Miss Walker had not failed to see the stinging article against women's colleges written by Miss Beatrice Slammer for a newspaper, and when she recalled that Miss Slammer had recently spent a day at Wellington as a guest of the college under plea of gathering material, she felt somewhat embittered. When, therefore, it came to her ears that the students intended to ask Miss Slammer to Wellington ostensibly for the purpose of hearing her views on anti-suffrage, she smiled and said nothing to anybody except Miss Pomeroy, who had raised some objections.
"Don't worry over it, my dear," said Miss Walker, "they won't do anything to make usashamed. It's Miss Slammer who will be ashamed, I rather imagine."
Perhaps Miss Slammer was surprised at receiving an invitation from Wellington University after her lampoon of college girls. Whatever qualms she may have felt in writing it had been hushed to sleep with the insidious thought that the views, if not true, were at least sensational enough to catch the public eye; and this was more important to Miss Slammer than anything else. It flattered her to be asked to speak at this small but distinguished college. Of course they had never seen the article or they would never have sent the invitation. Miss Slammer had her doubts as to whether any person outside New York ever read a newspaper, especially a lot of college girls who had no interests beyond amateur plays and basket ball. So she promptly dispatched a polite note of acceptance to "Miss Julia Kean." Then at the last moment, only a few hours before train time, her courage failed her.
"I can't do it," she said. "I simply haven't the nerve."
"Do what?" asked Jimmy Lufton, glancing up from his typewriter to the somewhat battered and worn countenance of Miss Slammer.
"Face a lot of women and talk to them about anti-suffrage."
Jimmy grinned. He had the face of a mischievous schoolboy. In his eyes there lurked two little imps of adventure while his broad and sunny smile was completely disarming. "Sunny Jim" was the name given him by his friends in the office, a name that still clung to him after five tempestuous years of newspaper work.
"Would you like a substitute?" he asked. "I think I could give some pretty convincing arguments."
"What do you know about it?" demanded Miss Slammer doubtfully.
"Did you read the article that came out last Sunday—'Anti's to the front, by a Wife andMother.' That was me. I thought I gave a pretty fair line of argument."
"Jimmie, you are the limit," exclaimed Miss Slammer. Then she paused and began to think quickly. Suppose Jimmy did go up to Wellington with a letter of introduction from her, and take her place? Well, why not? She was too ill to come, and had sent the well-known young writer on this vital subject. She would be keeping her engagement in a way, and Jimmy would be getting a holiday and perhaps material for another story at the same time. The editor's consent was gained. "See if you can't get something about basket ball," he had ordered, and Jimmy dashed out of the office, the railroad ticket contributed by Wellington in one pocket and Miss Slammer's note in the other.
Miss Slammer's nature was a casual one. Life had been so hard with her that she had long since grown callous under the blows of fate and grimly indifferent to other people's feelings. Somewhereshe had heard that Jimmy Lufton was a born orator. At any rate, she thought he could carry off the adventure and her conscience was easy.
At eight o'clock the next morning when the night train from New York pulled into Wellington station, a crowd of well-dressed young women on the platform gazed at the door of the Pullman car with expectant eyes. Judy Kean in a black velvet suit and a big picture hat headed the delegation. Only two passengers descended from the sleeper: a middle-aged, worn-looking woman in shabby black and a young man whose alert brown eyes took in at once the crowd of college girls and Judy, resplendent in velvet and plumes.
"Miss Slammer?" began Judy, intercepting the woman passenger who was looking up and down the platform, somewhat bewildered.
"No, no, that is not my name. I am looking for Miss Windsor," answered the woman nervously.
"Oh," said Judy, rather surprised. "You will find her at her rooms in the Beta Phi House. Take the 'bus up. It's quite a walk."
The woman bowed and hurried over to the 'bus just as the young man with the alert brown eyes came up, hat in hand. Judy noticed at once that his head was large and rather distinguished in outline and that his close-cropped black hair had a tendency to curl.
"You were looking for Miss Slammer?" he asked, speaking to Judy, whose face, as the train receded, showed mingled feelings of disappointment and anger.
"Oh, yes," she replied, startled somewhat at being addressed by a strange young man.
"She couldn't come, and I came down as a substitute," he went on, handing her the note hastily dashed off by the intrepid Beatrice.
Judy's eyes only half took in the words of the note. She read it silently and passed it on to the rest of the delegation.
"A man!" she thought. "Now, isn't that too much? Everything is ruined. We can't teach Miss Slammer a lesson in politeness through a proxy."
