Jane Allen, Junior Part 25

"Judy, if some of the girls were to hear you rave that way they might take it seriously----"

"And they would be perfectly justified in so doing," mocked Judith.

"Please hear me. I want to talk seriously and started off with such a lovely preamble," interrupted Jane. "It's this way, Judy. Shirley shows the earmarks of wealth, I mean money. Now, where does she get it, and after that poor boy's letter?"

"If I only knew," pursued Judith, refusing to be serious. "How I'd love two hundred!"

"Well, we have got to find out where it comes from," fired back Jane, flushing with determination. "I am not going to be fooled by a change in manner and an improvement in style. If beauty shop money is beginning to flow in here it must be stopped."

"Bravo! We haven't had a real lively little sc.r.a.p since the ghost fell, and I'd love it."

"You may joke, Judith, but----"

"Calling me by my baptismal name settles it," said Judith, with a.s.sumed finality. "I'll apologize, Jane Allen. What do you propose to do, and when are you going to do it? May I act as your honorable secretary?"

"Yes, come with me tonight and pay a visit at Lenox. I want to talk Sally into going to the dance. The girls are so fond of her and she happens to be one of our pets. I really don't know how it happens but it has, and it would look shabby if we were to leave her out. So she must come."

"Got to," agreed Judith. "She's so smart, every freshman is envious.

Did you hear Miss Roberts, the real Noah Webster of Wellington, rave about her thesis?"

"Clever girls are so apt to cut dances," said Jane. "We must a.s.sume the missionary spirit---" her voice trailed solemnly.

This was too much for the turbulent Judith, as Jane intended it should be.

"I'll go, I'll go!" she cried out in protest. "Although I hate to think of Teddy having to choose between me and daffodilly Sally; still I'll go, Jane, to save you another spasm like that. Where's the Logic? Do you suppose Ethics will be easier? Or perhaps worse-- likely worse," she was slamming book pages violently. "Now don't speak to me for one half hour. Then do your worst."

But while Judith was studying Jane slipped out of the room ostensibly for a breath of fresh air. All her chum's hilarity was appreciated, but just now things were a.s.suming a serious turn and Jane felt some responsibility for the swing of the turntable.

"Judy's a dear, but she hasn't a daddy's scholarship to fight for,"

Jane told herself. "And the marked change in my rebellious Shirley may only be a preliminary to another outbreak. I've just got to see the girls before the lecture," and she flew from the inopportune mirth of Judith Stearns.

Shirley and Sarah were together in Shirley's room--not at the foot of the attic stairs now, but a tiny "nest" under the artistic eaves, chosen for effect on the purse, as well as on the eye.

"I can't do it," Shirley was arguing, as Jane came to the door. "I simply am through at mid-year."

Surprised at this statement, Jane knocked quickly to forestall further disclosure. Both girls answered, and Jane found them glad-- even anxious to see her.

"You are both surely coming to the dance," she began, falling into Sally's prettiest cushions. "I came over just to make sure." "Oh, Miss Allen," wavered Sally. "I can't go----"

"Now, Sally," Jane began, "please don't consider it is at all ign.o.ble to be financially embarra.s.sed. In fact, more than half of our girls are continually 'rationed,' as they call a cut in allowance. And if it is only a matter of a pretty little flowered gown----"

"No, that isn't it," interrupted Sally.

"The fact is, Miss Allen, we are both getting ready to--escape,"

said Shirley, with a double-edged laugh.

"Escape?"

"Go home and desert!"

Jane showed her astonishment. "You couldn't mean anything like that!" she gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't be so disloyal!"

The girls looked at each other, puzzled, neither seeming to know what might be best to reply. Finally Shirley said:

"You must know, Miss Allen, I am totally unprepared for exams, and I see no reason why I should face them. I plan to stay home after the Christmas vacation."

"Shirley!" exclaimed Jane. "If you ever knew my dad you wouldn't treat him like that," her voice quavered with excitement. "He seems to think more of the record of his scholarship girl than of his own daughter's achievements. Oh, you can't mean you are going to cut!"

"Your daddy!" repeated Shirley. "I didn't suppose he cared a snap for his--beneficiary."

"Beneficiary indeed! He called you a very different name. He is a great, big western man, with a heart as fine as the hills and a soul as true as their granite." Jane did not pause to note the effect of her words, although Shirley was almost gasping. "He has what some might call a deep personal interest in the girl he sponsors at Wellington, but it's more than interest," she was almost breathless, "it's affection; my dad just naturally loves the girl he sends here, and if she fails him utterly---"

"Stop! Miss Allen, please do," Shirley entreated. Her face was flushed and her breathing plainly audible. "I had no idea it was like that. Your dad would care? And I would be a coward?"

Sally stood like one shocked into deadly silence. Not even her lips parted, and the color left her face sickly white.

"Don't you know, don't you understand what it means for a student to deliberately flunk? Not even to try?" demanded Jane.

"Bobbie!" said Sally to the big girl who was trying to find words.

"We have got to try--you cannot--go."

Then Jane knew why the girls had been calling Shirley Bobbie. It was her companion's affectionate name for her.

"Yes, Kitten," Shirley said. "We have got to, but now, how can we do it?"

The situation was becoming more difficult each moment, and when presently Jane Allen left the two freshmen, she had taken on the weight of a new mystery.

Those girls were in a conspiracy to desert before exams. Why?

CHAPTER XXI

CRAMMING EVENTS

"Now, what can we do? However are we going to get out of this?"

Sally asked Shirley. They seemed desperate.

"I don't know. How differently things have turned out from our expectations? I wouldn't mind anything but that darling dad of Jane's. The thought sickens me," and the bobbed head drooped dejectedly.

"But I am more at fault than you," sobbed Sally. "I feel like running away from everything."

"So do I, but we neither will do it. That's the trouble with reformation. I told you I should hate to be reformed--it tags on so many responsibilities. But we are both in for it. And the dance and Ted wanting to come!"

"Yes, isn't it just dreadful? What shall we do?"