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“Of course I’ll go. You don’t think I’d let you run off to the Arms without me, do you?” Kathie’s eyes sparkled with the gaiety of the occasion.
“We’d never do that; never-r-r!” Vera assured with a dramatic roll of “r.”
“You must have known what Robin and I did not know until this afternoon,” Marjorie said happily. “When were you at the Arms last, Kathie?”
“Last Tuesday afternoon to tea. Yes, I knew.” Kathie flashed Marjorie a radiant look. “I was so glad. It was splendid in her.”
Before Marjorie could reply Vera called out a second warning. “Shoo, shoo, shoo!” she cried, whisking in and out among her chums and relentlessly driving them toward the dining room door. Laughing, Miss Remson strolled after the fleeing, giggling girls.
The little manager was about to call a last word to the party as they began to descend the steps when the purr of an approaching automobile brought all eyes to bear upon it. One of the railway station taxicabs was now coming to a stop before the Hall. The instant it stopped the driver sprang from it to open the tonneau door. Next a girl in a silver gray dust coat and close-lined gray hat which suggested Paris emerged from the machine. She cast a slow unhurried glance toward the group on the veranda, then turned toward the driver in leisurely fashion and addressed him.
He dived into the tonneau, reappearing with a large leather label-spattered bag. The new arrival handed him his fare with the barest glance at him. He picked up the bag and started with it toward the veranda. She followed him, wearing an expression of such utter boredom it impressed itself upon the knot of girls to whom she was a stranger. One other point also impressed them. That point was her unusual beauty.
It seemed to Marjorie that she had never seen a girl so beautiful, and in such an unusual way. Her thick fine hair was like pale spun gold as it showed itself from under her small hat. Her skin was dazzling in its purity. Her eyes reminded Marjorie of the sea on a calm day. Only she could not be sure whether they were blue or green. Her features were not small but were admirably regular. She carried herself with the lovely, indifferent grace of a princess. Into Marjorie’s fanciful mind suddenly popped the old-time fairy-tale beginning: “Once upon a time there was a lovely princess.”
“Now whom have we here?” muttered Leila in Marjorie’s ear.
Marjorie could not reply. The girl had reached the steps and was now composedly mounting them. She paid no more attention to the group on the steps than if they had not been there. She made an authoritative motion to the taxicab driver to place her bag on the veranda floor beside the door. She found the bell and rang it, looking even more bored.
As the stranger’s fingers pressed the electric button Miss Remson stepped to her side. “I am Miss Remson, the manager of Wayland Hall. What can I do for you?” she asked courteously.
“Oh, are you Miss Remson?” She regarded the brisk, little woman with indolent blue-green eyes. Her sweet, indifferent drawl went perfectly with her unconcerned appearance. “I am Miss Monroe. You have my father’s correspondence. I am here a trifle earlier than he mentioned in his letter to you. That need not signify,” she added carelessly.
Careful not to intrude the Five Travelers had moved on down the steps and away from the Hall. Vera had parked the car farther down the drive.
“What a perfectly beautiful girl!” Marjorie softly exclaimed when they got out of earshot of the Hall.
A murmur of agreement answered her.
“I suppose she’s a would-be,” speculated Vera. “Still, she can’t be. Miss Remson said yesterday that she didn’t intend to take any would-be’s until the week before the entrance exams. Then, only those who had applied for board at Wayland Hall. She never takes stray would-be’s.”
“Whoever she may be, she comes from afar,” informed Leila shrewdly. “Her traveling bag is English, via Paris. She has the bored air of the English, but, set me down in the streets of Paris, and I’ll soon be at the shop which furnished her hat and coat. If it is not one in the Rue de la Pais called L’harmonie, then I am no witch woman. The latest color plates they sent me show a coat like that gray.”
“Perhaps she is a friend of Miss Remson’s,” was Kathie’s suggestion.
As the five had not heard the brief exchange of words between the stranger and the manager they impersonally concurred with Kathie. Again hustled into the roadster by Vera they soon dropped the subject of the beautiful arrival at the Hall for the more personal one of Miss Susanna’s gracious and unlooked-for help in the dormitory project.
Meanwhile, at Wayland Hall, Miss Monroe of London and Paris was lounging gracefully in a roomy willow rocker in the living room. She was appraising her surroundings through two limpid, but distinctly shrewd blue-green eyes and mentally ticketing them “not half bad.”
In her office Miss Remson was frowning as she industriously consulted her letter file for the desired correspondence. The perturbed manager was very certain that she had not agreed to admit Miss Monroe, or any other strange young woman, to Wayland Hall in the middle of the summer.
