Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus Part 8

"I'm certainly glad I'm here," sighed Emma, contentedly. "There seems to be a prospect of one continuous round of pleasure."

"I'm glad you are here too," nodded Grace. "You don't know how queerly I felt to-day when I stepped off the train without seeing a soul I knew. I suppose there are a number of girls here, although it's early. Cla.s.ses won't be called for at least a week or more. We'll surely see some familiar spirits soon. There are Patience Eliot, Kathleen West, Laura Atkins, Mildred Evans, Violet Darby, Myra Stone and ever so many others still due in the land of Overton."

"Why, that's so," declared Emma, her eyes bright with the prospect of seeing her Overton friends. "Do you know, Grace, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't really considered those girls. All along I've thought about the Sempers and how strange and gray everything would seem without them."

"I know it," sighed Grace. "I've felt exactly the same. Anne, Miriam, Arline, Ruth, Elfreda and you were my absent crushes, but now you are a present one, and next to you comes Patience Eliot. She always seemed like a senior. I think I'm going to love the new Kathleen West dearly.

She is so clever, and now that we are friends I hope we can work together in ever so many ways."

As the taxicab bore them swiftly toward Harlowe House the two young women talked on of the happy past with its pleasure-marked milestones.

"We're almost there. Look, Emma! You can get a splendid view of all the campus houses. Now isn't Harlowe House the prettiest of them all?"

"It is, I swear it," returned Emma solemnly, "and, if I'm not mistaken, one of your household has arrived ahead of you. Certainly some one is camping out on the front steps."

"Why, so there is. I wonder who she can be. One of the maids, I suppose, or perhaps the cook. We'll know who she is in a minute."

The car had now come to a full stop. Without waiting for the chauffeur Grace opened the door and sprang out. "Never mind our luggage," she said as she paid the driver. "We'll carry it into the house. It's not very heavy."

Gathering her belongings in one hand, and picking up one of Emma's suit cases, Grace set off up the stone walk followed by Emma. As she advanced there rose from the steps and came to meet her a most astonis.h.i.+ng little figure.

CHAPTER VIII

A STRANGE APPLICANT

"This is Harlowe House, isn't it?" was the sharp question that a.s.sailed Grace's ears.

"Yes." Grace's eyes traveled in amazement over the curious little stranger within her gates. She was a girl of perhaps eighteen, although there was a strained, anxious expression in her large brown eyes that made her look positively aged, an effect which the three deep lines in her high projecting forehead served to emphasize. If she possessed hair it was not visible under the small round hat of a by-gone style which set down upon her head like a helmet. She wore a plain, cheap black skirt and a queer, old-fas.h.i.+oned white blouse made with a peplum. Around her waist was a leather belt, and on her feet were coa.r.s.e heavy shoes such as a farm laborer might wear. In one hand she carried a large bundle, in a newspaper wrapping.

"I'm so glad. I thought I'd never get here," she said simply.

Grace and Emma exchanged amazed glances. This must be the maid. But such a maid!

"Are you the young woman Mrs. Elwood engaged?" asked Grace politely.

The girl shook her head. "I don't know what you mean. No one engaged me.

I just came because I heard about Harlowe House and wanted to go to college. I've pa.s.sed all my high school examinations and I've a scholars.h.i.+p too. They wouldn't let me come, so I ran away from home and walked all the way here. Is it true that a girl can live at Harlowe House without having to pay her board?" she eyed Grace with a look of mingled anxiety and defiance.

"Oh," Grace's amazed look changed to one of interested concern, "pardon me. I thought you were a young woman of whom Mrs. Elwood, of Wayne Hall, had spoken."

"I don't know Mrs. Elwood. I never heard of Wayne Hall. I don't know a soul in this town. I only know that I want to go to Overton College more than I ever wanted anything else in my life. Do you suppose there's a chance for me to live at Harlowe House and study? I've walked over a hundred miles to find out," finished the queer little stranger pleadingly.

"'Over a hundred miles!'" repeated Grace and Emma in chorus.

The girl nodded solemnly.

"You poor child!" exclaimed Emma Dean impulsively. "If your wish to be an Overton girl brought you that distance on foot, I should say you ought to have all the chance there is. At any rate you have applied to the proper authority. This is Miss Harlowe, for whom Harlowe House was named, and who is to be in charge of it. I am Miss Dean, of 19-- and now a.s.sistant in English at Overton."

But the knowledge that she was face to face with the person who held the privilege of being a member of Harlowe House in her hands overcame the quaint stranger with a sudden shyness. She s.h.i.+fted her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, twisted her thin, bony hands nervously, while her forehead was corrugated afresh with deep wrinkles.

With the frank, winning smile which was one of Grace's chief charms, she held out her hand to the other girl. "I am glad to know you," she said.

"Won't you tell me your name?"

"Mary Reynolds," returned the newcomer in a low voice, as she timidly shook Grace's proffered hand, then Emma's.

"I shall be glad to welcome you to Harlowe House," said Grace cordially, "provided you can fulfill the requirements necessary for entering Overton. I am going over to Miss Wilder's office this afternoon, and if you wish to go with me you can learn all the particulars. Until then, however, you had better come into the house with Miss Dean and me. I am sure you must be very tired."

"Yes, I am, but I don't mind that. I'm here and nothing else matters,"

returned the girl so fervently that Grace felt a sudden mist rise to her eyes, and she determined, then and there, that if this curious, dest.i.tute little stranger succeeded in measuring up to Overton's mental requirements, she would smooth in every possible way her path, which she foresaw would be troubled.

"And now for our triumphal entry into Harlowe House," declaimed Emma Dean, as she and Grace picked up their luggage, and, followed by Mary Reynolds and her huge newspaper-wrapped bundle, mounted the steps. At the door Grace again set down her luggage. Fumbling for her latch key she fitted it to the lock.

"What a perfectly delightful place!" was Emma's enthusiastic cry, as she stepped into the hall which was done in oak with furnis.h.i.+ngs to match.

"Commend me to the living-room!" She poked her head inquisitively through the soft green silk hangings and after surveying the pretty room for an instant made a dive for the window seat. "Oh, you window seat!"

she laughed with a fine disregard for dignity.

Grace laughed with her, and queer little Mary Reynolds smiled in sheer sympathy with Emma's irresistible drollery.

"I choose this green window seat for my boon companion," declared Emma, curling her wiry length cosily upon it, "and may I be ever faithful to my vows. I expect to have difficulty in protecting my claim, for I predict this will be the most popular spot in the house. May I put up a sign, Grace, 'This claim is staked by Emma Dean, no others need apply'?"

"You may stake it, but I won't guarantee that it will stay staked,"

replied Grace.

"Oh, yes, it will," argued Emma confidently, bouncing up and down on the soft springy cus.h.i.+ons. "The freshmen of Harlowe House will be so impressed with my height, dignity and general appearance that they will defer to me as a matter of course. One imperious look, like this, over my gla.s.ses, and the world will be mine." She peered over her gla.s.ses at Grace in a ludicrous fas.h.i.+on which was far more likely to convulse, rather than impress, the prospective freshmen.

Even the solemn stranger giggled outright, then looked as though she had been caught red-handed in some dreadful crime.

"I'd like to recite English in one of your cla.s.ses, Emma," smiled Grace.

"Now there is just where you are wrong," retorted Emma. "I shan't have a single amusing feature in my daily round of recitations. I shall be as grim as grim can be and a regular slave driver as far as lessons are concerned. Those freshmen will wish they'd never met me." Emma wagged her head threateningly.

"Stop making such dire threats and come upstairs to see our quarters,"

commanded Grace.

Emma uncoiled herself from the window seat with alacrity and began gathering up her belongings.

Grace turned kindly to Mary Reynolds. "If you will come upstairs with us, Miss Reynolds, I think we can easily find a room for you. So far I do not know just how many applications Miss Wilder has received. As I told you, I am going over to the office after luncheon. You had better go to your room and rest a little, then take luncheon with Miss Dean and me and go with us to Overton Hall to see Miss Wilder, the dean."

"I--I--thank you," stammered the girl, the dull color flooding her sunburnt cheeks. "I'm afraid--I--can't go to luncheon--with you.

I'm--not--very hungry."

Emma Dean flashed a quick, appraising glance at her from under her eyelashes. "Neither are we," she a.s.sured the embarra.s.sed girl, "but still we don't care to miss luncheon entirely. You are a stranger in a strange land, so you must be our guest, and then some day when you are a seasoned Overtonite we'll insist on being yours."

Mary Reynolds regarded the two young women with shy, grateful eyes. "You are so good to me. You must know, of course, that I am very poor. I have nothing in the world but this bundle of clothes and ten dollars," she said humbly. "It took me two years to save it, I have been so sure that there would be some little corner of this wonderful house for me. I can't bear to think that I may be too late. I don't know where I'd go. I guess I'd have to try to find some place else. Do you suppose I am too late?" Her tones vibrated with alarm.