"I am very well, thank you. I hope you are feeling well, too, Miss Susanna."
Marjorie took the small, st.u.r.dy hand Miss Susanna extended in both her own. The mistress of Hamilton Arms looked so very tiny in the great room. Marjorie experienced a wave of sudden tenderness for her.
"Yes; I am well, by the grace of G.o.d and my own good sense," returned her hostess in her brisk, almost hard tones. "You are prompt to the hour, child. I like that. I hate to be kept waiting. I have my tea at precisely five o"clock. It is years since I had a guest to tea. Sit down there." She indicated a straight chair with an ornamental leather back and seat. "Jonas will bring the tea table in directly, and serve the tea. Take off your hat and lay it on the library table. I wish to see you without it."
She had not more than finished speaking, when the snowy-haired servitor wheeled in a good-sized rosewood tea-table. He drew it up to where Marjorie sat, and brought another chair for the mistress of Hamilton Arms similar to the one on which the guest was sitting. Withdrawing from the room, he left youth and age to take tea together.
"Who would have thought that I should ever pour tea for one of my particular aversions," Miss Susanna commented with grim humor. "Do you take sugar and cream, child?"
"Two lumps of sugar and no cream." Marjorie held out her hand for the delicate Sevres cup.
"Help yourself to the m.u.f.fins and jam. It is red raspberry. I put it up myself. Now eat as though you were hungry. I am always ravenous for my tea. I do not have dinner until eight and I am outdoors so much I grow very hungry as five o"clock approaches."
"I am awfully hungry," Marjorie confessed. "I love five o"clock tea. We have it at home in summer but not in winter. We girls at Hamilton hardly ever have it, because we have dinner shortly after six."
"At what campus house are you?" was the abrupt question.
"Wayland Hall. I like it best of all, though Silverton Hall is a fine house."
"Wayland Hall," the old lady repeated. "It was his favorite house."
"You are speaking of Mr. Brooke Hamilton?" Marjorie inquired with breathless interest. "Miss Remson said it was his favorite house. He was so wonderful. "We shall ne"er see his like again,"" she quoted, her brown eyes eloquent.
Miss Susanna stared at her in silence, as though trying to determine the worth of Marjorie"s unexpected remarks.
"He _was_ wonderful," she said at last. "I am amazed at your appreciation of him. You _are_ an amazing young person, I must say. How much do you know concerning my great uncle that you should have arrived at your truly high opinion of him?"
"I know very little about him except that he loved Hamilton and planned it n.o.bly." Marjorie"s clear eyes looked straight into her vis-a-vis"s sharp dark ones. "I have asked questions. I have treasured every sc.r.a.p of information about him that I have heard since I came to Hamilton College. No one seems to know much of him except in a general way."
"That is true. Well, the fault lies with the college." The reply hinted of hostility. "Perhaps I will tell you more of him some day. Not now; I am not in the humor. I must get used to having you here first. I try to forget that you are from the college. I told you I did not like girls. I may call you an exception, child. I realized that after you had left me, the day you helped me to the cottage with the chrysanthemums. I was cheered by your company. I am pleased with your admiration for him. He was worthy of it."
As on the day of her initial meeting with Brooke Hamilton"s great niece, Marjorie was again at a loss as to what to say next. She wished to say how greatly she revered the memory of the founder of Hamilton College.
In the face of Miss Susanna"s declaration that she did not wish to talk of him, she could not frame a reply that conveyed her reverence.
"Try these cakes. They are from an old recipe the Hamiltons have used for four generations. Ellen, my cook, made these. I seldom do any baking now. I used to when younger. I spend most of my time out of doors in good weather. Let me have your cup."
Her hostess tendered a plate of delicate little cakes not unlike macaroons. Marjorie helped herself to the cakes and forebore asking questions about Brooke Hamilton. Miss Susanna had partially promised to tell her of him some day. She could do no more than possess her soul in patience.
"What do you do in winter, Miss Hamilton, when you can"t be out?" she questioned interestedly. "Do you live at Hamilton Arms the year round?"
"Yes; I have not been away from here for a number of years. In winter I read and embroider. I do plain sewing for the poor of Hamilton. Jonas takes baskets of clothing and necessities to needy families in the town of Hamilton. "The poor ye have always with ye," you know."
"I know," Marjorie affirmed, her lovely face growing momently sad.
"Captain, I mean, my mother, does a good deal of such work in Sanford. I have helped her a little. During our last year at high school a number of us organized a club. We called ourselves the Lookouts and we rented a house and started a day nursery for the mill children. The house was in their district."
"And how long did you keep it up?" was the somewhat skeptical inquiry.
