Nell Speed

“ The movement was promptly seconded by Molly, carried by universal acclaim, and the resolution put into effect immediately.
After Christmas comes the terror of every freshman’s heart—the mid-year examinations. As the dreaded week approached, lights burned late in every house on the campus and nobody offered any interference. Behind closed doors sat scores of weary maidens with pale concentrated faces bent over text-books.
Judy Kean made a record at Queen’s. She crammed history for thirty-six hours at a stretch, only stopping for food occasionally or to snatch a half hour’s nap. ”

“ For a long time Molly searched every inch of the ground back of the sheds where she might have been. Then, with an ever-growing feeling of desperation, she hunted in the field itself, across which she had followed the parade. And it was here that Judy and Nance found her so absorbed in her search that she had not even noticed their approach.
“Oh, Molly, Molly! what are we going to do with you?” cried Nance, seizing her by the arm impulsively. “You’ll kill yourself by your imprudence. ”

“ At last, however, she did appear at supper in a beautiful dinner dress of lavender crêpe de chine with an immense bunch of violets pinned at her belt. She looked very handsome and the girls could not refrain from giving her covert glances of admiration as she took her seat stonily at the table.
It was the impetuous, precipitate Judy who took the lead in the promotion of kindliness and her premature act came near to cutting down the new club in its budding infancy.
“You must be going to a party,” she began, flashing one of her ingratiating smiles at Frances. ”

“ There was a great deal of noise, Molly remembered. She herself was so horrified and stunned that she stood immovable, clutching the tray wildly, as a drowning person clings to a life preserver. She heard Judith cry:
“How stupid! How could you have been so unpardonably awkward!”
At the same moment Mary Stewart said: “It was entirely your fault, Mr. Blount. You frightened the poor child with your wild behavior.”
And Professor Green said:
“Don’t scold, Judith. I’m to blame. I joggled the tray with my elbow. There’s no harm done, at any rate. ”

“ I did feel a little timid, but I told her what had happened. ‘You can tell your friend,’ she said, ‘that we sophomores are not so gullible as all that, and if her nerve has failed her at the last moment, it’s her fault, not ours.’”
“Why, Judy,” exclaimed Nance, “you didn’t know you were jumping from the frying pan right into the fire when you told that to Judith Blount, who has never liked Molly from the beginning. It’s jealousy, pure and simple, I think; although there almost seems to be something more behind it sometimes. She takes such pains to be disagreeable. ”

“ To Molly, sitting on the platform, and to other trembling freshmen in the audience, the President seemed for the moment like a great and stern judge, who had appointed mid-years as the time for a general execution of criminals.
“I consider,” went on the speaker in slow and even tones, “idleness a most unfortunate quality, and I am prepared to combat it and to convince any of my girls who show that tendency that good hard work and only good hard work will bring success. A great many girls come here preferring idleness and learn to repent it—before mid-years.” ”

“ Molly Brown’s Freshman Days CHAPTER I.
WELLINGTON.
“Wellington! Wellington!” called the conductor.
The train drew up at a platform, and as if by magic a stream of girls came pouring out of the pretty stucco station with its sloping red roof and mingled with another stream of girls emptying itself from the coaches. Everywhere appeared girls,—leaping from omnibuses; hurrying down the gravel walk from the village; hastening along the University drive; girls on foot; girls on bicycles; girls running, and girls strolling arm in arm. ”

“ How she wished she had never heard of college, cold, unfriendly place where people insulted old friends and they locked doors at six o’clock. The chill of the evening had fallen and the stars were beginning to show themselves in the square of blue over the Cloisters. Molly shivered and folded her arms. She had not worn her coat and her blue linen blouse was damp with dew. ”

“ But to go on, Molly, dear, I am rich, not ordinarily rich, but enormously, vastly rich. It’s absurd, really, because we’ll never spend it, and we don’t care a rap about saving it; but whatever father touches just turns to gold. ”

“ Molly laughed aloud at this naïve confession.
“The point I’m coming to is this, Molly: Judith Blount is being exceedingly horrid over that ring. I believe myself it will be found eventually. But until it is found, I want you—now don’t interrupt me and don’t carry on, please—I want you to ask her the value of her old ring and give her the money for it. If she chooses to be ill-bred, she must be treated with ill-bred methods.” ”

“ She came to be known as “Judy,” and formed an intimate friendship with Molly and Nance, which lasted throughout the four years of their college course.
“How do you feel after your night’s rest?” she called across the table to Molly in the most friendly manner, just as if they had known each other always. “You look like the ‘Lady of the Sea’ in that blue linen that just matches your eyes.” She began looking Molly over with a kind of critical admiration, narrowing her eyes [47] as an artist does when he’s at work on a picture. ”

“ Molly Brown was the youngest member of a numerous family of older brothers and sisters. Her father had been dead many years, and in order to rear and educate her children, Mrs. Brown had been obliged to mortgage, acre by acre, the fine old place where Molly and her brothers and sisters had been born and brought up. Every time anybody in the Brown family wanted to do anything that was particularly nice, something had to go, either a cow or a colt or a piece of land, according to the needs of the moment. A two-acre lot represented Molly’s college education—two perfectly good acres of orchard. ”

“ Professor Green, just beyond Mrs. McLean, frowned, and put his hands in his pockets. He wondered if Dr. McLean had forgotten that he had been sent for just three weeks before when Molly had fainted in the gymnasium, and the Professor breathed a sigh of relief when Liberty presently descended to the earth and the game began.
It was one of the bloodiest and roughest games in the history of football. The ambulance bell rang constantly. Every time a victim fell, the cheering section on the other side set up a wild yell. ”

“ Freshmen at boys’ colleges are often like that.”
“You don’t think it was a freshman, do you, Miss Stewart?” cried Mabel Hinton, turning her round spectacles on Mary like a large, serious owl.
“Oh, no, indeed. I was only joking. I haven’t the remotest notion who it is.”
“If I were a detective on the case,” said Mabel Hinton, “I should look for a junior who was jealous of the seniors. Some one who had a grudge, perhaps.”
“If I were a detective,” announced Margaret Wakefield, in her most judicial manner, “I should look for some one who had a grudge against Molly.” ”

“ When Professor Green a little later returned the emerald ring to his cousin, he cut the visit as short as possible. He told her that she had deliberately and wrongfully accused one who had shielded her even at the risk of offending the President of Wellington College, and that it was he who had given the detective, already suspicious, the clue she wanted.
Judith wept bitterly, but her cousin showed no signs of relenting.
“If you want to be loved,” he said, “learn unselfishness and gentleness and truthfulness. These are the qualities that make men and women beloved. ”

“ As for Molly, her thoughts were about the same as Judy’s.
“A lady doesn’t creep,” she was thinking, as she thankfully crawled into bed; “a lady doesn’t listen at doors or wear soundless slippers in order to walk like a cat. No, Miss Steel is decidedly not a lady.” ”

“ No. 16 on the Quadrangle turned out to be a very luxurious and comfortable suite of rooms, consisting of quite a large parlor, a little den or study and a bedroom. Mary Stewart met them at the door in such a plain dress that at first Molly was deceived into thinking it was just an ordinary frock until she noticed the lines. And in a few moments Nance took occasion to inform her that simplicity was one of the most expensive things in the world, which few people could afford, and furthermore that Mary Stewart’s gray, cottony-looking dress was a dream of beauty and must have come from Paris. ”

“ I’m going to make a resolution to be nice to that poor girl hereafter, no matter how horrid she is. It will be an interesting experiment, if for no other reason.”
“Let’s form a society,” put in Molly, “to reinstate Frances Andrews, and the way to do it will be to be as nice as we can to her and to say nice things about her to the other girls.”
“Good work!” cried Margaret Wakefield, scenting another opportunity to draw up a constitution, by-laws and resolutions. “We will call a first meeting right now, and elect officers. I move that Molly be made chairman of the meeting.” ”

“ We often got ready on a day’s notice to go thousands of miles, to San Francisco or Alaska or Mexico, anywhere. Papa is exactly like me, or, rather, I am exactly like him, only he is a hundred times [191] better looking and more fascinating and charming than I can ever hope to be.”
“You funny child,” exclaimed Molly; “how do you know you are not all those things right now?”
“I know I’m not,” sighed Judy. “Papa is brilliant, and not a bit lazy. He works all the time.” ”

“ Miss Steel looked at her in surprise, so sure was she that Molly would confirm her suspicions.
Molly sat down again and clasped her knees with her long arms. Her cheeks were crimson and her eyes blazing.
“Who was it, then?” asked the inspector.
“I can’t tell you that, Miss Steel. If I should give you the girl’s name I should be dishonored all my life. I have been brought up to believe that the one who tells is as low as the one who [263] did the deed. When we were children, my mother would never listen to a telltale. ”

“ Molly slipped on the blue muslin.
“It really doesn’t make any difference what she wears,” thought Nance, looking at her friend with covert admiration. “She’d be a star in a crazy quilt.”
The two girls hurried down to supper. Molly was thoughtful all through that conversational meal. Her mind was busy with a scheme by which she intended to remove that unceasing pressure for funds which bade fair to be an ever-increasing bugbear to her. ”

“ Again Molly smiled to herself. Tea in the Cloisters, with a distinguished professor and his charming sister! Only nine months before she had been a lonely, shivering little waif of a freshman locked in the Cloisters. The words of the sophomore “croak” came back to her:
“They have locked me in the Cloisters;
They have fastened up the gate.
Oh, let me out! Oh, let me out!
It’s growing very late.”
“I am sorry that my ticket is bought and my berth engaged, and the expressman coming for my trunk to-morrow at nine,” she said. ”

“ It’s been ground into me since I was a child not to make friends with people unless it was to my advantage, and I found out they were entirely worthy. And it’s a slow process, I can tell you. You are the very first chance acquaintance I ever made in my life, and I like you better than any girl I ever met. So there, will you say you have forgiven me?”
“Of course, I will,” exclaimed Molly, flushing with pleasure. “There is nothing to forgive. I know I’m too indiscriminate about making friends. Mother often complained because I would bring such queer children out to dinner when I was a child. ”

“ Molly’s face turned crimson.
“But Dodo is crushed on Judy,” she laughed.
“It may be,” said Jessie. “Rumors are most generally twisted.”
The first meeting of the G. F.’s now disbanded and the members scattered to dress for the early Sunday dinner. They all attended Vespers that afternoon, and in the quiet hour of the impressive service more than one pondered seriously upon the conversation of the morning and the purpose of the new club. ”

“ At lunch, according to the etiquette of the place, George and his guests were placed at the senior table. There was no smoking nor loud talking and the students behaved themselves most decorously, although George confided to Judy that ordinarily pandemonium prevailed.
After lunch they started for the grounds in a [148] triumphal procession; for our Wellington freshmen and their chaperone had an escort of at least four or five young men apiece. Nance looked bewildered and shy and happy; Judy was never more sparkling nor prettier, and Molly was in her gayest, brightest humor. ”

“ It’s quite customary for freshmen to act as waitresses when girls in the older classes entertain in their rooms. The freshies like to do it because they get such good food. I do think this note is expressed, well—rather unfortunately. It has a sort of between-the-lines superiority. But Judith is always like that. You just have to take her as you find her and ignore her faults. You’d better accept, Molly, with good grace. You’ll enjoy the food, too. ”

“ It’s easy to do things for people we love and easier still when we have the money to do it with. If I hadn’t been so fond of you, Molly, and had been obliged to deny myself besides, that would have been generosity. ”

“ The young freshman’s face was crimson when she brought in the steak and placed it in front of Mr. Blount.
Then she took her stand correctly behind his chair, with a plate in her hand, waiting for him to carve.
Sometimes two members of the same family are so unlike that it is almost impossible to believe that blood from the same stock runs in their veins. So it was with Richard Blount and his sister, Judith. She was tall and dark and arrogant, and he was short and blond and full of good-humored gayety. He rallied all the girls at [92] the table. ”

“ Nance seemed so unsympathetic and reserved and there was a kind of hardness about this Frances Andrews that made the warm-hearted, affectionate Molly a bit uncomfortable. Suddenly Nance spied her old friend, Caroline Brinton, in the distance, and rushed over to join her. As she left, three girls came toward them, talking animatedly.
“Hello, Jennie Wren!” called Frances gayly. It was the same little bird-like person who had been in the bus. “Howdy, Rosamond. How are you, Lotta? It’s awfully nice to be back at the old stand again. ”

“ EXMOOR COLLEGE.
Busy days followed the sophomore-freshman ball. The girls were “getting into line,” as Judy variously expressed it; “showing their mettle; and putting on steam for the winter’s work.” The story of the incendiary had been reported exaggerated and had gradually died out altogether. Frances Andrews had returned to college, more brazenly facetious than ever, breaking into conversations, loudly interrupting, making jokes which no one laughed at except Molly and Judy out of charity. ”