"Forty minutes! Who cares to eat ice cream? Back into the buzz wagons, all of you. I like the taste of ice cream in my mouth better than the feel of those station boards under my feet for a long stretch of forty minutes. We can go to the Ivy, that little white shop on Linden Avenue.

It is only two blocks from the station. We shall have time and to spare."

Leila called the latter part of her remarks over her shoulder.

Immediately she had read the notice she turned and started for the station yard. Her companions followed her with alacrity. They were no more in favor than she of a tedious wait on the platform for a belated train.

"One of us had better call time," wisely suggested Helen, as they flocked into the pretty white and green tea room. "Otherwise we are likely to overstay our limit. We must be out of here ten minutes before the train is due. You had better, Luciferous. You are infallible."

"Much obliged." A faint pink crept into Lucy's fair pale skin. Lucy was secretly proud of her own reliability. Turning her pretty gold wrist watch on her wrist so that she could see the face of it, she watched it with an eager eye from then on. The watch had been a gift to her from Ronny the previous Christmas, and was her most valued possession.

Fortune favored them with prompt service on the part of a waitress. They had only comfortably finished their ice cream, however, when Lucy announced that it was time to go. Returning to the station platform, they found only a sprinkling of students awaiting the coming train.

"What has become of Ethel Laird, I wonder?" asked Jerry. "I hope she hasn't forgotten she is on this welcoming committee. Suppose about twenty or thirty freshmen stepped off the five o'clock train. It would keep Marjorie and me busy chasing up and down this old board walk handing out welcomes."

"Now where do you suppose we would be during that time?" demanded Leila.

"Oh, you would be a help, undoubtedly," conceded Jerry, with a boyish grin. "I forgot about you folks. I was merely thinking of us from our committee standpoint. We'll have to guess whether these arrivals are freshies or not. I don't know all the Hamilton students and where they belong. It will be about my speed to walk up to some timid-looking damsel and gallantly offer my a.s.sistance only to find out she is a proud and lofty senior."

"There are few faces at Hamilton which I don't know," Leila a.s.sured.

"Behave well and stick to me and I'll promise you will not do anything foolish. I can pick a freshie from afar off."

"Miss Remson told me yesterday that she understood there were one hundred and ten freshmen applications this year," said Katherine. "We are to have three freshies at Wayland Hall."

"One hundred and ten democrats would help our cause along," remarked Lucy. "Only we need not expect any such miracle."

"With the start we now have, if even half of the freshmen were for college equality, it would be a hard blow to the Sans. I wish it might be like that." Vera clasped her bits of hands, an unconsciously pretty fashion of hers when she earnestly desired something to come to pa.s.s.

"The Sans will fight for every inch of the ground this year. See if they don't," Katherine Langly spoke with half bitter conviction. "Do you think for an instant that they will sit still and see democracy win? Leslie Cairns loves power. Joan Myers is determined to have her own way.

Natalie Weymain is vain. Dulcie Vale is vindictive. Evangeline Heppler and Adelaide Forman are thoroughly disagreeable. Margaret Wayne is malicious and scandalously untruthful. There! That is my candid opinion of those seven students. I have always longed to express it."

"I see you have found your tongue. I congratulate you." Leila beamed approval of such refreshing frankness on the part of quiet little Katherine.

"We had better enter a conspiracy to spend our spare time rushing freshies," proposed Helen. "When they are with us they will be out of mischief."

"First catch your hare," advised Muriel. "Maybe the freshies would not take kindly to the continuous round of pleasure we arranged for them. I don't believe there is any one infallible method of winning them over."

"Oh, I wasn't serious," Helen said, with her roguish, indolent smile.

"While I don't object to helping the great cause along, I am not yearning to become a polite entertainer. I'd probably be a most impolite one before the end of a week, if I had to rush freshies as a steady task. I am afraid few of them would turn out to be as amiable, beautiful, jolly, delightful, agreeable and companionable as good old Jeremiah here."

"An awful waste of adjectives," was Jerry's terse reception of this extravagant tribute to herself. "Here comes the train." Despite her lack of sentiment, she flashed Helen a smile of comradeship.

The belated express thundered into the station with a force which shook the platform. Instinctively the scattered groups of persons on the platform drew back a trifle as the first three coaches shot past. It was a long train and it did not take more than a second glance down its length to note that the last coach was quite different from the others.

"Private car!" Leila's low exclamation held more than surprise. It was sarcastically significant. "Behold the Philistines are upon us," she continued in pretended consternation.

"We needn't mind a little thing like that," Jerry a.s.sured with a genial smile. "They won't be met and fussed over by us. I wonder where the mob is who ought to be at the station to greet these celebrated geese?"

"They certainly chose a poor day for a triumphal return." Muriel indulged in a soft chuckle at the Sans' expense. She broke off in the middle of it with a jubilant cry of, "Girls; there's Hortense just getting off the train three coaches up the platform!"

"Hooray! Nella and Selma are with her!" This from Leila, whose eyes had picked up dignified Hortense Barlow descending the car steps immediately.

Muriel had cried out. Following her were the two juniors of whom Leila and Vera were so fond.

The unwelcome Sans entirely forgotten, Leila, Muriel and Vera headed an orderly rush up the platform. All of the station party were anxious to give the three juniors a hearty reception. Marjorie and Ronny happened to be the last of the little procession. The former bore in mind her chief object in coming-to the station and kept a sharp lookout for freshmen.

Just as they reached the edge of the group which had closed in about the three arrivals, Marjorie's searching eyes spied a small, flaxen-haired young woman with wide-opened blue eyes and a babyish expression, coming toward her. The latter was burdened with a heavy seal traveling case and a bag of golf sticks. She had evidently emerged from the coach behind the one from which Nella and her two companions had come. As she advanced, she gazed about her with a slightly perplexed air.

