MARJORIE DEANMACY

CHAPTER I. MANAÑA

“Here I am—all booted and spurred and ready to ride,” Marjorie Dean called out gaily to Veronica Lynne as Ronny entered the cool spacious patio of Lucero de la Manaña, the Lynnes’ beautiful ranch home in southern California.

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 sound like Paul Revere. At least, that is 4what he said, supposedly, on the night of his famous ride. You look like Leila Harper’s friend, Beauty, even in riding togs.” Ronny came over to Marjorie, smiling.

“I only remember Leila Harper.” Marjorie glanced up teasingly.

“You are altogether too forgetful,” Ronny lightly reproved.

She paused, looking amusedly down at her pretty chum. She was wearing a white linen, knickered riding suit which was vastly becoming. Her wide gray eyes gave out a happy light that her heart switched on every time her gaze came to rest upon Marjorie.

Since first she had known Marjorie Dean, back in their senior high school days at Sanford, she had cherished a pet dream. That dream had come true six weeks previous when Marjorie, her father and mother had arrived from the East to make Ronny a long deferred visit. To range the great ranch, pony-back, with Marjorie riding beside her, ever a gracious, inspiriting comrade, was Ronny’s highest desire toward happiness.

“How long have you been waiting for me, Miss Paul Revere?” she playfully questioned. “Why didn’t you come to Ronny’s room and hang around? Why so unsociable?” Ronny drew down her face into an aggrieved expression which her dancing 5eyes contradicted. “I’ve known you to be much more cordial at old Wayland Hall.”

“Oh, I’ve only been here about three minutes. I’m miles more sociable than I was at Wayland Hall,” laughed Marjorie. “I thought you’d be ready and ahead of me. When I found you weren’t, I couldn’t resist stopping to dabble my hand in the water. I love the patio, Ronny, and adore the fountain. If I lived here three months longer I should be so steeped in the beauty of Manaña that I’d forget the East—maybe.” Her “maybe” was stronger than her light prediction.

“The magic spell of Manaña is upon you,” Ronny confidently asserted. “There is a mystical, romantic beauty about Manaña. I have searched for it over and over again in the East, but have never found it. It seems to me our Manaña is Nature’s own ideal of grandeur and beauty. I think the Spanish influence in the house and about the ranch heightens its claim to the romantic. Hamilton Arms has a certain stateliness of beauty, all its own. But has it anything more romantically beautiful than this patio?”

“It’s true as you live, Ronny Lynne,” agreed Marjorie gaily.

“You couldn’t love the patio better than I do.” Ronny cast a fond glance about the great square-covered court with its central crystal-spraying 6fountain and its ancient stone floor, gay with rugs and colorful Navajo blankets. The few inviting lounging chairs, the reading stand piled with current magazines, the quaint leather-covered Spanish couch, long and narrow, and heaped with gorgeous-hued silken cushions seemed only to accentuate the primitive charm of the old-time inclosure. Above it a railed-in Spanish balcony extended around the four sides. It was bright with flowering plants and further beautified by the masses of trailing vines which clambered over the old-time mahogany railing.

“I know it.” Marjorie gave a quick nod. “I’d not wish to love it as much as Hamilton Arms. I never thought I could care more for the Arms than dear Castle Dean. But I do. My whole heart is bound up in it, and Hamilton. I hope that I—that—we—will—” Marjorie stopped, her color deepening. “I hope Hal and I will live at Hamilton some day.” She continued in shy haste to finish what she had begun to say when girlish embarrassment had overtaken her.

“I believe Hamilton to be the one place for you and Hal to live,” Ronny made hearty response. “It would be splendid if General and Captain should decide to live in Hamilton Estates, too. ‘Where the treasure is, there shall the heart be also,’ you know. You are General’s and Captain’s treasure, and Hamilton 7is your treasure, so why shouldn’t you all get together and be happy? None of you have really anything special to bind you to Sanford. That is, not as you have at Hamilton.” Ronny smiled very tenderly at Marjorie’s glowing face.

“It’s different with me,” Ronny continued. “My treasure is Father. So Manaña means most of any place on earth to me. I love Hamilton devotedly. Remember, there are plenty of Travelers to help complete the dormitory, but only one Traveler to comfort a lonely man. Father has considered me above himself always. Now I must begin to consider him.”

