Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College.

by Jessie Graham Flower.

CHAPTER I

OVERTON CLAIMS HER OWN

"Oh, there goes Grace Harlowe! Grace! Grace! Wait a minute!" A curly-haired little girl hastily deposited her suit case, golf bag, two magazines and a box of candy on the nearest bench and ran toward a quartette of girls who had just left the train that stood puffing noisily in front of the station at Overton.

The tall, gray-eyed young woman in blue turned at the call, and, running back, met the other half way. "Why, Arline!" she exclaimed. "I didn't see you when I got off the train." The two girls exchanged affectionate greetings; then Arline was pa.s.sed on to Miriam Nesbit, Anne Pierson and J. Elfreda Briggs, who, with Grace Harlowe, had come back to Overton College to begin their second year's course of study.

Those who have followed the fortunes of Grace Harlowe and her friends through their four years of high school life are familiar with what happened during "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School,"

the story of her freshman year. "Grace Harlowe's Soph.o.m.ore Year at High School" gave a faithful account of the doings of Grace and her three friends, Nora O'Malley, Anne Pierson and Jessica Bright, during their soph.o.m.ore days. "Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School" and "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School"

told of her third and fourth years in Oakdale High School and of how completely Grace lived up to the high standard of honor she had set for herself.

After their graduation from high school the four devoted chums spent a summer in Europe; then came the inevitable separation. Nora and Jessica had elected to go to an eastern conservatory of music, while Anne and Grace had chosen Overton College. Miriam Nesbit, a member of the Phi Sigma Tau, had also decided for Overton, and what befell the three friends as Overton College freshmen has been narrated in "Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College."

Now September had rolled around again and the station platform of the town of Overton was dotted with groups of students laden with suit cases, golf bags and the paraphernalia belonging peculiarly to the college girl. Overton College was about to claim its own. The joyous greetings called out by happy voices testified to the fact that the next best thing to leaving college to go home was leaving home to come back to college.

"Where is Ruth?" was Grace's first question as she surveyed Arline with smiling, affectionate eyes.

"She'll be here directly," answered Arline. "She is looking after the trunks. She is the most indefatigable little laborer I ever saw. From the time we began to get ready to come back to Overton she refused positively to allow me to lift my finger. She is always hunting something to do. She says she has acquired the work habit so strongly that she can't break herself of it, and I believe her," finished Arline with a sigh of resignation. "Here she comes now."

An instant later the demure young woman seen approaching was surrounded by laughing girls.

"Stop working and speak to your little friends," laughed Miriam Nesbit.

"We've just heard bad reports of you."

"I know what you've heard!" exclaimed Ruth, her plain little face alight with happiness. "Arline has been grumbling. You haven't any idea what a fault-finding person she is. She lectures me all the time."

"For working," added Arline. "Ruth will have work enough and to spare this year. Can you blame me for trying to make her take life easy for a few days?"

"Blame you?" repeated Elfreda. "I would have lectured her night and day, and tied her up to keep her from work, if necessary."

"Now you see just how much sympathy these worthy soph.o.m.ores have for you," declared Arline.

"Do you know whether 19-- is all here yet?" asked Anne.

"I don't know a single thing more about it than do you girls," returned Arline. "Suppose we go directly to our houses, and then meet at Vinton's for dinner to-night. I don't yearn for a Morton House dinner. The meals there won't be strictly up to the mark for another week yet. When the house is full again, the standard of Morton House cooking will rise in a day, but until then--let us thank our stars for Vinton's. Are you going to take the automobile bus? We shall save time."

"We might as well ride," replied Grace, looking inquiringly at her friends. "My luggage is heavy and the sooner I arrive at Wayne Hall the better pleased I shall be."

"Are you to have the same rooms as last year?" asked Ruth Denton.

"I suppose so, unless something unforeseen has happened."

"Will there be any vacancies at your house this year?" inquired Arline.

"Four, I believe," replied Anne Pierson. "Were you thinking of changing?

We'd be glad to have you with us."

"I'd love to come, but Morton House is like home to me. Mrs. Kane calls me the Morton House Mascot, and declares her house would go to rack and ruin without me. She only says that in fun, of course."