"Pardon me." Marjorie had stepped instantly to her side. "Are you a freshman? I am Marjorie Dean, of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s, and hope I can be of service to you. I am one of a soph.o.m.ore committee to welcome arriving freshmen."

"Oh, thank you. Delighted, I'm sure, to know you, Miss Dean." The newcomer's conventionally courteous tone conveyed no particular enthusiasm. "Yes; I am a freshman. At least, I hope so. I have one exam.

to try. I flunked in geometry at the prep school I attended last year.

Had a tutor all summer. Guess I'll sc.r.a.pe through this time."

"I hope you will," Marjorie made sincere return. She half offered a hand to the other girl. The latter did not appear to see it. She clung tightly to her bag of golf sticks and traveling case. Far from paying undivided attention to Marjorie, her wide blue eyes roved over the platform, the light of curiosity strong within them.

"Hamilton must be a slow old college if it can't show more of a station mob than this," she remarked, almost disdainfully. "I mean it must be rather well--humdrum. I was at Welden Prep last year. It is a mighty lively school. It takes the Welden girls to properly mob the station.

Oh, we were a gay crowd, I can tell you! Awfully select, you know, but really full of life."

"You will find Hamilton lively enough, I believe. It is early yet. A few of us are back earlier than usual. Not more than a fifth of the students have returned yet." Marjorie's tone was kindly. She made a patient effort to keep reserve out of it. Her first impression of the dissatisfied freshman was not pleasing.

"Oh, I see, I am glad there is hope." The girl gave a vacant little laugh. "I do so hate anything slow or poky or stupid. I had supposed Hamilton to be very smart and exclusive, or I wouldn't have chosen to come here."

"It is a very fine college. There is no better faculty in the country, and the college itself is ideally located. You cannot help but love the campus. At which house are you to live?" Marjorie chose not to discuss Hamilton from the freshman's point of view.

"Alston Terrace. Is it an interesting house to live in? Where do you live? Are the garage accommodations good? I shall have my own car here; perhaps two. How far is it from the station to the campus?"

The stranger hurled these questions at Marjorie all in a breath. The latter's inclination toward secret vexation increased rather than diminished. Her freshman find was showing somewhat Sans-like tendencies.

"All the campus houses are interesting. I live at Wayland Hall. There are several garages in the vicinity of the college. It is about two miles from the station to Hamilton. If you will come with me, I will introduce you to some of my friends. A number of us came to the station together; some of us to meet friends expected on this train. Miss Macy, my room-mate, and myself are on the committee. Let me help you with your luggage."

Marjorie deftly possessed herself of the bag of golf sticks which the freshman now surrendered willingly, and led the way to the part of the platform where her companions had gathered around the three juniors.

"Here she is!" exclaimed Vera, as she approached. "Aha! Now I know why you left us all of a sudden!" She smiled winningly at Marjorie's companion, who allowed the barest flicker of a smile to touch her slightly pouting lips.

"Girls, I would like you to meet Miss----" Marjorie stopped, her color rising. The stranger had not volunteered her name at the time when Marjorie had introduced herself. She turned to the freshman with an apologetic smile. "Will you tell me your name?" she asked pleasantly.

"Oh, certainly. My name is Elizabeth Walbert." As she spoke her restless eyes began an apprais.e.m.e.nt of the group of girls whom Marjorie had addressed.

"Miss Walbert, this is Miss Mason, Miss Lynne, Miss Harper----" Marjorie presented her friends in turn to the newcomer, then said: "Please make Miss Walbert feel at home among us, while I greet our famous juniors."

"Oh, we knew you wouldn't forget your little friends," laughed Selma, "particularly the Swedish dwarf." Selma, who stood five feet nine, had bestowed this name upon herself, she being the tallest of the four girls who had chummed together since their enrollment at Hamilton.

Having warmly welcomed the trio, Marjorie realized Jerry was missing.

She glanced quickly up and down the platform in search of her. She finally spied her coming down the platform with a plainly-dressed girl whose pale face, under a brown sailor hat, bore the unmistakable stamp of the student. In one hand she carried a small black utility bag of very shiny material. The other hand grasped the handle of a large straw suitcase. Jerry carried the mate to it. Her plump face registered nothing but polite attention to what her companion was saying. She was marching her freshman along, however, at a fair rate of speed. Not so far to their rear the Sans had detrained. Their high-pitched talk and laughter could be heard the length of the platform, as they gathered up their luggage and prepared to march on Hamilton. Jerry proposed to be safely in the bosom of her friends with her find before that march began.

"Come along, children. Let's be going. The choo-choo cars are getting ready to choo-choo right along to the next station. Look as I may, I see no more arriving freshies--except the one Jeremiah is now towing toward us." Leila added this as she saw Jerry. "We'll delay our going in honor of the freshie."

Next instant Jerry had joined them and was introducing Miss Towne, of Omaha, Nebraska, as the stranger had shyly declared herself. Amidst the crowd of dainty, white-gowned girls, she looked not unlike a dingy little brown wren. Miss Walbert eyed her with growing disapproval and gave her a perfunctory nod of the head. Immediately she turned her attention to the on-coming Sans whom she had already noticed. Her face brightened visibly as she watched them. While she had reluctantly decided that her new acquaintances were as well dressed as she, and carried themselves as though of social importance, their kindly reception of a girl who was clearly a dig and a n.o.body displeased her.

The very manner in which the other group of girls were advancing made strong appeal to her. They were more the type she had known at Welden.