Chapter 5 THE RETURN OF MARY BROOKS

All through the fall Mary Brooks's "little friends" had been hoping for a visit from her, and begging her to come soon, before the fine weather was over. Now she was really and truly coming. Roberta had had the letter of course, by virtue of being Mary's most faithful satellite; but it was meant for them all.

"The conquering heroine is coming," Mary wrote. "She will arrive at four on Monday, and you'd better, some of you, meet the train, because there's going to be a spread along, and the turkey weighs a ton. Don't plan any doings for me. I've been to a dance or a dinner every night for two weeks and I'm already sick of being a busy bud, though I've only been one for a month-not to mention having had the gayest kind of a time all summer. So you see I'm coming to Harding to rest and recuperate, and to watch you children play at being seniors. I know how busy you are, and what a bore it is to have company, but I shall just take care of myself. Only get me a room at Rachel's little house around the corner, and I won't be a bit of trouble to anybody."

"Consider the touching modesty of that now!" exclaimed Katherine. "As if we weren't all pining for a sight of her. And can't you just taste the spread she'll bring?"

"We must make her have it the very night she gets here," said Betty practically. "There's a lot going on next week, and as soon as people find out that she's here they'll just pounce on her for all sorts of things."

"I hereby pounce upon her for our house dance," announced Babbie Hildreth hastily. "Isn't it jolly that it comes this week? I had a presentiment that I'd better save one of my invitations."

"You needn't have bothered," said Babe enviously. "I guess there'll always be room for Mary Brooks at a Westcott House dance-as long as 19- stays anyway."

"Don't quarrel, children," Madeline intervened. "Your dance is on Wednesday. Is there anything for Tuesday?"

"A psychology lecture," returned Helen Adams promptly.

"Cut it out," laughed Katherine. "Mary isn't coming up here to go to psychology lectures."

"But she does want to go to it," declared Roberta, suddenly waking up to the subject in hand. "I thought it was queer myself, but she speaks about it particularly in her letter. Let me see-oh, here it is, in the postscript. It's by a friend of Dr. Hinsdale, she says; and somebody must have written her about it and offered her a ticket, because she says she's already invited and so for us not to bother. Did you write her, Helen?"

"No," said Helen, "I didn't. The lecture wasn't announced until yesterday. There was a special meeting of the Philosophical Club to arrange about it."

"It's queer," mused Katherine. "Mary was always rather keen on psychology--"

"On the psychology of Dr. Hinsdale you mean," amended Madeline flippantly. "But that doesn't explain her inside information about this lecture. We'll ask her how she knew-that's the quickest way to find out. Now let's go on with our schedule. What's Thursday?"

"The French Club play," explained Roberta. "I think she'd like that, don't you?"

Madeline nodded. "Easily. It's going to be awfully clever this time. Then that leaves only Friday. Let's drive out to Smuggler's Notch in the afternoon and have supper at Mrs. Noble's."

"Oh, yes," agreed Betty. "That will make such a perfectly lovely end-up to the week. And of course we shall all want to take her to Cuyler's and Holmes's. May I have her for Tuesday breakfast? I haven't any class until eleven, so we can eat in peace."

"Then I'll take lunch on Tuesday," put in Katherine hastily, "because I am as poor as poverty at present, and a one o'clock luncheon preceded by a breakfast ending at eleven appeals to my lean pocketbook."

"I should like to take her driving that afternoon," put in Babbie.

"You may, if you'll take me to sit in the middle and do the driving," said Bob, "and let's all have dinner at Cuyler's that night-a grand affair, you know, ordered before hand, at a private table with a screen around it, and a big bunch of roses for a centre piece. Old girls like that sort of thing. It makes them feel important."

"With or without food?" demanded Madeline sarcastically, but no one paid any attention to her, in the excitement of bidding for the remaining divisions of Mary's week.

All the Chapin House girls and the three B's met her at the station and "ohed" and "ahed" in a fashion that would have been disconcerting to anybody who was unfamiliar with the easy manners of Harding girls, at the elegance of her new blue velvet suit and the long plumes that curled above her stylishly dressed hair, and at the general air of "worldly and bud-like wisdom," as Katherine called it, that pervaded her small person.

They had not finished admiring her when her trunk appeared.

"Will you look at that, girls!" cried Katherine, feigning to be quite overpowered by its huge size. "Mary Brooks, whatever do you expect to do with a trousseau like that in this simple little academic village?"

