Molly Brown's Freshman Days Part 33

"Have you no idea why?" he asked.

"Except for mischief and to annoy the seniors," she answered.

"Possibly," he said. "A girl who has been spoiled and petted as she has will give in to almost any whim that seizes her. However, such actions are not tolerated at Wellington, and she will have to learn a few pretty stiff lessons if she expects to remain here."

Then Professor Green shook hands with Molly, gave her a little paternal advice about taking care of her health, and took his departure. His next destination was the President's house, where he waited in the drawing-room until Miss Steel had terminated her interview. He was prepared for a round scolding from his old friend, who had known him since his early youth, but the President was inclined to be lenient with the young man.

"It all goes to show," she said at the end of the interview, "that murder will out. But why did the foolish girl do that mischievous thing?

What did she have to gain by it?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Jealous of some one prettier and more popular than herself, probably,"

he answered.

The President sighed.

"Who can understand the intricacies of a young girl's heart," she said.

"I have been studying them for twenty years, and they are still a closed book to me."

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. You will never gain anything by cheating and lying."

The end of the episode was a pretty severe punishment for Judith Blount.

She was suspended from college for three weeks and was compelled to resign from all societies for the rest of the winter. She left college next morning early, and no one saw her again until after Christmas, when she returned a much chastened and quieted young woman.

A few days after she had gone Molly received a note from her from New York. It read:

"DEAR MISS BROWN:

"Will you forgive me? I am very unhappy.

"JUDITH BLOUNT."

You may be sure that Molly's reply was prompt and forgiving.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHRISTMAS--MID-YEARS--AND THE WANDERTHIRST.

There are few lonelier and more dismal experiences in life than Christmas away from home for the first time. Molly felt her heart sink as the great day approached. One morning a trainload of chattering, laughing girls pulled out of the Wellington station. Judy hanging recklessly to the last step, waved her handkerchief until Molly's figure grew indistinct in the distance, and Nance on the crowded platform called out again and again, "Good-bye, Molly, dear. Good-bye!"

Molly almost regretted that she had ever left Kentucky, as the Christmas train became a point of black on the horizon.

"I might have ended my days as a teacher in a country school-house and been happier than this," she thought desperately, starting back to college.

Some one came running up behind her. It was Mary Stewart who had been down to see some cla.s.smates off. She was to take the night train to New York.

"When do you get off?" she asked, slipping her arm through Molly's like the good comrade she was. "I'm surprised you didn't leave yesterday, with such a long journey before you."

"I'm not going home this Christmas," replied Molly.

"Not going?" began Mary. "You're to be left at Queen's by yourself?"

Molly nodded, vainly endeavoring to smile cheerfully.

"Then you're to go with me. I'll come right along now and help you pack," announced Mary decisively.

"But, Mary, I can't. I haven't anything--money or clothes----"

"Don't say 'but' to me! I've got everything. I've even got the drawing-room to myself on the night train to New York. You shall go with me. I don't know why I never thought of it before. We'll have a beautiful Christmas together. Since mother's death, five years ago, Christmas has been a dismal time at our house. You'll be just the person to cheer us up. It will be like having a child in the house.

You shall have a Christmas tree and hang up your stocking. Father will be delighted and so will Brother Willie."

Thus overruled, Molly was borne triumphantly to New York that same evening, and spent one of the most wonderful Christmases of her life in Mary's beautiful home on Riverside Drive. As her mother and G.o.dmother both wisely sent her checks for Christmas gifts, she was not embarra.s.sed by any lack of ready money. She was even rich enough to purchase a new evening dress and a pretty blouse which Mary had ordered to be sent up on approval, and not for many a year afterward did she guess why those charming things happened to be such bargains. But Molly was a very inexperienced young person, and knew little concerning prices at that time.

Mary's father was a fine man, quiet and self-contained, with a splendid rugged face. He treated his only daughter with indescribable tenderness, and called her "Little Mary." They did not see much of "Brother Willie,"

a soph.o.m.ore at Yale, and very busy enjoying his holiday. He regarded Molly as a child and his sister as an old maid, but condescended to take them to the theatre twice.

But all good things must come to an end, and it seemed just a little while before Molly found herself back at her old desk in her room at Queen's, writing a "bread-and-b.u.t.ter" letter to Mr. Stewart, which pleased him mightily, since Mary's guests had never before taken that trouble.

Judy came back radiantly happy. She had had a glorious time in Washington with her "vagabond" parents, as she called them. Nance, too, had enjoyed her Christmas with her father and busy mother, who had come home to rest during the holidays. Only one of Queen's girls did not join the jolly circle that now congregated in the most hospitable room in the house to "swap" holiday experiences. But a letter had arrived from the missing member addressed to "Miss M. C. W. Brown," and beginning: "My Dear Molly Brown."

"Good-bye," the letter ran. "I'm off for Europe and Grandmamma, by the _Kismet_, sailing the eighteenth. I am afraid I was too much like a bull in a china shop at college. I was always breaking something, mostly rules. I've done lots of foolish things, and I am sorry. They were jokes, of course, most of them, and intended to frighten silly self-important people. I've learned a great deal from you and your friends, but I'd rather practice my new wisdom on other people. If you ever see me again you'll find me changed. I may enter a convent for a few years in France and learn to keep quiet. You did what you could for me, and so did the others. You are a first rate lot and you make a jolly good freshman cla.s.s. I shall miss you, and I shall miss old Wellington. I wouldn't have come back this year if I hadn't felt the call of its two gray towers. Somehow, it's been more of a home to me than most places, and when I'm quite old and forgotten I shall go back and see it again some day. Good-bye again, and good luck. I've told Mrs. Murphy to give you my Persian prayer rug. It's just your color of blue.

"F. ANDREWS."

Molly read the letter aloud and the girls were half sorry and half relieved over its contents. After all, Frances was a very disturbing element, but as Margaret Wakefield announced later at a meeting of the G. F. Society, she had responded to kind treatment, and she, Margaret, moved that they send her a combination steamer letter of farewell and a bunch of violets to cheer her on her lonely voyage. 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 n.o.body 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 s.n.a.t.c.h a half hour's nap.

It was Sat.u.r.day and bitter cold. Examinations were to begin on Monday, and there yet remained two more blessed days of respite. Molly, in a long, gray dressing gown, with a towel wrapped around her head, had been cramming mathematics since six in the morning, and now at eleven o'clock, she lifted her eyes from the hated volume and looked about her with a dazed expression as if she had suddenly awakened from a black dream. Nance had hurried into the room.

"Molly, for heaven's sake, go to Judy. I think she's losing her mind.

She has overstudied and it has affected her brain. I can't do anything with her at all."

"What?" cried Molly, rushing down the hall, her long, gray wrapper trailing after her in voluminous folds.

She opened Judy's door unceremoniously and marched in.