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Ebook has 126 lines and 7270 words, and 3 pages

"We won't give her that chance," nodded Ethel, emphatically. "There, I think we are ready. Clark wants to be your partner, Mrs. Dean, and Seldon is to escort Marjorie to her place. We aren't going to give her the pin until we are ready to drink the toasts. Robert Barrett is to be toastmaster. Will you go first and announce supper?"

There was a buzz of delight and admiration from the guests, as headed by Marjorie and Seldon, the little procession marched into the dining-room. For a moment the very sight of the gayly decked table with its weight of goodies and wonderful red roses caused Marjorie's brown eyes to blur. Then, as Seldon bowed her to the head of one of the tables, she winked back her tears, and nodding gayly to the eager faces turned toward her and said with her prettiest smile: "It's the very nicest surprise that ever happened to me, and I hope you will all have a perfectly splendid time to-night."

"Three cheers for Marjorie Dean! May we give them, Mrs. Dean?" called Robert Barrett.

Mrs. Dean's smiling assent was lost in the volume of sound that went up from thirty lusty young throats.

"Now, Franklin High," proposed Mary Hammond, and the Franklin yell was given by the girls. The boys, who were nearly all students at the La Fayette High School, just around the corner from Franklin, responded with their yell, and the merry little company began hunting their places and seating themselves at the tables.

Marjorie was far too much excited to eat. Her glances strayed continually down the long tables to the cheery faces of her schoolmates. It seemed almost too wonderful that her friends should care so much about her.

"Marjorie Dean, stop dreaming and eat your supper," commanded Mary, who had been covertly watching her friend. "Clark, you are sitting next to her. Make her eat her chicken salad. It's perfectly delicious."

"Will you eat your salad or must I exercise my stern authority?" began Clark, drawing down his face until he exactly resembled a certain roundly disliked teacher of mathematics in the boys' high school. There was a laugh of recognition from the boys sitting nearest to Clark. He continued to eye Marjorie severely.

"Of course, I'm going to eat my salad," declared Marjorie, stoutly. "You must give me time, though. I'm still too surprised to be hungry."

But the greatest surprise was still in store for her. When everyone had finished eating, Robert Barrett began his duties as toastmaster. Ethel Duval came first with "What Friendships Mean to a Schoolgirl," and Seldon Ames followed with a ridiculously funny little toast to "The High School Fellows." Then Mr. and Mrs. Dean were toasted, and Lillian Hale, a next-door neighbor and the only upper-class girl invited, gave solemn counsel and advice to the "freshman babies."

As Marjorie's dearest friend, to Mary had been accorded the honor of giving the farewell toast, "Aufwiedersehen," and the presentation of the pin. Mary's clear voice trembled slightly as she began the little speech which she had composed and learned for the occasion. Then her faltering tones gathered strength, and before she realized that she was actually making a speech, she had reached the most important part of it and was saying, "We wish you to keep and wear this remembrance of our good will throughout your school life in Sanford. We hope you will make new friends, and we ask only that you won't forget the old."

"I can't begin to tell you how much I thank you all," Marjorie responded, her tones not quite steady, her face lighted with a fond pride that lay very near to tears. "I shall love my butterfly all my life, and never forget that you gave it to me. I am going to call it my talisman, and I am sure it will bring me good luck."

But neither the givers nor Marjorie Dean could possibly guess that, in the days to come, the beautiful golden butterfly was to prove anything but a talisman to the popular little freshman.

THE GIRL WHO LOOKED LIKE MARY

"It's rather nice to have so much room, but I know I shall never feel quite at home here," murmured Marjorie Dean, under her breath, as she came slowly down the steps of her new home and paused for a moment in the middle of the stone walk which led to the street. Her wistful glance strayed over the stretch of lawn, still green, then turned to rest on the house, a comfortable three-story structure of wood, painted dark green, with lighter green trimmings. Her mother's sudden appearance at the window caused Marjorie to retrace her steps. Luncheon was ready.