She gave a kind of annoyed cluck as she finally found the desired correspondence between herself and the newcomer’s father, who had signed his letters, “Herbert Cecil Monroe.” They had been written from a Paris address and had been accompanied by satisfactory references. In them, however, her permission had not been asked, nor had she agreed to admit the daughter of her correspondent to Wayland Hall before the formal opening of Hamilton College.
CHAPTER X. – AT THE ARMS
“Where is she, Jonas?” Marjorie raised a cautioning finger. She hardly breathed the question for fear of Miss Susanna’s proximity.
“She’s up in Mr. Brooke’s study, Miss Marjorie,” Jonas replied in equally guarded tones. Miss Susanna’s faithful retainer of years, the old man stood the center of the group of charming youthful visitors. He was smiling his vivid, crinkled smile as though he was thoroughly enjoying the invasion.
Contrary to expectation that Miss Susanna might be taking her accustomed stroll about the grounds after tea, the callers had reached the house without having seen sign of her. Jonas had answered their ring. He had come down the wide, thick-carpeted hall to the open door in his slow dignified fashion. His face had lighted beautifully at sight of the knot of bright-faced girls peering laughingly at him through the screen.
It was for Marjorie, however, that his smile was kindest. He shared Miss Susanna’s fondness for “our young lady.” The cordial handshake he gave her came straight from his worshiping heart.
“She’s in the study quite a bit of late. He would have liked that.” The old man nodded with conviction.
“I’m sure he would have, Jonas,” Marjorie heartily agreed. Her chums smiled concurrence. They still had much of the same reserve for the courtly, silver-haired retainer that they experienced toward Miss Susanna. “We’d love to steal in on her there,” she said with impulsive eagerness. “Do you think she’d care to be surprised in that way?”
“I know she would. Miss Marjorie.” Jonas seemed very sure of this point. A faintly mischievous expression had leaped into his keen blue eyes. He surveyed her smilingly, as though debating something in his mind.
“What is it, Jonas?” Marjorie was quick to catch the change of expression.
“There’s a sliding panel in Mr. Brooke’s study, Miss Marjorie. Miss Susanna sits in Mr. Brooke’s chair always when she’s up there. Her back is toward the panel. I can let you in that way, if you’d like it.”
“We’d love to.” Marjorie grew radiant. She consulted her chums with dancing eyes. They made genial signs of wholesale approval. “Are you sure we won’t startle her?” she asked as a prudent afterthought.
“She’s not one to be startled,” Jonas proudly assured. “She’ll see you as quick almost as you see her. She’s quick to see.”
“Suppose I were to steal up behind her and slip my hands over her eyes? Perhaps I’d better not do that.” Marjorie grew doubtful.
“Please do. She’d think it the best kind of fun,” Jonas insisted. It was as though Miss Susanna were a child for whom Jonas delighted to provide entertainment. “She always says she likes adventure. She feels as though she’d had a good many adventures since she’s known you and the young ladies here.”
“We have had some real ones,” Marjorie assured the old man. “All right, Jonas. We hereby appoint you as guide of this secret expedition. Lead on. We’ll do our best to give Miss Susanna a wee little adventure. Not so little, either. A secret panel; that sounds thrilling.”
“I’ll put it in the first play I write for Page and Dean this fall,” Kathie promised.
Led by Jonas the secret expedition tiptoed silently down the broad hall until they came to a lift. It was situated between the library and dining room and opened onto the second floor within a few feet of the study. It was seldom used by the energetic mistress of the Arms. Jonas opened its door without a sound and the five girls crowded into it, leaving him hardly enough space in which to operate it. At the second floor the man stopped the cage with a faint click and the adventurers stepped noiselessly, one after another, into the hall.
Jonas came last. He motioned the girls to follow him. Down the hall he walked, past the study and on to a small, railed-in balcony. The balcony adjoined the back wall of the study and formed a side of a little open square over the library after the fashion of a patio. Exactly in the middle of the balcony he stopped. The interested watchers saw him run a practiced hand up and down the severely beautiful wainscoting. Soundlessly, a smooth section of the wainscoting, between two raised edges, and fairly wide apart, slid to the left and disappeared from view. Its vanishment left an open space about three feet square.
Mutely peering into the study they saw Miss Susanna seated in Brooke Hamilton’s chair. At the left of her, on the massive table lay a goodly pile of papers, yellowish and time stained. In front of her reposed another pile of official-looking papers and opened letters. She was too deeply immersed in a study of them to be aware of anything outside of them.
Jonas touched Marjorie’s arm. He made a motion toward the aperture. She nodded in merry understanding. Stealthily she lifted first one foot, then the other, over the lower up-standing part of the wainscoting. Holding her breath she reached Miss Susanna’s chair in two noiseless steps. Two soft hands found the old lady’s eyes and closed over them.
