Molly Brown's Junior Days Part 14

"But there is nothing to do but humor her, I suppose, until the influence of the quinine wears off."

"Where has she got it now?" asked Nance, ignoring Molly's allusions to quinine.

"What? The changeling slipper? Under her pillow."

Nance laughed.

"I'm thinking, Molly," she remarked, "that to-day would be an excellent time to get rid of that other slipper. I don't feel as if I could sleep comfortably another night in these rooms with the guilty thing around.

Until we dig a hole and bury it deep, we shall never have any peace of mind."

Molly was carefully peeling the sh.e.l.l from the end of an egg.

"Do you think we could leave her alone this afternoon?" she asked. "How long does quinine continue its ravages?"

"Oh, not long," answered Nance, in a most matter of fact voice. "She's such a sensitive subject, that is the trouble. Quinine doesn't usually make people take on so. I never met any one so excitable and high strung as Judy. She gets her nerves tuned up to such a high pitch sometimes that I wonder they don't snap in two."

"Nance, don't you think we ought to confess the whole thing to Miss Walker?"

"Do you think Judy would ever forgive us if we did?"

Molly sighed.

"I'm afraid not," she said. "Confessing would involve so much. We would have to go back so far to the original cause, those wretched Shakespeareans. It would be pretty hard on poor old Judy. But the slipper, Nance--it's such a ridiculous thing, our hiding that slipper.

Where shall we hide it?"

"We must dig a grave and bury it," said Nance, "and we must do it this afternoon and get the thing off our minds. Then all evidence will be destroyed and there will be no possible way of finding out about Judy."

"You have forgotten about the visitor to our room in the night."

"Yes," admitted Nance, "there is that visitor. Who was she? What did she want? You haven't missed anything, have you?"

"No," replied Molly. "I have nothing valuable enough to steal except old Martin Luther, and he's quite safe."

She reached for the china pig on the bookshelves and shook him carefully. His interior gave out a musical jingle.

Clothed and fed and comforted, the two girls leaned back in their Morris chairs, with extra cups of coffee resting on the chair arms, to consider the question of Judy's slipper. At last they came to a mutual agreement.

Otoyo, the safest, discreetest and least inquisitive of their friends, was to be taken partly into their confidence and left to look after Judy while they went on their mysterious errand. Otoyo, who had the racial peculiarity of the j.a.panese of never being surprised at anything, accepted this position of trust without a comment. Few students took Sunday morning walks at Wellington, and therefore morning was the safest time for the expedition. Judy, reenforced with a soft-boiled egg and a cup of coffee, appeared perfectly rational and quiet. She surrendered the slipper without a murmur, and turning over on her side dropped off to sleep. A Not-at-Home sign was hung on the door and Otoyo was cautioned not to let any one into Judy's room. She was to say to all callers that Judy had a headache and was asleep.

Dressed for a tramp, with Judy's slipper in one of the deep pockets of Nance's ulster, and a knife, fork and table spoon for digging purposes in the other, the two girls presently left Otoyo on the floor immersed in study. They had scarcely closed the door when Judy called from the next room:

"Bring me that slipper, Otoyo."

And the little j.a.panese, with a puzzled look on her face, obeyed.

As they hastened down the corridor, hoping devoutly not to meet intimate friends, Molly and Nance were stopped by the irrepressible Minerva Higgins.

"Isn't this a stroke of luck?" she exclaimed. "You are going for a walk and so am I. I was just on the lookout for somebody. Girls here are so industrious Sunday mornings, I can never get any one to go walking until afternoon."

Molly was silent. At that moment she yearned for the courage of Nance, who with a word could scatter Minerva's cheeky a.s.surance like chaff before the wind.

"It's lack of character, I suppose," she thought disconsolately. "But I couldn't crush a fly, much less that presumptuous little freshman."

She stood back, therefore, and let Nance have a clear field for the struggle.

"You are very kind to offer us your company, Miss Higgins, but we must beg to be excused to-day," said Nance calmly.

"I call that a nice, Sunday-morning, Christian spirit," cried Minerva, with an angry flash in her small, pig-like eyes.

"No, no, Minerva," put in Molly gently. "You must not think that way about it. Nance and I have some important business to discuss, that's all. You mustn't imagine it's unkind when older girls turn you down sometimes. You know it isn't customary here for a freshman to invite herself to join an older girl. I believe it isn't customary in any college. Don't be angry, please."

Hidden under layers of vanity, selfishness and stupid a.s.surance, was Minerva's better self which Molly hoped to reach, and some day she would break through the crust, but not this morning.

"Don't tell me anything about upper-cla.s.s girls--conceited sn.o.bs! I know all about them," exclaimed Minerva angrily, as she marched down the corridor in a high state of rage.

"Don't bother about her. She's a hopeless case, just as Margaret said,"

remarked Nance.

Once off the campus, they followed the path along the lake and turned their faces toward Round Head as being the spot most apt to be deserted at that hour in the morning. It was not long before they were climbing the steep hill.

"Where shall we lay it to rest, poor weary little _sole_?" asked Nance, laughing.

"Let's dig the grave on the Exmoor side," answered Molly. "Behind one of those big rocks is a good spot. We'll be hidden from sight and the ground is softer there."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY SET TO WORK TO DIG A SMALL GRAVE FOR JUDY'S SLIPPER.--_Page 129._]

Talking and giggling, because after all they were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, they set to work to dig a small grave for Judy's slipper.

"When the earth casts up its dead on the Day of Judgment, Nance, do you suppose this slipper will seek its mate?"

"I hope it won't seek it any sooner," answered Nance dryly.

At last the grave was ready. They laid the slipper in the hole, carefully covered it with earth, and concealed all evidences of recent disturbance with bits of gra.s.s and splinters of rock.

Then Molly, leaning against the side of the boulder and clasping her hands, remarked:

"Let this be its epitaph:

"'Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie; Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.

"'This be the verse you 'grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'"

Scarcely had the last words died on her lips when Nance gave a low, horrified exclamation. Molly glanced up quickly. Just above them in the shadow of another big rock stood Professor Green in his old gray suit.

So still was he that he might have been a part of the geological formation of the hill, planted there centuries ago. Molly felt the hot blood mount to her face. How long had he been there? How much had he seen? What did he think? Forcing its way through all these wild speculations came another thought: there was a brown coffee stain on one of his trouser legs. She tried to speak, but the words refused to come, and before she could get herself in hand, the professor coldly lifted his hat and walked away.

In his glance she read DISAPPOINTMENT as plainly as if it had been written across his brow in letters of fire.

"Oh, Nance," she cried, and burst into tears.