Dear Miss Brown:"I have hypnotized the editor into accepting that article of yours; only you must hurry up with it. It will run probably for two and a half columns on the College Notes page and we can use three pictures. Just tell whatever you want about the college and the girls and what they do, starting off with the Jubilee, as I suggested. Send it to me here by Friday and I will appreciateit. Thank you for the wonderful time you gave me at Wellington."Sincerely your friend,"James Lufton."
Dear Miss Brown:
"I have hypnotized the editor into accepting that article of yours; only you must hurry up with it. It will run probably for two and a half columns on the College Notes page and we can use three pictures. Just tell whatever you want about the college and the girls and what they do, starting off with the Jubilee, as I suggested. Send it to me here by Friday and I will appreciateit. Thank you for the wonderful time you gave me at Wellington.
"Sincerely your friend,"James Lufton."
Late that afternoon Molly rushed over to theCommuneoffice, and, seizing a pencil and paper, began to write. At the top of the page she wrote, "Dearest Mother"—"just to make myself think it's a letter," she thought. But the words worked like a magic talisman, for the pencil traveled busily and by suppertime she had almost finished.
On the way back from the village next morning, where she had been to buy the photographs, she stopped at the Beta Phi House and left a note on the hall table for Miss Windsor.
"I am sorry I was rude to you. I suppose red-headed people have got high tempers and henceforth I shall try to curb mine."
Contents
Molly was very proud of her first newspaper article and exultant at being able to answer the unjust libels of Miss Slammer. She could scarcely wait to tell Nance and Judy about it, but decided to drop in at the infirmary and relate her triumph to the Professor if it was possible to see him. Alice Fern was on guard that morning, however, and the Swiss Guards at the Vatican could not have been more formidable.
"I'm sure the Pope of Rome doesn't live a more secluded life," thought Molly as she departed.
Glancing at the tower clock, Molly saw that she still had three quarters of an hour before the lecture on early Victorian Poets by the Professor of English Literature from Exmoor, who came overseveral times a week to substitute for Professor Green.
"I think I'll run in and see Otoyo a few minutes," Molly said to herself. "The girls can wait. There's been something queer about Otoyo lately. She keeps to herself like a little sick animal. I can't make her out at all."
There was no response to Molly's knock on Otoyo's door a few minutes later, and, after a pause, she opened the door and peeped in.
The blinds had been drawn, an unwonted thing with the little Japanese, who usually let the sunlight flood her room through unshaded windows. But a shaft of light from the open door disclosed her seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a beautiful screen showing Fujiyama, the sacred Japanese mountain. At the foot of the screen she had placed two statues, one of Saint Anthony of Padua and one of Saint Francis of Assisi, presents from Mr. and Mrs. Murphy on two successive Christmases. And still another gravenimage caught Molly's eye as she tiptoed into the room: a small figure of Buddha seated cross-legged. He was placed at a little distance from the two saints and his antique, blurred countenance contrasted strangely with the delicately molded and tinted faces of the new statues.
If Molly had come unannounced upon Nance on her knees or Judy at her devotions, she would have beat a hasty retreat, but it came to her that Otoyo, sitting there cross-legged before the images of strange gods, needed help of some sort.
"You aren't angry with me for coming in, Otoyo?" she began. "I knocked and you didn't hear. I'm afraid something is the matter. Won't you let me help you? I have not forgotten how you helped me once when I was unhappy. Don't you remember how you let me sit in your room and think over my troubles that Sunday afternoon at Queen's?"
Otoyo rose quickly, flushing a little under her dark skin. She seemed very foreign to Molly atthat moment, in her beautiful embroidered kimono of black and gold. Also she seemed very formal in her manner and distant, like an exiled princess who still clings to the dignity of her former position.
First she made a low Japanese bow, quite different from the little smiling nods she had learned to give her friends at Wellington.
"I feel much honored, Mees Brown. Will you be seated and I will bring refreshments."
"Why, Otoyo," exclaimed Molly, filled with wonder at this new phase in her friend, "I don't want any refreshments. I thought I'd drop in for half an hour before English V. and find out what has happened to you. You never come to see me any more," she added reproachfully. "You haven't been since that Sunday afternoon with your father, and you always have a 'Busy' sign on your door. Are you really so busy or are you trying to avoid us?"
Otoyo drew up her one chair she used for visitors and sat down again on the floor.
"I have been much engaged," she said, avoiding Molly's eye. Molly noticed that her English was perfect. She spoke with great precision and avoided adverbial mistakes with painful care.
She had had a great deal to think about lately, Otoyo continued, and she was reading a book of Charles Dickens, the English novelist. It was very difficult.
With an impetuous gesture, Molly rose and pushed the chair out of the way. Then she sat flat on the floor beside Otoyo, and took one of the little plump brown hands in hers.
"Otoyo, you're unhappy. Something has happened and you're praying to Catholic saints and Fuji and Buddha all at once. Isn't it so?"
"The saints are very honorable gentlemen," answered Otoyo quickly. "Mrs. Murphy has told me many things of their goodness. And Fuji is the mountain that brings comfort to all Japanese people. Holy men dwell on Fuji and pilgrims climb to the summit each year to worship.And Buddha, he is a great god," she added. "He is kind to lonely little Japanese girl."
As she neared the end of her speech her voice was as faint and thin as a sick child's, but she steadily repressed all emotion, for no well-bred Japanese lady is ever seen to weep.
"Otoyo, my dear, my dear, what can have happened?" cried Molly, turning the averted face toward her so that she might look into the almond-shaped eyes. "I can't bear to see you so miserable. It makes me unhappy, too. Don't you know that you are one of the dearest friends I have in the world and that we all love you?"
"It is not easy to believe that is true," said Otoyo, looking at her with an expression of mingled reproach and incredulity. "I cannot believe it is so, Mees Brown."
A look of utter amazement came into Molly's face. It had never entered her head that Otoyo was angry with her.
"What is that? Say it again, Otoyo. I can't believe my own ears."
"I say it is not easy to believe that is true," said Otoyo, repeating her words with the precision of a Japanese.
Molly rose to her feet, and grasping Otoyo's hands pulled her up.
"I can't talk sitting on the floor, Otoyo. Come over here and sit on the bed where I can look at you. Now, tell me exactly what you meant by that speech."