"I think you'd make an ideal mascot for the soph.o.m.ore basketball team this year," laughed Grace. "Will you accept the honor?"

"With both hands," declared Arline. "Now, we had better start, or we'll never get back to Vinton's. Ruth, you have my permission to walk with Anne as far as your corner. It's five o'clock now. Shall we agree to meet at Vinton's at half-past six? That will give us an hour and a half to get the soot off our faces, and if the expressman should experience a change of heart and deliver our trunks we might possibly appear in fresh gowns. The possibility is very remote, however. I know, because I had to wait four days for mine last year. It was sent to the wrong house, and traveled gaily about the campus, stopping for a brief season at three different houses before it landed on Morton House steps. I hung out of the window for a whole morning watching for it. Then, when it did come, I fairly had to fly downstairs and out on the front porch to claim it, or they would have hustled it off again."

"That's why I appointed myself chief trunk tender," said Ruth slyly.

"That trunk story is not new to me. This time your trunk will be waiting on the front porch for you, Arline."

"If it is, then I'll forgive you your other sins," retorted Arline.

"That is, if you promise to come and room with me. Isn't she provoking, girls? I have a whole room to myself and she won't come. Father wishes her to be with me, too."

"I'd love to be with Arline," returned Ruth bravely, "but I can't afford it, and I can't accept help from any one. I must work out my own problem in my own way. You understand, don't you?" She looked appealingly from one to the other of her friends, who nodded sympathetically.

"She's a courageous Ruth, isn't she?" smiled Arline, patting Ruth on the shoulder.

At Ruth's corner they said good-bye to her. Then hailing a bus the five girls climbed into it.

"So far we haven't seen any of our old friends," remarked Grace as they drove along Maple Avenue. "I suppose they haven't arrived yet. We are here early this year."

"I'd rather be early than late," rejoined Miriam. "Last year we were late. Don't you remember? There were dozens of girls at the station when we arrived. Arline and Ruth are the first real friends we have seen so far. Where are Mabel Ashe and Frances Marlton, Emma Dean and Gertrude Wells, not to mention Virginia Gaines?"

"If I'm not mistaken," said Elfreda slowly, her brows drawing together in an ominous frown, "there are two people just ahead of us whom we have reason to remember."

Almost at the moment of her declaration the girls had espied two young women loitering along the walk ahead of them whose very backs were too familiar to be mistaken.

"It's Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton, isn't it?" asked Anne.

Grace nodded. They were now too close to the young women for further speech. A moment more and the bus containing the five girls had pa.s.sed the loitering pair. Neither side had made the slightest sign of recognition. A sudden silence fell upon the little company in the bus.

"It is too bad to begin one's soph.o.m.ore year by cutting two Overton girls, isn't it?" said Grace, in a rueful tone.

"Overton girls!" sniffed Elfreda. "I consider neither Miss Wicks nor Miss Hampton real Overton girls."

"They should be by this time," reminded Miriam Nesbit mischievously.

"They have been here a year longer than we have."

"Years don't count," retorted Elfreda. "It's having the true Overton spirit that counts. You girls understand what I mean, even if Miriam tries to pretend she doesn't."

"Of course we understand, Elfreda," soothed Anne. "Miriam was merely trying to tease you."

"Don't you suppose I know that?" returned Elfreda. "I know, too, that you don't wish me to say anything against those two girls. All right, I won't, but I warn you, I'll keep on thinking uncomplimentary things about them. Last June, after that ghost party, I promised Grace I would never try to get even with Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton, but I didn't promise to like them, and if they attempt to interfere with me this year, they'll be sorry."

"Oh, there's the campus!" exclaimed Arline as, turning into College Street, the long green slope, broken at intervals by magnificent old trees, burst upon their view. "h.e.l.lo, Overton Hall!" she cried, waving her hand to that stately building. "Doesn't the campus look like green plush, though! I love every inch of it, don't you?" She looked at her companions and, seeing the light from her face reflected on theirs, needed no verbal answer to her question. A moment later she signaled to the driver to stop the bus. "I shall have to leave you here," she said.

"I'll see you at Vinton's at six-thirty."