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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Molly Brown's Junior Days, by Nell Speed,
+Illustrated by Charles L. Wrenn
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Molly Brown's Junior Days
+
+
+Author: Nell Speed
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2011  [eBook #36717]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan, eagkw,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 36717-h.htm or 36717-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36717/36717-h/36717-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36717/36717-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: DID I FRIGHTEN YOU? I AM SORRY.--_Page 35._]
+
+
+MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS
+
+by
+
+NELL SPEED
+
+Author of "Molly Brown's Freshman Days," "Molly
+Brown's Sophomore Days," etc., etc.
+
+With Four Half-Tone Illustrations by Charles L. Wrenn
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Hurst & Company
+Publishers
+
+Copyright, 1912,
+by
+Hurst & Company
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                     PAGE
+
+      I.  DAUGHTERS OF WELLINGTON                                5
+
+     II.  MINERVA HIGGINS                                       18
+
+    III.  IN THE CLOISTERS                                      32
+
+     IV.  A LITERARY EVENING                                    44
+
+      V.  VARIOUS HAPPENINGS                                    57
+
+     VI.  "THE BEST LAID SCHEMES"                               74
+
+    VII.  A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE                                  89
+
+   VIII.  COVERING THEIR TRACKS                                105
+
+     IX.  THE GRAVE DIGGERS                                    116
+
+      X.  A VISIT OF STATE                                     134
+
+     XI.  A SWOPPING PARTY AND A MOCK TRIAL                    147
+
+    XII.  ALARMS AND DISCOVERIES                               163
+
+   XIII.  "THE MOVING FINGER WRITES"                           175
+
+    XIV.  AN INVITATION AND AN APOLOGY                         187
+
+     XV.  A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY THAT WAS NEVER TOLD          200
+
+    XVI.  MORE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS AND A COASTING PARTY OF TWO  212
+
+   XVII.  THE WAYFARERS                                        226
+
+  XVIII.  HEALING THE BLIND                                    246
+
+    XIX.  A WARNING                                            259
+
+     XX.  THE PARABLE OF THE SUN AND WIND                      272
+
+    XXI.  THE JUNIOR GAMBOL                                    289
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  Did I frighten you? I am sorry                     _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                               PAGE
+  They set to work to dig a small grave for Judy's slipper      129
+
+  "And she's given me a pair of silk stockings," cried Molly    213
+
+  The next thing she knew she was buried deep in a snow drift,
+  and Judy was whizzing on alone                                224
+
+
+
+
+Molly Brown's Junior Days
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+DAUGHTERS OF WELLINGTON.
+
+
+No. 5 in the Quadrangle at Wellington College was in a condition of
+upheaval. Surprising things were happening there. The simultaneous
+arrival of six trunks, five express boxes and a piano had thrown the
+three orderly and not over-large rooms into a state of the wildest
+confusion.
+
+In the midst of this mountain of luggage and scattered boxes stood a
+small, lonely figure dressed in brown, gazing disconsolately about.
+
+"I feel as if I had been cast up by an earthquake with a lot of other
+miscellaneous things," she remarked hopelessly.
+
+It was Nance Oldham, back at college by an early train, and devoutly
+wishing she had waited for the four-ten when the others were expected.
+
+"This is too much to face alone," she continued. "If it had been at
+Queen's it never would have happened. Mrs. Markham wouldn't have allowed
+six trunks and a piano and five boxes to be piled into one room. And
+mine at the very bottom, too. If it wasn't a selfish act, I think I'd
+leave everything and go call on Mrs. McLean--but, no, that wouldn't do
+on the first day." Nance blushed. "But Andy's there to-day." She blushed
+again at this bold, outspoken thought. "I shall get the janitor to come
+up here and distribute these things," she added presently, with New
+England determination not even to peep at a picture of pleasure behind
+a granite wall of duty.
+
+The doors of No. 5 opened on a broad, high-ceiled corridor, the side
+walls of which were wainscoted halfway up with dark polished wood. On
+either side of this corridor ranged the apartments and single rooms of
+the Quadrangle, one row facing the campus, the other the courtyard. An
+occasional upholstered bench or high-backed chair stood between the
+frequent doors and gave a home-like touch to the long gallery. They had
+been the gift of a rich ex-graduate.
+
+Nance, closing the door of No. 5, paused and looked proudly down the
+polished vista of the hallway, which curved at the far end and continued
+its way on the other side of the Quadrangle.
+
+The sound of voices and laughter floated to her through the half open
+doors of the other rooms. With a smile of contentment, she sat down in
+one of the high-backed chairs.
+
+"Dear old Wellington," she said softly, "other girls love their homes,
+but I love you." Thus she apostrophized the classic shades of the
+university while her gaze lighted absently on a large laundry bag
+stuffed full standing just outside one of the doors. It was different
+from the usual Wellington laundry bag, being of a peculiar shape and of
+material covered with Japanese fans.
+
+"It's Otoyo's. Of course, she must have been here since Monday. I heard
+she had spent the summer down in the village."
+
+She hastened along the green path of carpet running down the middle of
+the corridor and paused at the room of the Japanese laundry bag.
+
+"Otoyo Sen," she called. "Why don't you come out and meet your friends?"
+
+The Japanese girl was seated on the floor gazing at a photograph. She
+rose quickly and flew to the door, thrusting the picture behind her.
+
+"Oh, I am so deeply happee to see you again, Mees Oldham," she
+exclaimed.
+
+"She has learned the use of adverbs," thought Nance, kissing Otoyo's
+round dark cheek.
+
+"You see I have been studying long time. I now speak the language with
+correctness. Do you not think so?" said Otoyo, apparently reading
+Nance's thoughts.
+
+"Perfectly," answered Nance. "But tell me the news. Is Queen's not to be
+rebuilt?"
+
+"No, no. Queen's is to remain flat on the ground. She will not be
+erected into another building."
+
+"And have you had a happy summer? Was it quite lonesome for you, poor
+child?"
+
+"No, no," protested Otoyo, still hiding the photograph behind her.
+"Those who remained at Wellington were most kind to little Japanese
+girl."
+
+"And who remained, Otoyo?"
+
+"Professor Green was here long time. I studied the English language
+under him. He is a great man. It is an honorable pleasure to learn from
+one so great."
+
+"He is, indeed. And who else? Any of the rest of the faculty?"
+
+"No, no. They had all departing gone."
+
+Nance smiled. There was still a relic of last year's English.
+
+"Mrs. McLean and her family remained at Wellington through the entire
+summer," went on Otoyo fluently.
+
+"And were they nice to you, Otoyo?"
+
+"Veree, exceedinglee."
+
+"Was Andy well?"
+
+"Quite, quite," replied the Japanese girl, backing off from Nance and
+slipping the photograph into a book.
+
+Not for many a day did Nance find out that it was a portrait of that
+youth himself, taken at the age of eight in Scotch kilties and a little
+black velvet hat with two streamers down the back.
+
+Suddenly Otoyo became very voluble. She changed the subject and talked
+in rapid, smooth English. Could she not see the new rooms of her
+friends? She understood everybody was coming down on the four-ten train.
+It would be very crowded. She had found a new laundress whom she could
+highly recommend.
+
+Nance looked at her curiously as they strolled back to the other rooms.
+Something was changed about the little Japanese girl. She seemed older
+and much less timid.
+
+It was Miss Sen who found the man to move the trunks, and who helped
+Nance unpack her things and lay them in half the chest of drawers; and
+it was Otoyo, also, who, with the skill of an artisan, removed all the
+nails from the express box tops so that they might be unpacked
+immediately by their owners. At lunch time she led Nance into the great
+dining hall of the Quadrangle where more than a hundred girls ate their
+meals three times a day. There was no attention she did not show to
+Nance, and all because her conscience was heavy within her on account of
+the one dishonorable act of her life. How could she know that among the
+scores of photographs taken of young Andy from his babyhood to his
+present age, Mrs. McLean would never miss one small, faded picture out
+of the pile thrust into a cabinet drawer?
+
+At last it came time to meet the four-ten, and Nance, looking spic and
+span in fresh white duck and white shoes and stockings, was rather
+surprised to find Otoyo also attired in a pretty white dress, her face
+shaded with a Leghorn hat trimmed with pink roses.
+
+"Why, Miss Sen," she exclaimed, "how did you learn so soon to dress
+yourself in this charming American style?"
+
+"At a garden party at Mrs. McLean's I learned a very many things," said
+Otoyo, "and by the purchasing agent I have obtained dresses of summer,
+of duckling, lining and musling; also this hat and two others very
+pretty."
+
+Nance laughed.
+
+"You mean duck, linen and muslin, child," she said.
+
+When the four-ten train to Wellington pulled into the station it seemed
+as if every student in the university must be crowded inside. They
+leaned from the windows and packed the doorways, overflowing onto the
+platforms.
+
+The air vibrated with high feminine shrieks of joy. Only the poor little
+freshies were silent in all this jubilation of reunions. Suddenly Nance,
+spying Molly Brown and Judy Kean, rushed to meet them, Otoyo following
+at her heels like a toy spaniel after a larger dog. There was a long
+triangular embrace.
+
+"Well, here we are, _and juniors_," was Judy's first comment. "Nance,
+you're looking fine as silk. No sign of travel on that snowy gown."
+
+"There oughtn't to be," said Nance. "I just put it on half an hour ago."
+
+"And look at our little Jap," cried Molly, hugging Otoyo. "Look at
+little Miss Sen, all dressed up in a beautiful linen."
+
+"Little Miss Sen has been learning a thing or two," said Nance. "She's
+been to parties, she's been studying English under a famous professor;
+she's been buying duckling, lining and musling dresses through a
+purchasing agent with very good taste, and she's got a photograph she
+looks at in private and hides away when any one comes into the room. Oh,
+you needn't think I didn't see you!"
+
+Otoyo blushed scarlet and hung her head.
+
+"Oh, thou crafty one," Judy was saying, when four of the old Queen's
+girls pounced on them with suit cases and satchels. "Why, here are the
+Gemini," Judy continued, embracing the Williams sisters. "Burned to a
+mahogany brown, too. Where did you get that tan? You look like a pair
+of--hum--Filipinos."
+
+"Don't be making invidious remarks, Judy," put in Katherine. "Learn to
+see the beautiful in all things, even complexions."
+
+In the meantime Margaret Wakefield, looking five years older than her
+real age because of her matured figure and self-possessed air, was
+shaking hands all around, making an appropriate remark with each
+greeting, like the politician she was; and Jessie Lynch was crying in
+heartbroken tones:
+
+"I left a box of candy and a bunch of violets and two new magazines on
+the train!"
+
+"Where's my little freshman?" Molly demanded of the other girls above
+the din and racket.
+
+"There she is," Judy pointed out. "But there is no hurry. Every bus is
+jammed full."
+
+The lonely freshman was standing pressed against the wall of the waiting
+room looking hopelessly on while the usual mob besieged Mr. Murphy,
+baggage master.
+
+"Why, the poor little thing," cried Molly, rushing to take the girl
+under her wing.
+
+"It's astonishing how one good deed starts another," thought Nance,
+looking about her for other stranded freshies; and both the Williamses
+were doing the same thing.
+
+There were several such lonely souls wandering about like lost spirits.
+They had been jostled and pushed this way and that in the crowd, and
+one little girl was on the point of shedding tears.
+
+"I can always tell a new girl by the wild light in her eye," observed
+Edith Williams, making for an unhappy looking young person who had given
+up in despair and was sitting on her suit case.
+
+At last they were all bundled into one of the larger buses from the
+livery stable. The older girls were thrilled with expectant joy while
+they watched eagerly for the first glimpse of the twin gray towers; the
+new girls, most of them, gazed sadly the other way, as if home lay
+behind them.
+
+"It isn't a case of 'abandon hope all ye who enter here,'" observed Judy
+to a dejected freshman who in five minutes had lost all interest in her
+college career. "Look at us blooming creatures and you'll see what it
+can do. There's no end to the fun of it and no end to the things you'll
+learn besides mere book knowledge."
+
+"I suppose so," said the girl, struggling to keep back her tears, "but
+it's a little lonesome at first."
+
+"Poor little souls," thought Molly, who had overheard with much pride
+Judy's eulogy of college, "how can we explain it to them? They'll just
+have to find it out themselves as we did before them."
+
+The truth is, our new juniors felt quite motherly and old.
+
+A hushed silence fell over the Queen's girls when the bus drove by the
+grass-grown plot where once had stood their college home.
+
+"If a dear friend had been buried there, we couldn't have felt more
+solemn," Molly wrote her sister that night.
+
+But the prestige felt in alighting finally at the great arched entrance
+to the Quadrangle drove away all sad thoughts, and when they hastened
+down the long polished corridor to their rooms, they could not quench
+the pride which rose in their breasts. It was the real thing at last.
+Queen's and O'Reilly's had been great fun, but this was college. They
+were the true daughters of Wellington now, and that night when the
+gates clicked together at ten, they would sleep for the first time
+behind her gray stone walls.
+
+At that moment the voices of a hundred-odd other daughters hummed
+through the halls, but it was all a part of the college atmosphere, as
+Judy said.
+
+Their bedrooms were not quite as large as the old Queen's rooms, but oh,
+the sitting room! They viewed it with pride. Each of the three had
+contributed something toward additional furniture. The piano was Judy's;
+the divan, Nance's; and the cushions, yet to be unpacked, Molly's. There
+was another contribution not made by any of the three. It was the
+beautiful Botticelli photograph left for Molly by Mary Stewart, who
+had gone to Europe for the winter.
+
+"How glad I am the walls are pale yellow and the woodwork white!"
+exclaimed Judy joyfully.
+
+"How glad I am there's plenty of room on these shelves for everybody's
+books," said Nance.
+
+"And how glad I am to be a junior and back at old Wellington," finished
+Molly, squeezing a hand of each friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MINERVA HIGGINS.
+
+
+"There's only one thing worse than a faculty call-down and that's a Beta
+Phi freeze-out," remarked Judy Kean one Saturday afternoon a few weeks
+after the opening day of college.
+
+"Why do you bring up disagreeable subjects, Judy? Have you been getting
+a call-down?" asked Katherine Williams.
+
+"Not your old Aunty Judy," replied the other. "I'm far too wise for that
+after two years' experience, but I saw some one else get one of the most
+flattening, extinguishing, crushing call-downs ever received by an
+inmate of this asylum for young ladies. And they do tell me it was
+followed soon after by another one."
+
+"Do tell," exclaimed an interested chorus.
+
+"It was that fresh Miss Higgins from Ohio," continued Judy, with some
+enjoyment of the curiosity she was exciting. "You know she's always
+trying to attract the attention of the masses----"
+
+"We being the masses," interrupted Edith.
+
+"And stand in the limelight. She's bright, I hear, very bright, but she
+knows it."
+
+"I recognized her type almost immediately," said Katherine. "She's one
+of those brightest-girls-in-the-high-school-pride-of-the-town kind."
+
+"Exactly," answered Judy. "She has been regarded as a prodigy for so
+long that she doesn't understand the relative difference between a
+freshman and a senior. I honestly believe she thought everybody in
+Wellington knew all about her, and she wears as many gold medals on
+her chest as a field marshal on dress parade."
+
+"We saw the gold medals on Sunday," interposed Molly. "I think it's
+rather pathetic, myself. She is more to be pitied than scorned, because
+of course she doesn't know any better."
+
+"She'll have to live and learn, then," said Judy.
+
+"Get to the point of your story, Judy. Who extinguished her?" ejaculated
+Margaret Wakefield, impatient of such slipshod methods of narration.
+
+"How can I tell a tale when I'm interrupted by forty people at once?"
+exclaimed Judy. "Besides, I haven't the gift of language like you, old
+suffragette."
+
+Margaret laughed. She was entirely good-natured over the jibes of her
+friends about her passion for universal suffrage.
+
+"Well, the Beta Phi crowd of seniors," went on Judy, "were walking
+across the campus in a row. I don't suppose Miss Higgins had any way to
+know this soon in the game that they represented the triple extract of
+concentrated exclusiveness at Wellington. Anyhow, she knows it now. She
+came rushing up behind them and gave Rosomond a light, friendly slap on
+the back. If you could have seen Rosomond's face! But Miss Higgins was
+entirely dense. She began something about 'Hello, girls, have you heard
+the news about Prexy----' but she never got any further. Rosomond gave
+her the most freezing look I ever saw from a human eye."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"That was it. She never said anything. Nobody said anything. Eloise
+Blair carries tortoise-shell lorgnettes----"
+
+"She doesn't need them," broke in Nance.
+
+"She only does it to make herself more haughty."
+
+"Anyway, Eloise raised the lorgnettes."
+
+"Poor Miss Higgins," cried Molly.
+
+"There was perfect silence for about a minute. Then they all walked on,
+leaving little Higgins standing alone in the middle of the campus."
+
+"And where were you?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Oh, I was with the seniors," answered Judy, flushing slightly. "I had
+been over to Beta Phi to see Rosomond about something."
+
+It was impossible for Judy's friends not to make an amiable unspoken
+guess as to why she had visited the Beta Phi circle. It had been evident
+for some time that she was working to get into the "Shakespeareans," the
+most exclusive dramatic club in college. There was an awkward silence as
+this thought flashed through their minds. Molly felt embarrassed for her
+chum. After all, she was no worse than Margaret Wakefield, who had
+managed to get herself elected three years in succession as president
+of her class.
+
+"What was the other extinguisher Miss Higgins had, Judy?" asked Molly.
+
+"Oh, yes. That was even worse. It came from your particular friend,
+Professor Green. She interrupted him in the middle of a lecture with one
+of those unnecessary questions new girls ask to show how much they know.
+And then she said something about methods at Mill Town High School."
+
+"Really?" chorused the voices. "And what did he say?"
+
+"He looked very much bored and replied that they were not interested in
+Mill Town High School, and he would be obliged if she would pay
+attention to the lecture. It was a public rebuke, nothing more nor
+less."
+
+"The mean thing," exclaimed Molly.
+
+"Now, Molly," interposed Margaret, "you know very well that girls of
+that type ought to be taken down. They are never tolerated at college. A
+conceited boy at college is always thoroughly hazed until there's not a
+drop of conceit left, and it does him good. And since we can't haze, we
+simply have to extinguish a fresh freshie. Miss Higgins may develop into
+a very nice girl in a year or two, but at present she's the veriest
+little upstart----"
+
+"Do be careful," said Molly cautiously. "I've invited her this afternoon
+to drink tea----"
+
+"Molly Brown," they cried, pummeling her with sofa cushions and beating
+her with her own slippers.
+
+"Really, Molly, you must restrain your inviting habits," said Judy.
+
+"I'm sorry," apologized poor Molly.
+
+"Why did you do it, pray? You know perfectly well no one here wants
+her."
+
+"I know it, but I was sorry for her. She seemed so brash and lonesome at
+the same time. I thought it might help her some to mingle with a few
+fine, intelligent, well-bred girls like you----"
+
+"Here, here! Don't try to get out of it that way."
+
+"She appears to be very learned," continued Molly, turning her blue eyes
+innocently from one to the other. "I thought it would be nice to pit her
+against Margaret and Edith. She discusses deep subjects and uses big
+words I can only dimly guess the meaning of----" There was a tap at the
+door. "Now, be nice, please."
+
+"Come in," called Nance, in a tone of authority, and Minerva Higgins
+appeared in their midst.
+
+She had done honor to the occasion by putting on a taffeta silk of
+indigo blue, and by pinning on some of her most conspicuous gold medals
+acquired at intervals during her early education.
+
+Judy shook her head over the indigo blue.
+
+"Only certain minds could wear it," she thought.
+
+Molly rose, but before she could frame a cordial greeting, the new guest
+was saying:
+
+"How do you do, Molly? Awfully nice of you to ask me. You don't mind my
+calling you by your first name, do you? My name is Minerva but the
+girls at Mill Town High School called me 'Minnie.' I hope you'll do the
+same."
+
+"I shall be glad to," answered Molly, rather taken back by this sudden
+intimacy.
+
+After she had performed all necessary introductions, wicked Katherine
+Williams remarked:
+
+"Minnie is a very charming name, but I insist on calling you 'Minerva'
+after the Goddess of Wisdom. She never wore gold medals, but then it
+wasn't the fashion among the early Greeks."
+
+Minerva's face was the picture of complacency.
+
+"In Greece she would have been 'Athene,'" she observed.
+
+There was a loud clearing of throats and Judy, as usual, was seized with
+a violent fit of coughing.
+
+"Sit down here, Miss Higgins--I mean Minnie," said Molly hastily. "The
+tea will be ready in a minute."
+
+"You have been to college before, Minerva?" asked Edith Williams
+solemnly.
+
+Minerva looked somewhat surprised.
+
+"Oh, no. Not college. I am just out of High School. Mill Town High
+School is a very wonderful educational institution, you know. Perhaps
+you have heard of it. A diploma from there will admit a girl into any of
+the best colleges in the country. I could have gone to a private school.
+My father is professor of Greek at the Academy in Mill Town, but I
+preferred to take advantage of the high standards of the High School,
+which are even higher than those of the Academy."
+
+"I suppose your father's taste in Greek caused him to name you Minerva,"
+observed Judy.
+
+"But Minerva isn't Greek, Julia," admonished Katherine.
+
+Again Molly interceded. It was cruel to make fun of the poor girl,
+although there was no denying that Minerva had a high opinion of
+herself.
+
+"Have a sandwich," she said soothingly.
+
+There was a long interval of silence while Minerva crunched her
+sandwich.
+
+"Your life at Mill Town High School must have been one grand triumphal
+progress, judging from your medals, Miss Higgins," said Edith Williams
+finally.
+
+Minerva glanced proudly down at the awards of merit.
+
+"There are a good many of them," she observed, with a smile that was
+almost more than they could stand. "And there are more of them still.
+I've won one or two medals each year ever since I started to school. But
+I don't like to wear them all at once."
+
+"That's very modest of you."
+
+"Are you going to specialize on any subjects, Miss Higgins?" asked
+Margaret Wakefield, really meaning to be kind and lead the girl away
+from topics which made her appear ridiculous.
+
+"Biology, I think. But I am interested in Comparative Philology, too,
+and after I skim through a little Greek and Latin, I intend to take up
+some of the ancient languages, Sanskrit and Hebrew."
+
+Was it possible that Minerva was making game of them? They regarded her
+suspiciously, but she seemed sublimely unconscious.
+
+"Why not study also the ancient tongue of the Basques?" asked Edith,
+quite gravely.
+
+"That would be interesting," replied Minerva, "but I want to get through
+this little college course first."
+
+Molly batted her heavenly eyes and suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+"Excuse me," she said. "I didn't mean to be rude, but the course at
+Wellington doesn't seem so small to us. We have to study all the time
+and then just barely pull through. I've almost flunked twice in
+mathematics. I wish I could call it a little course."
+
+"Ah, well, we are not all Minervas," observed Margaret. "Some of us are
+just ordinary school girls learning the rudiments of education. We have
+not had the advantages of Mill Town High School, and if any of us have
+won gold medals we never show them."
+
+This measured rebuff, however, had no more effect on Minerva's
+impervious vanity than a cup of water dashed against a granite boulder.
+She was already up, wandering about the room, boldly examining the
+girls' belongings, ostentatiously reading the titles of books aloud.
+
+"Plays by Moliere. Oh, yes, I read them in the original two years ago.
+They're easy. 'Green's Short History of the English People,' very
+interesting book. 'The Broad Highway.' I never read fiction. Only
+biography and history----"
+
+Edith Williams, stretched at her ease on the divan, gave an inaudible
+groan and turned her face to the wall.
+
+Molly glanced helplessly about her.
+
+"'The Primavera,' that's by Botticelli," went on the girl, infatuated by
+her own intelligence. "Good artist, but I don't care for the old masters
+as a general thing. They are always out of drawing."
+
+Katherine rolled her eyes up into her head until only the whites could
+be seen, which gave her the horrible aspect of a corpse.
+
+There was a long and eloquent silence. Presently Minerva took her
+departure, and Molly, hospitable to the last gasp, saw her to the door
+and invited her to come again.
+
+With the door safely locked and Minerva out of earshot, there was a
+general collapse. Nobody laughed, but the room was filled with painful
+sounds, moans and groans. Judy pretended to faint on top of Edith, and
+Molly sat in a remote corner of the room.
+
+Somehow, they felt beaten, vanquished.
+
+"I am sore all over with repressed emotions," cried Judy. "I couldn't
+stand another seance like that."
+
+"Does she know as much as she claims?" asked Nance.
+
+"Of course not," exclaimed Margaret irritably. "If she really knew she
+wouldn't claim anything. It's only ignorant people who boast of
+knowledge. I suppose she has been looked up to for so long that she
+regards herself as a fountain of wisdom."
+
+"She must be taken down," said Edith firmly. "This mustn't be allowed to
+go on at Wellington."
+
+"But hazing isn't allowed," put in Molly.
+
+"Not by hazing, goosie. By some homely little practical joke that will
+show herself to herself as others see her."
+
+"All right," consented Molly. She felt indeed that something should be
+done to save poor Minerva Higgins from eternal ridicule.
+
+"If anybody has suggestions to make," here announced Margaret Wakefield,
+self-constituted chairman of all committees, impromptu or otherwise,
+"they may be stated in writing or announced by word of mouth to-morrow
+night in our rooms at a fudge party."
+
+"Accepted," they cried in one breath.
+
+In the meantime, Minerva Higgins was writing home to her mother that she
+had been, if not the guest of honor, almost that, at a junior tea, and
+had found the girls rather interesting though poor talkers. In fact, it
+was necessary to do almost all the talking herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN THE CLOISTERS.
+
+
+Life in the Quadrangle hummed busily on. The girls found themselves in
+the very heart of college affairs. As a matter of fact the old Queen's
+circle had been somewhat restricted, having narrowed down to less than a
+dozen; whereas now, they associated with many times that number and were
+invited to a bewildering succession of teas and fudge parties.
+
+Also they were nearer to the library, the gymnasium, the classrooms and
+the cloisters. Here, during the warm, hazy days of Indian summer Molly
+loved to walk. It was not such a popular place as she had imagined with
+the Quadrangle girls, and often she was quite alone in the arcade,
+bordered now with hydrangeas turning a delicate pink under the autumn
+suns.
+
+One afternoon, a few days after Margaret's fudge party to discuss the
+question of Minerva Higgins, Molly sought a few quiet moments in the
+cloistered walk. It was a half hour before closing-up time, but she
+would not miss the six strokes of the tower clock again, as she had on
+her first day at college two years before.
+
+She usually confined her walks to the far side of the arcade, keeping
+well away from the side of the cloisters on which the studies of some of
+the faculty opened. That afternoon she carried her volume of Rossetti
+with her, and pacing slowly up and down, she read in a low musical voice
+to herself:
+
+    "'The blessed damozel leaned out
+      From the gold bar of Heaven;
+      Her eyes were deeper than the depth
+      Of waters stilled at even;
+      She had three lilies in her hand,
+      And the stars in her hair were seven.'"
+
+Waves of rhythm ran through Molly's head, and when she reached the end
+of the walk she turned mechanically and went the other way without
+pausing in her reading.
+
+Many girls studied in this way in the cloisters and it was not an
+unusual sight, but Molly made a picture not soon to be forgotten by any
+one who might chance to wander in the arcade at that hour. She was still
+spare and undeveloped, but the grace that was to come revealed itself in
+the girlish lines of her figure. Her eyes seemed never more serenely,
+deeply blue than now, and her hair, disordered from the tam o'shanter
+she had pulled off and tossed onto a stone bench, made a fluffy auburn
+frame about her face. Molly was by no means beautiful from the
+standpoint of perfection. Her eyebrows and lashes should have been
+darker; her chin was too pointed and her mouth a shade too large. But
+few people took the trouble to pick out flaws in her face or figure.
+Those who loved her thought her beautiful, and the few who did not could
+not deny her charm.
+
+Presently she sat down on a bench, continuing to declaim the poem out
+aloud, making a gesture occasionally with her unoccupied hand. After
+reading a verse, she closed her eyes and repeated it to herself. Opening
+her eyes between verses, she encountered the amused gaze of Professor
+Edwin Green who, having seen her in the distance, had cut across the
+grassy court and now stood as still as a statue leaning against a stone
+pillar.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Molly, with a nervous start.
+
+"Did I frighten you? I am sorry. I should have walked more heavily. It's
+unkind to steal up on people who are reading poetry aloud."
+
+"I was learning the--something by heart," she said, blushing a little as
+if she had been detected in a guilty act. After all, it was the
+professor who had introduced her to that poem and given her the book
+last Christmas, but that, of course, was not the reason why she was so
+fond of the poem she was studying.
+
+"How do you like the Quadrangle?" he asked. "Are you comfortable and
+happy?"
+
+Molly clasped her hands in the excess of her enthusiasm.
+
+"I was never so happy in all my life," she cried. "It is perfect. Our
+rooms are beautiful, and a sitting room, too. Think of that, with yellow
+walls and a piano!"
+
+The professor looked vastly pleased. For an instant his face was lighted
+by a beaming, radiant smile. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets
+and pressed his lips together in a thin line of determination.
+
+"I feel as if I were one of the workers inside the hive now," Molly
+continued.
+
+"And all the difficulties about tuition have been settled?" he asked.
+"Forgive my mentioning it, but I felt an interest on account of my close
+relationship to the Blounts."
+
+"Oh, yes. The money from the two acres of orchard settled that. You see,
+whoever bought it, whether it was an old man or a company--for some
+reason the name is still a secret with the agent--paid cash. They rarely
+do, mother says, and the money is usually spent in driblets before you
+realize it. Mr. Richard Blount expects to settle with his father's
+creditors in a few months. My sisters are working. They say they enjoy
+it, but they are both engaged to be married," she added, smiling.
+
+"Did the orchard yield a good crop this year?" asked the professor
+irrelevantly.
+
+"Oh, splendid. The apples were packed in barrels and sent away. Several
+of them were sent to mother as a present. Very nice of the owner, wasn't
+it?"
+
+"Very," replied the professor, fingering something in his pocket
+absently.
+
+"The owner of the orchard has it kept in fine condition. The trees have
+been trimmed and the ground cleared. Mother says she's ashamed of her
+own shiftlessness whenever she looks at it. The grass was as smooth as
+velvet all summer until the drought came and dried it brown. I used to
+go there summer mornings and lie in a hammock and read. I didn't think
+any one would care. There's no harm in attaching a hammock to two trees.
+Mother says I don't seem to remember that we are no longer the owners of
+the orchard. I have played in it and lived in it so much of my life
+that I've got the habit, I suppose."
+
+The professor cleared his throat.
+
+"You said the ground sloped slightly, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, just a gradual slope to a little brook at the bottom of the hill.
+The water seems to cool the air in summer. It never goes dry and there
+is a little basin in one place we used to call 'the birds' bath tub.'
+Such birds you never imagined! They are attracted by the apples, I
+suppose. But there are hundreds of them. They sing from morning to
+night."
+
+"You paint a very attractive picture, Miss Brown. It must have been hard
+to give up this charming property."
+
+"But you see we haven't given it up exactly. It's there right against
+us. We can still look at it and even walk under the trees. No one minds.
+And see what I have for it! Nothing could ever take the place of
+college--not even an apple orchard."
+
+A sharp voice broke in on this pleasant conversation.
+
+"Cousin Edwin, I've been looking for you everywhere."
+
+Judith Blount appeared hastening down the walk.
+
+The professor watched the advancing figure calmly.
+
+"Well, now you have found me, what do you want?" he asked.
+
+Molly detected a slight note of annoyance in his voice. She had a notion
+that Judith was one of the trials of his life.
+
+"I have rewritten the short story you criticized for me last week, and I
+want you to look it over again."
+
+He took the roll of paper without a word and thrust it into his coat
+pocket.
+
+Molly rose.
+
+"I must be going," she said. "It must be nearly six o'clock."
+
+Judith promptly sat down on the bench facing her cousin, who still
+leaned against the stone pillar.
+
+"Don't you think it's a little chilly to be lingering here, Judith?" he
+remarked politely, as he joined Molly.
+
+"It wasn't too chilly for you a moment ago," answered Judith hotly.
+
+But she rose and walked on the other side of the professor.
+
+"How do you like your rooms?" he asked presently.
+
+"I hate them," she replied, with such fierce resentment that Molly was
+sure that Judith was glad to have something on which to vent her angry
+mood. "Thank heavens, this is my last year. I detest Wellington. I have
+never been happy here. It's brought shame and misfortune on me. It's a
+horrid old place."
+
+"Oh, Judith," protested Molly, unable to endure this libel on her
+beloved college.
+
+"My dear child, you can't blame Wellington for your misfortunes,"
+interposed the professor, who himself cherished a deep affection for
+the two gray towers.
+
+"It is hard to live in the village instead of at college," said Molly,
+feeling suddenly very sorry for the unhappy Judith.
+
+But Judith was in no state to be sympathized with. All day she had been
+nursing a grievance. One of her friends in prosperity at the Beta Phi
+House had turned a cold shoulder on her that morning; and Judith was so
+enraged by the slight that her feelings were like an open sore.
+
+She turned on Molly angrily.
+
+"You ought to know," she said. "You had to do it long enough."
+
+"Judith, Judith," remonstrated the professor. "Can't you understand that
+you gain nothing, and always lose something, by giving way like this?
+Denouncing and hating make the object you are working for recede. You'll
+never get it that way."
+
+"How do you know what I'm working for?" she demanded, more quietly.
+
+"We are all of us working for the same thing," he answered. "Happiness.
+None of us proposes to get it in the same way, but all of us propose to
+reach the same goal. What would give me happiness no doubt would never
+satisfy you."
+
+"You don't know that, either. What would give you happiness?" Judith
+asked, with some curiosity.
+
+The professor paused a moment, then he said calmly:
+
+"A little home of my own in a shady quiet place with plenty of old
+trees, where I could work in peace. I have always fancied an old
+orchard. There might be a brook at one end----"
+
+Molly smiled.
+
+"He's thinking of my orchard," she thought.
+
+"There must be hundreds of birds in my orchard," went on the professor,
+"and the grass must always be thick and green, except perhaps when the
+drought comes and it can't help itself----"
+
+The six o'clock bell boomed out.
+
+"Have an apple," he said, taking two red apples from his pocket and
+giving one to each of the girls.
+
+Then he opened the small oak door and stood politely aside while they
+passed out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A LITERARY EVENING.
+
+
+The entertainment designed to bring Miss Minerva Higgins to a true
+understanding of her position as a freshman took place one Friday
+evening in the rooms of Margaret and Jessie. It was called on the
+invitation "A Literary Evening," and was to be in the nature of a spread
+and fudge affair. There had been two rehearsals beforehand, and the
+girls were now prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
+
+Molly was loath to take part in the literary evening.
+
+"I can't bear to see anybody humiliated even when she ought to be," she
+said, but she consented to come and to give a recitation.
+
+Several study tables had been united for the supper, the cracks
+concealed by Japanese towelling contributed by Otoyo. There was no Mrs.
+Murphy in the Quadrangle from whom to borrow tablecloths. All the chairs
+from the other rooms were brought in to seat the company, who appeared
+grave and subdued. Most of the girls were dressed to resemble famous
+poets and authors. Judy was Byron; Margaret Wakefield, George Eliot;
+Nance, Charlotte Bronte; Edith Williams, Edgar Allan Poe; and Molly was
+Shelley. Shakespeare, Voltaire and Charles Dickens were in the company,
+and "The Duchess," impersonated by Jessie Lynch.
+
+The unfortunate Minerva was a little disconcerted at first when she
+found herself the only girl at the feast in her own character.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, so that I could have come in costume, too?" she
+asked Margaret.
+
+"But you had your medals," was Margaret's enigmatic answer.
+
+Minerva looked puzzled. Then her gaze fell to the shining breastplate of
+silver and gold trophies. She had worn them all this evening. The
+temptation had been too great. The medals gleamed like so many solemn
+eyes. She wondered if the others could read what was inscribed on them,
+or if it would be necessary to call attention to the most choice ones:
+"THE HIGHEST GENERAL AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS"; "REGULAR ATTENDANCE";
+"MATHEMATICS"; "THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAY"; "ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION."
+
+Edith opened the evening by delivering a speech in Latin which was
+really one of Virgil's eclogues mixed up with whatever she could recall
+of Livy and Horace, and filled out occasionally with Latin prose
+composition. It was so excruciatingly funny that Judy sputtered in her
+tea and was well kicked on her shins under the table.
+
+Minerva, however, appeared to be profoundly impressed, and the company
+murmured subdued approvals when, at last, the speaker took breath and
+sat down, gazing solemnly around her with dark, melancholy eyes very
+much blacked around the lids.
+
+Margaret then delivered a learned discourse on "Poise of Body and Poise
+of Mind," which was skillfully expressed in such deep and intricate
+language that nobody could understand what she was talking about.
+
+"Very, very interesting, indeed," observed Edith.
+
+"Remarkable; wonderful; so clearly put," came from the others.
+
+Minerva rubbed her eyes and frowned.
+
+Nance recited "The Raven," translated into very bad French. This was
+almost more than their gravity could endure, and when she ended each
+verse with "_Dit le corbeau: jamais plus,_" many of the girls stooped
+under the table for lost handkerchiefs and Japanese napkins.
+
+But it was not until Judy had sung a lullaby in Sanskrit--so
+called--that Minerva became at all suspicious. Even then it was the
+wrong kind of suspicion. She thought that perhaps she should have
+laughed, and the others had politely refrained because she hadn't.
+
+After a great deal of learned talk, Molly stood on a soap box and
+recited "Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night."
+
+This was the crowning joy of that famous evening, but still Minerva
+appeared seriously impressed.
+
+"I recited that once at Mill Town High School," she remarked.
+
+"Can't you give us something to-night?" asked Molly kindly, feeling that
+in some way the unfortunate Minerva ought to be allowed to join in.
+
+"I don't know that I ought to give another poem by the same man," she
+replied, "except that Miss Oldham gave 'The Raven' in French."
+
+"Don't tell us you know 'The Bells'?" demanded Edith Williams, in a
+trembling whisper.
+
+"Oh, yes. I've given it at lots of school entertainments."
+
+"We had better turn down the lights," said Margaret. "The room should be
+in darkness except the side light where Miss Higgins will stand. That
+will be the spot light."
+
+This was a fortunate arrangement because, while Minerva recited "The
+Bells," with all proper gestures, intonations and echoes, according to
+Cleveland's recitation book, the girls silently collapsed. When she had
+finished, they were reduced to that exhausted state that arrives after a
+supreme effort not to laugh.
+
+At last the entertainment came to an end. Minerva departed with some of
+the others, while those who lived close by remained to chat for a few
+minutes.
+
+"I give up," exclaimed Margaret Wakefield. "Minerva is beyond teaching.
+She must remain forever the smartest girl in Mill Town High School."
+
+"The only pity of it is that it was all wasted on one humorless person.
+We really furnished her with a most delightful entertainment and she
+never even guessed it," declared Nance.
+
+"I'm glad she didn't," remarked Molly. "It was cruel, I think. Suppose
+she had caught on? Do you think it would have helped her? And we would
+have been uncomfortable."
+
+"Suppose she did understand and pretended not to. The joke would have
+been decidedly on us," put in Katherine.
+
+Later events of that evening would seem to bear out this suggestion,
+although just how deeply, if at all, Minerva was implicated in what
+followed no one could possibly tell. It was a question long afterwards
+in dispute whether one person had managed the sequel to the Literary
+Evening, or whether there had been a confederate. Certainly it seemed
+that every imp in Bedlam had been set free to do mischief, and if
+Minerva, as arch-imp, was looking for revenge, she found it.
+
+"I don't like to appear inhospitable, girls, but it's five minutes of
+ten and I think you'd better chase along," said Margaret Wakefield.
+
+But when Judy laid hold of the knob and tried to open the door, it would
+not budge.
+
+"It won't open," she exclaimed. "What's to be done?"
+
+What was to be done? They pulled and jerked and endeavored to pry it
+open with a silver shoe horn and a pair of scissors, and at last Jessie,
+as the smallest, was chosen to climb over the transom and go for help.
+It was five minutes past ten, and they prudently turned out the lights.
+
+"Let me get at that knob just once before we work the transom scheme,"
+ejaculated Margaret, who was very strong and athletic.
+
+"People always think they can open tin cans and doors and pull stoppers
+when other people can't," observed Judy sarcastically.
+
+Margaret treated this remark with contemptuous indifference. Seizing the
+knob with both hands, she turned it and, putting her knee to the jamb,
+pulled with all her force. The arch fiend on the other side must have
+turned the key at this critical moment, for the door flew open and the
+president tumbled back as if she had been shot from a catapult, knocking
+a number of surprised poets and authors into a tumbled heap. They were
+all considerably bruised and battered, and Margaret bit her tongue; a
+severe punishment for one whose oratory was the pride of the class.
+
+"Hush," whispered Jessie, who alone had escaped the tumble, "here comes
+the house matron."
+
+Softly she closed the door, and the girls waited until the danger was
+over. Then Margaret hastened to examine the keyhole.
+
+"There's no key in it," she whispered, speaking with difficulty, because
+her tongue was bleeding from the marks of two teeth.
+
+Whoever played the trick must have unlocked the door, jerked the key out
+and fled the instant the matron appeared at the end of the corridor.
+There was no time to discuss the mystery, however. She would be coming
+back in two minutes. Again they waited in silence until they heard the
+swish of her dress as she went past the door, now left open a crack in
+order that Judy, lying flat on her stomach on the floor, and enjoying
+herself immensely, might be on the lookout.
+
+"Come on," she hissed, as the large, rotund figure of Mrs. Pelham was
+lost in the darkness, and out they scuttled like a lot of mice loosed
+from the trap.
+
+But the evening's adventures were not over.
+
+As Judy, in advance of Molly and Nance, pushed open their door, already
+ajar, a small pail of water, placed on the top of the door by the
+arch-imp, whoever she was, fell on Judy's head and deluged her. It
+contained hardly a quart of water, but it might have been a gallon for
+the wreck it made of Judy's clothes and the room.
+
+"Oh, but I'll get even with somebody," exclaimed that enraged young
+woman.
+
+They turned on the green-shaded student's lamp and drew the blinds, the
+night watchman being very vigilant at the dormitories, and began
+silently mopping up the floor with towels.
+
+Judy removed her wet clothes, and unbound her long hair, light in color
+and fine as silk in quality.
+
+"I can't go to bed," she announced, "until I find out what's happened to
+the Gemini," and without another word she crept into the corridor.
+
+"Nance," whispered Molly, when they were alone, "if Minerva Higgins did
+this, she's about the boldest freshman alive to-day. But, after all, we
+can't exactly blame her, considering what we did to her."
+
+"She is taking great chances," replied Nance, who had a thorough respect
+for college etiquette and class caste. "Every pert freshman must be
+prepared for a call-down; and if she doesn't take it like a lamb, she'll
+just have to expect a freeze-out. It's much better for her in the end.
+If Minerva were allowed to keep this up for four years, she would be
+entirely insufferable. She's almost that now."
+
+"Don't you think she could find it out without such severe methods?"
+
+"Severe methods, indeed," answered Nance indignantly. "Do you call it
+severe to be asked to sup with the brightest girls in Wellington?
+Margaret's speech alone was worth all the humiliation Minerva might have
+felt; but she didn't feel any. Do you consider that rough, crude jokes
+like this are going to be tolerated?"
+
+"But we don't know that Minerva played them, yet," pleaded Molly. "I do
+admit, though, that it must have been a very ordinary person who could
+think of them. Margaret might have been badly hurt if she hadn't fallen
+on top of the rest of us."
+
+Presently Judy came stalking into their bedroom.
+
+"It's just as I expected," she announced. "The Williamses' bed was full
+of carpet tacks and Mabel Hinton fell over a cord stretched across her
+door and sprained her wrist. She has it bound with arnica now."
+
+"I don't see how Minerva could have had time to do all those things,"
+broke in Molly.
+
+There are some rare and very just natures--and Molly's was one of
+them--which will not be convinced by circumstantial evidence alone.
+
+"She would have had plenty of time," argued Judy. "It would hardly have
+taken five minutes provided she had planned it all out beforehand.
+Besides, it's easy for you to talk, Molly. You didn't bite your tongue,
+or sprain your wrist, or get a ducking; or undress in the dark and get
+into a bedful of tacks. You escaped."
+
+"Disgusting!" came Nance's muffled voice from the covers.
+
+"It is horrid," admitted Molly. "Whoever did it----"
+
+"Minerva!" broke in Judy.
+
+"--must have a very mistaken idea of college and the sorts of amusement
+that are customary."
+
+So the argument ended for the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+VARIOUS HAPPENINGS.
+
+
+Guilty or innocent, Minerva Higgins displayed an inscrutable face next
+day, and the juniors, lacking all necessary evidence, were obliged to
+admit themselves outwitted; but they let it be known that jokes of that
+class were distinctly foreign to Wellington notions, and woe be to the
+author of them if her identity was ever disclosed.
+
+In the meantime, Molly was busy with many things. As usual she was very
+hard up for clothes, and was concocting a scheme in her mind for saving
+up money enough to buy a new dress for the Junior Prom. in February. She
+bought a china pig in the village, large enough to hold a good deal of
+small change, and from time to time dropped silver through the slit in
+his back.
+
+"He's a safe bank," she observed to her friends, "because the only way
+you can get money out of him is to smash him."
+
+The pig came to assume a real personality in the circle. For some
+unknown reason he had been christened "Martin Luther." The girls used to
+shake him and guess the amount of money he contained. Sometimes they
+wrote jingles about him, and Judy invented a dialogue between Martin
+Luther and herself which was so amusing that its fame spread abroad and
+she was invited to give it many times at spreads and fudge parties.
+
+The scheme that had been working in Molly's mind for some weeks at last
+sprung into life as an idea, and seizing a pencil and paper one day she
+sketched out her notion of the plot of a short story. It was not what
+she herself really cared for, but what she considered might please the
+editor who was to buy it as a complete story, and the public who would
+read it. There were mystery and love, beauty and riches in Molly's first
+attempt. Then she began to write. But it was slow work. The ideas would
+not flow as they did for letters home and for class themes. She found
+great difficulty in expressing herself. Her conversations were stilted
+and the plot would not hang together.
+
+"I never thought it would be so hard," she said to herself when she had
+finished the tale and copied it out on legal cap paper. "And now for the
+boldest act of my life."
+
+With a triumphant flourish of the pen, she rolled up the manuscript and
+marched across the courtyard to the office of Professor Green.
+
+"Come in," he called, quite gruffly, in answer to her knock. But when
+she entered, he rose politely and offered her a seat. Sitting down again
+in his revolving desk chair, he looked at her very hard.
+
+"I know you will think I have the most colossal nerve," she began, "when
+you hear why I have called; but I really need advice and you've been so
+kind--so interested, always."
+
+"What is it this time?" he interrupted kindly. "More money troubles?"
+
+"No, not exactly. Although, of course, I am always anxious to earn
+money. Who isn't? But I have a writing bee in my head. I've had it ever
+since last winter, although I confined myself mostly to verse----"
+
+Molly paused and blushed. She felt ashamed to discuss her poor rhymes
+with this learned man nearly a dozen years older than she was.
+
+"There's no money in poetry," she went on, "and I thought I would switch
+off to prose. I have written a short story and--I hope you won't be
+angry--I've brought it over for you to look at. I knew you looked over
+some of Judith's stories."
+
+"Of course I shan't be angry, child. I'm glad to help you, although I am
+not a fiction writer and therefore might hardly be thought competent to
+judge. Let's see what you have." He held out his hand for the
+manuscript. "On second thought," he continued, "suppose you read it
+aloud to me. Girls' handwriting is generally much alike--hard to make
+out."
+
+Molly, trembling with stage fright, her face crimson, began to read.
+The professor, resting his chin on his interlocked fingers, turned his
+whimsical brown eyes full upon her and never shifted his gaze once
+during the entire reading, which lasted some twenty-five minutes. When
+she had finished, Molly dropped the papers in her lap and waited.
+
+"Well, what do you think of it? Please don't mince matters. Tell me the
+truth."
+
+The professor came back to life with a start. She knew at once that he
+had not heard a word.
+
+"Oh, er--I beg your pardon," he said. "Very good. Very good, indeed.
+Suppose you leave the manuscript with me. I'll look it over again
+to-night."
+
+She rose to go. After all she had no right to complain, since she had
+asked this favor of a very busy man; but she did wish he had paid
+attention.
+
+"Wait a moment, Miss Brown, there was something I wanted to say. What
+was it now?" He rubbed his head, and then thrust his hands into his
+pockets. "Oh, yes. This is what I wanted to say--have an apple?" A flat
+Japanese basket on the table was filled with apples. "Excuse my not
+passing the basket, but they roll over. Take several. Help yourself."
+
+He made Molly take three, one for Nance, one for Judy and one for
+herself. Then he saw her to the outer door, bowing silently, all the
+time like a man in a dream.
+
+The next morning the manuscript was returned to Molly by the professor
+after the class in Literature. It was folded into a big envelope and
+contained a note. The note had no beginning and was signed "E. G." This
+is what it said:
+
+  "Since you wish my true opinion of this story, I will tell you
+  frankly that it is decidedly amateurish. The style is heavy and
+  labored and the plot mawkishly sentimental and mock heroic.
+
+  "Try to think up some simple story and write it out in simple
+  language. Do not employ words that you are not in the habit of
+  using. Be natural and express yourself as you would if you were
+  writing a letter to your mother. Write about real people and real
+  happenings; not about impossibly beautiful and rich goddesses and
+  superbly handsome, fearless gods. Such people do not really exist,
+  you know, and you are supposed to be painting a word picture of
+  life.
+
+  "You have talent, but you must be willing to work very hard. Good
+  writing does not come in a day any more than good piano playing or
+  painting. I would add: be yourself--unaffected--sincere--and your
+  style will be perfect."
+
+Molly wept a little over this frank expression of criticism, although
+there did seem to be an implied compliment in the last line. She reread
+the story and blushed for her commonplaceness. Surely there never had
+been written anything so inane and silly.
+
+For a long time she sat gazing at the white peak of Fujiyama on the
+Japanese scroll.
+
+"Simple and natural, indeed," she exclaimed. "It's much harder than the
+other way. Unaffected and sincere! That's not easy, either." She sighed
+and tore the story into little bits, casting it into the waste-paper
+basket. "That's the best place for you," she continued, apostrophizing
+her first attempt at fiction. "Nobody would ever have laughed or cried
+over you. Nobody would even have noticed you. My trouble is that I try
+too hard. I am always straining my mind for words and ideas. Now, when I
+write letters, how do I do? I let go. I never worry. Can a story be
+written in that way?"
+
+"How now, Mistress Molly," called Judy, bursting into the room. "Why are
+you lingering here in the house when all the world's afield? Get thee up
+and go hence with me unto the green woods where we are to have tea,
+probably for the last time before the winter's call."
+
+"Who's 'we'?" asked Molly.
+
+"Why, the usual crowd, and a few others from Beta Phi House."
+
+"But you'll never have enough teacups to go around, child," objected
+Molly.
+
+"Oh, yes, we shall. There are two other tea baskets coming from Beta
+Phi. There will be plenty and some over besides. Rosomond Chase and
+Millicent Porter were so taken with my basket last year that they
+each bought one. Of course Millicent's is much finer than mine or
+Rosomond's."
+
+"I dare say. But I don't think I want to go, Judy."
+
+The truth was Molly never felt in sympathy with those two Beta Phi
+girls, who represented an element in college she did not like. They
+dressed a great deal, for one thing, especially Millicent Porter, the
+girl who had sub-let Judith Blount's apartment the year before.
+
+"Now, Molly, I think you're unkind," burst out Judy. She never could
+endure even small disappointments. "They are awfully nice girls and they
+want to know you better. They said they did."
+
+"Well, why don't they come and see me? That's easy."
+
+Judy did not reply. She was pulling down all the clothes in the closet
+in a search for Molly's tam and sweater. She was in one of her queer,
+excited moods. Could it be that Judy thought the sparkling coterie from
+Queen's was being honored by these two rich young persons from Beta
+Phi? Molly rejected the suspicion almost as soon as it entered her mind.
+No, it was simply that poor old Judy was obsessed with a desire to get
+into the "Shakespeareans," and by courting the most influential members
+she thought she could make it.
+
+Molly pulled her slender length from the depths of the Morris chair
+where she had been lolling.
+
+"Very well," she said resignedly. "I was meditating on my ambitions when
+you broke in on me. You are a very demoralizing young person, Judy."
+
+Judy laughed. She made a charming picture in her scarlet tam and
+sweater.
+
+"Come along," she cried, "and ambitions be hanged." She seized her tea
+basket under one arm and a box of ginger snaps under the other.
+
+"Why, Judy, I am really shocked at you," exclaimed Molly. "I think I'll
+have to give you another shaking up before long. You're getting lax and
+lazy."
+
+"Nothing of the sort. I only want to enjoy life while the weather is
+good. It's lots easier to think of ambitions on rainy days."
+
+The other girls were waiting on the campus: the Williamses, Margaret and
+Jessie, Nance and presently the two Beta Phi girls. Rosomond Chase was a
+plump, rather heavy blonde type, always dressed to perfection and bright
+enough when she felt inclined to exert her mind. Millicent Porter was
+quite the opposite in appearance; small, wiry, with a prominent,
+sharp-featured face; prominent nose, prominent teeth and rather bulging
+eyes. She talked a great deal in a highly pompous tone, and her voice
+always slurred over from one statement to another as if to ward off
+interruption. She seemed much amused at this little escapade in the
+woods, quite Bohemian and informal.
+
+The Queen's girls could hardly explain why she appeared so patronizing.
+It was her manner more than what she said; although Margaret insisted
+that it was because she monopolized the conversation.
+
+"We didn't go to listen to a monologue," Margaret thundered later when
+they were discussing the tea party. "We came to hear ourselves talk."
+
+What surprised Molly was the attention that the young person of
+unlimited wealth bestowed upon her.
+
+"Come and sit beside me, Miss Brown, and tell me about Kentucky," she
+ordered.
+
+"I am afraid I haven't the gift of language," replied Molly, without
+budging from her seat on a log. "Ask Margaret Wakefield. She's the only
+conversationalist in the crowd."
+
+"I suppose Mahomet must go to the mountain, then," observed Miss Porter,
+and she moved graciously over to the log, where she regaled Molly with a
+great deal of wordy talk.
+
+"If she's going to do all the conversing, it might as well be on
+something interesting," thought Molly, and she started Millicent on the
+topic of silver work. This young woman, rich beyond calculation, had an
+unusual talent which had not been neglected. She worked in silver.
+
+"Her natural medium," Edith had observed when she heard of it.
+
+She could beat out chains and necklaces, rings of antique patterns,
+beautiful platters with enameled centers with all the skill of a real
+silversmith.
+
+Molly listened with polite interest to Millicent's lengthy description
+of her art. There was often an unconscious flattery in the sympathetic
+attention Molly gave to other people's talk. It had the effect of
+loosening tongues and brought forth confidences and heart secrets. She
+was a good listener and the repository of many a hidden thought.
+
+"I am only going to college, you know, to please papa," Millicent was
+saying. "He thinks I should be finished off like a piece of statuary or
+a new house. I would much rather do things with my hands. I can't see
+how I am to be benefited by all these classics. In the sort of life I
+shall lead they won't do me any good. Society people never quote Latin
+and Greek or make learned references to early Roman history and things
+of that sort. It isn't considered good form. Modern novels are the only
+things people read nowadays, but papa is determined. Now, with silver
+work, it's quite different. I love it. I love to make beautiful things.
+I have just finished a grape-vine chain. The workmanship is exquisite.
+My sitting room is my studio, you know, and I work there when I am not
+busy with stupid books. You seem interested. Do you know anything about
+silver work?"
+
+Molly admitted her ignorance on the subject, but Millicent did not pause
+to listen. Her voice slurred over from the question to her next
+outburst.
+
+"I like beautiful rich colors. I intend to design all the costumes for
+the next Shakespearean performance. If I had been born in a different
+sphere in life, I should have divided my time between silver work and
+costuming. I can draw, too, but it's more designing than anything else."
+
+Then Millicent, encouraged by Molly's sympathetic blue eyes, lowered her
+voice and plunged into confidences.
+
+"The truth is," she said, "we were not so--er--well-to-do two
+generations ago. My great-grandfather was an Italian silversmith. Isn't
+it interesting? He was really an artist in his way, and made wonderful
+vessels for the church, crucifixes, and things like that. I tell mamma I
+believe her grandfather's soul has entered into my body. But that isn't
+all. Now, if I tell you this, will you promise never to breathe it? It's
+really a family secret, but it accounts for my love of rich, beautiful
+things. I can sew, you know. I adore to embroider. If I had to, I could
+easily make all my own clothes----"
+
+"But that's nothing to be ashamed of," broke in Molly.
+
+"No, no. That isn't the secret. The secret is where I got the taste for
+such things. You promise not to mention this?"
+
+"I promise," replied Molly gravely, repressing the smile that for an
+instant hovered on her lips.
+
+"The silversmith grandfather had a brother who was a merchant. He had a
+shop in Florence where he sold all sorts of beautiful fabrics, velvets
+and brocades and lots of antique things."
+
+"No doubt it was an antique shop," thought Molly.
+
+"Mamma remembers it well, and the shop is still there to-day, but it's
+in other hands."
+
+Molly felt much amusement at this explanation of heredity. It would not
+be difficult to add a few lines to Millicent's small, thin face and
+place it on the shoulders of the old silversmith or of his brother, the
+dealer in antiques. How would they feel if they could hear this
+granddaughter conversing about society and the classics?
+
+"But I have rattled on. Here I have told you two family secrets. But of
+course they will go no farther. You know more about me than any girl in
+Wellington. Won't you come over to dinner with me Saturday evening and
+see my studio?"
+
+"I am so sorry," said Molly, "but I have an engagement,"--to try to
+write a sincere, natural, simple short story, she added, in her mind.
+
+"Oh, dear, what a nuisance! Can you come Sunday? They have horrid early
+dinners Sunday, but no matter."
+
+Molly was obliged to accept, anxious as she was to keep out of the Beta
+Phi crowd.
+
+"By the way, do you act?" asked Millicent abruptly.
+
+"A little," answered Molly, and that ended the tea party.
+
+In the evening Judy was slightly cold to Molly. It was almost
+imperceptible, so subtle was the change, and Molly herself was hardly
+aware of it until her friend, stretched on the couch reading, suddenly
+closed her book with a snap and remarked:
+
+"Considering you dislike the Beta Phi girls, you certainly managed to
+monopolize one of them."
+
+"Judy!" remonstrated Nance, shocked at this unaccountable exhibition of
+temperament.
+
+Molly said nothing whatever, and presently she slipped off to bed.
+
+"We've all got our faults," she kept saying to herself, but she was
+bitterly hurt, nevertheless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+"THE BEST LAID SCHEMES."
+
+
+Judy did have her failings, the faults of an only child spoiled by
+indulgent parents. But they were only on the surface, impulsive flashes
+of irritability that never failed to be followed by deep, poignant
+regret when the tempest had passed.
+
+The next morning Molly was wakened by the fragrance of violets, and,
+opening her eyes, she looked straight into the heart of a big bunch of
+those flowers lying on her chest.
+
+"Goodness, I feel like a corpse," she exclaimed.
+
+Scrawled on a card pinned to the purple tissue ribbon around the stems
+of the violets was the following inscription:
+
+  "For dearest Molly from her devoted and loving Judy."
+
+"The poor child must have got up early this morning and gone down to the
+village for them," she said to Nance. "And she does hate getting up
+early, too."
+
+Thus the coldness between the two girls came to a temporary end. Molly
+did not go to the Beta Phi House to dinner on Sunday. Millicent sent
+word that she was ill with a headache and would like to postpone the
+visit. Some of the Shakespeareans came to the apartment of the three
+girls to call one evening, but they were Judy's friends, invited by her
+to drop in and have fudge, and Molly and Nance kept quiet and remained
+in the background. If Judy was working to get into the Shakespeareans,
+she should have the field to herself. The three visitors, seniors all of
+them, left early, but in some mysterious way the news of their call
+spread through the Quadrangle.
+
+"Which of you is boning for the 'Shakespeareans'?" Minerva Higgins
+demanded of Nance next day.
+
+This irrepressible young person had already acquired a smattering of
+college slang and college gossip. But still she had not learned the
+difference between a freshman and a junior.
+
+Nance drew herself up haughtily.
+
+"Miss Higgins," she said, "there are some things at Wellington that are
+never discussed."
+
+"_Excuse me_," said Minerva, making an elaborate bow.
+
+But Nance did not even notice the bow. She had gone on her way like an
+injured dignitary.
+
+The air was certainly full of rumors, however. Everybody, even the
+faculty, wondered upon whose shoulders the Shakespeareans' highly
+coveted honors would fall. The new members of this distinguished body
+were always chosen after the junior play, preparations for which were
+now under way. There had been first a stormy meeting of the class. It
+was quite natural for President Wakefield to want all her particular
+friends to form the committee to choose a play and select the actors,
+and it was equally human of the Caroline Brinton forces to resent the
+old clique rule. But Margaret was a mighty leader and would brook no
+interference. So the Queen's girls were the ruling spirits of the
+entertainment. Judy was chairman of the committee, and was to have the
+principal part in the play, it being tacitly understood that she wanted
+to show the Shakespeareans what she could do.
+
+It was like the scholarly group to give a wide berth to the modern
+comedies and melodramas usually selected by juniors for this
+performance, and to settle on "Twelfth Night."
+
+"We can never do it," Caroline Brinton had announced in great vexation.
+"We haven't time and we have no coach."
+
+But she had been calmly overruled and "Twelfth Night" it was to be, with
+daily rehearsals except on Saturdays, when there were two.
+
+Molly was cast for the part of Maria, the maid. And she was glad,
+chiefly because the costume was easy. Judy was to play Viola, Edith
+Williams, Malvolio, and the other parts were variously distributed,
+Margaret being Sir Toby Belch.
+
+When a college girl reaches her junior year her mind is well trained to
+concentrate and memorize. Two years before, perhaps only Edith Williams,
+whose memory was abnormal, would have trusted herself to memorize a
+Shakespearean part. But the girls were amazed now at their own powers.
+Miss Pryor, teacher of elocution, was present at many of the rehearsals,
+criticizing and suggesting, and hers was the only outside assistance the
+juniors had in their ambitious production.
+
+It was probably through her that the accounts of their ability were
+noised abroad, and on the night of the play there was a great rush for
+seats. The president herself was there and many of the faculty.
+Professor Green had a front balcony seat looking straight down on the
+stage.
+
+"Goodness, but I'm scared!" exclaimed Molly, peeping through the hole in
+the curtain at the large assembly.
+
+"Heaven help us all," groaned Nance, dressed as an attendant of the
+Duke.
+
+"Don't talk like that," Judy admonished them. "We must make it go off
+all right. Molly, don't you forget and be too solemn. Your part calls
+for much merriment, as the notes in the book said."
+
+"Don't you be so dictatorial," said Nance, under her breath, hoping
+instantly that Judy, in a high state of nerves and excitement, had not
+heard her.
+
+When the seniors began thumping on the floor with their heels and the
+sophomores commenced clapping, Molly's mind became a vacuum. Not even
+the first line of her part could she recall.
+
+At last the curtain went up and the play began. She had no idea how Judy
+had conducted herself. A girl near her said:
+
+"She certainly had an awful case of stage fright, but she'll be all
+right in the next act."
+
+The words had no meaning to Molly, and she sat like a frozen image in
+the wings until Nance touched her on the shoulder and whispered:
+
+"Hurry up."
+
+Then she stepped into the glare of the footlights. Her blood ceased
+entirely to circulate. Her hands became numb. Icy fingers seemed to
+clutch her throat, and when she opened her mouth to speak, no voice
+came. She remembered making a fervent, speechless prayer.
+
+In an instant her blood began to flow normally. She felt a wave of
+crimson surge into her cheeks, and she heard her own voice speaking to
+Margaret, stuffed out with sofa cushions to resemble Sir Toby Belch.
+
+When the scene was over there was a great clapping of hands. It sounded
+to Molly like a sudden rainstorm in summer. And, like a summer shower,
+it was refreshing to the young actors in the great comedy.
+
+"Good work, Molly," Margaret whispered. "I think we carried that off
+pretty well. If only Judy doesn't get scared again the thing will go all
+right."
+
+"Did Judy have stage fright?" demanded Molly, in surprise.
+
+"You mean to say you didn't know? She almost ruined the scene."
+
+"Poor old Judy," thought Molly, "and just when she wanted to do her
+best, too."
+
+Judy did improve considerably as the play progressed, but even a
+friendly audience has an unrelenting way of retaining first impressions;
+or perhaps it was that poor Judy, sensitive and high strung, imagined
+the audience was cold to her and so allowed her spirit to be quenched.
+There were no cries for "Viola" from the people in front, and there were
+many for Malvolio, Sir Toby and Maria.
+
+Again and again these three actors came forth and bowed their
+acknowledgment. During the intermission several of the freshmen ushers
+carried down bouquets of flowers. Jessie received two from admirers who
+appeared to keep a running account at the florist's in the village. A
+splendid basket of red roses and a bunch of violets were handed over the
+footlights for Molly, and when she was summoned from the wings to appear
+and receive these floral offerings she flushed crimson and remarked to
+the usher:
+
+"There must be some mistake. They couldn't be for me."
+
+A ripple of laughter went over the entire house. There was another burst
+of applause which again brought Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky into
+prominence through no fault of her own.
+
+The card on the magnificent basket of roses made known to her the fact
+that Miss Millicent Porter had thus honored her. The card on the violets
+merely said: "From a crusty old critic who believes in your success."
+
+"I thought Millicent Porter had a big crush on you," observed Margaret
+later in the green room. "There's no doubt about it now after this noble
+tribute."
+
+"Nonsense," said Molly. "It's because she has so much money and likes to
+spend it."
+
+"On herself, yes, buying clothes and big lumps of silver to play with;
+but not on you, Molly, dear, unless she had been greatly taken with your
+charms."
+
+Molly had seen a few college crushes and considered them absurd, a kind
+of idol worship by a young girl for an older one; but because she had
+been so closely with her own small circle, she had escaped a crush so
+far.
+
+"I'll never believe it," she said. "I'm much too humble a person to be
+admired by such a grand young lady. She sent the roses because she had
+to recall her invitation to dinner."
+
+"Only time will prove it, Miss Molly," answered Margaret.
+
+The play ended with a grand storm of applause and college yells. Not in
+their wildest dreams had the juniors hoped for such success.
+
+"It's difficult to tell who was the best, they were all so excellent,"
+the president was reported to have said.
+
+Finally, to satisfy the persistent multitude, each actor marched slowly
+in front of the curtain, and each was received with more or less
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Rah-rah-rah; rah-rah-rah; Wellington--Wellington--Margaret Wakefield,"
+they yelled; or "What's the matter with Molly Brown? She's all right.
+Molly--Molly--Molly Brown."
+
+In the intoxicating excitement of this fifteen minutes nobody realized
+that Judy had withdrawn from the group of actors and hidden herself away
+somewhere behind the scenery. There was some speculation in the audience
+as to why Viola had not filed across the stage with the others, but
+since Judy's really devoted friends were all behind the scenes, there
+was no one to bring her out unless she chose to show herself with the
+others.
+
+"Wasn't it simply grand?" cried Jessie, the last to taste the sweets of
+popularity. The hall was still ringing with:
+
+"Jessie--Jessie--she's all right!" when she bowed herself behind the
+curtain and joined her classmates in the green room. Then there came
+cries of:
+
+"Speech! Speech! Wakefield! Wakefield!"
+
+Margaret, as composed as a May morning, stepped to the front of the
+platform and gave one of her most appropriate addresses to the joy of
+the audience and the intense amusement of the faculty.
+
+"Think of that child, only eighteen, and making such a speech! They are
+certainly a remarkable group of girls. So much individuality among
+them," said Miss Walker to Miss Pomeroy, at her side.
+
+"And rare charm in some of the individuals," added Miss Pomeroy. "The
+little Brown girl, for instance, who, by the way, is as tall as I am,
+but so thin that she seems small, has magnetism that will carry her
+through many a difficulty in life. They tell me she is almost adored by
+her friends."
+
+In the meantime the juniors, entirely unconscious of these compliments
+from high places, and perhaps it was quite as well they were, had just
+missed Judy from their midst.
+
+"Didn't she go before the curtain with the rest of us?" some one asked.
+
+"But how strange, when she had the leading part."
+
+"I thought I heard them give her the yell."
+
+"Judy, Judy," called Molly.
+
+"Here I am," answered a muffled voice from behind the scenery.
+
+Presently Judy appeared, showing a face so white and tragic that her
+friends were shocked. With a tactful instinct most of the girls
+hurriedly gathered their things together and disappeared, leaving only
+the intimates in the green room.
+
+"Why, Judy, dearest, why did you hide yourself, and you the leading lady
+of the company?" exclaimed Molly reproachfully, when all outsiders had
+departed.
+
+"Don't flatter me, Molly," Judy answered, in a hard, strained voice.
+
+"But you were," said Molly, "and you acted beautifully."
+
+"I ruined the play," said Judy angrily. "I ruined the entire business,
+and you made me do it."
+
+"Oh, Judy," cried Molly, "you are talking wildly. What do you mean?"
+
+"You did. You upset me completely when you said: 'don't be so
+dictatorial.' I never heard you make a speech like that before. And
+just as I was about to go on, too. It was cruel. It was unkind. If it
+had come from any one else but you----"
+
+"Here--here," broke in Margaret. "Really, Judy, you're losing your
+temper."
+
+"She never said it, anyhow," cried Nance. "I said it myself."
+
+"She did say it, Nance. You're just trying to screen her," replied Judy,
+who had worked herself into a nervous rage.
+
+"Is this going to be a free fight?" asked Edith, who always enjoyed
+battles.
+
+Molly was gathering up her things.
+
+"Not as far as I am concerned," she answered, in a trembling voice.
+
+As she went out she looked sorrowfully back at Judy, but not another
+word did she say.
+
+"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Judy Kean?" cried Nance. "You're
+jealous and that's the whole of it," and she flung herself out of the
+door after Molly. The others quickly followed. Certainly sympathy was
+against Judy.
+
+And what of poor Judy left all alone in the gymnasium?
+
+Torn with anger, remorse, jealousy and disappointment, she threw herself
+face downward on the empty stage.
+
+Presently the janitor came in and switched off the lights.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE.
+
+
+Molly and Nance had little to say to each other that night as they
+undressed for bed. Nance was still filled with hot indignation over
+Judy's "falling-off" as she called it, and Molly had no heart for
+conversation. The door to Judy's bedroom at the other end of the sitting
+room was closed and they were not surprised when she did not call "good
+night" as was her custom. Nobody looked in on them. It was late and the
+Quadrangle was soon perfectly still.
+
+Under the sheets, her head buried in the pillows, Molly cried a long
+time, softly and quietly, like a steady downpour of rain. It seemed
+somehow that her beloved friend, Judy, had died, and that she was
+grieving for her. At last, worn out, she fell asleep. It was a very
+heavy sleep. She felt as if her arms were tied and she was sinking down
+into space and, as is always the case with dreams of falling, she waked
+with a nervous leap as if her body had hit the bed and rebounded. As she
+fell she had dreamed that she heard a voice calling. Never mind what it
+said; already the word, whatever it was, was a mere pin point in her
+memory. It had flashed through her mind like a shooting star across the
+sky. It was brilliantly illuminating for the instant. Molly was sure
+that it meant a great deal. It was an important word, and it had an
+urgent significance. For the tenth of a second her mind had been wide
+awake, and now it was quite dark again.
+
+Molly leaped out of bed and began pulling on her clothes.
+
+"Why am I dressing?" she thought. "It is because I must--_hurry!_"
+
+"Hurry," that was the word. It came back to her now, quietly and
+significantly.
+
+Nance wakened and sat up in bed.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know. I must hurry. Don't stop me," answered Molly.
+
+Nance looked at her curiously.
+
+"You've had a nightmare, Molly," she said.
+
+Molly glanced up vaguely as Nance switched on the light.
+
+"Have I? I don't know, but I must make haste, or I'll be too late."
+
+"Too late for what?"
+
+"I don't know yet."
+
+"Wake up, Molly. You're asleep. Nothing is going to happen. You are
+here, in your own room."
+
+"Yes, yes. I understand, but I must hurry. Don't stop me, Nance. You may
+come if you like, but don't stop me."
+
+Nance had often heard that it was dangerous to awaken sleepwalkers too
+suddenly, and she believed now as she saw Molly slipping on her skirt
+and sweater that she was certainly asleep.
+
+"Dearest Molly," she insisted. "This is college. You are in your own
+room. It's a quarter to twelve. Don't go out of the room."
+
+Molly took no notice. Nance turned on another light and slipped across
+to Judy's room. She must have help, and Judy was the nearest person.
+
+"Judy's not in her room," she exclaimed suddenly, in a scared voice.
+
+Molly gave a slight shudder.
+
+"It's Judy who needs me," she said. "I was trying to remember. I
+couldn't make it out at first. Put on your things, Nance. Don't delay.
+Put out the light. We must hurry."
+
+Nance got into a few clothes as fast as she could. She slipped on tennis
+shoes and an ulster and presently the two girls were standing in the
+corridor.
+
+"Where are we going, Molly?" asked Nance, now under the spell of the
+other's conviction.
+
+"This way," answered Molly, looking indeed like a sleepwalker as she
+glided down the hall to the main steps.
+
+If the girls had glanced back they would have noticed a figure creep
+softly after them.
+
+"But the gate is locked," objected Nance.
+
+"I know, but we'll find another way. Come on."
+
+Down the steps they hastened noiselessly. At the bottom, instead of
+going straight ahead, Molly turned to the left and led the way to a
+sitting room for visitors on the ground floor of the tower. The windows
+of the Tower Room, as it was known, looked out on the campus. They were
+small, deep-silled, and closed with iron-bound wooden shutters like the
+doors into the cloisters. Mounting a bench, Molly opened the inside
+glass casement of one of the windows and drew back the bolt which
+secured the shutter. Then she hoisted herself onto the sill, crawled
+through the window, and holding by both hands dropped to the ground.
+Nance, of a more practical temperament, wondered how they would ever get
+back into the Tower Room; but blind, unquestioning faith is an
+infinitely stronger staff to lean upon than uneasy speculation, as Nance
+was one day to find out.
+
+"When the night watchman makes his rounds, will he see the window open
+in the tower?" she thought. "And if he does, what will he do? Give the
+alarm at once or try to find out our names and report us? If he reports
+us, what then? We may be expelled, or suspended or punished in some
+awful way."
+
+So Nance's thoughts busily shaped out these tragic events as she
+followed Molly out of the window and dropped to the gravel walk below.
+The tower clock struck twelve while the two girls flitted across the
+campus. It was a strange adventure, Nance pondered, and one she would
+never have undertaken, or even considered, alone. But then her instincts
+were not like Molly's. The inner voice which spoke to her sometimes was
+usually the sharp, reproving voice of a Puritan conscience. It spoke to
+her now, but she turned a deaf ear to it for once.
+
+It told her how absurd she would appear to other people in this
+dangerous midnight escapade; what risks she was running. Judy, of
+course, had spent the night with one of the other girls, it said. It
+troubled her mind with whispers of doubts and fears; it ridiculed and
+abused her, but not once did it weaken her determination to follow
+Molly wherever she intended to go. And presently, when Molly quickened
+her footsteps into a run, Nance kept right at her elbow like a noonday
+shadow, foreshortened and broadened.
+
+Molly turned in the direction of the lake. Nance's heart gave a violent
+thump. She had believed all along that they were taking a short cut
+across to the gymnasium, instead of following the gravel walk.
+
+"Molly, you don't think----" she began breathlessly.
+
+"Don't talk now. Hurry," was Molly's brief reply.
+
+Across a corner of the golf course they flew, and before Nance could
+take breath for another dash through a fringe of pine trees she caught
+sight of the waters, as black as ink. She clutched Molly's arm.
+
+"Did you hear anything?" she asked, in a frightened whisper.
+
+They waited a moment, straining their ears in the darkness.
+
+From the middle of the lake came the sound of a canoe paddle dipping
+into the water.
+
+Molly breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"It's all right," she said, and they hastened down to the platform of
+the boathouse.
+
+In another moment they had launched a small rowboat and were out on the
+lake.
+
+"Will Judy Kean never learn sense?" Nance thought impatiently. "She's
+just like a prairie fire. It only takes a spark to set her going and
+then she burns up everything in sight."
+
+Nance had never been able to understand why Judy could not hold her
+passionate, excitable temperament more in control. She, herself, had
+learned self-denial at an early age. But that was because she had a
+selfish mother.
+
+"How did you ever guess she would be here, Molly?" she asked, as the
+prow of the boat cut softly through the waters of the lake with a
+musical ripple.
+
+Nance was rowing, and Molly, who had never learned to handle oars, was
+sitting facing her.
+
+"I don't know. I can't explain it. I dreamed that some one said
+'hurry,' and the lake seemed to be the place to come to."
+
+Some two hundred feet beyond they now made out the silhouette of a
+canoe. Judy--of course it was Judy; already they recognized the outline
+of her slender figure--kneeling in the bottom of the boat, had stopped
+paddling. She held up her head like a startled animal when it scents
+danger. It occurred to Nance, watching her over her shoulder as they
+drew nearer, that there was really something wild and untamed in Judy's
+nature. She remembered that, the first morning they had met her at
+Queen's, Judy had laughingly announced that she had been born at sea on
+a stormy night. But it was no joking matter, Nance was thinking, and she
+fervently wished that Judy would learn to quell her troubled moods.
+
+The next instant the two boats touched prows. The little canoe, the most
+delicate and sensitive craft that there is, quivered violently with the
+shock of the collision and sprang back. As it bounded forward again,
+Molly held out her hand. Instinctively Judy grasped it, and the two
+boats drew alongside each other.
+
+"Crawl into our boat, Judy, dearest," said Molly. "It will be easier to
+pull the canoe to shore if it's empty."
+
+Judy prepared silently to obey. But a canoe is not a thing to be
+reckoned with at critical moments. Just as Judy raised her foot to step
+into the other boat, the treacherous little craft shot from under her,
+and over she toppled, headforemost into the waters. Fortunately, she was
+an excellent swimmer, and the star diver of the gymnasium pool. But the
+lake was not deep, and when she came up, sputtering and puffing, she
+found herself standing in water that was only shoulder high.
+
+Nance often thought, in looking back on this painful episode, that
+nothing they could have said to Judy would have brought her so
+completely to her senses as this cold ducking. Certainly, if Judy had
+actually planned to jump into the lake, her wishes were most ludicrously
+carried out, and the struggle she now made to climb back into the boat
+showed that she was not anxious to stay any longer than she could help
+in the icy bath. It was a sight for laughter more than for tears,
+sensible Nance pondered with a slight feeling of contempt--that of Judy,
+struggling and kicking to draw herself into the boat. Indeed, she almost
+managed to upset them, too; but she did tumble in somehow, shivering and
+wet but extremely contrite.
+
+"How did you know I was out here?" was the first question she put, when,
+having seized the rope on the prow of the canoe, they headed for shore.
+
+"I didn't know. I only guessed," answered Molly.
+
+"She was up and dressed before she even knew you were not in your room,"
+announced Nance.
+
+"I was a fool," exclaimed Judy, "and I know now what good friends you
+are to have come for me. I don't know exactly what I intended to do out
+here," she went on brokenly. "I felt ashamed to face any one, even mamma
+and papa. I might----" she broke off, shivering. Rivulets of water were
+pouring from her wet clothing into the bottom of the boat. She still
+wore the costume she had worn in the last scene of the play.
+
+"I'll give you my ulster as soon as we land, Judy," said Nance, rowing
+with long rapid strokes which sent the boat skimming over the water.
+
+"I'm just a low-down worthless dog," went on Judy, taking no notice of
+Nance's interruption. "There's no good trying to apologize, Molly. Words
+don't mean anything. But when the chance comes--and the chance always
+does come if you want it--I'll be able to show you how sorry I am for
+what I did, and how much I really love you."
+
+"You showed me what a real friend you were last winter, Judy," broke in
+Molly, "when you gave up your room at Queen's for my sake. I wasn't
+angry about what happened at the gym. I was hurt of course because I'm a
+sensitive plant, but I knew it would be all right in the end because we
+are too close to each other now to let a few hasty words come between
+us. But here we are at the boat landing."
+
+Having tied the two boats in the boat house, which was never kept
+locked, they hurried back to college. Nance insisted upon Judy's putting
+on her ulster.
+
+"You know I'm never cold," she said.
+
+"You girls will just kill me with kindness," exclaimed Judy humbly.
+
+But Nance did not even hear this abject speech. The question of how they
+were to get back into the Quadrangle was occupying her mind.
+
+"We're taking an awful risk," she observed to Molly, in a low voice.
+"There is no other way but the window, I suppose."
+
+"I can't think of any other way," answered Molly, "unless we ring the
+bell over the gate and alarm the entire dormitory."
+
+"Suppose the night watchman has closed the window? What then?" demanded
+Nance.
+
+"Why, we'll just have to find some other way, then," answered her
+optimistic friend.
+
+But the window in the Tower Room was wide open, just as they had left
+it.
+
+The doubting Nance still had another theory.
+
+"Suppose the night watchman has left it open on purpose to catch us when
+we come back?" she suggested.
+
+"I do wish you would stop hunting up troubles, Nance," ejaculated Molly
+irritably. "I never found supposing did any good, anyhow."
+
+Nance, thus rebuked, said nothing more.
+
+Molly, boosted by the other girls, pulled herself onto the window sill
+and climbed into the room. She looked about her cautiously. But Nance's
+fears were groundless so far. The room was perfectly empty.
+
+"Let down a chair," whispered Judy.
+
+There were no small chairs about, however, and she was obliged to choose
+a bench.
+
+"How are we to get it back again?" she asked, after Nance had clambered
+in, and Judy, halfway through, paused to consider this question.
+
+"Hurry, the watchman," hissed Nance, on the lookout at the door. "He's
+coming down the side corridor."
+
+The next instant Judy had leaped into the room, and the three girls were
+tearing along the hall and up the steps, Judy leaving a trail of water
+behind her. The watchman had seen them. They could hear the beat of his
+steps on the cement floor as he ran. The fugitives reached the upper
+corridor just as he arrived at the first landing on the stairs.
+
+"Kick off your pumps, Judy, and pick up your skirts. He'll trace us by
+the wet trail if you don't."
+
+Another dash and they were in their sitting room, the door locked behind
+them. Oh, blessed relief!
+
+Judy, in her stocking feet, was holding up her skirts with both hands.
+Nance had seized one of the slippers and she thought that Molly had the
+other.
+
+But the final excitement of that eventful night was veiled in mystery.
+
+As they had burst into their sitting room, some one ran swiftly across
+the room, through the passage into Judy's room and into the corridor.
+They dared not follow and run the risk of meeting the night watchman,
+probably standing at that moment at the end of the corridor trying to
+trace that path of water, which, thanks be to Nance's prudence, ended
+there and was lost on the green strip of carpet.
+
+Below in the Tower Room the windows of the casement flapped back and
+forth in the wind which was rising steadily, and on the path below stood
+that telltale bench.
+
+"Anyhow," said Molly, "there's only one person who knows we were out
+to-night and, whoever she is, she can't tell without giving herself
+away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+COVERING THEIR TRACKS.
+
+
+When the dressing bell rang next morning, three heavy-eyed and extremely
+weary young women felt obliged to pull themselves together and appear at
+the breakfast table. Judy had caught cold, and to disguise this
+condition had plastered pink powder on her nose, and now held her breath
+almost to suffocation to avoid coughing in public.
+
+"Have you heard the news?" demanded Jessie, hurrying in late and sitting
+next to Nance.
+
+"Why, no. What is it?" asked Nance calmly.
+
+Molly felt the color rising in her cheeks, and Judy buried her snuffles
+in a long letter from her mother.
+
+"There's the greatest tale going around the Quadrangle! Everybody is
+talking about it," continued Jessie. "One of the chambermaids started
+it, I think, because she told it to me just now."
+
+"What is it?" asked Edith Williams impatiently.
+
+"Some of the Quadrangle girls were out last night gallivanting. They
+climbed through the Tower Room window, left a bench outside and the
+window open. I suppose the watchman frightened them before they could
+hide all traces."
+
+"That sounds like a wild freak," commented Katherine. "What do you
+suppose they were doing?"
+
+"They might have been doing lots of things," replied Jessie
+mysteriously. "The maid said the watchman thought they had been driving
+or motoring with some Exmoor boys."
+
+"Whew!" ejaculated a sophomore. "I'm sorry for them if they are found
+out. I happen to know Prexy's feelings about escapades like that."
+
+"Why? Were you ever caught?"
+
+"No, of course not. Don't you see me sitting here at the table? But my
+older sister was in the class with a girl who was caught. She was a
+campus girl."
+
+"What happened to her?" demanded Judy, forgetting her cold in the
+interest of the story.
+
+"Bounced," answered the sophomore briefly.
+
+The Williamses and Jessie looked at Judy with mixed feelings of
+surprise; not because they noticed her cold or regarded it with any
+suspicion, but because, when they had parted company with her the night
+before she had been in the throes of a jealous rage and had spoken most
+insultingly to her best friend. Their glances shifted to Molly. The two
+girls were seated side by side. Judy was leaning affectionately against
+Molly's shoulder while they looked together at a picture post card sent
+by Mary Stewart from France.
+
+"All bets are off," whispered Edith to her sister. "They have made it
+up. Molly is an angel of forgiveness. We were wrong for once."
+
+"And Margaret was correct."
+
+"A pound of Mexican kisses and two pounds of mixed chocolates," said
+Margaret in Edith's other ear. "I've won my bet, I hope you'll take
+notice."
+
+"We were just taking notice," answered Edith.
+
+"But there's some more of the story," piped out Jessie again. "Don't you
+want to hear the most exciting part?"
+
+"Heavens, yes. Did they catch them?" asked several voices.
+
+"No, no, but one of the girls was wet," announced Jessie impressively.
+"She left a trail of water after her all the way up the steps."
+
+"I should think they could have traced her by that," said Margaret.
+
+"They could have if she had kept on trailing, but she must have
+remembered and held up her skirt, for it stopped right there."
+
+"Wise lady," put in Katherine.
+
+"She must have been canoeing and not driving, then," observed Margaret.
+"Else why the significant fact of wet clothes?"
+
+"Nice night to go canoeing in, cold and dark. Strange notion of
+pleasure," remarked Edith.
+
+"Well, there's more still to come," announced Jessie, when they had
+finished commenting on this remarkable escapade.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Jessie, you're like a serial story of adventure--a
+thriller in every chapter. What now?"
+
+"Well," said Jessie, "you may well prepare for a thriller this time. The
+watchman found something."
+
+"What? What?" they cried, and Nance, Judy and Molly joined in the chorus
+with as much excitement as any of the others.
+
+"He found a slipper."
+
+Judy made an enormous effort to keep her hand from trembling, as she
+raised her coffee cup to her dry, feverish lips. Molly, as usual under
+excitement, changed from white to red and red to white. Nance alone
+seemed perfectly calm.
+
+"I don't see how they can prove anything by that," she observed. "There
+are probably fifty girls or even a hundred who wear the same size shoes
+here. Molly is the only girl I know of who wears a peculiar size, six
+and a half triple A."
+
+"Well, 'one thing is certain and the rest is lies,' as old Omar
+remarked," said Margaret, rising from the table, "and that is, all
+juniors can prove an alibi last night. No junior would ever go
+gallivanting on the night of the junior play."
+
+"Hardly," answered Nance, who had risen to the occasion with fine spirit
+and tact. Molly's face resumed its normal color and Judy looked
+relieved.
+
+"The thing they will have to do," said Edith, "is to find the other
+slipper. And if the owner of that slipper takes my advice she'll drop it
+down the deepest well in Wellington County."
+
+Molly and Nance and Judy hurried through breakfast and rushed back to
+their apartment. They locked all the doors carefully and gathered in
+Judy's room.
+
+"We have nearly fifteen minutes before chapel," said Nance, speaking
+rapidly. "Judy, are your things dry? Get them quickly. They may search
+our rooms. Miss Walker is pretty determined once she's roused, I hear."
+
+Judy gathered up the stiff, rough-dry garments that had been hanging on
+the heater all night, while Molly found tossed in a corner the mate to
+the fatal slipper. Judy held up Viola's dress of old rose velvet.
+
+"It's ruined," she exclaimed, "and that's another complication.
+Suppose----"
+
+"Don't suppose," interrupted Molly hastily, snatching the dress away
+from her. "Hurry, Nance, where shall we put them?"
+
+For a temporary safe hiding place they chose the interior of the upright
+piano. Then they hastily made their beds, set their dressing tables to
+rights and dashed off to chapel just as the matron appeared on an
+ostensible tour of inspection.
+
+It was possible that she was not being very vigilant with the juniors,
+however, that particular morning, knowing that they were one and all
+engaged in producing a very important play the night before. At any
+rate, she only glanced casually around, saw nothing incriminating and
+departed to the next room.
+
+The president looked grave and worried at chapel, but, contrary to
+expectations, she had nothing to say after the prayer.
+
+"It's a bad sign," observed a student. "When Prexy doesn't say anything,
+she means business."
+
+Except for a few moments at lunch, the three girls did not meet in
+private consultation again until late in the afternoon. There was a busy
+sign on their study door. Molly smiled knowingly to herself, and gave
+the masonic tap.
+
+"It's a good idea," she thought, "and will keep out inquisitive people
+until we decide what to do."
+
+She found Judy stretched on the sofa, feverish and coughing, while Nance
+was dosing her with a large dose of quinine and an additional dose of
+sweet spirits of niter.
+
+"You're going to kill me, Nance," Judy was grumbling.
+
+"For heaven's sake, be quiet," scolded Nance. "You haven't any voice to
+waste. Molly, will you make her a hot lemonade? I think we had better
+get her to bed and cover her up with all the comforts so as to bring on
+a perspiration."
+
+"Only one?" inquired Judy.
+
+"Get up from there and go to bed," ordered Nance. "The inspection is
+over and there won't be any chance of another one to-day. You'll have to
+miss supper to-night. We'll say you have one of your sick headaches."
+
+Judy obediently got out of her things while Molly flew around making hot
+lemonade, and Nance hung a blanket over the heater and pulled down their
+three winter comforts off a shelf in the closet.
+
+Judy meekly allowed herself to be smothered under a mountain of covers,
+while she drank the lemonade with childish enjoyment.
+
+"You always make good ones, Molly, darling, because you put in enough
+sugar. I'll probably be melted into a fountain of perspiration like
+Undine, only she went away in tears," she complained presently.
+
+"That's the object of the treatment," answered Nance sternly. "Whatever
+is left of you after the melting process is over is quite well of the
+cold."
+
+Molly could have laughed if she had not been thinking of something else
+very hard.
+
+The two girls sat down on the divan and began a subdued and earnest
+conversation.
+
+"What are we to do with these things, Molly? We can't leave them in
+the piano because the moment some one sits down to play we'll be
+discovered."
+
+"Murderers take up the planks in the floor and hide their bloodstained
+clothing underneath," observed Molly. "But we can't do that, of course."
+
+They took the bundle from its hiding place and looked over the garments.
+
+"I have an idea," announced Nance, who had many practical notions on the
+subject of clothes. "Suppose we take the dress to the cleaner's in the
+village and have it steamed."
+
+"Why can't we steam it ourselves over the tea kettle?" demanded Molly.
+"We can and we'll do it right now and press it on the wrong side. If it
+hadn't been so much admired, it wouldn't matter so very much, but some
+one's sure to ask to see it or borrow it or something. How about the
+underclothes? Can't we smooth them out with a hot iron before they go to
+the laundry?"
+
+They set to work at once to heat water and irons, and presently were
+engaged in restoring the old rose velvet to a semblance of its former
+beauty.
+
+"What are we going to do about that slipper?" demanded Molly, pausing in
+her labors.
+
+"I've made up my mind to that," replied Nance. "We must bury it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE GRAVE DIGGERS.
+
+
+Three times during the night Molly and Nance crept into Judy's room and
+looked at her anxiously. She seemed to be sleeping heavily, but she
+tossed about the bed with feverish restlessness, and her forehead was
+burning hot.
+
+Early in the morning the faithful friends were up again, tipping about
+like two wraiths of the dawn in their trailing dressing gowns.
+
+"I'll bathe her face and hands before she takes any tea," said Molly.
+"She's awake. I saw her open her eyes when I peeped in just now."
+
+Judy was awake and sitting bolt upright when they presently entered with
+the basin and towels. There was a strange look in her eyes. Molly
+remembered to have seen it before when Judy was in the grip of the
+wander thirst.
+
+"Here you are, Sweet Spirits of Niter," she cried, in a hoarse, excited
+voice. "Knowst thou the land of Sweet Spirits of Niter?" she began
+singing. "Knowst thou the Sweet Spirits? They are tall, slender, gray
+ladies done in long curving lines, like that." She illustrated her ideas
+of these strange beings by sketching a picture on an imaginary canvas.
+"They lean against slim trees. They have soft musical voices and speak
+gently because they are sweet. You see? And the Land of Niter, what of
+it? It is a land of gray mists, always in twilight, and the Sweet
+Spirits who live in it are shadows. It is a sad land, but it is still
+and quiet and there are cool fountains everywhere. Sweet spirit, wouldst
+give me to drink of thy cup?"
+
+Molly and Nance laughed. They knew that Judy was delirious, but it was
+impossible not to laugh over her strange, poetic illusion regarding
+sweet spirits of niter. Setting down the basin and towel, they retreated
+to the next room.
+
+"We'd better make her a cup of beef tea as quickly as we can," said
+Nance. "That will quench her thirst and nourish her at the same time.
+Good heavens, Molly, what shall we do if she begins to talk about the
+slipper and the lake?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Molly, lighting the alcohol lamp, while Nance
+found the jar of beef extract. "I wish you hadn't given her so much
+physic, Nance." Molly had a deep-rooted objection to medicine, while
+Nance, on the other hand, was a firm believer in old-fashioned remedies.
+"Her stomach was in no condition for all that stuff. It was utterly
+upset. Her gastric juices had been lashed into a storm and hadn't had
+time to subside."
+
+Nance smiled at Molly's ignorance.
+
+"You are getting the emotions and the stomach mixed, Molly, dear."
+
+Now, Molly had her own ideas on this subject, but it was vain to argue
+with her friend, the actual proprietor of a real medicine chest marked
+"Household Remedies," which contained more than a dozen phials of
+physics.
+
+Judy was, in fact, paying the penalty for her mental storm when on the
+night of the play she had run through the whole scale of emotions,
+beginning with stage fright and an awful fear and passing into
+mortification, disappointment, rage, remorse and finally sorrow, or it
+might be called self-pity, which inspired her to launch a canoe and
+paddle into the middle of the lake at midnight. It will never be known
+how near she came to jumping into the lake. It is difficult to reckon
+with an unrestrained, hypersensitive nature like hers, always up in the
+heights or down in the depths; sometimes capable of splendid acts of
+generosity and unselfishness, but capable also of inflicting cruel
+punishments for imagined offences.
+
+Nance was for more medicine.
+
+"Suppose I give her a big dose of castor oil, Molly," she suggested,
+while she stirred the tea. "She had better take it before she drinks
+this."
+
+"Goodness, Nance, you'll kill her," exclaimed Molly, horrified. "Don't
+you see that it is entirely a mental thing with Judy? What she needs is
+absolute quiet, and the quinine has probably excited her and made her
+delirious. She doesn't need things to stimulate her. She's almost
+effervescent in her normal condition, anyhow."
+
+"Castor oil isn't a stimulant, child."
+
+"Perhaps not, but she'd better not be upset any more," and in the end
+Molly had her way.
+
+Returning in a few moments to bathe Judy's face, she found the sick girl
+half out of bed.
+
+"Get back into bed, Judy," she said firmly. "You're to have a nice quiet
+day in here and no one to bother you."
+
+"But the slipper. I'm looking for the other slipper," began Judy,
+weeping. "Oh, dear, I must find the slipper. Nance, Molly, the slipper,
+have you seen the slipper, the old oaken slipper, the iron-bound slipper
+that hangs in the well. If it's in the well now, drop it to the bottom.
+I hope it's a deep well, the deepest well in Well County."
+
+It was unkind to laugh, but Molly could not keep her countenance.
+
+"I might have known," she thought, "that Judy could be more delirious
+than anybody in the world."
+
+Judy submitted to having her face bathed and drank the beef tea without
+a murmur. She appeared greatly refreshed and quieted and said a few
+rational words about having had bad dreams.
+
+It was Sunday morning, frosty and bright. The bell of the Catholic
+Church in the village called devotees to early mass. It rang out
+joyfully and persuasively, reiterating its message to unbelievers. It
+was a cheerful sound and, in spite of Judy's troubles, they felt
+comforted. The steam heat began its pleasant matins in the pipes. The
+kettle on the alcohol stove hummed busily. Molly began to make
+preparations for breakfast. Although she was not self-indulgent,
+discomfort was never an acceptable state to her.
+
+"Get your bath, Nance," she ordered, "and then you can come back and
+make the toast while I take mine."
+
+Nance departed for the bathrooms with soap and towels, while Molly
+busied herself spreading a lunch cloth on one of the study tables and
+placing a blue china bowl full of oranges in the center. Then she
+carefully extracted four eggs from a paper bag in a box on the outer
+window ledge; cut four thin, even slices of bread to be inserted in
+Judy's patent electric toaster, and at intervals poured boiling water
+through the dripper into the coffee pot.
+
+"If I were at home this morning," she said, "I would be eating hot
+waffles and kidney hash."
+
+Suddenly she looked up. Judy was standing in the doorway.
+
+"Molly," she said, "I want my slipper."
+
+Molly took her hand and gently led her back to bed.
+
+"Judy, would you like a cup of delicious, strong, hot coffee?" she
+asked, endeavoring to divert Judy's quinine-charged senses.
+
+"Very much, but the slipper----" Judy began to whimper like a child.
+
+Molly hurried into the next room, found one of Nance's slippers and
+gravely handed it to Judy, who grasped it carefully with both hands as
+if it were something very precious and brittle.
+
+"When I gave her your slipper, Nance, I felt something like the old
+witch who had kidnapped the Queen's infant and put a changeling in its
+place," Molly observed later, in telling about this incident to Nance.
+"But there is nothing to do but humor her, I suppose, until the
+influence of the quinine wears off."
+
+"Where has she got it now?" asked Nance, ignoring Molly's allusions to
+quinine.
+
+"What? The changeling slipper? Under her pillow."
+
+Nance laughed.
+
+"I'm thinking, Molly," she remarked, "that to-day would be an excellent
+time to get rid of that other slipper. I don't feel as if I could sleep
+comfortably another night in these rooms with the guilty thing around.
+Until we dig a hole and bury it deep, we shall never have any peace of
+mind."
+
+Molly was carefully peeling the shell from the end of an egg.
+
+"Do you think we could leave her alone this afternoon?" she asked. "How
+long does quinine continue its ravages?"
+
+"Oh, not long," answered Nance, in a most matter of fact voice. "She's
+such a sensitive subject, that is the trouble. Quinine doesn't usually
+make people take on so. I never met any one so excitable and high strung
+as Judy. She gets her nerves tuned up to such a high pitch sometimes
+that I wonder they don't snap in two."
+
+"Nance, don't you think we ought to confess the whole thing to Miss
+Walker?"
+
+"Do you think Judy would ever forgive us if we did?"
+
+Molly sighed.
+
+"I'm afraid not," she said. "Confessing would involve so much. We
+would have to go back so far to the original cause, those wretched
+Shakespeareans. It would be pretty hard on poor old Judy. But the
+slipper, Nance--it's such a ridiculous thing, our hiding that slipper.
+Where shall we hide it?"
+
+"We must dig a grave and bury it," said Nance, "and we must do it this
+afternoon and get the thing off our minds. Then all evidence will be
+destroyed and there will be no possible way of finding out about Judy."
+
+"You have forgotten about the visitor to our room in the night."
+
+"Yes," admitted Nance, "there is that visitor. Who was she? What did she
+want? You haven't missed anything, have you?"
+
+"No," replied Molly. "I have nothing valuable enough to steal except old
+Martin Luther, and he's quite safe."
+
+She reached for the china pig on the bookshelves and shook him
+carefully. His interior gave out a musical jingle.
+
+Clothed and fed and comforted, the two girls leaned back in their Morris
+chairs, with extra cups of coffee resting on the chair arms, to consider
+the question of Judy's slipper. At last they came to a mutual agreement.
+
+Otoyo, the safest, discreetest and least inquisitive of their friends,
+was to be taken partly into their confidence and left to look after Judy
+while they went on their mysterious errand. Otoyo, who had the racial
+peculiarity of the Japanese of never being surprised at anything,
+accepted this position of trust without a comment. Few students took
+Sunday morning walks at Wellington, and therefore morning was the safest
+time for the expedition. Judy, reenforced with a soft-boiled egg and a
+cup of coffee, appeared perfectly rational and quiet. She surrendered
+the slipper without a murmur, and turning over on her side dropped off
+to sleep. A Not-at-Home sign was hung on the door and Otoyo was
+cautioned not to let any one into Judy's room. She was to say to all
+callers that Judy had a headache and was asleep.
+
+Dressed for a tramp, with Judy's slipper in one of the deep pockets of
+Nance's ulster, and a knife, fork and table spoon for digging purposes
+in the other, the two girls presently left Otoyo on the floor immersed
+in study. They had scarcely closed the door when Judy called from the
+next room:
+
+"Bring me that slipper, Otoyo."
+
+And the little Japanese, with a puzzled look on her face, obeyed.
+
+As they hastened down the corridor, hoping devoutly not to meet intimate
+friends, Molly and Nance were stopped by the irrepressible Minerva
+Higgins.
+
+"Isn't this a stroke of luck?" she exclaimed. "You are going for a walk
+and so am I. I was just on the lookout for somebody. Girls here are so
+industrious Sunday mornings, I can never get any one to go walking until
+afternoon."
+
+Molly was silent. At that moment she yearned for the courage of Nance,
+who with a word could scatter Minerva's cheeky assurance like chaff
+before the wind.
+
+"It's lack of character, I suppose," she thought disconsolately. "But I
+couldn't crush a fly, much less that presumptuous little freshman."
+
+She stood back, therefore, and let Nance have a clear field for the
+struggle.
+
+"You are very kind to offer us your company, Miss Higgins, but we must
+beg to be excused to-day," said Nance calmly.
+
+"I call that a nice, Sunday-morning, Christian spirit," cried Minerva,
+with an angry flash in her small, pig-like eyes.
+
+"No, no, Minerva," put in Molly gently. "You must not think that way
+about it. Nance and I have some important business to discuss, that's
+all. You mustn't imagine it's unkind when older girls turn you down
+sometimes. You know it isn't customary here for a freshman to invite
+herself to join an older girl. I believe it isn't customary in any
+college. Don't be angry, please."
+
+Hidden under layers of vanity, selfishness and stupid assurance, was
+Minerva's better self which Molly hoped to reach, and some day she would
+break through the crust, but not this morning.
+
+"Don't tell me anything about upper-class girls--conceited snobs! I know
+all about them," exclaimed Minerva angrily, as she marched down the
+corridor in a high state of rage.
+
+"Don't bother about her. She's a hopeless case, just as Margaret said,"
+remarked Nance.
+
+Once off the campus, they followed the path along the lake and turned
+their faces toward Round Head as being the spot most apt to be
+deserted at that hour in the morning. It was not long before they were
+climbing the steep hill.
+
+"Where shall we lay it to rest, poor weary little _sole_?" asked Nance,
+laughing.
+
+"Let's dig the grave on the Exmoor side," answered Molly. "Behind one of
+those big rocks is a good spot. We'll be hidden from sight and the
+ground is softer there."
+
+[Illustration: THEY SET TO WORK TO DIG A SMALL GRAVE FOR JUDY'S
+SLIPPER.--_Page 129._]
+
+Talking and giggling, because after all they were entirely innocent of
+any wrongdoing, they set to work to dig a small grave for Judy's
+slipper.
+
+"When the earth casts up its dead on the Day of Judgment, Nance, do you
+suppose this slipper will seek its mate?"
+
+"I hope it won't seek it any sooner," answered Nance dryly.
+
+At last the grave was ready. They laid the slipper in the hole,
+carefully covered it with earth, and concealed all evidences of recent
+disturbance with bits of grass and splinters of rock.
+
+Then Molly, leaning against the side of the boulder and clasping her
+hands, remarked:
+
+"Let this be its epitaph:
+
+    "'Under the wide and starry sky
+      Dig the grave and let me lie;
+      Glad did I live and gladly die,
+      And I laid me down with a will.
+
+    "'This be the verse you 'grave for me:
+      Here he lies where he longed to be;
+      Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
+      And the hunter home from the hill.'"
+
+Scarcely had the last words died on her lips when Nance gave a low,
+horrified exclamation. Molly glanced up quickly. Just above them in the
+shadow of another big rock stood Professor Green in his old gray suit.
+So still was he that he might have been a part of the geological
+formation of the hill, planted there centuries ago. Molly felt the hot
+blood mount to her face. How long had he been there? How much had he
+seen? What did he think? Forcing its way through all these wild
+speculations came another thought: there was a brown coffee stain on one
+of his trouser legs. She tried to speak, but the words refused to come,
+and before she could get herself in hand, the professor coldly lifted
+his hat and walked away.
+
+In his glance she read DISAPPOINTMENT as plainly as if it had been
+written across his brow in letters of fire.
+
+"Oh, Nance," she cried, and burst into tears.
+
+"He won't tell, even if he has seen," Nance reassured her. "Don't mind,
+Molly, dear. Come along. I'm not afraid."
+
+"It's not that! It's not that!" sobbed Molly. But then, of course, Nance
+wouldn't understand what it really was, because she hardly understood it
+herself. He believed, of course, that she had gone rowing with some
+Exmoor boys after ten o'clock. He had heard the story of the slipper.
+Everybody had heard it. It was the talk of college. For a moment Molly
+felt a wave of resentment against Judy. Then her anger shifted to
+Professor Green.
+
+"At least he might have given us a chance to explain," she exclaimed, as
+she followed Nance along the lake path back to the campus.
+
+As soon as they entered the room, a little while later, they saw by
+Otoyo's face that something had happened.
+
+"What is it?" they demanded uneasily.
+
+"Oh," ejaculated Otoyo, raising both hands with an eloquent gesture, "it
+was that terrible Mees Heegins. You had but scarcely departing gone when
+there came to the door a rap-rap-rap--so. I thought it was you
+returning, and when I open, she push her way in, so."
+
+Otoyo gave an imitation of Minerva forcing her way into the sitting
+room.
+
+"She say: 'I wish to see Mees Kean on a particular business.' I say:
+'Mees Kean has a sickness to her head.' She say: 'Move away, little
+yellow peril. Don't interfere with me. I wish to inquire after her
+health.' Then she make great endeavors to remove me from the door."
+
+"And what did you do, Otoyo?" they asked anxiously.
+
+Otoyo's face took on an expression half humorous and half deprecating.
+
+"It will not make you angry with little Japanese girl?"
+
+"No, of course not, child."
+
+"I employ jiu jitsu."
+
+The girls both laughed, and Otoyo, relieved, joined in the merriment.
+
+"She receive no bruises, but she receive a shock, because it arrive so
+suddenlee, you see? So she quietlee walk away and say no more."
+
+"You adorable little Japanese girl," cried Molly, embracing her.
+
+Nance opened the door and peeped into Judy's room.
+
+She was sleeping quietly, the slipper clasped in both hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A VISIT OF STATE.
+
+
+Judy still slept the sleep of the exhausted. Her tired forces craved a
+long rest after the storm that had lashed and beaten them. The girls
+crept about the room softly and spoke in low voices, and when they went
+down to the early dinner locked the door and took the key with them.
+Later, fearing callers, again they hung out a Busy sign and settled
+themselves comfortably for a peaceful afternoon. Nance, armed with a
+dictionary and notebook, was translating "Les Miserables," a penitential
+task she had set for herself for two hours every Sunday.
+
+Molly was also engaged in a penitential task. She was endeavoring to
+compose a story on simple and natural lines. It was very difficult. Her
+mind at this moment seemed to be an avenue for bands of roving and
+irrelevant thoughts and refused to concentrate on the work at hand. She
+made several beginnings, as: "One blustering, windy day in March a
+lonely little figure----" With a contemptuous stroke of her pencil, she
+drew a line through the words and wrote underneath: "It was a calm,
+beautiful morning in May----"
+
+Twirling her pencil, she paused to consider this statement.
+
+"No, no, that won't do," she thought. "It's entirely too commonplace."
+She glanced absently over at the book Nance was reading. "Victor Hugo
+would probably have put it this way: 'It was the fifteenth of May, 17--.
+A young girl was hurrying along the Rue----. She paused at the house,
+No. 11.' Oh, dear," pondered Molly, "one has to tell something very
+important to write in that way. It's like sending a telegram. Just as
+much as possible expressed in the fewest possible words. Can the
+professor mean that? Would he mind if I asked him and then at the same
+time, perhaps----" Again the wandering thoughts broke off. "It's rather
+hard he should have misunderstood about this morning. Is there no way I
+can explain without involving Judy? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How complicated
+life is, and what a complicated nature is Judy's."
+
+There were two quick raps on the door. Molly and Nance exchanged
+frightened glances. It was not the masonic tap of their friends, and no
+one else would have knocked on a door which advertised a Busy sign.
+There was, in fact, a note of authority in the double rap. Some instinct
+prevented Nance from calling out "Come in," a matter later for
+self-congratulation. She rose and opened the door and President Walker
+entered. If Miss Walker had ever paid a visit to a student before, the
+girls had not heard of it. It was, so far as they knew, an entirely
+unprecedented happening and quite sufficient to make innocent people
+look guilty and set hearts to pumping blood at double-quick time.
+
+"I saw your Busy sign," said Miss Walker, glancing from one startled
+face to the other, "but I shall not keep you long. What a pretty room,"
+she added, looking about her approvingly.
+
+"Thank heavens, it's straight," thought Nance, groaning mentally.
+
+"Won't you sit down, Miss Walker?" asked Molly, pushing forward one of
+the easy chairs.
+
+The President sat down. There was a plate of "cloudbursts" on the table.
+Would it be disrespectful to offer the President some of this delectable
+candy? Nance considered it would be, decidedly so. But Molly, a slave to
+the laws of hospitality, took what might be called a leap in the dark
+and silently held the plate in front of the President. If this turned
+out to be a visit of state it was rather a risky thing to do. But Miss
+Walker helped herself to one piece and then demanded another.
+
+"Delicious," she said. "Did you make it, Miss Brown?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Walker."
+
+It had been purely a stroke of luck with Molly, who had no way to know
+that Miss Walker had a sweet tooth.
+
+"I must have that recipe. What makes it so light?"
+
+"The whites of eggs beaten very stiff, and the rest of it is just melted
+brown sugar. It's very easy," added Molly, forming a resolution to make
+the President a plate of "cloudbursts" without loss of time.
+
+"Who is the third girl who shares this apartment with you?" asked Miss
+Walker, unexpectedly coming back to business.
+
+"Julia Kean."
+
+"And where is she to-day?"
+
+Nance hesitated.
+
+"She is sick in bed to-day, Miss Walker."
+
+"Ahem! Cold, I suppose?"
+
+"It's more excitement than anything else," put in Molly. "The junior
+play----"
+
+"Oh, yes. She was 'Viola,' of course," said the President.
+
+"You see she had a bad attack of stage fright," continued Molly, "and
+Judy is so excitable and sensitive. She exaggerated what happened and it
+made her ill."
+
+"And what did happen? She forgot her lines, as I recall. But that often
+occurs. Even professionals have been known to forget their parts. Ellen
+Terry is quite notorious for her bad memory, but she is a great actress,
+nevertheless."
+
+The girls were silent. They wondered what in the world Miss Walker was
+driving at.
+
+"And then what happened next?"
+
+They looked at her blankly.
+
+"What happened next?" repeated Molly.
+
+"Yes. I want you to begin and tell me the whole thing from beginning to
+end."
+
+Molly rested her chin on her hand and looked out of the window. This is
+what had been familiarly spoken of in college as being "on the grill."
+
+"What do you want us to tell, Miss Walker?" asked Nance with a
+surprising amount of courage in her tones.
+
+"I want to know," said the President sternly, "where you were between
+twelve and one o'clock on Friday night."
+
+"We were on the lake," announced Nance, with keen appreciation of the
+fact that when President Walker made a direct question she expected a
+direct answer and there was no getting around it.
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You mean to tell me that you three girls went rowing on the lake alone
+at that hour? What escapade is this?"
+
+Her voice was so stern that it made Molly quake in her boots, but Nance
+was as heroic as an early Christian martyr.
+
+"It was not a mad escapade. We did it because we had to," she answered.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Nance paused. This was the crucial point. It looked as if Miss Walker
+must be told about Judy's folly, or themselves be disgraced.
+
+"They came for me," announced a hoarse voice from the door.
+
+It was such an unexpected interruption that all three women started
+nervously, but if Molly and Nance had been more observant they would
+have noticed the President stifle a smile which twitched the corners of
+her mouth.
+
+Judy, in a long red dressing-gown, her hair in great disorder and her
+eyes glittering feverishly, came trailing into the room. In one hand she
+grasped Nance's slipper and with the other she made a dramatic gesture,
+pointing to herself.
+
+"They came for me," she repeated. "I had been angry and said cruel,
+unjust things to Molly. Everybody went off and left me after the play. I
+was locked out and I was so unhappy, I wanted to be alone. Water always
+comforts me. You see, I was born at sea, and I took a canoe from the
+boat house and paddled into the middle of the lake. Then those two Sweet
+Spirits of Niter came for me, and the canoe upset and I--I dropped my
+slipper somewhere, 5-B is the number--I don't know who found it--here's
+its mate----" Judy waved the slipper over her head and laughed wildly.
+
+"The child's delirious," exclaimed Miss Walker, smiling in spite of
+herself.
+
+They persuaded Judy to get back into bed and the President sent Nance
+flying for the doctor. Presently, when Judy had dropped off to sleep
+again, Molly finished the story of that exciting evening.
+
+"But, my dear," said the President, slipping her arm around Molly's
+waist and drawing her down on the arm of the chair, "what prompted you
+to go to the lake and nowhere else?"
+
+"I can never explain really what it was," replied Molly. "I dreamed that
+someone said 'hurry.' I wasn't even thinking of Judy when I started to
+dress. You see, we thought she had gone to bed. I hadn't thought of the
+lake, either. It was just as if I was walking in my sleep, Nance said.
+Then we found Judy wasn't in her room, and I knew she needed me. I
+remember we ran all the way to the lake."
+
+"Strange, strange!" said Miss Walker.
+
+She drew Molly's face down to her own and kissed her. There were tears
+on the President's cheek and Molly looked the other way.
+
+"Sometimes, Molly," she said after a moment, "you remind me of my dear
+sister who died twenty years ago."
+
+It was a good while before Nance returned with Dr. McLean and in the
+interval of waiting Molly and Miss Walker talked of many things. Molly
+told her how they had buried the slipper on Round Head, and of how they
+had seen the Professor and been frightened. They talked of Judy's
+temperament and of what kind of mental training Judy should have to
+learn to control her wild spirits. From that the talk drifted to Molly's
+affairs, and then she asked the President to do her the honor of
+drinking a cup of tea in her humble apartment. The two women spent an
+intimate and delightful hour together, with Judy sound asleep in the
+next room, and no one to disturb them because of that blessed Busy sign.
+
+At last Dr. McLean came blustering in, and, seeing the President and
+Molly in close converse over their cups of tea, chuckled delightedly and
+observed:
+
+"They are all alike, the women folk--the talk lasts as long as the tea
+lasts, and there's always another cup in the pot."
+
+"Have a look at your patient, doctor," said Miss Walker, "and we'll save
+that extra cup in the pot for you."
+
+The doctor was not disturbed over Judy's delirium.
+
+"It's joost quinine and excitement that's made her go a bit daffy," he
+said. "Keep her quiet for a day or so. She'll be all right."
+
+Imagine their surprise, ten minutes later, when Margaret Wakefield
+and the Williamses, peeping into the room, found Molly and Nance
+entertaining the President of Wellington and Dr. McLean at tea. The news
+spread quickly along the corridor and when the distinguished guests
+presently departed almost every girl in the Quadrangle had made it her
+business to be lingering near the stairway or wandering in the hall.
+
+Only one person heard nothing of it, and that was Minerva Higgins, who,
+after Vespers, had taken a long walk. Nobody told her about it
+afterward, because she was not popular with the Quadrangle girls and
+had formed her associations with some freshmen in the village. When it
+was given out that evening that Miss Walker had come to see about Judy,
+who had been quite ill, the talk died down.
+
+Having dropped the heavy load of responsibility they had been carrying
+for two days, Molly and Nance felt foolishly gay. Molly made Miss Walker
+a box of cloudbursts before she went to bed, while Nance read aloud a
+thrilling and highly exciting detective story borrowed from Edith
+Williams, whose shelves held books for every mood.
+
+"By the way, Nance," observed Molly, when the story was finished, "how
+do you suppose Miss Walker found it all out?"
+
+"Why, Professor Green, of course," answered Nance in a matter of fact
+voice. "There was never any doubt in my mind from the first moment she
+came into the room."
+
+"What?" cried Molly, thunderstruck.
+
+"There was no other way. He saw us burying the slipper and I suppose he
+thought it his duty to inform on us."
+
+"He didn't feel it his duty to inform on Judith Blount when she cut the
+electric wires that night," broke in Molly.
+
+"Perhaps he didn't think that was as wrong as rowing on the lake with
+boys from Exmoor. Besides, she was his relative."
+
+Molly took off her slipper and held it up as if she were going to pitch
+it with all her force across the room. Then she dropped it gently on the
+floor.
+
+"I'm disappointed," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A SWOPPING PARTY AND A MOCK TRIAL.
+
+
+There was never any tedious convalescing for Judy; no tiresome
+transition from illness to health. As soon as she determined in her mind
+that she was well, she arose from her bed and walked, and neither
+friendly remonstrances nor doctor's orders could induce her to return.
+
+On Monday morning she appeared in the sitting room wearing a black dress
+with widow's bands of white muslin around the collar and cuffs. Molly
+and Nance were a little uneasy at first, thinking that the delirium
+still lingered, but Judy seemed entirely rational.
+
+"Why, Judy," exclaimed Molly, "are you a widow?"
+
+"I shall wear mourning for awhile," answered Judy solemnly, ignoring
+Molly's facetious question. "It is my only way of showing that I am a
+penitent. I can't wear sackcloth and ashes as they do in Oriental
+countries or flagellate my shoulders with a spiked whip like a mediaeval
+monk; nor can I go on a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine. So I have decided
+to give up colors for awhile and wear black."
+
+Molly kissed her and said no more. She knew that Judy went into
+everything she did heart and soul even unto the outward and visible
+symbol of clothes, and if wearing black was her way of showing public
+repentance she felt only a great respect for her friend's sincerity of
+motive.
+
+"But what are we to tell people when they ask if you have gone into
+mourning, Judy, because they certainly will?" demanded Nance, taking a
+more practical and less romantic view of the situation.
+
+"Tell them I'm doing penance," answered Judy, and thus it got out around
+college that Judy was making public amends for her angry words to Molly,
+and there was a good deal of secret amusement, of which Judy was as
+serenely unconscious as a pious pilgrim journeying barefoot to a holy
+tomb.
+
+In the midst of these happenings there came a note one day from Mrs.
+McLean inviting the three young girls to the annual junior week-end
+house party at Exmoor. Their hosts were to be Andy McLean, George Green
+and Lawrence Upton and they were to stay at the Chapter House from
+Friday night until Sunday noon. It meant a round of gayeties from
+beginning to end, but to Molly it meant something almost out of reach.
+
+"Clothes!" she exclaimed tragically, "I must have clothes. I can't go to
+Exmoor looking like little orphan Annie."
+
+It was in vain that Judy and Nance offered to share their things with
+her. Molly obstinately refused to listen to them.
+
+"I won't need any colored clothes, anyhow," said Judy.
+
+"Yes, you will, Judy. You just must come out of those widow's weeds for
+the house party," Molly urged.
+
+"No," said Judy, "I've made a vow and until that vow is fulfilled I
+shall never wear colors. I've sent two dresses down to the Wellington
+Dye Works to be dyed black. Fortunately my suit is black already and so
+is my hat. Now, I have a proposition to make, Molly. I'm in need of
+funds more than clothes just now and I'll sell you my yellow gauze for
+the contents of Martin Luther. He must be pretty full by now."
+
+"He's plumb full," answered Molly proudly. "I hadn't realized how much I
+had put in until I tried to drop a quarter in this morning, and lo, and
+behold, he couldn't accommodate another cent."
+
+She held up the china pig and shook him.
+
+"How much should you think he'd hold altogether?" asked Judy. "I don't
+want to be getting the best of the bargain and perhaps Martin Luther is
+worth more than the dress."
+
+"No, no," protested Molly. "He could never be worth that much. I think
+he has about fifteen dollars in his tum-tum. I've put in all the money
+I earned from cloudbursts and about ten dollars, changed up small, for
+tutoring."
+
+Judy insisted on adding a blue silk blouse and a pair of yellow silk
+stockings to the collection to be sold.
+
+"I'll sell them to someone else if you won't buy them," she announced,
+"and if you need a dress, you might as well take this one off my hands."
+
+"Well," Molly finally agreed, "we'll break open Martin, and count the
+money and, if there's anything like a decent sum, I'll buy the dress.
+Let's make a party of it," she added brightly. "I'll cut the hickory-nut
+cake that came from home last night, and Nance can make fudge."
+
+It was like Molly's passion for entertaining to turn the breaking open
+of the china bank into a festival. Nance had once remarked it was one
+thing to have a convivial soul and quite another to have the ready
+provisions, and Molly never invited her friends to a bare board.
+
+"Try on the dress and let's see how you look in it, Molly dear," ordered
+Judy. "We'll open the bank to-night with due ceremony, but I want to
+see you in the yellow dress now."
+
+The two girls were about the same height and build. Molly was not so
+well developed across the chest as her friend and was more slender
+through the hips. But the dress fitted her to perfection.
+
+"Oh, you're a dream," cried Nance, when Molly presently appeared in the
+yellow dress.
+
+"Molly, you are adorable," exclaimed Judy. "You always look better in my
+clothes than I do."
+
+"They always fit me better than my own," said Molly, looking at herself
+in the mirror over the mantel. "I feel like a princess," she ejaculated,
+blushing at her own charming image. "Oh, Judy, I have no right to
+deprive you of this lovely gown. Your mother, I'm sure, would be very
+angry."
+
+"Mamma is never angry," said Judy. "That is why I am so impossible.
+Besides, I told you I needed the money. I have spent all my allowance
+and I won't get another cent for two weeks."
+
+Molly took off the dress and laid it carefully in the box, stuffing
+tissue paper under the folds to prevent premature wrinkles. Her eyes
+dwelt lingeringly on the pale yellow masses of chiffon and lace.
+
+It would certainly be the solution of her troubles, and oh, the feeling
+of comfort one has in a really beautiful dress! She put the top on the
+box and pushed it away from her.
+
+"I'll decide in the morning, Judy. I can't make up my mind quite yet. It
+seems like highway robbery to take the most beautiful dress you have and
+the most expensive, too, I am certain."
+
+"I tell you I never liked the color," cried Judy. "I'm determined to
+wear black. When I have on black I feel superior to all persons wearing
+colors. It gives me dignity. There is a richness about robes of sable
+hue. Some day I'm going to have a black velvet evening dress made quite
+plain with an immense train stretching all the way across the room. My
+only ornaments will be a great diamond star in my hair and a necklace of
+the same, and I shall carry a large fan made of black ostrich
+feathers."
+
+The girls laughed at this picture of magnificence and as Molly hurried
+away to invite the guests to the spread she heard Nance remark:
+
+"You'll look like the bride of the undertaker in that costume, Judy."
+
+"Not at all. I shall look like the Queen of Night, Anna Oldham."
+
+Judy went to the door and looked out. Molly was safely around the corner
+of the Quadrangle.
+
+"Nance," she continued, "don't you think Molly would let me give her the
+dress?"
+
+Nance shook her head.
+
+"I am afraid not. You know how proud she is. It's going to be hard to
+persuade her to buy it at that price. You know it's worth lots more."
+
+Judy sighed.
+
+"If I could only do something," she said. "If I only had a chance."
+
+"Perhaps the chance will slip up on you, Judy, when you least expect it.
+That's the way chances always do," said Nance.
+
+It occurred to Judy, thinking over the matter of the yellow dress later,
+that it might be fun to have a "Barter and Exchange Party," and if all
+the girls were swopping things Molly could be more easily persuaded to
+take the yellow dress. All guests therefore were notified to bring
+anything they wanted to swop or sell to the rooms of the three friends
+that night.
+
+It turned out to be a very exciting affair. The divans were piled with
+exchangeable property. Jessie Lynch brought more things than anybody
+else, ribbon bows, silk scarfs, several dresses and a velvet toque.
+Millicent Porter, who now spent more time in the Quadrangle than at Beta
+Phi House, to the surprise of the girls, brought a rather dingy
+collection of things which no one would either swop or buy. But she
+enjoyed herself immensely. Edith Williams made two trips to carry all
+the books she wished to exchange for other books, clothes, hats or
+money. But Otoyo Sen had the most interesting collection and was the
+gayest person that night. She was willing to exchange anything she had
+just for the fun of it.
+
+It was so exciting that they forgot all about Martin Luther until the
+time arrived for refreshments and they gathered about the hickory-nut
+cake, now a famous delicacy at Wellington.
+
+"What surprises me is how pleased everybody is to get rid of something
+someone else is equally pleased to get," observed Margaret. "Now, for
+instance, I have a black hat I have always hated because it wobbles on
+my head. I feel as if I had received a gift to have exchanged it for
+this green one of Judy's. And Judy's so contented she's wearing my black
+one still."
+
+"Oh, but I am the fortunate one," said Otoyo. "I have acquired an
+excellent library for three ordinary cotton kimonos."
+
+"But such lovely kimonos," exclaimed Edith. "Katherine and I are in
+luck. Look at this pale blue dressing gown, please, for a French
+dictionary."
+
+"I have the loveliest of all," broke in Molly, "amber beads."
+
+"But they did not appear becomingly on me," protested Otoyo, not wishing
+to seem worsted in her bargains. "And what do I receive in exchange? A
+pair of beautiful knitted slippers for winter time, so warm, so
+comfortable."
+
+"They were too little for me," announced Molly. "It was no deprivation
+to exchange them for a beautiful necklace. Really, Judy, this was a most
+original scheme of yours."
+
+"But what about Martin Luther?" asked someone. "I thought this spread
+was really for the purpose of counting up the pennies he had been
+accumulating."
+
+Molly took the china pig from the shelf and placed him on the table.
+
+"How shall I break him?" she asked. "Shall I crush him with one blow of
+the hammer, or shall I knock off his head on the steam heater?"
+
+"Poor Martin!" ejaculated Edith. "He's not a wild boar to be hunted down
+and exterminated. He's a kindly domestic animal who has performed the
+task set for him by a wise providence. I think he should choose his own
+death."
+
+"Every condemned man has a right to a lawyer," said Margaret. "I offer
+my services to Martin Luther and will consult him in private."
+
+"We'll give him a trial by jury," broke in Katherine.
+
+"But what's he accused of?" demanded Molly.
+
+"He's accused of withholding funds held in trust for you," put in
+Margaret promptly.
+
+There was a great deal of fun at the expense of Martin Luther and his
+mock trial. Katherine presided as Judge. There were two witnesses for
+the defense and two on the other side, and Margaret's speech for the
+accused would have done credit to a real lawyer. The jury, consisting of
+three girls, Otoyo, Mabel Hinton and Rosomond Chase--Millicent Porter
+had excused herself with the plea of a headache and departed--sat on the
+case five minutes and decided that the pig should be made to surrender
+Molly's fund in the quickest possible time and by the quickest possible
+means.
+
+It was almost time to separate for the night when Molly at last placed
+Martin Luther on a tray in the center of the table and with a sharp rap
+of the hammer broke him into little bits.
+
+If interest had not been so concentrated on the amount of money hidden
+in the pig, perhaps it might have occurred to the company that Molly
+and her two friends had been playing a joke on them when they looked at
+the heap of ruins on the tray. But if this suspicion did enter the mind
+of anyone, it was dissolved at once at sight of Molly's white face and
+quivering lips.
+
+"My money!" she gasped.
+
+What happened was this. When the china pig was demolished, there rolled
+from his ruins no silver money but a varied collection of buttons and
+bogus stage money made of tin. Only about a dollar in real silver was to
+be found.
+
+"What a blow is this!" at last exclaimed Molly, breaking the silence.
+
+"But what does it mean?" demanded Rosomond.
+
+"It means," said Nance, "that someone has taken all Molly's savings out
+of the china pig and substituted--this."
+
+She pointed to the pile of stage money.
+
+"But they couldn't have done it," cried Judy. "How could they have
+fished it up through such a small slot?"
+
+"What a low, miserable trick!" cried Katherine.
+
+It was a despicable action. Who among all the bright, intelligent
+students at Wellington could have been capable of such a dastardly
+thing? They agreed that it must have been a student. None of the college
+attendants could have planned it out so carefully.
+
+"Who else has missed things?" asked Margaret with a sudden thought.
+
+"I have," replied Jessie, "but I never mentioned it because I'm so
+careless and it did seem to be my own fault. I lost five dollars last
+week out of my purse. I left it on the window sill in the gym. and
+forgot about it. When I came back later the purse was there, but the
+money was gone."
+
+"How horrid!" cried Molly, her soul revolting in disgust at anything
+dishonest.
+
+"To tell you the truth I have not been able to find my gold beads for
+nearly two weeks," put in Judy. "I haven't seen them since--" she paused
+and flushed, "since the night of our play. I remember leaving them on
+my dressing table that morning."
+
+Molly and Nance exchanged glances, recalling the mysterious visitor to
+their room that night.
+
+Several of the other girls had missed small sums of money and jewelry
+which they had not thought of mentioning at the time.
+
+"But how on earth was this managed?" demanded Jessie, pointing
+dramatically to the broken china pig.
+
+"I suspect," replied Molly, "that this is not the real Martin Luther.
+When I bought him there were several others just like him on the shelf
+at the store. Whoever did this must have bought another Martin and the
+stage money at the same time. They have a lot of it at the store, silver
+and greenbacks, too. I saw it myself when I bought Martin. They keep it
+for class plays, I suppose."
+
+There was a long discussion about what ought to be done. The housekeeper
+must be told, of course, next morning and a list of all missing
+articles made out, headed by Molly's loss of almost fifteen dollars.
+
+It was rather a tragic ending to the jolly hickory-nut cake party. Molly
+tried to laugh away her disappointment about her savings, but she could
+not disguise to herself what it actually meant.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't buy your dress, Judy," she announced, when the
+company had disbanded. "I'll mend up one of last year's dresses. It will
+be all right. It's a lesson to me not to place so much importance on
+clothes."
+
+Judy said nothing, but she made a mental resolution that Molly should
+have that dress.
+
+The next morning the housekeeper was properly notified of what had
+happened and it was not long before the rumor spread that somewhere
+about college there dwelt a thief. So remote did such a person seem from
+the Wellington girls that the thief came to be regarded as a kind of
+evil spirit lurking in the shadows and gliding through the halls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ALARMS AND DISCOVERIES.
+
+
+Several things of importance to this history happened during the week
+before the house party at Exmoor.
+
+One morning, just before chapel, Molly was visited by several members of
+the Shakespearean Society, who presented her with a scroll of membership
+and fastened a pin on her blouse. They then solemnly shook hands and
+marched out in good order. By this token Molly became a full fledged
+member of that exclusive body. Margaret Wakefield, Jessie Lynch and
+Edith Williams were also taken into the society. Most of the other girls
+in the circle were elected to the various societies that day. Judy and
+Katherine became "Olla Podridas," which, as all Wellington knows, is
+Spanish for mixed soup. Nance was elected into the "Octogons," and all
+the girls belonged to one or the other of the two big Greek letter
+societies.
+
+If Judy had any feelings regarding the Shakespeareans, she was careful
+to keep them well hidden under her gay and laughing exterior.
+
+The Shakespeareans at Beta Phi House gave a supper for the new members,
+and later Millicent Porter, in a stunning, theatrical looking costume of
+old blue velvet, received them in her rooms. Margaret and Edith wore
+their best to this affair. The Shakespeareans were a dressy lot.
+
+"I wonder why, in the name of goodness, they ever asked me to belong,"
+exclaimed Molly to herself, as she got into her white muslin, which was
+really the best she could do. "I wish I could surprise somebody with
+something," her thoughts continued. "College friends are just like
+members of the same family. I can't even surprise the girls with a
+shirtwaist. They are intimately acquainted with every rag I possess."
+
+Molly enjoyed the Beta Phi party, however, in spite of her dress, which
+Millicent Porter had dignified by calling it a "lingerie."
+
+"How much nicer you look than the other girls in more elaborate things,"
+she said admiringly.
+
+Molly felt gratified.
+
+"I don't feel nicer," she said. "I have a weakness for fine clothes. I
+love to hear the rustle of silk against silk. Your blue velvet dress is
+like a beautiful picture to me. I could look and look at it. There's a
+kind of depth to it like mist on blue water."
+
+Millicent bridled with pleased vanity.
+
+"It is rather nice," she admitted modestly. "It's a French dress made by
+the same dressmaker who designs clothes for a big actress. Don't you
+want to see some of my work? I have put it on exhibition to-night. I
+thought it would interest the new members. The girls here are quite
+familiar with it, of course."
+
+Molly was delighted to see the craftsmanship of this unusual young
+woman, who appeared to be a peculiar mixture of pretentiousness and
+genius.
+
+When, presently, she led Molly into the little den where her silver work
+was spread out on view it was almost as if she had turned into a little
+old man and was taking a customer into the back of his shop.
+
+Some of the other girls had followed and they now stood in an admiring
+circle around the table whereon were displayed rings and necklaces,
+buckles and several silver platters.
+
+"You are a wonder," cried Molly, deeply impressed.
+
+Millicent accepted this compliment with a complacent smile.
+
+"Papa and mamma think I am," she remarked, "but I have artistic
+knowledge enough to know that this is only a beginning. When I am able
+to make a bas-relief of Greek dancing figures on a silver box, I shall
+call myself really great. At present I am only near-great."
+
+"What are you going to do with these things?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Oh, nothing. They just accumulate and I pack them away. I don't have
+to sell any of them, of course."
+
+"Don't you want to exhibit some of them at the George Washington
+Bazaar?" asked Margaret. "The Bazaar will sell them for you at ten per
+cent commission. The money goes to the student fund. You can have a
+booth if you like and dress up as Benvenuto Cellini or some famous
+worker in silver. I am chairman and can make any appointments I choose."
+
+Molly could hardly keep from smiling over the expression on Millicent's
+face. The worker in silver and the dealer in antiques were struggling
+for supremacy in the soul of their descendant.
+
+"Oh," she cried in great excitement, "I will fix it up like a Florentine
+shop, full of beautiful old stuffs and curios. It will be the most
+beautiful booth in the Bazaar. And I will choose Miss Brown to assist
+me. You shall be dressed as a Florentine lady of the Renaissance. I have
+the very costume."
+
+Now Margaret, as Chairman of the Bazaar, preferred all appointments to
+be made officially, but seeing that Millicent was very much in earnest
+and that such a booth would greatly add to the picturesqueness of the
+affair, she made no objections.
+
+"There is one thing I would advise you to do, Miss Porter," she said
+when the plan was settled, "and that is to keep your silver things under
+lock and key because there is a thief about in Wellington. You might as
+well know it, because, sooner or later, you'll lose something. We all of
+us have. My monogram ring went this morning. I left it on the marble
+slab in the wash room and when I came back for it not three minutes
+later it was gone."
+
+"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Molly, "I do hate things like that to happen. Why
+will people do such things?"
+
+Millicent shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Perhaps they can't help themselves," she answered. "I've lost a few
+little things myself," she added. "But come into my room, Miss Brown,
+and let's talk about your costume. I have a gold net cap that will be
+charming."
+
+For the next half hour Molly was lost in the delights of Millicent's
+collection of beautiful theatrical costumes, pieces of old brocades and
+velvets. She drew them carelessly from a carved oak chest and tossed
+them on the bed in a shimmering mass of rich colors. Molly lingered so
+late over these "rich stuffs" that she was obliged to run all the way
+back to the Quadrangle and fell breathless and exhausted on a stone
+bench just inside the court as the watchman closed the gates.
+
+Nance and Judy were late, too. Nance had been to a secret conclave of
+the Octogons and Judy had been having a jolly, convivial time with the
+Olla Podridas. The three girls met in their sitting room as the last
+stroke of ten vibrated through the building. They were undressing in the
+dark stealthily, in order to avoid the eager eye of the housekeeper, who
+was not popular, when they heard a great racket in the corridor.
+
+"What's the matter? What's the matter?" called several voices through
+half open doors.
+
+The housekeeper making her rounds for the night passed them on the run.
+
+"I've been robbed! I've been robbed!" wailed the voice of Minerva
+Higgins. "I won't stand having my things stolen from me. Who has dared
+enter my room?"
+
+"What have you been robbed of?" asked the matron sharply. She was a lazy
+woman and detested disturbances.
+
+"Two of my best gold medals I won at Mill Town High School. They were
+pure gold and very valuable."
+
+"Good riddance," laughed Judy. "If anything in school could be spared,
+it is her gold medals."
+
+"You're only in the same box with all the rest of us, Miss Higgins,"
+called a student who roomed across the hall. "Everybody in the
+Quadrangle has lost something."
+
+"They haven't lost gold medals," cried Minerva. "They haven't had them
+to lose. I could have spared anything else. I valued them more than
+everything I possess. They will be heirlooms some day for my children
+to show with pride."
+
+There were stifled laughs from several of the rooms, and someone called
+out:
+
+"Suppose you don't have any?"
+
+"Then she'll leave 'em to her grandchildren," called another voice.
+
+"Poor, silly, little thing," exclaimed Molly, as the matron, intensely
+annoyed, went heavily past.
+
+"Old Fatty's gone now. Let's light a lamp," suggested Judy, who either
+felt intense respect or none at all for all persons. There was no
+moderation in her feelings one way or the other.
+
+"It's a queer thing about this thief-business," sighed Molly. "It makes
+me uncomfortable. I can't think of anyone I could even remotely suspect
+of such a thing."
+
+"She must be a real klep.," observed Judy, "or she never would want the
+fair Minerva's gold medals. They're of no use to anybody but Minerva."
+
+"Do you suppose Miss Walker will get another detective like Miss Steel?"
+asked Nance. "She was a fine one. The way she tipped around on
+noiseless felt slippers and listened outside people's doors was enough
+to scare any thief."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Judy. "She was the real thing. And she wanted everything
+quiet. If Minerva Higgins had set up a yowl like that at Queen's she
+would have been properly sat upon by Miss Steel."
+
+If Molly's mind had been especially acute that evening she would have
+noticed that her two friends were keeping up a sort of continuous duet
+as they lingered over their undressing. As it was, she barely heard
+their chatter because she was thinking of something far removed from
+thieves and detectives.
+
+"We'll be called down about the light if you don't hurry, girls," she
+cautioned. "Why are you so slow?"
+
+"By the way, did you know there was a package over here on the table
+addressed to you, Molly?" said Nance.
+
+"Why, no; what can it be?"
+
+Filled with curiosity, Molly made haste to cut the string around a
+square pasteboard box. Whatever was inside had been wrapped in
+quantities of white tissue paper.
+
+"It feels like china," cried Molly, tearing off the wrappings. "Why
+it's----"
+
+"It's after ten, young ladies," said a stern voice outside the door.
+
+Judy turned out the light.
+
+"It's Martin Luther, girls," whispered Molly.
+
+Judy crept to her room and returned presently with a little electric
+dark lantern her father had given her. This she flashed on the china
+pig.
+
+"One sinner hath repented," she whispered. "It is Martin."
+
+Nance reached for the hammer.
+
+"Break him open," she ordered. "Let's, see if the money's safe. He might
+be filled with stage money, too."
+
+Molly struck Martin Luther with the hammer, muffling the sound with a
+corner of the rug. The flashlight revealed quantities of silver.
+
+"Oh, girls!" she exclaimed, "I've got it all back. I'm glad the thief
+repented and I'm glad, oh, so glad, to get the money."
+
+"And now the sale is on again," said Judy, jumping about the room in a
+wild, noiseless dance.
+
+"I can't resist it," ejaculated Molly. "I'll buy the dress if you really
+want to sell it, Judy."
+
+They looked carefully at the address on the box. It was printed with a
+soft pencil and merely said: "Miss M. Brown."
+
+"I suppose the girl felt sorry," Molly remarked. "But it's a pity she
+started up so soon again after her repentance and took Minerva's
+medals."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"THE MOVING FINGER WRITES."
+
+
+The girls had agreed to pack all their clothes in one trunk and carry
+a suitcase apiece to the Junior Week-End Party at Exmoor. Nance was
+official packer and stood knee-deep in finery while she considered
+whether it was better to begin with party capes or slippers. Molly was
+studying and Judy was stretched on the divan idly swinging one foot.
+
+Otoyo poked her head in the door.
+
+"May I ask advice of kind friends?"
+
+Molly looked up and smiled. She had once heard a preacher say that
+humility was as necessary to a well-rounded character as a sense of
+humor and she could see now what he meant. Otoyo was an excellent
+illustration. She was filled with humble gratitude for little
+kindnesses, never boasted and never forgot her perfect manners.
+
+"Indeed, you may, little one," spoke up Judy. "Come right in and state
+your grievances."
+
+"Oh, I have no grievances. I have only happinesses," said Otoyo. "But I
+am packing and I wish to ask advices regarding clothes."
+
+"Clothes for what?"
+
+"For Exmoor," replied Otoyo, blushing and casting down her eyes.
+
+"Why, you dear little Jap, you didn't tell us," exclaimed Molly.
+
+"I have obtained the knowledge of it myself only this morning. Mrs.
+McLean has so kindly offered to look after little Japanese girl."
+
+"And who is your escort?" they demanded in one chorus.
+
+"Professor Green," said Otoyo, trying not to show how intensely proud
+she felt of the honor. "He is what you call 'a-lum-nus,'" she said, "and
+he invites me to go with him, and Mr. Andrew McLean, junior, is making
+out a card of dances for me. Is it not wonderful? And is it not of
+great good fortune that I have now learned to dance?" She began circling
+about the room. "Only I can do it much better alone. Poor little
+Japanese girl will be frightened to dance with American gentleman."
+
+The girls laughed again.
+
+"You are an adorable little person," exclaimed Molly, kissing her, "and
+young American gentleman will be only too glad to dance with little
+Japanese girl."
+
+Otoyo was now well provided with clothes, and there being still plenty
+of room in the trunk, they allowed her to pack two evening dresses and a
+diminutive black satin party wrap with their things.
+
+Molly was half sorry that Professor Green was going. Except at classes,
+she had never seen him since that Sunday morning on Round Head. Once he
+had smiled at her like an old friend when they had met in the main hall,
+but she was careful not to return the smile and bowed coldly.
+
+"Yes, I am disappointed," she had thought. "I am glad Prexy found out
+about us that night, but he needn't have been the one to tell. I hope I
+shall be too much engaged in having a good time at Exmoor to see him. I
+am glad Lawrence Upton is going to look after me, because he always does
+so much for one. It was nice of Professor Green to take Otoyo. He is
+kind, of course."
+
+However, that afternoon when the trolley started with its load of
+Wellington guests for Exmoor--there were several other parties--Molly
+found herself seated between Mrs. McLean and Professor Green. How it had
+happened she could not tell. She had intended to sit anywhere but next
+the Professor, whom she regarded as a false friend. But there she was
+and the Professor was saying:
+
+"Miss Brown, you and I have been almost strangers of late. Are you
+working so hard that you have no time for old friends this winter?"
+
+Molly paused for an instant to consider what she should reply to this
+question. Then she said a thing so bitter and foreign to her nature
+that the Professor gave a start of surprise and Molly felt that someone
+else must have said it.
+
+"I have plenty of time for really _loyal_ friends, Professor Green," she
+said in a frigid tone of voice. She turned her back and began to talk to
+Mrs. McLean, and for the rest of the trip the Professor devoted himself
+to Otoyo.
+
+Molly was in high spirits when she reached Exmoor. She was determined
+not to let her cruel speech ruin her good time. But through all the
+gayeties of that afternoon and evening, at the teas, the dinner and the
+Glee Club concert, the tang of its bitterness reached her. Across the
+aisle at the concert she could see Professor Green sitting by Otoyo,
+smiling gravely while the little Japanese girl entertained him, but
+never once did he look in Molly's direction. A lump rose in her throat
+and she dropped her gaze to the program.
+
+"It is never right to make mean speeches," she decided, "no matter how
+much provocation one has."
+
+"Aren't you having a good time?" asked Lawrence Upton at her side. "You
+look a little tired."
+
+"I'm having a lovely time," answered Molly, "and I thought I was looking
+my best."
+
+"Oh, you couldn't look any better. I think you are--well, the prettiest
+girl in the room. I meant there was a kind of sad look in your eyes."
+
+"Don't try to cover it up with compliments," answered Molly. "When a
+thing's said, you can't change it, you know. It's like this:
+
+    "'The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
+      Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
+      Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
+      Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.'"
+
+"Please don't be so severe, Miss Molly," said Lawrence humbly.
+
+"I wasn't thinking of what you said, particularly," said Molly. "I was
+thinking of any speech one might make and regret and never be able to
+recall."
+
+"You _are_ sad," said Lawrence. "I was certain of it. Will it make you
+any gladder to hear about to-morrow? You are engaged for every hour in
+the day. I had a great to-do keeping a little time for myself. Three
+fellows wanted to take you driving in the morning, but I reserved that
+privilege for yours truly. Dodo and I are going to drive you and Miss
+Judy over to Hillesdell after breakfast. Then there's the Junior Lunch.
+That's quite a big affair, you know. It's like a reception. Prexy always
+comes to that and any of the alumni who happen to be down. A crowd of
+them come usually. Andy's giving a tea in the Chapter rooms and there
+are some other teas, and then come the dinner and the ball."
+
+"If there's anything left of us by then," said Molly, laughing.
+
+It was an intermission and everybody was visiting as they did at the
+Wellington Glee Club concerts. Molly, the center of a jolly crowd of
+young people, joined in the merriment and talk and all the time there
+was a taste of bitterness on her lips and in her ear a voice kept
+dinning over and over:
+
+"I have plenty of time for really loyal friends, Professor Green."
+
+That night, when they had gone to bed in their rooms in the Chapter
+House, they were serenaded by a roving band of juniors. When at last the
+serenaders moved away and the house was still, Molly could not go to
+sleep.
+
+Dozens of times she repeated her cruel speech. She analyzed and parsed
+it, as she used to parse sentences years before in her first lessons in
+grammar. She named the subject, the predicate, the object, and modifying
+words. She tried to define the meaning of the word loyal. What were its
+synonyms? Faithful was one, of course. When she closed her eyes, she
+could see her speech written in red across a black background like a
+flaming sign. Was the Professor hurt or angry or both? She recalled
+every kindness he had ever done for her and there were many. She
+remembered with a burning blush what pains he and his sister had taken
+to make her have a happy Christmas a year ago. He had informed President
+Walker on her, of course, but he was only doing his duty. And she had
+made that cruel speech!
+
+"I have plenty of time for really loyal friends, Professor Green."
+
+Her mind traveled in a circle. She tossed and turned, trying one side
+until it ached and then trying the other; resting on her back for a
+moment and finding the position intolerable.
+
+At last she fell asleep and woke up stiff and weary in the morning,
+devoutly wishing the day were well over.
+
+She had hoped to see Professor Green in the morning, if only for a
+moment, but he had returned to Wellington, leaving the entertainment of
+Otoyo in charge of some of his brother's friends.
+
+Of what earthly pleasure is a beautiful corn-colored evening gown when
+one's heart is like a lump of lead and one's conscience heavy within?
+
+All her numerous partners at the ball could not console Molly, nor could
+the knowledge that she was looking her best as she floated through the
+dances in her diaphanous dress.
+
+"I know now how Judy felt after she was so unkind to me at the junior
+play," she thought, "and, if heaven is kind to me, I hope never to say
+anything to hurt anyone again."
+
+In the meantime there were those who were enjoying themselves to the
+utmost limit of enjoyment.
+
+Otoyo Sen, in a seventh heaven, was dancing with young Andy, who towered
+above her like a lighthouse over a cottage.
+
+Judy in her black dress was sparkling with vivacity. Her fluffy light
+brown hair gleamed yellow and her skin was cream white, against the dark
+folds of her chiffon frock. Could this be the same Judy who, only a few
+weeks ago, was contemplating--heaven knows what?
+
+Nance, with one eye on Andy, was also happy and light-hearted. How trim
+and charming she looked in her white silk dress!
+
+Molly found herself laughing and talking a great deal, and all the time
+she was thinking:
+
+"We'll be back to-morrow at noon. On Monday the holidays begin. Oh, if I
+can only see him before he goes!"
+
+A great many young men came down to the station to see them off next
+morning. There was a din of farewells. On all sides girlish voices were
+calling:
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+"It was the jolliest dance!"
+
+"I never had a better time in all my life!"
+
+"Awfully nice of you to ask us."
+
+Molly had joined in the chorus with the others and had grasped many
+outstretched hands and smiled and waved her handkerchief and listened to
+Otoyo in one ear, crying:
+
+"Oh, Mees Brown, I do like the American young gentleman veree much,"
+while Judy in the other was saying:
+
+"Wasn't it glorious fun? I never saw you look better. I have a dozen
+compliments for you."
+
+The car fairly crept back to Wellington, so it seemed to poor Molly. At
+last they arrived and a carry-all took them back to the Quadrangle.
+
+Without waiting to explain, she left her suitcase in the hall and ran to
+the cloisters. Pausing at the door marked "E. A. Green," she knocked
+urgently.
+
+There was no answer. A door farther down the corridor was opened and the
+professor of French looked out.
+
+"Professor Green has gone away," he said. "He will not return until
+after the holidays."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+AN INVITATION AND AN APOLOGY.
+
+
+Millicent Porter invited Molly to go to New York with her for the
+holidays and visit in the grand Porter mansion. Molly understood it was
+a palace filled with tapestries and fine pictures. Millicent had
+mentioned all those things casually. They would go to the theaters and
+the opera and ride about in motor cars. But Molly was glad she had kept
+her head and declined.
+
+"I have some work to do, Millicent," she said. "I appreciate your
+invitation, but I can't accept it."
+
+"You must," exclaimed Millicent, too accustomed to having her own way to
+take no for an answer. "Is it clothes?" she added. Somehow, she gave the
+impression of not being used to wealth.
+
+Molly hardly felt intimate enough with her to go into the subject of
+her own poverty and answered briefly:
+
+"Not entirely."
+
+Millicent was not famous for generosity and the basket of red roses sent
+to Molly on the night of the junior play had been her one outburst; but
+she was determined to have Molly go home with her at any cost.
+
+"Because," she continued, "if it's a question of clothes, I can arrange
+that perfectly. My dresses will fit you if they are lengthened
+and--well, there'll be plenty of clothes. Don't bother about that. Your
+yellow dress is good enough for anything----"
+
+"I should say it was," thought Molly, rather indignantly. "Good enough
+for the likes of you or anybody else."
+
+"I'll lend you my mink coat and turban," went on this munificent young
+person, "and I have a big black velvet hat that would look awfully well
+on you. Now, you must come, please. I want you to see my studio at the
+top of the house. To tell you the truth, I'm rather lonesome in New
+York. I don't know any girls well, because I've never stayed at one
+school long enough to make friends."
+
+"What's the reason of that?" asked Molly.
+
+"Oh, I always get tired or something," answered the other carelessly.
+"But say you'll come, do, please," she went on pathetically. Then,
+unable to stifle her grand airs, she said: "I doubt if you have such
+fine houses as ours in the south."
