THREE FRIENDS.
Nance was still sound asleep when Molly crept from her bed and dressed
herself. It was a dismal cold morning. A fine snow was falling and she
shivered as she tied a scarf around her head, threw her long gray
eiderdown cape over her shoulders and slipped from the room, without
waking her friend, who was weary after the excitements of the day
before.
Across the wind-swept campus she hastened, anxiety lending swiftness to
her steps, and at last reached the Athletic Field. At the far end
snuggled several low wooden sheds like a group of animals trying to keep
warm by staying close together.
"I must hurry," Molly thought, "or the snow will be so thick I shall
never be able to find the ring," and summoning all her energy she ran
as fast as she could straight to the spot where she remembered to have
dropped the day before behind the sheds. Breathless and tingling all
over with little prickly chills, she knelt down and began to search in
the dead grass, brushing the snow away as she hunted. She had not
stopped to find gloves, neither had she wasted any time lacing her
boots, but had slipped on some pumps at the side of the bed.
For a long time Molly searched every inch of the ground back of the
sheds where she might have been. Then, with an ever-growing feeling
of desperation, she hunted in the field itself, across which she had
followed the parade. And it was here that Judy and Nance found her so
absorbed in her search that she had not even noticed their approach.
"Oh, Molly, Molly! what are we going to do with you?" cried Nance,
seizing her by the arm impulsively. "You'll kill yourself by your
imprudence. Why didn't you wait and let us look?"
Molly opened her mouth to answer, and the words came out in a husky
whisper. She had entirely lost her voice from hoarseness, without even
knowing that she had caught cold.
"I've looked everywhere," she whispered, "and I haven't found it. I
couldn't have lost it while I was on the stilts, because I never let go
of them for a moment. It must have been when I fainted."
"Judy, you take her home while I look again," volunteered Nance.
"Take her to the infirmary, you mean," answered Judy, and she promptly
led Molly by a short cut toward the last house on the far side of the
campus, where stood the small college hospital.
Molly obediently allowed herself to be piloted along. Her cheeks were
burning; there was a feverish light in her eyes, and she no longer felt
cold at all, but hot all over with little chills along her spine.
"I'm afraid I'm a great nuisance, Judy, dear. I hope you'll forgive me,
but I'm really in great trouble," she said huskily, as Judy confided her
to one of the two nurses at the hospital.
"Don't worry," was Judy's parting command. "We'll find the ring. It
can't possibly be lost utterly. It's too big and green. I'll see Judith
Blount, too. Some one may have found it and returned it to her by this
time. I'll leave a notice on the bulletin board and stand my little St.
Joseph on his head," she added laughing. "You may be sure I'll leave
nothing undone to find that old ring."
The first thing Judy did after breakfast that Sunday morning was to pay
a visit to Judith Blount. There was a placard on her door announcing to
whom it might concern that Judith was busy and did not wish to be
disturbed, but Judy knocked boldly and at an impatient "Who is it?"
replied: "I wish to see you on important business. Please unlock the
door."
Judy couldn't make out why Judith Blount looked so white and uneasy when
she entered the room; nor why her expression changed to one of intense
relief a moment later.
"I came to ask you," began Judy abruptly, "if any one had found your
emerald ring."
"Miss Brown has my ring," answered Judith promptly.
"Didn't you know that Molly had fainted and is now ill in the hospital
and the ring is lost?"
"My emerald ring lost?" Judith almost shouted.
"Don't carry on so about it," put in Judy. "It'll be found. Molly
herself was up at dawn this morning. She stole away before anybody could
stop her, and went to the field to look for it, but she hasn't been
able to find it, and neither has Nance, who looked for it later. Nance
has gone down to the village to find the surrey that took Molly home. We
are all doing everything we can and in the meantime I thought I would
tell you so that you could help us."
Judy could be very impudent when she wanted to, and she was impudent
now, as she stood looking straight into Judith's angry black eyes.
"She should have been more careful," burst out Judith in a rage. "How do
I know that----" she stopped, frightened at what she was about to say.
"Better not say that," said Judy calmly. "It simply wouldn't go, you
know, and you must know as well as I do that it would be absolutely
false."
"How do you know what I was going to say?"
"I could guess," said Judy, shrugging her shoulders. "I can often guess
things you would like to say, but don't, Miss Blount. What I came for
was to ask you to help us find the ring. Molly is very ill, and, of
course, it's the loss of the ring as much as anything else that's made
her so. We're all doing the best we can, and if you'll just kindly add
your efforts to ours, it might help some."
"Supposing the ring isn't found, what redress have I? It's been in our
family for generations. It was brought over from France by a Huguenot
ancestor----"
"Nice place to be wearing it, then, at a football game!" exclaimed Judy
indignantly. "And then forcing other people to take charge of it for
you! Redress, indeed! Do you want Molly to pay you for your ring? I tell
you, Miss Blount, that a person who really had Huguenot ancestors would
never have suggested such a thing. It wouldn't have been Huguenot
etiquette."
And Judy flung herself out of the room and down the steps before the
astonished Judith had time to realize that she had been insulted by an
upstart of a freshman.
It looked very much for a day or two as if Molly were going to have a
congestion in one lung. For several days she was a very sick girl. She
had a strange delirium that she was looking for something while she was
walking on stilts. Many times she asked the nurse if sapphires were as
valuable as emeralds, and once she demanded to know if an emerald as
large as her little finger nail was worth much money, say, two acres of
good orchard land. But the lung was not congested, as Dr. McLean had at
first thought. In a day or two the fever subsided and by Thursday she
was able to sit up in bed, propped by many pillows and see Judy and
Nance.
Her room was a bower of flowers. They had even come from Exmoor,
Lawrence Upton having sent her a box of lovely pink roses. Mrs. McLean
had brought her a bunch of red berries from the woods, and one day two
cards were brought up, one of which looked familiar: Miss Grace Green
and Mr. Edwin Green, inquiring as to the improvement in Miss Molly
Brown's condition, were pleased to hear that she was better.
And now Nance and Judy sat on either side the young invalid, each trying
to assume a cheerful expression and each feeling that whatever
disagreeable things had happened--and several had happened--they must be
hidden from Molly at all costs.
Judith Blount had scattered reports around college of an extremely
hateful character which Molly's friends had done their best to suppress.
The ring had never been found, although everything had been done that
could be thought of in the way of advertising and searching.
Moreover, Miss Steel had asked twice of Molly's condition in a very
meaning tone of voice, and had wished to know exactly when the nurse
thought Molly would be able to see visitors. These things the girls
knew, and since Molly was still weak and very hoarse, her friends were
careful to keep off dangerous subjects.
Strange to say, Molly had never mentioned the ring to any one since she
had been in the hospital.
"Everybody has been so beautifully kind," she was saying, "and really,
I think the rest is going to do me so much good, that when I get well
I'll be better than I was before I got sick," she added, laughing.
"We've missed you terribly," said Nance dolefully.
"Queen's just a dead old hole without you, Molly, dear," went on Judy
affectionately.
Molly smiled lovingly at her two friends.
"You are the dearest----" she began, taking a hand of each when the
nurse entered.
"Miss Stewart would like to see you, Miss Brown."
"Oh, yes," cried Molly; "do ask her to come up."
Nance and Judy did not linger after Mary Stewart's arrival. Her face
also wore a serious look, and she took Molly's hand and gazed down into
her face almost with a compassionate expression.
"How are you, Molly, dear?"
"Oh, I'm much better," replied Molly, cheerfully. "I shall be up by
to-morrow, the doctor says, and I expect to go back to Queen's Sunday."
Mary sat down and drew her chair up close to the little white bed.
"It's almost providential my being in the hospital like this," went on
Molly, "it's rested me so. You see, I was terribly worried about
something when I came here."
"And you aren't worried any longer?"
"No; I've conquered it. I know it's got to be faced; but I believe there
will be a way out of it, and I'm not frightened any more. I have always
had a kind of blind faith like that when things look very black."
"You are talking of the emerald ring, aren't you, Molly?"
"Yes, Mary. I know it hasn't been found, of course. I can tell that by
the girls' faces, and I know that Judith Blount is--well, she is your
friend, Mary----"
"Oh, no; not now," put in Mary. "We've had a--er--difference of opinion
that has--well, not to put too fine a point on it, broken up our
friendship. I always admired her, without ever really liking her."
