“My dear Marjorie, you are so very welcome. How I have missed you and all of my girls this summer.” Miss Remson still held Marjorie’s hands in hers. “So glad you are to stay at the Hall with Marjorie, Robina.” She offered a cordial hand to Robin. “I am proud to have the illustrious firm of Page and Dean under my roof.” “And what of the firm of Harper and Mason?” demanded Leila. “Ah, there’s a firm of note! Now tell me—where can you find it’s equal?” “Where, indeed?” was Miss Remson’s question. “They’re a couple of bandits. They held me up behind the station and Lawless Leila snatched my bag,” Marjorie accused. “While my supposed partner, here,” she indicated Robin, “helped the daylight robbers.” “Shocking!” Miss Remson did not look in the least shocked. She entered into the spirit of teasing with zest. “I must be careful not to allow them inside the Hall. I’ll have their luggage brought down and set out on the lawn. I had no idea I was harboring two such desperadoes.” “Arrah, don’t be hard on us now!” Leila became coaxingly Hibernian. “You should be thinking of how lonely you were before Midget and I came wandering into the Hall. Had you even a long-faced, would-be freshie for company? You had not.” “I can afford to leave ‘lonely’ out of my vocabulary, now that I have some of my old household back again.” Miss Remson exulted. “And for that you may escort our old friend, Bean, as Leslie Cairns would have it, into the Hall,” Leila graciously permitted. “Midget and I will be doing the same for our old friend Page.” Leila possessed herself of Robin’s traveling bag. Vera doughtily insisted on carrying Marjorie’s bag. “Set the bags in the hall, girls, and come into the dining room,” Miss Remson directed as they entered the house. “I made a pitcher of tutti-frutti nectar, your old favorite, and Ellen baked three-layer cream cake this morning. Don’t tell me you have just had luncheon.” “But we have,” Robin said regretfully. The others swelled the chorus. Vera had an inspiration. It dawned while the tall frosted glasses were being filled. “Let us drink Miss Remson’s health in the nectar now and keep the cake for a spread when we come home tonight. Shades of the ten-thirty rule! We can’t even remember what you sound like.” “There ain’t no such animal,” asserted Robin. “I thought we were to dine at Baretti’s but the mind of this aggregation seems to have changed.” “That sounded like Jerry. Wish she were here. Giuseppe will have to miss seeing us tonight,” Vera said lightly. “I’m in favor of a spread instead of dinner. I know the rest of you are or I’d have been drowned out with objections when I proposed it.” “The spread will be spread right here in the dining room,” Miss Remson announced. “I’ll expect you when I see you. You’ll find me in the office. As soon as you’re here the party will begin.”