Marjorie sprang up from her seat upon the fountain’s stone edge. “It’s odd to me still, Ronny—being engaged to be married to Hal,” she confessed as she shyly busied herself with the drying of her wet hand with her handkerchief.

Ronny nodded sympathetically. “I always believed it would happen some day,” she said. “You can’t help but feel strange about it, though. You’ve hardly seen him since college closed.”

“But I’m going to see him soon.” The note of unmistakable happiness in Marjorie’s reply was in itself convincing of the true state of the little Lieutenant’s heart.

The two friends had now passed through the arched stone doorway of the patio and stepped out 8upon the lawn. They crossed it to the ancient brick drive and followed the drive toward a point near the heavy iron entrance gates, where a young Mexican boy stood holding the bridles of two horses. The girls were going for a ride before sunset.

“Bueno; muy bueno, Ramon. Muchas gracias (Good; very good, Ramon. Thank you very much),” Ronny brightly smiled her further thanks at the pleased groom.

Ramon showed white teeth, acknowledging her thanks in Spanish. Due to her love of action Marjorie had learned to ride with a readiness which delighted and amazed Ronny. She had picked for Marjorie a handsome white pony which she had fancifully named Dawn. Pony and rider had quickly become fast friends. Ronny’s own pet mount, Lightning, a soft black thoroughbred that deserved his name, was the admiration and the despair of the majority of the cowboys on the ranch. Few besides Ronny and Mr. Lynne had been able to stay long upon his back. He obeyed Ronny because he loved her.

“Your going home will leave a horrible blank space at my hearthstone,” Ronny regretfully told Marjorie as they rode their ponies slowly through the opened gates and out onto a broad trail which descended gradually in an easterly direction.

“I wish you could be in two places at once,” Marjorie 9returned with a soft little sigh. “I hate to leave you, Ronny. What are we going to do without you on the campus? What are Page and Dean without their greatest show feature? Think of all you’ve done as a Traveler for the good of Hamilton. I haven’t dared write Miss Susanna and the girls that you weren’t coming back. Does your father know yet what good fortune’s in store for him?”

“No; I’ve not broached the subject to him yet. Before long he will probably ask me when I think of going East. Then I shall say ‘Not at all,’ and stick to it.”

“You’ll simply have to come East to—to—” She paused, her eyes meeting Ronny’s with a significantly happy light.

“Oh, of course, then,” Ronny smilingly emphasized.

“You are to be one of my bridesmaids, Ronny,” Marjorie decreed. “I’ve been thinking quite a lot about my wedding. I have an idea that it will be different from most weddings, I’d like to have gathered around me that day the girls I’ve known and loved best. I’m going to try to find a place for them all in my bridal procession. I’ve not settled upon a single thing yet, but I have just one inspiration that I hope I can carry out.”

“When is it to be, Marjorie?” Ronny questioned 10with the lighting of her fair face which Marjorie loved to see.

“I don’t quite know yet. It will all depend on when the dormitory is finished. I—I haven’t made any plans for it except I’ve thought to myself about the kind of wedding I’d like to have. I’ve said more to you than I have even to Captain,” Marjorie declared with a shy laugh.

“I am highly honored, Marvelous Manager.” Ronny leaned to the right in her saddle with a respectful bow. “Having marvelously managed everything and everybody for a period of years on the campus, may we not expect you to manage your own wedding with eclat?”

“Don’t expect too much,” Marjorie warned laughingly.

As they talked the ponies had been impatiently enduring the slow walk to which their riders, absorbed in confidences, had put them. The trail was broad and smooth; wide enough for two ponies to run on, side by side. It dipped gradually down into a green valley of oak, larch and aspen trees. There the trail narrowed to a bridle path, winding in and out among wooded growths, and overhanging steep ravines. After half a mile it emerged from shadowed woods into the sunshine of the open country, growing wider again.

“There he is!” Ronny had been keeping up a 11bright look-out ahead. Her white-clad arm began a vigorous signaling to a horseman who had reined in near a large rock some distance ahead of them. He was sitting on a big bay horse, waiting for the riders to come up.