"I hope it's all right," Jimmy began, watching Judy's face with undisguised admiration.
"Oh, yes," she answered hastily. "We are very glad to see you, Mr. Slammer——"
Jimmy broke into his inimitable laugh.
"My name is Lufton," he said, and the mistake seemed so funny that Judy laughed, too, and everybody felt more at ease immediately.
"We were to have had you up to breakfast—I mean Miss Slammer," Judy stammered.
"I'll get something—er somewhere," said Jimmy in a reassuring tone.
"There's an inn in Wellington village," suggested one of the girls.
"Miss Slammer was scheduled to speak at three o'clock this afternoon," began Judy.
"And am I banished to the village all thattime?" Jimmy broke in. "You don't bar men from the grounds, do you? I'd like to look around the place a little."
"No, indeed. This isn't a convent. If you will come up to the Quadrangle after breakfast, we'll be delighted to show you the buildings and the cloisters—whatever would interest you."
"Thanks, awfully," said Jimmy, and presently they watched him stroll off up the road to the village, whistling as gaily as a schoolboy.
There were scores of faces at the windows of the Quadrangle when the special 'bus drew up at the archway.
"She didn't come," Judy called to a group of girls lingering in the tower room. "A man came."
"Young or old?" cried half a dozen voices.
"Young and passing fair," said Jessie.
"Passing dark, you mean. He had black hair."
"But where is old Miss Slammer?" demanded Edith Williams.
"Old Miss Slammer was afraid to face the music, I suppose. Anyway, she sent Mr. James Lufton down to take her place and he is at present breakfasting in the village."
"Somehow, all the sweetness has gone out of revenge!" exclaimed Edith. "I foresee that nobody will be willing to practice the 'freeze-out' on an innocent man, passing fair, if he is a substitute."
"Well, he's coming up this morning to be shown around college. If any one wants to take the job of showing him, I'm willing to resign my place. Anybody who is willing to do the 'freeze-out' act, I mean. I don't think it will be easy. He has a way of laughing that makes other people laugh. You couldn't be mean to him if you tried."
Already, Judy had unconsciously set herself the task of protecting Mr. James Lufton from the fate planned for Miss Slammer.
"Aren't we to listen in cold silence when he makes his speech?" asked a girl.
"Of course," put in Margaret, "you couldn't listen in any other way to a speech against suffrage. I shan't applaud him, I know. If he represents Miss Slammer, like as not he shares her views about college girls, too, and is just as deserving as she is to a polite 'freeze-out.'"
"It was a mad scheme from the first," put in Katherine Williams. "I never did approve of it. I don't imagine such a subtle revenge would have had the slightest effect on Miss Slammer."
"We intend to have our revenge," cried a dozen voices, followers of Margaret.
In the midst of the hot argument that followed this statement, Judy hurried off to Beta Phi House to eat her share of the fine breakfast some of the girls there had undertaken to give to the enemy of women's colleges. She felt that things looked pretty black for Mr. James Lufton. Running upstairs to Adele Windsor's rooms, she knocked on the door impatiently. It was quite two minutes before it was cautiously opened byAdele, whose face looked flushed and there were two white dents at the corners of her mouth.
"I heard she didn't come," Adele began, without waiting for Judy to speak. "Let's go down to breakfast. We're late as it is." She closed the door with a slam and pushed Judy in front of her toward the stairs.
"By the way, did a visitor find you?" asked Judy. "She inquired where you lived at the station."
"Oh, yes. Just a woman—on business. About some clothes," she added carelessly. "Dressmakers are dreadful nuisances sometimes."
Judy said nothing, but it occurred to her that Adele must be a very good customer for a dressmaker to come all the way to Wellington to consult her.
While the Beta Phi girls and their guests were breakfasting in the paneled dining-room, the little woman in shabby black came softly out of Adele's rooms and tiptoed downstairs. Undercover of the noise of laughter and talk she opened the front door and went out. Jimmy Lufton saw her later at the inn in the village where she had coffee and toast and inquired the hour for the next train to New York. Jimmy himself was occupied in jotting down notes on an old envelope.
"If it makes me laugh, I should think it would make them," he chuckled to himself.
Contents
They had seen the cloisters and the library and the Hall of Science and all the show places at Wellington, and now Miss Julia Kean and Mr. James Lufton might be seen strolling across the campus in the direction of the lake.
