ch with its
winsome freight of white-gowned girls, sped down the smooth pike past
beautiful Hamilton Estates and on toward the station. Happy in the fact
that she was now so perfectly at home at Hamilton, Marjorie smiled as
she compared last year with the present. Yes; it was good to be a
sophomore. Her new estate stretched invitingly before her. It was all so
very different from the previous September. The splendor of the sunlit
sky and the warm fragrance of the light breeze seemed indicative of
pleasant days to come. Because she had missed a welcome on her arrival
at Hamilton, she was ready to welcome doubly some other freshman
stranger within Hamilton's gates.

"Train 16, late, 40 minutes," was the dampening information which stared
them in the face from the station bulletin board.

"Forty minutes! Who cares to eat ice cream? Back into the buzz wagons,
all of you. I like the taste of ice cream in my mouth better than the
feel of those station boards under my feet for a long stretch of forty
minutes. We can go to the Ivy, that little white shop on Linden Avenue.
It is only two blocks from the station. We shall have time and to
spare."

Leila called the latter part of her remarks over her shoulder.
Immediately she had read the notice she turned and started for the
station yard. Her companions followed her with alacrity. They were no
more in favor than she of a tedious wait on the platform for a belated
train.

"One of us had better call time," wisely suggested Helen, as they
flocked into the pretty white and green tea room. "Otherwise we are
likely to overstay our limit. We must be out of here ten minutes before
the train is due. You had better, Luciferous. You are infallible."

"Much obliged." A faint pink crept into Lucy's fair pale skin. Lucy was
secretly proud of her own reliability. Turning her pretty gold wrist
watch on her wrist so that she could see the face of it, she watched it
with an eager eye from then on. The watch had been a gift to her from
Ronny the previous Christmas, and was her most valued possession.

Fortune favored them with prompt service on the part of a waitress. They
had only comfortably finished their ice cream, however, when Lucy
announced that it was time to go. Returning to the station platform,
they found only a sprinkling of students awaiting the coming train.

"What has become of Ethel Laird, I wonder?" asked Jerry. "I hope she
hasn't forgotten she is on this welcoming committe