When things were fairly under way, Dolly nominated Beth for the
presidency. Half a dozen other nominations were made, but the result
was very satisfactory to Beth's friends, as she was elected by a large
majority.
Constance was made vice-president without opposition, and the rest
of the balloting went smoothly enough until the executive committee
was reached. Then Constance made her first little speech, nominating
Margaret for the chairmanship, and putting forcibly before the class, the
good work that she had done as president, and "for which," Constance
concluded with significant emphasis, "we want, most assuredly, to show
our gratitude now, in the only way possible."
Abby Dunbar was immediately nominated by Grace Chisholm, and then, as
no other names were mentioned, the balloting proceeded.
Beth felt more nervous over this, than she had when her own name was
up for the presidency. Constance had done her best, and there was no
doubting her influence; still, the balloting was secret, and might not
some of the girls leave Constance under the impression that they would
vote for Margaret, and now, when the time had come for the voting, cast
their ballots for Abby Dunbar? Constance would not be able to tell what
girls had kept faith with her, and what ones had not.
"I would never do for a politician," Beth confided to Dolly in a
whisper. "I am too nervous and excitable; see how cool Constance is, and
Margaret, too."
"Yet Margaret will feel it bitterly, if she is defeated under these
circumstances; and as a class we ought to be ashamed of it if she _be_
defeated, for it will be an open acknowledgment of the fact that we care
more for dollars and cents, than we do for genuine worth and ability. I
shall be ashamed of the sophomores if Margaret is not elected."
The class had lost some of its members, and had gained several new ones,
so that at this time it numbered an even three hundred. Even Margaret,
with all her self-control, began to show the strain before the tellers
appeared.
The chairman was an enthusiastic admirer of Margaret, and her voice
vibrated triumphantly as she tried to announce in a perfectly calm tone,
the result of the voting:
Margaret Hamilton . . . . 153 votes.
Abby Dunbar . . . . . . . 147 votes.
There was a moment of utter silence, then Constance started the applause
which grew and grew until it became an actual uproar. Even those who
had voted against Margaret, now, with few exceptions, joined in the
applause, for Constance's keen eyes were sweeping the room, and not
a girl present wished to be ranged in open opposition to her. It was
she, and she alone, who had carried the day for Margaret.
Margaret realized the fact, and, while she was grateful, she felt stung
and hurt. Constance found her in tears when she went to their room
sometime after the meeting had dispersed. Tears, with Margaret, were
a rare thing. Constance knew what they meant this time, although she
affected not to.
"You see, Margaret, that you were elected, despite your declaration that
you would not be. Aren't you ashamed of the little faith you had in your
friends?"
"It was your friends who elected me, Constance, not mine. I am in no
danger of making any mistake on that point. Do you suppose that I do not
know how you have been working for me?"
"What of that?"
"If you had been as poor as I, how much influence would you have had? I
am not ungrateful to you--please do not think that--but I have been
treated to such a succession of slights all of my life, that I cannot
help feeling a wee bit bitter. I was not elected tonight because of
any gratitude or liking that the girls have for me, but merely because
you--Constance Van Gerder, who will one day be one of the richest women
in this country--have chosen to befriend me, and so asked those girls
to vote for me. If it were not a cowardly thing to do, I should go
away from here to some other college. I would take care to proclaim my
full history the very first day I was there, and I would not attempt
to make a single friend."
"That would be a cowardly thing to do. Next year neither Abby Dunbar
nor Grace Chisholm will be here. They will never manage to get through
the sophomore work. They are the only ones who are your active enemies,
and they are such, merely through spite and jealousy. You are a good
student, Meg; do your best for your mother's sake and for mine, too.
I want you to carry off some honors on Commencement Day."
"I will do my best for you; you have done so much for me that I could
not refuse to try, at least. I think I shall get permission to run down
and see my mother for an hour. Professor Newton may think it too late
to go, but I would like to tell Mother that I was elected. I should not
have let you propose my name at all, if it had not been for her."
"Then you would have been a big simpleton. I am positive, Meg, that
Professor Newton will not listen to your going out tonight, but you can
telephone to your mother. Will not that do?"
"And have Abby Dunbar and all the other girls hear me? I couldn't
possibly. If the telephone were not just inside the reception room where
the entire college can hear what is said, I might do that."
