“My last A string,” mourned a voice. “I’ll have to go clear to town for another. How provoking!”
Marjorie knocked three times in quick succession on the door, hers and Robin’s particular rap. There was a scurry of light feet across the floor then Robin joyfully opened the door.
“What luck!” she exulted as she did a pleased little prance around the callers. “I was coming over to Wayland Hall directly after dinner. I’ve such a lot of things to get off my chest.” She sighed. “I’m fairly stuffed with responsibility. Hello, Muriel Harding. I haven’t seen you for as much as two days. Where have you been keeping yourself? I want you for a singing number I’m going to have in our first show. We’re going to open with a revue, you know.”
“My A string just snapped,” Phyllis Moore was ruefully informing Marjorie. “So aggravating. I was going to put in two hours of practice this evening. The only store in Hamilton where I can get another string closes at five o’clock. Goodness knows when I’ll be imbued again with such a laudable desire to practice.”
“You couldn’t practice tonight if you had fifty A strings,” Marjorie told her. “The time has come to open the box, Phil.”
“Oh, lovely!” Phyllis’ charming face lighted with pleasure. “Away with practice.” She waved both arms outward with a buoyant releasing gesture.
“You’re to come over to Wayland Hall now; you and Robin. Where’s Barbara?”
“In her room, stuck with a theme. Hope she’s struggled through it by this time. If she hasn’t, I’ll make her leave it; just as though it was a finished literary triumph. I’ll go for her now.” Phil dashed out the door and down the hall to Barbara Severn’s room.
She returned in an incredibly short space of time with Barbara, the latter in outdoor attire.
“Hello, Red Bird,” greeted Muriel. “Who so gay as you?” She shook Barbara by both hands, then turned her around so as to inspect her coat and cap of a wonderful shade of deep crimson, the gorgeous hue accentuated by wide collar, cuffs and bandings of bear’s fur. “What a love of a coat and cap!”
“Isn’t it, though? I am always planning to waylay Barbara on the campus some fine dark evening and strip her of that de luxe red coat and cap.” Phil made threatening eyes at Barbara.