The two girls now sat face to face on the bed and there was a look of sternness in Molly's eyes that Otoyo had never seen there before. Otoyo's eyes dropped before her gaze and she began plucking at the Japanese crepe of her kimono.
"You must speak, Otoyo," Molly insisted.
There was a long silence and then Otoyo looked up again.
"It was my father, my honorable good father. I am too humble to care. But my noble father!"
She rose quickly and walked across to the window. If there were tears in her eyes Molly shouldnot see them. Having drawn the blind, she drew a deep breath and came back to the bed. But Molly was doing some rapid thinking during that brief interval. Some one had been telling Otoyo that they had made game of her father—and that some one——
But Molly was too angry to think coherently.
"Otoyo," she began, "you know how much all the Queen's girls think of you. You are really our property, child. If any of us felt that we had hurt or grieved you, we would really never forgive ourselves."
"But my father, he was mock-ed. Of me it was of not much matter."
"Child, what we did was in innocent fun. It was only that we repeated his funny English, even funnier than yours, and we have often teased you about your adverbs, haven't we?"
"Yes," admitted Otoyo, "but this was made to be so cruel. It cut me——" she choked.
"Who repeated it to you, Otoyo?" asked Mollywith sudden calmness, afraid to give rein to her indignation for fear of doing rash things. "People who tell things like that are quite capable of inventing them or at least making them much worse."
"I have given my word not to speak the name," answered Otoyo.
It was almost time for the lecture now and Molly slipped down on her knees beside the bed and put her arms around Otoyo's waist.
"Dear little Otoyo, before I go, I want you to tell me that you have forgiven us. None of us meant to be cruel or unkind. We are too fond of you for that. I shall tell all the other girls what has happened and to-night they will come in and make you an apology themselves. We will all come. As for the girl who made the trouble, she is a wicked mischief maker and I wish she had never come to Wellington. And now, will you say 'Molly, I forgive you?'"
"I do, I do," cried Otoyo, her face transformedwith happiness. "I should not have listened to her ugly speeches, but it was the way she did it. She told me my father had been mock-ed and ridiculed. I was veree unhappee."
"Never, never let her get her clutches on you again," said Molly, opening the door.
"Never, never, never," repeated the Japanese girl.
It was a real reconciliation surprise party that took place in Otoyo's room that evening. All the Queen's girls were there except Judy, who had been absent for a whole day, having cut two lectures and taken supper with Adele Windsor at Beta Phi House. It had been agreed among them that Adele should never be welcomed in their circle again; for they were morally certain that it was Adele who had done the mischief, although Otoyo loyally kept her word not to tell the name.
Otoyo, bewildered and happy over this avalanche of company, toddled about the room in her soft house slippers looking for refreshments.From strange foreign looking packing boxes in the closet she produced tin cases of candied ginger and pineapple, boxes of rice cakes, nuts and American chocolate creams which Otoyo liked better than the daintiest American dish that could be devised.
Every guest had brought Otoyo a gift of flowers. They made her sit in the armchair while they circled around her, singing:
"Old friends are the best friends,The friends that are tried and true."
"Old friends are the best friends,The friends that are tried and true."
"Old friends are the best friends,The friends that are tried and true."
Then they made her dress up in her finest kimono and sit cross-legged at the foot of the bed while one by one they filed before her and each made an humble apology.
"Oh, it is too much," Otoyo cried. "I implore you forgeeveme. It was madlee of me to listen to so much weekedness. Humble little Japanese girl is bad to entertain such meanly thoughts."
At last when all the rites and ceremonies wereover and they had settled down to refreshments in good earnest, Edith began the tale of "The Fall of the House of Usher," which she recited in thrilling fashion. The girls always huddled together in a frightened group at this performance. At the most dramatic moment, as if it had been timed purposely, the door was flung open and a tall lady in black stood on the threshold. She hesitated a moment and then sailed in, her black chiffon draperies floating about her like a dark cloud. Then she flung a lace mantilla from her head and stood before them revealed as Judy, in a black wig apparently.
"Judy Kean, what have you been up to?" asked Nance suspiciously.
"Where did you get your black wig?" demanded Molly.
"Don't you think it becoming?" asked Judy. "Don't you think it enhances the whiteness of my skin and the brightness of my eye?"
"All very well for a fancy dress party, but you don't look yourself, Judy. Do take it off."
"Now, don't say that," answered Judy, "because I can't take it off without cutting it. I've changed the color. That's where I've been all day. It's awfully exciting. You've no idea how many things you have to do to change your hair dark. Of course, it's perfectly ladylike to make it dark. It's only bad form to dye it light."
"Judy, you haven't?" they cried.
"I certainly have," she answered carelessly, and she proceeded to take out all the hair pins from her fluffy thick hair and let it down. "It's raven black."
It was, in fact, an unnatural blue-black, something the color of shoe blacking.
"Oh, Judy, Judy, what will you do next?" cried Molly in real distress.
"What will that girl make her do next?" put in Nance, in a disgusted tone.
"Now, Nance, I knew you'd say just that, but it's not true. I did it of my own free will. I always loved black and I've wanted black hair all my life."
"What will Miss Walker say?" asked some one.
"She probably won't know anything about it. I doubt if she remembers the original color of my hair, anyhow. I'm sorry you don't think it's becoming to me. Adele thought it suited me perfectly. Much better than the original mousy-brown shade."
"I recognize Adele's fine touch in that expression, 'mousy-brown,'" put in Edith.
"Did Adele do anything to change her appearance?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, no, she is just right as she is. Her hair is a perfect shade, 'Titian Brown,' it's called. But, girls, I must tell you about the marvelous face cream, 'Cucumber Velvet'; it bleaches and heals at the same time."
"Oh, go to," cried Katherine. "Judy, you are so benighted, I don't know what's coming to you. Don't you know that Adele Windsor made Otoyo, here——"
"No, no," broke in Otoyo. "I have never told the name. I gave my honorable promise not to. I beg you not to mention it."
"What's all this?" Judy began when the ten o'clock bell boomed and the girls scattered to their various rooms.
That night, undressing in the dark, Nance and Molly explained to Judy what had happened.
"But are you sure she did it?" Judy demanded. "Otoyo never said so, did she?"
"No, but we are sure, anyway."
