“No,” replied Gloria. “I’m sure we haven’t, for I helped one of the teachers make the list for the year book. There wasn’t any such name.”
“Because her mother’s things were taken from the tent when I was attending to my sick husband. I always insist on each article being doubly checked up so that there can be no mistake, but while I was away Stella, my assistant, had the wardrobe in charge. Dear me!” she exclaimed suddenly, “that hack is gone and look at the time!”
She held out her hand and displayed a very pretty wrist watch.
With a little gasp Gloria realized that her morning was gone, and with it the prize essay faded further and further away from becoming even a possibility. The young girl in the commercial department who was to type it for her, would probably have given up expecting the “copy,” which was to have been handed her in installments during the morning. And this was the very last day! There was no hiding her disappointment, and Jane quickly discerned it.
“What is it, Glory?” she asked. “Missed your classes or something?”
“No, I had a day off without classes,” replied Gloria, retrieving her smile. “But I had no idea it was so late. Mrs. Corday has told us such an interesting story----”
“I feel as if I had been shot out of a cannon,” declared Mrs. Corday, sending a critical hand over her side hair, then smoothing down the closely fitted lines of her smart coat. “Really, I can’t believe I’m awake. First it was the shock of Jack’s accident, then the indignation I felt when I believed those old Alton ladies were plotting to keep me from her. You see, I have had so much of that sort of thing from tricky lawyers. But the cap to the climax came when this little trinket clinked at your feet, Gloria. I love to say the name. It is like a--like a blessing, somehow.”
The owner of the name looked like a blessing fulfilled just then, but she was soon forced to spoil the tableau by helping Jane with her bonnet and coat.
Mrs. Corday seemed more agitated than ever. She insisted upon paying the full check and Gloria noticed she left a generous “tip” on the table for the girl in the Priscilla costume. And the natural color surmounting the artificial in her florid face, betrayed a state of keen excitement.