“Affectionately, “Susanne Craig Hamilton.”
Marjorie raised her head from the reading of this comforting letter, her whole face radiant with returned good cheer. “I feel all ‘chirked’ up again. Jeremiah.” She patted the letter and laid it against her cheek. “The persons who wrote those other two letters are only the shadows; mean, skulking shadows that can’t bear the light. Miss Susanna is the substance. That’s why I love her so much.”
“You’re an April Bean,” was Jerry’s indulgent but irrelevant reply. “One minute you cloud over and the next you shine. Now listen to my ambitions. I’m going to shadow some of those skulking shadows you just mentioned and solve the riddle of who writ the wrote. The weary chase may lead me over land and sea, or, at least, all over the campus. Then Bean,” Jerry raised a melodramatic hand above her head, “beloved Bean, your wrongs shall be avenged.”
Saturday, the sixth of November, found a buoyant band of Travelers taking the well worn road to the dormitory site. They had decided to walk rather than ride, having agreed that there would be an elation of spirit attending that happy march which the little journey, if made by automobile, could not furnish.
Whatever plans Miss Susanna had made for the auspicious occasion she had not divulged. She had talked with them freely enough concerning the laying of the cornerstone on the Sunday evening on which they had had tea at the Arms. She had playfully ordered her young friends each to think of some good wish they might offer in behalf of the dormitory. Each was then to put her wish on paper, seal the paper in an envelope and have it ready to cast into the hollowed space of the cornerstone itself.
The day before the ceremony Miss Susanna had sent a note to Jerry by Jonas requesting her to be at the Arms by two o’clock on the Saturday afternoon of the eventful day. Jerry had not the least idea of why she should suddenly have come into demand by the erratic old lady of the Arms. To hear Miss Susanna, or rather to hear from her, was to obey. Jerry marched off to the Arms dressed in a most “spiffy” fall suit of a new shade of blue that became her vastly.
At the dormitory where the confusion of demolishment had reigned so long, all was now in order, the order of progressive building. The ground above the vast cellar where the stone foundation would rise had been leveled, all debris had been cleared away and the great cornerstone placed ready for its descent into place.