Marjorie Dean Macy's Hamilton Colony

Jerry Macy leaned back in the roomy porch rocker, half-closed blue eyes squinting prophetically up at the turquoise August sky. “Yes, sir; it is.”

“Several fine things ought to happen, but they haven’t.” Marjorie Dean Macy’s emphasis upon the “ought” was energetically wistful.

“Something celostrous is coming this way,” Jerry continued to maintain. “It’s in the air.”

“I wish it would hurry up, and come, then. Captain was to be home from the beach yesterday. She hasn’t happened. Leila owes me a letter. That hasn’t happened yet. I haven’t heard from her for over a month, or from Vera, either. And there is Hamilton Arms, still boarded up and with no sign of Miss Susanna, or Jonas. Where is everybody? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I’m with you yet, Mrs. Macy,” Jerry reminded pertinently. “And incidentally, you still have a nice kind husband.” She beamed upon the lovely occupant of the porch swing with pretended solicitude.

“Thank you for reminding me of my blessings.” Marjorie nodded laughing gratitude at Jerry. “What do you think is going to happen, wise sooth-sayer?” she asked in the next breath.

“Um-m-m.” Jerry’s eyes opened a trifle wider. She thrust her dimpled chin forward at a ridiculous angle, peering owlishly about her as though about to pick an answer to Marjorie’s question out of the sunlit August air. “Search me,” she said after a moment, then giggled.

“You are a fake.” Marjorie pointed a derisive finger at Jerry.

“Nope. I’m not. I have a pleasant little hunch that we’re either going to see somebody we’ve not expected to see, or else hear from somebody we’ve not expected to hear from. Now, do you get me, Marjorie Bean Macy?”

“Who, I wonder?” Marjorie said speculatively. “Not Ronny. I used to call her the great unexpected. But I needn’t hope, this time, to see her. I received her first honeymoon letter to me only last week. No, Ronny will have to be counted out of your hunch, Jeremiah.” Marjorie sighed regretfully. Her affection for Veronica Lynne, her California comrade and chum, was deep-rooted.

“She certainly handed the Travelers the surprise of their lives last June. I’ll never forget that last spread in her room on Commencement night, and her calm announcement to us that she was going home to be married to Professor Leonard in July at the old mission at Mañana. She was the great unexpected that night, I’ll say. I haven’t got over it yet. I never even suspected those two were miles deep in love, and Jeremiah nearly lost her reputation then and there, for knowing something about everything.”

“Ronny was always a mystery from the first time I met her playing maid at Miss Archer’s. She was always a delightful mystery, too. Somehow, it seemed quite in keeping that she should have given us all such a surprise about Professor Leonard. I’d never even dreamed of Ronny as in love with any man. Perhaps I might have suspected last year how things were between her and Professor Leonard if I hadn’t been so dreadfully unsettled in mind about Hal. I doubt it, though. I’m still surprised that you let it get by you, Jeremiah.”

“And I’m even more surprised that Leila Harper never suspected them as on the brink of love,” Jerry returned.

“I’m going to tell you something, Jerry.” Marjorie was smiling reminiscently. “I promised Ronny never to tell anyone except you, something she told me just before she left Hamilton, and I was not to tell you until after we’d received her announcement cards.”

“Go ahead. Shoot.” Jerry sat suddenly straight in her chair, eyes fastened interestedly upon Marjorie’s smiling features.