Every day, since Marjorie had learned to ride the two girls had gone pony-back at sunset to meet Mr. Lynne on his return from the daily supervision of the planting of a peach orchard of choice variety.

“I’ll race you,” Ronny challenged. She started her horse, Lightning, with a quick pat of her hand on his silky neck. He shot forward like a veritable streak of lightning, glad of a chance to run.

CHAPTER II. FOND REALITY

Dawn was only a second or two behind him. The pair of mettlesome ponies fled along the trail toward the waiting horseman, their riders uttering buoyant little cries of encouragement and laughter. It was the usual race, and Ronny always won. Dawn could not quite keep up with Lightning.

“Buenos dias, señor (how are you, sir)?” Ronny greeted cheerily as she reined in near her father’s horse. “Stand and deliver. What’s in that fat, interesting package at your saddle bow? I can guess. You’ve been to Teresa’s.”

“Who is Teresa?” Mr. Lynne inquired with guileless interest.

“Teresa is a most amiable Spanish donna who is famed for the deliciousness of her candied fruits, such as you have in two tin boxes wrapped in one package,” Ronny triumphantly informed. “Get down from your horse, Señor Lynne, and hand over the spoils to us. If you’re good, we may ask you to sit beside us on that nice flat rock over there and attend a picnic.”

13“You win. Come and get it.” Mr. Lynne had sprung from his horse and was waving the large package temptingly at Ronny. Marjorie sat on her pony, watching the devoted pair with an affectionate smile. She was thinking that Mr. Lynne was almost as dear and full of fun as General. But not quite, she made loyal reservation.

Ronny had left Lightning’s back in a twinkling and was making energetic grabs at the package her father was swaying back and forth just out of her reach.

“You’re in this, Lightning. Candy, old dear. Think of that.” The pony sent up an approving whinny. Dawn also began to neigh vigorously. “Can’t fool you two beauties. You know what’s in those boxes as well as I.”

Ronny managed to secure the package. She had the wrapper off of it in a flash, revealing two square tin boxes such as she was famed for having provided at the Travelers’ campus spreads. She handed one of the tin boxes to Marjorie and sat down on the flat rock with the other on her lap to explore its contents.

“Um-m. Cherries, apricots and plums!” she exclaimed. “Two hours yet till dinner. Sit down, Señor Lynne and Señorita Dean. You’re invited to a feast.”

“Teresa sends you her best wishes and says she 14will have plenty of candied fruit packed for you by the time you are ready to go East to Hamilton.” Teresa was the wife of Mr. Lynne’s oldest foreman and was noted for her skill in candying fruit.

“Teresa doesn’t know yet that I’m not going East again this fall.” Ronny turned calm gray eyes upon her father as she bit into a luscious cherry.

“I’m afraid you will have to go,” Mr. Lynne said with apparent regretful seriousness. He was a big fair giant of a man with penetrating blue eyes, a strong square chin and thick fair hair brushed high off his broad forehead. His facial expression was kindly, yet suggested great will-power.

“I am going to Mexico on a prospecting trip for silver. I promised some friends of mine long ago that I would join their expedition. I shall be gone all winter. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t wish you to be alone at Manaña. It’s lucky I can pack you off to Hamilton again. Such a strain off my mind,” he ended teasingly.

“You are a sham,” Ronny set the box of cherries on the ground. Her arms went round her father’s neck. She placed a playful hand to his lips. “Not another word. You know you only think I want to go East again. So you have joined——”

“Well, don’t you?” her father tenderly demanded.

15“Not more than to stay here with you,” she answered honestly.

“But how can you stay here with me when I shan’t be here? You aren’t going to say I can’t go to Mexico, are you?” he put on an expression of blank disappointment.

“Can you say on your word of honor that you aren’t going away on my account?” Ronny countered severely.

“You haven’t answered my questions yet,” came the laughing evasion. “Besides you took me so by surprise that I forgot I had two letters for Marjorie.”

Mr. Lynne reached into a pocket of his tweed riding coat and drew forth two envelopes. One was square and pale gray. The other was square and white. Sight of it sent two happy color signals flying to Marjorie’s cheeks. Hal’s familiar hand on the white square made her heart beat faster. Quickly she laid the gray envelope over it, striving to keep her lovely face from indexing her love for Hal. She bent purposely wrinkled brows over the gray envelope. It bore a San Francisco postmark. The writing on it seemed oddly familiar, yet she could not place it. So far as she knew she had neither acquaintances nor friends in San Francisco. She courteously tucked both letters into a coat pocket and again turned her attention to the merry little 16tilt still going on between Ronny and her father.

