All fears of a thaw on the heels of this unprecedented cold wave were put to flight next morning. The thermometer hovered at four degrees above zero and the air was dry and sparkling. Only those who remained indoors and lingered over the registers felt the cold.
There was a great deal to be done before evening. Costumes had to be devised, bonfires built along the lake and at intervals on the links, lanterns hung everywhere possible and, lastly, a quick rehearsal. The best skaters were chosen to give exhibitions of fancy skating; there were to be several races and a grand march.
Molly learned the night before that a sense of balance having once been acquired is never lost. After supper she had ventured out on the campus with Judy and Nance, who were both excellentskaters. With a grace that was peculiarly her own in spite of the first unsteadiness, Molly had been able to skate to the Quadrangle. There, removing her skating shoes, and putting on slippers, she had skipped upstairs to thank Mary Stewart for her kindness. The return to Queen's over the campus had been even easier, and next morning she felt that she could enter the carnival.
Nobody had a chance to talk about costumes until after lunch on Saturday, when there was a meeting of the three friends to decide.
"I don't see how I can go. I haven't a thing picturesque," exclaimed Nance dejectedly.
"Now, Nance, you have no imagination," said Judy.
"One day you tell me I have no sense of humor, and another that I have no imagination. You'll be telling me I have no brains next."
"Here, eat this and stop quarreling," interrupted Molly, thrusting a plate of fudge before them. "When in doubt, eat fudge and wisdom will come."
Judy ate her fudge in silence. Then suddenly she cried exultantly.
"Eureka! Wisdom hath come, yea even to the humble in spirit. Heaven hath enlightened me. I know what we'll wear, girls."
"What?" they demanded, having racked their brains in vain to think of something both warm and picturesque.
"We'll go," continued Judy impressively, "as three Russian princesses."
"What in?"
"Leave that to me. You just do as I tell you. Nance, skate down to the village and buy a big roll of cotton batting. Make them wrap it up well, so as not to offer suggestions to others."
"What must I do?" asked Molly.
"You must turn up the hems of skirts. Take your old last winter's brown one, and Nance's old green one, and—and my velvet one——"
"Your best skirt!" exclaimed Nance aghast.
"Yes, why not? We only live once," replied the reckless Judy. "Turn up the hems all aroundand baste them. They should reach just to the shoetops."
That afternoon they hurriedly sewed bands of cotton batting around the bottoms of their skirts, bordered their jackets with it, made cuffs and muffs and high turbans. Then Judy dotted the cotton with shoe blacking and it became a realistic imitation of royal ermine. Each girl wore a band of brilliant ribbon across the front of her coat with a gilt pasteboard star pinned to it.
"I suppose this might be taken for the Order of the Star and Garter," observed Judy. "At any rate, we are royal princesses of the illustrious house of Russia, the Princesses Molitzka, Nanitska and Judiekeanovitch. Those are Russian enough, aren't they?"
Never will Molly forget the fun of that glorious evening, nor the beautiful picture of the meadows and fields dazzling white in the moonlight. While the "workers" of the four classes lit the fires and lanterns, the "drones" circled about on the ice singing college songs. From over at Exmoor came a crowd of youths who hadskated the ten miles up-hill and down-dale to see the carnival. Sleighing parties from nearby estates drove over with rough-shod teams to draw the sleighs, and all Wellington turned out to see the sights.
"I didn't believe there could be so much originality in the world," thought Molly, admiring the costumes of the students.
There were many Teddy Bears and Bunny Rabbits. One girl wore a black velvet suit with a leopard's skin over her shoulder. On her head was a mythological looking crown with a pair of cow's horns standing upright at each side. There were numerous Russian Gypsies and two Dr. Cooks wearing long black mustaches, each carrying a little pole with an American flag nailed at the top.
Jessie Lynch, not being a skater, sat in a chair on runners, while her good-natured chum, Margaret Wakefield, pushed her about the lake. Margaret wore a Chinese costume and her long queue was made of black skirt braid.
After the parade and the exhibitions of skating,there was general skating and the lake became a scene of changing color and variety.
"It's like a gorgeous Christmas card," thought Molly, practicing strokes by herself in one corner while she watched the circle of skaters skim by her. "And how very light it is. I can plainly recognize Nance going over the hill with Andy McLean."
"Here she is," called Lawrence Upton, breaking from the circle and skating towards her as easily, apparently, as a bird flies. His body leaned slightly. His hands were clasped behind his back, and Mercury with his winged shoes could not have moved more gracefully.
"Come on, Miss Molly, and have a turn," he said.
"What, me, the poorest skater on the pond?"
"Nonsense! You couldn't dance so well if you were a poor skater. Just cross hands like this and sail along. I won't let you fall."
Off they did sail and never was a more delightful sensation than Molly's, flying over the smooth ice with this good-looking young Mercury.Around and round they skimmed, until one of the Exmoor boys blew a horn, the signal that it was time to start the ten miles back to college. Very rough skating it was in places, so Lawrence informed Molly; rather dangerous going down some of the steep hills, but glorious fun.
"Why don't you do like Baron Munchausen on the mountain? Sit on a silk handkerchief and slide down," suggested Molly.
"We have done some sliding of that kind," he answered, laughing, "but it was accidental and there was no time to get out a pocket handkerchief."
At last the great carnival was over, and Molly, falling in with a crowd of campus girls, started for home, singing with the others:
"Good-night, ladies, we're gwine to leave you now."
It was nearly ten when she tramped upstairs, still on her skates. Judy called out to her from her room, but Nance had not returned. Molly unlaced the skating boots, removed the Russian Princess costume, and flinging her time-worneiderdown cape around her shoulders, sat down to toast her toes.
"Judy," she called presently, "what have you done with Nance?"
"The last I saw of the Lady Nance she was going over the hill with her sandy-haired cavalier."
"I saw her, too, but I haven't met up with her since. I'm afraid she will get a 'calling' if she isn't back pretty soon."
The girls waited silently. Presently they heard the last of the carnival revellers return. The clock in the tower struck ten. Mrs. Markham locked the hall door and put out the hall light, and still no Nance.
"She's gone off skating with Sandy Andy and forgot the time," whispered Judy, who had crept into Molly's room to confer. "It's a good joke on proper old Nance. I think she was never known to break a rule before."
"You don't suppose anything could have happened to them, do you?"
"Of course not. But you know how absorbedthey do get in conversation. They wouldn't hear a cannon go off a yard away."
"They are awfully strict here about being out with boys," observed Molly uneasily. "I do wish she would come home."
The girls lingered over the register talking in whispers until the clock struck half-past ten.
"Molly, suppose they have eloped!" Judy observed.
"Eloped!" repeated Molly, amazed. Then she began to laugh. "Judy, is there anybody in the world so romantic as you? Why, they are mere infants. Andy isn't nineteen yet and Nance was only eighteen last month. I think we'd better slip out and find them. Come on."
Very quietly the two girls got into their things. They wore their rubbers this time, and Molly very thankfully carried the imitation ermine muff. The entire household was sound asleep when out into the sparkling, glittering world they crept like two conspirators.
"Suppose we try the links first," suggestedJudy, "since both of us saw them disappearing last in that direction."
"If we were really ladylike persons we'd be afraid to go scurrying off here in the dark," observed Molly.
"I'm not afraid of anything," Judy replied, and Molly knew she spoke the truth, for Judy was the most fearless girl she had ever known.
When they reached the summit of the hill, they began calling at the tops of their voices, "Nance! Nance Oldham!"
There was no answer and not in all the broad expanse of whiteness could they see a human being.
"I wish I knew what to do," exclaimed Molly, growing more and more uneasy. "Suppose she has been injured—suppose—suppose——"
"There they are!" cried Judy. "The young rascals, I believe they are utterly oblivious to time."
Far over the ice appeared the two figures. They were not skating but walking, and severaltimes before they reached the girls they slipped and fell down.
"You are a nice pair," cried Judy. "Don't you know it's way after hours and everybody is in bed long ago?"
"Why, Nance, dear, what has happened? Why are you walking?" asked Molly, who was rarely known to scold anybody.
"I am very sorry," said Nance stiffly. "I couldn't help it. The heel of my shoe came off and I couldn't skate. Mr. McLean——"
Judy smiled mischievously.
"They've been quarreling," she said under her breath.
"And Mr. McLean had to bring me back much against his will."
"Nothing of the sort, Miss Oldham," put in "Mr." McLean, flushing angrily. "I was very glad to bring you back. I only said——"
"Never mind what you said. It was your manner. Actions speak louder than words."
"Come along," put in Molly. "This is no time for quarrels. It's after eleven. Andy, what willyou do? Skate back to Exmoor or stay at your father's?"
"I shall skate back, of course," he answered in an heroic voice. "The other fellows might think something had happened to me."
"Here, Nance, put on one of my overshoes," said Judy. "That will keep you from slipping and we must hasten e'er the midnight chime doth strike. Farewell, Andrew. God bless you, and a safe journey, my boy."
Judy struck a dramatic attitude and Molly was obliged to laugh, in spite of the serious faces of the others.
"Hadn't I better see you home?" asked Andrew stiffly.
"Forsooth, no, good gentleman. Begone, and the sooner the better."
"Come on, you silly goose," laughed Molly, and the three girls hurried home. Once they stopped to look back, and young Andy, skating as if the foul fiends were after him, was almost at the end of the course.
There was no Miss Steel that winter to keepa sharp ear open for late-comers and the girls crept safely up to bed. Twice in the night Molly heard Nance weeping bitterly. But she said nothing because she knew that such quarrels are soon mended.
Next day began the thaw and in a week the whole earth appeared to have melted into an unpleasant muddy-colored liquid. An icy dampness permeated the air. It chilled the warmth of the soul and changed the hue of existence to a sad gray.
Judy and Molly were prepared to see Nance thaw with the great sleet and melt into little rivulets of feeling and remorse. She had seemed rather hard on Andy, junior, that night; but Nance remained implacable and had no word to say on the subject.
"She's as ice-bound as ever," exclaimed Judy, shaking her head ruefully. "I am afraid she still belongs to the glacial period. Don't you think you can warm her up a little and make her forgive poor Andy?"
"Perhaps the sun will do it," said Molly, lifting her skirts as she waded through the slush on the campus.
The two girls were on their way to a class and there was no time to linger for discussions about Nance's unforgiving nature. But there was nothing Judy enjoyed more than making what she learnedly termed "psychological speculations" concerning her friends' sentiments.
"Do stop tearing along, Molly, while I talk. I have something interesting to say."
"Judy Kean, there must be a depression on your head where there should be a perfectly good bump of duty. Don't you know we have only five minutes to get to the class? I'd rather be late to almost anything that Lit. II."
"And why, pray?" demanded Judy, rushing to keep up with Molly's long steps.
"Oh, well, because it's interesting."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Why don't you turn into a period occasionally, Juliana? You are every other variety of punctuation mark,—dashes, exclamations, interrogations.Sometimes you're a comma and I've known you to be a semicolon, but when, oh, when have you come to a full stop?"
"All this long peroration——"
"Pero—what?"
"Means that you are avoiding the real question."
"Here we are," ejaculated Molly with a sigh of relief as she ran upstairs and entered the class room at the same moment that Professor Green appeared from another door.
Molly freely admitted to her friends that English Literature was the most interesting study she had. She took more pains over the preparation for this class than for any of her other lessons. She was always careful not to be late, but then sat timidly and modestly in the back row with the girls who wished to avoid being called upon to recite. The Professor's lectures, however, led her into an enchanted country, the land of poetry and romance. Perhaps, at first, he thought she really wished to avoid being questioned and that her spellbound expression wasonly indifference. Certainly he had seldom tested her interest until one day during a lecture on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and poets he calmly requested her to stand up before the entire class and read Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Blushing hotly, she began the reading in a thin, frightened voice, but presently the amused faces of her friends faded away; her voice regained its full measure of strength and beauty, and when she had finished, she became aware that somewhere hidden within the wellsprings of her mind was a power she had not known of before. Molly's classmates were much impressed by her performance, but there was a faint smile on the Professor's face that seemed to imply that he was not in the least surprised.
Among all the little happenings that infest our daily lives it is often the least and most accidental that wields the strongest influence. This chance discovery by Molly that she could read poetry aloud gave her infinite secret pleasure. She began to memorize and repeat to herself all her favorite poems. Sometimes her pulses beattime to the rhythm in her head; even her speech at such times became unconsciously metrical, and as she walked she felt her body swing to the music of the verse. With a strange shyness she hid this secret from her friends, who never guessed when she sat quietly with them that she was chanting poetry to herself.
Molly had planned to do several errands that afternoon, after the class in Lit. II. The first one took her to the village to see Madeleine Petit, the little Southern girl, who was willing to do almost any kind of work to earn money. Molly had never returned the magazine clippings of prize offers, and she had also another reason for wanting to see Madeleine. She wished to find out just how different life in a room over the post-office was from life at Queen's. She was thankful when the lesson was over, that Judy was engaged for basket-ball practice in the gym., for she wished to be alone when she made this call.
Only a few days before, Miss Walker had called to her after chapel and suggested that she look over the rooms the postmistress rented tostudents, and make her choice so that lodgings could be spoken for before Christmas.
Molly paused at Madeleine's door and read the sign carefully.
"I suppose I shall have to be fixing up something like that," she thought, "only I never could do up jabots and I'd rather scrub floors than shampoo people's heads."
"Come in," called the liquid, melting voice of the Southern girl in answer to Molly's tap. "Oh, how do you do? What a delightful, welcome surprise," cried the hospitable little person. "Put your feet over the register. That's where I spend most of my time now. I'm not used to this awful climate. Now, give me your hat and coat. You're to have tea with me, you know. You won't mind if I go on working, will you? I'm doing up some jabots and things for that sweet Miss Stewart. She has given me a lot of work. Such a lady, if she is a Yankee! I can safely say that to you because you aren't one, you know. But, really, I'm beginning to like these Northern girls so much. They are quite as nice as thegirls from home, only quieter," rattled on Miss Petit.
Molly groaned inwardly.
"If she only didn't talk so much," she thought. "I'm always putting up milestones during her ramblings to remind me of something I wanted to say, but there's never any chance to go back, even if I could remember where I put them."
"I wanted to return these clippings," she managed to edge in at last, producing the slips of papers.
"Oh, you needn't have bothered. I shall never use any of them. I told you there was nothing but mathematics in my soul. I can't write at all. The themes are the horror of my life. But you tried, I am sure. Was it the short story or one of the advertising ones? They are all of them terribly unsatisfactory because you never know where you stand until months and months afterwards when you read that somebody has won the prize. But, of course, I never expect to win prizes. I could never make acoup de têtelike that."
"You could make acoup detongue," thought Molly, sighing helplessly.
"But did you try?" asked Madeleine, now actually pausing for a reply to her question.
"I did try one of them, a little poem that came into my head, but it was weeks ago and I know nothing will come of it. I felt when I sent it off that it wasn't the kind of thing they wanted, wasn't advertisey enough. I had really almost forgotten I wrote it, so many other things have happened since. Can you keep a secret, Miss Petit?"
"I certainly can," replied the busy little creature, pausing in her labors to test the iron. "Dear me, I must be careful not to scorch any of these pretty things. But the tea kettle is boiling. Suppose we have some refreshment and you can tell me the secret in comfort."
Molly smiled at her own Southern peculiarities cropping out in this little friend.
"Mommer sent me this caramel cake yesterday. It's made from a very old recipe. I hope you'll like the tea. I'm sorry I can't offer you any realcream. I would just as soon eat cold cream for the complexion as condensed cream. It's all right for cooking with, but it doesn't go well with tea and coffee, which I always make in my own rooms, especially coffee. It's never strong enough at the place I take my meals. But you said something about a secret?"
Somehow Molly's affairs seemed to dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this great tidal wave of conversation, and she resolved not to take Madeleine into her confidence after all. It occurred to her that she would soon become a raving maniac if she lived next door to anyone who talked as much as that.
"It's really not much of a secret," answered Molly lightly. "Miss Walker asked me to come down and look over some empty rooms here for someone, and I thought, maybe, if you could spare the time you would come with me."
"I can always spare the time to be of service to you," exclaimed Madeleine. "You have done so much for me. You really gave me my start here, you know."
"Nonsense!" put in Molly.
"Yes, you did. You sent Miss Stewart to me and introduced me to some of the older girls, who have all been very nice. They would probably never have heard of me but for you."
When they had finished the tea and cake, which were delicious, they inspected the vacant rooms, to a steady accompaniment of Madeleine's conversation. Molly wondered how the capable, clever, industrious little creature could accomplish so much when her tongue went like a clap-hammer most of the time. But there was no doubt that she achieved marvels and was already well up in her classes. Poor Molly's temples ached with the steady hum. Her tongue was dry and she had a wild impulse to jump out the window. How could she explain to kind Miss Walker that she could not live over the post-office? Would it not be an unfriendly act to tell the real reason?
"It's bad enough as it is," she thought, "leaving my sweet old Queen's, but this would be beyond human endurance. It will have to be aroom over the general store or at Mrs. O'Reilly's. Anything but this."
The post-office rooms were bare and crude, and poor Molly was sick at heart when at last she took her leave of the little friend, who was still babbling unceasingly when the door closed.
Molly breathed a deep sigh of relief as she waded through the slush on the sidewalk.
"It will be a good deal like being banished from the promised land," she said to herself, "wherever it is."
Pausing at the door of the general store, she noticed a big, black, funereal-looking vehicle coming up the street at a slow pace. Passers-by paused to look at it, with a kind of morbid curiosity, as it drew nearer.
"Oh, heavens, I hope that isn't an undertaker's wagon," Molly thought, preparing to flee from the dread sight which always filled her with the horrors. The big vehicle passed slowly by. On the front seat with the driver sat Dr. McLean. He bowed to her gravely, barely lifting his hat. "One of his patients," her thoughts continued,"but it's strange for him to ride on the same wagon. I don't think I can possibly look at those other rooms today."
She turned her face away from the general store and hastened back to the University, which seemed to be the only thing that retained its dignity and beauty under the disenchanting influences of this muggy, damp day. As she walked up the avenue, there some distance ahead was the gruesome equipage.
"Heavens! Heavens! I haven't heard about anything," she exclaimed.
The wagon did not pause at the Infirmary as she expected, but pursued its way until it reached the McLean house. Molly began to run, and just as she arrived breathless and excited, the vehicle had backed up to the steps, two doors swung open, and Mrs. McLean, accompanied by a trained nurse, stepped out. The doctor climbed down from one side of the vehicle and the driver from the other. Professor Green sprung up from somewhere,—he had probably been waiting in the McLeans' hall—and the threemen gently lifted out a stretcher on which lay the almost unrecognizable form of Andy, junior. A large bandage encircled his head and one arm was done up in splints.
"Oh, Mrs. McLean," whispered Molly, "I didn't know——"
But Mrs. McLean only shook her head and hurried after the stretcher.
Molly sat down on the muddy steps and waited. After what seemed an age, Professor Green emerged from the house.
"You are a reckless girl to sit there in all that dampness," he exclaimed.
"Never mind me. What about Andy?"
"He's in pretty bad shape, I am afraid," answered the Professor. "He was hurt the night of the carnival in some way. I don't know just how it happened that he lost the others. At any rate, they found him after a long hunt half frozen to death, a gash in his head, and several broken bones. They thought they had better bring him home, where the doctor could lookafter him, but he hasn't stood the journey as well as they hoped."
"Poor Nance!" said Molly, as she hastened back to Queen's.
"Oh, Molly, what was that awful black wagon that went up the avenue a few minutes ago?" demanded half a dozen voices as she opened the door into her own room.
"The freshman at the Infirmary who was threatened with typhoid fever is getting well," remarked Margaret Wakefield.
"Surely, nothing has happened to any of the Wellington girls?" put in Jessie uneasily.
"No, no," answered Molly, "nothing so terrible as that, thank goodness. It wasn't an undertaker's wagon, but an ambulance." She paused. It would be rather hard on Nance to tell the news about Andy before all the girls.
"It looked something like the Exmoor ambulance," here observed Katherine Williams.
Molly was silent. Suppose she should tell thesad news and Nance should break down and make a scene. It would be cruel. "I'll wait until they go," she decided. But this was not easy.
"Who was in the ambulance, Molly?" asked Judy impatiently. "I should think you would have had curiosity enough to have noticed where it stopped."
It was no use wrinkling her eyebrows at Judy or trying to evade her direct questions. The inquisitive girl went on:
"Wasn't that Dr. McLean on the seat with the driver?"
"Naturally he would be there, being the only physician in Wellington," replied Molly.
Then Lawyer Wakefield began a series of cross-questions that fairly made the poor girl quail.
"In which direction were you going when you met the ambulance?" asked this persistent judge.
"I was coming this way, of course."
"And you mean to say your curiosity didn't prompt you to turn around and see where the ambulance stopped?"
"I didn't say that," faltered Molly, feeling very much like a prisoner at the bar.
"You did turn and look then? Was it toward the faculty houses or the Quadrangle that the ambulance was driving?"
"Well, really, Judge Wakefield, I think I had better seek legal advice before replying to your questions."
Margaret laughed.
"I only wanted to prove to myself that the only way to get at the truth of a matter is by a system of questions which require direct answers. It's like the game of 'Twenty Questions,' which is the most interesting game in the world when it's properly played. Once I guessed the ring on the Pope's finger in six questions just by careful deduction. It's easier to get at the truth by subtracting than adding——"
"Truth, indeed. You haven't got a bit nearer than any of us," burst in the incorrigible Judy. "With all your legal mind you haven't made Molly tell us who was in the ambulance, and ofcourse she knows. She has never said she didn't, yet."
Molly felt desperately uncomfortable. She wished now that she had told them in the beginning. It had only made matters worse not to tell.
"Molly, you are the strangest person. What possible reason could you have for keeping secret who was in the ambulance? Was it one of the students or one of the faculty?" demanded Nance.
"People who live in the country say that calves are the most inquisitive creatures in the world, but I think girls are," remarked Molly.
"This is as good as a play," cried one of the Williams girls, "a real play behind footlights, to sit here and look on at this little comedy of curiosity. You've asked every conceivable question under the sun, and Molly there has never told a thing. Now I happen to know that the ambulance is connected with the sanitarium over near Exmoor. I saw it once when we were walking, and it is therefore probably bringing someone from Exmoor here. Then if you wish toinquire further by the 'deductive method,' as Judge Wakefield calls it: who at Exmoor has connections at Wellington?"
"Dodo Green and Andy McLean," said Judy quickly.
"Exactly," answered Edith.
Nance's eyes met Molly's and in a flash she understood why her friend had been parrying the questions of the other girls. It was to save her from a shock.
Perhaps some of the other girls recognized this, too, for Margaret and the Williamses rose at the same moment and made excuses to go, and the others soon followed. Only blundering and thoughtless Judy remained to blunder more.
"Molly Brown," she exclaimed, "you have been getting so full of mysteries and secrets lately that you might as well live in a tower all alone. Now, why——"
"Is he very badly hurt, Molly?" interrupted Nance in a cold, even voice, not taking the slightest notice of Judy's complaints.
"Pretty badly, Nance. The journey over fromExmoor was harder on him than they thought it would be. I stood beside the stretcher for a minute."
Nance walked over to the side window and looked across the campus in the direction of the McLean house. On the small section of the avenue which could be seen from that point she caught a glimpse of the ambulance making its return trip to Exmoor.
She turned quickly and went back to her chair.
"It looks like a hearse," she said miserably.
"Is it Andy?" asked Judy of Molly in a whisper.
Molly nodded her head.
"What a chump I've been!" ejaculated Judy.
"It happened the night of the carnival, of course," pursued Nance.
"Yes."
"It was all my fault," she went on quietly. "I would coast down one of those long hills and Andy didn't want me to. I knew I could, and I wanted to show him how well I could skate. Then, just as we got to the bottom, my heel came offand we both tumbled. It didn't hurt us, but Andy was provoked, and then we quarreled. Of course, walking back made us late and he missed the others."
"But, dear Nance, it might have happened just the same, even if he had been with the others," argued Molly.
"No, it couldn't have been so bad. He must have been lying in the snow a long time before they found him, and was probably half frozen," she went on, ruthlessly inflicting pain on herself.
"They did go back and find him, fortunately," admitted Molly.
"He was the first and only boy friend I have ever had," continued Nance in a tone of extreme bitterness. "I always thought I was a wallflower until I met him. Other girls like you two and Jessie have lots of friends and can spare one. But I haven't any to spare. I only have Andy." Her voice broke and she began to sob, "Oh, why was I so stubborn and cruel that night?"
Judy crept over and locked the door. She was sore in mind and body at sight of Nance's misery.
"I feel like a whipped cur," she thought. "Just as if someone had beaten me with a stick. Poor old Nance!"
"You mustn't feel so hopeless about it, Nance dear," Molly was saying. "I'm sure he'll pull through. They wouldn't have brought him all this distance if he had been so badly off."
"They have brought him home to die!" cried Nance fiercely. "And I did it. I did it!" she rocked herself back and forth. "I want to be alone," she said suddenly.
"Of course, dear Nance, no one shall disturb you," said Molly, taking a pile of books off the table and a "Busy" sign, which she hung on the door. "We'll bring up your supper. Don't come down this evening."
But when the girls returned some hours later with a tray of food, Nance had gone to bed and turned her face to the wall, and she refused to eat a morsel. All next day it was the same. Nance remained in bed, ruthlessly cutting lessons and refusing to take anything but a cup of soup at lunch time. The girls called at Dr. McLean'sto inquire for Andy and found that his condition was much the same. Nance's condition was the same, too. She turned a deaf ear to all their arguments and declined to be reasoned with.
"She can't lie there forever," Judy exclaimed at last.
"But what are we to do, Judy?" Molly asked. "She's just nursing her troubles until she'll go into melancholia! I would go to Mrs. McLean, but she won't see anyone and the doctor is too unhappy to listen. I tried to tell him about Nance and he didn't hear a word I was saying. I didn't realize how much they adored Andy."
Judy could offer no suggestion and Molly went off to the Library to think.
It occurred to her that Professor Green might give her some advice. He knew all about the friendship between Nance and Andy, and, besides, he had interested himself once before in Nance's troubles when he arranged for her to go to the McLeans' supper party the year before. Molly glanced at the clock. It was nearly half-past four.
"He'll probably be in his little cloister study right now," she said to herself, and in three minutes she was rapping on the oak door in the corridor marked "E. Green."
"Come in," called the Professor.
He was sitting at his study table, his back turned to her, writing busily.
"You're late, Dodo," he continued, without looking up. "I expected you in time for lunch. Sit down and wait. I can't stop now. Don't speak to me for fifteen minutes. I'm finishing something that must go by the six o'clock mail."
Molly sank into the depths of the nearest chair while the Professor's pen scratched up and down monotonously. Not since the famous night of her Freshman year when she was locked in the cloisters had she been in the Professor's sanctum, and she looked about her with much curiosity.
"I wish I had one just like it," she thought. "It's so peaceful and quiet, just the place to work in and write books on 'The Elizabethan Drama,' and lyric poetry, and comic operas——"
There was a nice leathery smell in the atmosphere of book bindings mingled with tobacco smoke, and the only ornament she could discover, except a small bronze bust of Voltaire and a life mask of Keats, was a glazed paper weight in the very cerulean blue she herself was so fond of. It caught the fading light from the window and shone forth from the desk like a bit of blue sky.
Molly was sitting in a high back leather chair, which quite hid her from Judith Blount, who presently, knocking on the door and opening it at the same moment, entered the room like a hurricane.
"Cousin Edwin, may I come in? I want to ask you something——"
"I can't possibly see you now, Judith. You must wait until to-morrow. I'm very busy."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed the girl and banged the door as she departed into the corridor.
What a jarring element she was in all that peaceful stillness! The muffled noises in theQuadrangle seemed a hundred miles away. Molly rose and tiptoed to the door.
"He'll be angrier than ever if he should find me here," she thought. "I'll just get out quietly and explain some other time."
Her hand was already on the doorknob when the Professor wheeled around and faced her.
"Why, Miss Brown," he exclaimed, "was it you all the time? I might have known my clumsy brother couldn't have been so quiet."
"Please excuse me," faltered Molly. "I am sure you are very busy. I am awfully sorry to have disturbed you."
"Nonsense! It's only unimportant things I won't be bothered with, like the absurd questions Judith thinks up to ask me and Dodo's gossip about the fellows at Exmoor. But I am well aware that you never waste time. I suspect you of being one of the busiest little ladies in Wellington."
Molly smiled. Somehow, she liked to be called a "little lady" by this distinguished professor.
"But your letter that must go by the six mail?"
"That can wait until morning," he said.
He had just said it was to go at six, but, of course, he had a right to change his mind.
"Sit down and tell me what's the trouble. Have you had bad news from home?"
"No, it's about Nance," she began, and told him the whole story. "You see," she finished, "Nance has had so few friends, and she is very fond of Andy. Because she thinks the accident was her fault, she is just grieving herself into an awful state."
The Professor sat with his chin resting on his hand.
"Poor little girl!" he said. "And the Doctor and Mrs. McLean are in almost as bad a state themselves. You know it's just a chance that Andy will pull through. He has developed pneumonia."
"Oh, dear, with all those broken bones and that terrible gash! Isn't it dreadful?"
"Pretty bad. Have you tried talking to Miss Oldham?"
"I've tried everything and nothing will moveher. It's just a kind of stubborn misery that seems to have paralyzed her, mind and body."
The two sat in silence for a moment, then the Professor said:
"Suppose I go down to Queen's to-night and see Miss Oldham? Do you think she could be induced to come down into Mrs. Markham's sitting room and have a talk with me?"
"I should think so. She wouldn't have the courage to decline to see one of the faculty."
"Very well. If she is roused to get up and come down stairs, she may come to her senses. But don't go yet. I have something to tell you, something that doesn't concern Miss Oldham but—er—myself. Do you remember the opera I told you about?"
Molly nodded.
"It's going into rehearsal Christmas week and will open in six weeks. Are you pleased?"
Molly was pleased, of course. She was always glad of other people's good luck.
"How would you like to go to the opening?" he asked.
"It would be wonderful, but—but I don't see how I can. I told you there were complications."
"Yes, I know," he answered, "but you're to forget complications that night and enjoy my first attempt to be amusing."
"I'll try," answered Molly, not realizing how her reply might sound to the author of the comic opera, who only smiled good-naturedly and said:
"The music will be pretty at any rate."
They sat talking about the opera for some time, in fact, until the tower clock clanged six.
"I never dreamed it was so late," apologized Molly, "and I have kept you all this time. I know you must be awfully busy. I hope you will forgive me."
"Didn't I just say that your time was quite as important as mine?" he said. "And when two very important people get together the moments are not wasted."
That night the Professor did call on Nance at Queen's, and the unhappy girl was obliged to get into her things as quickly as possible and go down. What he said to her Molly and Judynever knew, but in an hour Nance returned to them in a normal, sensible state of mind, and not again did she turn her face to the wall and refuse to be comforted.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Professor Green is the nicest person in Wellington, that is, of the faculty," thought Molly as she settled under the reading lamp, and prepared to study her Lit. lesson.
Young Andy McLean was not destined to be gathered to his forefathers yet, however, and before Christmas he was able to sit up in bed and beg his mother fretfully to telephone to Exmoor and ask some of the fellows to come over.
"The doctor says you're not to see any of the boys yet, Andy," replied his mother firmly.
"If I can't see boys, is there anything I can see?" he demanded with extreme irritability.
Mrs. McLean smiled and a little later dispatched a note to Queen's Cottage. That afternoon Nance came shyly into Andy's room and sat down in a low chair beside the white iron hospital bed which had been substituted for the big old mahogany one.
"Your mother says you are lots better, Andy," she said.
Andy gave a happy, sheepish smile and wiggled two fingers weakly, which meant they were to shakehands.
"Mother was afraid for the fellows to come," he said, "on account of my heart. I suppose she thinks a girl can't affect anybody's heart."
"I'm so quiet, you see," said Nance, "but I'll go if you think it's going to hurt you."
"You wouldn't like to see me cry, would you? I boohooed like a kid this morning because they wouldn't let me have broiled ham for breakfast. I smelt it cooking. It would be just like having to give up broiled ham for breakfast to have you go, Nance. Sit down again, will you, and don't leave me until I tell you. Since I've been sick I've learned to be a boss."
"I'm sorry I didn't let you boss me that night, Andy," remarked Nance meekly. "I ought never to have coasted down the hill. I've wanted to apologize ever since."
"Have you been blaming yourself?" he broke in. "It wasn't your fault at all. It all happened because I was angry and didn't look where Iwas going. I have had a lot of time to think lately, and I've decided that there is nothing so stupid as getting mad. You always have to pay for it somehow. Look at me: a human wreck for indulging in a fit of rage. There's a fellow at Ex. who lost his temper in an argument over a baseball game and walked into a door and broke his nose."
Nance laughed.
"There are other ways of curing tempers besides broken bones," she said. "Just plain remorse is as good as a broken nose; at least I've found it so."
"Did you have the remorse, Nance?" asked Andy, wiggling the fingers of his good hand again.
"Yes, awfully, Andy," answered the young girl, slipping her hand into his. "I felt just like a murderer."
The nurse came in presently to say that the fifteen minutes allotted for the call was up. It had slipped by on the wings of the wind, but their friendship had been re-established on theold happy basis. Andy was unusually polite to his mother and the nurse that day, and Nance went straight to the village and bought two big bunches of violets, one for Molly and one for Judy. In some way she must give expression to the rejoicing in her heart, and this was the only means she could think of.
Besides Andy McLean's recovery, several other nice things happened before Christmas. One morning Judy burst into her friend's room like a wild creature, waving a letter in each hand.
"They are coming," she cried. "They have each written to tell me so. Isn't it perfect? Isn't it glorious?"
No need to tell Molly and Nance who "they" were. These girls were fully aware that Judy treated her mother and father exactly like two sweethearts, giving each an equal share of her abundant affections; but the others were not so well informed about Judy's family relations. Otoyo Sen began to clap her hands and laugh joyously in sympathy.
"Is it two honorable young gentlemen who arriving come to see Mees Kean?"
"Now, Otoyo, how often have I told you not to say 'arriving come,'" exclaimed Molly. "I know it's a fascinating combination and difficult to forget in moments of excitement, but it's very bad English."
"Mees Kean, she is so happee," replied the Japanese girl, speaking slowly and carefully. "I cannot remembering when I see so much great joy."
"Wouldn't you be happy, too, if your honorable mamma and papa were coming to Wellington to visit you, you cunning little sparrow-bird?" asked Judy, seizing Otoyo's hands and dancing her wildly about the room.
"Oh, it is honorable mother and father! That is differently. It is not the same in Japan. Young Japanese girl might make great deal of noise over something new and very pretty,—you see? But it is not respectful to jump-up-so about parents arriving."
There was a great laugh at this. Otoyo wasan especial pet at Queen's with the older girls.
"She's like a continuous performance of 'The Mikado,'" remarked Edith Williams. "Three little maids from school rolled into one,—the quaintest, most adorable little person."
"And when do these honorable parents arriving come?" asked Margaret Wakefield.
"To-morrow afternoon," answered Judy. "Where shall I get rooms? What shall I take them to see? Shall I give a tea and ask the girls to meet them? Don't you think a sleighing party would be fun? And a fudge party in the evening? Papa loves fudge. Do you think it would be a good idea to have dinner up here in Molly's and Nance's room, or let papa give a banquet at the Inn? Do suggest, everybody."
Judy was too excited to sit down. She was walking up and down the room, her cheeks blazing and her eyes as uncannily bright as two elfin lights on a dark night.
"Be calm, Judy," said Molly, taking her friend by the shoulders and pushing her into a chair. "You'll work yourself into a high fever withyour excitable ways. Now, sit down there and we'll talk it over quietly and arrange a program."
Judy sat down obediently.
"I suppose it does seem funny to all of you, but, you see, mamma and papa and I have been brought up together——"
"You mean you brought them up?" asked Edith.
"We brought each other up. They call me 'little sister', and until I went off to college, because papa insisted I must have some education, life was just one beautiful lark."
"What a jolly time you must have had!" observed Nance with a wistful smile which reminded the self-centred Judy at last that it was not exactly kind to pile it on too thickly about her delightful parents.
Not a little curiosity was felt by the Queen's girls to see Mr. and Mrs. Kean, whom Judy had described as paragons of beauty and wit, and they assembled at Wellington station in a body to meet the distinguished pair. Judy herself was in a quiver of happy excitement and when finallythe train pulled into the station, she rushed from one platform to another in her eagerness. Of course they had taken the chair car down, but she was too bewildered to remember that there was but one such coach on the Wellington train, and it was usually the rear car.
"I don't find them. Oh, mamma! Oh, papa! You couldn't have missed the train!" she cried, addressing the spirits of the air.
Just then a very tall, handsome man with eyes exactly like Judy's pinioned her arms from behind.
"Well, little sister, don't you know your own father?"
He was just as Judy had described him; and her word-picture also fitted Mrs. Kean, a dainty, pretty, little woman, with a doll-like face and flaxen hair, who would never have given the impression that she was in the habit of roughing it in engineering camps, sleeping out of doors, riding across sun-baked plains on Texas bronchos, and accompanying her husband wherever he went on his bridge and railroad-building trips.
"Judy hasn't had much home life," she said later to Molly. "We had to take our choice, little sister and I, between a home without papa or papa without a home, and we decided that he was ten thousand times more delightful than the most wonderful palace ever built."
Her extravagant speeches reminded Molly of Judy; but the mother was much gentler and quieter than her excitable daughter, and perhaps not so clever.
They dined at Queen's that night and made a tour of the entire house, except Judith Blount's room, all apartments having been previously spruced up for inspection. Otoyo had shown her respect for the occasion by hanging a Japanese lantern from the chandelier and loading a little table with "meat-sweets," which she offered to the guests when they paused in her room during their triumphal progress through the house.
Later Molly and Nance entertained at a fudge and stunt party and Mr. and Mrs. Kean were initiated into the secrets of life at Queen's.
They entered into the fun like two children,and one of the stunts, a dialogue between the Williams sisters, amused Mr. Kean so much that he laughed loud and long, until his wife shook him by the shoulder and exclaimed:
"Hush, Bobbie. Remember, you're not on the plains, but in a girls' boarding school."
"Yes, Robert," said Judy, who frequently spoke to her parents by their first names, "remember that you are in a place where law and order must be maintained."
"You shouldn't give such laugh-provoking stunts, then," answered Mr. Kean, "but I'll try and remember to put on the soft pedal hereafter."
Then Molly, accompanying herself on Judy's guitar, sang: