A DISGRUNTLED REFORMER
Grace was not disappointed. Miss Duncan graciously agreed to let the
culprit off with a severe reprimand. Grace ran joyfully down the campus
to Holland House. She wished to tell Mabel Ashe the good news.
"Horrid little copy-cat! She doesn't deserve it," was Mabel's
unsympathetic comment as Grace related what had passed between Miss
Duncan and herself. "You know who she is, don't you, Grace?"
Grace shook her head. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said soberly.
"I can't believe it was any one at Wayne Hall. You don't suspect any
one, do you?"
"No," returned Mabel. "I haven't become very well acquainted with the
freshmen this year, so far. I suppose you did right in not exposing this
girl. I don't know whether I should be quite as charitable as you. If
you hadn't had a witness who saw you write the theme, you would now be
under a cloud. What I can't forget is the fact that she went so far as
to try to make Miss Duncan believe that you really copied it. Miss
Duncan said she insisted that the theme had disappeared from her room.
Think how foolish she must have felt when Miss Duncan confronted her
with the truth yesterday afternoon and made her confess!"
"Oh, Mabel!" Grace's distressed tone caused the pretty senior to rise
and stand in front of Grace's chair.
"What's the matter, Gracie," she said, taking Grace's hands in hers.
Grace raised her gray eyes to meet the inquiring brown ones bent on her.
"I'm so sorry," she said sadly, "but the girl who took my theme does
live in Wayne Hall."
"How do you know?" asked Mabel quickly.
"From what you said," returned Grace. "If she accused me of taking her
theme from her room, isn't it highly probable that her room is in Wayne
Hall? I wouldn't be likely to go into one of the campus houses to steal
a theme, would I? I must have dropped it in the hall or on the stairs
that night, and she must have come into the house directly after I did
and picked it up. I don't like to believe that one of our girls did it,"
Grace concluded sorrowfully, "but I am afraid it's true."
"Some day you'll stumble upon the guilty girl when you least expect to
find her," prophesied Mabel. "Now forget her, and tell me what you and
your chums are going to do over Thanksgiving. I am going to a dance on
Thanksgiving night with a Willston man. His fraternity is giving it."
"I don't know any college men in this part of the world," sighed Grace
regretfully, "therefore I never have any invitations to man dances."
"Wait until my cousin comes up here. He is a Columbia man and you will
like him immensely. I know a number of the Willston men, too. Why don't
you go with me to the football game Thanksgiving Day? You are not going
away, are you? It is only a four days' vacation, you know."
"No, we haven't any particular place to go. Last year we spent our
Thanksgiving vacation with the Southards in New York. You knew about
that."
"You lucky things," laughed Mabel. "I envy you your friendship with
Everett Southard and his sister."
"Some day you must meet them," planned Grace. "They are delightful
people. Mr. Southard is appearing in Shakespearian roles in the large
cities this season, and Miss Southard is in Florida visiting friends. If
they were in New York they would insist on our going to them for the
holidays. I must run away now. It is almost dinner time and I promised
to hook up Elfreda's new gown. Miriam went over to Morton House with
Gertrude Wells, and won't return until late, and Elfreda is going to
dine with the Anarchist."
"Really!" exclaimed Mabel. "Elfreda seems to be coming to the front this
year, doesn't she!"
"She is turning out splendidly," said Grace warmly. "She stands high in
every one of her classes, and she is so ridiculously funny that we would
feel lost without her. She says things in the same droll way that a
young man we know in Oakdale does. But I mustn't stay another minute.
Good-bye, Mabel, I'll see you in a day or two."
Grace darted across the campus and ran rapidly in the direction of Wayne
Hall. She loved to run and her fleetness of foot had served her well on
more than one occasion. Only that day she had complained to Miriam that
it had been years since she had indulged in a good run. Miriam had
laughingly accused her of still being a tomboy, and had proposed that
they take a long tramp on Saturday. "You can run up and down the road to
your heart's content when we get far enough away from Overton so that no
one will see you and think you have suddenly gone crazy," Miriam had
declared good-naturedly.
Bounding up the steps two at a time, Grace reached the front door of
Wayne Hall without drawing a laboring breath. "I'm certainly in good
condition," she laughed to herself, inhaling deeply and inflating her
chest. "I hope I'll be chosen to play on the team this year." She rang a
third time before the door was opened by Emma Dean, who grumbled at her
repeated ringing and then announced that she had rung six times that
afternoon before any one had condescended to let her in. "Have you seen
Elfreda?" flung back Grace on her way upstairs.
"You'd better hurry," called Emma after her. "I heard her growling to
herself as I passed her door."
"I began to think you were never coming," greeted Elfreda, as Grace
burst into the room, her eyes bright and her cheeks becomingly flushed
from her recent run across the campus.
"Why didn't you ask some one else to hook you up?" retorted Grace
mischievously, throwing down her gloves and beginning on the top hook.
"Because I wanted you to see how nice I looked in this new frock,"
replied the stout girl. "If I had not stipulated that you were to
perform this extremely important service for me, you would have in all
probability absented yourself from my immediate vicinity, unmindful of
the rare exhibition of youth and beauty that was being prepared for you
in my room."
"If I had closed my eyes I could have sworn it was Miss Atkins," laughed
Grace. "Even she herself couldn't fail to recognize that impersonation.
It's ridiculously funny, Elfreda, but I wish you wouldn't do it." As
Grace and Elfreda were standing with their backs directly away from the
door neither girl saw the tense little figure that stood rigid, one hand
on the door casing, listening with eyebrows drawn fiercely together. An
instant later it had vanished. Grace, after triumphantly placing the
last hook in its eye, began helping Elfreda find her handkerchief and
gloves. "Now you have everything you need," she declared, holding up the
stout girl's coat. "Do you wait here for your dinner partner or does she
call for you?"
"She is coming in here for me," answered Elfreda. "I wish she would
hurry along. I haven't had even a cracker to eat since luncheon and I'm
famished."
"I think I'll go if you don't mind. I'm hungry, too. I must see if Anne
has come in yet. Miss Atkins will be here in a moment. Good-bye. I hope
you will have a nice time. I am so glad she invited you."
Grace crossed the hall to her own room. Anne was rearranging her hair
preparatory to going down to dinner.
"I think I'll do my hair over again," decided Grace. "That run across
the campus shook most of my hairpins loose. It will be at least ten
minutes before the bell rings, so I shall have plenty of time." But her
hair proved refractory and the clang of the dinner bell found her
tucking in a last unruly lock. "I'm going on downstairs, Grace," called
Anne from the doorway.
"All right," answered Grace. As she passed Elfreda's room she heard her
name uttered in a sibilant whisper. Wheeling at the sound, Grace stepped
to the stout girl's door. Elfreda drew her in and, closing the door,
said nervously: "What do you suppose has happened? I waited and waited
for the An--Miss Atkins and she didn't appear, so I went down to her
room and found the door closed. I knocked at least a dozen times, until
my knuckles ached, but not a sound came from within. Then I came back to
my room and waited. She hasn't materialized yet. I went down to her door
just now and knocked again, but, nothing doing." In her agitation
Elfreda dropped into slang.
"That is strange," agreed Grace. "Do you suppose she has been taken
suddenly ill?"
"Search me," declared Elfreda wearily. "She ought to be called the
Riddle. She is past solution, isn't she? I'm hungry, and if she doesn't
appear within the next five minutes I'm going to put on my old brown
serge dress and go down to dinner. I'm not used to being invited out to
dine and then deserted before I've even had a chance to look at the bill
of fare."
"Never mind," comforted Grace. "I'll ask you to dinner at Martell's next
week and won't desert you either. Wait a minute. I will go down to the
dining room and see if by any chance she could be there. Then I'll come
upstairs and let you know. If she isn't there you had better change your
gown and go downstairs with me."
"She isn't there," reported Grace, five minutes later. "Miss Taylor is,
but her roommate is missing."
"'Parted at the altar,'" quoted Elfreda dramatically. "Will you please
unhook me?"
For the second time that night Grace busied herself with the troublesome
hooks and eyes. Elfreda jerked off the new gown. Her temper was rising.
"This is what comes of cultivating freaks," she muttered, lapsing into
her old rudeness. "I might have known she'd do something. Catch me on
any more reform committees!"
"The way of the reformer is hard," soothed Grace, as she picked up the
gown Elfreda had thrown in a heap on the floor, and folding it, laid it
across the foot of the stout girl's couch.
Elfreda, who was reaching into the closet for her brown serge dress,
wheeled about, regarding Grace solemnly. "Too hard for me," she
declared. "Hereafter, the Anarchist can attend to her own reformation.
The Briggs Helping Hand Society has disbanded."