“I’ll confess, if you will,” Mr. Lynne was saying. “But you first.”

“Confess what?” Ronny put on a non-comprehending air.

“Can you truthfully say that you’d rather stay at home this year than go back to Hamilton and finish your part of the work of building the dormitory?” There was an undercurrent of seriousness in the light tone of the question.

“When you put matters that way, no. You’re awfully mean.” Ronny laughed half vexedly. “Now it’s my turn. Hadn’t your friends forgotten all about that silver expedition until you reminded them of it? Why need you go prospecting when you are not a prospector?”

“I really don’t know much about my friends’ memories. I am obliged to become a prospector in order to make you go back to Hamilton. It’s the only way. Now, isn’t it?”

“I can’t think of any other,” Ronny admitted. “It’s dear in you.” There was a tiny quaver in her clear enunciation.

“Not a bit of it. It’s necessary for you to return to Hamilton to finish your part of the dormitory enterprise,” came her father’s crisp decision. “Never undertake a thing unless you are prepared to finish it, Little Comrade.” It was her father’s pet name 17for Ronny. “What do you say, Marjorie?” he turned to the radiant-faced Lieutenant.

“I ought to be sympathizing with you because you won’t see Ronny this winter. But if you only knew how we need her on the campus. She is Page and Dean’s greatest show feature, not to mention what she is to the Travelers and the dormitory enterprise. It’s the best news I could possibly hear,” Marjorie said with happy enthusiasm.

Seated on the flat rock and enjoying Teresa’s delicious candied fruit an hour winged away before the trio ended their absorbed confab and rose to take the trail to Manaña. The sun was fast dropping in the West, a huge flaming ball against the pale tints of the evening sky.

Mounted again upon Dawn’s back Marjorie gazed dreamily across the broad acres of Manaña. The great ranch lay in waves of undulating green forest and meadow, rising in the east to distant purple-tipped heights. She was experiencing an odd sense of unreality in the scene. Was it really, she, Marjorie Dean, who looked down from a height upon a magnificent verdant summer world so far removed from the one she had ever known. To her, Lucero de la Manaña was indeed the star of the morning—but of a magic realm.

Reality? Her hand sought the pocket of her riding coat in which reposed Hal’s letter. She had 18told Ronny that it seemed strange to her to be betrothed to Hal. Her fingers closed around the envelope that held his letter with the conviction that, after all, Hal was the beloved reality; Manaña was a beautiful illusion.

She knew in her glad heart that she had not dreamed of a spring night of magic and moonshine when she had walked with Hal in the sweet fragrance of Spring, aflower, and felt the tender clasp of his arms and the touch of his lips on her own. She had not dreamed that she had promised him her future when her work should have been done. It was all true.

CHAPTER III. THE ROAD TO THE HEART’S DESIRE

Marjorie rode back to the ranch house in a kind of tender daze. She heard Ronny’s and Mr. Lynne’s voices addressing her, and her own voice answering them as far-off sounds. For one who had formerly never understood love she could not but marvel at the great change within herself. She was now experiencing the stillness of happiness of which Constance had tried to tell her when she had confided to Marjorie the news of her engagement to Lawrence Armitage. Constance had said then she hoped Marjorie would some day fall in love with Hal. Marjorie smiled as she recalled the half displeased reply she had made. How hard-hearted she had been. She was remorseful now. Loving Hal with all the strength of her fine nature she could not forgive herself for having caused him so much of lover’s pain.

Alone in her high-ceilinged, luxurious sleeping room at the ranch house she dropped hastily into a wicker arm chair and drew the cherished letter from her pocket. Her smile was a thing of tender beauty 20as she opened the envelope and extracted two closely written sheets of thick gray paper. Hal’s letters to Marjorie had usually been brief affairs until after the eventful spring evening when she had turned life from drab to rose for him. Love had given his pen new impetus. With starry eyes and heightened color Marjorie read his fond salutation:

“Dearest: