"'Oh, I wish I were a tiny,Browny bird from out the South,Settled among the alderholtsAnd twittering by the stream;I would put my tiny tail downAnd put up my little mouth,And sing my tiny life awayIn one melodious dream."'I would sing about the blossoms,And the sunshine and the sky,And the tiny wife I mean to have,In such a cosy nest;And if someone came and shot me dead,Why, then, I could but die,With my tiny life and tiny songJust ended at their best.'"
"'Oh, I wish I were a tiny,Browny bird from out the South,Settled among the alderholtsAnd twittering by the stream;I would put my tiny tail downAnd put up my little mouth,And sing my tiny life awayIn one melodious dream."'I would sing about the blossoms,And the sunshine and the sky,And the tiny wife I mean to have,In such a cosy nest;And if someone came and shot me dead,Why, then, I could but die,With my tiny life and tiny songJust ended at their best.'"
"'Oh, I wish I were a tiny,Browny bird from out the South,Settled among the alderholtsAnd twittering by the stream;I would put my tiny tail downAnd put up my little mouth,And sing my tiny life awayIn one melodious dream.
"'I would sing about the blossoms,And the sunshine and the sky,And the tiny wife I mean to have,In such a cosy nest;And if someone came and shot me dead,Why, then, I could but die,With my tiny life and tiny songJust ended at their best.'"
There was something so moving about the little song that Molly felt she could have melted into a fountain of tears like Undine; and she was obliged to smile and smile and pretend that her heart wasn't breaking because her tiny life and tiny song at Wellington—her beloved Wellington—were soon to come to an end. The Professor, too, was stirred. He glanced once at Molly's smiling lips and tearful eyes and blew his nose violently. Then again he contemplated the program with great interest.
During the intermission, Molly and Will Stewart went visiting down the aisle. Half the audience was moving about, talking to the other half,and the hall was filled with the buzz of laughter and conversation.
"I love it! I love it!" Molly kept repeating to herself. "There couldn't be anything more perfect than college. Oh, do I have to give it up?"
"Hey, Miss Molly!" called Andy McLean in a nearby seat, while Judy and Nance and George Theodore Green were waving violently to her, and Lawrence Upton was shaking hands with her and assuring her that the dinner had been a failure because she hadn't been there. Fortunately, Judith was well out of ear-shot behind the scenes. The Williams sisters, from across the aisle, were calling in one voice:
"Molly, come and meet our brother John."
Margaret Wakefield, causing a sensation with her distinguished father, and enduring the gaze of the entire audience with the calmness of one reared in the public eye, detained her for a moment to introduce her to the famous politician.
"A real belle," said Miss Grace Green to her brother, leaning across two seats to speak to him, "is one who is just as popular with women aswith men, and Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky appears to be a general favorite."
The Professor looked at his sister absently. Apparently, he hadn't heard a word she said.
He was saying to himself:
"I think I'll let the tenor sing that little lyric that begins: 'Eyes like the skies in summer.'"
After a while the delightful affair was over, and Molly, feeling immensely happy in spite of her anxious heart, had been escorted to Queen's. Professor Edwin Green, hastening into his room, flung his hat in one direction and his coat in another, and sat down at his desk. Without an instant's hesitation, he seized a pencil and the first scrap of paper he found and began to write:
"Dear Richard:"I know that your cares are many, but get to work on the score of the opera. I find that by working at night for a week I shall be able to finish the last act and make all the changes you suggested. We must launch the thing now. I have overcome all scruples, as you called them, and I want nothing more than to get the opera into some manager's hands. If you think that Blum & Starks will take it up, you had better see them at once. My name may be used and everythingthat goes with it in the way of previous unimportant literary efforts. It's unusual, of course, for a Professor of English Literature to write a comic opera, but the very unusualness may give it some publicity and help the thing along. I have made one change without conferring; given the tenor-lover the baritone-villain's song: 'Eyes like the skies in summer.' Write something very pretty for that, will you, old man? The money we may make on this will help some in the present critical family situation. I understand that there have been a good many failures in light opera this winter, and the managers are looking for good things. It may be that we shall strike at the psychological moment."Yours, E. G."
"Dear Richard:
"I know that your cares are many, but get to work on the score of the opera. I find that by working at night for a week I shall be able to finish the last act and make all the changes you suggested. We must launch the thing now. I have overcome all scruples, as you called them, and I want nothing more than to get the opera into some manager's hands. If you think that Blum & Starks will take it up, you had better see them at once. My name may be used and everythingthat goes with it in the way of previous unimportant literary efforts. It's unusual, of course, for a Professor of English Literature to write a comic opera, but the very unusualness may give it some publicity and help the thing along. I have made one change without conferring; given the tenor-lover the baritone-villain's song: 'Eyes like the skies in summer.' Write something very pretty for that, will you, old man? The money we may make on this will help some in the present critical family situation. I understand that there have been a good many failures in light opera this winter, and the managers are looking for good things. It may be that we shall strike at the psychological moment.
"Yours, E. G."
The august Professor then wrote two other letters; one to a firm of bankers and one to his publishers. At last, getting into an old dressing gown and some very rusty slippers, lighting a long, black cigar and drawing his student's lamp nearer, he took an immense roll of manuscript from a drawer and fell to work. It was three o'clock before he turned in for three hours of troubled sleep.
One morning every girl at Queen's discovered by her plate at the breakfast table a strange rice paper document some twelve inches in length and very narrow as to width, rolled compactly on a small stick.
"What's this?" demanded Margaret Wakefield, unrolling her scroll and regarding it with the legal eye of an attorney perusing documentary evidence.
Across the top of the scroll swung a gay little row of Japanese lanterns done in delicate water colors, and in characters strangely Japanese was inscribed the following invitation:
"Greetings fromOtoyo Sen:Your honorablepresence isrequested onSaturday eveningat the insignificant fêtein the unworthilyapartment ofOtoyo Sen.Otoyo muchlyflattered byjoyful acceptance."
"Greetings fromOtoyo Sen:Your honorablepresence isrequested onSaturday eveningat the insignificant fêtein the unworthilyapartment ofOtoyo Sen.Otoyo muchlyflattered byjoyful acceptance."
Fortunately, the little Japanese girl, overcome by shyness after this rash venture, had not appeared at breakfast and was spared the mirthful expressions on the faces of the girls around the table.
"Well, of all the funny children," laughed Molly. "Nance, let's offer her our room. She can't get the crowd into her little place."
"Of course," said Nance, agreeable to anything her roommate might suggest.
Not a single girl declined the quaint invitation and formal acceptances were sent that very day.
Otoyo was so excited and happy over these missives that she seemed to be in a state of semi-exaltation for the better part of a week. She rushed to the village and sent off a telegram and before Saturday morning received at least a dozen mysterious boxes by express. They were piled one on top of the other in her room like an Oriental pyramid and no one was permitted to see their contents.
All offers of assistance were refused the day of the party. Otoyo wished to carry out her ideas in her own peculiar way and needed only a step-ladder. If it was not asking too much, would the beautiful and kind friends not enter their room until that evening? Removing all things needful in the way of books and clothes to Judy's room, the beautiful and kind friends good-naturedly absented themselves from their apartment from ten in the morning to seven-thirty that evening. Molly spent the afternoon in the library studying, and Nance called on Mrs. McLean and drank a cup of tea and ate a buttered scone, while she cast an occasional covertglance in the direction of Andy junior's photograph on the mantel.
It was well before eight o'clock when the inquisitive guests assembled, and there were at least twenty of them; for Otoyo's acquaintance was large and numbered girls from all four classes. They met downstairs in a body and then marched up to the third story together.
"Let's give her a serenade before we knock," suggested Judy, and they sang: "The sweetest girl in Wellington is O-to-yo." Any name could be fitted into this convenient and ingenious song.
Otoyo flung open the door and stood smiling before them. Her manner was the very quintessence of hospitality. She wore a beautiful embroidered kimono and her hair was fixed Japanese fashion. Even her shoes were Japanese, and she carried a little fan which she agitated charmingly to express her excited emotions.
All her English forsook her in the excitement of greeting her guests and she could only repeat over and over again:
"Otoyo delightly—Otoyo delightly."
"Well, I never," ejaculated Nance, entering her old familiar room, now transformed into a gay Japanese bazaar.
"Is this the parent of all the umbrella family?" demanded Judy, pointing to an enormous parasol swung in some mysterious manner from the centre of the ceiling and resembling a large fish swimming among a numerous small-fry of lanterns. The divans were spread with Japanese covers, and over the white dimity curtains were hung cotton crepe ones of pale blue with a pink cherry-blossom design. In one corner stood a vase, from which poured the incense of smoking joss-sticks. Funny little handleless cups were ranged on the table and lacquered trays of candied fruits, rice cakes and other indescribable Japanese "meat-sweets," as Otoyo had called them. The little hostess flew about the room exactly as theThree Little Maidsdid in "The Mikado," waving her fan and bowing profoundly to her guests. Presently, sitting cross-legged on the floor, she sang a song in her own language, accompanying herself on a curious stringed instrument,a kind of Japanese banjo. She was, in fact, the funniest, queerest, most captivating little creature ever seen. She loaded her guests with souvenirs, little lacquered boxes, fans and diminutive toys.
"I feel as if I were a belle at a grand cotillion with all these lovely favors," exclaimed Jessie Lynch.
"Of course, you would always be laden with favors," said Judy; "that is, if you could get all your beaux to come to the same cotillion. You are like the sailor who had a lass in every port. I strongly suspect you of having an admirer in every prominent city in the country."
Jessie laughed and dimpled.
"No," she said; "I stopped at the Rocky Mountains."
Otoyo, who had been listening closely to this dialogue, suddenly bethought herself of a new sensation she had provided for her friends, which she was about to forget.
"Oh," she cried, "I nearlee forgetting. American girl love fortune telling? So do Japanese.You like to have your fortune told?" she asked, cocking her head on one side like a little bird and blinking at Jessie.
"Would she?" cried a dozen ironical voices.
"I hope it's nothing disagreeable and there's no bad luck in it," said Jessie, drawing a slip of paper from a flat, shiny box. "But it's all in Japanese," she added, with much disappointment.
"Otoyo will translate it. Won't you, you cunning little sugar-lump?" asked Molly.
"Everybodee choose and then I will make into English," said the small, busy hostess, flying from one to another on her marshmallow soles.
"Me first of all," cried the eager Jessie. "I had first draw."
Otoyo took the slip and, holding it under a lantern, translated in a high, funny voice:
"He happy who feesh for one and catch heem, than feesh for many and catch none."
The wild whoop of joy that went up at this unexpectedly appropriate statement made the lanterns quiver and the teacups rattle.
Some of the others were not so appropriate,but they were all very amusing. Mabel Hinton, who had been nicknamed "old maid" the year before, drew one which announced:
"Your daughters will make good matches."
The girls laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks at this prediction, and Mabel was quite teased.
"I'd like to know why I shouldn't have a family of marriageable daughters some day," she exclaimed, blinking at them with near-sighted eyes while she wiped the moisture from her large round glasses.
Nance's fortune was a very sentimental one and caused her to blush as red as a rose.
"Love will not change, neither in the cold weenter time nor in the warm spreengtime under the cherry-blossoms when the moon ees bright."
"Oh, thou blushing maiden," cried Judy, "canst look us in the eye after this?"
Molly's was rather comforting to her troubled and unquiet heart.
"Look for cleer weather when the sky ees blackest."
Of all the mottoes, Judy's was the funniest.
"Eef thy hus-band beat thee, geeve heem a smile."
"Smile indeed," exclaimed that young woman when the laughter had died down; "I'll just turn the tables on him and beat him back, Otoyo. American young lady quite capable of giving honorable husband a good trouncing with a black-snake whip."
Otoyo opened her eyes at this. It was doubtful whether she could appreciate the humor of her mottoes, but she enjoyed hearing the girls laugh; she realized they must be having a good time if they laughed like that—really genuine, side-shaking laughter and no lip-smiles for politeness' sake.
"Who's heard the news about Judith Blount?" asked one of the Williamses, after the party had broken up and only the Queen's girls remained.