"Everything is so different," she sighed, as she climbed the steps she had so lately descended. "I've been here a week, and I haven't met a single girl. I don't believe there are any girls in this neighborhood. I should feel a good deal worse, too, if the Franklin girls hadn't been such dears!" Marjorie's last comment, spoken half aloud, referred to the numerous letters she had received since her arrival in the town of Sanford from her Franklin High School friends, now so many miles away. Mary Raymond had not only fulfilled her promise to write one long letter every week, but had mailed Marjorie, almost daily, hurriedly-written little notes full of the news of what went on among the boys and girls she had left behind.

It had been a busy, yet a very long week for Marjorie. The unpacking of the Deans' furniture, which had been shipped to Sanford a week before their arrival there, and the setting to rights of her new home had so occupied the attention of Mrs. Dean and Nora, her faithful maid-of-all-work, that Marjorie, aside from certain tasks allotted to her to perform, was left for the most part to her own devices. As they had arrived in Sanford on Monday, Marjorie's mother had decided to give her daughter an opportunity to accustom herself to her new home and surroundings before allowing her to enter the high school. So the day for Marjorie's initial appearance in "The Sanford High School for Girls" had been set for the following Monday.

It was now Friday afternoon. Marjorie had spent the morning in writing a fifteen-page letter to Mary, the minor refrain of which was: "I can't tell you how much I miss you, Mary," and which contained views regarding her future high school career that were far from being optimistic. She had not finished her letter. She decided to leave it open until after luncheon and, laying it aside for the time, she had tripped down stairs and out doors.

"What are you going to do this afternoon, dear?" asked her mother as Marjorie slipped into place at the luncheon table.

"I don't know, Mother," was the almost doleful reply. "I thought I might take a walk up Orchard street as far as Sargent's, that cunning little confectioner's shop on the corner. Perhaps, if I go, I may see something interesting to tell Mary. I haven't finished my letter."

Marjorie did not add that her walk would include a last stroll past the towering gray walls of a certain stone building on Lincoln avenue, which bore over its massive oak doors the inscription, "The Sanford High School for Girls." Almost every day since her arrival, she had visited it, viewing it speculatively and with a curious kind of apprehension. She was not afraid to plunge into her new school life, but deep down in her heart she felt some little misgiving. What if the new girls proved to be neither likable nor companionable? What if she liked them but they did not like her? She had just begun the same apprehensive train of thought that had been disturbing her peace of mind for the last four days when her mother's voice broke the spell.

"If you are going that far I wish you would go on to Parke & Whitfield's for me. I should like you to match this embroidery silk. I have not enough of it to finish this collar and cuff set I am making for you."

"I'll be your faithful servant and execute all your commissions, mum," declared Marjorie with a little obeisance, her spirits rising a little at the prospect of actual errands to perform. She was already tired of aimlessly wandering along the wide, well-kept streets of Sanford, feeling herself to be quite out of things. Even errands were actual blessings sometimes, she decided, as a little later, she ran upstairs to dress.

"May I wear my best suit and hat, Mother?" she called anxiously down from the head of the stairs. "It's such a lovely day, I'm sure it won't rain, snow, hail or do anything else to spoil them."

"Very well," answered Mrs. Dean, placidly.

With a gurgle of delight Marjorie hurried into her room to put on her new brown suit, which had the mark of a well-known tailor in the coat, and her best hat, on which all the Franklin High girls had set their seal of approval. She had shoes and gloves to match her suit, too, and her dancing brown eyes and fluffy brown hair were the last touches needed to complete the dainty little study in brown.

"Don't I look nice in this suit?" she asked her mother saucily, turning slowly around before the living-room mirror. "Aren't you and father perfect dears to let me have it, though?" She whirled and descended upon her mother with outstretched arms, enveloping her in an ecstatic hug that sadly disturbed the proper angle of her brown velvet hat.

"Don't be gone too long," reminded her mother. "You know father has promised us tickets for the theatre to-night. We shall have an early dinner."

