/0/9211/coverbig.jpg?v=3eec6860106e3e7e55979a1fba91a8e2)
Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College by Josephine Chase
"Oh, there goes Grace Harlowe! Grace! Grace! Wait a minute!" A curly-haired little girl hastily deposited her suit case, golf bag, two magazines and a box of candy on the nearest bench and ran toward a quartette of girls who had just left the train that stood puffing noisily in front of the station at Overton.
The tall, gray-eyed young woman in blue turned at the call, and, running back, met the other half way. "Why, Arline!" she exclaimed. "I didn't see you when I got off the train." The two girls exchanged affectionate greetings; then Arline was passed on to Miriam Nesbit, Anne Pierson and J. Elfreda Briggs, who, with Grace Harlowe, had come back to Overton College to begin their second year's course of study.
Those who have followed the fortunes of Grace Harlowe and her friends through their four years of high school life are familiar with what happened during "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School," the story of her freshman year. "Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School" gave a faithful account of the doings of Grace and her three friends, Nora O'Malley, Anne Pierson and Jessica Bright, during their sophomore days. "Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School" and "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" told of her third and fourth years in Oakdale High School and of how completely Grace lived up to the high standard of honor she had set for herself.
After their graduation from high school the four devoted chums spent a summer in Europe; then came the inevitable separation. Nora and Jessica had elected to go to an eastern conservatory of music, while Anne and Grace had chosen Overton College. Miriam Nesbit, a member of the Phi Sigma Tau, had also decided for Overton, and what befell the three friends as Overton College freshmen has been narrated in "Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College."
Now September had rolled around again and the station platform of the town of Overton was dotted with groups of students laden with suit cases, golf bags and the paraphernalia belonging peculiarly to the college girl. Overton College was about to claim its own. The joyous greetings called out by happy voices testified to the fact that the next best thing to leaving college to go home was leaving home to come back to college.
"Where is Ruth?" was Grace's first question as she surveyed Arline with smiling, affectionate eyes.
"She'll be here directly," answered Arline. "She is looking after the trunks. She is the most indefatigable little laborer I ever saw. From the time we began to get ready to come back to Overton she refused positively to allow me to lift my finger. She is always hunting something to do. She says she has acquired the work habit so strongly that she can't break herself of it, and I believe her," finished Arline with a sigh of resignation. "Here she comes now."
An instant later the demure young woman seen approaching was surrounded by laughing girls.
"Stop working and speak to your little friends," laughed Miriam Nesbit. "We've just heard bad reports of you."
"I know what you've heard!" exclaimed Ruth, her plain little face alight with happiness. "Arline has been grumbling. You haven't any idea what a fault-finding person she is. She lectures me all the time."
"For working," added Arline. "Ruth will have work enough and to spare this year. Can you blame me for trying to make her take life easy for a few days?"
"Blame you?" repeated Elfreda. "I would have lectured her night and day, and tied her up to keep her from work, if necessary."
"Now you see just how much sympathy these worthy sophomores have for you," declared Arline.
"Do you know whether 19- is all here yet?" asked Anne.
"I don't know a single thing more about it than do you girls," returned Arline. "Suppose we go directly to our houses, and then meet at Vinton's for dinner to-night. I don't yearn for a Morton House dinner. The meals there won't be strictly up to the mark for another week yet. When the house is full again, the standard of Morton House cooking will rise in a day, but until then-let us thank our stars for Vinton's. Are you going to take the automobile bus? We shall save time."
"We might as well ride," replied Grace, looking inquiringly at her friends. "My luggage is heavy and the sooner I arrive at Wayne Hall the better pleased I shall be."
"Are you to have the same rooms as last year?" asked Ruth Denton.
"I suppose so, unless something unforeseen has happened."
"Will there be any vacancies at your house this year?" inquired Arline.
"Four, I believe," replied Anne Pierson. "Were you thinking of changing? We'd be glad to have you with us."
"I'd love to come, but Morton House is like home to me. Mrs. Kane calls me the Morton House Mascot, and declares her house would go to rack and ruin without me. She only says that in fun, of course."
"I think you'd make an ideal mascot for the sophomore basketball team this year," laughed Grace. "Will you accept the honor?"
"With both hands," declared Arline. "Now, we had better start, or we'll never get back to Vinton's. Ruth, you have my permission to walk with Anne as far as your corner. It's five o'clock now. Shall we agree to meet at Vinton's at half-past six? That will give us an hour and a half to get the soot off our faces, and if the expressman should experience a change of heart and deliver our trunks we might possibly appear in fresh gowns. The possibility is very remote, however. I know, because I had to wait four days for mine last year. It was sent to the wrong house, and traveled gaily about the campus, stopping for a brief season at three different houses before it landed on Morton House steps. I hung out of the window for a whole morning watching for it. Then, when it did come, I fairly had to fly downstairs and out on the front porch to claim it, or they would have hustled it off again."
"That's why I appointed myself chief trunk tender," said Ruth slyly. "That trunk story is not new to me. This time your trunk will be waiting on the front porch for you, Arline."
