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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.
"Do you remember what you said one October day last year, Grace, when we stood on this platform and said good-bye to the boys?" asked Anne Pierson.
"No, what did I say?" asked Grace Harlowe, turning to her friend Anne.
"You said," returned Anne, "that when it came your turn to go to college you were going to slip away quietly without saying good-bye to any one but your mother, and here you are with almost half Oakdale at the train to see you off to college."
"Now, Anne, you know perfectly well that people are down here to see you and Miriam, too," laughed Grace. "I'm not half as much of a celebrity as you are."
Grace Harlowe, Miriam Nesbit and Anne Pierson stood on the station platform completely surrounded by their many friends, who, regardless of the fact that it was half-past seven o'clock in the morning, had made it a point to be at the station to wish them godspeed.
"This is the second public gathering this week," remarked Miriam Nesbit, who, despite the chatter that was going on around her, had heard Grace's laughing remark.
"I know it," agreed Grace. "There was just as large a crowd here when Nora and Jessica went away last Monday. Doesn't it seem dreadful that we are obliged to be separated? How I hated to see the girls go. And we won't be together again until Christmas."
"Oh, here come the boys!" announced Eva Allen, who, with Marian Barber, had been standing a little to one side of the three girls.
At this juncture four smiling young men hurried through the crowd of young people and straight to the circle surrounding the three girls, where they were received with cries of: "We were afraid you'd be too late!" and, "Why didn't you get here earlier?"
"We're awfully sorry!" exclaimed David Nesbit. "We had to wait for Hippy. He overslept as usual. We threw as much as a shovelful of gravel against his window, but he never stirred. Finally we had to waken his family and it took all of them to waken him."
"Don't you believe what David Nesbit says," retorted Hippy. "Do you suppose I slept a wink last night knowing that the friends of my youth were about to leave me?" Hippy sniffed dolefully and buried his face in his handkerchief.
"Now, now, Hippy," protested Miriam. "If you insist on shedding crocodile tears, although I don't believe you could be sad long enough to shed even that kind, we shall feel that you are glad to get rid of us."
"Never!" ejaculated Hippy fervently. "Oh, if I only had Irish Nora here to stand up for me! She wouldn't allow any one, except herself, to speak harsh and cruel words to me."
"We shan't be able to speak many more words of any kind to you," said Miriam, consulting her watch. "The train is due in ten minutes."
When Grace Harlowe and her three dear friends, Nora O'Malley, Jessica Bright and Anne Pierson, began to make history for themselves in their freshman year at Oakdale High School, none of them could possibly imagine just how dear they were to become to the hearts of the hundreds of girls who made their acquaintance in "Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School." The story of their freshman year was one of manifold trials and triumphs. It was at the beginning of that year that Grace Harlowe had championed the cause of Anne Pierson, a newcomer in Oakdale. Then and there a friendship sprang up between the two girls that was destined to be life long. The repeated efforts of several malicious girls to discredit Anne in the eyes of her teachers, and her final triumph in winning the freshman prize offered to the class by Mrs. Gray, a wealthy resident of Oakdale, made the narrative one of interest and aroused a desire on the part of the reader to know more of Grace Harlowe and her friends.
In "Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School" the girl chums appeared as basketball enthusiasts. In this volume was related the efforts of Julia Crosby, a disagreeable junior, and Miriam Nesbit, a disgruntled sophomore, to disgrace Anne and wrest the basketball captaincy from Grace. Through the magnanimity of Grace Harlowe, Miriam and Julia were brought to a realization of their own faults, and in time became the faithful friends of both Anne and Grace.
During "Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School" the famous sorority, the Phi Sigma Tau, was organized by the four chums for the purpose of looking after high school girls who stood in need of assistance. In that volume Eleanor Savelli, the self-willed daughter of an Italian violin virtuoso, made her appearance. The difficulties Grace and her chums encountered in trying to befriend Eleanor and her final contemptuous repudiation of their friendship made absorbing reading for those interested in following the fortunes of the Oakdale High School girls.
Their senior year was perhaps the most eventful of all. At the very beginning of the fall term the high school gymnasium was destroyed by fire. Failing to secure an appropriation from either the town or state, the four classes of the girls' high school pledged themselves to raise the amount of money required to rebuild the gymnasium. In "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" the story of the senior class bazaar, the daring theft of their hard-earned money before the bazaar had closed, and Grace Harlowe's final recovery of the stolen money under the strangest of circumstances, furnished material for a narrative of particular interest. After graduation the four chums, accompanied by their nearest and dearest friends, had spent a long and delightful summer in Europe. On returning to Oakdale the real parting of the ways had come, for Nora and Jessica had already departed for an eastern city to enter a well known conservatory of music. Marian Barber and Eva Allen were to enter Smith College the following week, Eleanor Savelli had long since sailed for Italy, and now the morning train was to bear Miriam Nesbit, Grace Harlowe and Anne Pierson to Overton, an eastern college finally decided upon by the three girls.
