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,” shecried, 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 sametime. 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, beginningwith 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’tneed 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 anddrank 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 windowledge; 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 itsplace,” 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 sensitivesubject, 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 studentstook Sunday morning walks at Wellington, and therefore morning was the safest time for the expedition. Judy, reënforced 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 andNance 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. “Youmust 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 bedeserted 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 littlesole?”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.”
THEY SET TO WORK TO DIG A SMALL GRAVE FOR JUDY’S SLIPPER.—Page 129.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 skyDig 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.’”
“‘Under the wide and starry skyDig 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.’”
“‘Under the wide and starry skyDig 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 waythrough 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 readDISAPPOINTMENTas 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.
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 Misérables,” 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 refusedto 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 hardhe 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, “butI 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, withkeen 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 havenoticed 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 andthe 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 talklasts 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 theQuadrangle 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 buryingthe 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.
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 ama penitent. I can’t wear sackcloth and ashes as they do in Oriental countries or flagellate my shoulders with a spiked whip like a mediæval 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 unconsciousas 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 moneyI 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 openthe 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 carefullyin 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 funto 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 aboutMartin 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 itmight 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 missingarticles 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.
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 girlsbelonged 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, inspite 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 Ipack 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 heirloomssome 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. “Shewas 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 cutthe 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.”