+
+"Oh, no," answered Molly, quickly, "I doubt if we have. Our homes are
+very old and simple. The only works of art are family portraits. We have
+no tapestry or statuary. The house I was born in," she went on
+half-smiling to herself, "was built by my great-grandfather. Most of the
+furniture came down from him, too. Some of it's quite decrepit now, but
+we keep it polished up. My earliest recollection is rubbing the
+mahogany. You would doubtless think our house very empty and plain. We
+have some old crimson damask curtains in the parlor, but the rest of the
+curtains are made of ten-cent dimity. There is no furnace. We depend on
+coal fires in the bedrooms and wood fires in the other rooms and we
+nearly freeze if there's a cold winter. We have no plumbing. Every
+member of the family has his own tub and there are six extra ones for
+company. A little colored boy named Sam brings us hot water every
+morning for our baths. He gets it from a big boiler attached to the
+kitchen stove, and when we are done bathing he has to carry it all down
+again. Rather a nuisance, isn't it? But Sam doesn't mind. Oh, I daresay
+you'd think our house was a kind of a hovel." Molly paused and looked at
+Millicent strangely. There was a hidden fire in her deep blue eyes. "As
+for me," she said, "no palace in all New York or anywhere else could be
+as beautiful to me as my home."
+
+Millicent looked uncomfortable.
+
+"Be it ever so homely, there's no face like one's own," cried Judy, who
+at that moment had come into the room and caught Molly's last words.
+"What's all this talk about home?"
+
+"I was just telling Millicent about the old-fashioned, whitewashed
+brick palace wherein I was born," answered Molly.
+
+"I'm sorry you won't accept my invitation," said Millicent, taking no
+notice of Judy whatever. "Perhaps, after you think about it awhile
+you'll change your mind." Her manner was heavy and patronizing, and
+implied without words:
+
+"After you have had time to consider the honor I am paying you and the
+advantages of visiting in my splendid home, you cannot fail to accept."
+
+"You are very kind, Millicent, but I shall not reconsider it," announced
+Molly coldly. "I have made up my mind to spend Christmas right here in
+the Quadrangle. I hope you'll have a beautiful time. Good-bye." They
+shook hands formally.
+
+"I'll try to see the best in her," she thought, "but I'd rather not see
+it at close hand. She grates on me."
+
+Judy waved an open letter with a dramatic gesture.
+
+"Oh, Molly, dearest, I'm glad you didn't accept. It's my own selfish
+pleasure that makes me glad, but I'm going to spend Christmas right here
+in the Quadrangle, too."
+
+Molly looked at her friend's eager, excited face in surprise.
+
+"Do you mean your mother and father are coming here?"
+
+"No, no. They're on the Pacific Coast, you know, and will be detained
+until spring. It's too far for me to take the trip just for the few days
+I could spend with them, so I'm going to stay here."
+
+A year ago Judy would have been in the depths of despair over a
+separation from her beloved parents at this holiday time. But whether
+she had gained poise by her recent sufferings or whether spending
+Christmas with her friend in the big empty Quadrangle appealed to her
+romantic nature, it would be difficult to tell. Through all the
+complexities of her nature her devotion to Molly was interwoven like a
+silver thread, and the shame and remorse she still felt in looking back
+on that unhappy evening when she had denounced her friend only seemed
+to draw the two girls more closely together.
+
+Molly gave her a joyous hug.
+
+"Oh, Judy, I am so happy. I never dreamed of such a blessing as this.
+Even Otoyo is going away this year and hardly half a dozen girls are
+left in the Quadrangle. I am truly glad I had the courage to decline
+Millicent's invitation. It was only for one instant I was tempted to go,
+but she ruined it by a patronizing speech."
+
+"What a singular little creature she is," observed Judy. "She has no
+charm, if she can beat on silver; and she's so awfully conscious of her
+wealth. I don't know how I could ever have admired her. I suppose I was
+lured in the beginning by her fine clothes and her grand way of
+talking."
+
+"She is very talented," Molly continued, "but, as you say, she lacks
+charm. Perhaps she would have been different if she had been poor and
+obliged to turn her gifts to some use. After all, I think we are happier
+than rich girls. We are not afraid to be ourselves. We wear old clothes
+and we have an object in view when we work, because we want to earn
+money."
+
+"Earn money," repeated Judy. "I only wish I could give papa the surprise
+of his life by earning a copper cent."
+
+Molly was silent. Her own earning capacity had not been great that
+winter. She had kept herself in pin money by tutoring, but lately she
+had made an alarming discovery. When she had first started to college,
+teaching had been the ultimate goal of her ambitions. She intended to be
+a teacher in a private school and perhaps later have a school of her
+own, as Nance wished to do.
+
+Now, as her horizon broadened and her tastes and perceptions began
+taking form and shape, she found herself drifting farther and farther
+away from her early ambition. Something was waking up in her mind that
+had been asleep. It was like a voice crying to be heard, still immensely
+far away and inarticulate, but growing clearer and more insistent all
+the time.
+
+It made her uneasy and unsettled. She yearned to express herself, but
+the power had not yet arrived.
+
+The two girls went down to the village that afternoon to see the last
+trainload of students pull out of Wellington station, and later to make
+some purchases at the general store. It was Christmas Eve and the
+streets were filled with shoppers from the country around Wellington.
+Molly was trying to recall the words of a poem she had heard ages back,
+the rhythm of which was beating in her head, and Judy was endeavoring to
+explain to herself why she felt neither homesick nor blue on this the
+first Christmas ever spent away from her parents.
+
+They paused to look in at the window of a florist who did a thriving
+business in Wellington. A motor car was waiting in front of the shop.
+
+"We must have some Christmas decorations, too," exclaimed Judy about to
+enter, when the way was blocked by a crowd of people coming out. "What
+pretty girls!" continued Judy in a whisper, looking admiringly at two
+young women who came first.
+
+The prettiest one, who had red hair not unlike Molly's and brown eyes,
+called over her shoulder:
+
+"Edwin, I shan't save you a seat beside me unless you're there to claim
+it."
+
+"I'll be there, Alice, never fear," answered Professor Green, hurrying
+after her with an armload of holly and cedar garlands.
+
+Molly stood rooted to the spot while the shoppers crowded into the car.
+
+"If I could only tell him how sorry I am for that cruel speech," she
+thought.
+
+With a sudden determination, she rushed toward the car, calling:
+
+"Professor!"
+
+The girl named Alice looked around quickly, but apparently she did not
+choose to see Molly, and as the car moved off she began laughing and
+talking in a very sprightly and vivacious manner.
+
+Molly sighed. The longer an apology is delayed the more trivial and
+insignificant it becomes.
+
+"He probably has forgotten all about it," she thought. "He seems happy
+enough with Alice, whoever she is. Perhaps what I said hurt me more
+than it did him, but, oh, I do wish I had seen him before he went away.
+It would have been different then, I'm sure."
+
+She followed Judy into the flower store. Mrs. McLean was there with
+Andy.
+
+"Why, here are two lassies left over!" cried the good woman.
+
+"What luck, mother!" said Andy. "Now we'll have some fun. We'll give a
+dinner and a dance, and Larry and Dodo will come over. We will, won't
+we, mother?"
+
+"What a coaxer you are, Andy. You're still a lad of ten and not
+nineteen, I'm sure."
+
+"Don't you let him persuade you to give parties when you're not of a
+mind to do it, Mrs. McLean," put in Judy.
+
+"I wouldn't miss the chance, my dear. I like it as much as he does.
+We'll have it to-morrow night and you'll come prepared to be as merry as
+can be and cheer up the doctor. He has been so busy of late he has
+forgotten how to enjoy himself."
+
+"It doesn't look as if we were going to spend such a quiet Christmas
+after all, Judy," laughed Molly, when Mrs. McLean and Andy had gone.
+
+Judy was engaged in selecting all the most branching and leafy boughs of
+holly she could find, while the florist looked on uneasily.
+
+That afternoon they spent an hour beautifying their yellow sitting room.
+And all the time Molly's mind was harking back to Christmas a year ago,
+when the Greens had busied themselves preparing such a delightful party
+for Otoyo and her.
+
+"And I said he was not a loyal friend," she said to herself. "Oh, if I
+could only unsay those words!"
+
+She sat down at her desk and seized a pen.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked an inner voice.
+
+"I am going to write a note and tell him I'm sorry, and then I'm going
+over to the cloisters and slip it under his door. It will ease my mind,
+even if he doesn't get the note until he comes back. He'll know then
+that I couldn't go to sleep Christmas Eve until I had apologized."
+
+The note finished, she carefully addressed and sealed it. Judy was in
+her own room composing a joint letter to her mother and father, and did
+not see Molly when she slipped out of the room and hurried downstairs.
+Outside, the pale winter twilight still lingered and the sky was piled
+high with fleecy white clouds.
+
+"It's going to snow," thought Molly, as she hurried along the arcade and
+opened the little oak door leading into the cloisters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY THAT WAS NEVER TOLD.
+
+
+It was quite dark in the corridor whereon opened the cloister offices.
+All the teachers had gone away for the holidays and the place was as
+ghostly as a deserted monastery.
+
+"I can't say I'd like to be here alone on a dark night, if it is such a
+young cloister. It seems to have been born old like some children,"
+Molly thought.
+
+She coughed and the sound reverberated in the arched ceiling and came
+back to her an empty echo.
+
+Pausing at Professor Green's door, she stooped to shove the note
+underneath, when, to her surprise, the door opened at her touch and
+swung lightly back.
+
+With an exclamation, Molly started back, leaving the note on the floor.
+Leaning against one of the deep silled windows, just where the fast
+fading light fell across his face, stood a tall, stoop-shouldered man.
+In the flashing glimpse Molly caught of him before she turned and fled,
+she noticed that he resembled an old gray eagle with a thin beak of a
+nose and a worn white face; and that his dark eyes were quite close
+together. The rest of him was lost in the black shadows of the room.
+
+Once out of the ghostly corridor and the heavy oak door shut between her
+and the strange visitor in the Professor's office, Molly paused and took
+a deep breath.
+
+"In the name of goodness," she cried, "what have I just seen? If he had
+stirred or blinked an eyelash or even appeared to breathe, I should at
+least have felt he was human."
+
+The big empty hall of the Quadrangle seemed a cheerful spot in
+comparison with the cloister corridor. It was warm and light and from
+the seniors' parlor came the sound of piano playing. But Molly never
+paused to look in and see what belated student was cheering herself with
+music. Only her own sitting room with its gay holiday decorations and
+Judy twanging the guitar could recall her to a world of realities.
+Before she reached the door she had made up her mind that it would be
+just as well not to tell the excitable and impressionable Judy anything
+about the apparition or whatever it was in the Professor's study. It was
+really an act of self-denial, because it would have been decidedly
+interesting to discuss the episode with Judy.
+
+"I would have told Nance," she thought. "She would have agreed with me,
+I am sure, that it couldn't have been a ghost because, of course, there
+are no such things. But if I tell Judy, I know perfectly well she will
+persuade me it was a ghost and we'll be frightened to death all night."
+
+Judy, still wearing her widow's weeds, was singing a doleful ballad when
+Molly hurried in, called "By the Bonnie Milldams o' Binnorie." Molly was
+fond of this ancient song, but she was in no mood to listen to it just
+then.
+
+    "'The youngest stood upon a stane,
+      The eldest cam' and pushed her in.
+      Oh, sister, sister, reach your hand,
+      And ye sall be heir to half my land;
+      Oh, sister, sister, reach but your glove,
+      And sweet William sall be your love.'"
+
+The guitar gave out a mournful twang.
+
+"Talk about impressionable people, I'm worse than she is," thought
+Molly. "I'll shriek aloud if she doesn't stop this minute."
+
+Just then the six o'clock bell boomed out and Molly did give a loud
+nervous exclamation.
+
+Judy dropped the guitar on the floor. The strings resounded with a deep
+protesting chord and then subsided into resigned quietude.
+
+"Molly, what is the matter? You're as pale as a ghost."
+
+Molly smiled at her own weakness. Having just made up her mind not to
+tell Judy, she was suddenly possessed with a fever to relate the entire
+incident from beginning to end.
+
+"If you'll promise to put on your red dress to-night by way of
+celebration, and to cheer me up, I'll tell you a thrilling story, Judy."
+
+"But I've made a vow and I can't break it."
+
+"Did the vow stipulate that you couldn't wear colors Christmas Eve?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"Well, then, get into your scarlet frock, because I'll never tell you if
+you wear that black one, and I'll put on some old gay-colored rag, too,
+and after supper I'll tell you a thrilling tale."
+
+"I'll put on the red dress," said Judy, "if you promise never to tell
+Nance, but I can't wait until after supper to hear the story."
+
+"You'll have to. It's a long tale and there won't be time to dress and
+tell it, too."
+
+"Well," consented Judy, "because it's Christmas Eve, the very time to
+tell thrilling tales if they are true, I'll agree."
+
+And obediently she attired herself in the scarlet dress, while Molly put
+on a blue blouse that, by a happy chance, matched the color of her eyes
+as perfectly as if they had been cut from the same bolt.
+
+"Did it really happen to me," she kept thinking, "or did I dream it
+after all?"
+
+There was no chance to tell Judy the story after supper, because the two
+girls were summoned to the parlor almost immediately to see three
+callers, Andy, Dodo Green and Lawrence Upton.
+
+During the visit Molly seized the opportunity to ask the younger Green
+where his brother was spending his Christmas.
+
+"Oh, he's making visits around the county," answered George Theodore
+carelessly. "He always has enough invitations for three, but he was
+never known to accept any before. I don't know what's got into the old
+boy this year. He's getting as giddy as a debutante, going to parties
+and rushing around in motors. I have had to make two trips over to
+Wellington, first to get his evening clothes because he forgot to pack
+them, and then for his pumps and dress shirts I forgot myself. When the
+old boy goes into anything, he always does it in good style. He used to
+be a kind of dude about ten years ago. But he's all the way to thirty
+now and he feels his age. Do you notice how bald he's getting? He'll be
+losing his teeth next."
+
+"I'm glad he's having such a good time," said Molly, disdaining the
+aspersions cast by George Theodore on his brother's age. "I hope he is
+well and happy," she added in her thoughts. "I am sure I don't begrudge
+him a jolly Christmas, considering what a jolly one he gave me last
+year. I am sorry I left the note, now. Like as not, he doesn't even
+remember what I said that day and when he reads the letter he won't know
+what I am talking about."
+
+At last the boys left. Judy was intensely relieved. She desired only one
+thing on earth: to hear Molly's ghost story. All her perceptions were on
+edge with curiosity, but she was determined to have all things in
+harmony for the telling of a Christmas Eve Ghost Story. So she
+restrained her inquisitiveness until they had slipped on dressing-gowns
+and were both comfortably installed in big chairs with a box of candy
+and a plate of salted almonds between them.
+
+"And now, begin," she said, sighing comfortably.
+
+But Molly had scarcely uttered three words when she was interrupted by
+the arrival of packages from the late train brought up by the faithful
+Murphy.
+
+Even Judy's unsatisfied curiosity regarding the tale could not hold out
+against these fascinating boxes, and the story waited while they untied
+the strings and eagerly tore off the paper wrappings.
+
+"I suppose we ought to wait until to-morrow morning, but since we're
+just two lonely little waifs, I think we might gratify ourselves this
+once, don't you, Molly dear?" asked Judy.
+
+"I certainly do," Molly agreed, "seeing as it doesn't matter to anybody
+whether we look at them now or in the morning."
+
+It was a long time before they settled down again to the story, and
+Molly had not advanced a paragraph when there came another tap at the
+door. Evidently the Quadrangle gates were to be kept open late that
+night or account of the arrival of holiday packages.
+
+This time it was a boy from the florist's, fairly laden with flower
+boxes.
+
+Andy had sent both the girls violets.
+
+"Very sweet and proper of him, I'm sure, in the absence of Nance,"
+laughed Judy.
+
+Lawrence Upton had sent Molly a box of American beauties.
+
+"And he could ill afford it, the foolish boy," ejaculated Molly.
+
+Dodo had expended all his savings on a handsome Jerusalem cherry tree
+for Judy. There was another box for Molly. It contained violets and two
+cards--Miss Grace Green's and Professor Edwin Green's.
+
+Molly blushed crimson when she read the names. For the thousandth time
+she covered herself with reproaches. She sat down and gathered the
+bouquets into her lap.
+
+"Judy," she cried contritely, "what have I done to gain all these kind
+friends? I'm sure I don't deserve it. The dears!"
+
+But Judy was too much engaged with her own numerous gifts to contradict
+this self-depreciating statement.
+
+"I am really happy, Molly," she cried, "even without mamma and papa it's
+been a lovely Christmas Eve."
+
+With one of those divinations which sometimes comes to us like a voice
+from another land, it suddenly occurred to Molly that whatever it was in
+Professor Green's office, whether ghost or human, perhaps the Professor
+might not like to have it discussed, and she resolved not to tell Judy
+or anyone else what she had seen.
+
+"And then," she continued, "if he ever asks me whether I told, it will
+be a nice, comfortable feeling to say I haven't."
+
+At last, having put the flowers back in the boxes and restored some
+order to the room, Judy sat down and folded her hands.
+
+"And now, go on with the story."
+
+"My dear child, so much has happened since then and I'm so weary, I
+don't think I can make it the frightful tale I had intended."
+
+"Oh, it was all a joke?" asked Judy, whose enthusiasm had about spent
+itself in other outlets.
+
+"Oh, partly a joke. I went down to the cloisters to leave a Christmas
+note for Professor Green at his office and saw a ghostly looking figure
+there."
+
+"Is that all? Well, anybody might look like a phantom in that gloomy
+place. I've no doubt the ghostly figure took you for another."
+
+"I've no doubt it did," answered Molly, laughing, and with that they
+kissed and went to bed.
+
+Long after midnight Molly rose and slipped on her dressing-gown.
+Creeping out of her room, she flitted along the corridor, turned the
+corner and hurried up the other side of the Quadrangle. At the very end
+of this hall was a narrow passage with a window which commanded a view
+of the courtyard and the windows of the cloister studies.
+
+Softly raising the blind, she looked out. In one of the studies a dim
+light was burning. She counted windows. It was Professor Green's
+office, she was certain. While she looked the light went out.
+
+Back to her bed she flew with a feeling that somebody was chasing her.
+
+"There's one thing certain," she thought, drawing the covers over her
+head, "ghosts never need lights."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+MORE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS AND A COASTING PARTY OF TWO.
+
+
+All the bells in Wellington were ringing when the girls awoke Christmas
+morning. The sweet-toned bell of the Chapel of St. Francis mingled its
+notes with the persistent appeal of the Roman Catholic bell across the
+way, while on the next street the bell of the Presbyterian Church sent
+out a calm doctrinal call for all repentant sinners to be on hand sharp
+for the ten o'clock service. And in this confusion of sound came the
+tinkle of sleigh bells like a note of pleasure in a religious symphony.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" cried Judy, running into the room with an armful of
+parcels done up with white tissue paper and tied with red ribbons. "Here
+are the presents Nance and the others left for you. 'My lady fair,
+arise, arise, arise!'"
+
+"Merry Christmas!" cried Molly, bounding out of bed and rushing to find
+the presents she had been commissioned to take care of for Judy.
+
+The two girls climbed under the covers and began to open their gifts.
+
+"Dear old Nance!" ejaculated Judy. "How well she knows my wants. She's
+given me an address book because she disapproved of my keeping addresses
+on old envelopes."
+
+[Illustration: "AND SHE'S GIVEN ME A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS," CRIED
+MOLLY.--_Page 213._]
+
+"And she's given me a pair of silk stockings," cried Molly, "because she
+knows my luxurious tastes run to such things."
+
+"Edith Williams is the class joker," remarked Judy, laughing. "She's
+sent me a novel by Black and she's written on the fly leaf, 'For the
+first six months the Merry Widow read only novels by Black.'"
+
+"Weren't they dears?" broke in Molly. "They knew we'd be lonely and they
+wanted to make us laugh Christmas morning. Look what Edith sent me."
+
+It was a small round basket of sweet grass, no doubt purchased at
+the village store, and inside on pink cotton was a pasteboard
+medal. Printed around the outer edge of the medal was the following
+announcement: "Awarded to Pallas Athene Brown for the Best General
+Average in Good Manners and Amiability by the Wellington High School."
+
+There was a hole punched in one end of the medal with a blue ribbon run
+through it. On one of Edith's cards in the box was written:
+
+"To be worn on great occasions."
+
+The two girls received other amusing presents. If their friends had
+hoped to cheer them on their lonely Christmas morning, they had
+succeeded wonderfully well. Judy especially was in the wildest spirits.
+It was a custom of hers to describe her feelings exactly as a chronic
+invalid recounts his sensations.
+
+"I'm all aglow with good cheer. I could dance and sing. It must be a
+sort of Christmas spirit in the air. I do adore to get presents. I think
+I have more curiosity in my nature than you, Molly. Why don't you open
+the rest of yours?"
+
+Molly was lost in admiration of a beautiful little copy of
+Maeterlinck's "_Pelleas et Melisande_" sent to her by Mary Stewart.
+
+"Because I like to eat my cake slowly," she answered, "and get all the
+fine flavor without choking myself to death. Oh," she cried, taking the
+tissue paper off a small parcel, "how lovely of your mother, Judy, to
+send me this beautiful lace collar!"
+
+"It's just like the one she sent me," answered Judy, as pleased as a
+child over Molly's enthusiasm. "But do look in the other boxes. What's
+that square thing? If it were mine, I should be palpitating with
+curiosity."
+
+If Judy had guessed what the square box contained, she would not have
+been so eager to precipitate an embarrassing situation.
+
+"Very well, Mistress Judy, we'll find out immediately what's inside.
+Where did it come from, anyway?"
+
+"There's not the slightest inkling of who sent it," answered Judy,
+examining the address printed in a sort of script. "Whoever sent it knew
+how to do lettering, certainly. But the postmark is smeared."
+
+Molly cut the string and removed the brown paper wrapping. The article
+inside the box was folded in a quantity of tissue paper.
+
+"It has as many coverings as a royal Egyptian mummy," exclaimed Judy
+impatiently.
+
+It had indeed. After stripping off several layers of paper it was
+necessary to cut another string before the rest of the paper could be
+removed.
+
+At last, however, another china Martin Luther emerged from his tissue
+paper shell. The two girls gasped with surprise and consternation.
+
+"Will wonders never cease?" ejaculated Molly.
+
+"I'm sure it's just another joke the girls are playing on us," broke in
+Judy with some excitement. "Here's a card. What does it say?"
+
+On a pasteboard card, written in the same script as the address, was the
+following mystifying message:
+
+"Was it kind to put such temptation in the way of the weak?"
+
+"What does it mean, Judy?" asked Molly. "I seem to be groping in the
+dark."
+
+Judy shook her head.
+
+"You can search me," she said expressively. "Why don't you break a hole
+in him and see?"
+
+"No sooner said than done," answered Molly. "But I really feel like a
+butcher. This is the third time I've destroyed a pig."
+
+She cracked the bank on the head of her little iron bed, but only a
+silver quarter rolled out on the floor. The rest of the money was in
+bills, three five dollar bills, which had been compactly folded and
+pushed through the slit in the pig's back.
+
+"Fifteen dollars and a quarter!" ejaculated Molly. "That was just about
+what the original sum was, but I suppose in silver it was too heavy to
+come through the mails."
+
+She lay back on her pillows, her brows wrinkled into a puzzled frown.
+
+"It's a curious performance," she said, after a brief silence. "I don't
+understand."
+
+Judy at the foot of the bed, half buried in tissue paper and Christmas
+presents, glanced out of the window at the snowy landscape. There was a
+strange expression on her face and two little imps of laughter lurked in
+her wide gray eyes. Molly looked at her a moment, but Judy would not
+meet her gaze.
+
+"Julia Kean," broke out Molly, suddenly, "do you know whom you look like
+this moment? Mona Lisa. You have the same mysterious smile as if you
+knew a great deal more than you intended to tell. Now just turn around
+and look me in the eyes." Molly crawled from under the covers and put
+her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Who sent me that first Martin
+Luther with all the small change?"
+
+Judy's lips curled into an irresistible smile. There was something very
+mellowed and soft about her face, like an old portrait, the colors of
+which had deepened with the years.
+
+"You aren't angry with me, Molly, dearest?" she asked, laying her cheek
+against Molly's.
+
+"Angry? How could I be angry, you adorable child?"
+
+"You see it was just taking money out of one pocket to put it in the
+other, and it was the only way I could think of to make you take the
+yellow dress. You wouldn't accept it as a gift. Of course, I never
+dreamed the real thief would repent."
+
+The two friends looked into each other's eyes with loving confidence.
+
+"Dear old Judy!" cried Molly, "I don't know what I have done to deserve
+such a friend as you. And what an imagination you have! Who but you
+would ever have conceived such a notion? And to think, too, that I would
+never have known, if the real person who took the money hadn't had an
+attack of conscience."
+
+"It would certainly have remained a secret forever unless Nance had
+confessed it on her death bed," laughed Judy. "She's that close, I
+imagine her first confession would be her last one."
+
+"I'll wear the dress to-night, Judy, just to show you how much I
+appreciate the gift," announced Molly.
+
+Judy put on a broad lace collar that morning and a lavender velvet bow,
+by way of lightening her mourning.
+
+There was a good deal to do during the day, getting the rooms
+straightened and writing letters.
+
+All morning the snow fell so softly and quietly that the Quadrangle
+seemed to be isolated in a still white world of its own. Not even the
+campus houses could be seen through the thick curtain of flakes. Molly
+could picture to herself no more delightful occupation than to stay
+indoors all day and read one of her new Christmas books. Nothing could
+have been more cheerful than the little sitting room with its Christmas
+greens and vases of flowers.
+
+Curled up in one of the big chairs, Molly's mind wandered idly from the
+open pages of the book in her lap to the recent inexplicable happenings.
+Who was the mysterious visitor in the Professor's study? After all, it
+was none of her business, but she felt some natural curiosity about it.
+Who was the girl who had stolen the china pig?
+
+"I don't want to know," she admonished herself.
+
+Nevertheless, it was impossible not to make a few random conjectures.
+
+Judy, restlessly beating a tattoo on the window, was thinking the same
+thing.
+
+"Molly," she burst out, after a long silence, "I have an idea who that
+girl is. Have you?"
+
+"Yes, but I'd rather not mention her name. It's too dreadful. And you
+know how I feel about circumstantial evidence."
+
+"All I say is," announced Judy, "that it's a certain person who makes
+the loudest noise about losing her own things."
+
+"Well, she's repented," said Molly, "so let's try and forget it."
+
+There was another brief but eloquent silence. Judy pressed her face
+against the window pane.
+
+"I did think," she observed presently, "that those boys would come to
+take us out for a sleigh ride or a coast or something this afternoon.
+But we can't wait around here all day for them. It would be paying them
+too much of an honor. Why not go coasting ourselves? I'll get Edith's
+sled and we'll walk over to Round Head."
+
+"That would be fine," said Molly, with all the enthusiasm she could
+muster. Reluctantly she laid aside her book and began to dress for the
+walk.
+
+When two intimate associates are not mutually agreed, the more selfish
+one never dreams of the sacrifices of the other. Molly had no taste for
+battling with the snow, and when in half an hour they found themselves
+plunging through the drifts on their way to the steep coasting hill,
+she turned a wistful inward eye back toward the comforts of the
+yellow-walled sitting room. The Morris chair, the prized antique rug and
+the Japanese scroll with the snow-capped Fujiyama and the sky-blue
+waters called to her insistently.
+
+"Isn't this glorious, Molly?" ejaculated Judy, fired with the energy of
+her enthusiasms.
+
+"Dee-lightful," replied poor Molly, brushing the snow out of her eyes
+with admirable pretense at cheerfulness. However, the snowfall began to
+diminish and when they reached Round Head the storm had apparently
+spent itself. Molly felt the glow of exercise she really needed and she
+admired the splendid panorama of the snow-clad valley stretching before
+them.
+
+"It is beautiful," she admitted, "and what fun, Judy, to go whizzing
+down Round Head! It will be the longest coast I have ever taken in my
+life."
+
+Clambering up the side of the hill had not been as difficult as they had
+expected, because the wind had swept that part of it clear of drifts and
+the way was plain. When at last they reached the top, Molly was no
+longer sorry that Judy had dragged her from "The Idylls of the King" and
+the comforts of an easy chair.
+
+"You're not afraid, Molly?" asked the reckless Judy, looking with the
+glittering eye of anticipation down the long track of white over which
+they would presently be flying.
+
+"I don't see why I should be," answered Molly evasively. "Even if we
+fall off, it will be on a bed of snow as soft as a down comfort."
+
+"Come along, then," cried Judy, "we'll have the sensation of our lives.
+And we might as well make it a good one, because it's beginning to snow
+again and we'd better not try it a second time."
+
+Judy had coasted down Round Head before and knew just the spot on the
+hill where the Wellington girls were accustomed to start the long slide
+on bobs and sleds.
+
+Sitting behind Judy, Molly closed her eyes and the sled commenced its
+journey. For some moments it skimmed along at a reasonable speed, but as
+it gained in impetus, she had the sensation of riding on the tail of a
+comet.
+
+"Look out for the bump," called Judy with amazing calm and forethought,
+considering the circumstances.
+
+But the warning had no meaning for Molly, whose experience in coasting
+was of a very mild and unexciting character. The shock of the rise
+caused her to lose her hold, and the next thing she knew she was buried
+deep in a snow drift and Judy was whizzing on alone into the unknown.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEXT THING SHE KNEW SHE WAS BURIED DEEP IN A SNOW
+DRIFT, AND JUDY WAS WHIZZING ON ALONE.--_Page 224_]
+
+"I never did really enjoy coasting," thought Molly, climbing out of the
+drift and shaking herself vigorously like a wet dog. "It's all right if
+nothing happens, but something always does happen and then it's a
+regular nuisance."
+
+Already the tracks of the sled were covered by the fast falling snow and
+it was impossible to see just where the tumble had occurred on the
+hillside.
+
+"Judy," called Molly, hurrying down the hill; while at the same moment
+Judy was calling Molly as she hastened back.
+
+The two girls passed each other at no great distance apart, but they
+might have been as widely separated as the poles for all they could see
+or hear in the blinding snowstorm.
+
+After calling and searching in vain, Judy started back to Wellington,
+feeling sure that her friend had gone that way; and Molly, who was
+gifted with no bump of location whatever, blindly groping in the
+snowstorm turned in the opposite direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WAYFARERS.
+
+
+Human beings have been variously compared by imaginative persons to
+pawns on a chessboard; storm-tossed boats on the sea of life; pilgrims
+on a weary way, and other things of no resemblance whatever to the
+foregoing.
+
+Molly, marching stoically along the lonely road under the impression
+that she was on her way to Wellington when she was really turned toward
+Exmoor, might have fitted into any of those comparisons rather more
+literally than was intended.