It was one of those hazy, mid-autumnal days, neither cold nor hot; a blue mist clothed the fields and hung like a canopy between sun and earth.
Judy had changed her best velvet for a walking skirt and a red sweater and Jimmy Lufton glanced at her with admiration from time to time.
"It's a mighty becoming way of dressing you young ladies have here," he said. "Those sweaters and tam o' shanters are prettier to me than the fittest clothes on Fifth Avenue."
"Then you don't agree with Miss Slammer?" asked Judy.
"I probably don't, but, as it happens, I never asked her opinion."
"You don't know what Miss Slammer thinks of college girls, the way they dress and talk?"
Jimmy hesitated. As a matter of fact he had never seen the libelous article by Miss Slammer. He had been absent in a remote village in the mountains writing a murder trial when the article had appeared. Therefore he was not suspicious of Judy's unexpected question.
"I can tell you what I think of college girls," he went on as they neared the edge of the lake. "I think they are the jolliest, most natural, interesting, wholesome, best looking, companionable——"
Judy began to blush. He was looking straight at her as he delivered himself of this stream of adjectives.
"Would you like to canoe a little?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Would I," exclaimed Jimmy, with the sudden boyish expression that made his face so attractive. "I should rather think I would. I haven't had the chance to paddle a canoe since I left college."
It was just the day for canoeing. The surface of the lake was as smooth as glass except where the paddles of other canoeists stirred its placid surface into little ripples and miniature waves.
Judy thought it would be nice, too. She was enjoying herself immensely with this lecturer who looked like a boy without any of a boy's diffidence.
"Do you lecture often?" she asked, when they had settled themselves in the canoe and he was paddling with a skill she recognized as far from being amateur.
"I don't mind making speeches," answered Jimmy. "I made a lot of them the last campaign. 'Cart-tail' speeches they are called, only our cart was an automobile. There were four or five of us who toured the East Side and took turns talking to the crowds."
"I should think you'd be a politician instead of a writer on anti-suffrage," remarked Judy.
Jimmy grinned as he shot the canoe toward the center of the lake.
"Is that what I'm credited as being?" he asked.
"'A well-known writer on the subject,'" quoted Judy.
"If I had read that note over I think I would have been tempted to scratch out the 'well-known,'" he said, "especially as the only article I ever wrote was signed 'A Wife and a Mother.'"
Judy's eyes darkened. Was Miss Slammer to libel them and then send down an impostor to make fun of them? Her impressionable mind was as subject to as many changes as an April day and her recent pleasure in Mr. Lufton's society changed to displeasure as the suspicion clouded her thoughts.
"You had a good deal of courage to come to Wellington, then," she observed after a pause. "At least we think you did after what Miss Slammer wrote about us."
A hunting dog on the scent of quarry was not keener than Jimmy when it came to scenting out news, and it took about five minutes of careful and skillful questioning for Judy to explain the entire situation.
"By Jove, but that was like old 'Bee-trice' to send me down here into a hornet's nest," he thought. "I'll have to get square with them somehow before the lecture or it will never come off. I assure you I didn't know anything about the article," he said aloud to Judy. "I only came to accommodate Miss Slammer. She told me yesterday at the office she was ill."
"Then you aren't a lecturer or a writer?" broke in Judy.
"Miss Slammer and I work on the same paper. Didn't she say that in the letter?"
Judy shook her head.
"I'm afraid you'll think I'm an impostor, Miss Kean, but I had no intention of sailing under false colors. I think I'd better take the next trainback to New York and give up the lecture. It would be better to run away before I'm frozen out, don't you think so?"
Judy was silent for a moment. Her rage against Mr. James Lufton had entirely disappeared and she again had that feeling that she would like to protect him from the wrath to come.
"What is a 'polite freeze-out' exactly?" Jimmy asked.
"Well, while you lecture, you are to look into rows of stony faces and when you finish, there is not to be a word spoken, not a single handclap, nothing but stillness as the girls file out of the hall."
Jimmy laughed.
"A sort of glacial exit, I suppose. It makes me chilly to think of it. Miss Slammer had a lucky escape."
They were paddling now in the very center of the upper lake, but so absorbed were they in their conversation that they had scarcely noticed a canoe in front of them.
Suddenly there came a cry, a splash and then a moment of perfect stillness followed by a confused sound of voices from the shore. The next instant Judy saw in front of them an upturned canoe and two heads just rising above the water.Before she had time to realize the danger, Jimmy Lufton had torn off his coat, flung his hat into the bottom of the canoe and, with a carefully planned leap, had cleared the side of the canoe, sending it spinning over the water, shaking and quivering like a frightened animal. And now Judy beheld him swimming with long strokes toward the place where the two heads had appeared, disappeared and once more reappeared. In that flash of a moment she had recognized the blonde plaits of Margaret Wakefield and the wet curls of Jessie Lynch. As she mechanically paddled toward the struggling figures, she remembered that Jessie could not swim a stroke and that Margaret could only swim under the most favorable circumstances in a shallow tank.
Before she had time to realize the danger, Jimmy Lufton had torn off his coat.—Page132.
"He can't hold them both up at once," thought Judy, with a throb of fear as she frantically beat the water with her paddle in her effort to reach them.
For a moment Jimmy himself was in a quandary. It looked as if he would have to let one girl go to save the other, when he saw one of the canoe paddles floating within reach. He gave it a swift push toward the struggling Margaret.
"Put that under your arms and go slow," he shouted, and made for Jessie. In two strokes he had caught her by her coat collar and was swimming swiftly toward the upturned canoe.
"Even in the water, Jessie's irresistible attraction had prevailed," the girls said afterward when they could discuss this almost tragic event with calmness.
"Hold on tight to the canoe, little girl," he said, and turned toward Margaret, who was all but exhausted now. He caught her just as she was sinking, and held her up until a row boat fromshore reached them. Margaret was pulled in, with much difficulty owing to her large bulk, and at last Jimmy, feeling a trifle weary himself, returned to Jessie and helped her into another boat. She was still sufficiently herself to achieve a smile of thanks to the handsome young man who had saved her life.
It was all over in a flash, and yet it seemed as if the entire college of Wellington could be seen running across the campus to the lakeside.
By the time the half-drowned trio reached land Miss Walker herself was there looking frightened and pale. The girls were to go straight to the Quadrangle, be rubbed down with alcohol and put to bed. As for the brave young man who had saved their lives, he was to be taken to the infirmary where he could be made comfortable while his clothes were being dried.
When Jimmy Lufton, dripping like a sea god, found himself in the center of a group of beautiful young ladies all eager to show him honor asthey hurried him along to the infirmary, he gave a low, amused chuckle.
"I hope I've squared myself with them now," he thought, "and there'll be no polite freeze-out for me and no lecture, either, thank heavens."
While a delegation of three went to the village inn and ordered his suit case sent up to the infirmary, another delegation made him a hot lemonade in the infirmary pantry, and a third went to the flower store in the village and purchased a huge bunch of violets. This was laid on his lunch tray with a card, "From the Senior Class of 19—in grateful recognition of your brave deed."
And so the world goes. He who is down one day is up the next and Jimmy who was to have been the victim of a blighting freeze-out by the Wellington students was now an object of tender attention.
There came to Mr. Lufton that afternoon a note stating that if he were quite recovered—("Meaning my clothes," thought Jimmy)—thestudents of the Quadrangle would be glad to have him dine with them that evening at six-thirty.
"I do feel like a blooming hypocrite," he exclaimed to himself remorsefully. "Here I came down to Wellington at their expense to give them a fake lecture and they are treating me like a king."
But he accepted the invitation, trusting to luck that his clothes would be dry and tipping the infirmary cook to press his trousers and black his shoes.
At half past six, then, Jimmy appeared at the Quadrangle archway. He wore some of the violets in his buttonhole and his keen, dark eyes shone with suppressed humor. A delegation of seniors met him and conducted him back to the dining-hall, where several hundreds of young persons all in their very best stood up to receive him. A seat of honor was given to him at the end of the long table and every girl in the room liked him immensely, not only for his broad jollysmile, but because at the end of dinner he arose and, without the slightest embarrassment, made the most deliciously funny speech ever heard. Then the walls resounded with the college yell, ending with "What's the matter with Mr. Lufton? He's all right. Who's all right? Lufton—Lufton—James Lufton." Never was one unknown and entirely unworthy individual more honored.
Contents
Providence had not gone to such lengths to bring Jimmy Lufton to Wellington and set him in the good graces of the college without some purpose. It was not only that he had been sent in time to save two prominent seniors from drowning, but Jimmy's destiny was henceforth to weave itself like a brightly colored thread in and out of the destinies of some of Wellington's daughters.
Wherever Jimmy went he brought with him gaiety and good will. The sympathy and charm of his nature had made him so many friends that of himself did not know the number. And now he had come down to Wellington and made a host of new ones eager to show him how much Wellington thought of courage.
On Sunday morning Jimmy not only met Dodo Green and Andy McLean, but he was led in and introduced to Professor Green, now sitting up against a back rest. There was an expression of ineffable happiness on the Professor's face because his bed had been moved near the window where he might catch a glimpse of the campus and of an occasional group of students strolling under the trees. Such are the simple pleasures of the convalescent.
Furthermore, Jimmy had met Miss Alice Fern, immaculate in white linen, and now he was carried off to the McLeans' to breakfast where he was to meet Molly Brown.
This was Molly's first glimpse of the famous hero. She had not gone down to dinner the evening before, having remained with Nance to minister to the wants of Margaret and Jessie.
Nance and Judy were at the breakfast, too, and Otoyo Sen, and Lawrence Upton who had come over on the trolley from Exmoor. It was, indeed,a meeting of old friends and the genial doctor gave them a gruff and hearty welcome as they gathered in the drawing-room.
"Gude morning to you," he said, rubbing his hands and beaming on them from under his shaggy eyebrows. "I'm verra glad to see the lads and lassies once more. The wife was only saying last week that in another year they'd be scattered to the four ends of the earth. And is this the young lad who picked up the drowning lassies out of the lake? Shake hands, boy. It was a brave and bonny thing to do."
"Any man would have done it in my place, doctor," said Jimmy, grasping the big hand warmly.
"Not any man, but some would. Andy and Larry, I make no doubt, and that wild buffalo, Dodo."
Dodo didn't mind being called a wild buffalo by the doctor if only he was given the credit of courage at the same time, but Mrs. McLean objected.
"Now, doctor," she said, "you mustn't call yourguests ugly names. You know I won't permit it at all."
"Don't scold him, Mrs. McLean," said Dodo. "I think it's better to be called a wild buffalo than a wild boar."
"A bore is never wild, if that's the kind you mean," answered Mrs. McLean. "That's why they are bores, because they are so tame."
"Mither, mither," put in the doctor, laughing, "how you go on. As if you'd like 'em any way but tame. She's a great talker, Mr. Lufton, as you'll perceive before the morning's half over, but she doesn't mean the half she says, like every other woman under the sun."
Jimmy laughed. How delightful it was to him to be among these gay, simple-hearted people who found a good deal of enjoyment in life without the aid of things he had been accustomed to. Presently he heard Andy McLean's voice saying:
"Miss Brown, Mr. Lufton," and turning quickly, he confronted a tall slender girl withvery blue eyes and red-gold hair. Miss Brown smiled a heavenly smile and gave him her hand.
"I'm glad to meet you," she said. "I've been hearing a great deal about you in the last few hours."
The soft musical quality of her voice stirred Jimmy's soul.
"It's like the harp in the orchestra. When a hand sweeps over the harp strings, you can hear it above all the trumpets and drums, it's so—so ineffably sweet, only there's never enough of it."
All this Jimmy thought as he exchanged Molly's greetings.
"Are you from the South?" he asked later when he found himself beside her at the breakfast table.
"I'm from Kentucky," she answered promptly and proudly.
"So am I," he almost shouted, and then they exchanged new glances of deeper interest and presently were plunged in a conversation about home.
Jimmy forgot that Judy, his sponsor at Wellington, sat at his right hand and Molly was oblivious to Lawrence Upton on her left.
"I suppose you never get any corn bread here?" Jimmy asked.
"Not our kind," replied Molly. "What they have here is made of fine meal with sugar in it."
Jimmy made a wry face.
"Wouldn't you like to have some fried chicken with cream gravy?" he whispered.
"And some candied sweet potatoes and corn pones and pear pickle," Molly broke in.
"And hot biscuits. But what shall we finish off with, Miss Brown?"
"Brandied peaches and ice cream and hickory-nut cake."
Jimmy gave a delighted laugh.
"That's a good old home dessert I used to get at Grandma's," he said. "At least the peaches and the ice cream were. She always had cup-cake with frosted icing."
"Do you ever have kidney hash and waffles Sunday mornings, nowadays?" asked Molly.
"I haven't had any for years, Miss Brown. But at the restaurant where I get breakfast I do get 'batty' cakes and molasses."
"'Batty' cakes," repeated Molly. "How funny that is. Do you know I've always said that, too, just because I learned to say it that way as a child. And hook and 'laddy' wagon. I can't seem to break myself of the habit."