Molly and Judy and Nance exchanged telegraphic glances. They had been careful to keep secret what Mrs. Kean had written her daughter, and they were curious to know just howmuch the others knew on the subject, which was now always uppermost, at least in Molly's mind.
"She's sub-let her apartment, furnished, to that rich freshman from New York, whose father's worth a fortune a minute from gold mines and oil wells, and she, I mean Judith, is taking the empty singleton here."
"You don't mean it!" cried a chorus of voices.
"It seems to me I heard that a Mr. Blount lost a lot of money," observed Margaret. "It must have been her father."
"How are the mighty fallen!" exclaimed Edith Williams. "I should think she'd have gone anywhere rather than here."
"She couldn't get in any of the less expensive places unless she had taken a room over the post office in the village."
"Poor Judith!" ejaculated Jessie. "I've known it for a week."
To save her life Molly could not keep a tiny little barbed thought from piercing her mind: "Is it fair for Judith to stay at college when Ihave to leave? Has she any right to the money that's paying her tuition?"
Molly turned quickly and began gathering up the débris from the tea-tables. Anything to get that bitter notion out of her head.
"Let's be awfully nice to her, girls," she said presently. "I'm sure she's terribly unhappy. Remember what success we had with Frances Andrews last year just through a little kind treatment."
"Judith is a different subject altogether," said Margaret, argumentatively. "She has such a dreadful temper. You never can tell when it's going to break loose."
With the Goddess of War sitting among them at this moment, nobody dared betray by the flick of an eyelash that there were others whose tempers were rather uncertain. Only Jessie observed:
"Well, Margaret, dear, you got the better of her that time at the Ledges, temper or no temper."
"I doubt if she takes to poverty as a duck towater," here put in Judy. "She'll make a very impatient tutor, and I'd hate to have her black my boots. She might throw them at my head."
"She is certainly not subdued by her reverses," remarked Jessie. "She's just like a caged animal. I never saw anything to equal her. I went over there this afternoon and she was packing. She almost pitched me out of the room. Of course, it's very luxurious at Beta Phi House, but her little room here isn't to be scorned. It's really quite pretty, with lovely paper and matting and chintz curtains and wicker chairs."
Suddenly a wave of indignation swept over Molly. Nobody had ever seen her look as she looked now, burning spots of color on her cheeks and her eyes black.
"What right has she—how dare she—she should be thankful—" she burst out incoherently. Then she stamped both feet up and down like an angry child and flung herself face down on the couch in an agony of tears. It was a kind of mental tempest, resembling one of those sudden storms which come with a flash of lightning, aroaring crash of thunder and then a downpour of rain.
"Why, Mary Carmichael Washington Brown," exclaimed Judy, kneeling beside poor Molly, "whatever has come over you?"
Little Otoyo was so frightened that she hid behind a Japanese screen, while the other girls sat dumb with amazement.
The Williams girls were intensely interested, and Margaret, always consistent and logical in her decisions, knew very well that there was something serious back of it.
"Please forgive me," said Molly presently, wiping her eyes and sitting up as limp as a rag. "I'm awfully sorry to have spoiled the evening like this. I didn't mean it. It just slipped out of me before I knew it was coming."
"Why, you old sweetness," exclaimed the affectionate Judy, "of course, you are forgiven. I guess you ought to be allowed a few outbursts. But what caused it?"
"I think it was nervousness," answered Molly evasively.
But the girls began to realize that it was not entirely nervousness. It occurred to them now that Molly had been preoccupied and strangely silent for some time. Occasionally she gave way to forced gaiety. Twice she had started on walks, changed her mind and come back, without giving any excuse except that she was a little tired. It was, in fact, a condition that had come about so gradually that they were hardly aware they had noticed it until this sudden breakdown.
"She's dead tired and ought to get to bed this minute," remarked Nance, caressing her friend's hand.
"Dearest Molly," said Jessie, who was moved by a gentle sympathy always for those in trouble, "go to bed and get a good rest. It was just nice and human of you to get mad once in a thousand years and we love you all the better for it."
They were good friends, all of them, Molly felt, as they kissed her or pressed her hand good-night, while Nance and Judy hastened to clear off the divan and put up the windows to blow out the heavy, incense-scented air.
It was Otoyo, however, who brought the tears back to poor Molly's eyes.
"Dear, beautiful Mees Brown," she said. "You must not think it will come wrong. It will come right, I feel, surelee."
"What is it, Nance?" whispered Judy, after they had got their friend to bed.
Nance shook her head.
"Heaven knows," she answered. "But it's something, and it must be serious, Judy, or she never would have let go like that."
There was a pretty little Episcopal chapel in the village of Wellington, where at Vespers on Sunday afternoons the students were wont to congregate. Six Wellington girls always served as ushers and the college Glee Club formed the Chapel choir.
"It's a good thing to go to Vespers," remarked Judy one Sabbath afternoon, pinning on her large velvet hat before the mirror over the mantel, notably the most becoming mirror in the house, "not only for the welfare of our souls, but also to attire ourselves in decent clothes."
"I suspect you of thinking it's good for your soul to wear good clothes, Judy," observed Nance.
"You suspect rightly, then," answered Judy. "If I had to dress in rags, I'm afraid my soulwould become a thing of shreds and patches, too, all shiny at the seams and down at the heels."
Nance laughed.
"That's a funny way to talk, considering you are about to attend Vespers at the Chapel of the good St. Francis, who took the vows of poverty and lived a roving life on the hills around Assisi."
"That's all very true," said Judy, "and I've seen the picture of him being married to Lady Poverty, but our dispositions are different, St. Francis's and mine. I like the roving over the hills part, because I'm a wanderer by nature, but I like to wander in nice clothes. My manners are getting to be regular old gray sweater manners, and if I didn't put on my velvet suit and best hat once a week there's no telling what kind of a rude creature I would become."
"Why, Julia Kean, I'm ashamed of you," cried Nance, "you've as good as confessed that you go to Vespers to show your fine clothes."
"I don't go to show 'em, goosie; I go to wear 'em. But you have no sense of humor. What'sthe good of telling you anything? Molly, there, understands my feelings, I am sure."
Molly was not listening. She was making calculations at her desk with a blunt pencil on a scrap of paper.
"I've got as good a sense as you have," cried Nance hotly, "only I don't approve of being humorous about sacred things."
"Nonsense," broke in Judy, "don't you know, child, that you can't limit humor? It spreads over every subject and it's not necessarily profane because it touches on clothes at church. I suppose you think there is nothing funny about the Reverend Gustavus Adolphus Larsen, and you have forgotten how you giggled that Sunday when he announced from the pulpit that his text was taken from St. Paul's 'Efistle to the Epeesians.'"
"He's always getting mixed," here put in Molly, who at certain stages in the warm discussions between Nance and Judy always sounded a pacifying note. "They do say that he was talkingto Miss Walker about one of the faculty pews, and he said: 'Do you occupew this pi?'"
This was too much for Nance's severity, and she broke down and laughed gaily with the others.
"He's a funny little man," she admitted, "but he's well meaning."
"Hurry up," admonished Judy; "it's twenty minutes of four and I want to get a good seat this afternoon."
"You want to show off your new fashionable headgear, you mean, Miss Vanity," said Nance, pinning on her neat brown velvet toque and squinting at herself in the mirror.
"Oh, me," thought Molly, "I wish I had a decent garment to show off."
She had intended to buy some clothes that autumn from a purchasing agent who came several times a year to Wellington with catalogues and samples, but she had been afraid to spend any of the money she had earned because of the precarious state of the family finances.
She ran her hatpin through her old soft grayfelt, which had a bright blue wing at one side, and slipped on the coat of her last winter's gray suit. Then she drew white yarn gloves over her kid ones, because she had no muff and her hands were always frozen, and stoically marched across the campus with her friends.
The Chapel was already crowded when the girls arrived. They had not heard that the Rev. Gustavus's pulpit was to be filled that afternoon by a preacher from New York. At any rate, they had to sit in the little balcony, which commanded a better view of the minister than it did of the congregation. He was a nice-looking young man, with an unaffected manner, and he preached to the packed congregation as if he were talking quietly and simply to one person; at least, it seemed so to Molly. The sermon was a short address on "Faith." It contained no impassioned eloquence nor fiery exhortations, but it impressed the students profoundly.
"Don't try to instruct God about the management of your lives," he said, "any more than you would direct a wise and kind master who employedyou to work on his estate. All the Great Master asks of you is to work well and honestly. The reward is sure to come. You cannot hurry it and you cannot make it greater than you deserve. It is useless to struggle and rage inwardly. Is not that being rather like a spoiled child, who lies on the floor and kicks and screams because his mother won't give him any more cake? Just put your affairs in the hands of God and go quietly along, doing the best you can. All of a sudden the conditions you once struggled against will cease to exist, and before you have realized it, the thing you asked for is yours."
Lots of people, the minister said, prayed a great deal without believing that their prayers would be heard. It reminded him of a little anecdote.
"One Sunday morning during a terrible drought a country preacher knelt in the midst of his family at home and prayed earnestly for rain. When it was time to start for church, the minister noticed that his little daughter was carrying an umbrella.
"'Why do you take an umbrella, my child?' he asked, glancing at the cloudless sky.
"'Didn't you just pray for rain, father?' she answered.
"All the learning of the ages is not greater than the simple faith of a little child," finished the young preacher.
And now the sermon was over and the girls were chatting in groups outside the Chapel, or strolling along the sidewalk arm in arm. Molly had withdrawn from her companions for a moment and was standing alone in a corner of the vestibule.
"I'm afraid I've been acting just like the little child who threw himself on the floor and kicked and screamed for more cake," she was thinking. "I suppose another year at college is just like a nice big hunk of chocolate cake and it wouldn't be good for mental digestion. I might as well stop struggling and begin to cram mathematics. That's the hardest thing I have, and I ought to get in as much of it as I can before I go."
"Perhaps you won't have to go at all," spoke another voice in her mind.
But Molly couldn't see it that way. Other letters from her mother had made it clear to her that no more money could be raised. There was a good place waiting for her to step into, however, in a small private school made up of children who lived in the neighborhood. She could come home after the mid-year examinations when the present teacher in the school was planning to be married.
"Oh, Miss Brown," someone said. Molly looked up quickly. It was President Walker. "Will you walk along with me? I had a letter from your mother last night and I want to speak to you about it."
The President was a very democratic and motherly woman who not only guided the affairs of the college with a wise hand, but kept in personal touch with her girls, and it was not unusual to see her walking home from Vespers with several students. This time, however, she took Molly's arm and led her down the villagestreet without asking any of the others to join her.
The young girl was very sensible of the honor paid her, thus singled out by the President to walk back to college. She felt a shy pleasure in the sensation they created as the crowd of students parted to let them pass.
"I am very, very sorry to receive this news from your mother, Miss Brown," began the President. "I suppose you know what it is?"
"You mean about leaving college, Miss Walker?"
"Yes. It's really a great distress to me to think that one of my Queen's girls especially must give up in the middle of her course. Instead of listening to that young man at Vespers, I was thinking and thinking about this unwelcome news."
Molly smiled. She had managed to listen to the preaching and to think about her affairs at the same time, because they somehow seemed to fit together. Once she almost felt that perhaps he knew all about her case and was preachingto her. But, of course, everybody had problems and lots of the girls thought the same thing, no doubt,—Madeleine Petit, for instance.
"Is there no possible way it could be arranged?" went on the President. "Is this decision of your mother's final?"
Evidently Mrs. Brown had not explained why Molly was obliged to come home.
"Oh, she didn't decide it," answered the young girl, quickly. "It's because—because the money's gone—lost."
"I suspected it was something of that sort," went on the President. "Now, there is a way, Miss Brown, by which you could remain if you would be willing to leave Queen's Cottage. I am in charge of a Student Fund for just such cases as yours. This provides for tuition and board,—not on the campus, but in the village. You're making something now tutoring the little Japanese girl, I understand. That's good. That will help along. You will have to manufacture some excuse to your friends about leaving Queen's.Otherwise, the fund arrangement may remain a secret between you and me."
Miss Walker pressed the girl's hand and smiled kindly as she searched her face for some sign of gladness and relief at this offer.
Molly tried to smile back.
"We'll leave everything as it is until the end of this semester," continued the President.
"Thank you very, very much," Molly said, making a great effort to keep her voice from sounding shaky.
Leave Queen's! Was it possible the President didn't know that life at Queen's was the best part of college to her? Would there be any pleasure left if she had to tear herself away from her beloved chums and take up quarters in the village, living on a charity fund?
When she separated from Miss Walker at the McLeans' front door, she was so filled with inward lamentations and weeping that she could scarcely say good-night to the President, who looked somewhat puzzled at the girl's still pale face.
Rushing back to Queen's, Molly flung herself through the front door and tore upstairs. On the landing she bumped into Judith Blount, who gave her a sullen, angry look.
"Please be careful next time and don't take up the whole stairs," exclaimed that young woman rudely.
Molly glanced at her wildly. What right had she to talk, this wretch of a girl who could remain at Queen's and live on other people's money? Oh, oh, oh! Misery of miseries! She rushed up the second flight. She was having what Judy called "the dry weeps." At the door of Otoyo's room she paused. It was half open and the little Japanese was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a lamp beside her, studying.
"May I come in?"
"With much gladness," answered Otoyo, rising and bowing ceremoniously.
"I want to stay in here a little while, Otoyo, away from other people. May I sit here by the window in this big chair? Go on with your lessons. I don't want to talk. I wanted to be withsomeone who was quite quiet. I should have been obliged to hide in a closet if you hadn't let me in."
"I am very happily glad you came to me," said Otoyo.
She helped Molly off with her coat and hat, pulled out the Morris chair so that it faced the window and sat down again quietly with her book.
At the end of three-quarters of an hour, Otoyo began to move noiselessly about the room. Molly was still sitting in the big arm-chair, her hands clasped in her lap. Presently she became aware that Otoyo was standing silently before her bearing a lacquer tray on which was a cup of tea and a rice cake.
"Otoyo, you sweet, little dear," she said, placing the tray on the arm of the chair. She gulped down the tea and ate the cake, and while the small hostess made another cupful, Molly continued: "Otoyo, I'm going to let God manage my affairs hereafter. I'm not going to lie on the floor any more and kick and scream like a spoiled child for another piece of chocolate cake.I shall always carry an umbrella now when I pray for rain, and I mean to begin to-night to polish up in math."
"I am happily glad," said Otoyo, giving her a gentle, sympathetic smile.
There was no happier girl in Wellington one morning than Nance Oldham, and all because she had been invited to the Thanksgiving dance at Exmoor College. Nance had never been to a real dance in her life, except a "shirtwaist" party at the seashore, where she had been a hopeless wallflower because she had known only one man in the room—her father. Now, there was no chance of being a wallflower at Exmoor, where a girl's card was made out beforehand, and she had that warm glow of predestined success from the very beginning of the festivity.
Molly and Judy were also invited and the girls were to go over to Exmoor on the 6.45 trolley with Dr. and Mrs. McLean and return on the 10.45 trolley, permission having been granted them to stay up until midnight. Three otherWellington girls were bound for the dance on the same car. A young teacher chaperoned this little company, of which Judith Blount was one.
"I wonder that Judith Blount can make up her mind to go to a dance," Judy Kean remarked to Molly. "She's been in such a sullen rage for so long, she's turned quite yellow. I don't think she will enjoy it."
"It will do her good," answered Molly. "Dancing always makes people forget their troubles. Just trying to be graceful puts one in a good humor."
"The scientific reason is, child, that it stirs up one's circulation."
"And brooding is bad for the circulation," added Molly.
It had been a very gloomy holiday, the skies black and lowering and a dead, warm wind from the south. But there had been no sign of rain, and now, as they alighted from the car at Exmoor station, they noticed that the wind had shifted slightly to the east and freshened. The great blanket of frowning black had broken, anda myriad of small clouds were flying across the face of the moon like a flock of frightened sheep. Molly shivered. She had often called herself a human barometer and her spirits were apt to shift with the wind.
"The wind has changed," she observed to the doctor. "I feel it in my bones."
"Correct," said the doctor, scanning the heavens critically. "There's no flavoring extract so strong as a drop of East wind. Let us hope it will hold back a bit until after the shindig."
With all its penetrating qualities, however, the drop of East wind did not affect the air in the beautiful old dining hall of Exmoor, used always for the larger entertainments. Its polished hardwood floor and paneled walls, its two great open fireplaces, in which immense back logs glowed cheerfully, made a picture that drove away all memory of bad weather.
Then the music struck up. The dancers whirled and circled. Nance was in a seventh heaven. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone, andshe seemed to float over the floor guided by the steady hand of young Andy; while his father looked on and smiled laconically.
"Every laddie maun hae his lassie," he observed to his wife, "and it's gude luck for him when he draws a plain one with a bonnie brown eye."
"She's not plain," objected Mrs. McLean.
"She has no furbelows in face nor dress that I can see," answered the doctor.
"They're just a boy and a girl, Andrew. Don't be anticipating. There's no telling how often they may change off before the settling time comes."
"And was it your ainsel' that changed so often?" asked the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Nay, nay, laddie," she protested, leaning on the doctor's arm affectionately, "but those were steadier days, I'm thinking."
"There's not so muckle change," said the doctor, "when it comes to sweethearting."
Many old-fashioned dances were introducedthat night: the cottage lancers, and Sir Roger de Coverly, led off by the doctor and his wife, whose old-world curtseys were very amusing to the young dancers.
And while the fun waxed fast and furious indoors, outside queer things were happening. The South wind, gently and insistently battling with the East wind, had conquered him for the moment. All the little clouds that had been scuttling across the heavens before the East wind's icy breath, now melted together into a tumbled, fleecy mass. Snowflakes were falling, softly and silently, clothing the campus and fields, the valleys and hills beyond in a blanket of white. Then the angry East wind returned from his lair with a new weapon: a drenching sheet of cold, penetrating rain, which changed to drops of ice as it fell and tapped on the high windows of the dining hall a warning rat-tat-tat quite drowned in the strains of music. The South wind, conquered and crushed, crept away and the East wind, summoning his brother from the North to share the fun, played a trick on the world which people inthat part of the country will not soon forget. Together they covered the soft, white blanket with a sheet of ice as hard and slippery as plate glass. At last, having enjoyed themselves immensely, they retired. Out came the moon again, shining in the frozen stillness, like a great round lantern.
In the meantime, the dance went on and joy was unconfined. Nobody had the faintest inkling of the drama which had been acted between the East and the South winds.
Most unconscious of all was Molly, who, having danced herself into a state of exuberant spirits, sat down to rest with Lawrence Upton in an ingle-nook of one of the big fireplaces. As chance would have it, they were joined by Judith Blount and a very dull young man, who, Lawrence informed Molly, had more money than brains. Judith had not noticed Molly at first. Probably she would never have chosen that particular spot if she had. But the destinies of these two girls had been ordained to touch at intervals in their lives and whenever the meeting occurredsomething unfortunate always happened. They were exactly like two fluids which would not mix comfortably together. There was a general movement of partners for supper at this juncture and the two girls found themselves alone for the moment while their escorts departed for coffee and sandwiches.
"Are you having a good time?" Molly asked, glancing at Judith timidly.
She would have preferred to have said nothing whatever, but she had made a compact with herself to try and overcome her dislike for this girl whom she had distrusted from the moment of their first meeting at the railroad station when Mr. Murphy had given Molly's baggage check preference.
"Did I appear to be a wallflower?" demanded Judith insolently.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Molly. "I didn't mean that of course."
Then she sighed and turned toward the fire with a trembly, unnerved feeling.
"I don't believe I'll ever get used to havingpeople cross to me," she thought. "It always frightens me. I suppose I'm too sensitive." She began to shiver slightly. "The wind is surely in the East now," she added to herself.
When the young men came back bearing each a tray with supper for two, she was grateful for the cup of steaming coffee.
"Will you hold this for a minute, Miss Molly," asked Lawrence Upton, "while I get a chair to rest it on? Lap tables are about as unsteady as tables on shipboard."
Judith's partner had followed Lawrence's example, and presently the two students were seen hurrying through the throng, each pushing a chair in front of him. By some strange fatality, history was to repeat itself. Just as he reached the girls, the young person who had more money than brains slipped on a fragment of buttered bread which had fallen off somebody's plate, skidded along, bumped his chair into Lawrence, who lost his balance and fell against poor Molly's tray. Then, oh, dreadful calamity! overwent the cup of coffee straight onto Judith's yellow satin frock.
Molly could have sunk into the floor with the misery of that moment, and yet she had not in the least been the cause of the accident. It was the small-brained rich individual who was to blame. But Judith was not in any condition to reckon with original causes. Molly had been carrying the tray with the coffee cups and that was enough for her. She leapt to her feet, shaking her drenched dress and scattering drops of coffee in every direction.
"You awkward, clumsy creature!" she cried, stamping her foot as she faced Molly. "Why do you ever touch a coffee cup? Are you always going to upset coffee on me and my family? You have ruined my dress. You did it on purpose. I saw you were very angry a moment ago and you did it for revenge."
Molly shrank back in her seat, her face turning from crimson to white and back to crimson again.
"Don't answer her," said a small voice in her mind. "Be silent! Be silent!"
"But, Miss Blount," began her supper partner, feeling vaguely that justice must be done, "I stumbled, don't you know? Awfully awkward of me, of course, but I slipped on an infernal piece of banana peel or something and fell against Upton. Hope your gown isn't ruined."
"It is ruined," cried Judith, her face transformed with rage. "It's utterly ruined and she did it. It isn't the first time she's flung coffee cups around. Last winter she ruined my cousin's new suit of clothes. She's the most careless, awkward, clumsy creature I ever saw. I——"
A curious little group had gathered over near the fireplace, but Judith was too angry to care who heard what she was saying. In the meantime, Lawrence Upton had taken his stand between Judith and Molly, feeling somehow that he might protect poor Molly from the onslaught. Presently he took her hand and drew it through his arm.
"Suppose we join the McLeans," he said. "Isee they are having supper all together over there." As they turned to leave, he said to Judith in a cold, even voice that seemed to bring her back to her senses:
"I upset the coffee. Blanchard fell against me and joggled my arm. If there is any reparation I can make, I shall be glad to do it."
Whereupon, Judith departed to the dressing room and was not seen again until it was time to leave.
"What a tiger-cat she is!" whispered Lawrence to Molly, as he led her across the room.
Molly did not answer. She was afraid to trust her voice just then, and still more afraid of what she might say if she dared speak.
"What was all that rumpus over there?" demanded Judy when the young people had joined their friends.
"Oh, just a little volcanic activity on the part of Mount Ætna and a good deal of slinging of hot lava. Miss Molly and I are refugees from the eruption, and Mount Ætna has gone upstairs."
"You mean Miss Ætna Blount?" asked Judy.
"The same," said Lawrence.
When it was time for the Wellington party to catch the trolley car home, they emerged from the warm, cheerful dining hall into a world of dazzling whiteness. The trees were clothed in it, and the ground was covered with a crust of ice as hard and shining as marble.
A path of ashes was sprinkled before them, so that they walked safely as far as the station.
"Heaven help us at the other end," Mrs. McLean exclaimed, clinging to the doctor's arm.
The car was late in arriving at Exmoor station. At last it hove into sight, moving at a hesitating gait along the slippery rails. But it had a comfortably warm interior and they were glad to climb in out of the bitter cold.
"All aboard!" called the conductor. "Last car to-night."
There is always a gloomy fatality in the announcement, "Last car to-night." It is just as if a doctor might say: "Nothing more can be done."
Clang, clang, went the bell, and they moved slowly forward.
After an age of slipping and sliding, frequent stopping and starting and exchanges of loud confidences between the motorman and the conductor, the car came to a dead stop.
Dr. McLean, who had been sound asleep and snoring loudly, waked up.
"Bless my soul, are we there?" he demanded.
"No, sir, and far from it," answered the conductor, who had opened the door and come inside, beating his hands together for warmth.
"Far from it? What do you mean by that, my good man?" asked the doctor.
"There ain't no more power, sir," answered the man. "The trolley's just a solid cable of ice and budge she won't. You couldn't move her with a derrick."
"But what are we to do?" asked the doctor.
"I couldn't say, sir, unless you walked. It's only a matter of about two miles. Otherwise, you'd have to spend the night here and it'll bea cold place. There ain't no more heat, is there, Jim?"
"There ain't," was Jim's brief reply.
"I guess Jim and I'll foot it into Wellington and the best you can do is to come along."
The doctor and his wife conferred with the young teacher who had chaperoned the other party. The question was, would it not be a greater risk to walk two miles in thin-soled shoes and party dresses over that wilderness of ice than to remain snugly in the car until they could get help? The motorman and conductor were well protected from the cold and from slipping, too, with heavy overcoats and arctic shoes. While they were talking, these two individuals took their departure, letting in a cold blast of air as they slid the door back to get out.
The Wellington crowd sat huddled together, hoping to keep warm by human contact. They tried to beguile the weary hours with conversation, but time dragged heavily and the car grew colder and colder. Some of the girls began tomove up and down, practicing physical culture exercises and beating their hands together.
"I think it would be better to walk," announced Mrs. McLean at last. "We are in much greater danger of freezing to death sitting here than moving. We'll stick to the track. It won't be so slippery between the rails."
Even the doctor was relieved at this suggestion, fearful as he was of slipping on the ice. The gude wife was right, as she always was, and the lassies had better take the risk and come along quickly. Before they realized it, they were on the track with faces turned hopefully toward Wellington. Scarcely had they taken six steps, before three of the girls tumbled flat, and while they were picking themselves up, Dr. and Mrs. McLean sat down plump on the ice, hand in hand, like two astonished children. It was quite impossible to keep from laughing at this ludicrous situation, especially when the doctor's great "haw-haw" made the air tremble. The ones who were standing helped the ones who had fallen to rise and fell themselves in the effort.
"If we only had on skates," cried Judy, "wouldn't it be glorious? We could skate anywhere, right across the fields or along the road. It's just like a sea of solid ice."
For an hour they took their precarious way along the track, which was now on the edge of a high embankment.
"A grand place for coasting," remarked Judy, peeping over the edge.
Suddenly her heels went over her head and her horrified friends beheld her sliding backwards down the hill.
"Are you hurt at all, my lass?" called the doctor, peeping fearfully over the side, and holding onto his wife as a drowning man catches at a life preserver.
"Hurt? No," cried Judy, convulsed with laughter.
"Do you think you can crawl back?" asked Mrs. McLean doubtfully.
Then Judy began the most difficult ascent of her life, on hands and knees. There was nothingto take hold of and, when she had got half-way up, back she slipped to the bottom again.
A second time she had almost reached the top when she lost her footing and once more slipped to the base of the embankment.
"You'd better go on without me," she cried, half sobbing and half laughing.
The doctor was very uncomfortable. Not for worlds would he have put foot outside the trolley rails, but something had to be done.
"Let's make a human ladder," suggested Molly, "as they do in melodramas. I'll go first. Nance, you take my foot and someone hold on to yours and so on. Then, Judy can climb up, catching hold of us."
The doctor considered this a good scheme and the human chain was accordingly formed, the doctor himself grasping the ankle of the last volunteer, who happened to be Judith Blount. But hardly had Judy commenced the upward climb, when the doctor's heels went over his head and the entire human ladder found itself huddled together at the foot of the embankment.
"It's a case of every mon for himself and the divvel tak' the hindmost," exclaimed the doctor, sitting up stiffly and rubbing his shins. "Help yoursel's, lassies. I can do nae mair."
Some of them reached the track at last and some of them didn't, and those who couldn't make it were Molly and Judith Blount.
"You'll have to follow along as best you can down there," called Mrs. McLean, grasping her husband's arm. "We'll keep an eye on you from above."
Once more the belated revellers started on their way, while Molly and Judith Blount pursued a difficult path between a frozen creek and the trolley embankment.
Many a fall and many a bruise they got that night as they crept along the frozen path. At last they reached a point where the creek had been turned abruptly from its bed and passed through a culvert under the embankment. Here the path also changed its course and headed for the golf links of the college.
"They can never get down the embankment and we can never get up," remarked Judith, who appeared to have forgotten that she had lately been a human volcano. "Why can't we take the short cut back? It couldn't be any worse than this."
"Why not?" answered Molly politely, although it must be confessed she was still tingling under the lash of Judith's flaying tongue, and not one word had she spoken since they left the others.
"Mrs. McLean," called Judith, making a trumpet of her hands, "we're going to cut across the golf links. It will be easier."
"But I'm afraid for you to go alone at this time of night," answered Mrs. McLean.
"What could harm them a night like this?" expostulated her husband.
"Very well, then. I suppose it's all right," said the distracted and wearied lady.
"Don't be uneasy, Mrs. McLean. You'll tak' the high road and we'll tak' the low, but we'll gang to Wellington afore ye," called Molly laughing.
After all, wasn't it absurd enough to make a body laugh—one man, eight helpless women slipping and sliding after him, and she herself making off in the darkness with the only enemy she had ever known! She wished it had been Judy or Nance. She was sure they would have giggled all the way. But who ever wanted to laugh in the presence of this black-browed, fierce-tempered Judith?
They walked silently on for some time, until they came to a little hill.
"I guess we'll have to crawl it," sighed Molly.
Long before this, they had pinned their long skirts up around their waists, and now, on hands and knees, they began the difficult ascent. Just as they reached the top, Molly's slipper bag somehow got away from her and went sliding to the bottom. Suddenly both girls began to laugh. They laughed until the echoes rang, and Molly, losing her grasp on a bush, went sliding after the bag.
"Oh," laughed Judith, "oh, Molly, I shall——" and then the twigs she had been clutching pulled out of the ice and down she went on top of Molly.
The two girls sat up and looked at each other. They felt warmer and happier from the laugh.
"Judith," exclaimed Molly, suddenly, "I could never laugh with any one like that and not be friends. It's almost like accepting hospitality. Shall we be friends again?"
"Oh, yes," replied Judith eagerly. "I am sorry I was rude to-night about the coffee, Molly. Youknow it's my terrible temper. Once it gets a start, I can't seem to hold it in, and I've had a great deal to try me lately. I apologize to you now. Will you accept my apology?"
"Yes, indeed," Molly assured her. "Come along, let's try again. Once we get to the top of this little 'dis-incline,' as an old colored man at home would call it, we'll be on the links."
The girls both reached the summit at the same moment, and as they scanned the white expanse before them, they exclaimed in frightened whispers:
"There comes a man."
Instantly they slid back to the bottom again and lay in a heap, gasping and giggling.
"Where shall we go? What shall we do?" exclaimed Judith.
"Nothing," answered Molly. "We can hardly crawl, much less run, but I suppose he can't either, so perhaps we are as safe here as anywhere."
"But what man except a burglar could beprowling around Wellington at this hour?" whispered Judith.
"I can't think of anyone, but I should think no sensible burglar would come out a night like this. Besides, do burglars ever come to Wellington?"
"Once there was one, only he wasn't a real burglar. He was a lunatic who had escaped from an asylum near Exmoor."
"Oh, heavens, Judith, a lunatic? I'd rather meet ten burglars. After all, only a lunatic would come out on such a night. Can't we run?"
Molly had a fear of crazy people that she had never been able to conquer.
They rose unsteadily on their frozen feet and began hurrying back in the direction of the trolley embankment. As they ran, they heard a long, sliding, scraping sound. Evidently the man had slid down the little hill. They could hear the sound of his footsteps on the ice. He was running after them. At last he called:
"Wait, wait, whoever you are. I'm not going to hurt you."
In another moment he had caught up with them. Oh, joy of joys, it was Professor Green, wearing a thick gray sweater and a cap with ear muffs. With a cry of relief, Judith flung herself on her cousin's neck while Molly rather timidly clasped his arm. She felt she could have hugged him, too, if he had only been a relation.
"We thought you were an escaped lunatic," she exclaimed.
"I am," he answered, "at least I've been nearly crazy trying to get news of you." He took her hand and drew it firmly through his arm, while Judith appropriated his other arm. "They telephoned over from Exmoor to know if you had reached Wellington safely. We found at the village that the car had not arrived. Then about twenty minutes ago they called us from the car station to say that the conductor and motorman had walked but that you had decided to remain in the car all night. I thought I had better go over and persuade you not to freeze to death by degrees. I am glad you decided to walk. Where are the others?"
"They have gone on by the track," answered Molly. "We slipped down the embankment and couldn't crawl up again. Perhaps you could catch them, if you branched off here and took the other road."
"Never mind," answered the Professor, tucking her arm more tightly through his. "Dr. McLean can look after the others, now that his burdens are lightened by two. I'd better see you across this skating rink. Mrs. Murphy is up waiting for you. I stopped and told her to get hot soup and water bottles and things ready."
"You're a dear, Cousin Edwin," exclaimed Judith. "You are always thinking of other people."
"I expect the old doctor will be a good deal knocked up by this little jaunt," went on the Professor, not taking the slightest notice of Judith's expressions of gratitude, the first Molly had ever heard her make about anything.
It was half-past two o'clock when they reached Queen's Cottage, just ten minutes before the others arrived.
"It's a good thing you found us," Molly said to the Professor as he helped them up the steps. "I believe we'd have been crawling over those links another hour or so if you hadn't."
"I can never explain what made me cut across the links," he answered. "I had my face turned toward the other road when something urged me to go that way."
Dr. McLean always insisted that it was continuous giggling that kept them all from freezing that bitter night. Judith Blount was the only one in the party who suffered from the experience. She spent a week in the Infirmary with a deep cold and sore throat.
"You see," explained Judy Kean sagely to her two friends, "her system was weakened by that awful fit of temper; she lost all mental and bodily poise and took the first disease that came her way."
"She certainly lost all bodily poise," laughed Molly. "I didn't have any more than she did. We slipped around like two helpless infants."
"But you didn't take cold," said Judy.
"I've made up my mind not to have any colds this winter," announced Molly seriously. "After all, there's a good deal in just declining to entertain them. I think the grip is a sort of bully who attacks people who are afraid of him and keeps away from the ones who are not cowards."
The three girls spent half a day in bed sleeping off their weariness, and on Friday afternoon they were able to call on Mrs. McLean, who, being a hardy Scotchwoman, was none the worse from the walk. The doctor, she said, had been up since seven o'clock attending to his patients.
"The truth is," she added, "he would not have missed the sight for anything—the whole world turned into a skating rink and the campus the centre of it."
Everybody in Wellington who could wear skates was out that afternoon. The campus and golf links, as well as the lake, were covered with circling, gliding figures. The best skaters coasted down hill on their skates, as men do on snow shoes. They went with incredible speed and theimpetus carried them up the next hill without any effort.
Molly had seen very little skating at home. She had learned as a child, but as she grew up the sport had not appealed to her, because somebody was always falling in and the ice never lasted longer than a day or so. Now, however, the picture of the circling, swaying crowd of skaters thrilled her with a new desire to see if she had forgotten how to balance herself on steel runners.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she cried. "I never saw anything so graceful. They are like birds. First they soar. Then they flap their wings and soar again."
"Flap their feet, you mean," interrupted Judy, "and woe to her who flops instead of flaps."
Mary Stewart came sailing up to them, gave a beautiful curving turn and then stopped.
"Isn't this glorious sport?" she cried, her cheeks glowing with exercise. "Has your President told you about the skating carnival? It's just been decided, and I suppose you haven't seenher yet. It's to take place to-morrow night. Won't it be beautiful?"
"What fun!" cried Molly. "What a wonderful sight!"
"Now, Molly, you are to wrap up very warm," continued Mary, "no matter what kind of a costume you decide to wear. No cheesecloth Liberty masquerades will go, remember."
"Oh, but I can't be in the carnival. I haven't any skates," said Molly.
"I have another pair," answered Mary quickly. "I'll bring them over to you later."
Molly never guessed that this loving friend skated straight down to the village that very instant and bought a pair of skates screwed onto stout shoes at the general store. Tossing away the wrapping paper and smearing the shoes with snow and ashes to take off the new look, she delivered them at Queen's before supper.
"It's lucky I knew what number Molly wore," she said to herself, as she sailed up the campus on her Canadian skates, with strokes as sweepingly broad and generous as her own fine nature.