Constance promptly came out of her day-dream. "You brought it all back to me," she smiled. "I was just wondering what I'd ever done to deserve such friends as I've made here in Sanford. I can't bear to think that Mary won't be with us this year."

Before Susan could reply, Jerry interrupted them with, "Come along, girls. The sooner we get settled the longer we'll have to talk."

It was a merry, light-hearted band that strolled out of the house and across the lawn to the honeysuckle-draped paG.o.da, situated at the far end of the velvety stretch of green. Mary and Marjorie brought up the rear, their arms piled high with bright-hued cushions, and the guests soon disposed themselves on the bench built circular fashion around the paG.o.da, or sought the comfort of the several wicker chairs.

Brought together again after more than two months' separation, a busy wagging of tongues was in order, mingled with the ready laughter that high-spirited youth alone knows. Everyone had something interesting to tell of her vacation and rejoiced accordingly in the telling. Father Time flew in his fleetest fashion, but no one of the group paid the slightest attention to the fact. From vacation, the conversation gradually drifted into school channels and a lively discussion of junior plans ensued.

"By the way, girls," remarked Jerry Macy with the careless a.s.sumption of casualty which was her favorite method of procedure when about to retail some amazing bit of news. "Did you know that Miss Archer almost decided to resign her position at Sanford High for one in Chicago?"

"Of course _we_ didn't know it, and _you_ know we didn't," laughed Susan Atwell. "Whenever Jerry begins with 'By the way,' and tries to look innocent you may know she has something startling to offer."

"Where on earth do you pick up all your news, Jerry?" asked Constance Stevens. "You always seem to know everything about everybody."

"Oh, it just happens to come my way," grinned Jerry. "I heard about Miss Archer from my father. He's just been elected to the Board of Education."

"She isn't really going to leave Sanford High, is she, Jerry?" An anxious frown puckered Marjorie's smooth forehead. She hated to think of high school without Miss Archer.

"No. At first she thought she would, but afterward she decided that she'd rather stay here. She told father that she had grown so fond of the dear old school she couldn't bear to leave it. I'm certainly glad she's not going to resign. If she did we might have kind, delightful Miss Merton for a princ.i.p.al. Then-_good night_!" Jerry relapsed into slang to emphasize her disgust of such a possibility.

"I shouldn't like that," Marjorie remarked bluntly. "Still, I can't help feeling a little bit sorry for Miss Merton. She shuts out all the bright, pleasant things in life and just sticks to the disagreeable ones. Sometimes I wonder if she was ever young or had ever been happy."

"She's been a regular Siberian crab-apple ever since I can remember,"

grumbled Jerry. "Why, when I was a kidlet in knee skirts she was the terror of Sanford High. I guess she must have been crossed in love about a hundred years ago." Jerry giggled a trifle wickedly.

"She was," affirmed quiet Irma with a smile, "but not a hundred years ago. I never knew it until this summer."

"Here is something I don't seem to know about," satirized Jerry. "How did that happen, I wonder?"

"Don't keep us in suspense, Irma," implored Muriel Harding. "If Miss Merton ever had a love affair it's your duty to tell us about it. I can't imagine such an impossibility. Did it happen here in Sanford? How did you come to hear of it?"

A circle of eager faces were turned expectantly toward Irma. "My aunt, whom I visited this summer, told me about it," she began. "She lived in Sanford when she was a girl and knew Miss Merton then. They went to school together. There were no high schools then; just an academy for young men and women. Miss Merton was really a pretty girl. She had pink cheeks and bright eyes and beautiful, heavy, dark hair. She had a sister, too, who wasn't a bit pretty.

"They were very quiet girls who hardly ever went to parties and never paid much attention to the boys they knew in Sanford. When Miss Merton was about eighteen and her sister twenty-one, a handsome young naval officer came to visit some friends in Sanford on a furlough. He was introduced to both sisters, and called on them two or three times. They lived with their father in that little house on Sycamore Street where Miss Merton still lives. The young ensign's furlough was nearly over when he met them, so he didn't have much time to get well acquainted with them. The night before he went away he asked Miss Merton if he might write to her and she said 'Yes.'"

"Some story," cut in Jerry. "And did he write?"

"Don't interrupt me, Jeremiah," reproved Irma. "Yes, he wrote, but--"

"Miss Merton never got the letter," supplemented the irrepressible Jerry. "That's the way it always happens in books."

"All right. You may tell the rest of it," teased Irma, her eyes twinkling.

"Someone please smother Jerry's head in a sofa cushion, so she can't interrupt," pleaded Harriet.

"Try it," challenged Jerry. "Excuse me, Irma. I solemnly promise to behave like a clam. On with the miraculous, marvelous memoirs of meritorious Miss Merton."

"Where was I? Oh, yes. The young ensign wrote, as he thought, to Miss Merton, but in some way he had confused the two sisters' first names. So he wrote to Alice Merton, her sister, instead, thinking it was our Miss Merton."

"How awful! The very idea! What a dreadful mistake!" came from the highly interested listeners.

"The sister was delighted because she liked the ensign a lot and thought he didn't care much about her. You can imagine how Miss Merton felt. She never said a word to anyone then about his asking her if he might write.

She thought he had just been flirting with her when really he had fallen in love with her. Then his ship went on a trip around the world, but he kept on writing to the sister, and at last he asked her to marry him. So they were engaged and he sent her a beautiful diamond ring. They planned to be married when he received his next furlough. But when he came to Sanford to claim his bride, he found that he had made a terrible mistake."

"What did he do then?" chorused half a dozen awed voices.

"Oh, he made the best of it and married the sister," Irma replied with a shrug. "I suppose he felt that he couldn't very well do anything else.

Perhaps he didn't have the courage to. But one day before his wedding he went to the house and found Miss Merton alone. She had been crying and he felt so sorry that he tried to find out what was the matter. Somehow they came to an understanding, but it was too late. Three or four years after that he was drowned during a storm at sea. Miss Merton never quite got over it all, and it changed her disposition, I guess."

"What a sad story." Constance Stevens' blue eyes were soft with sympathy.

"That makes Miss Merton seem like a different person, doesn't it?"

Marjorie thoughtfully knitted her brows.

"I suppose that is why she acts as though she hated young people,"

offered Mary. "We probably remind her of her cheated youth."

"She should have been particular enough to let that stupid ensign know that she was she," criticized practical Jerry. "I'm glad I haven't a sister. There's no danger of any future aspirant for my hand and heart getting me mixed with Hal."

The sentimental shadow cast upon the group by Irma's romantic tale disappeared in a gale of laughter.

"Honestly, Jerry Macy, you haven't the least idea of romance," giggled Susan. "Here Irma tells us a real love story and you spoil it all about a minute afterward."

"Can't help it," a.s.serted Jerry stoutly. "I have to say what I think."

"Oh, here come Captain and Charlie," cried Marjorie, sighting a gracious figure in white descending the steps with Charlie in tow. "That means dinner is about to be served, children. Our farewell feast to Lieutenant Mary Raymond."

CHAPTER III-THE SHIELD OF VALOR

A chorus of ohs and ahs ascended as the guests filed into a dining room, the decoration of which spelled Patriotism in large capitals. In honor of the pretty soldier play to which she and Mary had so long clung, Marjorie had decreed that the dinner should be a patriotic affair so far as decorations went. The walls of the large, attractive room were plentifully festooned with red, white and blue bunting. Flags were in evidence everywhere. From the center of the large oak table a large doll dressed as Uncle Sam held gallantly aloft the tri-colored ribbons that extended to each place. On one side of him stood a smaller doll dressed in the khaki uniform of the United States soldier. On the other, a valiant Jackie stood guard. At each cover was a small soldier doll and the place cards were tiny, folded, silk flags, each guest's name written in one of the stripes of white uppermost.

Mary occupied the seat of honor at the head of the table, with Marjorie at her right and Constance at her left. But at the departing Lieutenant's place rose an amazing pile of tissue-paper wrapped, beribboned bundles that smacked of Christmas.

"Company, attention," called Mrs. Dean from the foot of the table, the instant the party had seated themselves. "Lieutenant Raymond, you are ordered to inspect your wealth before mess."

"I-oh--" stammered the abashed Lieutenant, regarding said "wealth" in stupefaction. "All those things are not really for _me_!"

"Open them and see," directed Marjorie, her face radiant with unselfish happiness. "Every one of them holds an original poetic message. None of us knows what the other wrote. You are to read them in a loud voice and satisfy our curiosity. Now hurry up and begin."

Under a battery of smiling faces, Mary slowly undid a good-sized square bundle. With slightly shaking fingers she drew forth a white box. When opened it displayed several sizes of note paper and envelopes bearing her monogram in silver. Picking up a card she steadied her voice and read:

"You say, of course, 'I'll surely write,'

But when you've traveled out of sight, This nice white box may then remind you Of Jerry Macy, far behind you."

"I truly will write you, Jerry. Thank you." Mary beamed affectionately on the stout girl. "It's a lovely present, and my own monogram, too."