Grace Harlowe's Problem Part 4

"I'm as busy as can be, but I can't resist the call to my old haunts,"

laughed Grace. "Besides, it's such a perfect day. Leave your bags in the living room, girls. I feel highly honored to know that you and Kathleen came straight to me, Patience."

"The old case of the needle and the magnet," explained Patience with a careless wave of her hand.

"Oh, Miss Harlowe I'm so glad to see you," was Mary Reynolds' fervent tribute.

"So am I," declared Evelyn Ward, with an emphatic nod of her golden head. "I've had a perfectly wonderful summer, Miss Harlowe. I loved my part. It hasn't been very hot in New York City, either, and I spent my Sundays and some of my week days with the Southards at their Long Island summer home. I have thought of you many times. I hope you'll forgive me for not writing you oftener. Kathleen and I came down on the same train." She poured forth all this information almost in a breath.

"Of course I'll forgive you," returned Grace. "I'm a very lax correspondent, too. I'm so glad you've been well, and that you liked your part."

"You should have seen her in it, Grace," put in Kathleen. "She made an adorable Constance Devon, and her gowns were beautiful. The girl who understudied her, and who will play the part on the road, isn't half so stunning. Patience saw her, too."

"She was a credit to herself and Overton," verified Patience.

"I thank you, most grave and reverend seniors." Evelyn, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with the pleasure of well-earned praise, made a low bow to Patience and Kathleen.

"'Most grave and reverend seniors,'" repeated Grace, slipping in between her two friends, her hand on an arm of each.

Kathleen's sharp black eyes grew tender with the love she bore Grace.

"Yes," came her soft answer, "Patience and I are seniors at last. We've reached Senior Lane, and I hope to leave some milestones as we pa.s.s through it. Dear as the others have been, I'd like to rise to greater heights this year. I don't know just what I'd like to do," she flushed and laughed at her own enthusiasm, "but I'd like to do something worth while."

"So would I," murmured Evelyn Ward.

"I want to be friends with every one, and not be conditioned," was Mary Reynolds' modest pet.i.tion.

"_I_ don't know just what sort of milestones I'd like to leave. Only decorative ones, of course. I wish to keep my lane free from weeds and ugly, jagged rocks." This from Patience.

"You might begin at once and leave a milestone at Vinton's, for being a willing, little reveler," suggested Emma with meaning.

"Come on, girls," rallied Kathleen. "We must show Emma just how willing we are. Allow me, my dear Miss Dean," she offered her arm to Emma, and they paraded down the hall, out the door and down the steps with great ceremony. Mary, Grace, Patience and Evelyn followed. Patience walked with Evelyn, while Grace and Mary brought up the rear.

"Oh, Miss Harlowe," began Mary, with intense earnestness, "you haven't any idea of how much Kathleen--she likes me to call her Kathleen--has done for me this summer. I knew last spring that I must earn my living through the summer, in some way, but I never dreamed that it would be in such a nice way."

"I am anxious to hear all about it," returned Grace. "When you wrote me that Kathleen had secured work for you on her paper I was so pleased."

"Yes, I was the a.s.sistant on the woman's page," related Mary. "Of course my work wasn't so very important. It was mostly clipping things from other papers, but I used to write the paragraph under the fas.h.i.+on drawings, and sometimes I went out to the big department stores to look for interesting new fads and fas.h.i.+ons for women. Three times I wrote short articles, so you see I actually appeared in print. Kathleen made me take half of her room, and so my board wasn't very expensive. My salary was fifteen dollars a week. I have enough new clothes to last me all winter, and I've saved eighty-five dollars. That will help pay my tuition this year, and Kathleen is sure she can sell some children's stories I've written. Wouldn't it be glorious, Miss Harlowe, if some day I'd become a writer?" Mary's eyes shone with the distant prospect of future honors.

"It looks to me as though you were on the right road," encouraged Grace.

"The only thing to do is to keep on writing. The more you write the easier it will become--that is, if you are really gifted. Kathleen has great faith in you. You must show her that it is well founded."

"How inspiring you are, Miss Harlowe." Mary looked her grat.i.tude at Grace's hopeful words; then she added in a slightly lower tone: "I'm so glad everything went so beautifully for Evelyn. I saw her twice in 'The Reckoning.' She looked _beautiful_, and her acting was so clever.

She--she told me of her own accord about"--Mary hesitated--"things. It would have hurt me dreadfully if Evelyn had not come back to Overton. I love her dearly."

