Grace Harlowes Fourth Year at Overton College | Page 3

and Elizabeth had ordered fried chicken, for which Vinton's was famous, with potatoes au gratin and tiny French peas, there was general rejoicing. It took the better part of an hour to eat these good things, and the guests, feeling that they were on familiar ground, enjoyed themselves hugely.
"Oh, dear!" groaned Elfreda, "I know I have gained a pound since I started out this afternoon. I haven't eaten so much at one time for ages. There is still the salad and dessert to come. I can't possibly miss either one of them."
"Never mind, Elfreda," soothed Emma Dean; "we won't invite you to the next luncheon, then you can----"
"Just try leaving me out and see what happens," retorted Elfreda threateningly. "You may find yourself locked in your room on that self-same day with the key missing."
"Be good, both of you," admonished Miriam, "or I'll see that neither of you get any dessert."
"Grace and Anne wouldn't be so mean," returned Elfreda with supreme self-assurance.
"How could we blast such touching faith?" laughed Anne.
"There, what did I tell you?" asked Elfreda, turning triumphant eyes on Emma. "Now, leave me out if you dare."
"I don't dare. I don't want to," declared Emma affably. "I was merely trying to be pleasant and helpful. If you were not invited to the spread, naturally you wouldn't eat, and if you didn't eat, then you wouldn't have to worry about that extra pound. It is all very simple."
"Very!" agreed Elfreda, with such scathing emphasis that the exchange of words ended in a general giggle at Emma's expense.
"Now that you've all finished laughing at me," she declared good-naturedly, "I hereby invite all of you, even Elfreda, to Martell's for the salad, which is my part of the ceremony."
"Oh, goody, it's Waldorf!" exclaimed Elfreda delightedly, as, seated about the big corner table at Martell's, perhaps twenty minutes later, they saw the salad brought on. "You knew what we liked, didn't you, Emma?"
"I did, in spite of my simple tendencies," murmured Emma.
"That was a well merited thrust," laughed Elfreda, laying her hand lightly over her heart.
"And now Wayne Hall and our humble apartment await you," proclaimed Grace when the last vestige of salad had disappeared. "Anne and I extend you a pressing invitation to dessert and conversation. Although this is to be a strictly informal session of the club, we may wish to discuss certain club business. The evening is before us. We ought to make good use of it."
"And so we shall," returned Emma Dean, as they rose to go. "The affairs of the nation shall be discussed and adjusted to-night."
"And the world will be upside down forever after," predicted Elfreda.
"Don't croak," reproved Emma. "Who knows what this night may bring forth? It may engender indigestion, or a stern injunction to make less noise on the part of Mrs. Elwood, but whatever the future has in store for us, we shall have had at least one luncheon worth remembering."
CHAPTER II
THE LAST FRESHMAN
It was ten minutes past seven when the club settled down to the frozen custard and delicious cakes that Grace and Anne had provided for them. Then Elfreda, who had taken upon herself the making and serving of the coffee, returned after a brief absence with a percolator of steaming coffee, Miriam following with the sugar and cream.
"Isn't it too bad we never thought of doing this before?" said Marian Cummings.
"Something had to be left for our senior year," said Anne Pierson.
"Do you know, I am anything but joyful at being a senior," announced Elfreda Briggs. "Of course, it is a satisfaction to know that one has weathered the last three years' examinations and is practically on Easy Street as far as studies go, but every now and then comes the awful feeling, 'only a little while and it will all be over'--college, I mean."
"'Yet a few days, and thee the all-beholding sun shall see no more.'"
quoted Emma Dean lugubriously.
"Not quite so bad as that," returned Elfreda with an appreciative grin.
"Even we juniors feel more or less that way," said Laura Atkins. "I never had any real fun until I came to Overton. The time has gone so fast I can't believe that it is two years since I locked Grace and Anne out of their room and behaved like a savage. I don't wonder Elfreda named me the Anarchist. I did my best to live up to the name."
"Oh, forget about that," murmured Elfreda, looking embarrassed.
The members of the club were wholly familiar with the history of Laura Atkins's freshman year and admired her for the matter-of-fact way in which she was wont to discuss her early short-comings. Under the sunny influence of the four girls who had helped her to find herself, she had developed into a gracious and likeable young woman. She and Mildred Taylor were the