A CHRISTMAS EVE MISUNDERSTANDING.
The old Queen's crowd rallied around the exiled Judy, even as Molly had
predicted, and Judy was prostrated with gratitude. Nothing could have
stirred her so deeply as this devotion of her friends.
"I feel like Elijah being fed by the ravens in the wilderness, only you
are bringing me crumbs of learning," she exclaimed to Molly who had
taken her turn in coaching Judy. "I hope you don't mind being called
'ravens,'" she added apologetically.
"Not at all," laughed Molly. "I'd rather be called a raven than a
catbird or a poll parrot or an English sparrow."
But Judy was already deep in her paper. Being a recluse from the world,
her life consecrated to study, she was playing the part to perfection.
If Adele Windsor knew that Judy was in the village, she gave no sign,
and so the exile, in her old room at O'Reilly's overlooking the garden,
had nothing to do but bury herself in her neglected text books. Indeed,
very few of the girls knew where Judy was. When she went out for her
walks after dusk she wore a heavy veil and thoroughly enjoyed the
disguise. One night the old crowd gave her a surprise party which Edith
had carefully planned. Dressed in absurd piratical costumes with skirts
draped over one shoulder in the semblance of capes, brilliant sashes
around their waists, many varieties of slouch hats and heavy black
mustaches, they stormed Judy's room in a body.
"Hist!" said Edith, "the captive Maiden! We must release her ere
sunrise!" Then they trooped in, danced a wild fandango which made Judy
envious that she herself was not in it, and finally opened up
refreshments.
So it was that Judy's exile was happy enough, and when Christmas
holidays approached she had made up most of her lost work and was ready
for Molly's careful coaching.
Thus it is that heaven protects some of the foolish ones of this earth.
Judy wrote to her mother and father that she was behind in her classes
and would remain to study with Molly Brown, and as Mr. and Mrs. Kean
were at this time in Colorado, they thought it a wise decision on the
part of their daughter.
Molly had grown to love the Christmas holidays at college. It was a
perfect time of peace after the excitement and hurry of her life--a time
when she could steal into the big library and read the hours away
without being disturbed, or scribble things on paper that she would like
to expand into something, some day, when her diffidence should leave
her.
To-day, curled up in one of the big window seats, Molly was thinking of
a curious thing that had happened that morning at O'Reilly's.
She had gone in to say good-bye to Judith Blount and Madeleine Petit,
who were leaving for New York by the noon train.
"I suppose you'll be visiting all the tea rooms in town for new ideas,"
Molly had said pleasantly.
"Yes, indeed," said Madeleine. "I never leave a stone unturned and
everything's grist that comes to my mill. This fall I got six new ideas
for sandwiches and the idea for a kind of bun that ought to be popular
if only because of the name. I haven't the recipe, but I think I can
experiment with it until I get it."
"What's the name?" Molly asked idly, never thinking of what a train of
consequences that name involved.
"'Snakey-noodles.' Isn't it great? Can't you see it on a little menu and
people ordering out of curiosity and then ordering more because they're
so good?"
"Snakey-noodles," Molly repeated in surprise.
"That's the name, isn't it, Judith?" asked Madeleine.
"Oh, yes, I remember it because the bun is formed of twisted dough like
a snake coiled up."
"It's very strange," said Molly.
"What's strange?"
"Why, that name, snakey-noodle. You see it's a kind of family name with
us. Our old cook has been making them for years. I really thought she
had originated it, but I suppose other colored people know it, too.
Where did you have one?"
"At a spread, oh, weeks and weeks ago."
"But where?" insisted Molly. "I have a real curiosity to know. Was it a
Southern spread?"
"Far from it," said Madeleine. "Yankee as Yankee. One of the girls in
Brentley House gave the spread."
"But she didn't provide the snakey-noodles," put in Judith. "What's that
girl's name who talks through her nose?"
"Miss Windsor."
"Oh!"
"Coming to think of it, I believe she said they had been sent to her
from an aunt in the South," went on Madeleine. "So you see, Molly,
nobody has been poaching on your preserves."
Molly only smiled rather vaguely. She would have liked to ask a dozen
more questions, but kept silent and presently, after shaking hands with
the two inseparable friends, she went up to the library to think.
Somehow Molly was not surprised. Nothing that Adele Windsor could do
surprised her. The surprising part was how she avoided being found out.
It was just like her to have planned the theft of the Senior Ramble
lunch. There was something really diabolical in her notions of
amusement. And now, what was to be done?
Should she tell the other girls after the holidays, or should she wait?
It was all weeks off and Molly decided to let the secret rest in her own
mind safely. Even if she told, it would be hard to prove the accusation
at this late day, but perhaps--and here Molly's thoughts broke off.
"I detest all this meanness and trickery," she thought. "I don't blame
Miss Walker for wanting to clean it out of the school. Anyway," she
added, smiling, "if that girl bothers Judy any more, I intend to
pronounce the mystic name of snakey-noodles over her head like a curse
and see what happens."
That afternoon Molly packed a suitcase full of clothes and lugged it
down to Mrs. O'Reilly's, where she had consented to spend Christmas with
Judy instead of in her own pretty Quadrangle apartment. Secretly Molly
would much rather have stayed in No. 5, where she could have rested and
read poetry as much as she liked. But she was rarely known to consult
her own comfort when her friends asked her to do them a favor, and,
after all, if she were going to put Judy through a course of study, she
had better be on the spot to see that the irresponsible young person
stuck to her books.
So the two girls established themselves in the pleasant fire-lit room
overlooking the garden. Judy had brought down two framed photographs of
her favorite pictures and a big brass jar by way of ornament, and on
Christmas Eve the girls went out to buy holly and red swamp berries.
They were walking along the crowded sidewalk arm in arm, recalling how
last year they had done exactly the same thing, when they came
unexpectedly face to face with Mr. James Lufton.
"Well, if this isn't good luck," he exclaimed. "Nobody at the Quadrangle
seemed to know where you were."
He included both girls, but he really meant Molly.
"And what are you doing here?" asked Molly, giving him her hand after he
had shaken Judy's hand.
"Andy McLean asked me down for Christmas," he said.
He failed to mention that he had pawned his watch, a set of Balzac and
two silver trophies won at an athletic club, and, furthermore, had given
out at the office that he was down with grippe, in order to accept the
invitation.
"Andy's up the street now looking for you. He thought perhaps Mrs.
Murphy might know where you were."
"What did he want with us?" asked Judy, lifting her mourning veil.
Jimmy hesitated.
"He was thinking of getting up a Christmas dance, but----" He looked at
Judy's black dress.
"She's not in mourning, Mr. Lufton," laughed Molly. "It's only that she
prefers to look like a mourning widow-lady."
"Oh, excuse me, Miss Kean," said Jimmy. "I thought you had had a recent
bereavement."
"Here, Judy, take off that thing," exclaimed Molly, unpinning the
mourning veil in the back and snatching it off Judy's glowing face.
"Molly, how can you invade on the privacy of my grief," exclaimed Judy,
laughing.
"Why, it's Miss Judy Kean," exclaimed Dodo Green, coming up at that
moment with Andy McLean. "Nothing has hap----"
"No," put in Molly, "it's only one of Judy's absurd notions. She's been
wearing mourning for years off and on, but she's only lately gone into
such heavy black."
"And you've no objection to a little fun, then?" asked Andy.
"Not a particle," answered Judy, the old bright look lighting her face.
"My feelings aren't black, I assure you."
"On with the dance, then, let joy be unconfined," cried Andy. "We'll
call for you at a quarter of eight, girls--at O'Reilly's, you say? I'll
have to trot along now and tell the mater."
The three boys hurried off while Molly and Judy rushed home to look over
their party clothes.
"Isn't life a pleasant thing, after all?" exclaimed Judy, and Molly
readily agreed that it was.
Such a jolly impromptu Christmas Eve party as it was that night at the
McLeans'! Mrs. McLean had a niece visiting her from Scotland, an
interesting girl with snappy brown eyes and straight dark hair. She was
rather strangely dressed, Molly thought, in a red merino with a high
white linen collar and a black satin tie, and she looked at Molly and
Judy in their pretty evening gowns with evident disapproval. Just as
Jimmy Lufton and Molly had completed the glide waltz for the fifth time
that evening and had sunk down on a sofa breathless, the parlor door
opened and in walked Professor Edwin Green, looking as well as he had
ever looked in his life, with a fine glow of color in his cheeks.
"My dear Professor!" cried Mrs. McLean.
"Ed, I thought you were going to spend Christmas in the south,"
exclaimed his brother.
"You are a disobedient young man," ejaculated the doctor,--all in one
chorus.
"Don't scold the returned wanderer," said the Professor, glancing about
the room swiftly until he caught Molly's eye, and then smiling and
nodding. "It's dangerous for convalescents to be bored, and realizing
that Christmas in the tropics might bring on a relapse, I decided to
lose no time in getting back home."
"And glad we are to see you, lad," said the doctor, seizing his hand and
shaking it warmly. "You did quite right to come back before the _ennui_
got in its work. It's worse than the fever."
Molly left Jimmy Lufton's side to shake hands with the Professor, and
then the Professor remembered the young newspaper man and greeted him
cordially, and after that all the company went back into the dining-room
for hot chocolate and sandwiches. And here it was that all the mischief
started which came very near to breaking up the great friendship that
existed between Molly and the Professor.
It was simply that the Professor overheard scraps of information that
Jimmy was pouring into Molly's ready ear while she listened with
glowing cheeks and a gay smile to what he had to say.
"Oh, you'll enjoy New York all right, Miss Brown, and the newspaper work
won't be as hard as what you are doing now, I fancy. I'm sure they'd
take you on if only for your----" he paused. "You have only to ask and
I'll put in a good word, too," he added. "You can never understand what
a good time you'll have until you get there--theaters until you have had
enough and the opera, too. I often get tickets through our critic----"
"The grand opera," repeated Molly.
"Yes, anything you like. Lohengrin, Aida, La Boheme. Sooner or later you
will see them all. Then there are the restaurants--such jolly places to
get little dinners, and you are so independent. You are too busy to be
lonesome and you can come and go as you like, nobody to boss you except
the editor, of course, and you'll soon catch on. You have a natural
knack for writing. I could tell that by your letters----"
Molly, listening to the voice of the tempter, saw a picture of New York
as one might see a picture of a carnival, all lights and fun and good
times.
"But I want to work, too, more than anything else," she said suddenly.
"Oh, you'll have plenty to do," laughed the careless Jimmy, who took
life about as seriously as a humming-bird.
After supper the Professor drew Molly away from the crowd of young
people and led her to a sofa in the hall.
"I want to talk to you," he said in a tone of authority that a teacher
might use to a pupil. "I could not help overhearing what your newspaper
friend was saying to you at supper, and I wish you would take my advice
and not listen to a word he says. He's just a young fool!"
The Professor was quite red in the face and Molly also flushed and her
eyes darkened with anger.
"I don't agree with you about that," she said.
"Is it possible you are going to put all this hard studying you have
been doing for the last three and a half years into writing news items
for a yellow journal? I'm disgusted."
"But I only expected to start there----" began Molly.
"And is that young idiot trying to persuade you that the sort of life he
described--a wild carnival life of dissipation and restaurant dinners is
the right life for you? I tell you he's mistaken. I should like
to--to----"
Molly's face was burning now.
"I--I--I don't think it's any of your business," she burst out. At this
astonishing speech the Professor came to himself with a start.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Brown," he said. "I realize now that I entirely
overstepped the mark. Good evening."
"Miss Brown, shall we have the last dance together?" called Jimmy Lufton
down the hall, and presently poor Molly, whirling in the waltz, wondered
why her temples throbbed so and her throat ached.