Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman Part 9

"Ask Mignon," was Jerry's enigmatical answer. "Very likely she knows more about it than anyone else."

Marjorie found no chance for conversation with Constance until they met in French cla.s.s. Even then she had only time to say, "Be sure to wait for me this noon," before Professor Fontaine called his cla.s.s to order and attacked the advance lesson with his usual Latin ardor.

Constance was first at their locker. She had already put on her own hat and coat and was holding Marjorie's for her, when her friend arrived.

"What are you going to wear, Constance?" asked Marjorie, as she put on her coat and hat.

"I'm not going," was the brief answer.

"Not going!" Marjorie stared hard at her friend. Was Constance hurt because she had not received her invitation? Then she went on, eagerly apologetic: "It wasn't the Weston boys' fault that we didn't get our invitations when the others received theirs. They didn't intend to leave us out, even though they only knew our names."

"It's not that." Constance's voice trembled a little. "I--I--well, I haven't a dress fit to wear!" Her pale cheeks grew pink with shame as she burst forth with this confession of poverty. "This blue suit and three house dresses are all the clothes I have in the world. Don't say you feel sorry for me. I shall hate you if you do. I sha'n't always be poor. Some day," her eyes grew dreamy, "I'll have all sorts of lovely clothes. When I am a----" She stopped abruptly, then said in her usual half-sullen tones, "I can't go, so don't ask me."

Marjorie looked curiously at this strange girl. The longer she knew Constance the better she liked her, but she did not in the least understand her. Suddenly a bright idea popped into her head. "I'm so sorry you can't go to the dance," she commented, then promptly dropped the subject. When she left Constance, however, she remarked innocently: "Don't forget, you are coming home with me to-night. Don't say you can't.

You promised, you know."

"I will come," promised Constance, brightening. "Good-bye."

The moment Marjorie reached home she made a dash for her room and going to her closet, emerged a moment afterward with an immense white pasteboard box in her arms. Stopping only long enough to drop her wraps on her bed she ran downstairs and burst into the dining-room with: "I have found her, Mother. I've found the girl this was made for."

"What is all this commotion about, Lieutenant?" asked her father, teasingly. "Are we about to be attacked by the enemy? Salute your superior officers and then state your case. Discipline must be preserved at all costs in the army. Is it a requisition for new uniforms? You soldiers are dreadfully hard on your clothes. Or is the post about to move and is that a packing case?"

Marjorie made a most unsoldierlike rush for him and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek. "You are a great big tease, and I choose to salute you this way." Then she kissed her mother, saying: "I've the loveliest plan, Captain. I'm sure that this dress will fit Constance. She says she won't go to the school dance because she has no pretty gown to wear. May I give her this darling blue one?" She opened the box and drew forth a dainty frock of pale blue chiffon over silk.

The chiffon was caught up here and there with tiny cl.u.s.ters of pinky-white rosebuds. The round neck was just low enough to show to advantage a white girlish throat, while the soft, fluffy sleeves reached barely to the elbows. It was a particularly beautiful and appropriate frock for a young girl.

"You see, General," explained Marjorie, "Aunt Mary sent this to me when I graduated from grammar school. She hadn't seen me for two years and didn't know I had grown so fast. She bought it ready made in one of the New York stores. It was too short and too tight for me and to make it over meant simply to spoil it. It was so sweet in her to send it that when I wrote my thank you to her I couldn't bear to tell her that it didn't fit, so I kept it just to look at. I didn't really need it, for, thanks to you and mother, I have plenty of others. Don't you think I ought to make someone else happy when I have the chance? It is right to share one's spoils with a comrade, isn't it?"

Her father looked lovingly at the pretty, earnest face of his daughter as she stood holding up the filmy gown, her eyes bright with unselfish purpose. "I am very glad my little girl is so thoughtful of others," he said. "Whatever your captain says is law. How about it, Captain?" His wife and he exchanged glances.

"You may give your friend the dress if you like, dear," consented Mrs.

Dean, "if you think she will accept it."

"That's just the point, Captain," returned Marjorie. "You know you said I could bring Constance home for dinner to-night, and she is coming.

Perhaps we can think of some nice way to give it to her while she is here."

Marjorie carefully replaced the gown in its box and ran upstairs with it. She returned with her hat and coat on her arm, and hanging them on the hall rack hastened to eat her luncheon.

All afternoon she puzzled as to how she might best offer Constance the gown. When the four girls strolled homeward together after school she had still not thought of a way. Jerry and Irma held forth, at length, with true schoolgirl eloquence, upon the subject of their gowns.

Constance listened gravely without comment. Her small, impa.s.sive face showed no sign of her hopeless longing for the pretty things she had never possessed.

Once inside the Dean's pleasant home, a flash of appreciation routed her impa.s.sivity as Marjorie conducted her into the comfortable living-room where Mrs. Dean sat reading, and her face softened under the spell of the older woman's gentle greeting.

