"What do you think? We b.u.mped into each other in Chicago," Vera informed them. "It was at the Union Station. I had been feeling awfully bored by my own society. Father had gone to call on an old friend between trains.

I didn't care to go with him. I sat in the women's inner waiting room trying to read a magazine when who should walk straight past me but Ronny. I couldn't believe my eyes for a second. Then I made just about such a dive for her as Leila just made for me."

"I came as far as Chicago in Father's aeroplane," announced Ronny proudly. "It is the longest trip he ever made. He didn't wish to go farther east than Chicago, so he secured a stateroom for me on the Great Eastern Express. Talk about luck in meeting Vera! I should say it was luck. We sat up nearly all night to talk. We both began to feel sleepy away this side of Hamilton. It will be an early bedtime for us both tonight, won't it, Midget?"

"Um-ah!" Vera put a small hand to her mouth to conceal a rising yawn.

"We stopped at the Hall, but you were gone. We knew where to find you."

"Are you hungry?" demanded Muriel. "We've gone as far as the salad.

What'll you have?"

"Nothing but some ice cream and a demita.s.se for me," declared Ronny. "We had dinner on the train."

Vera decided on coffee and a pineapple ice. The two were soon established at table with their chums, listening to the meager amount of college news which they had to give out.

"It must be unusually quiet at Hamilton," Vera presently remarked.

"Nearly a third of the students were back at this time last year."

"It's a deserted spot, Midget," Leila a.s.sured. "We've been to Silverton Hall and Acasia House this evening and none of our special pals from either house are back yet."

"Oh, well, I'm back, and so is Ronny. We certainly count as a couple of someones," Vera laughed. "Old Hamilton will blossom out over night. No one here, then, all of a sudden, everybody back and things humming."

The first rush of greeting having subsided, Ronny's companions bombarded her with eager questions concerning her trip to Chicago by aeroplane.

Absorbed in what she was relating, none of them had paid much attention to the few girls who had dropped into the restaurant.

Sounds of singing followed by a burst of rather loud laughter and high-pitched conversation drew their gaze simultaneously toward the door. A crowd of perhaps a dozen girls now entered the large room, still talking and laughing boisterously.

The central figure among them was a girl well above the medium height and rather heavily built. Hatless, her short brown hair curled about her face in a manner suggesting its natural non-curliness. Her face was full and her color high. Her bright brown eyes, though large, contained a boldness of expression that rather marred their fine shape and size. Her nose was retrousse and her mouth too wide for beauty. The ensemble of features was dashing; not beautiful. She wore a one-piece frock of pale pink wash satin, a marvel as to cut and design. Her whole appearance indicated the presence of wealth. She looked not unlike a spoiled, overgrown baby.

"Freshies, and they act it," muttered Jerry.

The party arranged themselves at two tables, keeping up a running fire of loud-toned repartee. Signor Baretti, now seated at one end of the restaurant, perusing an Italian newspaper, peered sharply over it at the disturbers. The little man knew, to a dot, the difference between natural high spirits and boisterousness.

Hardly had they seated themselves when the tall girl stood up and called out, "Attention, everybody!" She waved an inclusive arm over the two tables occupied by the flock she appeared to be leading.

"Sit down Gussie!" giggled a small girl with very light hair, a snub nose and freckles. "You are making a lot of noise in the world. Didn't you know it?"

"Who cares." The tall girl tossed her short-cropped head. "Already now with the Bertram yell. Let's show folks where we came from. When I raise my arm-go ahead and _whoop_!"

Highly pleased with herself and utterly regardless of proprietor and diners, she raised a rounded arm, bare almost to the shoulder, with a grandiose air.

Immediately l.u.s.ty voices took up a yell ending in a long drawn "Ber-t-r-a-m! That's us!" This was repeated three times. As it died away the enterprising leader resumed her chair, apparently careless of what impression she and her companions had made.

Two meek Italian waitresses now approaching to take their order, they hesitated and hung back a little. The yelling having subsided, they rose afresh to duty and went over to the party. There they continued to stand, unheeded by the revelers. The exuberant freshmen now had their heads together over the menu, babbling joyously.