"I don't believe it," exclaimed Judy hotly. "Adele is the soul of honor. I shall never believe it unless Otoyo really tells the name."
And so Judy went off to bed entirely unreasonable about this new and fascinating friend.
"All I can say for you, Judy," said Molly, standing in Judy's bedroom doorway, "is that I hate your black hair, but do you remember that old poem we used to sing as children? I'm sure you must have known it. Most children have."
Then Molly recited in her musical clear voice:
"'I once had a sweet little doll, dears,The prettiest doll in the world,Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,And her hair was so charmingly curled.But I lost my poor little doll, dears,As I played on the heath one day;And I cried for her more than a week, dears,But I never could find where she lay."'I found my poor little doll, dears,As I played in the heath one day:Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,For her paint is all washed away,And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,And her hair not the least bit curled:Yet for old sake's sake, she is still, dears,The prettiest doll in the world.'"
"'I once had a sweet little doll, dears,The prettiest doll in the world,Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,And her hair was so charmingly curled.But I lost my poor little doll, dears,As I played on the heath one day;And I cried for her more than a week, dears,But I never could find where she lay."'I found my poor little doll, dears,As I played in the heath one day:Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,For her paint is all washed away,And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,And her hair not the least bit curled:Yet for old sake's sake, she is still, dears,The prettiest doll in the world.'"
"'I once had a sweet little doll, dears,The prettiest doll in the world,Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears,And her hair was so charmingly curled.But I lost my poor little doll, dears,As I played on the heath one day;And I cried for her more than a week, dears,But I never could find where she lay.
"'I found my poor little doll, dears,As I played in the heath one day:Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,For her paint is all washed away,And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears,And her hair not the least bit curled:Yet for old sake's sake, she is still, dears,The prettiest doll in the world.'"
"Humph!" said Judy. "Is that the way you feel about it?"
"Yes."
"Thanks, awfully," and with a defiant fling of the covers, Judy turned her face to the wall.
Contents
When Judy Kean appeared at Chapel next morning she seemed serenely unconscious of the sensation she was creating. Her usual black dress and widow's bands had always made her conspicuous and those who only knew her by sight, yet carried with them a vivid impression of her face: the large gray eyes swimming with visions, the oval creamy face, the mouth rather large, the lips a little too full, perhaps, and framing all this, her fluffy bright hair.
The Quadrangle dining-room had already buzzed with the news of Judy's reckless act, and now, as the seniors marched two by two up the aisle after the faculty, a ripple of laughter swept over the chapel. Necks were craned all over theroom to see Judy's mop of blue-black hair arranged in a loose knot on the back of her neck, drawn well down over the forehead in a heavy dark mantle, carefully concealing the ears.
But Miss Walker was not pleased with the liberties Judy had taken with her appearance. She had heard the ripple of laughter, stifled almost as soon as it had commenced, and having reached her chair and faced the audience while the procession was still on its way up the aisle she noticed the amused glances directed toward Judy's head. It took only a second glance to assure herself of what Judy had done and she frowned and compressed her lips. When the service was over, she made a little impromptu address to the students. College, she said, was a place for serious work and not for frivolity. Of course there were no objections to innocent fun, but absurdities would not be tolerated. All the time she was speaking she was looking straight at Judy, who, with chin resting on her hand andeyelids drooped, apparently read a hymn book. That afternoon Miss Julia Kean received a summons to appear at Miss Walker's office immediately. From this interview Judy emerged in a stubborn, angry humor. Miss Walker was a wise woman in her generation, but she had never had a girl of Judy's temperament to deal with before. Judy's rather contemptuous indifference had inflamed the President into saying some rather harsh things.
If one girl dyed her hair a great many others might. Such things often struck a college in waves and she was not going to tolerate it.
Therefore, Judy, unreasonably angry, as she always was under reproof, had no word to say to her anxious friends awaiting her at No. 5, Quadrangle.
"Was it very bad, Judy, dear?" Nance asked, when Judy walked into the room, white and silent.
"It was worse than that," replied Judy in a steady even voice. "If she had given me twentylashes on my bare shoulders I should have liked it better. What business is it of hers what color I turn my hair? This is not a boarding school. I detest her!" Whereupon, she slammed her door and the girls did not see her again for several hours.
When she did finally emerge, she was calm and smiling, but the girls felt instinctively that her dangerous mood had not passed, only deepened, and Molly felt she would give a great deal to win her friend away from the malign influence of Adele Windsor.
It seemed to her sometimes that Judy was cherishing a secret grievance against her as well as against Miss Walker. But Molly had little time for brooding over such things in the daytime and at night sleep overtook her as soon as her tired head dropped on the pillow.
A great many things were in the air at Wellington just now. A prize had been offered for the best suggestion for a jubilee entertainment.It was only ten dollars, but every girl in college competed except Judy. One morning Adele Windsor's name was posted on the bulletin board as winner of the prize, and not long afterward they learned that it was Judy's scheme, unfolded on the opening night of college, that Adele had appropriated, no doubt with Judy's full consent.
Molly's exchange of brief notes with Jimmy Lufton had ripened into a correspondence, and she was prepared therefore for the enormous package containing at least a dozen Sunday newspapers that came to her one morning—also a check for fifteen dollars. With eager fingers she tore wrappers from the papers, and began to search through multitudinous columns for her article about Wellington.
At last, with Nance's and Judy's help, she found it, not tucked away in a corner as she had half expected, but spread out over the page. It is true the pictures were rather blurred, but there were the columns of writing, all hers, so she fondly believed,so skillfully had Mr. Lufton wrought the changes he had been obliged to make.
The article was signed "M. W. C. B." and a framed copy of it hangs to this day on the crowded walls of theCommuneoffice. There was not much doubt who "M. W. C. B." was and Molly was deluged with calls and congratulations all day. It was glorious to have been the means of refuting Miss Beatrice Slammer's criticisms, and she could not help feeling very proud as she hurried down the avenue to the infirmary, one of the papers tucked under her arm, devoutly hoping that Alice Fern had gone home by now. It was reported that the Professor was walking about and in a few days was to go to Bermuda to stay until after the Christmas holidays. The Professor himself, and not Miss Fern, opened the door for Molly before Miss Grace Green, reading aloud by the window, could remonstrate with him. He was a mere ghost of his former self, pale, emaciated. His clothes seemed threesizes too big for his wasted frame and he had grown quite bald around the temples. Molly thought him very old that afternoon.
"I've brought something to show you," she said, after she had shaken hands with the brother and sister and the three had drawn up their chairs by the window. Then Miss Grace Green read the article aloud and Molly explained that it was Mr. Lufton, to whom they were already so deeply indebted, who had arranged to get it published.
"I took him over to theCommuneoffice," said Molly, "and that started it."
Miss Green smiled and the Professor shifted uneasily in his chair. Presently Miss Green rose.
"It's time for your buttermilk, Edwin, and you and I shall have some tea, Miss Molly," she added as she slipped out of the room.
"Tell me a little about yourself, Miss Molly," observed the Professor, when they were left alone. "Did you have a pleasant summer and how is the old orchard?"
"Oh, the orchard was most shamefully neglected," replied Molly. "Simply a mass of weeds and the apples left rotting on the ground all this fall, so mother writes. William, our colored man, cut down the worst of the weeds with a scythe last summer and I kept the ground cleared where the hammock hangs. It's been such a rainy summer, I suppose that's why things grew so rank, but I'm sorry the old gentleman is neglecting his property after making such a noble start."
The Professor laughed.
"You have made the acquaintance of the owner, then?" he asked.
"Oh no, we have never even learned his name, but I feel quite sure he is very old. Sometimes I seem to see him in the orchard, an old, old man leaning on a stick. I think he is old and eccentric because a young man would never have bought property he had never seen."
"Can't a young man be eccentric?"
"Oh, yes, but mother and my brothers and sisters,all of us believe this man is old from something the agent said. He told mother that the new owner of the orchard had bought it because he was looking for a retired spot in which to spend his old age."
Again the Professor laughed and the color rose in his face and spread over his cheeks and forehead.
Presently Miss Green returned with the tea things and the buttermilk.
"Has Miss Fern gone?" asked Molly.
"Oh yes, we finally prevailed on her to go home," answered Miss Green. "She really need not have been here at all. The infirmary nurse would have looked after Edwin, but she seemed to think she was indispensable."
"Grace, my dear sister," remonstrated the Professor.
From Miss Fern the talk drifted to many things. Molly told them more of Jimmy Lufton: how he had charmed everybody and what a wonderful life he led in New York.
"I should like to be on a newspaper," she said suddenly. "It would be lots more exciting than teaching school."
The Professor looked up quickly.
"I should be sorry to see you take that step, Miss Molly."
"Well, I haven't taken it yet, but I was only thinking that Mr. Lufton might be a great deal of help to me."
"You must not," said the Professor sternly. "Don't think of it for a moment. TheCommuneis putting ideas into your head, or this Mr. Lufton."
Molly felt uncomfortable for some reason and Miss Green changed the subject.
"By the way," she said, "I heard the other day what had become of some of the luncheon you seniors lost the day the Major took you in and fed you. The thieves probably took all they could carry with them and dumped the rest in a field between Exmoor and Round Head. Like as notthey picnicked on top of Round Head. Some of the Exmoor boys found a pile of desiccated sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and cake one day when they were out walking, and Dodo and Andy brought the story to me."
"Think of the waste of it," exclaimed Molly. "They might at least have given what they didn't want to the poor."
"There aren't any poor people around there, child."
"Well, to Mrs. Murphy, then. She's poor and we wouldn't have minded having worked so hard to feed Mrs. Murphy."
"I wonder who did it," put in the Professor.
"None of the Exmoor boys, I'm sure," said his sister, who had a very soft spot for the boys of her younger brother's college.
"Some day it will come out," announced Molly. "Things always do sooner or later and we needn't bother about playing detective. It's a horrible rôle to act, anyway."
"I remember when I was a boy at college," began the Professor, "some fellows played rather a nasty practical joke on some of us and they were caught by a trick of fate. On the night of the senior class elections, which always take place just before a banquet at the Exmoor Inn, some of the students broke into the inn kitchen, masked, overpowered the cook and the waiter and stole all the food they conveniently could carry away. One of the saucepans contained lobster, and the next morning there were six very ill young men at the infirmary with ptomaine poisoning and it was not hard to guess who were the thieves of our supper."
"Were they punished?" asked Molly.
"Oh, yes. Exmoor never permits escapades like that. They were suspended for six weeks, although they had saved the entire senior class from a pretty severe illness."
"At least, you might have felt some gratitude for that," observed Miss Green.
"We did, but the President took only a one-sided view of the matter."
"I'm afraid it's too late for attacks of indigestion from our lunch," observed Molly. "The only thing out of common we had at the lunch were 'snakey-noodles.'"
"What in the world?" asked the brother and sister together.
"It doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? But they are awfully good. Our old cook makes them at home. They are coils of very rich pastry with raisins and cinnamon all through."
"Don't mention it," exclaimed the Professor, whose appetite was greater than his official allowance of food. "I would give anything for a hot snakey-noodle with a glass of milk."
"When you come back from Bermuda, I'll see that your wish is gratified," replied Molly, laughing, as she rose to go.
"Miss Molly," said the Professor, as he bade her good-bye at the door, "I wish you wouldpromise me three things: don't overwork; don't make plans to work on a newspaper instead of teaching school, and—don't forget me."
"I'm not likely to do that, Professor. I'm always wanting to go to your office and ask you questions and advice. The last time we were there, Dodo and I, I found two old rotten apples. I took the liberty of throwing them away."
"It's too bad for good apples to be left rotting on the ground or anywhere," said the Professor, and he closed the door softly. While this surely was a very simple statement, somehow he seemed to mean more than he said.
Just why Molly's thoughts were on the lost snakey-noodles as she walked up the campus, she could not say. She recalled that they had been carefully done up in a box marked on top in large print, "Snakey-noodles from Aunt Ma'y Morton." That was the Browns' cook.
"I wonder if they were left with the half of the lunch in Exmoor meadow," she thought withfond regret for this wasted gift of their old colored cook, who had taken unusual pains to make the snakey-noodles as crusty and delicious as possible.
"So passeth snakey-noodles and all good things," she said to herself as she entered the Quadrangle.
Contents
About this time Wellington was filled with strange rumors that were much discussed in small sitting rooms behind closed doors. It was said, and this part of the story could be credited as truth, that a woman had been seen wandering about the campus late at night wringing her hands and moaning. Some of the Blakely House girls had seen her from their window one night and had rushed to find the matron, but the strange woman had disappeared by the time the matron had been summoned. Another night she had been seen, or rather heard, under the Quadrangle windows. She had been seen at other places and some of the Irish maids had been filled with superstitious dread because, absurd as itmight seem to sensible persons, it was reported that the weeping, moaning lady was the ghost of Miss Walker's sister who had died so many years ago.
"It's an evil omen, Miss," a waitress said to Nance one evening. "In Ireland ghosts come to foretell bad news. It's no good to the college, shure, that she's wandering here the nights."
"Don't you worry, Nora. It's just some poor crazy woman," said Nance sensibly.
"Then where does she be after keeping herself hid in the daytime, Miss?"
"I can't say, but it will come out sooner or later. Ghosts don't exist."
"Shure an' you'll foind a-plenty of 'em in the old country, Miss."
"Well, maybe this is an imported ghost," laughed Molly.
Nevertheless, not a girl in college but felt slightly uneasy about being out after dark alone, and most trans-campus visitors were careful to come home early.
One night Molly and Nance had been down to the village to supper with Judith Blount and Madeleine Petit. They had had a gay time and a jolly supper and it was quite half past nine before they hurried up the hilly road to Wellington. The two girls had locked arms and were walking briskly along talking in low voices. It was a wonderful night. There was no moon, but the stars were brilliant and Molly was inclined to be poetical.
"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art," she began, waving her free arm with expressive gestures. "Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night——"
"Molly," hissed Nance, in a frightened whisper, "do be still, look!" They had turned in at the avenue now, and there, directly over where old Queen's once stood, was a tall figure draped in black. As the girls came up, she began to moan in a low voice and wring her hands.
"Oh, Molly, I'm so scared, my knees are giving away. What shall we do?"
"Let's run," whispered Molly, admitting silently that the phantom was a bit unnerving. "Here, take my hand and let's fly. She's crazy, of course, and she might do anything to us."
With hands clasped, the two girls flew up the campus. Glancing over her shoulder, Nance gave a wild cry and pressed along faster.
"She's chasing us," she gasped. "Oh, heavens, she'll kill us!"
Molly glanced back. Sure enough, the phantom, keeping well within the shadow of the elms, was running behind them.
"Oh, Nance, can't you run a little faster?" she cried, now thoroughly frightened.
Not a soul was on the campus that night. The place was entirely deserted, and it looked for a few minutes as if they were going to have a very uncomfortable time, but as they neared the Quadrangle, the figure slipped away and was lost in the dense shadow of the trees that bordered the avenue.
"Lay me on a stretcher," gasped Molly, as she dropped on a bench inside the gates while Nance went to inform the gate-keeper of the strange presence on the campus.
Immediately the gate-keeper, who was also night watchman, rushed out with a lantern to chase the phantom, which was a poor way to catch her, you will admit.
Once in the privacy of their own sitting room, Nance had a real case of hysterics, laughing and weeping alternately, and Molly felt quite faint and had to lie on the sofa, while Judy, who had been moodily strumming her guitar most of the evening, gave them aromatic spirits of ammonia.
"I should think you would have been frightened," she said sympathetically, "but fancy old Nance's running! It's the first time on record."
Nance shuddered.
"I don't think you would have stood still under the circumstances," she answered.
"I don't think I would, but I should like to have known who the ghost was just the same. Suppose you had stopped still and let her come up to you, do you think she would?"
"Heavens!" exclaimed the other two in one breath.
"She ran after you because you were running from her," observed the wise Judy.
"People always give advice about ghosts and robbers and mad dogs," said Molly. "And they are the ones that run the fastest when the ghosts and robbers and mad dogs appear."
"Do you think it was a ghost?" asked Judy, ignoring the irritation of her friends.
"If it had been a ghost it would have caught up with us," answered Molly, while Nance in the same breath said emphatically:
"I don't believe in ghosts."
Nance and Molly were heroines for several days after this, and during this time the "ghost" did not reappear on the campus, although a closewatch was kept for her. The Williams sisters insisted on walking down the avenue every night at half past nine in hopes of seeing a real phantom, but she was careful to keep herself well out of sight during this vigilance.
One night some ten days later, just as the town clock tolled midnight, Molly waked suddenly with a draught of cold air in her face. She sat up in bed and glanced sleepily through the open door into the sitting room.
"Where did the air come from?" she wondered, and then noticed that Judy's door was open and slipped softly out of bed. Why she did not simply close her own door she never could explain, but some hidden impulse moved her to look into Judy's room. A shaded night lamp turned quite low cast a soft luminous shadow right across Judy's bed, which was empty. Molly started violently. Once before they had come into Judy's room at midnight and found her bed empty. The startling recollection caused Molly to run to theopen window. As she leaned out her hand touched something rough—a rope.
"A rope ladder!" she whispered to herself, horrified. "Great heavens, Judy has done for herself now." Just then the rope scraped her knuckles and she felt a tug at it from below. "Some one is coming up." Molly looked out.
"Judy," she whispered in a tone filled with reproach. "How could you?"
The voice from above must have frightened the climber, for, with an excited little gasp, she missed her hold on the rope and fell backward, where she lay for a moment perfectly still. It was not a very great fall, but it must have hurt, and instantly Molly climbed to the window sill and began to make her way slowly down the ladder.
It was not so difficult as she had thought, but she was frightened when at last she bounded onto the ground, and she was freezing cold in spite of her knitted slippers and woolen dressing gown.
"Have you hurt yourself badly?" she asked, leaning over Judy, who was endeavoring to sit up.
"No, only dazed from the fall," whispered Judy. "Go on up, will you, or we'll both get caught."
"You'd better go first," said Molly, "I'm afraid to leave you down here alone. Go on, instantly," she added, remembering that she must be stern since Judy richly deserved all the reproaches she could think of.
Judy began the ascent and pulled herself over the window sill. Then exhausted, she sat on the floor, holding her throbbing temples in both hands. That is why she did not see what was presently to happen. Just as Molly placed her foot on the first rung of the ladder, a firm hand grasped her arm. Why she did not shriek aloud with all the power of her lungs she never knew, but she remained perfectly silent while a voice—and it was Miss Walker's voice—said in her ear:
"You will say nothing about this to-night. I wish you to come to my office to-morrow morning at ten. Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Molly, reverting to her childhood's method of answering older people. She climbed the ladder in a dazed sort of way. It was more difficult than climbing down, but at last she scaled the window sill and jumped into the room. Judy was still sitting on the floor, holding her temples. Perhaps it had been only five minutes, but it seemed like a thousand years. However, she felt little sympathy for Judy, bruised temple or not.
"Get up from there and get to your bed," she whispered. "And I want to hear from you exactly what you were doing down there and where you got that ladder."
"The rope ladder belonged to Anne White," Judy answered in a stifled voice. "I borrowed it to win a wager from Adele. Of course, I don't mean to blame her, but she teased me into it. It was silly, I know, looking back on it now."
"What was the bet?"
"She bet that I would be afraid to climb down that ladder at midnight when the ghost is supposed to walk. I was simply to climb down, touch the ground and climb back again."
"Idiots, both of you," said Molly furiously.
"I know it, and I am sorry now," said the penitent Judy, "but fortunately no harm has been done except to my silly head, which needed a good whacking, anyhow."
"No harm," thought Molly angrily. "I wonder what's going to happen to me to-morrow. One of us will be expelled, I suppose. Miss Walker is already down on Judy."
"Thank you for coming down to me, Molly, dearest."
Molly closed the door.
"Judy, I want you to promise me something," she said. "If you get out of this scrape——"
"But no one knows it but you."
"I have no idea of telling on you, Judy, butthings leak out. How do you know you weren't observed?"
Judy looked startled.
"I want you to promise me to give up this Adele Windsor and her crowd. She's never done you any good. She's a malicious, dangerous, wicked girl and if you haven't the sense to see it, I'll just tell you."
This was strong language coming from Molly.
"If you don't, mid-years will certainly see your finish, if you aren't dropped sooner. You're not studying at all and you are simply acting outrageously, dyeing your hair and borrowing rope ladders. I'm disgusted with you, Judy Kean, I am indeed."
"Miss Walker has a grudge against me," announced Judy, in a hot whisper.
"Nonsense," said Molly, and she swept out of the room and crawled into her bed, very weary and cold and frightened, wondering what themorrow would bring forth in the way of punishment for her—or was it to be for Judy?
In the meantime, foolish Judy carefully coiled up the rope ladder and hid it in the bottom of her trunk.
Contents
Not a word did Molly say to Nance or the unsuspecting Judy next morning about her appointment with President Walker.
"Don't forget Latin versification at ten," Nance had cautioned her as she left the sitting room a quarter before ten.
Molly had forgotten it and everything else except the matter in hand, but the President's word was law and she prepared to obey and skip the lecture.
The President was waiting for her in the little study. No one was about and an ominous quiet pervaded the whole place.
"Sit down," said Miss Walker, without replying to Molly's greeting of good morning. "Soit's you, is it, who has been wandering about the grounds at night in a gray dressing gown, scaring the students? I need not tell you how disgusted and grieved I am, Miss Brown."
Molly turned as white as a sheet. She had never dreamed that Miss Walker suspected her of being the campus ghost.
But she answered steadily:
"You are mistaken, Miss Walker. The ghost chased Nance and me the other night when we were coming back from the village. We were really frightened. I suppose it's some insane person."
"Then what were you doing on the campus at that hour, and where did you get that ladder?"
Molly turned her wide blue eyes on the President with reproachful protest, and Miss Walker suddenly looked down at the blotter on the desk.
"Answer my question, Miss Brown," she asked more gently.
How could Molly explain without telling on
Judy, and yet did not that reckless, silly Judy deserve to be told on?
Suddenly two tears trickled down her cheeks. She let them roll unheeded and clasped her hands convulsively in her lap.
"I insist on an answer to my question, Miss Brown," repeated the President, without looking up. Molly pressed her lips together to keep back the sobs.
"I never saw the ladder until a few minutes before you did," she answered hoarsely. "I—oh, Miss Walker, you make it very hard," she burst out suddenly, leaning on the table and burying her face in her hands.
And then the most surprising thing happened. The President rose quickly from her chair, hurried over to where Molly was sitting with bowed head and drew the girl to her as tenderly as Molly's own mother might have done.
"There, there, my darling child," she said soothingly. "I haven't the heart to torture youany longer. I know, of course, that it was your friend, Miss Kean, who was at the bottom of last night's performance, and as usual you came down to help her when she fell. I only wanted you to tell me exactly what you knew."
The truth is, the President had tried an experiment on Molly and the experiment had failed, and no one was more pleased than Miss Walker herself in the failure. She liked to see her girls loyal to each other. But things had not been going well at Wellington that autumn. There was an undercurrent of mischief in the air, a dangerous element, carefully hidden, and still slowly undermining the standards of Wellington. Miss Walker was very much enraged over the rumor that the ghost of her beloved sister had been seen wandering about the campus. This was too much. Her Irish maid had repeated the story to her and she had determined to lay that ghost without the assistance of the night watchman or any one else.
The surprise of first being stretched on thegrill and then embraced by the President of Wellington College brought Molly to herself like a shock of cold water. She looked up into the older woman's face and smiled and the two sat down side by side on a little sofa, the President still holding Molly's hand. There might be some who could resist the piteous look in those blue eyes, but not President Walker.
"I'm afraid I'm just a weak old person," she said to herself, giving the hand a little squeeze and then releasing it.
"Judy wasn't the ghost, either, Miss Walker," said Molly, glad to be able to defend her friend on safe grounds. "The night we were chased Judy was in our rooms all the time. Last night was the first time she had ever done anything so foolish. It was only because a girl she goes with bet she wouldn't. It was the same girl that made her dye her hair," Molly added, without any feeling of disloyalty.
"Ahem! And who is this young woman who has such a bad influence on Miss Kean?"
Molly flushed. Was she to be placed on the grill again? But after all there was no harm in telling the name of the girl who had brought all Judy's trouble on her.
"Adele Windsor."
"And what do you know of her?"
"I don't know anything about her except that she has fascinated Judy."
"And Judy must be punished," mused the President. "Judy is a very difficult character and she must be brought to her senses if she expects to remain at Wellington."
"Judy loves Wellington, indeed she does, Miss Walker. It's only that she has got into a wrong way of thinking this year. I've heard her tell freshmen how splendid it was here and how they would grow to love it like all the rest of us."
"She has not been doing well at all. She never studies. You see I know all about my girls."
"You didn't know," went on Molly, "that the Jubilee entertainment was all Judy's idea. Shegave it to Adele Windsor—I don't know why—just because she was in one of her obstinate moods, but I heard her plan out the whole thing the opening night of college—and it was all for the glory of Wellington."
The President's face softened.
"Molly," she said, as if she had always called the young girl by her first name, "do you wish very much to save your friend?"
"Oh, I do, I do. I can't think of any sacrifice I wouldn't make to keep Judy from being——" she paused and lowered her eyes. Was Miss Walker thinking of expelling Judy? But Miss Walker was not that kind of a manager. She often treated her erring girls very much as a doctor treats his patients with a few doses of very nasty but efficacious medicine.
"What is your opinion of what had best be done, then? You know her better than I do. What do you advise?"
Molly was amazed.
"Me? You ask my advice?" she asked.
The President nodded briskly.
"Well, the best way to bring Judy to her senses is to give her a good scare and let it come out all right in the end."
The President smiled.
"You're one of the wisest of my girls," she said, "now, run along. If I've made you miss a lecture I'm sorry."
"Itwillcome out all right in the end, Miss Walker?" asked Molly, turning as she reached the door.
"I promise," answered the other, smiling again as if the question pleased her.
And so Molly escaped from the grill feeling really very happy, certainly much happier than when she entered the office.
Late that evening while Molly and Nance were preparing to take a walk before supper, Judy rushed into the room. There was not a ray of color in her face and her hair stood out allover her head as if it had been charged with electricity.
"Oh, Molly, Molly," she cried, "did you know the President had overheard everything that was said last night? She was at the foot of the ladder all the time. You are not implicated, I saw to that, and I've not told where I got the ladder. I simply said some one had given it to me. No one is in it but me. But I'm in it deep. Girls, I've lost out. It's all over. I've got to go. Oh, heavens, what a fool I've been."
Judy flung herself on the divan and buried her face in the pillows.
For a moment Molly almost lost faith in the President's promise.
"What do you mean when you say you must go, Judy?" she asked.
"It can't be true," burst out Nance, whose love for Judy sometimes clothed that young woman's sins in a garment of light.
"Not expelled?" added Molly, in a whisper.
"No, no, not that; but suspended. I can come back just before mid-years, but don't you see the trick? How can I pass my exams then? And Mama and Papa, what will they think? And, oh, the Jubilee and all of you and Wellington? Molly, I've been a wicked idiot and some of my sins have been against you. I was jealous about that Jimmy Lufton because he had seemed to be my property and you took him away. And, Nance, I was mad with you because you were always preaching. I didn't really like Adele Windsor. I think she is horrid. She's malicious and she makes trouble. I've found that out, but she got me in her toils somehow——"
And so poor Judy rambled on, confessing her sins and moaning like a person in mortal pain. She had worked herself into a fever, her face was hot and she looked at the girls with burning, unseeing eyes.
"Papa will be so disappointed," she went on. "It will be harder on him than on Mama for menot to graduate with the class, and oh, I did love all of you—I really did."
Tears, which Molly had never seen Judy shed but once before, now worked two tortuous little paths down her flushed cheeks.
Molly and Nance comforted and nursed her into quiet. They bathed her face and loosened her dyed locks which were now beginning to show a strange tawny yellow at the roots and a rusty brownish color at the ends. All the time Molly was thinking very hard.
"Judy," she said, at last, when they had got her quiet. "There's no reason why you shouldn't pass the mid-years and graduate with your class if you want to."
"But how? I'm so behind now I can hardly catch up, and if I miss six weeks I can never do it."
"Yes, you can," said Molly. "This is what you must do. Go down to the village and get board anywhere, with Mrs. Murphy or Mrs. O'Reilly.Take all your books and begin to study. Every day some of us will come down and coach you, Nance or I, or Edith—I know any of the crowd would be glad to, so as not to lose you."
"But the Christmas holidays," put in Judy.
"I shall be here for all the holidays," said Molly. "It will be all right."
And so the matter was settled. The very next day Judy's exile began. She engaged a room at Mrs. O'Reilly's, her obstinate mood slipped away from her and she was happier and more like her old self than she had been in weeks. And Molly was happy, too. She felt that she had saved Judy and freed her at the same time from the clutches of Adele Windsor.
Contents
The old Queen's crowd rallied around the exiled Judy, even as Molly had predicted, and Judy was prostrated with gratitude. Nothing could have stirred her so deeply as this devotion of her friends.
"I feel like Elijah being fed by the ravens in the wilderness, only you are bringing me crumbs of learning," she exclaimed to Molly who had taken her turn in coaching Judy. "I hope you don't mind being called 'ravens,'" she added apologetically.
"Not at all," laughed Molly. "I'd rather be called a raven than a catbird or a poll parrot or an English sparrow."
But Judy was already deep in her paper. Beinga recluse from the world, her life consecrated to study, she was playing the part to perfection.
If Adele Windsor knew that Judy was in the village, she gave no sign, and so the exile, in her old room at O'Reilly's overlooking the garden, had nothing to do but bury herself in her neglected text books. Indeed, very few of the girls knew where Judy was. When she went out for her walks after dusk she wore a heavy veil and thoroughly enjoyed the disguise. One night the old crowd gave her a surprise party which Edith had carefully planned. Dressed in absurd piratical costumes with skirts draped over one shoulder in the semblance of capes, brilliant sashes around their waists, many varieties of slouch hats and heavy black mustaches, they stormed Judy's room in a body.
"Hist!" said Edith, "the captive Maiden! We must release her ere sunrise!" Then they trooped in, danced a wild fandango which made Judy envious that she herself was not in it, and finally opened up refreshments.
So it was that Judy's exile was happy enough, and when Christmas holidays approached she had made up most of her lost work and was ready for Molly's careful coaching.
Thus it is that heaven protects some of the foolish ones of this earth. Judy wrote to her mother and father that she was behind in her classes and would remain to study with Molly Brown, and as Mr. and Mrs. Kean were at this time in Colorado, they thought it a wise decision on the part of their daughter.
Molly had grown to love the Christmas holidays at college. It was a perfect time of peace after the excitement and hurry of her life—a time when she could steal into the big library and read the hours away without being disturbed, or scribble things on paper that she would like to expand into something, some day, when her diffidence should leave her.
To-day, curled up in one of the big window seats, Molly was thinking of a curious thing that had happened that morning at O'Reilly's.
She had gone in to say good-bye to Judith Blount and Madeleine Petit, who were leaving for New York by the noon train.
"I suppose you'll be visiting all the tea rooms in town for new ideas," Molly had said pleasantly.
"Yes, indeed," said Madeleine. "I never leave a stone unturned and everything's grist that comes to my mill. This fall I got six new ideas for sandwiches and the idea for a kind of bun that ought to be popular if only because of the name. I haven't the recipe, but I think I can experiment with it until I get it."
"What's the name?" Molly asked idly, never thinking of what a train of consequences that name involved.
"'Snakey-noodles.' Isn't it great? Can't you see it on a little menu and people ordering out of curiosity and then ordering more because they're so good?"
"Snakey-noodles," Molly repeated in surprise.
"That's the name, isn't it, Judith?" asked Madeleine.
"Oh, yes, I remember it because the bun is formed of twisted dough like a snake coiled up."
"It's very strange," said Molly.
"What's strange?"
"Why, that name, snakey-noodle. You see it's a kind of family name with us. Our old cook has been making them for years. I really thought she had originated it, but I suppose other colored people know it, too. Where did you have one?"
"At a spread, oh, weeks and weeks ago."
"But where?" insisted Molly. "I have a real curiosity to know. Was it a Southern spread?"
"Far from it," said Madeleine. "Yankee as Yankee. One of the girls in Brentley House gave the spread."
"But she didn't provide the snakey-noodles," put in Judith. "What's that girl's name who talks through her nose?"
"Miss Windsor."
"Oh!"
"Coming to think of it, I believe she said they had been sent to her from an aunt in the South," went on Madeleine. "So you see, Molly, nobody has been poaching on your preserves."
Molly only smiled rather vaguely. She would have liked to ask a dozen more questions, but kept silent and presently, after shaking hands with the two inseparable friends, she went up to the library to think. Somehow Molly was not surprised. Nothing that Adele Windsor could do surprised her. The surprising part was how she avoided being found out. It was just like her to have planned the theft of the Senior Ramble lunch. There was something really diabolical in her notions of amusement. And now, what was to be done?
Should she tell the other girls after the holidays, or should she wait? It was all weeks off and Molly decided to let the secret rest in her own mind safely. Even if she told, it would behard to prove the accusation at this late day, but perhaps—and here Molly's thoughts broke off.
"I detest all this meanness and trickery," she thought. "I don't blame Miss Walker for wanting to clean it out of the school. Anyway," she added, smiling, "if that girl bothers Judy any more, I intend to pronounce the mystic name of snakey-noodles over her head like a curse and see what happens."
That afternoon Molly packed a suitcase full of clothes and lugged it down to Mrs. O'Reilly's, where she had consented to spend Christmas with Judy instead of in her own pretty Quadrangle apartment. Secretly Molly would much rather have stayed in No. 5, where she could have rested and read poetry as much as she liked. But she was rarely known to consult her own comfort when her friends asked her to do them a favor, and, after all, if she were going to put Judy through a course of study, she had better be on the spot to see that the irresponsible young person stuck to her books.
So the two girls established themselves in the pleasant fire-lit room overlooking the garden. Judy had brought down two framed photographs of her favorite pictures and a big brass jar by way of ornament, and on Christmas Eve the girls went out to buy holly and red swamp berries.
They were walking along the crowded sidewalk arm in arm, recalling how last year they had done exactly the same thing, when they came unexpectedly face to face with Mr. James Lufton.
"Well, if this isn't good luck," he exclaimed. "Nobody at the Quadrangle seemed to know where you were."
He included both girls, but he really meant Molly.
"And what are you doing here?" asked Molly, giving him her hand after he had shaken Judy's hand.
"Andy McLean asked me down for Christmas," he said.
He failed to mention that he had pawned hiswatch, a set of Balzac and two silver trophies won at an athletic club, and, furthermore, had given out at the office that he was down with grippe, in order to accept the invitation.
"Andy's up the street now looking for you. He thought perhaps Mrs. Murphy might know where you were."
"What did he want with us?" asked Judy, lifting her mourning veil.
Jimmy hesitated.
"He was thinking of getting up a Christmas dance, but——" He looked at Judy's black dress.
"She's not in mourning, Mr. Lufton," laughed Molly. "It's only that she prefers to look like a mourning widow-lady."
"Oh, excuse me, Miss Kean," said Jimmy. "I thought you had had a recent bereavement."
"Here, Judy, take off that thing," exclaimed Molly, unpinning the mourning veil in the back and snatching it off Judy's glowing face.
"Molly, how can you invade on the privacy of my grief," exclaimed Judy, laughing.
"Why, it's Miss Judy Kean," exclaimed Dodo Green, coming up at that moment with Andy McLean. "Nothing has hap——"
"No," put in Molly, "it's only one of Judy's absurd notions. She's been wearing mourning for years off and on, but she's only lately gone into such heavy black."
"And you've no objection to a little fun, then?" asked Andy.
"Not a particle," answered Judy, the old bright look lighting her face. "My feelings aren't black, I assure you."
"On with the dance, then, let joy be unconfined," cried Andy. "We'll call for you at a quarter of eight, girls—at O'Reilly's, you say? I'll have to trot along now and tell the mater."
The three boys hurried off while Molly and Judy rushed home to look over their party clothes.
"Isn't life a pleasant thing, after all?" exclaimed Judy, and Molly readily agreed that it was.
Such a jolly impromptu Christmas Eve party as it was that night at the McLeans'! Mrs. McLean had a niece visiting her from Scotland, an interesting girl with snappy brown eyes and straight dark hair. She was rather strangely dressed, Molly thought, in a red merino with a high white linen collar and a black satin tie, and she looked at Molly and Judy in their pretty evening gowns with evident disapproval. Just as Jimmy Lufton and Molly had completed the glide waltz for the fifth time that evening and had sunk down on a sofa breathless, the parlor door opened and in walked Professor Edwin Green, looking as well as he had ever looked in his life, with a fine glow of color in his cheeks.