"I'll do the honors, Delia. You can look after mother and Mr. Raymond. We are very self-sufficient persons who don't need anything except a chance to go upstairs and talk ourselves hoarse."
A wide smile irradiated the maid's goodnatured face, as she stepped aside to allow Marjorie and Mary to enter the hall.
"What a darling house!" Mary's glance traveled about the pretty Dutch hall to the large, comfortable living room beyond. "You have oceans of room here, haven't you?"
Marjorie nodded. "Yes; when first we came here I felt lost. It was actually lonesome. It took me a whole week to grow accustomed to looking out without seeing rows of brick houses across the street and on each side of me. Don't you remember, I wrote you all about it? You see, I didn't enter high school until we'd been here almost two weeks, and in all that time I never met a single girl. I felt like a shipwrecked sailor on a great, big, lonely, old island. Shall we go upstairs now? I'm so anxious to have you see my 'house.' It's a house within a house, you know. Mother had it all done up in pink and white for me, and I spent hours in it. Your house is blue. I made general and captain let me have one of the spare bedrooms done in blue, so that when you came to visit me you'd feel at home. And now it's going to be your very own for a whole year! It's too good to be true."
Releasing Mary's hand, Marjorie led the way up the stairs to the second floor and down the short hall to her "house." Mary cried out in admiration at her friend's dainty room. She walked about, exclaiming over its perfect details after the manner of girls, then three minutes later the two somehow found themselves seated side by side on Marjorie's pretty white bed, their arms about each other's waists, and fairly launched into one of the good, old-time confabs they were wont to indulge in when the top step of the Deans' veranda in B – had been their favorite trysting place.
Half an hour later Mrs. Dean entered the room to find them still talking at an alarming rate, the rest of their world apparently forgotten.
"I might have known it," she smiled. "Why, you haven't even taken off your hats, and dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Marjorie, you are a most neglectful hostess."
"Oh, we don't mind having dinner with our hats on," returned Marjorie cheerfully. Then, rising, she took off her broad-brimmed Panama, and began gently pulling the pins from Mary's hat. "Make it fifteen minutes, instead of ten, Captain, and we'll be as spick and span as you please."
"Discipline seems to be very lax in these barracks," commented Mrs. Dean. "I am afraid I ought to call upon General to help me enforce my orders. Under the circumstances I'll be lenient, though, and stretch the time to fifteen minutes. There, I hear General downstairs now!"
She disappeared from the doorway and immediately a great scurrying about began, punctuated with much talk and laughter. To Marjorie it seemed as though she had not been so happy for ages. It was wonderful to know that her beloved Mary was actually with her once more, and still more wonderful that she would continue to be with her indefinitely.
At dinner she beamed joyously across the table at the little blue-eyed girl, while their elders discussed and settled her destiny for the coming year. Mr. and Mrs. Dean met Mr. Raymond's request in behalf of his daughter with the whole-heartedness that so characterized them. In fact, they were highly in favor of receiving Mary as a member of their little household.
"Two soldiers are better than one," asserted Mr. Dean humorously. "I believe in preparedness. 'In times of peace prepare for war,' you know. With such a valiant army under my command I could do wonders if attacked by the enemy."
After dinner they all repaired to the living room, where the discussion of the all-important subject was continued, and when at eleven o'clock two sleepy, but blissfully happy, lieutenants climbed the stairs to bed, Mary Raymond lacked nothing except actual adoption papers, signed and sealed, to admit her into the Deans' hospitable fold.
Yet there was one tiny drawback to Mary's joy. Try as she might she could not forget Constance Stevens and Marjorie's too evident fondness for her. From Marjorie's early letters she had formed the conclusion that Constance was merely a poor nobody, whom her chum, with her usual spirit of generosity had tried to befriend. Marjorie's later letters had contained little pertaining to Constance. Mary had not known of the long period of estrangement between Constance and Marjorie that had so nearly wrecked their budding friendship, and of the many changes that time had wrought in the life of the girl who looked like her. She had, therefore, been quite unprepared to meet the dainty, well-dressed young woman whom Marjorie appeared to hold in such strong affection. She reflected that night, a trifle resentfully, after Marjorie had kissed her good-night and left her, that it was very strange in Marjorie not to have put her in possession of the real facts of the case. Still, it was really not her affair. If Marjorie chose to become chummy with Constance without even writing a word of it to her, there was nothing to do except to be silent over the whole affair. Perhaps Marjorie would tell her all about it later. Certainly she would ask no questions. And then and there, little, blue-eyed Mary Raymond made her first mistake, and sowed a tiny seed of discord in her jealous heart that was fated later to bear bitter fruit.
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCING MARY TO THE GIRLS
"We've come for a last inspection, Captain. How do we look?"
Marjorie Dean danced into her mother's room, her brown eyes sparkling with anticipation, her charming face all smiles. Mary Raymond followed her excited chum.
"Halt! Company, attention!" commanded Mrs. Dean, as she turned from her dressing table to pass an opinion upon the waiting brigade of two. Her brown eyes rested approvingly upon the trim figures drawn up in their most soldierly attitude before her. Marjorie's frock of pink linen, with its wide lace collar and cuffs, exactly suited her dark eyes and hair, while Mary's gown of pale blue of the same material served to accentuate the fairness of her skin and the gold of her curls.
"Shall we do, Captain? Are we absolutely spick and span?" Marjorie turned slowly about, then made a laughing dive at her mother and enveloped her in a devastating embrace.
"Now see the havoc you've wrought," complained Mrs. Dean. "I shall have to do my hair over again. Never mind. I'll forgive you, and, being magnanimous, will state that I am very proud of the appearance of my army."
"You're a gallant officer and a dear, all in one." Marjorie caught her mother's hand in hers. "Now, we must be on our way. We are going to school early because Mary will have to see Miss Archer. Besides, I'm anxious for her to meet Jerry Macy and some of the other girls. If only she had come to Sanford sooner, I'd have loved to give a party for her. Then she'd know every one of my friends. Oh, well, there is plenty of time for that. Good-bye, Captain. We'll be back before long. There is never very much to do in school on the first day."
Dropping a gay little kiss on her mother's smooth cheek, Marjorie left the room, followed by Mary, who stopped just long enough to kiss Mrs. Dean good-bye.
Three weeks had slipped by since Mr. Raymond and Mary had come to Sanford upon the so-called mysterious mission that had made Mary Raymond a member of the Dean household. They had returned to the city of B – the following day. From there Mr. Raymond had gone directly to the mountains, for his wife, who, in spite of her ill-health, had insisted on returning to her home to oversee the making of Mary's gowns and the choosing of her wardrobe in general. Two days before coming to Sanford, Mary had seen her mother off on her journey to Colorado in quest of health. She had put on a brave face and smiled when she wished to cry, and it was alone the thought that she was going to live with Marjorie during her mother's absence that kept her from breaking down at the last sad moment of farewell.
It was a sober-faced, sad-eyed Mary that Marjorie had met at the train, but, under the irresistible sunniness of Marjorie's nature, Mary had soon emerged from her cloud, and now the prospect of entering Sanford High School filled her with lively anticipation.
As Marjorie and Mary emerged from the house and swung down the stone walk in perfect step, they beheld a stout, and to Marjorie, a decidedly familiar figure turning in at the gate. In the same instant a joyous "Hello" rent the air, and the stout girl cantered up the walk at a surprising rate of speed. There was