"If it is, then I'll forgive you your other sins," retorted Arline. "That is, if you promise to come and room with me. Isn't she provoking, girls? I have a whole room to myself and she won't come. Father wishes her to be with me, too."
"I'd love to be with Arline," returned Ruth bravely, "but I can't afford it, and I can't accept help from any one. I must work out my own problem in my own way. You understand, don't you?" She looked appealingly from one to the other of her friends, who nodded sympathetically.
"She's a courageous Ruth, isn't she?" smiled Arline, patting Ruth on the shoulder.
At Ruth's corner they said good-bye to her. Then hailing a bus the five girls climbed into it.
"So far we haven't seen any of our old friends," remarked Grace as they drove along Maple Avenue. "I suppose they haven't arrived yet. We are here early this year."
"I'd rather be early than late," rejoined Miriam. "Last year we were late. Don't you remember? There were dozens of girls at the station when we arrived. Arline and Ruth are the first real friends we have seen so far. Where are Mabel Ashe and Frances Marlton, Emma Dean and Gertrude Wells, not to mention Virginia Gaines?"
"If I'm not mistaken," said Elfreda slowly, her brows drawing together in an ominous frown, "there are two people just ahead of us whom we have reason to remember."
Almost at the moment of her declaration the girls had espied two young women loitering along the walk ahead of them whose very backs were too familiar to be mistaken.
"It's Miss Wicks and Miss Hampton, isn't it?" asked Anne.
Grace nodded. They were now too close to the young women for further speech. A moment more and the bus containing the five girls had passed the loitering pair. Neither side had made the slightest sign of recognition. A sudden silence fell upon the little company in the bus.
"It is too bad to begin one's sophomore year by cutting two Overton girls, isn't it?" said Grace, in a rueful tone.
"Overton girls!" sniffed Elfreda. "I consider neither Miss Wicks nor Miss Hampton real Overton girls."
"They should be by this time," reminded Miriam Nesbit mischievously. "They have been here a year longer than we have."
"Years don't count," retorted Elfreda. "It's having the true Overton spirit that counts. You girls understand what I mean, even if Miriam tries to pretend she doesn't."
"Of course we understand, Elfreda," soothed Anne. "Miriam was merely trying to tease you."
"Don't you suppose I know that?" returned Elfreda. "I know, too, that you don't wish me to say anything against those two girls. All right, I won't, but I warn you, I'll keep on thinking uncomplimentary things about them. Last June, after that ghost party, I promised Grace I would never try to get even with Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton, but I didn't promise to like them, and if they attempt to interfere with me this year, they'll be sorry."
"Oh, there's the campus!" exclaimed Arline as, turning into College Street, the long green slope, broken at intervals by magnificent old trees, burst upon their view. "Hello, Overton Hall!" she cried, waving her hand to that stately building. "Doesn't the campus look like green plush, though! I love every inch of it, don't you?" She looked at her companions and, seeing the light from her face reflected on theirs, needed no verbal answer to her question. A moment later she signaled to the driver to stop the bus. "I shall have to leave you here," she said. "I'll see you at Vinton's at six-thirty."
Grace handed out her luggage to her, saying: "You have so much to carry, Arline. Shall I help you?"
"Mercy, no," laughed Arline. "'Every woman her own porter,' is my motto." Opening her suit case she stuffed the candy and magazines into it, snapping it shut with a triumphant click. Then with it in one hand, her golf bag in the other, she set off across the campus at a swinging pace.
"She's little, but she has plenty of independence and energy," laughed Miriam. "Hurrah, girls, there's Wayne Hall just ahead of us."
It was only a short ride from the spot where Arline had left them to Wayne Hall. Grace sprang from the bus almost before it stopped, and ran up the stone walk, her three friends following. Before she had time to ring the door bell, however, the door opened and Emma Dean rushed out to greet them. "Welcome to old Wayne," she cried, shaking hands all around. "I heard Mrs. Elwood say this morning you would be here late this afternoon. I've been over to Morton House, consoling a homesick cousin who is sure she is going to hate college. I've been out since before luncheon. Had it at Martell's with my dolorous, misanthropic relative. I tried to get her in here, but everything was taken. We are to have four freshmen, you know."
"I knew there were four places last June, but am rather surprised that no sophomores applied for rooms. Have you seen the new girls?"
Emma shook her head. "They hadn't arrived when I left this morning. I don't know whether they are here now or not. I'm to have one of them. Virginia Gaines has gone to Livingstone Hall. She has a friend there. Two of the new girls will have her room. Florence Ransom will have to take the fourth."
"Where's Mrs. Elwood?" asked Miriam.
"She went over to see her sister this afternoon. She's likely to return at any minute," answered Emma.
"Do you think we ought to wait for her?" Grace asked anxiously.
"Hardly," said Anne, picking up her bag, which she had deposited on the floor.
"Come on, I'll lead the way," volunteered Elfreda, starting up the stairs.
"Won't Mrs. Elwood be surprised when she comes home? She'll find us not only here, but settled," laughed Grace.
But it was Grace rather than Mrs. Elwood who was destined to receive the surprise.
