The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware

a dozen Freshmen surrounded Betty in the lower hall, one snowy morning late

Lewis to be photographed. There's a man coming out from town this morning to take some snow scenes of the place, and we want her to pose for him. Sitting at the desk, you know, wher

ng down the stairs in her excitement, and forgetting the respectful "M

e-a series of boarding-school stories. One of these girls heard me telling Miss Chilton about it

ur special favourite one, who's turned out to be a sure-enough author, and

nd breaking away from the encircling arms which held her determinedly. It was good to feel that she had the ardent a

an author than anything else in the world. It's so nice to dash off a new book every year or so and have a fortune

road to travel before one reaches such a mountain top as that. I've been at it for

r in the morning she beckoned Mary into her room, and watc

them during Christmas vacation. Oh, Betty! How splendid!" Then she looked at her curiou

d could attempt anything. There's nothing in the world," she added slowly, as if talking to herself, "quite so sweet as the realization of one's ambitions. I was almost envious of Joyce when I saw her established in a studio, at last accomplishing the things she has always hope

d expectations, and to leave a Road of the Loving Heart in every one's memory. And she is certainly doing that. Her popularity is the kind that cannot be bought wi

"for your dreams have come true. And seeing that mak

Jack's sake," said Betty, coming out of the r

e foresaw for herself. Sometimes in the daylight it seemed presumptuous for her to aspire to such heights. It was onl

You know this is a partnership story, and you are to get another trip to New York out of it. Putting your shilling in the Christmas

, that I don't see how I can have any claim on it at all," said Mary

you, how your shilling made me think of an old rhyme, and that rhyme of something else, and so o

for instance. He was immensely pleased with it. I know, not only from what he wrote himself, but from what mamma said. Yet his pleasure in getting it was not a circumstance to mine in giving it. Not that I mean it will be that way about the New York

ck she planted an impetuous kiss on

hmen, and she the star of the Senior class, begged the same favour. The one which fell to Mary's share stood on her dressing-table several days and then disappeared. She felt disloyal

m from forgetting what the ideal American girl is like. They don't have them in Lone-Rock. There isn't any young society there at all. And he was so interested in

o be wondered at, and that Mary should see the blush and promptly report it in her next letter to Jack was quite a

tful brown eyes, and the little laughter lines about the mouth. Back in God's country, he sometimes mused, fellows knew girls like that. Played golf and tennis with them, rode with them, picnic

the responsibility of his work. He would gladly have shouldered more in his zeal to push ahead. It was the thought that all work and no play was making him the proverbial dull boy

in demand as a chaperon, because she was just a girl herself and could understand how they felt and was such good fun. Presently when word came tha

before she left for Warwick Hall, they had met like old friends, each familiar with the other's past Unquestioningly she had accepted Papa Jack's

other who had ever lived in the knowledge of man. In answer to her cordial little note of acknowledgment came a letter explaining in a frank straightforward way why he had kept her picture, and how he longed sometimes for th

pondence. Regular on Jack's side, at least, for no matter whether she wrote or not, promptly every Thur

as allowed to pass unheeded. March held fewer opportunities, so Saint Patrick was made much of, and Mary's sorority planned a spread up in the gymnasium in his honour. She had

his letters to Betty that Mary would be seventeen on the seventeenth, and he was afraid that his remembra

harp-shaped place cards, and suggested a menu which typified the "wearin' o' the green" in every dish, from the olive sandwiches to the creme de menthe. To further carry out the colour scheme, the g

les it ought to hold since no one knew how many years he numbered. But Dorene solved the difficulty by

was overwhelmed with so much distinction at first. The musical little acrostic by the sorority poet gratified her beyond expression. Cornie Dean's toast almost brought the tears it was so sweet and appreciative, and the affect

would you prefer, to be as green as you look or to look as green as you are?" When the conversation touched on the birthstone for March, some o

Blarney stone!" c

her knees from one of the turning-pole bars, and we'll build up a pyramid under her to put the Blarney stone on, so that

gin to catch up glasses and plates from the table with which to build the pyramid. But by the time the structure was completed and top

id Elise, as Mary balanced herself a moment on the bar,

do such things if the signs o

see more stars than the ones in you

d on to the pole, and the pole hold on to me

ering pile of china and glass ware. The china cupid was almost beyond her reach, but by a desperate effort sh

riumphantly of Elise as soon as she could get her breath.

, so that the performance ended in a gale of romping and laughter. Then at the last, to the tune of "They kept the pig in t

he form of a china pig, with a slit in its back, into which eac

your sevente

teen shall

long on th

ce a-ple

ied A.O. "Quick, Mary! Tell us how much your

. "There are just seventeen of us counting me!" she crie

occasion for a dowry you'll have enough to

of them," laughed Mary. "

imes it is only a few steps farther when you are seve

"I'd like to stop the clock right here," she declared, "and stay just at this age for years and

affair to Ethelinda. They were not members of the same sorority, but they had many interests in common now. They had learned how