“Want to go for a ride with me?” Leslie invited as the three went upstairs, bound for their rooms.
“We can’t. We’ve been shamefully lazy since we came to the Hall. Neither of us are more than half unpacked. We made each other a solemn promise to do the job up brown before going bye-bye tonight,” Vera said with a sigh.
“And we are persons of our word. You know just how it will be if we keep putting off unpacking. We shall be flitting gaily about, here, and there, with our friends descending hungrily upon us, and our poor possessions still in a fine muddle. ‘Take time by the forelock.’ So we shall firmly grab the forelock, and give it a strenuous jerk,” Leila finished with energy.
“Go to it! Attaboy! Maybe I’ll see you later; maybe not.” Leslie left the industry-declared pair at the door of her room. The door closed, she went over to a wicker chair beside one of the windows, meditatively seating herself. She was wishing that the inquisitive little freshie she had brought to the Hall from the station had not proposed herself as a roommate to her.
“Nope I can’t see it that way,” she presently said aloud. “There’s no reason why I should. Miss Remson would back me up in that.” Her eyes roved about the luxuriously-appointed room, a gleam of pride in their dark depths. “Some room,” she nodded, with a sigh of satisfaction. She smiled a little, anticipating Marjorie’s friendly delight at the beauty of her “den.” “I’ll have a ‘den-warming’ next week for the Travelers,” she murmured.
Thought of Marjorie, and her smile vanished gradually, leaving her rugged features darkly overcast. Marjorie, to whom she owed the change of heart which had brought her nothing except happiness, Leslie regarded as a guiding spirit. Given the same circumstances, it had now occurred to her to wonder what Marjorie would do. She thereupon began arguing with herself that even Marjorie might easily feel as she felt about giving up the comfortable privacy of a “single” to a stranger, merely because the stranger in question had set her mind upon living at Wayland Hall. Yet, in her heart, she misdoubted the strength of her own argument.
“‘Remember the stranger within the gates,’” was the final pertinent fling of her mind at her as she left her room and went soberly down the stairs. She was tempted to stop in Miss Remson’s office, there to inquire what had become of her freshman “catch.” She went on out of the house instead, deciding to seek the manager on her return from the ride.