“Who-o-o-o!” Miss Susanna cried out like a small tree owl. Like a flash her own sturdy hands readied up and caught Marjorie by the arm. “I know this game! I can guess who it is!” she cried out like a jubilant child.
“Guess, then,” growled Marjorie in as gruff a voice as she could muster.
“Marvelous Manager,” came with delighted certainty. This particular nickname for Marjorie seemed always most to amuse the old lady.
“Right-o! And who else?” Marjorie persisted, still keeping sight shut off from the chuckling victim.
“That’s easy,” boasted Miss Susanna. “Leila and Vera – yes – and Robin Page. Since you’re here, child, she must be here, too. And Kathie. She’s a fixture on the campus. Now drop those hands and let me have a look at you,” impatiently commanded the old lady.
CHAPTER XI. – OUT OF THE PAST
The prisoning hands fell away from Miss Hamilton’s eyes revealing five laughing girls clustered at one side of the historic chair in which the old lady sat, her expression one of keen enjoyment. She immediately held out her arms to Marjorie who slipped into them and kissed Miss Susanna on the forehead and on both cheeks.
“My dear, dear child. So you surprised me after all, though I have been on the watch for you. It was all Jonas’ fault. He fixed up this scheme.” Miss Susanna heartily returned Marjorie’s caress with every evidence of affection. Next she motioned each of the others to her and kissed her on the cheek, a mark of favor they had not expected from the matter-of-fact mistress of the Arms.
“You stole a march on me, and Jonas helped you!” she exclaimed when the first babel of greeting had subsided. “I’m glad you found me here. I’m going to do something for you now that I think you’ll like. Come, guess what. You made me guess.”
“Show us something of interest that was Mr. Brooke Hamilton’s,” Marjorie made instant guess.
“Um-m-m; partly right,” Miss Susanna put on a baffling expression.
“It’s a letter, or one of those papers,” hazarded Vera. “I mean what you are going to show us.”
“Right again, but not altogether right.” Miss Susanna was enjoying the moment of suspense.
“It’s tea I can read in your eye, and I’ll guess again it’s been put off till this time each night this week,” Leila slyly asserted. “Oh, I have a fine reasoning power.” Leila showed her white teeth affably, “though there are those who do not believe it.”
“Clever Leila!” Miss Susanna clapped her hands. “You’ve guessed the other half of my intention. I decided to have my tea late this week in case you girls dropped in on me. Kathie said that Marjorie would probably arrive when she came on the late afternoon train. I guessed the firm of Page and Dean would meet at the station,” she said with humor.
“We did,” Marjorie’s light tone grew serious. “Oh, Miss Susanna, we saw, coming to the campus. We hardly know how to begin to thank you for the help you’ve given us. It means so much to us, who wish the work on the dormitory to progress, but even more to the girls who will live in the dormitory when it is completed.” Marjorie had re-taken the old lady’s hands in hers, pressing them gratefully.
Her friends and Jonas stood looking on at the fond little scene between the once crabbed mistress of the Arms and the gentle girl whose high principles and unfailing courtesy had won her the friendship of the difficult, embittered last of the Hamiltons.
“Never mind about that dormitory business now!” Miss Susanna held up an imperious hand. “I’ll talk with you of it some other day – perhaps.” She broke into a smile. “Jonas,” she turned to the old man, “bring the tea up here.”
“I used to have tea here occasionally with Uncle Brooke when I was a young girl,” she told her interested guests. “He had tea promptly at half-past four every afternoon when he was at home, and usually in the study.”
The Travelers listened almost breathlessly for her to continue. They were “positively greedy” for even scraps of information concerning the founder of Hamilton.
“All the tea he used was shipped to him from China. He never ate anything for tea except a few small, sweet English crackers. But how he liked tea! He would drink three cups, always. When I had tea with him he would have Jonas bring me the choicest marmalade and conserves, and little fancy rolls and sweet cakes. He would make an occasion of our tea drinking.” Miss Susanna’s face softened. She smiled reminiscently.
A pleasant silence ensued, broken only by the slight rustling of the papers on the table which Miss Hamilton was turning over. She drew from among the stack a long sheet of yellowed fine paper. It was spread open and written closely on one side.
“While we are waiting for Jonas to bring the tea,” she said, an absent look in her eyes, “I will keep my promise and read you a letter that Uncle Brooke intended for the Marquis de Lafayette.”
A sighing breath went up from the listeners who were now seated about the library table.
“It seems so strange; to know some one who knew someone else who knew Lafayette,” Robin said wonderingly.