"Don't try," said Jimmy. "I'd rather hear the good old talk than Bernhardt speaking French."
And so from food they came to discuss pronunciation, as most Southerners do sooner or later, and from that subject they drifted into mutual friendships and thence naturally into newspaper work.
"I'm a sub-editor," announced Molly proudly, and she told him about theCommuneand her work. "Perhaps you'd like to see our office after a while?" she said.
"I'd be only too glad," said Jimmy, delighted to be able to prolong his tête-à-tête with this gracefully angular young woman with blue eyes and red hair, who spoke with the "tongue of angels" and had the same yearnings he did for corn-bread and fried chicken with cream gravy.
And all this time something strange was taking place in Judy's mind that she could not understand. At first she thought she was catching the grippe. She felt cold and then hot and finally unreasonably irritated against everybody except Molly. At least, she put it that way to herself.
"She never looked more charming," thought Judy to herself.
Molly in her faded blue corduroy skirt and blue silk blouse was a picture to charm the eye. Judy herself looked unusually lovely in her pretty gray serge piped in scarlet with Irish lace collar and cuffs. There were glints of gold in her fluffy hair and her eyes shone with unusual brightness. But Mrs. McLean's good food tasted as sawduston her palate and the conversation of the eager Dodo sounded trite and stupid to her. Once she had said a word or two to Jimmy Lufton and he had turned and answered her politely and agreeably, but as soon as he decently could he was back with Molly again deep in bluegrass reminiscences.
There were other people who were disgruntled that morning at Mrs. McLean's breakfast. Not Nance and Andy, who seemed well pleased with themselves and the bright fall day; not the doctor nor the doctor's wife beaming at her guests behind the silver tea urn, but Otoyo was strangely silent and averted her face from Molly's if by chance their glances met; looked carefully over Nance's head and avoided Judy's gaze as much as possible. Lawrence Upton, too, had little to say, except to Dr. McLean at his end of the table.
So it was that half the guests thought the breakfast had been a great success and the other half put it down as stupid and dull.
"Would anybody like to go over to theCommuneoffice with us?" Molly vouchsafed some three-quarters of an hour later when the company was breaking up. "I am going to show Mr. Lufton our offices."
But nobody seemed anxious to accept.
"You'll come, won't you, Judy?" Molly asked.
No, Judy had other things to do apparently.
"Won't you come, Otoyo, dear?" asked Molly, slipping her arm around the little Japanese's waist and giving it a squeeze.
"It is not possible. I am exceedingly sorrowful," answered Otoyo a little stiffly and drew away from Molly's embrace.
"Aren't you well, little one?" asked Molly. "Is anything the matter?"
"Oh, exceedingly, quite well, but I cannot go to-day, Mees Brown," Otoyo answered, trying to infuse a little warmth into her tone.
So it ended by Molly's going off alone with the young man from New York to theCommuneoffice, where she showed him their files and the proofs sent up by the printer in the village, which had to be corrected; then she introduced him into the little alcove office where Edith was wont to write her famous editorials.
"How would you like to write an article for my paper, Miss Brown?" Jimmy asked suddenly. "We run a page of college news, you know."
He had no idea that Molly could write or that the paper would take anything from her if she did. He had merely talked at random and was a little taken back when Molly clasped her hands joyously and cried:
"Oh, and would they pay me?"
"Of course," he answered, hoping devoutly in his heart they would. "I'll tell you what you do. This is the Jubilee Year at Wellington, isn't it?"
"Yes; it's been officially announced at last."
"Well, you could use that as a starter, with a little of the history of Wellington and the bigfestival you're going to have, and then you could go on and give some talk about the girls,—what you do and all that. There could be pictures of the cloisters and the library, perhaps."
"What a wonderful chance to answer Miss Slammer's article," Molly thought. "It's just what we would have wanted and never dreamed of getting. It's so kind of you," she said aloud. "I would be proud to do it for nothing if the paper doesn't want to pay——"
"Oh, it'll pay you all right if it takes the story. You may get anywhere from ten to thirty-five dollars for it."
"Why, that's enough to buy a dress," she exclaimed involuntarily, and Jimmy decided in his heart that he would sell that article if he had to wear the soles off his boots walking up and down Park Row.
"I suppose you'd like it simple," said Molly.
Jimmy laughed.
"Well, we don't like anything flowery," he said,"but you write it the way you like and I'll change it if necessary. Just tell about things as if you were writing a letter home."
"There it is again," thought Molly. "First the Professor and now Mr. Lufton."
They finished the morning with a walk and Jimmy Lufton entertained Molly with a hundred stories about his life in New York, and then he listened to her while she talked about college and home and her hopes.
At last they parted at the Quadrangle gates, where Andy McLean was waiting to take Jimmy home with him to dinner, and Molly saw him no more, since he was to catch the three-thirty train back to New York; but she had his address carefully written on a scrap of paper and already the opening paragraph of the newspaper article was beginning to shape itself in her mind. She saw nothing of Judy until bedtime. Judy had been with her friend, Adele, she said. But when the two friends parted that night Judy flung her armsaround Molly's neck and kissed her so tenderly that Molly could not help feeling a bit surprised, since only a few hours before Judy had seemed cold somehow.
A few days after Jimmy Lufton had returned to New York he received six letters from the following persons: Margaret Wakefield, Senator and Mrs. Wakefield, Jessie Lynch, and Colonel and Mrs. Lynch. Any time James Lufton tired of his job he could get another from Senator Wakefield or Colonel Lynch. That was stated plainly in the letters of the two fathers.
"And all because of an anti-suffrage speech that was never made," thought Jimmy.
Contents
It is not often that rivals for the same office are champions for each other, and yet that is what happened when the seniors elected their permanent president toward the end of October. It followed that Molly, as the most popular girl in the junior class, would be elected president the next year.
"Of course you'll get it," Nance assured her as the time approached.
"It's a great honor," replied Molly, "but, oh, Nance, I'm such a diffident, shy person with a shrinking nature——"
"You mean," interrupted Nance, "that Margaret wants it so badly, you can't bear to deprive her of it."
"No, that isn't it. It's not sentiment, really, but I can't make speeches and I haven't got the organizing nature."
Nance shook her head.
"You ought not to throw away gifts from the gods. It's as bad as hiding your light under a bushel."
Nevertheless, Molly was sure she did not want the place and she hoped Margaret would get it. As for Margaret, the spirit of a politician and the spirit of a loyal friend were struggling for mastery within her soul. The girls knew by this time what sort of presidentshecould make. They were well acquainted with her powers of oratory and organization. Nobody understood as well as she did the ins and outs of parliamentary law; how to appoint committees and chairmen and count yeas and nays; in other words, how to swing the class along in proper form. They knew all this, but hitherto it had been necessary to call it to their minds each year, when by thesheer force of oratory, Margaret won the election.
But, as luck would have it, on the day set for the election Margaret, who had taken a deep cold from her upsetting in the lake, was too hoarse to say a word. It would have moved a heart of stone to see her, sitting in the president's chair sucking a lemon, as she called the class to order in a husky tone of voice that had not the faintest resemblance to the organ she had used with such force for three years.
There were only two nominations for the office of president, and it was difficult to judge toward which of the nominees the sentiment of the class leaned. Nance had nominated Molly, who had tried to drag her friend back on the bench.
"Don't you see they might think I had put you up to it?" Molly had exclaimed.
"They never would think that about you, Molly," whispered Nance, and promptly had announced her candidate and the nomination wasimmediately seconded. Then Molly shot up blushingly and nominated Margaret Wakefield, almost taking the words out of Jessie's mouth. Margaret smiled at her rather shamefacedly, knowing full well that she would not have nominated Molly for that coveted office.
Other nominations followed. Edith Williams and her sister were rival candidates for the office of vice president, and Caroline Brinton and Nance were put up for secretary.
"Has anybody anything to say?" asked Margaret, still sucking the lemon frantically as a last effort to clear her fogbound voice.
Molly stood up.
"I think I'd like to speak a few words, Madam President," she said. Then, blushing deeply and trembling in her knees she turned toward the familiar faces of her classmates and began:
"I'm not much of a speechmaker, girls, and I don't know that I ever really addressed you before, but I feel I must say something in favor ofmy candidate, Miss Margaret Wakefield, who has made us such an excellent president for three years."
There were sounds of hand-clapping and calls of "Hear! Hear!"
Molly paused and cleared her throat. She did wish they wouldn't interrupt until she had finished.
