"It is to be hoped her influence may prove beneficial," remarked the manager dryly. "I am very certain that I want no repet.i.tions of the noisy quarrel which took place in Miss Cairns' room one evening last winter. Luckily Miss Walbert will have no one to aid and abet her in making mischief, as would be the case if Miss Cairns and that group of girls were still here. I will read you the other names."

Her listeners were not sorry to close the subject. With relief they riveted their attention on the list of names read out to them. When it came to the two students from Acasia House they received another shock.

Miss Remson named Alida Burton and Lola Elster.

The manager's eyes on her book, she did not see the significant glances which flashed back and forth at this news. None of her hearers made open comment on either name. While they did not approve of either Lola Elster or Alida Burton they had seen little of them since their freshman year.

Later, on the way to their rooms, Marjorie expressed herself as wondering whether, after all, they should have mentioned to Miss Remson the former intimacy of both girls with the Sans.

"I hated to say anything more." Leila thus explained her silence on that point. "Those two are very chummy. They troubled no one last year. I heard Leslie Cairns was very sore at their desertion of her standard."

"I'll mention the fact to Miss Remson some day when it comes just right.

I think she ought to know it," was Jerry's view.

"Wait until Vera comes. She will break the news to Miss Remson in that nice soft little way of hers which never holds a bit of malice. I am hoping she will appear tomorrow. Not since I left her in New York in June have I set eyes on her. Her father spirited her away to visit an aunt in Idaho. It's our Midget who will come back a wild and woolly Westerner. Can you not see her in a cowboy hat with a brace of revolvers at her belt?" Leila humorously painted.

The idea of dainty, diminutive Vera in any such garb was provocative of laughter.

"Doesn't it make you sick to think that Walbert snip is coming to the Hall to live?" Jerry vented her supreme disgust the moment she and Marjorie were behind their door.

"I haven't stopped to think much about it," Marjorie confessed.

"Well, think about it now, then. I never adored the Sans, but I can't stand _her_. She will stir up a fuss here if she has half a chance. She is as much of a fusser as Rowena Quarrelena Fightena Sc.r.a.pena used to be. I'm positively, heartily and completely disgusted over such bad news." Jerry's tone was half joking, half serious. "I was looking for pleasant sailing and no snags."

"Our best plan is to pay no attention to her," Marjorie placidly returned. "It is her fault that none of us are on speaking terms with her. She began cutting us the same day we tried to help her at the station."

"And that lets us out," decreed Jerry slangily. "As seniors we can look down on her with a cold and unpitying eye. Something like this." Jerry drew herself up and stared at Marjorie with icy fixity.

"Br-r-r! Don't try that on me again unless I have my fur coat handy,"

was Marjorie's joking reception of that freezing stare. "Excuse me for changing the subject, but let us go over to Silverton Hall after dinner this evening. I'd like to see who's back."

"De-lighted. We won't eat much dinner after those sandwiches. We could cut out dinner tonight and start for Silverton Hall early. We'd then be hungry enough on the way home to stop at Baretti's. Miss Remson won't feel hurt if we aren't here for dinner. We had tea with her. Besides, she knows how it is when one first comes back to college."

"Oh, she won't mind," Marjorie a.s.sured confidently. "We'd better tell the others right away. You go and see Lucy. I'll tell Leila and Muriel."

"As soon as I put away this stuff from my suitcase," Jerry promised. Her suitcase on the floor beside her couch, she had strewed the contents from one end of the bed to the other. "I suppose," she began afresh, as she gathered up her toilet set and moved with it toward her chiffonier, "that I ought to--"

The speech remained unfinished. Suddenly and without warning the door opened. A young woman in an automobile dust coat and cap walked serenely in. At sight of the two startled occupants of the room she set her leather traveling bag down with a sharp, "Well; may I ask what you two girls are doing in my room?" The newcomer was Elizabeth Walbert.

CHAPTER IV-A BIT OF NEWS

"Your room? Since when?" Jerry had forgotten all about the icy stare with which she intended to freeze this very person. She was gazing at the intruder with belligerence, not hauteur. Her tone conveyed an ominous chill to the too-sure claimant.

"I don't understand you," she returned with a slight toss of her head.

"I only know that I was a.s.signed to this room by Miss Remson."

