Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jacqueline Jeremy and the
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[Illustration: "You're right in the fashion, Miss Brown," observed
Adele.--_Page_ 25.]
MOLLY BROWN'S
SENIOR DAYS
BY
NELL SPEED
AUTHOR OF "MOLLY BROWN'S FRESHMAN DAYS," "MOLLY BROWN'S
SOPHOMORE DAYS," "MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS," ETC., ETC.
_WITH FOUR HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CHARLES L. WRENN_
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1913
BY
HURST & COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GOOD NEWS AND BAD 5
II. A TROUBLED SUNDAY 20
III. GOSSIP OVER THE TEACUPS 38
IV. THE SENIOR RAMBLE 51
V. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 66
VI. THE RETORT COURTEOUS 77
VII. A STOLEN VISIT 89
VIII. BARBED ARROWS 104
IX. THE SUBSTITUTE 114
X. THE POLITE FREEZE-OUT 126
XI. THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE 138
XII. FRIENDLY RIVALS 152
XIII. THE DROP OF POISON 164
XIV. JUDY DEFIANT 180
XV. THE CAMPUS GHOST 195
XVI. ON THE GRILL 208
XVII. A CHRISTMAS EVE MISUNDERSTANDING 220
XVIII. TWO CHRISTMAS BREAKFASTS 236
XIX. FACING THE ENEMY 251
XX. THE JUBILEE 267
XXI. FAREWELLS 277
XXII. THE FINAL DAYS 289
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"You're Right in the Fashion, Miss Brown," observed
Adele _Frontispiece_
Before She Had Time to Realize the Danger, Jimmy
Lufton Had Torn Off His Coat 132
Molly Glanced Back. Sure Enough, the Phantom ... was
Running Behind Them 198
Good-bye to Wellington and the Old Happy Days 303
~Molly Brown's Senior Days~
CHAPTER I.
GOOD NEWS AND BAD.
Summer still lingered in the land when Wellington College opened her
gates one morning in September. Frequent heavy rains had freshened the
thirsty fields and meadows, and autumn had not yet touched the foliage
with scarlet and gold. The breeze that fluttered the curtains at the
windows of No. 5 Quadrangle was as soft and humid as a breath of May. It
was as if spring was in the air and the note of things awakening,
pushing up through the damp earth to catch the warm rays of the sun. It
was Nature's last effort before she entered into her long sleep.
Molly Brown, standing by the open window, gazed thoughtfully across the
campus. Snatches of song and laughter, fragments of conversation and
the tinkle of the mandolin floated up to her from the darkness. It was
like an oft-told but ever delightful story to her now.
"Shall I ever be glad to leave it all?" she asked herself. "Wellington
and the girls and the hard work and the play?"
How were they to bear parting, the old crowd, after four years of
intimate association? Did Judy love it as she did, or would she not
rather feel like a bird loosed from a cage when at last the gates were
opened and she could fly away. But Molly felt sure that Nance would feel
the pangs of homesickness for Wellington when the good old days were
over.
All these half-melancholy thoughts crowded through Molly's mind while
Judy thrummed the guitar and Nance, busy soul, arranged the books on the
new white book shelves.
Presently the other girls would come trailing in, the "old guard," to
talk over the events of that busy first day: 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. It's the most disagreeable thing about the first day of
college."
"Why don't you go unpack it, then, lazybones?" asked Nance, a trifle
sternly. As much as she loved her care-free Judy, she never quite
approved of her.
"How little you understand my nature, Nance," answered Judy,
reproachfully.
"I know that people who pride themselves on having the artistic
temperament never like to unpack trunks or do any kind of so-called
menial work, for that matter. But there can be just as much art in
unpacking a trunk as in a painting a picture----"
"Ho, ho!" interrupted Judy, who loved these discussions with her
serious-minded friend. "How would you like to engage for all your life
in the immortal work of unpacking trunks?"
"I never said anything about doing it always--" broke in Nance, when the
argument was brought to a sudden end by the arrival of the other girls.
There was a great noise of talk and laughter while they draped
themselves about the room.
College girls in kimonos never sit in straight-backed chairs. They
usually curl themselves up on divans or in Morris chairs, or sit,
Turkish fashion, on cushions on the floor.
"Well, and what's the news?" they asked. Most of them had caught only
flying glimpses of each other during the day.
"Wait until I make my annual inspection," ordered Judy, carefully
examining the fourth finger of the left hand of every girl. "No rings or
marks of rings," she said at each inspection until she came to Jessie,
who was endeavoring to sit on her left hand while she pushed Judy away
with her right. "Now, Jessica, no concealments," cried Judy, "and from
your seven bosom friends! It's not fair. Are you actually wearing a
solitaire?"
"I assure you it's my mother's engagement ring," Jessie protested, but
Judy had extricated the pretty little hand on the fourth finger of which
sparkled not one, but two, rings.
"Caught! Caught, the first of all!" they cried in a chorus.
"Honestly and truly I'm not."
"It looks to me as if you had been caught twice, Jessie," said Molly
laughing.
"No, no, one of them is really Mama's and the other--well, it was lent
to me. It's not mine. I simply promised to wear it for a few months."
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.
"Will some one kindlee make for me explanation of the word 'jubilee'?"
asked Otoyo Sen, seated cross-legged on a cushion in the very center of
the group, like an Oriental story-teller.
"Jubilee?" said Edith. By an unspoken arrangement, it was always left to
her to answer such questions. "Why jubilee means a rejoicing, a
celebration."
"There will be singing and dancing and feasting greatlee of many days
enduring?" asked Otoyo.
"It depends on who's doing the enduring," Edith said, smiling.
"Wellington will be enduring of greatlee much rejoicing," went on the
little Japanese. "For Wellington will give jubilee entertainment for
fifty years of birthday, perhaps, maybe."
Here was news indeed for seven seniors at the very head and front of
college affairs.
"And where did you get this interesting information, little one?"
demanded Margaret.
Otoyo blushed and hesitated; then cocked her head on one side exactly
like a little song sparrow and glancing timidly at Nance, replied:
"Mr. Andrew McLean, second, he told it to me."
Nance smiled unconcernedly. She never dreamed of being jealous of the
funny little Japanese.
"And why, pray, didn't Miss Walker announce it this morning at chapel
when she made her opening address?" asked Margaret.
"Ah, that is for another veree sadlee reason," answered Otoyo, her voice
taking on a mournful note. "You have not heard?"
"No, what?" they demanded, bursting with curiosity.
"Professor Edwin Green, the noble, honorable gentleman of English
Literature, he is veree ill. You have not heard such badlee news? Miss
Walker, she will announce nothing of jubilee while this poor gentleman
lies in his bed so veree, greatlee ill."
"Why, Otoyo," cried Molly, her voice rising above the excited chorus,
"is it really true? You mean dangerously ill? What is the matter with
him?"
"He has been two weeks in the infirmaree with a great fever."
"You mean typhoid?"
Otoyo nodded. It was a new name to her. She had not had much to do with
illness during her two years in America, but she remembered the dread
name of typhoid. It had a sad association to her, for she had been
passing the infirmary at the very moment when a black, sinister looking
ambulance had brought Professor Edwin Green from his rooms to the
hospital.
Molly relapsed into silence. Somehow, the joy of reunion had been
spoiled and she tasted the bitterness of dark forebodings. It came to
her with unexpected vividness that Wellington would not be the same
without the Professor of English Literature, whose kind assistance and
advice had meant so much to her. Only a little while ago she had made a
secret resolution to seek him in his office on the morrow for counsel on
a very vital question. In plain words: how to avoid being a school
teacher. And now this brilliant and learned man, by far the brightest
star in the Wellington faculty, was dangerously ill. Molly felt suddenly
the cold clutch of disappointment.
The other girls were sorry but not really shaken or unnerved by the
news.
"The jubilee must be to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the new
Wellington--" began Margaret, after an interval of silence. "Do you
suppose--" she began again and then broke off.
"Suppose what?" asked the inquisitive Judy.
"Oh, nothing. It would seem rather unfeeling to put in words what I had
in my mind. I think I'll leave it unsaid."
There was a silence and again came that cold clutch at Molly's heart.
She felt pretty certain that Margaret had started to say:
"Do you suppose, if Professor Green dies, it will interfere with the
jubilee?"
"If there is a jubilee," suddenly burst out Judy, who had been lying
quite still with her eyes closed, "if they do give it, we shall be at
the head and front of it being seniors, and I already have a wonderful
suggestion to make. Would it not be splendid to have an old English
pageant? The whole college could take part in it. Think of the beautiful
costumes; the lovely colors; the rustic dances and open air plays on the
campus."
Judy's eyes sparkled and her face was flushed with excitement. With her
amazing faculty for visualizing, the spectacle of the pageant stretched
before her imagination like a great colored print. She saw the capering
jesters in cap and bells; ox carts filled with rustics; the pageant of
knights and ladies and royal personages; the players; the dancers----
"It would be too glorious," she cried, beside herself from her inflamed
imagination.
The other girls, unable to follow Judy's brilliant vision, watched her
with amused curiosity.
"I should think you would remember that Professor Green was at his
death's door before you began making plans for a jubilee," admonished
Nance.
But Judy, too intoxicated with her visions to notice Nance's reproof,
continued:
"They would have it in May, of course, when the weather is warm and
everything is in bloom. First would come the pageant; then the king and
queen and court would gather as spectators in front of all the various
side shows; morality plays and----"
The picture had now become so real to Judy that her galloping
imagination had leaped over every difficulty, as the hunter leaps the
intervening fence rail. In a flash she had decided on her own costume,
of violet velvet and silk--a gentleman of the court, perhaps--when
Molly, sitting pale and quiet beside the window, suddenly remarked:
"Miss Walker did look very serious this morning, I thought. Just before
chapel I saw her in the court talking to Dr. McLean. She must have had
bad news then."
Judy's inflated enthusiasm collapsed like a pricked balloon. She flushed
hotly and relapsed into silence. Presently, after the others had
departed to their rooms, she crept over to Molly and sunk on her knees
beside her at the open window.
"I didn't mean to be such a brute, Molly, darling," she said. "I forgot
about your being such friends with the Greens and I really am awfully
sorry about the Professor. Will you forgive me?"
"You foolish, fond old Judy," said Molly, slipping an arm around her
friend's neck. "I only dimly heard your wanderings. I was so busy
thinking of--of other things; sending out hope thoughts like Madeleine
Petit. Poor Miss Green! I wonder if she knows. She has been in Europe
all summer. I had post cards from her every now and then."
Molly looked wistfully through the darkness in the direction of the
infirmary. "I wish I knew how he was to-night," she added.
"I'll go and inquire," cried Judy, leaping to her feet, eager to make
amends for past offenses. She glanced at the clock. "The gate isn't
locked until a quarter past to-night on account of the late train.
There'll be time if I sprint there and back."
"But, Judy," objected Molly.
"Don't interfere, and don't try to come, too. You can't run and I can,"
and before either of the other girls could say a word, Judy was out of
the room and gone.
"I don't know what we are going to do about her, Molly," Nance observed,
as soon as the door had slammed behind that impetuous young woman,
"she's worse than ever."
Molly shook her head silently. Suddenly she felt quite old and
apathetic, like a person who has lost all ambitions and given up the
fight.
"I think I'll turn in, Nance. I'm tired to death."
With silent sympathy, Nance turned down the cover of Molly's little
white bed and laid out her night-gown.
It seemed an incredibly short time when Judy burst into the room again,
too breathless to speak, her face scarlet with running.
"I just did make it," she gasped presently. "The night nurse said
Professor Green was very ill, but that Dr. McLean was hopeful because of
his strong constitution."
"I feel hopeful, too. Thank you, Judy, dearest," said Molly, drawing the
covers up over her shoulders while Nance turned out the light.