Molly looked at Mary and a very tender expression came into her heavenly
blue eyes.
"Was the difference about me?" she asked presently.
Mary hesitated.
"Yes, Molly; since you force me to tell you, it was."
"She has been saying some horrid things? Of course, I knew she would. I
was prepared for that. And I could tell----" Molly paused. "No, no, I
mustn't!" she exclaimed hastily.
"What could you tell, Molly?"
"Don't ask me. I would never speak to myself again, if I did tell. She
has been saying that I never lost the ring, that I was poor and needed
the money, and things like that. Tell me honestly, isn't that the
truth?"
Mary nodded her head and frowned. There was a silence, and presently
Mary's strong, brown fingers closed over Molly's slender ones.
"Molly," she began in a business-like tone of voice, "I'm almost glad
that this subject has come up because I came here really to----" she
broke off. "It's very hard," she began again. "I hardly know how to put
it. You knew, Molly, dear, that I was rich, didn't you?"
"Why, yes; I guessed you must be, although you have been careful not to
mention it yourself. You're the most high-bred, finest girl I ever knew,
Mary," she added impetuously.
Mary laughed.
"That's nice of you to say such things, dear, because I haven't but one
ancestor on my paternal side and that's father, but he's generations in
himself, he's so splendid. But to go on, Molly, dear, I am rich, not
ordinarily rich, but enormously, vastly rich. It's absurd, really,
because we'll never spend it, and we don't care a rap about saving it;
but whatever father touches just turns to gold."
"I wish he'd touch something for me," laughed Molly, wistfully.
"Now, listen to me, dear, and don't interrupt. Father adores me to that
extent that I could spend any amount of money and he would just smile
and say: 'Go ahead, little Mary, go as far as you like.' But, you see,
I only want a few very nice things, consequently, I can't be extravagant
to save my life."
Molly laughed aloud at this naive confession.
"The point I'm coming to is this, Molly: Judith Blount is being
exceedingly horrid over that ring. I believe myself it will be found
eventually. But until it is found, I want you--now don't interrupt me
and don't carry on, please--I want you to ask her the value of her old
ring and give her the money for it. If she chooses to be ill-bred, she
must be treated with ill-bred methods."
"But, dearest Mary, I can't----" began Molly.
"Yes, you can. I haven't known you but a few months, Molly, but I've
learned to love you in that time. And when I really care for any one,
which is seldom, she becomes a sister to me. You are my little sister,
and shall always be. I shall never change. And between sisters there
must be no foolish pride. Now, Molly, I want to settle this thing with
Judith Blount once and for all, through you, of course. She is not to
know I had anything to do with it. You must tell her that you have
raised the money and would like to pay her the full value of the ring.
When the ring is found, she can give you back the money. That will stop
her wicked, wagging tongue, at least."
Molly tried hard not to cry, but the tears welled up in her eyes and
trickled down her cheeks. She took Mary's hand and kissed it.
"I wish I could kiss you, dearest Mary," she sobbed; "but you see, I've
got such a bad cold."
How could she thank Mary for her generous offer or explain that her
family would never allow her to accept the money, even if she felt she
could herself?
"You are the finest, noblest, most generous girl," she went on brokenly.
"No, I'm not," said Mary. "It's easy to do things for people we love and
easier still when we have the money to do it with. If I hadn't been so
fond of you, Molly, and had been obliged to deny myself besides, that
would have been generosity. This is only a pleasure. A sort of
self-gratification, because I've adopted you, you see, as my little
sister."
Molly lay quietly for a while with her cheek pressed against Mary's
hand.
"Are you thinking it over?" asked Mary at last, patting her cheek.
"I'm thinking how happy I am," answered Molly.
"As soon as you are well, then," went on Mary, rising to go, "you must
have an interview with Judith and settle the whole thing."
Molly smiled up at her friend and squeezed her hand.
There are times when two friends need not speak to express what they
think.
"Even if I never win the three golden apples," she reflected after Mary
had gone, "I have won three friends that are as true as gold."