Molly Brown's Junior Days Part 31

"Madeleine, I would not advise you to do any work for Miss Porter."

The two girls exchanged a long look.

"Do you really mean that?" asked Madeleine.

"I was never more in earnest in my life."

"But, can't you explain?" demanded Judith Blount.

Molly shook her head and rushed from the room.

"Come on, Judith," said Madeleine, slipping on her ulster.

"But, this is absurd!" objected Judith again.

"Child," exclaimed her friend, "don't you know human nature well enough to understand that a girl like Molly Brown would never have given a piece of advice like that without knowing what she was talking about?"

"She's jealous because she would like to earn the money herself."

"Nonsense," said Madeleine. "She is not that kind. You know perfectly well that she is the most generous-hearted, unselfish girl in Wellington. She wouldn't injure a fly if she could help herself, and I think we had better take her advice."

But Judith was stubborn.

"We've come to do the work. Why go?"

Having once committed herself to this menial labor, she wished to see it through. After all, whatever Molly had against Millicent Porter couldn't concern them, and in the end Madeleine reluctantly gave in.

Presently Millicent and Rosomond came into the room.

"What became of Molly Brown?" demanded Millicent suspiciously.

"She couldn't wait," answered Madeleine briefly.

"Was there anything the matter with her?"

"She seemed in perfectly good health as far as I know, but you had better hurry up with the inventory, Miss Porter. We are losing time."

Rosomond helped Millicent with the remainder of the list, and by four o'clock Madeleine and Judith were installed in the den hard at work. All afternoon and evening they toiled and the next morning they appeared soon after breakfast and started in again.

"This is easier than cracking rock, and the pay is considerably better, but I am just as tired between the shoulders as a common laborer,"

Madeleine exclaimed, rubbing the last tray until she could see her own piquant little face reflected in its depths.

"As for me, I feel as if I had been drawn and quartered," complained Judith. "It's worth more than fifteen dollars. We should have asked twenty."

"I would have asked it, if I had thought she could have been induced to part with so much money, but I saw that fifteen was her limit."

Judith laughed.

"You're a regular little bargain driver," she said admiringly.

"No, not always," answered Madeleine. "Only when I meet another one."

"Well, I am glad we undertook it, and I am gladder still we have finished it," said Judith.

They arranged the silver on half of the table, and the small army of carved ivory ornaments, for which Millicent seemed to have a pa.s.sion, on the other half. Then, removing the loose gloves which had protected their hands, they put on their things and marched into the next room with expectant faces. For the first time in all her life Judith had earned a sum of money, and the humblest wage-earner was not more anxious for his week's pay than she was.

"Will you please inspect the work, Miss Porter, and give us our money?

We are tired and want to go home," said Madeleine.

Millicent was propped up against some velvet cushions in the window seat. There was an expression of nervous worry on her thin sallow face, and around her on the floor lay the scattered bits of a note she had read, re-read, and torn into little pieces.

She was in a very bad humor, and her warped nature was groping for something on which to vent its acc.u.mulated spleen. She rose from the window seat, swept grandly into the next room and glanced at the tableful of silver and ivory.

"It looks fairly well," she said; for Millicent was one of those persons who grudged even her praise. "What was the amount I promised to pay?"

"I dare say you haven't forgotten it so soon," answered the intrepid Madeleine. "Fifteen dollars."

"Oh, was it so much? Will this evening do? I haven't that sum on hand just now. I'll have to go down to the bank."

"A check will do, then," said Madeleine, sitting down in one of the carved chairs.

"I never pay with checks. I only pay cash. I would prefer to draw out the money and pay you this evening."

"Nonsense," exclaimed Madeleine. "Besides, you know very well that the bank closes on Sat.u.r.days at noon, and it's now nearly four o'clock."

"So it does. Then you will have to wait until Monday."

"We won't wait until Monday," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Madeleine. "We haven't been rubbing silver for our health. You'd better look around in your top drawer and see if you can't sc.r.a.pe fifteen dollars together, because I tell you plainly if you don't you'll regret it."

"How regret it?" asked the other suspiciously. "I'm not obliged to pay it until Monday, and I won't," she added stubbornly.

It was growing late. The girls were exhausted and hungry. They had eaten no lunch except crackers and cheese. At last Judith, utterly crushed with disappointment, drew Madeleine aside.

"Suppose we leave her," she said. "I can't stand it any longer."

Without another word they took their departure, leaving Millicent still in the window seat looking pensively out on the campus. They were hardly outside before she sprang to the door and locked it. Then she hastened to the den and began to pack feverishly and with trembling nervous hands. Wrapping each article of silver in tissue paper, she placed it in the chest on a bed of raw cotton. When the table was entirely cleared, she closed and locked the chest and, addressing a tag, wired it to the handle.

Next she drew a trunk from the big closet and packed it with her best clothes. This done, she crept downstairs to the telephone and engaged Mr. Murphy to call that night for an express box and a trunk.

The Beta Phi girls were all at a Sat.u.r.day night dance at one of the other houses when Mr. Murphy called. Millicent explained to the matron that her rooms were too crowded and she was sending some of her things back to New York.

As quietly as possible she drew her other two trunks from the closet, and by three in the morning the rooms were entirely dismantled and all drapery and pictures carefully packed away. These also she locked and tagged with the precision of one who intends to lose nothing, no matter what's to pay. One more task remained. This was performed in the privacy of the den behind closed doors. When it was done there stood on the table a square box addressed in artistic lettering to "Miss M. Brown, No. 5 Quadrangle."

Placing her watch on her pillow, Millicent now rested for several hours without sleeping. At last, at seven o'clock, dressed for a journey, with suit case, umbrella and hand bag, she crept softly downstairs and plunged into the early morning mists.

Not once did she glance back at the two gray towers as she hastened down to the station, and when the seven-thirty train for New York pulled in, she boarded it quickly and turned her face away from Wellington forever.