"All right, I'll remember, Captain." With a brisk touching of her hand to her hat brim in salute Marjorie vanished through the door, to reappear a moment later at the living-room window, flash a merry smile at her mother, about face and march down the walk in true military style.

Long before when Marjorie was a tiny girl she had shown an unusual preference for soldiers. She had owned enough wooden soldiers to make a regiment and was never at a loss to invent war games in which they figured. Sometimes, when she tired of her stiff, silent armies, which could only move as she willed, she inveigled her father or mother into being the hero, the enemy, the traitor or whatever her active imagination chose to suggest. Her parents, amused at her boyish love of military things, encouraged her in her play and entered into it with as much spirit as the child herself. Her father, who had once been an officer in the National Guard, taught her the manual of arms and she had learned it with a will.

Marjorie's military enthusiasm had been at its height when she met Mary Raymond, who soon became equally fascinated with the stirring play. In time other interests crowded their lives. The hard-worked armies were laid peacefully on their wooden backs to enjoy a long, undisturbed rest, while Marjorie and Mary became soldiers instead, addressing Mr. Dean as "General," Mrs. Dean as "Captain," and bestowing upon themselves the rank of ordinary enlisted soldiers who must earn their promotion by loyal and faithful service.

Mr. Dean had been rather chary of promotions, frequently reminding his little detachment that it is a far cry from the ranks of a private to that of a commissioned officer. So when their parting came, Mary and Marjorie had just received their commissions as second lieutenants, their awards of faithful service in the grammar school.

Lieutenant Marjorie smiled, then sighed, as she started on her walk. The salute she had just given brought a flood of memories of Mary. She felt she would not mind exploring this strange, new, high school territory if Mary were with her. She was sure no girl in Sanford could understand her as Mary had. On two different afternoons she had stood across the street from the school at the time of dismissal. She had eagerly watched the great oak doors open wide and the long lines of girls file out, waking the still October air with their merry voices. She had been particularly attracted toward one tall, lithe, graceful girl whose golden hair and brown eyes made her unusually lovely. At first sight of her, lonely, imaginative Marjorie had named her "The Picture Girl," and had decided that she was a darling. She had noticed that the pretty girl was always the center of a group and she had also noted that one small, black-haired girl with an elfish face, who wore the most exquisite clothes invariably walked at the tall girl's side. There was a pink-cheeked girl, too, with laughing blue eyes and dimples, and a fair-haired, serious-faced girl, who reminded Marjorie of Alice Duval. They usually formed part of the group about the tall girl and her dark companion, and there was also a very short, stout girl who puffed along anxiously in the rear of the group as though never quite able to catch up.

Marjorie had already imagined much concerning this particular knot of girls, and her desire to see them again before entering school was responsible for her walk down Lincoln avenue that sunny fall afternoon. She would do her errands first, she decided, then, returning by the way of the school, pass there just at the time that the afternoon session was dismissed. She went about her far-from-arduous commissions in leisurely fashion, now and then glancing at her ch?telaine watch to make sure of the time. Three o'clock saw the daily procession of girls down the high school steps, and released from classes for the day. She did not intend to miss them.

It was twenty minutes to three when Marjorie finished a remarkable concoction of nuts, chocolate syrup and ice cream, a kind of glorified nut sundae, rejoicing in the name of "Sargent Nectar," and left the smart little confectioner's shop. As she neared the school building her eyes suddenly became riveted upon a slim, blue-clad figure that hesitated for on instant at the top of the high steps then ran lightly down and came hurrying toward where she stood.

"The advance guard," declared Marjorie half aloud. Then, as her eyes sought the approaching girl: "Why, she looks like Mary! And she's been crying! I'm going to speak to her." She took an impulsive step forward as the stranger came abreast of her and began:

Marjorie's speech ended abruptly. The weeping girl cast one startled glance toward her from a pair of wet blue eyes, lunged by her without speaking and, breaking into a run, turned the corner and disappeared from view. Marjorie surveyed the back of the rapidly vanishing yellow head with rueful surprise. Then she gave a short laugh.