"Are we ready to go?" Leila glanced inquiringly around the circle. "Let us leave these little folks to their merry shouts and laughter. Two of those youngsters, the tall one and the little tow-head, are at Wayland Hall. I mentioned them a while back as noisy. Have you reason to doubt me?"

"We could never doubt you, Leila Greatheart," lightly avowed Marjorie.

She was eyeing the rollicking freshmen with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I guess Bertram must be a prep school. Hence the loyal howls for their little old kindergarten," surmised Jerry.

"They have a whole lot to learn," smiled Vera. "A few well-directed remarks from the faculty will soon calm their joyous ardor. Perhaps we shouldn't criticize. We were rather noisy ourselves not many minutes ago."

"Yes; but in moderation," reminded Jerry. "All our rejoicing together wasn't as loud as one whoop from the freshies. Not that I care," she added genially. "I can stand it if Giuseppe can."

"Bertram?" Lucy questioningly repeated. "Where is it?"

"Not far from New York City," Vera answered. "I knew two girls who entered Va.s.sar from there. One of them told me it was more like an exclusive boarding school than the regulation prep. She called it the Baby Shop. She said the girls there behaved like overgrown youngsters.

That was four years ago. Maybe the Bertramites have grown up since then," she added in her kindly way.

"Again, maybe they have not." Leila glanced skeptically at the Bertramites. They were now engaged in all trying to order at once, a proceeding quite bewildering to their servitors.

"I hate to get me gone from here, Oh, my stars, I'm glad I'm going!"

hummed Leila under her breath. "Now that is as fine an old Irish song as you'd care to hear. Do I shout it at the top of my breath and disturb the peace? I do not. I keep my lilting strictly within bounds." For all her criticism, Leila was half amused at the noisy freshmen.

"Subdued like, as it were," supplemented Muriel with a killing smile.

"You have a fine understanding." Leila beamed with equal exaggeration.

In this jesting mood they rose from the table. Leila had already pounced upon the dinner check. On the way to the cashier's desk, they became aware of less noise at the freshmen's tables. The concentrated interest of the newcomers had become centered on the departing uppercla.s.smen.

The gaze of the tall, dashing girl, who had led the others in the Bertram yell was now traveling with peculiar eagerness from face to face. Her expression was a mixture of curiosity, defiance, admiration and envy. Her glance rested longest on Ronny. She devoured every detail of Ronny's smart tweed traveling suit, gray walking hat and gray buckskin ties. A gleam of respect showed itself in her bold brown eyes.

The freshman Leila had described as a "tow-head," after an equally deliberate inspection of the departing group, caught the tall girl by the arm and began a rapid flow of talk. Not for an instant as she talked did she remove her gaze from Marjorie and her chums.

Jerry was the first to note they were being thus observed by the other crowd of students. A decided scowl appeared between her brows. She always resented being stared at.

"Those freshies have mistaken us for a part of the exhibits in the Hamilton Museum, I guess, let loose for an hour or two of recreation,"

she grumbled. "I object to being rubbered at. What?" She mimicked Leslie Cairns' affected drawl.

Her manner of expression, rather than her remarks, induced the laughter of her companions. Nor did she realize that she had turned her eyes upon the freshmen as she spoke, with a look of bored endurance far from flattering to them. Unfortunately the tall girl happened to catch it, as well as the ripple of laughter. Her face darkened. Her retrousse nose elevated itself even higher.

"Isn't that girl with the big brown eyes simply gorgeous?" exclaimed a pert-looking freshman with shrewd black eyes. The girls they had been watching were now out of sight.

"A regular dream of beauty," praised another. "Her complexion was like a magnolia petal."

"My, but you two are crushed on that-well, quite pretty girl," the tall leader said in a slightly miffed tone. "My eyes are larger than hers,"

she added.

"Oh, no, Gus, they certainly aren't a bit larger," flatly contradicted a stolid-looking girl with eyegla.s.ses.

"They certainly _are_," maintained the tall girl.

"Don't grab all the bouquets, Gus," lazily advised Calista Wilmot, the black-eyed girl. "Leave a few for someone else."

"Sha'n't. I want 'em all myself." The reply was careless rather than ill-humored. "Anyhow there was nothing startlingly beautiful about that one girl you folks are raving over."

"Oh, I think there was," differed the freshman with the eyegla.s.ses, with a positiveness that courted argument.