"Last year we left you on the station platform gazing mournfully after the train that bore me away from Oakdale," remarked Hippy reminiscently. "How embarrassed I felt at so much attention, and yet how sweet it was to know that you had gathered here, not to see David Nesbit, Reddy Brooks, Tom Gray or any such insignificant persons off to school, but that I, Theophilus Hippopotamus Wingate, was the object of your tender solicitations."
"I expected it," groaned David. "I don't see why we ever woke him up and dragged him along."
"As I was about to say when rudely interrupted," continued Hippy calmly, "I shall miss you, of course, but not half so much as you will miss me. I hope you will think of me, and you may write to me occasionally if it will be a satisfaction to you. I know you will not forget me. Who, having once met me, could forget?"
Hippy folded his arms across his chest and looked languishingly at the three girls.
A chorus of giggles from those grouped around the girls and derisive groans from the boys greeted Hippy's sentimental speech.
Suddenly a long, shrill whistle was heard.
"That's your train, girls," said Mr. Harlowe, who with Mrs. Harlowe, Mrs. Nesbit and Mary Pierson had drawn a little to one side while their dear ones said their last farewells to their four boy friends. The circle about the three girls closed in. The air resounded with good-byes. The last kisses and handshakes were exchanged. Reckless promises to send letters and postcards were made. Then, still surrounded, Grace, Miriam and Anne made their way to the car steps and into the train. Grace clung first to her mother then to her father. "How can I do without you?" she said over and over again. Tears stood in her gray eyes. She winked them back bravely. "I'm going to show both of you just how much I appreciate going to college by doing my very best," she whispered. Her father patted her reassuringly on the shoulder while her mother gave her a last loving kiss.
"I know you will, dear child," she said affectionately. "Remember, Grace," added her father, a suspicious mist in his own eyes, "you are not to rush headlong into things. You are to do a great deal of looking before you even make up your mind to leap."
"I'll remember, Father. Truly I will," responded Grace, her face sobering.
"All aboard! All aboard!" shouted the conductor. Those who had entered the train to say farewell left it hurriedly.
"Good-bye! Good-bye!" cried Grace, leaning out the car window.
From the platform as the train moved off, clear on the air, rose the Oakdale High School yell.
"It's in honor of us," said Grace softly. "Dear old Oakdale. I wonder if we can ever like college as well as we have high school."
* * *
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
Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College by Josephine Chase
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.
Sheila had her back against the wall when her family tried to force her to marry an awful old man. In a fit of rage, she hired a gigolo to act as her husband. She thought the gigolo needed money and did this for a living. Little did she know that he was nothing like that. One day, he pulled off his mask and revealed himself to be the world's top magnate. This marked the beginning of their love. He showered her with everything she could ever want. They were happy. However, unexpected circumstances soon posed a threat to their love. Would Sheila and her husband make it through the storm? Find out!
Her fiance and her best friend worked together and set her up. She lost everything and died in the street. However, she was reborn. The moment she opened her eyes, her husband was trying to strangle her. Luckily, she survived that. She signed the divorce agreement without hesitation and was ready for her miserable life. To her surprise, her mother in this life left her a great deal of money. She turned the tables and avenged herself. Everything went well in her career and love when her ex-husband came to her.
After my family's sinister plots collapsed, they lashed out at me, taking their rage to a violent level. Cornered and desperate, I married Jaxton—the town's most sought-after bachelor—due to an unplanned pregnancy. Love had no part in this marriage; I assumed he married me purely out of responsibility, his heart belonging elsewhere. The moment I chose to let him go and turned to leave, he grabbed me and pinned me down hard. "Jaxton, you promised you'd never touch me!" I snapped, glaring fiercely. His eyes flashed arrogantly as he leaned closer. "You're the one who started this!"
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."
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?
Due to the plight of her family, Phoebe had no choice but to embark on the path of selling herself. In an accident, she had a tangled night with Alexander. Everything began to derail, and even if she fled to the ends of the earth, she would still be found by him and entangled... *** Phoebe screamed in frustration, "What do you want from me?" What was this supposed to be? He raised an eyebrow wickedly. "What do I want? You'll find out soon enough." With that, he hoisted her up and carried her back into the office. The door slammed shut with a kick, and he cleared the desk with a sweep of his arm before laying her down on it, his body pinning hers in place, completely trapping her in his grasp. Every cell in his body was telling him he wanted her. He wanted to claim her again. This time, there would be no escape for her-he wouldn't let her slip away. Never again. If he had suffered for five years, then this woman wouldn't get off easily either!