Mary only smiled placidly. "Don't be silly, K. Some of the spread is in there. Besides, I want to be comfortable while I'm here, and this autumn weather is so uncertain. Who's going to have first go at carrying the turkey?"

"I've got a runabout waiting," explained Babbie. "I'm going to drive him up. There'll be room for you too, Mary, and for some of the others."

The seat of a runabout can be made to hold four, on a pinch, and there is still standing-room for several other adaptable persons. The rest of the party walked, and the little house around the corner was soon the scene of a boisterous reunion.

Mary's conversation was as abundant and amusing as ever, and she did not show any signs of the weariness that her letter had made so much of.

"That's because I have acquired a society manner," she announced proudly. "I conceal my real emotions under a mask of sparkling gaiety."

"You can't conceal things from us that way," declared Katherine. "How under the sun did you hear about that psychology lecture?"

"Why, a man I know told me," explained Mary innocently. "He's also a friend of the lecturer. We were at dinner together one night last week, and he knew I was a Harding-ite, and happened to mention it. Any objections?"

"And you really want to go?" demanded Madeline.

"Of course," retorted Mary severely. "I always welcome every opportunity to improve my mind."

But to the elaborate plans that had been made for her entertainment Mary offered a vigorous protest. "My dears," she declared, "I should be worn to a frazzle if I did all that. Didn't I tell you that I'd come up to rest? I'll have breakfast with anybody who can wait till I'm ready to get up, and we'll have one dinner all together. But it's really too cold to drive back from Smuggler's Notch after dark, and besides you know I never cared much for long drives. But we'll have the spread to-night, anyway, just as you planned, because it's going to be such a full week, and I wouldn't for the world have any of you miss anything on my account."

"And you don't care about the French play?" asked Roberta, who had moved heaven and earth to get her a good seat.

"No, dear," answered Mary sweetly. "My French is hopelessly rusty."

"Then I should think you'd go in for improving it," suggested Babe.

"There's not enough of it to improve," Mary retorted calmly.

"Well, you will go to our house-dance, won't you?" begged Babbie.

"Oh, you must," seconded Bob. "I've told piles of people you were coming."

"We shall die of disappointment if you don't," added Babe feelingly.

Mary laughed good-naturedly. "All right," she conceded, "I'll come. Only be sure to get me lots of dances with freshmen. Then I can amuse myself by making them think I'm one, also, and I shan't be bored."

On the way back to the campus the girls discussed Mary's amazing attitude toward the pleasures of college life.

"She must be awfully used up," said Roberta, solemnly. "Why, she used to be crazy about plays and dances and 'eats.'"

"No use in coming up at all," grumbled Katherine, "if she's only going to lie around and sleep."

"She doesn't look one bit tired," declared Betty, "and she seems glad to be back, only she doesn't want to do anything. It's certainly queer."

"She must be either sick or in love," said Madeline. "Nothing else will account for it."

"Then I think she's in love," declared little Helen Adams sedately. "She has a happy look in her eyes."

"Bosh!" jeered Bob. "Mary isn't the sentimental kind. I'll bet she feels different after the spread."

But though the spread was quite the grandest that had ever been seen at Harding, and though Mary seemed to enjoy it quite as heartily as her guests, who had conscientiously starved on campus fare for the week before it, it failed to arouse in her the proper enthusiasm for college functions.

On Tuesday "after partaking of a light but elegant noontide repast on me," as Katherine put it, Mary declared her intention of taking a nap, and went to her room. But half an hour later, when Babbie tiptoed up to ask if she really meant to waste a glorious afternoon sleeping, and to put the runabout at her service, the room was empty, and Mary turned up again barely in time for the grand dinner at Cuyler's.

"We were scared to death for fear you'd forgotten us," said Madeline, helping her off with her wraps. "Where have you been all this time?"

"Why, dressing," explained Mary, wearing her most innocent expression. "It takes ages to get into this gown, but it's my best, and I wanted to do honor to your very grand function."

"That dress was lying on your bed when I stopped for you exactly fifteen minutes ago," declared Bob triumphantly. "So you'll have to think of another likely tale."

Mary smiled her "beamish" smile.

"Well, I came just after you'd gone and isn't fourteen minutes to waste on dressing an age? If you mean where was I before that, why my nap wasn't a success, so I went walking, and it was so lovely that I couldn't bear to come in. These hills are perfectly fascinating after the city."

