Early after breakfast on Sunday morning Marjorie sat down to write her letter to Miss Winthrop. She intended to tell her all about the hike, and the girls’ desertion, and to conclude by saying that she would not be present at the next meeting, but would wait until she heard from the girls.  
Yet somehow, as she tried to write, she found her desire diminishing. It seemed like a mean trick to run to Miss Winthrop with tales; after all, would it not be better to write to Queenie herself? Yet she was disgusted with the latter; she held a position of responsibility in the troop, and she had failed at the crucial moment.
 
After fifteen minutes of fruitless effort, she put down her pen in disgust.
 
“I’m simply at sea, Lil!” she announced. “I don’t know what I want to do, or how I ought to go about it.”
 
Her roommate laid her book aside to give the matter her consideration.
 
“Do you know what I think would be best—if Daisy will do it, I mean? Not write either to Miss77 Winthrop or Queenie, but just send Daisy next week, with the instructions that she teach if the girls want it, but that she disband the troop if they are not going into it for all they’re worth. That ought to wake ’em up, if anything will!”
 
“Pretty hard on Daisy!” commented Marjorie.
 
“But after all, Daisy’s at the bottom of the whole thing—it was she who sent you in the first place.”
 
“Very true—I guess you’re right, Lil. I’ll go ask Daisy to go walking with me this afternoon, and tell her the story then, and put it up to her.”
 
“That would be a good idea, if you didn’t have an engagement with John Hadley. You remember he and Dick are coming out on that two o’clock train.”
 
A look of passed over Marjorie’s face; she had no desire to see John at the present time.
 
“Maybe I’ll call him up——” she murmured, half to herself.
 
“Maybe you won’t! No, Marj, that isn’t fair. Poor John always has to play second to the Girl . And he isn’t going to do it today.”
 
Marjorie smiled at Lily’s sisterly interest in the young man.
 
“Then what shall I do?”
 
“Go for a walk now and invite Daisy to the tea room for lunch. That would give you a dandy chance to talk.”
 
“I’ll do it!” agreed Marjorie, rising to carry out her plan. But at the door she encountered one of the maids. There was a lady in the reception room to see her, the woman told her.
 
“She didn’t give her name,” the latter added.
 
“How !” exclaimed Marjorie, in annoyance. “I hope it isn’t somebody who has come to spend the day. If this business isn’t settled one way or the other before evening, I know I won’t be able to close my eyes tonight.”
 
“Just tell her that you have an important engagement for luncheon,” suggested her roommate.
 
“But suppose that it is an aunt, or a fond cousin——”
 
“Do it just the same!”
 
“I’ll try,” Marjorie promised. “Though I’d hate to be rude.”
 
“You won’t be,” returned Lily, smiling.
 
It was somewhat reluctantly therefore that the girl turned about and the stairway, trying to imagine who could be calling at such an early hour. Surely, she , it must be a relative; no one else would dare to be so informal.
 
She was all the more startled, then, upon entering the big pleasant room, to see Queenie Brazier rush towards her. In fact, Marjorie was so taken aback that she actually forgot to speak.
 
“Miss Wilkinson, dear Miss Wilkinson!” cried the girl, anxiously. “Are you too mad to speak to me?”
 
“No, of course not, Queenie,” replied Marjorie, amused by the frankness of her greeting. “But—but—I79 was so surprised. I never thought of you!”
 
“Finished with the bunch of us, huh? Well, I don’t blame you one bit. After the way we stood you up——”
 
“Oh, no,” Marjorie hastened to her. “Quite the other way about. I was sure that you had finished with me.”
 
“I know we treated you dirt,” she admitted. “And I’m here to tell you——”
 
“Won’t you sit down, Queenie,” Marjorie interrupted, politely. “Let’s talk it all over.”
 
The girls walked over toward the window, and sat down on a wide that was turned towards it. This afforded them a view of the lovely campus, and at the same time assured them of a sort of privacy that would admit of confidences. Queenie immediately assumed the lead.
 
“It was an awful thing to do,” she began, “and I knew it—in fact, it’s all my fault because the rest of the bunch play follow the leader to whatever I tell ’em. You know yourself that the hike wasn’t what we all hoped—it was deader than a in winter—and we were all pretty down and out. I’d have given my next three dates to pull off some sort of a ringer.
 
“So after we got to the drive we stood there, drinkin’ our water and kiddin’ the cop along, when the swellest car drew up and stopped to fill up. None of our bunch ever miss nuthin’; in a minute we all sized up the good lookers on the front seat.
 
“‘How about tappin’ ’em for a ride?’ Stella says to me, sidewise.
 
“‘Nuthin’ doin’!’ I orders, military like. ‘Miss Wilkinson never wants us to pick up fellers!’
 
“But I wasn’t figurin’ on them askin’ us first. Somehow that seemed different. And first thing you know, they was both chewin’ the rag with Stella, and she was kiddin’ ’em back. And maybe she wasn’t rollin’ her flash-lights around!”
 
Marjorie smiled at this of little Stella Cox. If ever there was a born , she certainly was one.
 
“‘Which way yo............