+
+She was certainly a storm-tossed pilgrim if not a boat; the way was
+decidedly weary and as pawn, pilgrim or ship, whichever you will, she
+was about to come in contact with another of life's pawns, pilgrims or
+ships, to the decided advantage of the one and amazement of the other.
+
+This new pawn, pilgrim or ship was now advancing down the road, and
+Molly, mindful of the fact that she was not getting anywhere when she
+felt sure that by this time she should at least have reached the lake,
+was not sorry to see a human being.
+
+The stranger looked decidedly like the pilgrim of romance. He wore an
+old black felt hat with a broad slouching brim and a long Spanish cape
+reaching below his knees; his staff was a rosewood cane with a silver
+knob.
+
+He was about to pass Molly without even glancing in her direction when
+she stopped him.
+
+"Would you mind telling me if it's very far from Wellington?" she asked.
+"I'm afraid I'm lost."
+
+"Do you imagine you are going to Wellington?" he demanded, looking up.
+
+Instantly Molly recognized him. He was the man she had seen the night
+before in Professor Green's study.
+
+"I did think so," she answered meekly.
+
+"I would advise you to go in the opposite direction, then," he said.
+"Exmoor lies that way." He pointed down the road with his stick.
+
+"How stupid of me!" exclaimed Molly. "I was coasting and tumbled off the
+sled. I was completely dazed, I suppose, when I crawled out of the
+drift."
+
+The two walked along in silence. Molly gave the man a covert glance. He
+was very distinguished looking and vaguely reminded her of someone.
+
+"You are one of the students of Wellington?" he asked presently.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Molly respectfully.
+
+The stranger smiled.
+
+"You are from the south. I never heard a girl across the boundary line
+use 'sir.'"
+
+"I am," she answered briefly.
+
+"And from what part, may I ask?"
+
+"From Carmichael Station, Kentucky."
+
+The man stopped as if he had been struck a blow in the face.
+
+"Carmichael Station, Kentucky," he repeated in a half whisper. Drawing
+a leather wallet from his inside pocket, he took out a folded legal cap
+document and opened it. "Ahem. Not far to go," he said in a low voice,
+running down a list with one finger. "Your name----"
+
+"Brown."
+
+"Mildred Carmichael Brown, I presume."
+
+"No, Mary. My sister's named Mildred."
+
+The old man refolded the document, put it carefully back in the wallet,
+which he returned to his pocket. Then he resumed his walk, muttering to
+himself.
+
+"Strange! Strange!" Molly heard him say. "Here in a snowstorm, in the
+wilderness, on Christmas day, too, I should happen to meet--I can't get
+away from them," he cried angrily, waving his cane. "Victims, victims!
+Everywhere. They rise up and confront me when I'm sleeping or
+waking--like ghosts of the past----"
+
+His mutterings gradually became inarticulate as he wrapped his cape
+around him and stalked through the snow.
+
+"Hunted--hunted--hounded about----" he began again. Suddenly he stopped,
+took off his hat and held his face up to heaven as if he were about to
+address some unseen power.
+
+"I'm tired," he cried. "I've had enough of these wanderings; these
+eternal haunting visions. Let me have peace!" He shook his cane
+impotently at the overcast skies.
+
+It was then that Molly recognized him. On that very day but one, a year
+ago, had she not seen Judith Blount stand under a wintry sky and defy
+heaven in the same rebellious way?
+
+Judith's father had come back from South America and was hiding in the
+Professor's room at Wellington! And how like they were, the father and
+daughter; the same black eyes, too close together; the same handsome
+aquiline noses, and the same self-pitying, brooding natures.
+
+Evidently, Mr. Blount had suffered deeply. Molly thought he must be very
+poor. Looking at him closely, she noticed the shabby gentility of his
+appearance; the shiny seams of his Spanish cape which had been torn and
+patched in many places; his old thin shoes, split across the toes, and
+his worn, travel-stained hat.
+
+She wondered if he had any money. She suspected that he was very hungry
+and her soul was moved with pity for the poor, broken old man who had
+once been worth millions.
+
+"Mr. Blount," she began.
+
+"How did you know my name?" he cried, shivering all over like a whipped
+dog. "I didn't mention it, did I? I haven't told any one, have I? I came
+down here in disguise." He laughed feebly. "Disguised as a broken old
+man. I went to Edwin's rooms," he wandered on, forgetting that he had
+asked Molly a question. "You know where they are?"
+
+Molly nodded her head. She knew quite well that the Professor lodged in
+one of the former college houses built on the old campus, used long ago
+before the Quadrangle had been built flanking the new campus.
+
+"The housekeeper recognized me as a relation and I waited in his room
+some hours," went on the old man in a trembling voice.
+
+"And where did you spend the night?"
+
+"In the cloister study. I found the key on his desk. It was marked
+'cloister study.'"
+
+"But where did you eat?" asked Molly gently.
+
+The melting sympathy in her eyes and voice encouraged the old man to
+pour out his woes. Evidently it was a great relief to him to talk after
+his miseries and hardships.
+
+"I've been living off apples," he said. "Very fine apples. There was a
+big basket of them on Edwin's study table."
+
+"But there's an inn in the village," she exclaimed.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"I have come all the way from Caracas to Wellington," he said. "I was
+poor when I started; yes, miserably, wretchedly poor. I am an old man,
+old and broken. I want peace, do you understand? Peace."
+
+They had reached the lake and in fifteen minutes would arrive at the
+Quadrangle. Mr. Blount was leading the way, occasionally hitting the
+ground savagely with his cane.
+
+Molly thrust her hand into her blouse and drew out a chamois skin bag
+which hung by a silk tape around her neck. Since the pilfering had been
+going on at Wellington she carried what little money she had with her
+during the day and hid it under her pillow at night.
+
+Extracting ten dollars from the bag, she hurried to the old man's side
+and touched him on the shoulder.
+
+"Mr. Blount, I'm under great obligations to your cousin. He has been
+very kind to me--always--and I'd like you to--I'd----"
+
+It was difficult to know what to say. Was it not strange for her, a poor
+little school girl, to be offering money to a man who had so recently
+been a millionaire?
+
+"Won't you take this money?" she began again, resolutely. "I don't think
+anyone will recognize you at the inn. It's just a little country place
+and you will be quite comfortable there until I find Professor Green. I
+may get word to him to-night, or to-morrow at any rate."
+
+Mr. Blount eyed the money as a hungry dog eyes a bone. Evidently hunger
+and fatigue had got the better of his pride. He took the bill and
+touched it lovingly. Then he put it in his pocket.
+
+"You're a nice girl," he said. "I thank you."
+
+"Would you like to see George Green?" asked Molly timidly.
+
+"No, no, no!" he answered fiercely. "Not that young fool. I don't
+suppose Judith is here?" he added presently in a tremulous voice.
+
+"No, sir. She's in New York for the holidays."
+
+They shook hands and separated. Mr. Blount took the path down the other
+side of the lake across the links to the village and Molly followed the
+path on the college side. As she cut through the pine woods she heard a
+shout.
+
+"Molly Brown, where have you been? We have had a search for you!" cried
+Judy, rushing up, followed by the three boys.
+
+"I reckon I've been a good deal like the pig who thought he was going to
+Cork when he was really going to Dublin," laughed Molly. "If I hadn't
+asked the way, I suppose I'd have been almost to Exmoor by this time.
+I am a poor person to find my way about. My brother used to tell me to
+take the direction opposite to the one my instincts told me to take and
+then I'd be going right."
+
+"In other words, first make sure you're right and then take the other
+way," said Lawrence Upton, laughing.
+
+"You'd make a good explorer, Miss Molly," remarked Andy McLean. "You
+might discover the South Pole and think all the time it was the North
+Pole."
+
+"That would be of great benefit to humanity," answered Molly, "but you
+may be sure I'd stop and ask a policeman before I reached the equator."
+
+"It's your proper punishment for cutting church this morning," here put
+in George Green. "I don't know whether it was because it was a good
+excuse to go sleighing, but a lot of people were at the ten service.
+Even old Edwin came in the trail of Alice Fern."
+
+"What a pretty name!" said Molly. "It sounds so woodsy."
+
+"She's a cousin," George went on, "and a winner, too. They've got a
+jim-dandy place ten miles the other side of Wellington, Fern Grove. We
+spent last New Year's with them and had a cracker-jack time."
+
+"George Theodore Green!" ejaculated Judy, "I never heard so much slang.
+I wonder you are allowed inside Exmoor."
+
+"Oh, I cut it out there. I only use it when it's safe."
+
+"I regard that as a slight on present company," broke in Andy. "I think
+you'll just have to take a little dose of punishment for that, Dodo. Get
+busy, Larrie."
+
+There was a wild scramble in the snow, and finally Dodo, who had
+developed into a big, strapping fellow, stronger than either of his
+friends, intrenched himself behind a tree and began throwing snowballs
+with the unerring aim of the best pitcher on the Exmoor team. Molly
+hastened on to the Quadrangle, while Judy with true sportsman taste
+waited to see the fun.
+
+Molly went straight to the telephone booths in the basement corridor. By
+good fortune, the haughty being who presided at the switchboard was
+hovering about waiting for a long distance call from a "certain party"
+in New York.
+
+That she alone in all the world was concerned in this call and that she
+wished to have this corner of the globe entirely to herself for the
+full enjoyment of it were very evident facts when Molly asked for
+"Fern-16-Wellington."
+
+"I'm not working to-day," announced the operator shortly, arranging her
+huge Psyche knot at the mirror beside her desk.
+
+Molly looked into the girl's implacable face. No feminine appeal would
+melt that heart of stone, but perhaps the magic name of man might fix
+her.
+
+"Would you do it to oblige Professor Green? I have an important message
+for him."
+
+"I guess that's different," announced the owner of the Psyche knot, with
+a high nasal accent. "Why didn't you say so at first? I guess Professor
+Green is about the nicest gent'man around here."
+
+Sitting down at the switchboard, she slipped on the headpiece with a
+professional flourish. Then, with a hand-quicker-than-the-eye movement,
+she pushed several organ stops up and down, stuck the end of a green
+tube into a hole and remarked in a high pitched voice that had great
+projective powers:
+
+"Wellington Exchange? Hello! Yes, I know it's Christmas. On hand
+for a long distance, are you? Oh, you-u-u. Well, say, listen.
+To oblige a certain party--a very attractive gent'man--call up
+'Fern-16-Wellington.'"
+
+Then there was a detached monologue about a certain party in you know
+where--same gent'man that was down Thanksgiving time. Suddenly, with
+professional alertness, the telephone girl stopped short.
+
+"Fern-16-Wellington? Here's your party. Booth 3," she added to Molly, in
+a voice so radically different that Molly had a confused feeling that
+the young person who operated the Wellington switchboard might be a
+creature of two personalities. She retired timidly to the booth.
+
+"Is this the residence of Miss Alice Fern?" she asked.
+
+"It is," came the voice of a woman from the other end.
+
+"I would like to speak to Professor Edwin Green."
+
+"He's very much engaged just now. Is it important?"
+
+"I think it is," hesitated Molly.
+
+"What name?"
+
+"Now what earthly difference does it make to her what my name is?" Molly
+reflected with some irritation. "Would you please tell him it's a
+message from the University?"
+
+"I'll tell him nothing until you tell me your name."
+
+Could this be Miss Alice Fern? Molly was fairly certain it was. Perhaps
+she also had two personalities.
+
+"It doesn't do any good to tell my name. I have nothing to do with the
+message. I'm only delivering it for someone else. But if you want to
+know, it's 'Brown.'"
+
+"Mrs. or Miss Brown?"
+
+Suddenly Molly heard the Professor's voice quite close to the telephone
+saying:
+
+"Alice, is that someone for me?"
+
+"Yes, an individual of the illuminating name of Brown wishes to speak to
+you. I don't see why they can't leave you alone for one day in the
+year."
+
+Molly smiled. Why was it that down deep in the unexplored caverns of her
+soul there lurked an infinitesimally tiny feeling of relief that Miss
+Alice Fern was plainly a vixen?
+
+"How do you do, Professor Green? This is Molly Brown."
+
+"How do you do? Is anything the matter?" answered the Professor in
+rather an anxious tone.
+
+"I wanted to tell you that Mr. Blount is here. Old Mr. Blount."
+
+The Professor seemed too surprised to answer for a moment. Or it might
+have been that Miss Alice Fern was lingering at his elbow and
+embarrassed him.
+
+"Where?" he asked.
+
+"He spent last night in the cloister study. Now, he's at the inn. He
+asked me to let you know. I met him on the road. He's very unhappy."
+
+"How did he happen to be in the study?"
+
+"He--he had no money."
+
+"And now he's at the inn? Has he seen anyone but you?"
+
+"No." Molly blushed hotly.
+
+"I'll come right over. Thank you very much."
+
+"Now, Edwin, what a nuisance!" broke in the voice of Miss Fern.
+
+"Good-bye. Thank you again. I really must, Alice. Very impor----"
+
+The receiver had been hung up and the connection lost.
+
+"Oh, these cousins!" Molly reflected with a laugh as she hurried up to
+her room.
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a gay party at the McLeans' that night and one unexpected
+guest arrived just before dinner. It was Professor Green. They squeezed
+him in somehow at the end of the table with the doctor, and the two made
+merry together like school boys. Molly had never seen the Professor of
+English Literature in such joyous spirits. After dinner, when the
+dancing commenced, he sought her out and led her to a secluded sofa in
+the back hall. She began at once by asking about Mr. Blount, but the
+Professor was not listening.
+
+"That's one of the prettiest dresses I've seen you wear," he
+interrupted. "Yellow is not becoming to most people, but it is to you.
+Probably because it has the same golden quality that's in your hair."
+
+"I'm glad you like it," said Molly, turning red under his steady gaze.
+
+"I found your note on my study floor," he went on.
+
+"I was afraid you wouldn't remember what I was talking about, after
+all," she exclaimed. "But I had to write it. I have never really been
+happy since I said that cruel thing to you. I was so wretched the day
+afterward, and when I rushed to find you in your study, you were gone!"
+she broke off with a tearful glance into his eyes.
+
+The Professor beamed upon her.
+
+"So you were unhappy," he said, as if the statement was not entirely
+unpleasing.
+
+"Oh, yes. I know now that you were quite right to tell Miss Walker about
+that silly episode of the burying of the slipper."
+
+"But I never told her. I know the story, of course, and the explanation.
+The President told me herself."
+
+"But who did tell, then?"
+
+"That I can't say."
+
+It was now Molly's turn to beam on the Professor.
+
+"I am glad you didn't tell her," she exclaimed in tones of great relief.
+"You see, you didn't inform on Judith Blount that time, and I was hurt.
+I couldn't help from being. I was really awfully sore."
+
+"My dear child," said the Professor hurriedly, "promise hereafter to
+regard me as a faithful friend. Never doubt my sincerity again."
+
+"I promise," answered Molly, feeling intensely proud without knowing
+why.
+
+Then the talk drifted to Mr. Blount.
+
+"And you haven't mentioned meeting him?" he asked. "Not even to Miss
+Kean?"
+
+Molly shook her head.
+
+"You are a very unusual young woman, Miss Brown. It's important to keep
+Mr. Blount's presence here a secret. If word got out that he had come
+back, there would be a great hue and cry in the papers. I have him with
+me now at my rooms until Richard gets here. The family will be very
+grateful to you for your kindness to him."
+
+Lawrence Upton was coming down the hall to claim Molly for a dance.
+
+"Are you going back to the Ferns' to-morrow?" she asked hurriedly.
+
+"I think not," answered the Professor with the ghost of a smile. "I am
+detained here on business."
+
+The next morning Molly received a short note from Professor Green,
+inclosing a ten dollar bill.
+
+There was a postscript which said:
+
+"I've opened a barrel of greenings. Better come around and get some."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+HEALING THE BLIND.
+
+
+"But, Madeleine, I never touched an iron in my life. I wouldn't know how
+to go about it," protested Judith Blount.
+
+"It's high time you learned then, child. It's a very useful piece of
+knowledge, I assure you. You may begin on handkerchiefs first. They are
+easy, just a flat surface, and it doesn't matter if you scorch one,
+especially as it's your own. Test the iron like this, see. Pick it up
+with the holder, wet your finger and touch the bottom. If it gives out a
+sizzly sound, it's fairly hot and may be used on something damp. It will
+surely scorch dry material. Always sprinkle. Rough-dry things can't be
+ironed decently unless they have been sprinkled and allowed to get damp
+through and through."
+
+Madeleine Petit's unceasing flow of conversation did not stop while
+Judith took her first lesson in ironing.
+
+"You see," continued Madeleine, "I've made quite a name for myself for
+doing up fine things and I really need an assistant, Judith. And, since
+you need the money, and I like you better than any girl in college, I
+want you to help me."
+
+Judith winced at the mention of poverty, but her face softened when
+Madeleine spoke of friendship.
+
+After all, was it not good to have a friend, a real tried and devoted
+friend who had nothing to gain but friendship in return? Yes, Madeleine
+did talk a great deal. We all have our faults. Judith's was a temper.
+She knew that. But Madeleine was good company, nevertheless, much better
+company than those false friends of Beta Phi days. She was charming and
+pretty and she had a heart of pure gold. Moreover, she was a lady, if
+she did talk so much.
+
+Judith loved Madeleine. For the first time in her life she felt the
+stirrings of a really deep affection for another girl. It had quickened
+her parched soul like the waters of a freshet flowing through a thirsty
+land. Madeleine had first gained the respect of the proud, discontented
+girl by being always good-naturedly firm, and now she had gained her
+love.
+
+Furthermore, Judith felt for the first time the pleasure of doing
+something for someone else. It was a matter of infinite secret joy to
+her that she had been able to help Madeleine with her studies. In a way
+she had constituted herself tutor to the little Southern girl; had
+criticized her themes; given her a boost in the dreaded French
+Literature and carried her over the blighting period of mid-year
+examinations. Madeleine had spent Christmas with the Blounts at a
+boarding house in New York and had given them a taste of Southern
+conversation, humor and anecdotes that had made that dreary time for
+them to blossom with new enjoyments.
+
+And now Judith was learning to iron. At first she handled the iron quite
+awkwardly, but in a few minutes she became interested and the pile of
+handkerchiefs rapidly decreased.
+
+"Of course, it isn't as if either one of us expects to have to iron
+handkerchiefs always," went on Madeleine, "but it doesn't hurt us to
+know how, just the same, and I have always found that doing common
+things well only made one do uncommon things better. Now, I intend to be
+a Professor of Mathematics. I don't know where nor how, but those are my
+intentions. There's no ironing of jabots connected with mathematics, but
+somehow I feel that ironing jabots well makes me more proficient in
+mathematics.
+
+"By the way, have you settled on anything to do yet? It's time you began
+to think about it, unless you decide to take a Post Grad. course and be
+with me next year. That would be perfectly grand, wouldn't it?"
+
+Madeleine's small pretty hands paused an instant in their busy
+fluttering over the garments she was sprinkling, and she smiled so
+sweetly upon Judith that the black-browed young woman felt moved beyond
+the power of speech and could only smile silently in reply.
+
+Oh, heavens, it was good to have a friend! Madeleine had come at a time
+when she most needed her; when the whole world was nothing but a black,
+hideous picture and life was a dreary waste. Not her mother, not
+Richard, not Cousin Edwin, could take the place of Madeleine.
+
+"You know I always said I wouldn't work for a living, Madeleine," she
+answered presently, gulping down these new, strange emotions.
+
+"My dear, we all say such things, but it's only talk. And, after all,
+it's better to work than to be an object of charity. Think of making
+your own money; having it come in every month--say a hundred dollars, or
+even more--earned by you? Why, it's glorious. It's better than running
+across a gold mine by accident or inheriting a fortune, because you have
+done it yourself. I intend to earn a great deal of money. I shall rise
+from being a teacher to having a splendid school of my own. It will be
+the most fashionable school in the South and all the finest families
+will send their daughters there. And what will you be in my school,
+Judith? Because you must commence now to work up to that eminence. Will
+you be part owner with me?"
+
+Judith laughed.
+
+"You're an absurd, adorable, sweet child," she said, and went on ironing
+busily.
+
+After all, life was not so desperately unpleasant.
+
+There was a knock on the door. Judith put down the iron hastily and
+retreated to the window. She had not yet reached the point where she was
+willing for others to see her engaged in this menial work.
+
+"Come in," called Madeleine, without stopping an instant.
+
+To Judith's relief, however, it was Mrs. O'Reilly.
+
+"A note for you, Miss Blount, and the man's waiting for an answer."
+
+Judith tore open the envelope impatiently. It was a bill of two years'
+running, amounting to nearly forty dollars, from the stationery and
+candy shop.
+
+On the bottom she was requested to remit at once.
+
+"Tell the man--anything, Mrs. O'Reilly. I can't see him. That's all."
+
+"Certainly, Miss," said the Irish woman with a good-natured smile.
+
+"These poor young college ladies was in hard luck just like the men
+sometimes," she thought as she turned away.
+
+Judith sat down and began to think. Richard was having a great struggle
+to keep her at college, her mother and himself at the boarding house,
+and her father in a sanitarium. It would really be unkind to burden him
+with that bill; but what was to be done?
+
+"Is it that old stationery man again?" asked Madeleine, who had
+inherited a profound contempt for dunning shopkeepers.
+
+"Yes, it is, and I don't know what to do."
+
+"Why don't you put an advertisement in the 'Commune'? You have no idea
+how it will bring in work. And then hang out a shingle, too. People have
+got to learn to recognize you as a wage-earning person before they come
+around and offer you things to do."
+
+"But what can I do? I don't know how to iron well enough to take in
+laundry, like you."
+
+A voice outside called:
+
+"Is this Miss Madeleine Petit's room?"
+
+"Come in. Can't you see the name on the door?" answered Madeleine.
+"There's only one Petit at Wellington and I'm the lady."
+
+Millicent Porter now entered.
+
+She looked smaller and more shriveled than ever in a beautiful mink coat
+and cap and a velvet dress of a rich shade of blue that breathed
+prosperity in every fold.
+
+"This is the region where signs are out asking for work, isn't it?" she
+asked in a pleasantly patronizing, unctious voice.
+
+"We don't ask for work. We announce that we do it and the work comes,"
+replied Madeleine, eyeing the visitor with a kind of humorous pity.
+
+"Be that as it may," said Miss Porter, "I have some work I want done and
+I'm looking for a very competent and reliable person to do it."
+
+Judith winced at the word "reliable."
+
+"This isn't a servants' agency, you know, Miss Porter," answered the
+spunky Madeleine. "Those words are generally used when one engages a
+cook or a housemaid. What is the work like?"
+
+"I'm going to give an exhibition of my silver work at the George
+Washington Bazaar. I may sell some of it if I can get the price, and
+what I want is a skillful and re-- or rather clever----" Madeleine
+blinked both eyes rapidly at the substitution--"person to help me get it
+in order. Most of it is awfully tarnished and it will need a good deal
+of polishing."
+
+"How much will you pay a skillful, clever person?" demanded Madeleine,
+determined to drive a good bargain and shrewdly guessing the kind of
+person she had to deal with.
+
+"I'll pay ten dollars," answered Millicent glibly.
+
+"What are the pieces like?"
+
+"Oh, there are chains, necklaces, platters and bowls, and a lot of ivory
+things I have picked up in Europe that must be carefully washed."
+
+"We'll do the work for fifteen dollars," announced Madeleine. "No less."
+
+Judith could hardly preserve a grave countenance while this bargaining
+was going on between the rich Miss Porter and her funny little Southern
+friend.
+
+"I think that's too much," declared Millicent.
+
+"Not at all. The work requires care and, as you say, reliability. It
+might be stolen, you know."
+
+Madeleine snapped her eyes.
+
+"Very well, then," said Millicent in a resigned tone of voice. "It's a
+great deal to pay, but I suppose I can't do any better. I hear you do
+everything well, Miss Petit."
+
+"Miss Blount will do this," answered Madeleine. "If I do things well,
+she does them better. Now, where do you want them cleaned? Down here or
+up at your place?"
+
+"Oh, I would never let them out of my studio," cried Millicent. "She
+must come there, where she can be under my eye."
+
+"But----" objected Judith, and paused at a glance from Madeleine.
+
+It would be a crushing blow to her pride for her to go back to her old
+rooms and rub tarnished silver for this perfectly insufferable Millicent
+Porter. Yet fifteen dollars loomed up as quite a considerable sum, and,
+with five dollars added, could be paid to the stationery man on account.
+
+Did Judith realize in her secret soul that the bitter dose she was now
+swallowing was only a dose of the same medicine she had once forced
+others to swallow?
+
+"Very well, then," said Madeleine, "we'll give you as much of Friday and
+Saturday as will be necessary. We'll take a lunch up on Friday so that
+we won't have to come back for supper----"
+
+She waited a moment, wondering if Millicent would not invite them to
+supper at the Beta Phi. Hospitality was so much a part of her upbringing
+that it was impossible to conceive it lacking in others.
+
+"I thought Miss Blount was to do the work."
+
+"She will. I shall work under her as assistant rubber."
+
+So, the bargain was clinched and Millicent departed.
+
+"Disgusting little reptile!" cried Judith when the sounds of her
+footsteps died away in the hall and the door banged behind her.
+
+Could Judith forget that she herself had once belonged to that
+overbearing class?
+
+"Don't get all stirred up, Judith, it's bad for your digestion,"
+ejaculated Madeleine. "That girl is nothing but a mere ripple on the
+surface. She's ridiculous, but there's no harm in her. I am really sorry
+for her, because she doesn't belong anywhere. She could never make a
+friend, and she will never know what it is to be really liked. She
+thinks she's a genius because she's learned how to beat out a few tawdry
+silver chains, and as soon as she finishes one she locks it up in a box
+and takes it out about once a decade to look it over. Why, she's just a
+poor, starved, little creature without a spark of generosity in her
+soul. What does she know about living and happiness?
+
+"You and I know how to live," Madeleine continued, flourishing her iron.
+"We're in the procession. We're moving on, learning and progressing.
+We're going up all the time. I tell you the highest peak in the
+Himalayas is not higher than my ambitions. And I intend to take you with
+me, Judith, and when we get to the top we'll look back and see poor,
+little Millicent Porter, shriveled to nothing at the bottom!"
+
+Judith gave a strange, hysterical laugh. Suddenly she flew across the
+room and embraced her friend.
+
+"You could make me do anything, Madeleine," she cried. "Scale the
+Himalayas or cut a tunnel through them." Taking her friend's small,
+charming face between her two hands, she looked her in the eyes:
+"Madeleine," she said, "did you know I used to be a blind girl? You have
+healed me. I am beginning to see things as they are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A WARNING.
+
+
+The girl who had been blind and could see and Madeleine of the
+unconquerable soul appeared in Millicent's sumptuous apartment promptly
+at three o'clock on Friday afternoon.
+
+They carried with them a suitcase containing the implements of their
+labor, taken chiefly from Madeleine's rag bag: some old stockings;
+several wornout undervests and polishing cloths made from antiquated
+flannel petticoats; also a bottle of ammonia and two boxes of silver
+polish.
+
+"Well, here we are," announced Madeleine, unconcernedly, when Millicent
+had opened her door to them. "I hope you have the things out and ready.
+Our time is valuable."
+
+Of no avail were Millicent's pompous and important airs. Madeleine
+insisted on treating her as a familiar and an equal.
+
+"I have put you in the den. You will be less disturbed and you can use
+the writing table to spread things on. Please be care----"
+
+"Have you made an inventory?" interrupted Madeleine.
+
+"No," faltered Millicent. Why was it that this poverty-stricken little
+person took all the wind out of her sails?
+
+"Make it please at once in duplicate. Keep one yourself and give us the
+other."
+
+"But----" began Millicent.
+
+"No, we will not touch a thing until the inventory is made. No
+'competent, reliable' person would think of doing work like this without
+an inventory. We'll wait in the other room until you have made it."
+
+There was nothing to do but proceed with the inventory. It was plain
+that Madeleine knew the manner of person she was dealing with.
+
+While the two girls waited in the big sitting room, now a studio,
+Madeleine drew a book from her ulster pocket and began to study. The
+little Southerner was never idle one moment of her waking day and the
+other seven hours she put in sleeping very soundly. Judith began to look
+about her.
+
+The room was little changed from the old days, except that it was even
+richer in aspect. There were some splendid old altar pieces on the walls
+and a piece of beautiful old rose brocade hung between the studio and
+the den. But, after all, what did it come to? Was anyone really fond of
+Millicent with all her wealth? Why, Judith, poor and forgotten, had made
+a friend. She felt small tenderness toward the rest of the world, but
+she loved Madeleine.
+
+Molly Brown came into the room at this stage in Judith's reflections.
+
+"Why, hello, girls!" she exclaimed cordially, shaking hands with the
+silver-rubbers. "Where is Millicent?"
+
+"She is making an inventory of her valuables before we begin to clean
+them," replied Madeleine, smiling sweetly and blinking both eyes at
+once. "We insisted, because it would have been unprofessional not to
+have had one."
+
+"The idea!" said Molly. "No, it wouldn't. Besides, you're not
+professionals."
+
+"Yes, we are," insisted Madeleine. "Everything we do for money is
+professional work."
+
+"Oh, very well," laughed Molly, "and I suppose you'll polish them up so
+carefullee that some day you'll be admirals in the Queen's Navee."
+
+"Nothing less," said Madeleine. "It's my theory exactly."
+
+"Oh, Molly," called the voice of Millicent from the den, "please come
+and help me with this stupid thing. I can't seem to get it straight."
+
+And that was how Molly came to be admitted into Millicent's inner
+sanctum where she kept her most valued possessions under lock and key.
+
+The top of a heavy oak chest rested against the wall and inside was a
+perfect mine of silver articles, many of them Millicent's own work;
+there was also a quantity of small ivory figures collected by her in her
+travels.
+
+"I'll lift out the things and call their names and you can copy each one
+twice, like this: one silver necklace--grape-vine design."
+
+Molly sat down and began to make the list. They were nearly finished
+when Rosomond Chase's voice was heard in the next room.
+
+"Millicent, please come out for a moment. I want to see you on
+business."
+
+Molly, left alone, went on with the list, taking each article from the
+box and noting it carefully twice on the inventory.
+
+In the meantime Millicent and her friend were having a secret conference
+in the bedroom, while Madeleine and Judith silently waited in the
+studio. The two silver-rubbers were presently startled by the apparition
+of Molly standing in the doorway. She had the look of one fleeing before
+a storm, her face very pale and her eyes dilated with horror. She
+started to speak, but checked herself and closed the door behind her.
+Then, hurrying into the room, she said in a low, strained voice:
+
+"Madeleine, I would not advise you to do any work for Miss Porter."
+
+The two girls exchanged a long look.
+
+"Do you really mean that?" asked Madeleine.
+
+"I was never more in earnest in my life."