"You little fraud," cried Madeline. "You hate walking, and you can't see scenery--"

"As witness the nestle," put in Katherine.

"So please tell us who he is," finished Madeline calmly.

"The very idea of coming back to see us and then going off fussing with Winsted men!" Babe's tone was solemnly reproachful.

But Mary was equal to the situation. "I haven't seen a Winsted man since I came," she declared. "I was going to tell you who was with me this afternoon, but I shan't now, because you've all been so excessively mean and suspicious." A waitress appeared, and Mary's expression grew suddenly ecstatic. "Do I see creamed chicken?" she cried. "Girls, I dreamed about Cuyler's creamed chicken every night last week. I was so afraid you wouldn't have it!"

Her appreciation of the dinner was so delightfully whole-hearted that even Roberta forgave her everything, down to her absurd enthusiasm over a ponderous psychology lecture and the very dull reception that followed it. At the latter, to be sure, Mary acted exactly like her old self, for she sat in a corner and monopolized Dr. Hinsdale for half an hour by the clock, while her little friends, to quote Katherine Kittredge, "champed their bits" in their impatience to capture her and escape to more congenial regions.

The next night at the Westcott House dance Mary was again her gay and sportive self. If she was bored, she concealed it admirably, and that in spite of the fact that her little scheme of playing freshman seemed doomed to failure. Mary had walked out of chapel that morning with the front row, and, even without the enormous bunch of violets which none of her senior friends would confess to having sent her, she was not a figure to pass unnoticed. So most of the freshmen on her card recognized her at once, and the few who did not stoutly refused to be taken in by her innocent references to "our class."

She had the last dance but one with the sour-faced Miss Butts, who never recognized any one; but Mary did not know that, and being rather tired she swiftly waltzed her around the hall a few times and then suggested that they watch the dance out from the gallery.

"What class are you?" asked Miss Butts, when they were established there. "My card doesn't say."

"Doesn't it?" said Mary idly, watching the kaleidoscope of gay colors moving dizzily about beneath her. "Then suppose you guess."

Miss Butts considered ponderously. "You aren't a freshman," she said finally, "nor a sophomore."

"How are you so sure of that?" asked Mary. "I was just going to say--"

"You're a junior," announced Miss Butts, calmly disregarding the interruption.

Mary shook her head.

"Senior, then."

Mary shook her head again.

"I didn't think you looked old enough for that," said Miss Butts. "Then I was mistaken and you're a sophomore."

"No," said Mary firmly.

Miss Butts stared. "Freshman?"

"No," said Mary, who considered the befooling of Miss Butts beneath her. "I graduated last year."

"Oh, I don't believe that: I believe you're a freshman after all," declared Miss Butts. "You started to say you were a few minutes ago."

"No, I graduated last June," repeated Mary, a trifle sharply. "Here's Miss Hildreth coming for my next dance. You can ask her. I'm her guest this evening. Didn't I graduate last year, Babbie?"

Babbie stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she remembered Mary's plan.

"Why, you naughty little freshman!" she cried reprovingly. "Have you been telling her that?"

Miss Butts looked dazedly from the amused and reproachful Babbie to Mary, whose expression was properly cowed and repentant.

"Are you really a freshman?" she asked. "Why, I don't believe you are. I-I don't know what to believe!"

Mary smiled at her radiantly. "Never mind," she said, "you'll know the truth some day. Next fall at about this time I'll invite you to dinner, and then you'll know all about me. Now good-bye."

Babbie regarded this speech as merely Mary's convenient little way of getting rid of the stupid Miss Butts, who for her part promptly forgot all about it. But Mary remembered, and she declared that the sight of Miss Butts's face on the occasion of that dinner-party, with all its rather remarkable accessories, was worth many evenings of boredom at "girl dances."

It was not until Friday, that Mary's "little friends" caught her red-handed, in an escapade that explained everything from the size of her trunk to the puzzling insouciance of her manner. They all, and particularly Roberta, had begun to feel a little hurt as the days went by and Mary indulged in many mysterious absences and made unconvincing excuses for refusing invitations that, as Katherine Kittredge said, were enough to turn the head of a crown-princess. Friday, the day that had been reserved for the expedition to Smuggler's Notch, dawned crisp and clear, and some girls who had had dinner at Mrs. Noble's farm the night before brought back glowing reports of the venison her brother had sent her from Maine, and the roaring log fire that she built for them in the fireplace of her new dining-room. So Roberta and Madeline hurried over before chapel to ask Mary to reconsider. But she was firm in her refusal. She had waked with a headache. Besides, she had letters to write and calls to make on her faculty friends and the people she knew in town.

