Jane Allen: Right Guard Part 27

"I intend to," Selina said with grim decision. "I shall keep the managership of the teams, but I'll steer clear of trouble after this.

Now let's hustle home. I must write Miss Rutledge a note and enclose Marian's resignation. I'll ask her to answer, stating whether it is satisfactory and asking what I am to do. I'll pretend that I found the resignation waiting for me at Creston Hall."

Half an hour later, Selina had written her letter and dispatched it to Warburton Hall, the faculty house where Miss Rutledge lived, by the small son of Mrs. Ingram, the matron of Creston Hall.

When the dean had read and re-read the two communications, she looked decidedly grave. After a brief interval of thoughtful meditation, she wrote Selina the following reply:

"DEAR MISS BROWN:

"Kindly write to Miss Seaton and accept her resignation from the soph.o.m.ore team. Do not post the notice I requested you to post. It will not be necessary. Write to Miss Stearns notifying her that Miss Seaton has resigned from the team and that I wish her to accept the position thus left vacant.

"Yours truly,

"GERTRUDE RUTLEDGE."

When the next morning's mail brought Judith the amazing news, unwillingly penned by Selina Brown, she was literally dumfounded. The mail arriving while she was at breakfast, she garnered the note from the house bulletin board on her way upstairs from the dining-room.

"For goodness' sake, read this!" she almost shouted, bursting in upon Jane, who was preparing to go to her first recitation. "I don't know what to make of it!"

A slow smile dawned on Jane's lips as she perused the agitating note.

"Marian never resigned by her own accord," she said. "It looks as though her scheme had somehow proved a boomerang. Someone stood up for you, Judy, mighty loyally. Miss Rutledge's name being mentioned in the note tells me that. Was it Dorothy, I wonder? No; it wasn't. She promised us that she wouldn't go to Miss Rutledge about it."

"It's a mystery to me," declared Judith. "I don't know what to do. I wonder----"

A rapping at the door sent her scurrying to open it.

"Why, Dorothy!" she exclaimed. "How did you know I wanted to see you?"

"I didn't know. I came because I have a special message for you from Miss Rutledge. She sent for me to come to her last night after dinner. I spent the evening with her and arrived here too late to see you. I was dying to tell Jane this morning at breakfast, but couldn't, of course, until I'd seen you. I'm glad you're both here. By the way, Judy, did you receive a note from Selina Brown?"

"I certainly did," emphasized Judith. "What's the answer to all this, Dorothy? I was never more astonished in all my life than when I read her note. What made Marian Seaton resign from the team, and why does Miss Rutledge want me to take her place? I'd just about made up my mind to go and ask her, when you came."

"You needn't," smiled Dorothy. "She has asked me to explain things to you in confidence. I'm going to take the liberty of including Jane. I'll explain why presently."

"I won't feel hurt if you don't, Dorothy," Jane said earnestly. "Perhaps you'd really rather tell Judy alone."

"No. I want you to hear the whole thing," Dorothy insisted. Whereupon she recounted what had occurred on the previous afternoon in the dean's office.

"I wanted you to know, Jane, just why I told Miss Rutledge that this affair was a hang-over from last year. I know she has no idea of whom I meant by the girl who was standing up for right. She may suspect Marian as being the other girl. I can't say as to that. I'm glad she knows now that there is such a condition of affairs at Wellington. She will not forget it if anything else comes up. She will be very well able to put two and two together, if need be."

"I'd never go to her of my own accord," Jane said with an emphatic shake of her russet head.

"You might be sent for some day, just as I was yesterday," returned Dorothy.

"But you haven't yet explained why Marian resigned, Dorothy," reminded Judith. "What did Miss Rutledge say about it?"

"She said that she had received a note from Selina, with Marian's resignation enclosed. Marian's reason for resigning was that she had learned you were dissatisfied over her appointment on the team. She preferred to give you her position rather than have you continue to make trouble about it."

Dorothy's lips curled scornfully as she said this.

"Then I won't accept it!" Judith blazed into sudden anger. "The idea of her writing such things about me! How can Miss Rutledge ask me to replace Marian after that? I won't do it."

"Yes, Judy, you must," Jane declared quietly. "Marian wrote that hoping you'd hear of it and refuse. She knew you'd insist on learning the particulars before you accepted. Miss Rutledge has shown her faith in you by asking you to replace Marian on the team."

"Selina Brown is behind the whole thing," a.s.serted Dorothy.

"I believe it," quickly concurred Jane. "It's easy to see through things. She didn't want another try-out; so she made Marian resign. She must have used a pretty strong argument to do it. It was a case of the biter being bitten, I imagine."

"Exactly," Dorothy agreed. "Selina Brown and Laura Nelson ought to have more principle than engage in anything so dishonorable. They've managed to wriggle out of it at Marian's expense, but they have both lost caste by it. Depend upon it, a great many girls here will have their own opinion of the whole affair and it won't be complimentary to Marian, Selina and Laura."

"Someone may say that I am to blame for Marian's resigning," advanced Judith doubtfully.

"Someone undoubtedly will," concurred Jane, "but it won't carry much weight. You have too many friends, Judy, to bother your head about the spiteful minority. You were unfairly dealt with at the try-out. That's generally known. Now you've come into your own through a hitch in Marian's plans. She couldn't get back on the team again under any circ.u.mstances. You're not standing in her way. Don't stand in your own."

"I guess I'd better accept," Judith reluctantly conceded. "From now on I shall go armed to the teeth. Marian Seaton is apt to camp on my trail,"

she added with a giggle. "Good gracious, girls! Look at the time! We'll be late to chapel."

Absorbed in conversation, the trio had completely forgotten how swiftly time was scudding along.

"Late to chapel! Chapel will be over before ever we get there if you don't hurry!" exclaimed Jane ruefully.

Accordingly the three made a hasty exit from the room and the Hall, hurrying chapelwards at a most undignified pace.

That afternoon Judith sent her letter of acceptance to Selina Brown. The next day she reported in the gymnasium for practice with her old teammates. It was a joyful reunion, made more conspicuous by the attendance of a goodly number of soph.o.m.ores, who had got wind of the news and who cheered Judith l.u.s.tily when she appeared. The freshman team, who had so loyally fought for her, also made it a point to drop in on the practice and offer their congratulations.

The jubilant majority was undoubtedly heart and soul for Judith.

Whatever the "spiteful minority," as Jane had put it, thought of her, she quite forgot in the delight of being at last really and truly on the official team.

"We certainly are a fine combination!" exulted Christine at the end of an hour's spirited work with the ball. "The freshmen will have to look out. And to think they were the ones to give Judy back to us!"

Christine, Adrienne and Barbara were among the few who knew that the freshman team had protested to Miss Rutledge. The five freshmen themselves had kept the matter fairly quiet. They had been sent for and privately informed by Miss Rutledge that Miss Seaton had resigned from the soph.o.m.ore team of her own accord and that Miss Stearns was ent.i.tled to the vacancy.

They had also been gravely charged to let that end all discussion of the subject. Their point gained, they obeyed orders, except for a certain amount of curious speculation among themselves as to how it had come about.

In the end they agreed that Marian must have heard of their visit to Miss Rutledge and resigned out of pure mortification.

Jane, Judith and Dorothy kept the greater knowledge of the affair to themselves. Not even Adrienne knew the true facts. Selina Brown and Laura Nelson also found wisdom in silence. They were not hunting further trouble. They had had enough.

Selina had been allowed to keep her managership of the teams, and was shrewd enough to appreciate that another slip would be decidedly disastrous to her. Thereafter she became such a stickler for fair play as to prove decidedly amusing to at least three girls.

Marian Seaton found refuge in the "hurt feelings" policy as dictated to her by Selina. To her particular satellites she posed as a martyr and affected a lofty disdain for "certain girls who have no principle."

Inwardly she was seething with resentment against Judith. She confided to Maizie, her stand-by, that she didn't know which of the two she hated most, Judith Stearns or Jane Allen. She laid her latest defeat, however, at Judith's door. She believed that Judith had been the secret means of inciting the freshman team to protest and she was determined to be even.

Furthermore, she confided to Maizie that it would be only a matter of time until Judith Stearns must lose every friend she had.