"I see. Don't trouble yourself. It is out of the question for you to go
to town tonight at this hour. Professor Newton would consider you crazy
to ask, but I can appreciate your mother's anxiety, and I am going to
telephone to her. It will give me great pleasure to do this, and the more
of Abby's friends that are within hearing, the better."
"You are very kind, but--"
Constance had gone unceremoniously, and Margaret's expostulation was
cut short.
As Constance had predicted, the little tempest created by the revelation
of Margaret's family history soon died down. Of course, it was only
Constance's strong influence which brought about this result; none of
the girls wished to cut themselves off absolutely from her acquaintance,
and Constance made it very plain that those who showed the least
discourtesy to Margaret were no friends of hers.
Poor Mrs. Hamilton had been almost heartbroken when she first learned of
Margaret's troubles, but Margaret herself had made as light as possible
of them, and the fact that she was now Constance's room-mate, reconciled
Mrs. Hamilton to everything.
The sophomore year was generally conceded by both the students and the
faculty, to be the hardest year at Westover College. While the girls
whom we know managed to have some good times in a quiet way, they found
themselves, for the most part, kept very busy.
Mary Sutherland drew more and more into her shell, as Beth and Dolly
grew more intimate with Margaret and Constance. Dolly complained of
it repeatedly to Professor Newton. "Mary acts as if we did not have
love enough to go around. Just as if Beth and I couldn't care for her
now, because we like Margaret and Constance Van Gerder. I wonder if she
thinks that love is measured out by the quart, Professor Newton, and that
Beth and I have exhausted our supply?"
"You must be patient with my stubborn little niece, Dolly dear; she is
her own worst enemy. Neither you nor I can say anything to her now. She
is wilfully losing lots of enjoyment out of these college days. She has
made no new friendships, for she thinks too much of you and Beth to do
that. In truth, she is jealous and unreasonable, but she fails to see it.
She might as well demand that God's blessed sunshine shall illumine
only a few places. Some things grow by the using. Our power of loving
is one of those things, Dolly. God's love reaches all the infinity of
His creatures, and yet its depths are boundless. It is immeasurable.
Sometime Mary will learn this."
At Thanksgiving time Dolly carried Mary off to her own home. Beth could
not be persuaded to stop this time. She thought of last year, when she
had had no desire to go home at all, and could not but marvel at the
difference in her feelings now. In truth, Beth was making up for all
those years of repression and coldness, by the wealth of love which
she lavished upon her own people. And they returned it a thousandfold.
Dearly as Mrs. Newby loved her own dainty little Nell, she knew that
this child was no dearer to her than was Beth.
Mary had gone home with Dolly half under protest, but Dolly would listen
to no excuses, and Professor Newton urged her so strongly to accept the
invitation, that Mary finally went. Dolly felt confident that this brief
visit would serve to clear away the clouds that had come between them;
but in this she was disappointed. Some way she saw little of Mary,
after all. Did Fred monopolize Mary's society--the two were certainly
together a great deal--or, had she enjoyed Dick Martin's indolent
witticisms and quiet humor so much that she had neglected Mary? She felt
rather uneasy about it, and promised herself to atone at the Christmas
holidays. But when the Christmas holidays came, there were new plans for
all.
Margaret was to go home with Constance for the entire vacation. She
had demurred about leaving her mother, but Mrs. Hamilton had insisted
strongly that she should go for the whole time. "It is not as if you
were where I could not see you every day, dear. Of course, I would love
to have you with me, but just now I would much rather have you visit
Miss Van Gerder." And Margaret, seeing that her mother really meant
what she said, yielded the point, and went home with Constance.
There was to be a house party at Constance's for the last week of the
vacation. Dolly and Beth were invited as well as Hope Brereton and Hazel
Browne.
"I don't know Miss Sutherland well enough to ask her to be of our
party," Constance said to Dolly. "She is so far away from home that I
would like to ask her if I felt better acquainted. I don't see how you
ever came to know her. She absolutely repels all advances."
Dolly laughed, although she was inwardly provoked with Mary. What good
times she was cheating herself of! Could she not recognize genuine
goodness when she saw it? What made Mary so blind and obtuse in these
days? "Mary is just like a chestnut-burr on the outside," she replied
now to Constance. "Sometime she will get tired of pricking all of her
friends, and then everyone will see what a genuine heart of gold she
has."
