Grace Harlowes Third Year at Overton College | Page 7

shall hope to see you some time during the fall. I am going to try to get a day or two off and run down to see you. Tell Anne the Press is greater than the Stage, and tell Elfreda and Miriam that I am collecting the autographs of famous people and that theirs would be greatly appreciated, particularly if attached to letters. I must bring this epistle to an abrupt close, and go out on the trail of an engagement, the rumor of which was whispered to me last night. With love to you and the girls.
"MABEL.
"P. S. Frances sails for home next week."
"What a nice letter," commented Elfreda. "It is just like her, isn't it!"
"Yes," replied Grace slowly. "Girls, do you suppose Mabel and Miss West are really friends?"
"Not as we are," replied Miriam, with a positive shake of her head. "Elfreda and I were talking of that very thing while you were in your room. Elfreda said she didn't believe that Mabel had known Miss West long."
"What is the matter with us?" asked Grace, a trifle impatiently. "Here we are prowling about the bush, trying to conceal under polite inquiry the fact that we don't quite approve of Miss West. We would actually like to dig up something to criticize."
"There is nothing like absolute freedom of speech, is there?" said Elfreda, with a short laugh.
"It is true, though," said Grace stoutly. "It isn't fair, either. She has done nothing to deserve it. Besides, Mabel likes her."
"Mabel doesn't say in her letter that she likes her," reminded Anne. "She says Miss West is clever and that she admires her spirit."
"You, too, Anne?" said Grace reproachfully.
"I don't like her," declared Elfreda belligerently. "If it weren't for Mabel's letter I'd leave her strictly to her own devices."
"We ought to be ashamed of ourselves!" exclaimed Grace. "We have met Miss West with smiles, and here we are discussing her behind her back."
"I didn't meet her with smiles," contradicted Elfreda. "I was as sober as a judge all the time we stood talking to her. She is too flippant to suit me. She doesn't take college very seriously. I could see that."
"There goes the dinner bell!" exclaimed Grace, with sudden irrelevance to the subject of the newspaper girl. "Let us stop gossiping and go to dinner."
At dinner Grace was not sorry to note that Kathleen West had been placed at the end of the table farthest from her. Through the meal she found her eyes straying often toward the erect little figure of the newcomer, who, exhibiting not a particle of reserve, chatted with the girls nearest to her with the utmost unconcern. "I suppose her newspaper training has made her self-possessed and not afraid of strangers," reflected Grace. But she could not refrain from secretly wondering a little just how strong a friendship existed between Kathleen West and Mabel.
CHAPTER IV
GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE NEWSPAPER GIRL
"It was just this way," began Kathleen West, setting down her tea cup and looking impressively from one girl to the other, "Long before I graduated from high school I had made up my mind to go to college. Now that I have passed my exams and have become a really truly freshman, I'll tell you all about it."
Elfreda and Miriam were giving a tea party with Grace, Anne and Kathleen West as their guests. It was a strictly informal tea and both hostesses and guests sat on the floor in true Chinese fashion, kimono-clad and comfortable. A week had passed since Kathleen's advent among them. She had spent the greater part of that time either in study or in valiant wrestling with the dreaded entrance examinations, but she had managed, nevertheless, to drop into the girls' rooms at least once a day. In spite of the almost unfavorable impression she had at first created, it was impossible not to acknowledge that the newspaper girl possessed a vividly interesting personality. As she sat wrapped in the folds of her gray kimono, arms folded over her chest, she looked not unlike a feminine Napoleon. Elfreda's quick eyes traced the resemblance.
"You look for all the world like Napoleon," she observed bluntly.
"Thank you," returned Kathleen with mock gratitude. "I can't imagine Napoleon in a gray kimono at a tea party, but I feel imbued with a certain amount of his ambition. By the way, would any of you like to hear the rest of my story?" she asked impudently. "I'm rather fond of telling it."
"Excuse me for interrupting," apologized Elfreda. "Go on, please."
"Where was I?" asked Kathleen. "Oh, yes, I remember. Well, as soon as I had fully determined to go to college, I began to save every penny on which I could honestly lay hands. I went without most of the school-girl luxuries that count for so much just