for it to-morrow."

By this time Marjorie held in her hand the half-dozen envelopes, each bearing its own special message from the various friends who held more or less important places in her regard, and was rapidly going over them.

"Here's one from Jerry and one from Hal." The pink in her cheeks deepened at sight of the familiar boyish hand. "One from Marcia Arnold, another from Muriel Harding. Here's a tiresome advertisement." She threw the fifth envelope disdainfully on the wicker table at her side. "And – yes, here it is, in Mary's very own handwriting!"

Laying the other letters on the table with a carefulness that bespoke their value, Marjorie hastily tore open the envelope that contained news of her friend and drawing out a single closely written sheet of paper said apologetically, "You won't mind if I read this now, will you, Connie and Mother?"

"Go ahead," urged Constance. "We couldn't be so hard-hearted as to object."

Mrs. Dean smiled her assent. Marjorie's thoughtfulness of others was always a secret source of joy to her.

Marjorie read down the page, then uttered a little squeal of delight. "Mother!" she exclaimed joyously, "just listen to this:

"Dearest Marjorie:

"You will wonder, perhaps, what has happened to me. I know I have owed you a letter for over two weeks, but I have been so busy taking care of mother that I haven't had very much time to write. Of course, we have a nurse, but, still, there are so many little things to be done for her, which she likes to have me do. She is much better, but our doctor says she must go to a famous health resort in the West for the winter. She will start for Colorado in about two weeks, and now comes the part of my letter which I hope you will like to read. I am going to make you a visit. Father and I are coming to see you on a very mysterious mission. I won't tell you anything more about it until I see you. Part of it is sad and part of it glad, and it all depends upon three persons whether it will ever happen. There! That ought to keep you guessing.

"You wrote me that you would be at home in Sanford by the last of next week. Please writs me at once and let me know just exactly when you expect to reach there. We shall not try to come to the seashore, as father prefers to wait until you are back in Sanford again. With much love to you and your mother,

"Yours Mysteriously,

"Mary."

Marjorie finished the last word with a jubilant wave of the letter.

"What do you think of that, Captain? What do you suppose this mysterious mission can be?" Marjorie's face was alight with affectionate curiosity.

"I am not good at guessing," Mrs. Dean smiled tolerantly. The ways of schoolgirls were usually shrouded with a profound mystery, which disappeared into nothingness when confronted with reality.

"It must be something extraordinary. She says it's part sad and part glad. I hope it's mostly glad. I know I'm glad that I'm going to see her. Why, it's almost a year since we said good-bye to each other! Oh, Connie," she turned rapturously to Constance, "you two girls, my dearest friends, who look alike, will actually meet at last! You'll love Mary. You can't help yourself, and she'll love you. She can't do anything else."

"I hope she will like me," said Constance a trifle soberly. "I know I shall like her, because she is your friend, Marjorie."

"You'll like her for yourself, Connie," predicted Marjorie loyally, and secure in the belief that neither of these two girls, whose friendship she held above rubies, could fail her, Marjorie Dean dreamed of a kingdom of fellowship into which the three were fated to enter only after scaling the steep and difficult walls of misunderstanding.