"I am pleased to know you, Constance," said Mrs. Dean, offering her hand. "I have been expecting you for some time. Now that I have seen you I will say that you do look very much like Marjorie's friend Mary." She did not add that this girl's face lacked the good-natured, happy expression that so perfectly matched Mary Raymond's sunny curls. Yet she noted that the blue eyes met hers openly and frankly, and that there was an undeniable air of sincerity and truth about Constance which caused one instinctively to trust her.

To the formerly friendless girl who had never before been invited to the home of a Sanford girl, the evening pa.s.sed like a dream. Under the genial atmosphere of the Dean household, her reserve melted and before dinner was over she had forgotten all about herself and was laughing merrily with Marjorie over Mr. Dean's nonsense. After dinner Mrs. Dean played on the piano and Constance, who knew how to dance was initiated into the mysteries of several new steps which were favorites of the Franklin girls, and later the two girls spent a happy hour in Marjorie's room with her books, of which she had a large collection.

"Oh, dear," sighed Constance, as she glanced at the clock on the chiffonier. "It is ten o'clock. I must go."

"Wait a few minutes," requested Marjorie. "I have something to show you, but I must see mother for a minute first. Please excuse me. I'll be back directly."

"Mother," Marjorie hurried into the living-room. "Have you thought of a way? Constance is going home, and it's now or never."

"Suppose you give it to her by yourself," suggested her mother. "I am afraid my presence will embarra.s.s her and then she will surely refuse."

Marjorie stood eyeing her mother uncertainly. Then she laughed. "I know the easiest way in the world," she declared, and was gone.

When she entered the room Constance was kneeling interestedly before the book-shelves. "You have the 'Jungle Books,' haven't you? Don't you love them?"

"Yes," laughed Marjorie. "Mary and I read them together. I always called myself 'Bagheera' the black panther, and she always called herself 'Mogli, the man-cub.' We used to write notes to each other sometimes in the language of the jungle."

"How funny," smiled Constance. Her gaze intent upon the books, she did not notice that Marjorie had stepped to her closet, returning to her bed with a cloud of pink over her arm. Next she opened a big box and laid a cloud of blue beside the one of pink. "Constance, come here a minute,"

she said.

Constance sprang up obediently. Her glance fell upon the bed and she gave a little startled, admiring "Oh!"

Marjorie linked her arm in that of her friend and drew her up to the bed. "This gown," she pointed to the pink one, "is mine, and this one,"

she withdrew her arm, and lifting the blue cloud held it out to Constance, "is yours."

The Mary girl drew back sharply. "I don't know what you mean," she muttered. "Please don't make fun of me."

"I'm not making fun of you. It's your very own, and after I tell you all about it you'll see just why it happens to be yours."

Seated on the edge of the bed beside Marjorie, the wonderful blue gown on her lap, the girl who had never owned a party dress before heard the story of how it happened to be hers. At first she steadily refused its acceptance, but in the end wily Marjorie persuaded her to "just try it on," and when she saw herself, for the first time in her poverty-stricken young life, wearing a real evening gown that glimpsed her unusually white neck and arms she wavered. So intent was she upon examining her reflection that she did not notice Marjorie had slipped from the room, returning with a pair of blue silk stockings and satin slippers to match. "These go with it," she announced.

"Oh--I--can't," faltered Constance, making a move toward unhooking the frock.

"Of course you can." Marjorie deposited the stockings and slippers on the foot of her bed and going over to Constance put both arms around her. "You are going to have this dress because mother and I want you to.

I can't possibly wear it myself, and it's a shame to lay it away in the closet until it is all out of style. Please, please take it. You simply must, for I won't go to the dance unless you do, and you know how dreadfully I should hate to miss it. I mean what I say, too."

"I'll take it," said Constance, slowly.

Suddenly she slipped from Marjorie's encircling arm and leaned against the chiffonier, covering her face with her hands.

"Constance!" Marjorie cried out in surprise. "You mustn't cry."

"I--can't--help--it." The words came brokenly. "Ever since I was little I've dreamed about a blue dress like this. You--are--too--good--to--me.

n.o.body--was--ever--good to me before."

It was a quarter to eleven o'clock before Constance, her tears dried, her face beaming with a new expression of happiness, left the Deans'

house, accompanied by Mr. Dean, who had come in shortly before ten o'clock and insisted on seeing her safely home.

Later, as she prepared for bed in her bare little room she could not help wondering why Marjorie had desired her for a best friend, and had clung to her in spite of the displeasure of certain other girls. She wondered, too, if there were any way in which she might show Marjorie her affection and grat.i.tude, and she made a solemn resolve that if that time came she would prove herself worthy of Marjorie Dean's friends.h.i.+p.

CHAPTER XI