"Oh, it is running along beautifully yet." Marjorie laughed as she made answer.
"I am more amazed than before. A club of girls usually hangs together about six weeks. Each girl feels that she ought to be at the head of it and in the end a grand falling-out occurs." Miss Susanna"s eyes were twinkling. This time her remarks were not pointedly ill-natured. "You are to tell me about this club," she commanded.
Marjorie complied, giving her a brief history of the day nursery.
"Are any of your Lookouts here at Hamilton with you?" she was interrogated.
"Four of them. One, Lucy Warner, won a scholarship to Hamilton." Now on the subject, Marjorie determined to make a valiant stand for her chums.
She therefore told of the offering of the scholarship by Ronny and of Lucy"s brilliancy as a student. She told of Lucy"s ability as a secretary and of how much she had done to help herself through college.
She did not forget to speak of Katherine Langly, and her exceptional winning of a scholarship especially offered by Brooke Hamilton.
"I had no idea there were any such girls over there." The old lady spoke half to herself. "I might have known there would be some apostles."
"Miss Susanna,"-Marjorie decided that this would be the best time to acquaint her hostess with what she had purposed to tell her,-"I told my intimate friends of meeting you the day the basket handle broke. I thought you ought to know that. You had asked me in your letter not to mention to anyone that I was coming here. I did not say a word to anyone of the letter. I would ask my chums not to mention what I told them about meeting you in the first place, but, if I do, they will wish to know why."
"Humph!" The listener used Jerry"s pet interjection. "Where did you tell them you were going today? Some of them must have seen you as you came away."
"No; they were all out except one girl. She was busy writing a theme."
"What would you have told them if they had seen you?" Miss Hamilton eyed the young girl searchingly.
"I would have said I was going out and hoped they wouldn"t feel hurt if I didn"t tell them my destination. What else could I have said?" It was Marjorie"s turn to fix her gaze upon her hostess.
"Nothing else, by rights. If I allowed you to tell your chums, as you call them, that you were here today, would they keep your counsel? How many of them would have to know it?" The older woman"s face had softened wonderfully.
Marjorie thought for an instant. "Eight," she answered. "They are honorable. I would like to tell them."
"Very well, you may." The permission came concisely. "I will take your word for their discretion. I have my own proper reasons for not wishing to be gossiped about on the campus. I wish you to come again. I do not wish your visits to be a secret. I abhor that kind of secrecy. Perhaps in time I shall not care if the whole college knows. At present what they do not know will not hurt them. In the words of my distinguished uncle, "Be not secret; be discreet.""
CHAPTER XI-COMPARING NOTES
Tea over, Jonas removed the tea-table and Miss Susanna waved her guest toward a leather-covered arm chair. Changing her own chair for one corresponding to Marjorie"s, Miss Hamilton proceeded to ply Marjorie with interested questions concerning her college course. She exhibited a kind of repressed eagerness to hear of the college and her guest"s doings there.
The tall rosewood floor clock had chimed six, then again the musical stroke of half hour, before Marjorie found graceful opportunity to take her leave. She was willing to stay longer, but was not certain that her erratic hostess would wish her to do so. The shadows had begun to fall across the sombre elegance of the library and the October twilight would soon be upon them.
Miss Susanna made no effort to detain her beyond saying: "So you think you must go. Well, you will be coming again soon to see me. You have given me much to think of." She accompanied Marjorie to the front door, giving her a warm handshake in parting. Marjorie noticed, however, that her small face wore a pensive expression quite at variance with her accustomed alert demeanor. It gave her the appearance of great age, though her brown hair was only partially streaked with gray. Marjorie thought she could not be much more than sixty years old.
A happy little smile touched the pleased lieutenant"s lips as she hurried toward the campus through the gathering twilight. Far from being dissatisfied at not hearing more of Brooke Hamilton, she was blissfully content with her visit. Miss Susanna had promised to tell her of him.
She had given her consent to allowing Marjorie to inform her chums of her visit to Hamilton Arms. She had actually set foot in the house of her dreams. The two rooms she had seen had more than justified her expectations of what it would be like inside.
Dinner was on when she reached Wayland Hall. Marjorie had fared too well on hot m.u.f.fins, jam, cakes, and the most delicious tea she had ever drunk, to care for anything more to eat.
"Where, may I ask, have you been keeping yourself?" saluted Jerry about twenty minutes after Marjorie"s return. Coming into their room she beheld her missing room-mate calmly preparing her French lesson for the next day. "Why don"t you go and have your dinner? Or have you had it?"
"I have had tea instead of dinner. I couldn"t eat another mouthful to save me. "An" ye hae been where I hae been,"" hummed Marjorie mischievously.