hand, and came to an abrupt stop on the deserted platform. She stood still, casting a faintly disconsolate glance about her. It was hard, indeed, to believe that this empty space with the warm friendly sunshine streaming down upon it was Hamilton station, endeared to her by the memory of many happy meetings and cheerful goodbyes on the part of student friends.
“What had I better do?” was her next thought. “What a goose I was not to tear Jeremiah from the beach and bring her with me. Robin’s missing from the picture. That means I’ll have to be on the watch for her. How I’d like to walk in on Miss Remson at Wayland Hall this afternoon! Wouldn’t she be surprised, though?”
Marjorie cast a meditative glance toward the staid drowsy town of Hamilton. Robina Page, her classmate and partner of the good little firm of “Page and Dean,” as their chums liked to call them, had written that she would meet Marjorie at the station. From her handbag Marjorie extracted Robin’s latest letter to her. She glanced it over hurriedly. Yes; it read: “Friday afternoon, July 25th. I’ll be at the station to meet the three-twenty train. Don’t dare disappoint me.”
“It looks as though I’d be the one to meet the trains,” she murmured under her breath. Always quick to decide she made the choice between waiting patiently in the station building for the next train Robin could arrive on, or seeking the grateful coolness of the Ivy, in favor of the dainty tea shop. The train Robin might be on would not arrive until five-thirty.
Picking up her traveling bag which she had momentarily deposited on the platform Marjorie moved briskly toward the flight of worn stone steps leading to the station yard.
“If Robin shouldn’t be on the five-thirty train I suppose I’d best go to the Congress Hotel and stay there until tomorrow. If I should go on to the campus alone, I’d miss seeing her; that is, if she should arrive tonight. I’ll fairly absorb time tables and meet all the trains tonight except the very late ones,” was Marjorie’s energetic resolve as she swung buoyantly along the smooth wide stone walk. The brief moment of depression which she had felt at sight of the empty station platform had now vanished. She was again her sunny self, animated and bubbling over with the desire for action.
She was so intent upon her own affairs she quite failed to see three laughing faces frame themselves suddenly in a screened window of the station. Almost instantaneous with their appearance they were withdrawn. Their owners made a noiseless, speedy exit from the waiting room and flitted through the open doorway which led to a square of green lawn behind the building bounded by cinder drives.
Giggling softly as they ran the stealthy trio gathered in a compact little group at a rear corner of the building which Marjorie must pass on her way across the yard to the street.
“I’ll relieve you of that bag, lady,” croaked a harsh, menacing voice. The bag was snatched from Marjorie’s hand in a twinkling.
“Hands up!” ordered a second voice, only a shade less menacing than that of the first bandit.
“Boo, boo-oo, woo-oo-oo!” roared a third outlaw. The final “oo” ended in a sound suspiciously like a chuckle.
Completely surrounded by an apparently merciless and lawless three Marjorie had not attempted to retrieve the traveling bag. Instead she had pounced upon the smallest of the bandits with a gurgle of surprised delight.
“Vera Mason, you perfect darling! Where did you come from, Midget, dear?” Marjorie laughingly quoted as she warmly kissed tiny Vera.
“Out of the everywhere into the here,” Vera carelessly waved an indefinite hand and smiled up at Marjorie in her charming, warm-hearted fashion.
“And you, Leila Greatheart! So you’ve turned highwayman! I am pretty sure that I am the first victim. Very likely you planned with your partners in crime to practice on me. Give me my bag, you old villain.” Marjorie shook a playful fist at Leila.
The widely smiling Irish girl merely reached out her strong arms, gleaming whitely against her dark blue gown, and gathered Marjorie into them. She kissed her on both cheeks, then placed a finger under Marjorie’s chin and gazed admiringly at her.
“Beauty is Beauty, at home or abroad,” she declared lightly. “And it’s myself that has longed for a sight of you, little, beautiful lieutenant.”
“Don’t monopolize the victim,” protested an aggrieved voice. Robin Page now made an attempt to pry Marjorie free from Leila’s close embrace.
“Robin Page, you wicked girl! So this is the way you meet me at the station!” Marjorie hugged and kissed Robin with fresh enthusiasm.
“You will kindly blame these two rascals here for the hold-up,” laughed Robin. “This pair, Lawless Leila and Vera, the Midge, are quite capable of dark deeds. Aren’t those names I made up for them dandy? I’m going to write a play this year, a real melodrama, and have them play the leads under those very names. That’s an inspiration born of this hold-up,” she added in her bright fashion.
“And to think I was ever sad a minute over you three blessed geese!” Marjorie looked from one to another of her chums, her eyes bright with affection. “I thought of you all as I was leaving the train and was so sorry that you were, as I supposed, so far away. And all the time you were hanging around a corner fairly aching to hold me up. Oh, I’m so glad to see you! I’ve been looking forward to seeing Robin, but I never dreamed such good fortune as this was in store for me.”
“She means us.” Vera gave Leila a significant nudge.
“She does that,” Leila purposely lapsed into a brogue. “And it’s something grand I’ll be saying to her yet, but not till I know myself what I’m going to say.”
“Oh, never mind the blarney. Just tell me how you happen to be here,” begged Marjorie, tucking an arm into Robin’s. “Not one letter have I had from either of you since the Dean family went down to Severn Beach, and only one apiece since college closed. I may not be a prompt correspondent, but – ”
“Tell me nothing.” Leila put up a defensive hand. She was laughing behind it. “Isn’t it I who know my own failings?”
“You ought to know by this time that you are a flivver as a correspondent,” Marjorie condemned with pretended severity. “I thought, when I did not hear from you, that you and Midget had really gone to Ireland for the summer. You know you talked of taking the trip last spring. I supposed – ”
“I was busy pointing out the Blarney Stone to Midget and capturing banshees and leprechauns for her to play with,” interposed Leila. “No, Beauty; not this summer. Truth is truth. We did talk about a visit to the Emerald Isle during the summer, but Commencement morning changed all that. Midget and I planned then to come to Hamilton instead and give you a mid-summer welcome. Why, Midget and I said to each other, should we go gallivanting about old Ireland when the good little firm of Page and Dean would be working their dear heads off at Hamilton?”
“Why, indeed?” echoed Vera. “We’re here to stay as long as you and Robin stay.”
“We’ve been at Wayland Hall for a week waiting for you two promoters to appear. We didn’t know the exact date of your appearance, or which one of you would appear first,” Leila informed Marjorie.
“You talk as though Robin and I were a couple of rare elusive comets,” Marjorie joked.
“You’re a couple of rare, elusive P. G.s whose present mission is to lighten and gladden Leila’s and my declining years,” retorted Vera. “That’s the real reason you came to Hamilton this July, though you may not have suspected