+
+"But, can't you explain?" demanded Judith Blount.
+
+Molly shook her head and rushed from the room.
+
+"Come on, Judith," said Madeleine, slipping on her ulster.
+
+"But, this is absurd!" objected Judith again.
+
+"Child," exclaimed her friend, "don't you know human nature well enough
+to understand that a girl like Molly Brown would never have given a
+piece of advice like that without knowing what she was talking about?"
+
+"She's jealous because she would like to earn the money herself."
+
+"Nonsense," said Madeleine. "She is not that kind. You know perfectly
+well that she is the most generous-hearted, unselfish girl in
+Wellington. She wouldn't injure a fly if she could help herself, and I
+think we had better take her advice."
+
+But Judith was stubborn.
+
+"We've come to do the work. Why go?"
+
+Having once committed herself to this menial labor, she wished to see it
+through. After all, whatever Molly had against Millicent Porter couldn't
+concern them, and in the end Madeleine reluctantly gave in.
+
+Presently Millicent and Rosomond came into the room.
+
+"What became of Molly Brown?" demanded Millicent suspiciously.
+
+"She couldn't wait," answered Madeleine briefly.
+
+"Was there anything the matter with her?"
+
+"She seemed in perfectly good health as far as I know, but you had
+better hurry up with the inventory, Miss Porter. We are losing time."
+
+Rosomond helped Millicent with the remainder of the list, and by four
+o'clock Madeleine and Judith were installed in the den hard at work. All
+afternoon and evening they toiled and the next morning they appeared
+soon after breakfast and started in again.
+
+"This is easier than cracking rock, and the pay is considerably better,
+but I am just as tired between the shoulders as a common laborer,"
+Madeleine exclaimed, rubbing the last tray until she could see her own
+piquant little face reflected in its depths.
+
+"As for me, I feel as if I had been drawn and quartered," complained
+Judith. "It's worth more than fifteen dollars. We should have asked
+twenty."
+
+"I would have asked it, if I had thought she could have been induced to
+part with so much money, but I saw that fifteen was her limit."
+
+Judith laughed.
+
+"You're a regular little bargain driver," she said admiringly.
+
+"No, not always," answered Madeleine. "Only when I meet another one."
+
+"Well, I am glad we undertook it, and I am gladder still we have
+finished it," said Judith.
+
+They arranged the silver on half of the table, and the small army of
+carved ivory ornaments, for which Millicent seemed to have a passion,
+on the other half. Then, removing the loose gloves which had protected
+their hands, they put on their things and marched into the next room
+with expectant faces. For the first time in all her life Judith had
+earned a sum of money, and the humblest wage-earner was not more anxious
+for his week's pay than she was.
+
+"Will you please inspect the work, Miss Porter, and give us our money?
+We are tired and want to go home," said Madeleine.
+
+Millicent was propped up against some velvet cushions in the window
+seat. There was an expression of nervous worry on her thin sallow face,
+and around her on the floor lay the scattered bits of a note she had
+read, re-read, and torn into little pieces.
+
+She was in a very bad humor, and her warped nature was groping for
+something on which to vent its accumulated spleen. She rose from the
+window seat, swept grandly into the next room and glanced at the
+tableful of silver and ivory.
+
+"It looks fairly well," she said; for Millicent was one of those persons
+who grudged even her praise. "What was the amount I promised to pay?"
+
+"I dare say you haven't forgotten it so soon," answered the intrepid
+Madeleine. "Fifteen dollars."
+
+"Oh, was it so much? Will this evening do? I haven't that sum on hand
+just now. I'll have to go down to the bank."
+
+"A check will do, then," said Madeleine, sitting down in one of the
+carved chairs.
+
+"I never pay with checks. I only pay cash. I would prefer to draw out
+the money and pay you this evening."
+
+"Nonsense," exclaimed Madeleine. "Besides, you know very well that the
+bank closes on Saturdays at noon, and it's now nearly four o'clock."
+
+"So it does. Then you will have to wait until Monday."
+
+"We won't wait until Monday," ejaculated Madeleine. "We haven't been
+rubbing silver for our health. You'd better look around in your top
+drawer and see if you can't scrape fifteen dollars together, because I
+tell you plainly if you don't you'll regret it."
+
+"How regret it?" asked the other suspiciously. "I'm not obliged to pay
+it until Monday, and I won't," she added stubbornly.
+
+It was growing late. The girls were exhausted and hungry. They had eaten
+no lunch except crackers and cheese. At last Judith, utterly crushed
+with disappointment, drew Madeleine aside.
+
+"Suppose we leave her," she said. "I can't stand it any longer."
+
+Without another word they took their departure, leaving Millicent still
+in the window seat looking pensively out on the campus. They were hardly
+outside before she sprang to the door and locked it. Then she hastened
+to the den and began to pack feverishly and with trembling nervous
+hands. Wrapping each article of silver in tissue paper, she placed it in
+the chest on a bed of raw cotton. When the table was entirely cleared,
+she closed and locked the chest and, addressing a tag, wired it to the
+handle.
+
+Next she drew a trunk from the big closet and packed it with her best
+clothes. This done, she crept downstairs to the telephone and engaged
+Mr. Murphy to call that night for an express box and a trunk.
+
+The Beta Phi girls were all at a Saturday night dance at one of the
+other houses when Mr. Murphy called. Millicent explained to the matron
+that her rooms were too crowded and she was sending some of her things
+back to New York.
+
+As quietly as possible she drew her other two trunks from the closet,
+and by three in the morning the rooms were entirely dismantled and all
+drapery and pictures carefully packed away. These also she locked and
+tagged with the precision of one who intends to lose nothing, no matter
+what's to pay. One more task remained. This was performed in the privacy
+of the den behind closed doors. When it was done there stood on the
+table a square box addressed in artistic lettering to "Miss M. Brown,
+No. 5 Quadrangle."
+
+Placing her watch on her pillow, Millicent now rested for several hours
+without sleeping. At last, at seven o'clock, dressed for a journey, with
+suit case, umbrella and hand bag, she crept softly downstairs and
+plunged into the early morning mists.
+
+Not once did she glance back at the two gray towers as she hastened down
+to the station, and when the seven-thirty train for New York pulled in,
+she boarded it quickly and turned her face away from Wellington
+forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PARABLE OF THE SUN AND WIND.
+
+
+If Molly had been carrying a stick of dynamite she could not have held
+it more gingerly than the square box she was taking to President Walker
+on Monday morning.
+
+"That was the reason I never liked her," she thought, mentioning no
+names even in her own mind. "I wonder if it is true that she couldn't
+help it. It must be, when she was so rich. What could she want with
+Minerva's medals or Margaret's initialed ring? Both M's, though," she
+thought, half smiling.
+
+"Oh, Miss Brown," cried a voice behind her, and Madeleine Petit came
+tearing across the campus as fast as her little feet could carry her.
+"Is it true that Millicent Porter has run away from college?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is," answered Molly.
+
+"She owed us fifteen dollars," cried Madeleine tragically. "She promised
+to pay this morning, and I have just heard rumors that she has
+disappeared, bag and baggage."
+
+"You _did_ do the work for her?" asked Molly.
+
+"Yes, really, against my will. I knew you would never advise without
+having something to advise about. But Judith was determined, and the
+only reason I gave in was because she had never done any work before,
+and I thought it would be good for her to make a start. She was so happy
+over earning the money. It was really wonderful to see how she
+brightened up. And when we couldn't get a cent out of Miss Porter on
+Saturday afternoon, poor old Judith was so disappointed that she cried.
+Think of that."
+
+"What a shame," exclaimed Molly, appreciating Judith's feelings with
+entire sympathy. "I'm sure I should have cried if I had done all that
+hard work and then couldn't collect."
+
+"But what are we to do? Must we sit back quietly and let the rich
+trample the poor? Don't you think she is coming back?"
+
+"I think not," answered Molly.
+
+"Did you find out something those few minutes you were in the den?"
+
+Molly nodded her head.
+
+"Is she----"
+
+The two girls exchanged frightened glances.
+
+"And her father a millionaire, too! Well, I never," cried Madeleine. "I
+think I'll just drop him a letter," which she accordingly did that very
+day. But she never received an answer, and the debt still remains
+unpaid.
+
+In the meantime Molly was closeted with Miss Walker for ten minutes.
+
+"It's strange," said the President. "I just had a letter this morning
+from an old friend at the head of a private school warning me about this
+unfortunate girl who was a pupil there."
+
+But Molly was loath to discuss the matter, and still more loath to keep
+stolen property in her private possession. She placed the box on the
+President's desk and hastened away as soon as she politely could. That
+afternoon there appeared on the bulletin board the following unusual
+announcement:
+
+  "All those who have lost property during the winter may possibly be
+  able to obtain it by applying to the Secretary of the President."
+
+That the thief had been apprehended at last was of course understood.
+Putting two and two together, the Wellington girls concluded that
+Millicent Porter must have had some important reason for fleeing early
+in the morning without explanations, leaving two trunks and a debt of
+honor behind her. The trunks were afterwards expressed, according to
+directions left in her room.
+
+But, for the honor of Wellington, open conversation on the subject was
+not encouraged, and most of the talk was in whispers behind closed
+doors.
+
+A crowd of the girls from the Quadrangle, where most of the pilfering
+had been carried on, went together to claim their property on Monday
+evening. Those who had lost money returned disappointed. The box of
+restored goods contained none whatever. But the other articles were duly
+claimed and distributed, with the exception of one.
+
+"Does any one know to whom this belongs?" asked the secretary, placing
+a photograph in a beautiful silver frame on the top of the desk.
+
+"It must be yours, Nance," announced Edith Williams, with a teasing
+smile.
+
+"It is not," said Nance emphatically.
+
+The other girls, now gathered around the picture, began to laugh.
+
+Undoubtedly the small lanky boy in kilts in the photograph was Andy
+McLean.
+
+"Perhaps it is Mrs. McLean's," suggested some one.
+
+Margaret, examining the frame with the eye of an experienced detective,
+remarked in her usual authoritative tone:
+
+"The design on the frame is Japanese."
+
+"Otoyo," cried Judy, and the little Japanese, lingering near the door,
+crept timidly up and claimed the picture. Her face was a deep scarlet,
+as, with drooping head, she rushed from the room.
+
+"Bless the child's heart, who'd have thought she had a boy's picture,"
+laughed Katherine Williams.
+
+That very night Otoyo returned the photograph to Mrs. McLean, and with
+many tears confessed that she had removed it from the drawer without so
+much as asking permission.
+
+"My sweet lass," exclaimed the doctor's wife, kissing her, "you shall
+have a good picture of Andy if you like, taken just lately. I am only
+too happy that you admire his picture enough to put it in that beautiful
+frame. I'm sure I think he's a braw lad, the handsomest in three
+kingdoms; but I am his mother, you know, and not accountable."
+
+Together the two women fitted the latest photograph of the callow youth
+into the frame. Otoyo presently bore it triumphantly back to her room
+and placed it on the mantel shelf where all the world could see it. That
+night she slept with an easy conscience and a thankful heart. Her one
+dishonest deed was wiped out forever.
+
+The untangling of one snarl in the skein of affairs generally leads to
+the untangling of many others. So it happened that Molly and Judy, by
+the turn which events had taken, were able to clear up a mystery that
+had puzzled them for months.
+
+"I feel, Judy," remarked Molly, one day, "that we ought to do something
+nice for Minerva Higgins, because of--you know what. We mentioned no
+names and never breathed it even to each other except vaguely Christmas
+day, you remember. But we did suspect her, and thinking is just as bad
+as talking when you think a thing like that, so cruel and horrible."
+
+Judy nodded her head thoughtfully.
+
+"But she will never know we are making reparation, Molly," she said. "It
+will have to be purely for our own private satisfaction."
+
+"Of course," replied Molly. "That is what I meant. We did her a wrong in
+our minds, and in our minds we must undo it."
+
+"And how, pray?" demanded Judy.
+
+"Well, let me see. Couldn't we ask her here some night with just the
+three of us, and make her fudge and be awfully sweet and interested?"
+
+"I suppose we could, if we made a superhuman mental and physical
+effort," answered Judy lazily. "And it would take both. Why not let well
+enough alone?"
+
+"But it isn't 'well enough,' Judy, and we've had an ugly thought about
+her for weeks."
+
+"Do you call those practical jokes she played on us last autumn pretty?"
+demanded Judy, who had no liking for Minerva.
+
+"No, but she has learned better now. Anyhow, Judy, I want to try an
+experiment. Do you remember the allegory of the sun and the wind and the
+man wrapped in his cloak? The wind made a wager with the sun that he
+could make the man take off his cloak, and he blew and blew with all his
+might, and the more he blew the closer the man wrapped his coat about
+him. Then the wind gave up and the sun came out and tried his method of
+just shining very brightly and cheerfully, and presently the man was so
+hot he took off his coat."
+
+Judy laughed.
+
+"Meaning, I suppose, that we have been trying the human gale method
+instead of the merry little sunshine way. All right, Molly, dearest,
+bring on your Minerva and I'll be as gentle as a May morning. But don't
+let the Gemini come, because we could never carry it through if they
+were present."
+
+It was agreed that the three friends, Molly, Nance and Judy, should
+entertain the vain little freshman at an exclusive party all to
+themselves. Other persons were advised to keep away.
+
+"Hands off," exclaimed Judy. "Stay away from our premises this evening,
+ladies, because we are going to try an experiment with explosives, and
+it might be dangerous."
+
+It was unfortunate that, on the very evening that Minerva Higgins had
+arranged to go to the three friends, somebody played a practical joke on
+her and she was in an extremely bad humor. Although she had regained her
+two medals, she was always losing things and crying her losses up and
+down the corridor. She usually found the articles mislaid in her own
+room, but she had a suspicious nature and was generally on the lookout
+for thefts. That afternoon she had rushed into the corridor crying:
+
+"My water pitcher has been stolen from me. I will not have people going
+into my room and taking my things."
+
+"As if anybody wanted her old water pitcher," remarked Margaret, in a
+tone of disgust.
+
+Edith Williams smiled mysteriously.
+
+Presently Minerva and the matron, much bored, passed the door.
+
+"Come on, let's go and see the fun," suggested Edith.
+
+"How do you know there will be any fun?" demanded Margaret.
+
+"There's likely to be."
+
+They strolled slowly up the corridor, and as they passed the door the
+matron was saying:
+
+"Really, Miss Higgins, I must request you not to raise any more false
+alarms like this. There is your water pitcher."
+
+She pointed to the chandelier where the pitcher had been hoisted on a
+piece of cord. A good many other girls had gathered about Minerva's
+door, and a ripple of laughter swept along the hall.
+
+"Edith, did you play that joke?" asked Margaret later.
+
+"Judy was a party to it, and Katherine and several others," answered
+Edith evasively. "We thought it high time to put an end to burglar
+alarms. Minerva Higgins has come to be a public nuisance."
+
+Margaret smiled. Her dignity would never allow her to enter into what
+she called "rowdy jokes." However, it did not mar her enjoyment of the
+story about them afterward.
+
+But it was an angry, sullen Minerva who presented herself at the door of
+No. 5, Quadrangle, that evening at eight o'clock. She had left off her
+medals and she had not worn the indigo blue. Judy was relieved at this,
+but Molly and Nance considered it a bad sign.
+
+The first half-hour of the reparation party dragged slowly.
+
+"We've piped for Minerva and she will not dance; we've mourned for her
+and she will not mourn. It's a hopeless case," Judy remarked in an aside
+to Nance.
+
+But Molly had formed a resolution and she was determined to carry it
+through.
+
+"Behind that Chinese wall of vanity, Minerva has a little soul hidden
+somewhere and I'm going to reach it to-night if I have to blast with
+dynamite," she thought.
+
+Nance was stirring fudge on the chafing dish and Judy was occupying
+herself strumming chords on the piano. Molly led Minerva to the divan
+and sat down beside her.
+
+"Are you glad you came to college, Minerva?" she asked, wondering what
+in the world to talk about.
+
+"No," answered the other emphatically. "I detest college. Except that
+the studies are higher, I think Mill Town High School is better run. I
+don't like college girls, either. They are all conceited snobs."
+
+"Perhaps you will like it better when you are a sophomore and have more
+liberty," suggested Molly. "The first year one can't look forward to
+much pleasure. But a freshman is always under inspection, you see. If
+she accepts the situation without complaining and is nice and obliging
+and modest, it's like so much treasure laid by for her the next year
+when she finds how popular she is with the other girls."
+
+"It's not like that in Mill Town. A freshman is just as good as anybody
+else," snapped Minerva.
+
+Judy, overhearing this statement, blinked at Nance, who smiled furtively
+and went on stirring fudge.
+
+Molly still persisted with the patience of one who looks for certain
+success.
+
+"The most interesting part of being a freshman," she continued, "is that
+a girl begins to find out about herself, and by the time she's a
+sophomore she knows what she really wants."
+
+"Oh, but I knew perfectly well what I wanted before I came," interrupted
+Minerva in a lofty tone, "I want to study the dead languages."
+
+"But there is something you want more than that," broke in Molly. "You
+want to be popular."
+
+Minerva gave her a suspicious glance, but Molly was beaming kindly upon
+her with all the warmth of her affectionate nature.
+
+"How do you know that?" she demanded in a somewhat softened tone.
+
+"It was not hard to guess. You said you were disappointed with the girls
+here because they seemed to be snobs. Now if you hadn't minded it very
+much, you never would have mentioned it. Don't you think the girls are
+just a little afraid of you? You see, they had heard you were the
+brightest girl in your school and when they saw all the medals and you
+talked to them on such deep subjects, they were scared off. They
+thought, perhaps, you wouldn't care for them because they didn't know
+enough. After all, people's feeling toward you is just a reflection of
+what you feel toward them. If you are interested and admire and love
+them, they are pretty sure to feel the same toward you. You see, I know
+you can be just as nice and human and everyday as the rest of us--"
+Molly laid her hand on Minerva's--"but the others haven't had a chance
+yet to find out."
+
+Minerva's stiff figure relaxed a little and she leaned against Molly
+confidingly.
+
+"I do want to be liked," she whispered. "All my life I've wanted it more
+than anything in the world. But even at Mill Town the girls were afraid
+of me, just as you say they are here. I might as well own up, as you
+have guessed it already."
+
+"But it's only a question of time now before you make lots of friends,"
+said Molly, "You are so clever that you'll find out how to make them
+like you."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Well," said Molly, "I think people who are sympathetic and who listen
+more than they talk generally have a good many friends. I'm afraid I've
+talked more than I listened this evening," she added, pinching Minerva's
+cheek.
+
+"But you've talked about me," answered Minerva. Suddenly her face turned
+very red and her eyes filled with tears. "I shall not wear the medals
+any more," she whispered unsteadily. "And--there is something I want to
+confess. I--I waited for you that night you were on the lake, and I sent
+an unsigned note to Miss Walker the next day to get even with you
+because you wouldn't let me go walking with you."
+
+Judy, at the piano, was singing a vociferous medley, and Nance was
+joining in.
+
+"That's all right," whispered Molly. "It was much better for her to know
+because we would have been misrepresented always unless someone had told
+her, and we couldn't exactly tell her ourselves. But I think it's
+awfully nice of you to confess, Minerva. Now, we shall be better friends
+than ever."
+
+The two girls kissed each other. The cloak of vanity had slipped off
+and the smartest-girl-in-Mill-Town-High-School became her real natural
+self.
+
+Until a quarter before ten the four girls laughed and talked pleasantly
+together, while the convivial fudge plate was passed from one to the
+other. But never once did Mill Town High School or comparative philology
+come into the conversation.
+
+When at last the evening was at an end and Minerva had departed, Nance
+and Judy led Molly gravely to the divan.
+
+"Now, tell us how you did it," they demanded in one voice.
+
+"I only told her the truth," answered Molly, "but I didn't put it
+so that it would hurt her. I said the reason why the girls were
+stand-offish was because they were afraid of her learning and her gold
+medals."
+
+"Marvelous, brilliant creature!" cried Judy, embracing her friend, while
+Nance laid a cheek against Molly's.
+
+"You are a perfect darling, Molly," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE JUNIOR GAMBOL.
+
+
+     "Hail, Wellington, beloved home!
+      Hail, spot forever dear!
+      We greet thy towers and cloisters gray,
+      Thy meadows fresh in spring array;
+      We greet thee, Wellington, to-day;
+      Thy hills and dales; thy valleys green;
+      Thy wood and lake--tranquil, serene;
+      We greet thee far and near."
+
+Molly and Judy were responsible for the words of these stirring lines,
+which with three other verses were sung by the junior class to the air
+of "Beulah Land," the music having been adapted to the words rather than
+the words to the music.
+
+The entire junior class, a long, slender line of swaying white stretched
+across the campus, lifted its voice in praise of Wellington that May
+Day morning at the Junior Gambol. In the center waved the class flag of
+primrose and lavender. In the background was the gray pile of Wellington
+and in the front stretched the level close-cut lawn of the campus,
+fringed by the crowd of spectators. It was an impressive sight and when
+the fresh young voices united in the class song of "Hail, Wellington!",
+Miss Walker was moved to tears.
+
+"The dear children!" she exclaimed to Professor Green at her side,
+"really I feel all choked up over their devotion."
+
+Winding in and out in an intricate march, the class moved slowly across
+the campus until it reached the sophomores grouped together in one spot.
+Here they paused while the President of the juniors made a speech and
+presented the President of the sophomores with a small spade wreathed in
+smilax, a symbol of learning, or rather of the delving for learning
+which that class had in prospect in another year. Next the juniors
+approached the seniors and sang one of the Wellington songs, "Seniors,
+Farewell."
+
+Then the line broke up and moved to the center of the campus, where
+stood a May pole. An orchestra, stationed under one of the trees, began
+playing an old English country dance, and the juniors seized the
+streamers and tripped in and out with the graceful dignity suitable to
+their new, uplifted position of seniors about-to-be.
+
+Not one of the Wellington festivals could so stir her daughters of the
+present or the past, now grouped on the edge of the campus, as this
+Junior May-Day Gambol.
+
+"Perhaps it is so sad because it is so beautiful," Miss Pomeroy observed
+to Miss Bowles, teacher in Higher Mathematics, wiping her eyes
+furtively. But Miss Bowles, not being an ex-daughter of Wellington, and
+having a taste for more prosaic and practical pleasures, regarded the
+scene with only a polite and tolerant interest.
+
+"Who is to be the May Queen?" asked Mrs. McLean, standing in the same
+group with Miss Walker and Professor Green.
+
+As each succeeding year brought around the Junior Gambol the good woman
+hastened to view it with undiminished interest.
+
+"It would be difficult to say," answered Miss Walker. "In a class of
+such unusual individuality it will be very hard to select one who
+deserves it more than another."
+
+"It's a question of popularity more than intelligence," observed the
+Professor. "I think I might hazard a guess," he added in a lower tone,
+but his voice was drowned in a burst of music. The juniors were singing
+an old English glee song, "To the Cuckoo."
+
+    "'Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove,
+      Thou messenger of spring,
+      Now heaven repairs thy rural seat
+      And woods thy welcome ring.'"
+
+Many guesses were hazarded regarding the junior May Queen, not only
+among the crowds of spectators, but in the class itself.
+
+The votes for the Queen were cast by secret ballot in charge of a
+committee of three. Wellington traditions required that the name of the
+chosen one should be kept in entire secrecy until the clock in the tower
+struck noon on May Day. Then the junior donkey was led forth garlanded
+with flowers. He had officiated on this occasion now for ten years. This
+was the great moment when the identity of the most popular girl in the
+junior class was established for all time, and it was an important
+moment, because the one selected was generally chosen as Class President
+the next year.
+
+And now, as the tower clock boomed twelve deep strokes, there was a
+stirring among the spectators and a craning of necks. Three juniors
+appeared at the end of the campus, leading the aged donkey, who flicked
+his tail and walked gingerly over the turf. He wore a garland of
+daffodils and lilacs and moved sedately along, mindful of the importance
+of his position.
+
+The three girls were Nance Oldham, Caroline Brinton and Edith Williams.
+One of them carried a wreath of narcissus and the other two held the
+ribbon reins of the donkey.
+
+According to the time-honored rule, they approached their classmates
+with grave, still faces. It was really a solemn moment and the juniors
+waiting in an unbroken line never moved nor smiled.
+
+The spectators held their breath and for a moment Wellington was so
+still that every human thing in it might have been turned to stone.
+
+Why was it so exciting, this choosing of the May Queen?
+
+No one could tell, and yet it was always the same. Even Miss Bowles felt
+a lump rise in her throat. Many of the alumnae shamelessly wept, and
+Professor Green, watching the three white figures move slowly in front
+of the line of juniors, wondered if no one else could hear the pounding
+of his pulses.
+
+Presently the committee came to a stop. The Professor thrust his hands
+into his pockets and drew a deep breath.
+
+Nance stepped forward and placed the wreath on somebody's head. The
+spectators could see that she was quite tall and slender, and that she
+shrank back with surprise and shyness as she was led forth and bidden to
+mount the donkey, which she did with perfect ease and grace, as one who
+has mounted horses all her life.
+
+"Who is it?" cried a dozen voices. "They look so much alike."
+
+Scores of opera glasses and field glasses were raised.
+
+"It's Molly Brown, of course," cried a girl.
+
+The Professor smiled happily.
+
+"Of course," he repeated, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets.
+
+And now the ban of silence was lifted. The orchestra played; the
+audience cheered and the three classes gave their particular yells in
+turn, while the juniors, marching two by two, followed Molly Brown,
+riding the donkey, around the entire circuit of the campus.
+
+As for Molly Brown, she hung her head and blushed, looking neither to
+the right nor to the left.
+
+"The sweet lass, she might be a bride, she is so shy!" ejaculated Mrs.
+McLean as the procession moved slowly by.
+
+"Hurrah for Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky!" yelled a group of Exmoor
+students.
+
+"'Here's to Molly Brown, drink her down,'" sang the entire student body
+of Wellington.
+
+It was a thing that happened every year and there were those who had
+seen it thirty times or more, and still the spectacle was ever new.
+
+"I think I must be dreaming," Molly was saying to herself. "Of course, I
+might have known Nance and Judy would have voted for me and perhaps one
+or two others,--but so many--and what have I done to deserve it? I have
+hardly seen anything of Caroline Brinton and her crowd. 'Oh Lord, make
+me thankful for these and all thy mercies,'" she added, repeating the
+family grace, which somehow seemed appropriate to this stirring moment.
+
+After the triumphal march, Molly with the class officers, flanked by the
+rest of the class, held an informal reception on the lawn. This was
+followed by the Junior Lunch, quite an elaborate affair, served in the
+gymnasium, decorated for the occasion by the sophomores.
+
+Lawrence Upton was Molly's guest for the day. Many of the girls had
+asked Exmoor students, but Nance had been visited with a disappointment
+that was too amusing to be annoying.
+
+Otoyo Sen, on the sophomore committee for decorating the gymnasium, and
+therefore entitled to ask a guest, had not let the grass grow under her
+little feet one instant. The moment the committee had been selected, she
+sent off a formal, polite note to Andy McLean, 2nd, inviting him to be
+her guest.
+
+"Oh, Nance, that's one on you," cried Judy, when she heard this bit of
+news. "You always thought Andy was so much your property that no one
+would ever think of treading on your preserves. It's just like Japan,
+creeping quietly in and taking possession."
+
+"I suppose Andy will be hurt because I didn't get there first," replied
+Nance, laughing good-naturedly. "I suppose I shall have to ask Louis
+Allen, but I don't think it will do Andy any harm to know there are
+other fishes in the sea."
+
+"I guess it won't," answered Judy. "Nance is learning a thing or two,"
+she added to herself.
+
+But all's fair in love and war, and there was no more charming figure on
+the campus that day than little Otoyo in a pink organdy and a large hat
+trimmed with pink roses. On her face was an expression of shy, discreet
+triumph as of one who has gained a victory by stratagem.
+
+The Junior Gambol came to an end at six that evening, and the tired
+students repaired to their rooms to rest and relax after eight hours
+of continuous entertaining. The eight friends of old Queen's days had
+gathered in No. 5 of the Quadrangle, where refreshments were being
+handed around, chiefly lemonade and hickory-nut cake. Eight limp young
+women in dressing-gowns draped themselves about the divans and in the
+arm chairs to discuss the joys of the day.
+
+Molly, at the window, was reading something written on a card tied to
+the stem of an exceedingly large yellow apple. It was Professor Edwin
+Green's card, and the inscription thereon read: "The first of the three
+golden apples was won to-day. Congratulations and best wishes."
+
+Untying the card, she slipped it into her portfolio.
+
+"Shall I divide it or eat it alone?" she asked herself, and, without
+waiting for the second voice to answer, she seized Judy's silver knife
+and divided the apple into eight sections, which she passed around the
+company.
+
+"Did this come from the Garden of Hesperides, Molly?" asked Edith
+Williams, always ready with her classic allusions.
+
+"I wouldn't be surprised if it did," answered Molly, smiling
+mysteriously.
+
+There was much to talk about that evening. It was the moment for
+reminiscences and they reviewed the past year with all its excitements
+and pleasures. When Millicent Porter had departed from Wellington in
+dishonorable flight, her place in the Shakespeareans had been
+immediately filled, and Judy Kean was the girl selected; which goes to
+show that after a good deal of suffering and when the edge is taken off
+the appetite, we generally get what we once earnestly desired. Judy was
+not excited over the honor paid her, but she acquitted herself
+creditably in the beautiful performance of "A Winter's Tale," which the
+society eventually produced.
+
+She sat on the floor now, leaning against Molly, whom, next to her
+father and mother, she loved best in all the world. Without realizing
+it herself, Judy's character had been wonderfully developed and
+strengthened by the events of that winter and she looked on the world
+with a new and broader vision.
+
+It was nearly bedtime; the night was warm and still and through the open
+windows came the sound of singing. The girls were silent for a while,
+too weary to make any more conversation.
+
+"And next year we'll be hoary old seniors," suddenly announced Judy,
+following up a train of thought.
+
+Several in the company sighed audibly. Already the thought of parting
+from each other and from their beloved Wellington cast a shadow before
+it.
+
+But this sorrowful last year was to be filled with interest and happy
+times, as you will see who read the next volume of this series, entitled
+"MOLLY BROWN'S SENIOR DAYS."
+
+
+
+
+                *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Besides some minor printer's errors the following corrections have
+been made: on page 265 and 269 "Madeleine" has been changed to
+"Millicent" (helped Millicent with the remainder) (leaving
+Millicent still in the window seat). Otherwise the original has been
+preserved, including inconsistent spelling and hyphenation. Additional:
+"Rosomond Chase" was called "Rosamond" in the first book of this series,
+"Molly Brown's Freshman Year."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 36717.txt or 36717.zip *******
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