“So it does, until one stops to consider how long it was after the war of the Revolution before Lafayette came back to visit America. He came here in the year of 1824. Uncle Brooke was a very young man then. He was my great uncle, you must bear in mind. Lafayette was about sixty-six years of age when he made the American visit. He died ten years afterward. He and Uncle Brooke corresponded regularly during the last years of Lafayette’s life. The letter I shall read to you is, I imagine, the draft of a letter he composed to Lafayette. It is neither finished nor signed.”
With this explanation Miss Susanna began in her concise utterance:
“My Dear Friend:
“How swiftly time passes! I can scarcely realize that almost two years have elapsed since you visited the United States. I had hoped to come to you in France, not later than next autumn, but a peculiar, and what I trust may be a fortunate, turn in my affairs makes it necessary for me to sail for China next month. It is my expectation to remain in China for at least a year and embark upon what promises to be a successful business venture.
“I am greatly concerned in thinking of you and of the future of my country. How little I gave you mentally and spiritually in comparison with all you gave me – the true essence of lofty patriotism; the counsel of a mind among minds. I shall ever keep before me your nobility of spirit; your boundless generosity to America; your unfailing consideration toward me. I am of the opinion that my best effort to please you must lie in helping my country. What does our United States need that I can give? My life? Always at call. Yet how else may I perform my patriotic part?
“Only to you can I confide an idea, recurring often to me since the death of my mother, which occurred when I was a boy of fifteen. She was an exceptional woman who, with her two brothers, had been educated by a tutor in England. She was a staunch advocate of the higher education for young women. I have never since known her equal. She, herself, being the strongest proof of her belief. Having known her can I, therefore, be less convinced of the grace and necessity of the higher education for young America’s daughters as well as her sons.
“In loving memory of my mother I shall some day found a college for young women after my own heart. I have not much faith in polite female academies. My mind leans toward colleges for young women, conducted in precisely the same manner as are colleges for young men. Nor does it seem to me that the faculty of such institutions of learning should needs be composed entirely of women. The professors in our colleges for young men are far more proficient in learning than the majority of the women engaged to teach girls in the few seminaries and academies of the United States.
“In these painful, formative days of our republic young women should receive the same educational advantages as young men. Let us train them so that they in their turn may become competent instructors. Let not their budget of learning consist of a few polite ologies, lightly learned, to be as lightly forgotten. I believe men have better brains than women. Yet they lack in intuition. Women are keener of perception. Thus it would appear – ”
Miss Susanna looked up from the paper. “That’s all,” she said abruptly. “I suppose he made a copy of this letter, finished it and sent it to the Marquis. I wished to read it to you because, in looking among his papers and letters, this is the first mention he made of his dream of building a college for women.”
For a moment no one spoke. The spell of the unfinished letter of long ago gripped the hearers. The generous, purposeful personality of its writer made itself felt across the years.
Jonas, trundling a tea wagon into the study, brought them out of the historic past.
“How I wish we knew the rest of it,” Marjorie said, her brown eyes childishly wistful.
“I wish you knew, but you never will,” was Miss Susanna’s crisp reply. “I’ve hunted for what might be a continuation of that letter on another, similar sheet of paper, but have never found it.”
“It’s a glorious letter, even if it isn’t complete. It is full of hope and courage and resolve and conviction!” Katherine’s tones rang with admiration.
“How beautifully he wrote of his mother,” supplemented Vera.
“How well he wrote it all,” was Leila’s sweeping praise. “Too well not to have – ” She paused. Carried away by impulse she had forgotten for the time the reason why the world could not have the history of a great man and his great work.
The sudden scarlet which flew to her own cheeks was no brighter than that which sprang into Miss Hamilton’s.
“I know what you meant, Leila. Even a few months ago I would have been so cross with you for having said what you were thinking.” Miss Susanna looked up from her arranging of the tea set on the library table and met Leila’s eyes squarely. “I’m not – now. You may finish what you started to say.” The permission was more like a half defiant command. It was as though the old lady had a sneaking desire to hear it.
“Too well not to have the world read it,” Leila repeated. “It’s of him I was thinking, Miss Susanna. He has a right to the high place he made for himself.”
“I wish the world knew him as I knew him – but not Hamilton College!” the old lady cried out in petulant vexation. “I should be happy to publish his biography if I had not the college to hold me back. The Board is only too eager for information concerning Uncle Brooke. The moment the world received it, they would receive it, too. The members of that miserable Board would merely laugh at me because they had gained their point through me in a roundabout way. Whatever concessions I have made have been made recently, and only to please you girls. Most of all, to please Marjorie. My reasons for turning against the Board of Hamilton College were sound. Still, I know that in the same circumstances Uncle Brooke would have made allowance for their despicable behavior. But I am I, Susanna Hamilton, stubborn as a mule, so my father sometimes said. I can revere Uncle Brooke with all my heart, but I can’t be like him.”