Grace nodded sympathetically. She understood the remarkable effect of Evelyn's beauty upon Mary. Still, she reflected, it had not been potent enough to lure Mary from standing by her colors at the crucial moment.

Grace realized that this poor orphan girl, whose only home was Harlowe House, possessed a steadfast, upright nature that must in time win her not only scores of loyal friends, but the respect of all who knew her, as well.

A sudden trill from Kathleen caused them to quicken their steps. The others were standing in front of Vinton's, waiting for them. Once inside the pretty tea room that had been the scene of so many of their revels, with one accord they made for the alcove table.

"Shades of Arline Thayer," laughed Emma. "I am haunted by her. I can see her sitting in that chair, her little hands folded on the table, saying, 'What are we going to eat, girls?' She loved this alcove and every stick and stone of Vinton's. She never cared so much for Martell's."

By this time they had seated themselves at the round table and begun to order their luncheon. Vinton's was productive of reminiscences, and they were soon deep in the discussion of past events, grave and gay, that had dotted their college life. Evelyn and Mary were for the most part listeners, but Grace, Patience, Emma and Kathleen fairly bubbled over with by-gone college history.

"I love to hear about the things that happened to Miss Harlowe and Miss Dean when they were students," confided Mary to Evelyn under cover of a general laugh over one of Emma Dean's ridiculous reminiscences.

"So do I," nodded Mary, then she added in a still lower tone, "Have you noticed the girl at the table near the door, Evelyn. She came in about ten minutes ago, and she's watched this table every second since she came."

"Yes, I noticed her. She's pretty, isn't she? That's a stunning suit she is wearing. Her hat is miles above reproach, too." Evelyn could not repress her admiration for beautiful clothes.

At that moment Kathleen spoke to her and she turned to answer the latter's question. When next her eyes turned toward the pretty girl it was just as they were leaving the tea shop. Evelyn was the last member of the s.e.xtette to pa.s.s the table. She glanced at the girl only to note that she was searching a small leather bag frantically, a look of indescribable alarm in her eyes. "It's gone," she said, half aloud.

Something prompted Evelyn to halt. "Good afternoon," she said. "I heard--that is--can I help you?"

A shade of annoyance darkened the stranger's face. It was replaced by an expression of fright. "I've lost my money," she said in a dazed voice.

"It was all I had. I can't pay for my luncheon. I don't know what to do." Her voice rose to an anxious note.

"Give me your check," said Evelyn quietly. "I'll pay the cas.h.i.+er. You can pay me later."

"Oh, thank you," breathed the girl. "You don't know how I hated the idea of going to the cas.h.i.+er and telling her I had no money. I'm _so_ worried about my purse. I had over a hundred dollars in it. I haven't seen it since I left the train. Just before we reached Overton I went into the lavatory to fix my hair. I laid my bag down. There was another woman there at the mirror. She must have slipped her fingers into my bag and taken my purse, for when I picked up the bag it was open. I snapped it shut and paid no attention to it then. I didn't think of it until I reached for my purse to count out the money for my luncheon."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Evelyn, sympathetically. "I know just how worried you must feel. Just wait a second." She picked up the check, which was for a small amount, went over to the desk, and paid the bill.

Then she hurried back to her companion. "Everything is all right now,"

she declared, "but if you have no money you had better come with me. I will introduce you to Miss Harlowe. My name is Evelyn Ward."

"Miss Harlowe, of Harlowe House?" interrupted the girl.

"Yes, do you know her?"

"I don't know her yet, but I'm going to live at Harlowe House. So I expect to know her. My name is Jean Brent. Perhaps you've heard of me. A friend of mine helped me to get the chance to live at Harlowe House."

"Have I heard of you?" laughed Evelyn. "I should say I had. Isn't it funny how things happen? Why, you are to be my roommate."

CHAPTER V

THE LOCKED DOOR

When Evelyn and Jean Brent reached the street it was to find the other young women grouped together in conversation, and not at all alarmed at Evelyn's non-appearance.

"We weren't worried," Emma Dean a.s.sured her. "We've all been known to lag and loiter."

"I lagged and loitered to some purpose," defended Evelyn. "Miss Harlowe, this is Miss Brent, my roommate." She introduced the stranger to the others.

Grace's hand was extended in surprised welcome. "We have been looking for you since Monday," she said. "You are the girl who sat at the end table at Vinton's. If I had known you were Miss Brent I would have asked you to join us. I am so glad Miss Ward broke the ice. How did it happen?"

"I had lost my purse," returned the girl, rather shyly, in spite of her air of self-possession. Then rea.s.sured by Grace's charming manner, she told her story.