"Did she come to the door of this room with you?" inquired Jerry bluntly.

"Certainly not. She a.s.signed me to Room 16. You two have evidently made a mistake. I know I haven't." Another toss of the head, more disagreeably p.r.o.nounced. "I didn't need her or a maid to show me. I know this house."

"The number of this room is 15. Miss Macy and I have had it for three years," Marjorie broke in evenly. "You will find 16 across the hall. The numbers on this side of the hall are odd; on the other, even."

"Oh!" The arrogant claimant turned poppy-red. Plainly in the wrong, Marjorie's civil, utterly dispa.s.sionate information fell upon her ears as a merited rebuke. "I was told-" she began feebly. "I am sure the number over this door _looks_ like 16. This is the room I _wanted_. I beg your pardon. Still I don't understand--"

In spite of the grudging apology she appeared only half convinced.

Marjorie merely inclined her head without speaking. Jerry was silent from sheer disgust. The battery of two pairs of eyes full upon her proved too much for the intruder. She made a rather hurried exit, closing the door behind her with enough force to indicate a rise of temper.

"Blunderhead!" p.r.o.nounced Jerry contemptuously. "I understand now why she can't be taught to drive her car with safety to the public. She is really stupid underneath her trickiness."

"Too bad she didn't look before she leaped." A quiet little smile dimpled the corners of Marjorie's red lips. She had been merely amused at the incident.

"She must have felt foolish," Jerry declared. "That's what we might call 'Skirmish, Number One.' I daresay we'll have more of them with her Walbertship before we receive our diplomas and hike for Sanford."

"Not if I can help it," vowed Marjorie, still smiling. This time it was at Jerry's funny way of phrasing her opinions.

"Oh, I forgot. I was going to tell Lucy about going to Silverton Hall.

I'll put the rest of these things away when I come back. As long as I am to tell her, I might as well see Leila and Muriel. You go ahead and finish unpacking your suitcase."

Jerry left the room on her errand. She presently returned with all three girls. The start for Silverton Hall was promptly made, the five friends strolling bareheaded across the campus.

Marjorie thought she had never seen her "second friend," as she liked to term the campus, looking more verdantly beautiful. A fairly rainy summer had left the short, thick gra.s.s peculiarly vivid in its greenness. The leaves of every decorative shrub and tree seemed greener than of yore.

It was as though the life of the free emerald spread was rising, not waning, with the approach of autumn.

Arrived at Silverton Hall, disappointment awaited them. Not one of their particular friends had returned. Half a dozen seniors grouped in girlishly picturesque att.i.tudes on the veranda welcomed the callers with warmth. Leila, in particular, was hailed with delight. Her great popularity with the Silvertonites made her return as a post graduate a matter of rejoicing.

Place was made for the visitors on the veranda and the steady hum of voices soon proclaimed an enthusiastic exchange of campus news. It was earlier than the Wayland Hall girls had thought. They therefore declined a pressing invitation to stay to dinner at Silverton Hall, and, after half an hour's stay, got under way again.

"Where to?" asked Jerry, as they left the premises of Silverton Hall.

"Fortune isn't with us tonight. We are wandering about almost as aimlessly as on the evening we landed here as freshies. Leila, excepted, of course. She was a soph then."

"And very well I remember that evening," rejoined Leila. "When I saw you Sanfordites come into Baretti's I looked at Marjorie and planned the Beauty contest."

"Yes; and inveigled me into joining the line that night when I had intended to keep out of it," reproached Marjorie. "I was really cross with you for about two minutes, Leila Greatheart."

"'Tis a long day away since then," Leila lightly a.s.sured.

"I asked where we were going, but no one saw fit to answer me,"

complained Jerry. "I'm not hungry enough yet for Baretti's."

"Let's stop and find out," proposed Muriel. "Only lunatics keep on going without knowing for what point they're bound."

"We might go over to Acasia House and see if Barbara Severn has come back," proposed Marjorie.

"I'd propose going over to Wenderblatts' to see Kathie and Lillian, but I haven't called Kathie on the 'phone yet. One doesn't like to descend on a private family unannounced," Lucy the proper said regretfully.

"Oh, make it Acasia House," Jerry voiced, with a touch of impatience.