"I hope she will shed the burr soon, for her own sake. People do not
like to get stung and pricked when they approach her in a friendly
manner."
"I have preached until I am tired. We must leave her alone now. I am
going to take her home with me, and Mother intends keeping her after I
go on to your house. She is quite in love with Mother, and is as nearly
demonstrative with her, as it is possible for Mary to be with anyone. We
shall be a very congenial party at your house, Constance. You always do
manage to get together people that suit."
"I am afraid that you will take back that remark when you know of one
more invitation that I want to give today."
"What in the world do you mean?"
"Don't be stunned, but I want to have Margery Ainsworth. Shall I?"
"The idea of asking us whom you shall invite to your own home! How
absurd!"
"But you don't like Margery."
"I hadn't known that you did either," Dolly said frankly.
"I have felt a little sorry for her lately. We have seen more or less
of each other all our lives; we both live in New York, and as children
we went to the same kindergarten, and we have seen each other with some
frequency during all the in-between years. Just now Margery is not having
an easy time. Instead of being a junior, as she would have been in
the ordinary course of events, she is only a freshman, but I have learned
that she is doing extra work and has taken some extra examinations. She
hopes to come into our class as a full sophomore after Christmas."
"I wonder what has roused her so. She was never a student in any sense
of the word, last year."
"She knows that her father is earnest in his determination to have
her complete her course here, and so she is resolved to get through
as quickly as possible. She has lost one year, but there is no reason why
she should lose two. She is discovering unsuspected capabilities for
study in herself; you must have noticed that she takes no recreation
and has no friends. She is settling down into a mere 'grind.'"
"Margery Ainsworth, of all people!"
"It is strange. She does not love study any better than she once did,
but she has an indomitable perseverance when her will is aroused. Just
now she is determined to get through college as soon as possible, and to
maintain a good standing. I cannot see why Mr. Ainsworth is so resolved
that she shall graduate from here. She is an only child, and her mother
is an invalid. He must have some weighty reason for sending her off,
when she would be such a comfort to her mother."
"It must hurt her pride fearfully to be under constant supervision,
not to be able to go where other girls go, and to feel that she is not
trusted."
"It is hard, most certainly, but Margery brought all that on herself.
One cannot do wrong without meeting the penalties for it, in some way
or other, even in this life. But if she succeeds in making the sophomore
class, she will come into it with a clean page turned. I happen to know
that the faculty means to give her a chance to wipe out old scores."
"And you want to help the girl? Well, you don't suppose that any of
the rest of us would be so mean-spirited as to make objections? If you
think that, you had better withdraw our invitations."
"Don't talk nonsense, my dearest Dolly," Constance said indolently.
"I am too fatigued to argue with you."
"Then come and have a walk, Con. Beth is working away at some problem in
her advanced trigonometry that it would make me ill even to read over.
I have come to have an added respect for Beth this year, when I see how
deliberately she picks out all the mathematical courses. It would not be
possible for me to do that. It tasks all of my mathematical resources
just to keep account of my own allowance."
Con laughed. "You excel Beth in some other things, so that you may
consider yourself even. By the way where is Margaret? I would like her
to go with us."
"We might look into the library. She may be there," and Dolly made
a mental note of Constance's unfailing watchfulness and care for her
room-mate.
As they drew near to the library, it became evident that Margaret
_was_ there. The other occupants of the room were Abby Dunbar and her
immediate coterie of half a dozen friends. For the most part, Abby had
preserved a haughty coldness toward Margaret, although she indulged
in petty meannesses and flings at her, whenever she imagined that she
could do it without Constance's knowledge. She had no intention of
cutting herself off absolutely from Miss Van Gerder's acquaintance.
Today, however, she had just chanced to learn of the house-party at
Constance's home. She was not invited, and Margaret was! She was so
full of wrath and indignation, that she forgot her usual caution. She
commenced talking to her friends in a tone which would easily reach
Margaret, and she contrived to put all the bottled up venom of the past
term into her words. To all appearances Margaret heard not a syllable.
Just as Constance and Dolly approached the library, Abby turned, not
seeing them, addressing a remark directly to Margaret.
Margaret turned toward her, a quiet scorn in her brown eyes. "Miss
Dunbar, if you were unaware of some things when you invited me to your
house, we are certainly quits, for I have since learned facts concerning
your family which would have prevented my ever putting a foot inside
your house had I known them before."