* * *
Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert by Josephine Chase
Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School / Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities by Josephine Chase
The red-haired girl stared fixedly out of the window. There was nothing to look at but black night, and the light from within turned the glass into a dusky mirror where her image was clearly reflected. But she stared at it unseeingly, busy with her thoughts. She was very early, but in fifteen minutes or so the Girl Scouts would commence to arrive. It was something of an ordeal to face the strangers and she had planned to be the first one in the room. She thought it a distinct advantage to meet them so rather than to enter the room feeling that the fifteen or twenty pairs of eyes were all noting her and the brains belonging to them were registering the usual formula, \"Goodness, what red hair!\" She never could see why people always spoke of her hair. Certainly there were redder heads, and her heavy, waving locks were always perfectly cared for, glossy and brushed with careful attention. She pulled the long braid over her shoulder and looked at it. The braid was thicker than her wrist, and when unbound it reached nearly to her knees. Almost petulantly she swung it behind her and turned her eyes toward the window again. They were queer eyes, a strange sea-green in color, and their black lashes and straight brows gave them a dark and brooding expression. She was pale, but it was not a wholesome pallor. She looked like a girl whose hours were not good, who sat up too late, and ate the wrong kinds of food. Her supple slender hands were bare except for a little finger ring of green jade set in silver. Her wrist-watch showed its tiny face from the center of a silver and jade bracelet. She wore the jewel pushed far up her sleeve.
Marjorie was a feast for beauty-loving eyes as she sat on the wide stone edge of the silver-spraying fountain with its musical murmur of water splashing into a white marble basin. The mannish cut of her gray knickered riding clothes merely made her look more than ever like a little girl. From under her little round gray hat with its bit of irridescent color her bright brown curls showed in a soft fluff. She sat smiling at Ronny, a sleeve of her riding coat pushed back from one rounded arm, one hand trailing idly in the clear water of the basin.
"You're my wife in name only, on paper only. My heart and love will never be yours." Edward made it clear to Daisy that she was nothing to him. They were both victims of family greed -- the marriage was arranged for them. Six years passed. She remained quiet, gaining a reputation in the army as a tough-as-nails colonel. When she walked into his life again, Edward fell in love with this woman, unlike any he had known. She surprised and delighted him. But will Daisy take him back? Can their son keep them together? Can the rift between them be healed? Pick this one up and find out!
She thought she was the love of his life, and he became the love of her life that fateful day she had seen him at the pack's party. Selene Grace was only a replica of Alpha Leo's real mate, and when he spotted her, Leo immediately claimed her as his Luna in order to suppress the rumors of him being mateless. Being unable to conceive turns Selene's marriage into a nightmare, and as if that wasn't enough, Alpha Leo finally reunites with his long time lover and mate, rejecting a pregnant Selene as a result. 5 years later, Selene, a now successful doctor, receives an invitation to the moon shadow pack in order to rid the pack of a deadly disease which has struck it. Will Selene return back to the pack which had caused her so much pain, and what would she do when she realizes that she is mated to the Alpha who had betrayed her in the past?
“You need a bride, I need a groom. Why don’t we get married?” Both abandoned at the altar, Elyse decided to tie the knot with the disabled stranger from the venue next door. Pitying his state, she vowed to spoil him once they were married. Little did she know that he was actually a powerful tycoon. Jayden thought Elyse only married him for his money, and planned to divorce her when she was no longer of use to him. But after becoming her husband, he was faced with a new dilemma. “She keeps asking for a divorce, but I don’t want that! What should I do?”
Madison had always believed that she would marry Colten. She spent her youth admiring him from afar, dreaming of their future life together. But Colten was always indifferent to her, and when he abandoned her at a time when she needed him most, she finally realized that he never loved her. With renewed resolve and a thirst for revenge, Madison left. Endless possibilities lay ahead, but Colten was no longer part of her plans. Colten rushed to her place in a panic. "Madison, please come back to me. I’ll give you everything!" It was his powerful uncle who answered the door. "She's my woman now."
Charlee was left at the altar and became a laughingstock. She tried to keep her head high, but ultimately lost it when she received a sex tape of her fiance and her half-sister. Devastated, she ended up spending a wild night with a hot stranger. It was supposed to be one-time thing, but he kept popping up, helping her with projects and revenge, all while flirting with her constantly. Charlee soon realized that it was nice having him around, until her ex suddenly appeared at her door, begging for another chance. Her tycoon lover asked, “Who will you choose? Think carefully before you answer.”
There was only one man in Raegan's heart, and it was Mitchel. In the second year of her marriage to him, she got pregnant. Raegan's joy knew no bounds. But before she could break the news to her husband, he served her divorce papers because he wanted to marry his first love. After an accident, Raegan lay in the pool of her own blood and called out to Mitchel for help. Unfortunately, he left with his first love in his arms. Raegan escaped death by the whiskers. Afterward, she decided to get her life back on track. Her name was everywhere years later. Mitchel became very uncomfortable. For some reason, he began to miss her. His heart ached when he saw her all smiles with another man. He crashed her wedding and fell to his knees while she was at the altar. With bloodshot eyes, he queried, "I thought you said your love for me is unbreakable? How come you are getting married to someone else? Come back to me!"