CHAPTER XIIIGEORGIA’S AMETHYST PENDANT
“Has your man come yet, Lucy?”
“Mine hasn’t, thank goodness! He couldn’t get off for the afternoon.”
“Mine thought he couldn’t and then he changed his mind after I’d refused all the teas.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss the teas for anything. They’re more fun than the concert.”
“Of course she wouldn’t miss them, the dressy lady, with violets to wear and a new white hat with plumes.”
“The Hilton is going to have an orchestra to play for dancing. Isn’t that pretty cute?”
“But did you hear about Sara Allen’s men? They both telegraphed her last evening that they could come,—both, please note. And now she hasn’t any seats.”
So the talk ran among the merry crowd of girls who jostled one another in the narrow halls after morning chapel. For itwas the day of the Glee Club concert. The first installment of men and flowers was already beginning to arrive, giving to the Harding campus that air of festive expectancy which it wears on the rare occasions when the Harding girl’s highest ambition is not to shine in her classes or star in the basket-ball game or the senior play, but only to own a “man.”
Tom Alison and his junior roommate arrived at the Belden soon after luncheon. Tom looked so distinguished in a frock coat and high hat that Betty hoped her pride and satisfaction in taking him around the campus weren’t too dreadfully evident.
Ashley Dwight was tall, round-shouldered, and homely, except when he smiled, which he did very seldom because he was generally too busy making every one within hearing of his low voice hysterical with laughter over his funny stories. He took an instant fancy to Georgia, and of course Georgia liked him—everybody liked Ashley, Tom explained. So Betty’s last worriment vanished, leaving nothing to mar the perfection of her afternoon.
The Hilton girls’ brilliant idea of turning their tea into a dance had been speedily copied by the Westcott and the Belden, and the other houses “came in strong on refreshments, cozy-corners, and conversation,” as Ashley put it. So it was six o’clock before any one dreamed that it could be so late, and the men went off to their hotels for dinner, leaving the girls to gloat over the flower-boxes piled high on the hall-table, to gossip over the afternoon’s adventures, and then hurry off to dress, dinner being a superfluity to them after so many salads and sandwiches, ices and macaroons, all far more appetizing than a campus dinner menu.
“I’ll come down to your room in time to help you finish dressing,” Betty promised Georgia. “My things slip on in a minute.”
But she had reckoned without a loose nail in the stair-carpet, which, apparently resenting her hasty progress past it, had torn a yard of filmy ruching off her skirt before she realized what was happening.
“Oh, dear!” she mourned, “now I shall have to rush just as usual. Helen Chase Adams, the gathering-string is broken. Haveyou any pink silk? I haven’t a thing but black myself. Then would you try to borrow some? And please ask Madeline to go down and help Georgia. Her roommate is going rush to the concert, so she had to start early.”
Helen had just taken the last stitches in the ruffle and Betty was putting on her skirt again, when Tom’s card came up to her. By the time she got down-stairs they were all waiting in the reception-room and Mr. Dwight was helping Georgia into her coat and laughing at the chiffon scarf that she assured him was a great protection, so that Betty didn’t see Georgia in her hated evening gown until they took off their wraps at the theatre.
“Awfully sorry I couldn’t come to help you,” she whispered, as they went out to the carriage, “but I know you’re all right.”
“I did my little best not to disgrace you,” Georgia whispered back. “My neck is horribly bony, no matter what mother thinks; but I covered some of it up with a chain.”
When they got to the theatre, almost every seat was filled and a pretty little usher hurried them through the crowd at the door, assuring them importantly over her shoulderthat the concert would begin in one minute and she couldn’t seat even box-holders during a number. Sure enough, before they had fairly gotten into their places, the Glee Club girls began to come out and arrange themselves in a rainbow-tinted semicircle for the first number. They sang beautifully and looked so pretty that Tom gallantly declared they deserved to be encored on that account alone; and he led the applause so vigorously that everybody looked up at their box and laughed. Alice Waite had the other seats in it, and as the three men were friends and all in the highest spirits, it was a gay party.
“There’s Jerry Holt,” Tom would say, “see him stare at our elegance.”
“Oh, we’re making the rest of the fellows envious all right,” Ashley would answer. “Who’s the stunning girl in the second row, next the aisle? We don’t miss a thing from here, do we?”
“Prettiest lay-out I’ve ever seen, this concert is,” Alice’s escort would declare fervently. “Sh, Tommie, the banjo club’s going to play.”
And then they would settle themselves towatch the stage and listen to the music for a while.
“It’s all good, but what I’m looking forward to is this,” said Ashley Dwight, pointing out the Glee Club’s last number on his program. “I can’t wait to hear ‘The Fames of Miss Ames.’”
“The what?” asked Betty, consulting her card. “Why, Georgia Ames, is it about you? Did you know they were going to have it?”
Georgia nodded. “The leader came and asked me if I cared. She seemed to think it would take, so I told her to go ahead. But I didn’t realize that this concert was such a big thing,” she added mournfully, “and I didn’t know I was going to sit in a box.”
“Pretty grand to be sitting in a box with the celebrity of the evening, isn’t it, Ashley?” said Tom.
And Ashley said something in a low voice to Georgia, which made her laugh and blush and call him “too silly for anything.”
Finally, after the Mandolin Club had played its lovely “Gondolier’s Song,” and the Banjo Club its amusing and inevitable “Frogville Echoes,” the Glee Club girls came out to sing“The Fames of Miss Ames,” which a clever junior had written and a musical sophomore had set to a catchy melody. A little, short-haired girl with a tremendous alto voice sang the verses, which dealt in witty, flippant fashion with the career of the two Georgias, and the whole club came in strong on the chorus.
“And now she’s come to life,(Her double’s here).And speculation’s rife,(It’s all so queer).The ghost associations,Hold long confabulations,And the gaiety of nationsIs very much enhanced by Georgia dear!”
It was only shameless doggerel, but it took. Topical songs always take well at Harding, and never had there been such a unique subject as this one. Between the verses the girls clapped and laughed, nodded at Georgia’s box, and whispered explanations to their escorts; and when at last the soloist answered their vociferous demands for more with a smiling head-shake and the convincing statement that “there wasn’t any more—yet,”they laughed and made her sing it all over.
This time Georgia asked one of the men to change seats with her, and slipped quietly into the most secluded corner of the box, behind Betty’s chair, declaring that she really couldn’t stand it to be stared at any longer. She looked positively pretty, Betty thought, having a chance for the first time to get a good look at her. The sparkle in her eyes and the soft color in her cheeks that the excitement and embarrassment had put there were very becoming. So was the low dress, in spite of the fact that Georgia was undoubtedly right in considering herself a “shirt-waist girl.” Her neck wasn’t particularly thin, or if it was the lovely old chain that she wore twisted twice around it kept it from seeming so. Betty turned to ask her something about the song and noticed the pendant that hung from her chain. It was of antique pattern—an amethyst in a ring of little pearls, with an odd quaint setting of dull gold. It looked familiar somehow. It was—yes, it was just like Nita Reese’s lost pin—the one that belonged to her great grandmother and that had disappearedjust before the Belden House play—one of the first thefts to be laid to the account of the college robber. Only, instead of a pin this was a pendant, fastened to the chain by a tiny gold ring. That was the only difference, for—yes, even the one little pearl that Nita had lost of the circle was missing here.
Betty didn’t hear Georgia’s answer to her question. She turned back to the stage, which swayed sickeningly as she watched it. At last the song ended, and while she clapped mechanically with the rest she gave herself a little shake, and told herself sternly that she was being a goose, that it was absurd, preposterous, even wicked—this thought that had flashed into her head. Nita’s pin wasn’t the only one of its kind; there might be hundreds just like it. Georgia’s great grandmother probably had had one too.
Betty talked very fast on the way up to the Belden. She was thankful that Tom and his friend were going back to New Haven that night and would have time for only the hastiest of good-byes.
“See you later, Miss Ames,” Ashley Dwight called back as he ran down the steps after Tom.
“He’s asked me to the prom, Betty. Think of that!” explained Georgia, her eyes shining.
“How—nice,” said Betty faintly. “I’m awfully tired, aren’t you?”
“Tired!” repeated Georgia gaily. “Not a bit. I should like to begin all over again this minute. I’m hot though. We walked pretty fast up the hill.” She threw back her coat and unwound the scarf that was twisted over her hair and around her throat. It caught on the amethyst pendant and Georgia pulled it away carefully, while Betty watched in fascinated silence, trying to make up her mind to speak. She might never have a good chance again. Ordinarily Georgia wore no jewelry,—not a pin or a ring. She had certainly never worn this pendant before at Harding. It would be so easy and so sensible to say something about it now and set her uncomfortable thoughts at rest.
Betty wet her lips nervously, made an heroic effort, and began.
“What a lovely chain that is, Georgia.” She hoped her voice sounded more natural to Georgia than it did to herself. “Is it a family heirloom?”
Georgia put up her hand absently, and felt of the chain. “Oh, that,—yes, it is. It really belongs to mother, but she let me bring it here. She’s awfully fond of old jewelry, and she has a lot. I hate all kinds, but this covers my bones so beautifully.”
“The pendant is lovely too,” put in Betty hastily, as Georgia moved off toward her room. “Is that old too?”
“I don’t know,” said Georgia stiffly. “That isn’t a family thing. It was given to me—by somebody I don’t like.”
“The somebody must like you pretty well,” said Betty, trying to speak lightly, “to give you such a stunning present.”
Georgia did not answer this, except by saying, “Good-night. I believe I am tired,” as she opened her door.
Up in her own corridor Betty met Madeline Ayres. “Back so soon?” said Madeline, who refused to take Glee Club concerts seriously. “I’ve had the most delicious evening, reading in solitary splendor and eating apples that I didn’t have to pass around. I’m sure your concert wasn’t half so amusing. How did Georgia’s song go?”
“Finely,” said Betty without enthusiasm. “Did she tell you about it while you helped her dress?”
“No, for I didn’t help her. I went over to the Hilton right after dinner. Lucile told me, in a valiant attempt to persuade me that I was foolish to miss the concert.”
“Oh,” said Betty limply, opening her own door.
Madeline hadn’t seen the pendant then. Probably some freshman who didn’t know about Nita’s loss had helped Georgia to dress. Well, what did that matter? She had Georgia’s own word that the pin was a gift. Besides it was absurd to think that she would take Nita’s pin and wear it right here at Harding. And yet—it was just the same and the one little pearl was gone. But a person who would steal Nita’s pin, wouldn’t make a present of it to Georgia. Then the pin couldn’t be Nita’s.
“I’m getting to be a horrid, suspicious person,” Betty told the green lizard. “I won’t think about it another minute. I won’t, I won’t!”
And she didn’t that night, for she fellasleep almost before her head touched the pillow. Next morning she woke in the midst of a long complicated dream about Georgia and the green lizard. Georgia had stolen him and put a ring around his tail, and the lizard was protesting vigorously in a metallic shriek that turned out, after awhile, to be the Belden House breakfast-bell jangling outside her door.
“They never ring the rising-bell as loud as that,” wailed Betty, when she had consulted her clock and made sure that she had slept over. Before she was dressed Georgia Ames appeared, bringing a delicious breakfast tray.
“Helen said that you have a nine o’clock recitation,” she exclaimed, “and I thought you probably hadn’t studied for it and would be in a dreadful hurry.”
Betty thanked her, feeling very guilty. Georgia was wearing a plain brown jumper dress, with no ornament of any kind, not even a pin to fasten her collar; and she looked as cool and self-possessed and cheerful as usual. In the sober light of morning it seemed even more than absurd to suppose that she was anything but a nice, jolly girl, like Racheland K. and Madeline,—the sort of girl that you associated with Harding College and with the “Merry Hearts” and asked to box parties with a nice Yale man, who liked her and invited her to his prom.
In the weeks that followed Betty saw a great deal of Georgia, who seemed intent on showing her gratitude for the splendid time that Betty had given her. Betty, for her part, felt that she owed Georgia far more than Georgia owed her and found many pleasant ways of showing her contrition for a doubt that, do her best, she couldn’t wholly stifle. The more she saw of Georgia, the more clearly she noticed that there was something odd about the behavior of the self-contained little freshman, and also that she was worrying a good deal and letting nobody know the reason.
“But it’s not conditions or warnings or anything of that sort,” Georgia’s round-eyed roommate declared solemnly to Betty, in a burst of confidence about the way she was worrying over Georgia. “She sits and thinks for hours sometimes, and doesn’t answer me if I speak to her. And she says she doesn’tcare whether she gets a chance to play in the big game or not. Just imagine saying that, Miss Wales.”
“She’s tired,” suggested Betty loyally. “She’ll be all right after vacation.”
Meanwhile, in the less searching eyes of the college world, Georgia continued to be the spoiled child of fortune. She came back from the prom, with glowing tales of the good times she had had, and whether or not she cared about it she was the only “sub” who got a chance to play in the big game. She made two goals, while Betty clapped for her frantically and her class made their side of the gallery actually tremble with the manifestations of their delight.
It was just as Betty was leaving the gym on the afternoon of the game that Jean Eastman overtook her.
“Could you come for a walk?” she asked abruptly. “There is something I want to get settled before vacation. It won’t take long. It’s about Bassanio,” she went on, when they had gotten a little away from the crowd. “I want to give up my part. Do you suppose Mary Horton would take it now?”
“You want to give up Bassanio?” Betty repeated wonderingly.
“Yes. There’s no use in mincing matters. I did have a condition in French, and Miss Carter was tutoring me, just as you thought. I had worked it off the day I answered your note, but of course that doesn’t alter anything. They say mademoiselle never hands in her records for one semester until the next one is almost over, so nothing would have come to light until it was too late for a new person to learn the part. Don’t look so astonished, Betty. It’s been done before and it may be done again, but I don’t care for it myself.” Then, as Betty continued to stare at her in horrified silence, “If you’re going to look like that, I might as well have kept the part. The reason I decided to give it up was because I didn’t think I should enjoy seeing your face at the grand dénouement. You see, when you and Eleanor came in that afternoon I thought you’d guessed or that Barbara Gordon and Teddie Wilson, who knew of a similar case, had, and had sent you up to make sure. But after you’d apologized for your note and squared things with Eleanor, I—well, Ididn’t think I should enjoy seeing your face,” ended Jean, with a little break in her voice. “I—told you I had a sense of honor, and I have.”
Betty put out her hand impulsively. “I’m glad you changed your mind, Jean. It’s too bad that you can’t have a part, but you wouldn’t want it in any such way.”
“I did though,” said Jean, blinking back the tears. “I knew it would come out in the end,—I counted on that, and I shouldn’t have minded Miss Stuart’s rage or the committee’s horror. But you’re so dreadfully on the square. You make a person feel like a two-penny doll. I don’t wonder that Eleanor Watson has changed about a lot of things. Anybody would have to if they saw much of you.”
Betty’s thoughts flew back to Georgia. “I wish I thought so.”
“Well,” said Jean fiercely, “I do. That’s why I’ve always hated you. I presume I shall hate you worse than ever to-morrow. Meanwhile, will you please tell Barbara? I can’t help what they all think, and I don’t care. I only wanted you to see that I’ve gota little sense of obligation left and that after I’ve let a person apologize—Don’t come any further, please.”
Jean ran swiftly down the steep path leading to the lower level of the back campus and Betty turned obediently toward home, feeling very small and useless and unhappy. Jean’s announcement had been so sudden and so amazing that she didn’t know what she had said in response to it, and she was quite sure that she hadn’t done at all what Jean expected. Then this confirmation of her suspicions about Jean gave her an uneasy feeling about Georgia. That baffling young person was just leaving the gym as Betty got back to it, and the sight of her surrounded by a bevy of her admiring friends reassured Betty wonderfully. Nevertheless she decided to go and see Miss Ferris. There was something she wanted to ask about.
After half an hour spent in Miss Ferris’s cozy sitting-room, she started out to find Barbara, armed with the serene conviction that everything would come out right in the end.
“How do people influence other people?” she had demanded early in her call. “Thereis some one I want to influence, if I could, but I don’t know how to begin.”
“That’s a big question, Betty,” Miss Ferris assured her smilingly. “In general I think the best way to influence people is to be ourselves the things we want them to be—honest and true and kind.”
Betty mused on this advice as she crossed the campus. “That was a good deal what Jean said. I guess I must just attend to my own affairs and wait and let things happen, the way Madeline does. This about Jean just happened.”
She passed Georgia’s door on her way up-stairs. The room was full of girls, listening admiringly to their hostess’s reminiscences of the afternoon. “That sophomore guard was so rattled. She kept saying, ‘I will, I will, I will,’ between her teeth and she was so busy saying it that she forgot to go for the ball. But she didn’t forget to stick her elbow into me between times—not she. I wanted to slug her a little just for fun, but of course I wouldn’t. I perfectly hate people who don’t play fair.”
Betty went on up the stairs smiling happily. She wanted to hug Georgia for that last sentence.
CHAPTER XIVTHE MOONSHINERS’ BACON-ROAST
Jean’s sudden retirement from the cast of “The Merchant of Venice” was the subject of a good deal of excited conjecture during the few days that remained of the winter term. Betty explained it briefly to Barbara, who in turn confided Jean’s story to the rest of her committee. All of them but Clara Ellis thought better of Jean than they ever had before for the courage she had shown in owning herself in the wrong. Teddie Wilson, being in Jean’s French division, remembered her letter from the last year’s girl and made a shrewd guess at the true state of affairs; but realizing just how sorely Jean had been tempted she was generous enough not to ask any questions or tell anybody what she thought. So the Harding world was divided in its opinions, one party asserting that Jean’s acting had proved a disappointment, the other declaring that she had wanted to manage the wholeplay, and finding that she couldn’t had resigned her part in it. Jean herself absolutely refused to discuss the subject, beyond saying that she was tired and had found it necessary to drop something, and she was so sarcastic and ill-tempered that even her best friends began to let her severely alone. Toward Eleanor her manner was as contemptuous as ever, and she kept haughtily aloof from Betty. But one day when two of the Hill girls, gossiping in her room, made some slighting remarks about Betty’s prominence in class affairs, Jean flashed out an indignant protest.
“She’s one of the finest girls in 19—, and if either of you amounted to a third as much, you could be proud of it. No, I don’t like her at all, but I admire her immensely, so please choose somebody else to criticise while you’re in here.”
Meanwhile the winter term had ended, the spring vacation come and gone, and the lovely spring term was at full tide in Harding. If you were a freshman, it made you feel sleepy and happy and utterly regardless of the future terrors of the conditioned state in comparison with the present joys of tennis and canoeingor the languorous fascination of a hammock on the back campus,—where one goes to study and remains to dream. If you were a senior it made a lump come in your throat,—the fleeting loveliness of this last spring term, when all the trials of being a Harding girl are forgotten and all the joys grow dearer than ever, now that they are so nearly past.
“But it’s not going to be any daisy-picking spring-term for 19—,” Bob Parker announced gaily to a group of her friends gathered for an after-luncheon conference on the Westcott piazza. “Isn’t that a nice expression? Miss Raymond used it in class this morning. She wanted to remind us, she said, that the Harding course is four full years long. Then she gave out a written lesson on Jane Austen for Friday.”
“What a bother!” lamented Babbie, who hadn’t elected English novelists. “Now I suppose we can’t have either the Moonshiners’ doings or the ‘Merry Hearts’ meeting on Thursday.”
“Who on earth are the Moonshiners?” asked Katherine Kittredge curiously.
“Learn to ride horseback and you can beone,” explained Babbie. “They’re just a crowd of girls, mostly seniors, who like to ride together in the cool of the evening and make a specialty of moonlight. We’re going to have a bacon-roast the first moonlight night that everybody can come.”
“Which will be the night after never,” declared Madeline Ayres sagely.
“What’s the awful rush about that bacon-roast?” asked Babe. “I should think it would be nicer to wait awhile and have it for a sort of grand end-up to the riding season.”
“Why, there isn’t but one more moon before commencement,” explained Babbie, “and if we wait for that it may be too hot. Who wants to go on a bacon-roast in hot weather?”
“The ‘Merry Hearts’ are going to decide about passing on the society, aren’t they?” asked Rachel. “That’s a very important matter and we ought to get it off our hands before too many other things come up. Girls, do you realize that commencement is only five weeks off?”
“Oh, please don’t begin on that,” begged Babe, who hated sentiment and was desperatelyafraid that somebody would guess how tear-y she felt about leaving Harding. “I’ll tell you how to settle things. Let’s go over all the different afternoons and evenings and see which ones are vacant. Most of the ‘Merry Hearts’ are here and several Moonshiners. We can tell pretty well what the other girls have on for the different days.”
“I’ll keep tab,” volunteered Katherine, “because I belong to only one of these famous organizations. Shall I begin with to-morrow afternoon? Who can’t come then to a ‘Merry Hearts’ meeting?”
“We can’t. Play committee meets,” chanted Rachel and Betty together.
“Mob rehearsal from four to six,” added Bob.
“Helen Adams has to go to a conference with the new board of editors,” put in Madeline. “I heard her talking to Christy about it. It begins early and they’re going to have tea.”
“To-morrow evening—Moonshiners’ engagements please,” said Katherine briskly.
“Class supper committee meets to see about caterers,” cried Babe. “We can’t put it offeither. Last year’s class has engaged Cuyler’s already,—the pills! That committee takes out me and Nita and Alice Waite.”
“Rehearsal of the carnival dance in the play,” added Babbie promptly, “and Jessica, alias me, has to go.”
“Thursday as I understand it is to be devoted to picking, not daisies, but the flowers of Jane Austen’s thought for Miss Raymond.” Katherine looked at Babbie for directions. “Shall I go on to Friday afternoon?”
“Class meeting,” chanted several voices at once.
“It won’t be out a minute before six,” declared Bob. “We’ve got to elect the rest of our commencement performers——”
“Which isn’t very many,” interposed Madeline.
“Well, there’ll be reports from dozens and dozens of committees,” concluded Bob serenely, “and there’ll be quantities of things to discuss. 19— is great on discussions.”
“In the evening,” Betty took her up, “Marie is going to assign the junior ushers to the various functions, and she’s asked most of us to advise her about it, hasn’t she?”
Several girls in the circle nodded.
“Then we come to Saturday,” proclaimed Katherine. “Evening’s out, I know, for Dramatic Club’s open meeting.”
“I’m on the reception committee,” added Betty. “We shall have to trim up the rooms in the afternoon.”
“All the play people have rehearsals Saturday.”
“Saturday seems to be impossible,” said Katherine. “How about Monday afternoon?”
“The Ivy Day committee has a meeting,” announced Rachel in apologetic tones. “But don’t mind me, if the rest can come then.”
“The Prince of Morocco has a special audience granted him by Miss Kingston for Monday at five,” said Madeline. “But don’t mind him.”
“Dear me,” laughed Betty. “I hadn’t any idea we were such busy ladies. Is everybody in 19— on so many committees, do you suppose?”
“Of course not, simple child,” answered Bob. “We’re prominent seniors,—one of the leading crowds in 19—. I heard Nan Whipplecall us to a freshman that she had at dinner last Sunday.”
“And all of us but Madeline work early and late to keep up the position,” added Babbie grandly.
“The Watson lady is an idler too,” put in Madeline, with quick tact, remembering that Eleanor had mentioned no engagements. “We’re content to bask in the reflected glory of our friends, aren’t we, Eleanor?”
Eleanor nodded brightly and Babbie returned to the matter in hand. “We shall never get a date this way,” she declared. “Let’s put all the days of next week after Monday into Bob’s cap. The first one that K. draws out will be the ‘Merry Hearts’ afternoon; and the next the Moonshiners’ evening. Those that can’t come at the appointed times will have to stay at home.”
Everybody agreed to this, and Madeline gallantly sacrificed a leaf from her philosophy note-book to write the days on.
“Friday,” announced Katherine, drawing out a slip, “and Thursday.”
“Those are all right for me,” said Madeline.
“And for me.”
“Same here.”
“And here.”
“We’d much better have drawn lots in the first place,” said Babbie. “Now if it only doesn’t rain on Thursday and spoil the full moon! Tell the others, won’t you, girls? I’m due at the Science Building this very minute.”
It didn’t rain on Thursday. Indeed the evening was an ideal one for a long gallop, with an open-air supper to follow. This was to be cooked and eaten around a big bonfire that would take the chill off the spring air and keep the mosquitoes at a respectful distance. Most of the Moonshiners belonged to the Golf Club, and they had gotten permission to have their fire in a secluded little grove behind the course. Babbie, who had organized the Moonshiners and was their mistress of ceremonies, held many secret conferences with Madeline Ayres and the two spent a long afternoon sewing behind locked doors, on some dark brown stuff, which Babbie subsequently tied into a big, untidy parcel and carried up to Professor Henderson’s. So theMoonshiners expected a “feature” in addition to the familiar delights of a bacon-roast, and they turned out in such numbers that Bob had to ride a fat little carriage horse and Babbie bravely mounted the spirited mare “Lady,” who had frightened her so on Mountain Day. But there was no storm this time to agitate Lady’s nerves, and they kept clear of the river and the ferries; so everything went smoothly and the Moonshiners cantered up to the Club house at half past eight in the highest possible spirits.
They could see the grove as they dismounted and every one but Babbie was surprised to find the fire already lighted. The dishes and provisions had been carried out in big hampers in the afternoon, and the wood gathered, so there was nothing to do now but stroll over to the fire and begin.
“Why, somebody’s there,” cried Betty suddenly. She was walking ahead with Alice Waite. “I can see two people. They’re stooping over the fire. Why, Alice, it’s two dear little brown elves.”
“Just like those on my ink-stand,” cried Alice, excitedly. “How queer!”
Everybody had seen the picturesque little figures by this time, and the figures in their turn had spied the riding-party and had begun to dance merrily in the fire-light. They were dressed in brown from head to foot, with long ears on their brown hoods and long, pointed toes curling up at the ends of their brown shoes. They looked exactly like the little iron figures of brownies that every Harding girl who kept up with the prevailing fads had put on her desk that spring in some useful or ornamental capacity. They danced indefatigably, pausing now and then to heap on fresh wood or to poke the fire into a more effective blaze, and looking, in the weird light, quite fantastic enough to have come out of the little hillside behind the fire, tempted to upper earth by the moonlight and the great pile of dry wood left ready to their hands. For a few minutes after the Moonshiners’ arrival the trolls resolutely refused to speak.
“’Cause now you’ll know we ain’t real magic,” explained Billy Henderson indignantly, when his chum had fallen a victim to Bob’s wiles and disclosed his identity.
The fire was so big and so hot by this timethat it threatened to burn up the whole grove, so the small boys were persuaded to devote their energies to toasting thin slices of bacon, held on the ends of long sticks, and later to help pass the rolls and coffee that went with the bacon, and to brown the marshmallows, which, with delicious little nut-cakes, made up the last course.
The Moonshiners had spent so much time admiring Babbie’s brownies that they had to hurry through the supper and even so it bid fair to be after ten before they reached the campus. Betty, Bob, and Madeline happened to get back to the horses first and were waiting impatiently for the rest to come when Bob made a suggestion.
“Mr. Ware is helping stamp out the fire. Let’s get on and start for home ahead of the others. Then we can let most of them in if they’re late. Our matron will rage if she catches us again this week.”
“All right,” agreed Madeline. “Mr. Ware said he had told a man to be at the Westcott, ready to take some of the horses. Let’s not tell any one. They’ll be so surprised to find three horses gone.”
“We shall have to hurry then,” whispered Betty. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“On second thought,” said Madeline, “I don’t believe I can pick out my own horse. It’s inky dark here under the trees.” Madeline had ridden all her life but she seldom went out at Harding, and so hadn’t a regular mount, like most of the other Moonshiners.
“Of course you can, Madeline,” scoffed Betty. “You rode Hero, that big black beast hitched to the last post, next to my horse. Don’t you remember tying him there?”
Bob backed her sturdy cob out from between two restless companions, and with much laughter and whispering and many injunctions to hurry and to be “awfully still,” the three conspirators mounted and walked their horses quietly down the drive.
“My stirrups seem a lot too long,” Betty whispered softly, as they passed down the avenue, dusky with the shadows of tall elms. “Whoa, Tony! Wait just a minute, girls. Why—oh, Bob, Madeline,—I’ve got the wrong horse. Somebody must have changed them around. This is Lady.”
Whether it was Betty’s nervous clutch on the reins as she made this dire discovery and remembered Lady’s antics on the ferry-boat, or whether the saucy little breeze which chose that moment to stir the elm branches and set the shadows dancing on the white road, was responsible, is a matter of doubt. At any rate Lady jerked back her pretty head impatiently, as if in answer to her name, shivered daintily, reared, and ran. She dodged cat-like, between Bob and Madeline and out through the narrow gateway, turned sharply to the right, away from Harding, and galloped off up the level road that lay white in the moonlight, between the Golf Club and a pine wood half a mile away.
Betty had presence of mind enough to dig her knees into Lady’s sides, and so managed somehow, in spite of her mis-fit stirrups, to stay on at the gate. She tugged hard at the reins as Lady flew along, and murmured soothing words into Lady’s quivering ears. But it wasn’t any use. Betty had wondered sometimes how it felt to be run away with. Now she knew. It felt like a rush of cold wind that made you dizzy and faint. Youthought of all sorts of funny little things that happened to you ages ago. You wondered who would plan Jessica’s costumes if anything happened to you. You wished you weren’t on so many committees; it would bother Marie so to appoint some one in your place. You made a neat little list of those committees in your mind. Then you got to the pine wood, and something did happen, for Lady went on alone.
Madeline, straining her eyes at the gateway, waiting for Bob and Mr. Ware to come, couldn’t see that.
“She was still on the last I could see,” she told them huskily, and Mr. Ware whipped his horse into a run and rushed after Lady.
Madeline looked despairingly at Bob. “Let’s go too,” she said. “I can’t stand it to wait here.”
“All right.”
They rode fast, but it seemed ages before they got to the pines. Mr. Ware was galloping far ahead of them.
“If she’s gone so far she’ll slow up gradually on that long hill,” suggested Bob, trying to speak cheerfully.
“Isn’t it—pretty—stony?” asked Madeline.
“Yes, but after she’d run so far she wouldn’t try to throw Betty.”
“Suppose we wait here. Oh, Bob, what shall we do if she’s badly hurt?”
“She can’t be,” said Bob with a thick sob. “Please come on, Madeline. I’ve got to know if she’s——” Bob paused over the dreadful word.
There was a little rustling noise in the bushes beside the road. “Did Mr. Ware have a dog?” asked Madeline.
“No,” gulped Bob.
“There’s something down there. Who’s there?” called Madeline fearlessly, and then she whistled in case Bob had been mistaken about the dog.
“It’s I—Betty Wales,” answered a shaky little voice, with a reassuring suggestion of mirth in it. “I’m so glad somebody has come. I’m down here in a berry-patch and I can’t get up.”
Madeline was off her horse by this time, pushing through the briars regardless of her new riding habit.
“Where are you hurt, dear?” she asked bending over Betty and speaking very gently. “Do you suppose you could let me lift you up?”
Betty held out her arms, with a merry laugh. “Why, of course I could. I’m not one bit hurt, except scratched. The ferns are just as soft as a feather bed down here, but the thorns up above are dreadful. I can’t seem to pull myself up. I’m a little faint, I guess.”
A minute later she was standing in the road, leaning against Madeline, who felt of her anxiously and asked again and again if it didn’t hurt.
“Hasn’t she broken her collar-bone?” asked Bob, who was holding the horses. “People generally do when they have a bad spill. Are her arms all right?”
“I suppose I didn’t know how to fall in the proper way,” explained Betty, wearily. “I can’t remember how it happened, only all at once I found myself down on those ferns with my face scratched and smarting. If Mr. Ware went by ahead of you I suppose I must have been stunned, for I didn’t see him.”
“He’s probably hunting distractedly for you on the hill,” said Bob, glad to have something definite to do. “I think he’s caught Lady, and I’ll go and tell him that we’ve caught you.”
Just then Professor Henderson’s surrey drove up. It had come for Billy, and Babbie had thoughtfully sent it on to bring back “whoiver’s hurted,” the groom explained. But he made no objection to taking in Betty, though, rather to Billy’s disappointment, she did not come under that category.
“I never saw a broken arm, ner a broken leg, ner a broken anything,” he murmured sleepily. “I thought I’d have a chance now. Say, can I please put my head in your lap?”
“My, but your knees wiggle something awful,” Billy complained a minute later. “Don’t you think they’re cracked, maybe?”
So Madeline put the sleepy elves in front with the driver and got in herself beside Betty. Curled up in Madeline’s strong arms she cried a little and laughed a good deal, never noticing that Madeline was crying, too. For just beyond the berry-patch there was aheap of big stones, which made everything that Bob and Madeline had feared in that dreadful time of suspense seem very reasonable and Betty’s escape from harm little short of a miracle.
It was striking eleven when the riding party and the surrey turned up the campus drive and the B’s noticed with dismay that the Westcott was brilliantly lighted.
“I know what’s happened,” wailed Babe. “Our beloved matron has found us missing and she’s hunting for us under the beds and in all the closets, preparatory to calling in the police. Never mind! we’ve got a good excuse this time.”
But the Westcott was not burning its lights to accommodate the matron. The B’s had not even been missed. Katherine met them in the hall and barely listened to their excited accounts of their evening’s adventure.
“There’s been plenty doing right here, too,” she said.
“What?” demanded the three.
“College thief again, but this time it’s a regular raid. For some reason nearly everybody was away this evening, and the oneswho had anything to lose have lost it—no money, as usual, only jewelry. Fay Ross thinks she saw the thief, but—well, you know how Fay describes people. You’d better go and see what you’ve lost.”
Luckily the thief had neglected the fourth floor this time, so they had lost nothing, but they sat up for an hour longer, consoling their less fortunate friends, and listening to Fay’s account of her meeting with the robber.
“I’m pretty sure I should know her again,” she declared, “and I’m perfectly sure that I’ve seen her before. She isn’t very tall nor very dark. She’s big and she looks stupid and slow, not a bit like a crafty thief, or like a college girl either. She had a silk bag on her arm. I wish I’d asked her what was in it.”
But naturally Fay hadn’t asked, and she probably wouldn’t see the thief soon again. Next morning Emily Lawrence telegraphed her father about her watch with diamonds set in the back, and he sent up two detectives from Boston, who, so everybody supposed, would make short work of finding therobber. They took statements from girls who had lost their valuables during the year and from Fay, prowled about the campus and the town, and finally went back to Boston and presented Emily’s father with a long bill and the enlightening information that the case was a puzzling one and if anything more turned up they would communicate it.
Georgia Ames displayed no unusual interest in the robbery. She happened to tell Betty that she had spent the entire evening of the bacon-roast with Roberta, and Betty, watching her keenly, was almost sure that she knew nothing of the excitement at the Westcott until the B’s came over before chapel to inquire for “the runaway lady” and brought the news of the robbery with them. The “runaway lady” explained that she wasn’t even very lame and should have to go to classes just as usual. Then she hid her face for a minute on Bob’s broad shoulder,—for though she wasn’t lame she had dreamed all night of Lady and stones and briars and broken collar-bones,—and Bob patted her curls and told her that Lady was going to be sold, and that she should have been frightenedto pieces in Betty’s place. After which Betty covered her scratches with a very bewitching white veil and went to chapel, just as if nothing had happened.