"I should have known better," she reflected. "Of course, she'd hardly care to tell her personal affairs to the first one who asks her. But she made me think of Mary. Oh, dear, I'm so homesick. Not even my new suit and hat can make me forget that. I wouldn't have mother know it for the world. I believe she is a wee bit homesick, too."

Marjorie paused for an instant at her accustomed place on the opposite side of the street, undecided whether to loiter there and once more watch her future companions pass out of school or to go on about her business. Suddenly the school doors swung wide and the pupils began flocking out. The little stranger yielded to the temptation to linger long enough to watch the five girls pass in whom she had become interested. They were among the last to emerge and, the moment they reached the steps, their voices rose in a confused babble, each one determined to make herself heard above the others.

"I knew she wouldn't do it," shrilled the stout girl, as they neared Marjorie. "She's too stingy for words. That's the third time she's refused to go into things with the rest of us."

"Good reasons," scornfully mimicked the little dark girl, her black eyes glittering angrily. "It was only because the plan was mine. She hates me, and you all know why. I don't think you ought to stand up for her, Muriel. You know how deceitful she is and what unkind things she said about me."

"I'm not standing up for her," contradicted Muriel, but her tones lacked force. "I only felt a little bit sorry for her. She looked ready to cry all the afternoon. I think she went home early to avoid meeting us."

Without the slightest intention of being an eavesdropper, Marjorie had heard every word of the loud-spoken conversation. Her eyes were fixed in fascination upon the dark, sharp-featured face so close to the fair, beautiful one. She suddenly recalled a picture she had once seen called "The Evil Genius," in which a dark, mocking face peered over the shoulder of a young man who sat at a table as though in deep thought. This girl's vivid face bore a slight resemblance to that of the Evil Genius, and it was not until the end of Marjorie's junior year in Sanford that this sinister impression faded and disappeared forever.

When the little company had passed on down the street, Marjorie turned and followed them from a distance. For several blocks her way lay in the same direction, but as she turned into her own street she swept a last glance toward the five girls. She wondered whom they had been discussing so freely. She was vaguely disappointed in the Picture Girl, who seemed to her independent mind too easily influenced by the Evil Genius. Marjorie had already begun to think of the small, dark girl as that. She was glad not to be the girl they had discussed. Then, her thought changing, a vision of two wet blue eyes and a tear-stained face set in fluffy yellow curls came to her, and Marjorie knew that she had seen the object of their discussion. A wave of sympathy for the offender swept over her. "I don't believe she could do anything deceitful or horrid," she reflected stoutly. "Her eyes are as true and as blue as Mary's. I'm going to like her and be her friend, if she'll let me, for she certainly seems to need one. I did so want to be friends with the Picture Girl, but I can't help wishing she had been just a little bit braver."

While Marjorie strolled thoughtfully home, deep in her own cogitations, the five girls, having joined forces again, were discussing her.

"Did you see that pretty girl standing across from the school as we came out?" asked Susan Atwell, the girl with the dimples.

"Yes," returned Irma Linton. "I noticed her there the other day, too. I wonder who she can be."

"I know all about her," interrupted Geraldine Macy. "Her father is the new manager for Preston & Haines. They only moved here from the city last week. Her name is Dean. That is, her last name. I don't know her other name."

"I am surprised that you don't know that," was the sarcastic comment of Mignon La Salle, the little dark girl.

"Don't be cross, Jerry," interrupted Mignon, hastily. "I was only teasing you." She cast a peculiar glance at the ruffled Jerry from under her heavy lashes which the young woman failed to catch. "Tell us some more about this new girl. I really didn't pay hardly any attention to her to-day."

"There isn't anything more to tell that I know of," muttered Jerry, sulkily, her desire to distribute news quite gone. "Wait until Monday and see. I know she's going to enter Sanford High and that she's a freshman."

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