Grace Harlowes Return to Overton Campus | Page 5

look after the house. "Mr. Symes was to see that everything was unpacked before we arrived. We shall have to employ two men to move the heavy furniture. Thank goodness and Mrs. Gray, there are no carpets to be laid. The floors are all hard wood and there are rugs for every room except the kitchen and laundry."
"I brought an old dress along," Elfreda informed her friends. "I helped Ma set our cottage to rights this summer and I know something about work. We had two maids and a scrubwoman. The maids were in my way, so I sent them off for a holiday and the scrubwoman and I tackled the job and went through with it like wildfire. Ma nearly had a spasm, but she liked the looks of things when we had finished. You should have seen me, though. Ma didn't like my looks. I guess I did resemble a human mop if you know what that looks like."
"I can imagine," laughed Grace. "If you attack the business of putting Harlowe House to rights with the same energy, I shall know exactly how you looked when you cleaned the cottage."
"Perhaps you will," Elfreda grinned boyishly. "I hadn't thought of that."
"You couldn't see that far ahead, could you?" quizzed Grace with twinkling eyes.
"No I couldn't," declared Elfreda earnestly, then, catching sight of Grace's dancing eyes, she laughed good-naturedly. "You will tease me about that. I can see that you'll never outgrow the habit."
"I can see that Elfreda is going to lighten our labors and make our tasks merry," smiled Mrs. Gray. "What a joy and a diversion you must have been to Miriam."
"I was anything but an unqualified source of pleasure during my freshman year," replied Elfreda. "It is plain to be seen that Grace never told you my early Overton history."
"Now, Elfreda--" began Grace, but Elfreda was not to be thus easily deterred from saying her say. She launched forth with a ludicrous account of her freshman shortcomings that left Mrs. Gray and Grace breathless with laughter.
"Elfreda, it is hard to say which is funnier, you or Hippy," Mrs. Gray's eyes twinkled with enjoyment.
"Well, isn't it so?" demanded J. Elfreda. "Isn't that exactly the way I used to do?"
"It's what I call a highly exaggerated account of your self-named misdeeds," returned Grace. "You haven't said a word about all the nice things you did for the girls."
"I don't remember them," evaded Elfreda hastily. "Oh, there's Mr. Symes now! How are you, Mr. Symes? You didn't expect to see me here, did you?"
"Well, well, if it ain't Miss Briggs," beamed the old man joyfully. His remembrance of J. Elfreda was decidedly pleasant. She had always paid him generously for the numerous errands he had run for her. He greeted Grace with equal enthusiasm, and bobbed like a nodding mandarin before Mrs. Gray.
"I hope you have been well, Mr. Symes. How is your wife and how do you like being caretaker of Harlowe House?" asked Grace.
"I'm well, miss, and so's my wife. It's a fine place, miss, that Harlowe House, an' it'll be finer still when fall comes and it's full of Overton students. We're pretty proud of our young ladies, we Overton folks. Excuse me, miss, I'll go over to my house and get the key. I'll be right along."
"He has a whole lot of real college spirit," commented Elfreda, "or he couldn't speak so beautifully of the Overton girls."
"He always was a perfect old dear," agreed Grace warmly.
The caretaker soon overtook them with the key, and the little company crossed the street and traversed the deserted campus.
"How strangely still everything is," commented Grace. "Not in the least like it was six months ago, is it, Elfreda?"
"It gives me the blues," averred Elfreda in a low tone.
"Here we are," called Mrs. Gray, with a cheery attempt at dispelling the tiny cloud of dejection that had fallen over the two girls. "Harlowe House couldn't have a prettier site."
The three women followed Mr. Symes up the steps, then, as if by common consent, turned and looked out over the green expanse of closely-clipped lawn, sprinkled with sentinel-like old trees. They had stood guard year after year and silently watched the comings and goings of the hundreds of girls who proudly acknowledged Overton as their Alma Mater.
"What's the use of gazing and mooning?" asked Elfreda, with sudden brusqueness. "Please open that door, Mr. Symes. I shall certainly weep and wail disconsolately out of pure sentiment if you don't distract my attention with something else. Show me the furniture, or the boxes it came in, or anything else that won't call forth tender reminiscences."
Grace's laugh sounded a trifle shaky, but it was a laugh nevertheless. Something in Elfreda's brusque tones acted as an antidote to her retrospection. She had been more or less