The embassy returned, disconsolate, and reported its failure.

"It's just a shame," said Eleanor. "We've been saving that trip all the fall, so that Mary could go."

"Let's just go without her," suggested Katherine rebelliously. "There can't be many more nice days."

But Betty shook her head. "We don't want to hurt her feelings. She's a dear, even if she does act queerly this week. Besides, every one of us but Roberta and Madeline has that written lesson in English 10 to-morrow, and we ought to study. I'm scared to death over it."

"So am I," agreed Katherine sadly. "I suppose we'd better wait."

"But we can go walking," said Madeline to Roberta, and Roberta, more hurt than any of the rest by her idol's strange conduct, silently assented.

They were scuffling gaily through the fallen leaves on an unfrequented road through the woods, when they heard a carriage coming swiftly up behind them and turned to see-of all persons-Mary Brooks, who hated driving, and Dr. Hinsdale. Mary was talking gaily and looked quite reconciled to her fate, and Dr. Hinsdale was leaving the horses very much to themselves in the pleasant absorption of watching Mary's face. Indeed so interested were the pair in each other that they almost passed the two astonished girls standing by the roadside, without recognizing them at all. But just as she whirled past, Mary saw them, and leaned back to wave her hand and smile her "beamish" smile at the unwitting discoverers of her secret.

It was dusk and nearly dinner time before Dr. Hinsdale drew his horses up in front of the house around the corner, but Mary's "little friends" gave up dressing, without a qualm, and even risked missing their soup to sit, lined up in an accusing row on her bed and her window-box, ready to greet her when she stumbled into her dark room and lit her gas.

"Oh, girls! What a start you gave me!" she cried, suddenly perceiving her visitors. "I suppose you think I'm perfectly horrid," she went on hastily, "but truly I couldn't help it. When a faculty asks you to go driving, you can't tell him that you hate it-and I couldn't for the life of me scrape up a previous engagement."

"Speaking of engagements"-began Madeline provokingly.

"All's fair in love, Mary," Katherine broke in. "You're perfectly excusable. We all think so."

"Who said anything about love?" demanded Mary, stooping to brush an imaginary speck of dust from her skirt.

"Next time," advised Rachel laughingly, "you'd better take us into your confidence. You've given yourself a lot of unnecessary bother, and us quite a little worry, though we don't mind that now."

"Why didn't you tell us that he spent the summer at the same place that you did?" asked little Helen Adams.

Mary started. "Who told you that?" she demanded anxiously.

"Nobody but Lucile," explained Betty in soothing tones. "She visited there for a week, and this afternoon just by chance she happened to speak of seeing him. It fitted in beautifully, you see. She doesn't know you were there too, so it's all right."

Mary gave a relieved little sigh, and then, turning suddenly, fell upon the row of pitiless inquisitors, embracing as many as possible and smiling benignly at the rest. "Oh, girls, he's a dear," she said. "He's worth twenty of the gilded youths you meet out in society." She drew back hastily. "But we're only good friends," she declared. "He's been down a few times to spend Sunday-that was how I heard about the lecture-but he comes to see father as much as to see me-and-and you mustn't gossip."

"We won't," Katherine promised for them all. "You can trust us. We always seem to have a faculty romance or two on our hands. We're getting used to it."

"But it's not a romance," wailed Mary. "He took me walking and driving because mother asks him to dinner. We're nothing but jolly good friends."

"Nothing but jolly good friends-"

That was the last thing Mary said when, late the next afternoon, her "little friends" waved her off for home.

"Isn't she just about the last person you'd select for a professor's wife?" said Helen, as Mary's stylish little figure, poised on the rear platform of the train, swung out of sight around a curve.

"No, indeed she isn't," declared Roberta loyally. "She'll be a fine one. She's awfully clever, only she makes people think she isn't, because she knows how to put on her clothes."

"And it's one mission of the modern college girl," announced Madeline oracularly, "to show the people aforesaid that the two things can go together. Let's go to Smuggler's Notch Monday to celebrate."

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