"I think we ought to remember, girls, that when we elect a president for this last year, we are choosing some one to represent us for always; at class reunions and alumnæ meetings and all kinds of things. When there is a distinguished visitor, it's always the senior president who has to step up and do the talking. The kind of president we want is some one with presence and dignity. We want a handsome president who dresses in good taste and can talk. Girls,"—Molly raised her hand as if calling upon heaven to strengthen the force of her arguments,—"we don't want a thin, lank president withoutany shape" (sounds of tumultuous laughter and the beginning of applause)—"one of those formless, backboneless people who can't talk and who dress in—well, ragtags. I tell you, girls, Margaret is the president for us. She's been a mighty fine president for three years and I don't think we ought to try experiments on a new one at this stage in the game."
Then there came wild applause and Margaret presently arose and raised her hand for silence after the manner of the true speechmaker. She was much moved by what Molly had said. It was more than she herself would have been capable of doing, but she intended to speak now if it cracked her voice till doomsday.
"I can't talk much, girls, on account of hoarseness, but I do want to say that nobody could represent this class better than Molly Brown, the most beloved girl not only of the senior class, but of all Wellington. I hope you will cast your votes for her, girls, and I'm proud to write down her name as my choice for president."
"Three cheers for Molly and Margaret," cried Judy, always the leader of the mobs.
Edith, funny and diffident, now rose and addressed the class. She said she sincerely hoped the class was not looking for handsome, plump vice-presidents, since the two candidates for that office were neither the one nor the other; but that if they placed any confidence in a "rag and a bone and a hank of hair," she felt sure she could fill the bill just as well as the opposing candidate.
Then Katherine shot up and said she could prove that she weighed a pound more than her sister, and instead of putting her allowance into books that autumn, she had laid in a stock of clothes.
It was all very funny and good natured: the most friendly close election that had ever taken place, some one said, and when the votes were counted it was found that Margaret had won by one vote and Katherine by two in excess of the other candidates. Edith and Molly locked armsand rushed over to congratulate the successful opponents.
"You won it for me, Molly," announced Margaret in a voice husky as much from emotion as cold. "I doubt if I should have got half a dozen votes if it hadn't been for your speech and I shall never forget it. It was what father calls 'a nice thing.'"
"You are the president for me, Margaret," Molly laughed. "I can't see myself in that chair, not in a thousand years. I should be all wobbly like a puppet on a throne and I'd probably slide under the table from fright at the first class meeting."
"You would have adorned it far better than I would, Molly, and popularity will outweigh speechmaking any day; not but what you didn't make a fine speech."
But neither Edith nor Molly felt any regrets over the election. They had all they could do to attend to theCommune, go to society meetings and keep up their studies.
That very day, too, there came a letter for Molly that added to her labors. Judy brought it up from the office below. She looked at her friend curiously, as Molly glanced at the address written in a rather large, scrawly masculine hand. In a corner of the envelope was printed the name of a New York newspaper.
"Corresponding already?" Judy asked. "You lose no time, Molly, darling."
Molly was so much occupied in tearing open the envelope that she did not notice the strained tone in Judy's voice.
"I'm so excited," she exclaimed, drawing out the letter. "This will decide my fate."
"Are you ready, Judy?" called Adele Windsor, opening the door and walking in, in her usual unceremonious fashion. Her quick glance took in the envelope Molly had flung on the table in her haste to read the note. "Oh, these southern girls," she remarked, raising her eyebrows and blinking at Judy.
Molly looked up quickly. It was certainly no affair of Adele's and still she felt like making an explanation.
"This is a business letter," she said quickly, the blood rushing into her face.
"Do business letters make one blush?" Adele said teasingly.
Molly could not tell why Adele irritated her so profoundly. She was ashamed afterward of what she called her unreasonable behavior. Certainly she did not appear very well in the passage of arms that now followed.
"It's none of your business at any rate," she exclaimed hotly, "and I'm not blushing."
After this outburst, she turned and walked into her room. Her face was crimson and she knew she would have wept if she had stayed another minute, and so have been further disgraced.
"Really, Molly, don't you think you are rather hard on poor Adele?" she heard Judy's voice saying. But not a word of apology would she maketo Adele Windsor, whose high nasal tones now came to her through the half closed door.
"Never mind, I don't care, Judy. She can't help it. Didn't you ever hear about the temper that goes with red heads?"
Molly paid for her outburst of temper by having a headache all the afternoon and an achey lump in her chest—indigestion, no doubt.
She stretched herself on her little bed, her haven of refuge in time of trouble and the safe confidante unto whose soft bosom she poured her secrets and hopes. At last, calmed and remorseful for her hasty tongue, she opened the note again and reread it: