Nell Speed

“ At eight o'clock the next morning when the night train from New York pulled into Wellington station, a crowd of well-dressed young women on the platform gazed at the door of the Pullman car with expectant eyes. Judy Kean in a black velvet suit and a big picture hat headed the delegation. Only two passengers descended from the sleeper: a middle-aged, worn-looking woman in shabby black and a young man whose alert brown eyes took in at once the crowd of college girls and Judy, resplendent in velvet and plumes. ”

“ Molly laughed. In her heart there was a secret, unacknowledged feeling of relief that she was going to try to see Professor Green in spite of Miss Fern. It was a relief, too, to find herself in the outdoors after her long vigil of study. The rain beat on her face and the fresh wind nipped her cheeks until they glowed with color.
"You are much too small and feeble to come out in all this weather, Otoyo," she said, slipping her arm through her friend's. "You are so tiny you might easily fall into a puddle and drown." ”

“ Judy looked startled.
"I want you to promise me to give up this Adele Windsor and her crowd. She's never done you any good. She's a malicious, dangerous, wicked girl and if you haven't the sense to see it, I'll just tell you."
This was strong language coming from Molly.
"If you don't, mid-years will certainly see your finish, if you aren't dropped sooner. You're not studying at all and you are simply acting outrageously, dyeing your hair and borrowing rope ladders. I'm disgusted with you, Judy Kean, I am indeed."
"Miss Walker has a grudge against me," announced Judy, in a hot whisper. ”

“ Just as Jimmy Lufton and Molly had completed the glide waltz for the fifth time that evening and had sunk down on a sofa breathless, the parlor door opened and in walked Professor Edwin Green, looking as well as he had ever looked in his life, with a fine glow of color in his cheeks.
"My dear Professor!" cried Mrs. McLean.
"Ed, I thought you were going to spend Christmas in the south," exclaimed his brother.
"You are a disobedient young man," ejaculated the doctor,—all in one chorus. ”

“ Jeers and incredulous laughter followed this statement.
"We only hope you'll hold out to the end, Jessie," remarked Katherine in tones of reproach.
"What, leave dear old Wellington and all of you for any ordinary, stupid man? I'd never think of it," cried Jessie.
"I'm not afraid," here put in Edith. "Fickle Jessica may change her mind and her ring half a dozen times before June. Who can tell?"
"I'm not fickle where all of you are concerned, anyhow," answered Jessie reproachfully.
"You're a dear, Jessie," broke in Molly. She never did quite enjoy seeing other people teased. ”

“ Tears, which Molly had never seen Judy shed but once before, now worked two tortuous little paths down her flushed cheeks.
Molly and Nance comforted and nursed her into quiet. They bathed her face and loosened her dyed locks which were now beginning to show a strange tawny yellow at the roots and a rusty brownish color at the ends. All the time Molly was thinking very hard.
"Judy," she said, at last, when they had got her quiet. "There's no reason why you shouldn't pass the mid-years and graduate with your class if you want to." ”

“ It was all over in a flash, and yet it seemed as if the entire college of Wellington could be seen running across the campus to the lakeside.
By the time the half-drowned trio reached land Miss Walker herself was there looking frightened and pale. The girls were to go straight to the Quadrangle, be rubbed down with alcohol and put to bed. As for the brave young man who had saved their lives, he was to be taken to the infirmary where he could be made comfortable while his clothes were being dried. ”

“ Molly looked at her and smiled.
"Remember, you are to come home with me this summer, Judy, and maybe you'll like Kentucky so well you'll want to stay there."
Molly was well aware that her brother Kent had fallen in love with Judy at first sight, and it didn't occur to her that anybody could resist the charms of her favorite brother.
"Margaret, why don't you come back?" asked Nance.
"Not me," answered Margaret. "I hear the voice of suffrage calling!"
"We all of us hear voices calling," broke in Katherine. "And each is a different voice according to our natures. ”

“ Molly had not even noticed the glance. She was looking across the campus in the direction of the infirmary and at the same time forming a resolution to go over and inquire for Professor Green as soon as she could arrange her tumbled hair.
But Nance had caught the slightly contemptuous expression in Adele's eyes and resented it with warm loyalty.
"I don't see what clothes have to do with it," she asserted. "Because in New York people look at one's clothes before they look at one's face, it doesn't follow that they are more advanced than people in other places." ”

“ The kind of president we want is some one with presence and dignity. We want a handsome president who dresses in good taste and can talk. Girls,"—Molly raised her hand as if calling upon heaven to strengthen the force of her arguments,—"we don't want a thin, lank president without [157] any shape" (sounds of tumultuous laughter and the beginning of applause) —"one of those formless, backboneless people who can't talk and who dress in—well, ragtags. I tell you, girls, Margaret is the president for us. ”

“ After all, boys' methods of settling disputes by drawing a circle and fighting it out are somehow much more honest. It would be worth a black eye and a bloody nose to lay forever all that innuendo and sly insinuation."
"She's hypnotized Judy into putting her up for the Shakespeareans and the Olla Podridas," said Nance. "And she'll get in. Nobody will dream of blackballing her, you'll see."
Molly compressed her lips into a firm red line and said nothing, but she was almost led to wish that school societies did not exist at all. ”

“ The rest of the time until graduation was like a dream to Molly and her friends whose hearts were filled with a sort of two-pronged homesickness; homesickness for home and for Wellington, which now they were about to leave forever more. ”

“ I don't think Miss Walker would have given me another chance. Everything would have been [262] against me, the rope ladder and all the things I had said."
"But then you could have proved an alibi," said Nance. "You were up here the night the ghost chased Molly and me."
"So I could," Judy exclaimed. "I was so scared I forgot all about that night. There's something about Adele that makes you lose your senses. She leans over you and looks at you and talks to you in a hot, rapid sort of way. I just saw myself, after all the trouble everybody had taken with me, being sent away in disgrace. ”

“ On the way back that afternoon the old Queen's girls held a council of war.
"I think we ought to make it our business to find out who played this trick on us," cried Margaret, "if it takes detective work to do it. Our dignity as seniors has been attacked and the standards of Wellington lowered."
"I don't believe any juniors had a hand in it," put in Judy, "because we are so friendly with them."
Nance nudged Molly.
"She's afraid somebody's going to blame that charming Adele," she whispered. ”

“ But Molly was too angry to think coherently.
"Otoyo," she began, "you know how much all the Queen's girls think of you. You are really our property, child. If any of us felt that we had hurt or grieved you, we would really never forgive ourselves." ”

“ You see it everywhere; at the theaters, in society, at the opera——"
"You mean everywhere in New York," corrected Nance.
Adele smiled, showing a row of even white teeth. She was really very handsome.
"Well, isn't New York the hub of the world?" put in Judy.
"No," answered Nance firmly. "Boston and San Francisco and Chicago and St. Louis are just as much hubs as New York—to say nothing of the smaller cities. Any place with telegraph wires and competent people at both ends can keep up with the times nowadays——" [27]
"Yes, but what about the theaters and operas," Judy began hotly. ”

“ She's been wearing mourning for years off and on, but she's only lately gone into such heavy black."
"And you've no objection to a little fun, then?" asked Andy.
"Not a particle," answered Judy, the old bright look lighting her face. "My feelings aren't black, I assure you."
"On with the dance, then, let joy be unconfined," cried Andy. "We'll call for you at a quarter of eight, girls—at O'Reilly's, you say? I'll have to trot along now and tell the mater."
The three boys hurried off while Molly and Judy rushed home to look over their party clothes.
"Isn't life a pleasant thing, after all?" ”

“ Margaret Wakefield, bursting with opinions about politics and woman's suffrage; pretty Jessie Lynch, and the Williams sisters whose dark lustrous eyes seemed to see beyond the outer crust of things. Last of all, after a discreet interval, would come a soft, deprecating tap at the door, and Otoyo Sen, most charming of little Japanese ladies, with a beaming, apologetic smile, would glide into the room on her marshmallow soled slippers.
"Everybody's late," exclaimed Judy, unexpectedly breaking in on her friend's preoccupation. "I do wish my trunk were unpacked. I can't bear to be unsettled. ”

“ Molly introduced him to Kent and Minnie and the three were soon good friends and looking for the best places along the campus to see the sights, while Molly rushed off to attire herself for the morning as a Maypole dancer. Old Wellington presented a strange and unusual aspect on that beautiful May morning. Far back under the trees gathered the people of the pageant waiting for the cue to start the march. Carts drawn by yokes of oxen rumbled along the avenue, filled with rustics from the country, mostly freshmen dressed in all manner of early English costumes. ”

“ I have a real talent for acting. I have, indeed, and I shall be able to get stunning costumes."
Judy twisted and squirmed and shrunk away like a bird being gradually hypnotized by a serpent—at least so it seemed to Molly peeping through a crack in the door.
"I tell you it will be impossible," Judy was saying, after a pause, when Adele burst out with:
"Those are unlucky words, Judy Kean. I'll make you sorry you ever spoke——" she stopped short off as Molly appeared in one door and Nance in the other, followed by Otoyo, Margaret and Jessie and the Williams sisters. ”

“ Otoyo rose quickly, flushing a little under her dark skin. She seemed very foreign to Molly at [167] that moment, in her beautiful embroidered kimono of black and gold. Also she seemed very formal in her manner and distant, like an exiled princess who still clings to the dignity of her former position. ”

“ Brady. I've got a bit of land; it's an orchard on the side of a hill sloping down to a brook——"
Molly, sitting on the pantry floor, felt a sudden jolt as if some one had shaken her by the shoulder. Faintness came over her and her heart beat so fast and loud she wondered that the two in the kitchen did not hear its palpitations.
"The trees bear plenty of apples; I'll have lots of fruit in my old age. I've only to hobble out and knock them down with my cane when I get too old to climb up and shake the limbs, and where once swung a hammock in my orchard I may build a little hut." ”

“ If Molly had come unannounced upon Nance on her knees or Judy at her devotions, she would have beat a hasty retreat, but it came to her that Otoyo, sitting there cross-legged before the images of strange gods, needed help of some sort.
"You aren't angry with me for coming in, Otoyo?" she began. "I knocked and you didn't hear. I'm afraid something is the matter. Won't you let me help you? I have not forgotten how you helped me once when I was unhappy. Don't you remember how you let me sit in your room and think over my troubles that Sunday afternoon at Queen's?" ”

“ That afternoon Miss Julia Kean received a summons to appear at Miss Walker's office immediately. From this interview Judy emerged in a stubborn, angry humor. Miss Walker was a wise woman in her generation, but she had never had a girl of Judy's temperament to deal with before. Judy's rather contemptuous indifference had inflamed the President into saying some rather harsh things.
If one girl dyed her hair a great many others might. Such things often struck a college in waves and she was not going to tolerate it. ”

“ Madeleine knew dozens of different ways of making sandwiches. We used to make up dishes of fillings ahead of time and keep them on ice. Sometimes at night we were so tired we'd simply fall into bed, but we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and we had a splendid time in spite of the hard work."
"I think you are wonderful," cried Molly. "I should never even have hoped to make anything like that go."
"It's Madeleine who is the wonder," broke in Judith loyally. "She has the brains and energy of a real genius."
"Are you down at O'Reilly's this winter? ”

“ There were scores of faces at the windows of the Quadrangle when the special 'bus drew up at the archway.
"She didn't come," Judy called to a group of girls lingering in the tower room. "A man came."
"Young or old?" cried half a dozen voices.
"Young and passing fair," said Jessie.
"Passing dark, you mean. He had black hair."
"But where is old Miss Slammer?" demanded Edith Williams. ”

“ With an impetuous gesture, Molly rose and pushed the chair out of the way. Then she sat flat on the floor beside Otoyo, and took one of the little plump brown hands in hers.
"Otoyo, you're unhappy. Something has happened and you're praying to Catholic saints and Fuji and Buddha all at once. Isn't it so?"
"The saints are very honorable gentlemen," answered Otoyo quickly. "Mrs. Murphy has told me many things of their goodness. And Fuji is the mountain that brings comfort to all Japanese people. Holy men dwell on Fuji and pilgrims climb to the summit each year to worship. ”

“ Molly put her hands on the Irish woman's shoulders and looked into her face appealingly.
"Shure, thim eyes is like the gals' in the old countree, Miss," remarked Mrs. Brady, visibly melting under that telling gaze. "Ye can do as you like, but if the Professor don't like his breakfast the blame be on you." ”