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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4945.txt b/4945.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c198462 --- /dev/null +++ b/4945.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7764 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jane Allen: Junior, by Edith Bancroft + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Jane Allen: Junior + +Author: Edith Bancroft + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4945] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 3, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE ALLEN: JUNIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +Jane Allen: Junior + +By + +Edith Bancroft + +Author of + +"Jane Allen of the Sub-Team," "Jane Allen: Right Guard," "Jane +Allen: Center," Etc. + + +Illustrated by--Thelma Gooch + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE GET-TOGETHER + II A SHADOW IN FORECAST + III THE MISFIT FRESHMAN + IV THRILLING NEWS + V THREATS AND DEFIANCE + VI JANE AND JUDITH + VII A QUEER MIX-UP + VIII TO THE RESCUE + IX WHAT HAPPENED TO JUDITH + X THE INTERLUDE + XI A TWICE TOLD TALE + XII A WILD NIGHT OF IT + XIII THE AFTERMATH + XIV PLEADING FOR TIME + XV THE PICKET AND THE SPOOK + XVI THE HIDDEN CHAMBER + XVII "BEHOLD THE GHOST OF LENOX HALL!" +XVIII FAITHFUL FROLIC + XIX THE MIRACLE + XX TOUCHSTONE + XXI CRAMMING EVENTS + XXII STARTLING DISCLOSURES +XXIII THE DANCE + XXIV KING PIN OF THE FRESHIES + XXV THE DAY AFTER THE BIG NIGHT + XXVI A SURPRISE IN RECORDS +XXVII THE REAL STORY + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GET TOGETHER. + + +The late September day waved back at Summer graceful as a child +saying goodbye with a soft dimply hand; and just as fitful were the +gleams of warm sunshine that lazed through the stately trees on the +broad campus of Wellington College. It was a brave day--Summer +defying Nature, swishing her silken skirts of transparent +iridescence into the leaves already trembling before the master hand +of Autumn, with his brush poised for their fateful stroke of +poisoned beauty; every last bud of weed or flower bursting in heroic +tribute, and every breeze cheering the pageant in that farewell to +Summer. + +"If school didn't start just now," commented Norma Travers, "I +wonder what we would do? Everything else seems to stop short." + +"I never saw shadows come and go so weirdly on any other first day," +added Judith Stearns ominously. "I hope it doesn't mean a sign, as +Velma Sigbee would put it," and dark eyed Judith waved her arms +above her black head to ward off the blow. + +"Is it too early to suggest science?" lisped Maud Leslie timidly. +"I've been reading about the possible change of climate and its +relation to the sun's rays going wild into space. I don't want to +start anything, but it might be judicious to buy more furs next +Summer. Also it might justify the premonitory fad." + +"Don't you dare," warned Ted Guthrie, puffing beneath her prettiest +crocheted sweater and rolling down from her chosen mound on the +natural steps of the poplar tree slope. "It's bad enough to think of +icy days up here, far, far away from the happy laughing world of hot +chocolate and warm movie seats," and she rolled one more step nearer +the boxwood lined path, "but to tag on science, and insinuate we are +to be glazed mummies, ugh!" and the redoubtable Ted groaned a grunt +that threatened havoc to the aforesaid handsome sweater. + +"There, there, Teddy dear, don't take on so," soothed Maud, rescuing +the other's new silver pencil that was rapidly sliding further away +from Ted with the pretty open hand bag. "I had entirely forgotten +how you despise ice sports. And you so lovely and fat for falling. +You should love 'em," insisted the studious Maud. + +"Being fat isn't all it's----" + +"Cracked up to be," assisted Judith Stearns. "I quote freely. That's +one of Tim Jackson's." + +"Where have I heard the line before?" mimicked Theodosia Dalton, +otherwise Dozia the Fearless. "It has a chummy tone. All of which is +as naught to the question. Where is Jane? Never knew her to miss the +line up here. And I even tapped at her door. Judy, where is Jane?" +demanded Dozia. + +"Am I my chum's keeper? Can't Jane attend to her own mortal baggage +without incurring the wrath of the multitude?" and Judith sprang up +from her spot on the leaf laden lawn. Also she cast a glance of +apprehension along the path where Jane Allen should at least now be +seen on her way. "Perhaps Jane feels we should forswear this moment +of mirth; being juniors and stepping aside from all the others. They +call it the Whisper you know; 'count of the whispering poplar +above," with a grandiose wave at the innocent tree. "But I would +much prefer a chuckle, wouldn't you Ted?" + +"There you go again, or rather also," flung back the stout girl. "I +must take all the cracks and the chuckles and presently some naive +little freshie will amble along and ask me if I happen to be one of +the soap bubbles she just blew off her penny pipe," and the +pneumatic cheeks puffed out in bubble mockery. + +"Now Teddy dear. Don't fret. Everyone is just jealous because you're +so lovely and comfy looking," appeased Nettie Brocton, the dimple +girl. "But I really do think this 'whisper' is awfully childish. +Rather makes the strangers feel we are whispering about them." + +"If they only knew!" sighed Ted. "I am the usual back-stop for all +frivolity. But if it comes to giving up this lovely loafing hour +under our own grandmother poplar, I say girls, go ahead and knock, +but spare the whisper. I'd die if I had to go tramping around seeing +things and saying hello to that mob," with a sweeping wave of her +one free arm, the other was around Janet Clarke's waist. + +"You are right, little girl, it is lovely to gather here and let the +others do the traipsing. And as for the whisper, anyone within sight +may also hear, for this is a shout rather than a whisper. The real +point is, we are gathered together while others are scattered apart. +But where is Jane Allen? I always look to her to start things, and +we can't stay here all day, alluring as is the grandmother poplar. +We have 'juties'; girls, 'juties'. "Dozia Dalton had risen to her +full height, which measured more feet and inches than her latest +kitchen door records verified, and her hair now wound around her +head like a big brown braided coffee cake, added a few more inches, +in spite of all the flat pinning Dozia took refuge in. It may be +attractive to be tall and slender, but somehow old Dame Nature has a +way of keeping her pets humble. She loves to exaggerate. + +The girls were grouped around the gnarled roots of the big tree. As +had been their custom this contingent managed to escape the hum and +confusion of the "first day" just long enough to whisper hello and +buzz a few unclassified other words. Rooms and corridors were in +commotion; the campus was like a bee farm, and it was only over in a +remote corner, where a poplar and three hemlock trees formed a +protective fortress, that the girls were safe from the first day's +excitement. + +"I left Jane heading for the office and her head was down," +announced Inez Wilson finally. "She didn't see me and her head being +down, of course meant----" + +"Trouble," finished Katherine Winters. "When Jane Allen goes forward +with her red head in advance there is sure to be a collision. What's +up? Who knows?" + +"Come along and find out," promptly suggested Winifred Ayres. "Can't +tell what we're missing. Jane may have lifted the roof when she +raised her head." + +"Poor old roof," commented Ted Guthrie, dragging Janet Clarke down +to earth again in her own attempt at rising. "I suppose we may as +well fall in line," she continued good-naturedly. "Janie is still +the idol of the mob; anyone can see that, even at this early date," +and with a girl tugging on either side the stout one finally heaved +ahoy! + +"'Tain't that," corrected Inez recklessly, "it's just because we are +all too lazy to do the things we know Jane will do. I have been +reading up on psychology, and you may now expect me to spoil every +dream of childhood with a reason why," and Inez threw her head up +prophetically. + +"Alluring prospects this year," groaned Velma Sigsbee. "What with +Maud gone scientific, and Inez turned psychologist and Jane Allen +traveling with her head down--well, all I can say is I still take +two lumps of sugar in my tea." Velma was just that way, a pretty +girl who loved sugar in spite of restrictions, high prices and the +written word. + +A solitary figure was now outlined against the low cedars curled +around Linger Lane. It was Jane at last. + +"Here she comes! Here she comes!" announced Nettie Brocton. "And +look, girls! she isn't even whistling. Something is wrong with our +sunny Jane." + +There was no mistake about it, something was wrong, for Jane Allen +swung along the path, calling greetings to friends grouped in knots +and colonies with an evident half heartedness foreign to her usual +buoyant, cheerful personality. + +Espying her own contingent on the poplar slope she threw her arms +out in a reckless, boyish sort of gesture to give force to the +"Hello girls!" she called, but even that was much too mild for Jane. + +"We were in despair," began Judith, Jane's particular friend and +school-long companion. "Janie dear, why the clouds? What's up? Let +us know the worst, do. We are fortified now, whereas in an hour +hence we may be weak from interviews with the new proctor. Sit down +Jane. We just rose to go in search of you, and by my new watch I see +there is still time before the hour to report. There," and the +little spot cleared for Jane in the semi-circle was now covered with +a pretty plaid skirt, "do tell us. You really look worried," + +"Not really?" contradicted the gray eyed Jane. "Worried, and on our +very first lovely day? You surely wrong me!" she tried to get her +arms around more girls than even finger tips might touch. "I'm +simply bubbling with joy, as I should be. I was detained in the +office longer than I wanted to stay, and you all know how mean it is +to have to sit on one particular chair facing the desk while a lot +of new girls ask a larger lot of foolish questions. Perhaps that +made me a little cross, but do forgive me. I wouldn't spoil this +initial hour for worlds. Please tell me everything in one breath. I +am just dying to hear." + +No one answered. Ted Guthrie did gurgle a bit, and Velma Sigsbee +threw a handful of leaves in Nettie Brocton's hair, but the pause +was a riot. Why should Jane deceive them? Cross from delay in the +busy office indeed, as if she would not have bolted out and left the +whole room to the nervous new students! The girls looked from one to +the other and finally Judith Stearns saved the situation by +proposing that the juniors line up to help the seniors show +newcomers about the grounds. On this day at least, class lines were +forgotten at Wellington. + +"We were just waiting for you Janie," she declared adroitly, "and +Mildred Manners has been whoo-hooing her lungs out across the +campus. Come along girls, and see you don't waylay all the +millionaires. I hear every garage in the village is bursting with +classy cars, and the livery stable can't take another single +boarder. Ted, you take Velma and Maud, and be careful not to divulge +any club secrets; Janet, you tag along with Winifred and just gush +to death over that timid little blonde who seems to have a whole bag +full of hand made handkerchiefs for weeps. Jane, may I have the +honor of your company?" + +Judith's black eyes looked into Jane's gray orbs that asked and +answered so many questions. + +"Thanks, Judy," said Jane aside. "You're a dear. Let's go and do the +honors." + +The next moment Wellington grounds rang with shouts and laughter, +and the voice of Jane Allen defied the criticism her pretty face had +so lately invited. + +"It's perfectly all right," she assured Judith, but the latter stuck +her chin out in contradiction. + +"Can't fool me, Janie," she whispered between handshakes and +greetings. "But I'll wait till the picnic winds up. Did you ever see +so many new girls? Has some college burned down since last year?" + +"No, love, but our reputation has gone forth. This is a glorious day +for Wellington and, Judy Stearns, it is going to be a glorious year +for us. We are still juniors!" and Jane trailed off to find her +place in the long line that was automatically forming around the +great old elm. An extension course in special work kept Jane with +her junior friends. + +"Wellington, dear Wellington!" rang out the then famous strain in +hundreds of silvery voices. The college song was echoed from every +hill into every grass lined hollow, and if the new girls doubted the +spirit of comradeship they were to be favored with there, the +consecration brought it home to them, like strong loving arms +stretched out in the sea of school day mysteries. + +It was hours later, when the pattering of feet in the long corridors +died down to a mere trail of sound, that Jane and Judith managed to +pair off for a confidential chat. + +"You have got to tell me," demanded Judith. + +"As if I wouldn't," replied Jane. + +"You can't blame us for being curious, Janey. This afternoon was +almost a failure, just because your eyes had a faraway look." + +"I'm so sorry, really, Jude. What an abominable temper I must have." + +"We all know better than that girlie." Judy might now have been +charged with harboring a faraway look herself. + +"Just give me a little time," smiled Jane, "and if there's anything +on my conscience I'll gladly transfer it to yours." + +The look in both gray and brown eyes was suddenly changed to +intimacy. It was no longer faraway. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A SHADOW IN FORECAST + + +I thought everyone had been supplied with the anti-tack hammer +circular," remarked Jane, falling back where Judith's cushions ought +to be. "Just hear that tattoo over in the wing. I'll bet it's +Dozia." + +"She has a collection of movie queens and I doubt not that is the +official coronation. Let us hope the new proctor is deaf on the +left, Dozia's room leans that way," replied Judith. Then she tossed +a couple of sweaters at Jane's head. "Put those under your ears +dear," she ordered, "my pillows aren't unpacked yet and you may find +Neddie's last year tacks in that burlap. There now, you look almost +human. But the wistful whimper lingers. Jane, what has happened? You +are simply smothered in the soft pedal. Tell your Judy all about +it," she cooed. + +Feet stretched out straight in front of her and arms ending with +finger tips laced over her black head, Judith looked longer than she +really needed to measure up or down. Also, she looked too stiff to +be comfortable, but the wooden pose was Judith's favorite. She +rested that way, defying every known law for relaxation. Jane, au +contraire, was curled up like a kitten, with one red sweater balled +under her ruffled head and the other blue one tangled about her slim +ankles. Both girls were tired--justly so, for the opening day at +Wellington was ever a time of joyous activity, and the day just +closed had roared and yelled itself into an evening still vibrant +with bristling energy, tack hammers and movie pictures smashing +rules and regulations, until the night gong sounded its irrevocable +warning. Then roommates paired off even as did Jane and Judith. + +"Has anything happened to your baggage?" prompted Judith, as her +companion failed to confide. + +Jane teased one small worsted tassel of Judith's blue sweater free +from its tangle with her shoe lace, then she poked her dimpled chin +forward saucily. + +"Can't ever have a secret, I suppose, Pally dear," she mocked the +girl sliding slowly but surely out of her chair. "But I don't mind. +Shows how truly you love me. There, you will feel better on the rug. +I knew you were coming." Judith had landed. + +"I believe I'll sleep here," declared Judith, one end of the +international carpet sample was bunched up under her ear. "Never was +so tired on any other first or last day." The long legs shot out +straight again. "And if your secret is really thrilling Janie, pray +keep it for a more auspicious occasion. I am apt to snore when I +should groan, or even sneeze when I should----" A choking spasm +interrupted. "Don't tell me to take quinine, Janie. This is the end. +I have had it since August and it is due to depart now, exactly +now." A couple of sneezes added punctuation to this. + +"But get up from that floor instantly," ordered the girl on the +divan. "Nothing worse for colds than rag carpet rugs. There's plenty +of room up here out of drafts. Come, lovey. Do try to curl up some. +I always fear you will break up in splinters when I see you go +wooden." + +"Too comfy, Dinks, I can't move." + +"Sneeze then and I'll catch you. You have just got to get up off +that chilly floor somehow. Besides the oil may be contagious. It +still smells gooey." + +"Anything for peace. Give me a lift. There," Judith hung over the +edge but Jane held on to the black head. "It's not so safe as the +floor but I suppose it is more prophylactic. Now I will sleep. The +girls seem to have died down. Strange"--yawn and groan--"how they do +love to fuss up the rooms." + +"Temperment, my dear. Dozia wouldn't sleep a wink with her +photograph gallery unhung. What do you think of the crowd this year? +Spot any stars?" + +"A couple. Did you see that beauty with the shiny gold hair? The one +who stood under the hemlock alone during the cheering? Isn't she +tragically pretty?" + +"Exactly that. One couldn't help seeing her, although she struck me +as being shy." + +"Scared to death, and so unconscious of her charms. There Janie, my +brain is sound asleep this moment. If I say real words they must be +coming from another world. This is gone." Judith ducked deeper into +the pillowless couch. She plainly was sleepy. + +"Why Judith Stearns," called Jane severely, "you are giving me as +much trouble as a baby. Don't you dare fall asleep. We have got to +make beds yet. That comes of your notion not to have ready-to-wear +beds in our suite. And you can just see how much fun it is to drag +things out on tired nights." Jane sprang up from the divan and tried +to yank the sleepy girl after her. "Come on, Pally," she implored. +"I'll do most all the fixing, only I really demur at the disrobing. +You know my hatred for buttons and fastenings. I wouldn't leave one +snap to meet its partner. Come on Judy," the feet were again on the +rug, "we will be simply dead in the morning, and we have got to be +very much alive. We do miss the Weatherbee. I don't see why we let +her go. Dear, prim, prompt Weatherbee! Now we know we loved her. Her +successor is too young to be motherly." + +"Jane Allen, you're a pest," groaned Judith. "I can't hear a thing +but words, and I suppose you are calling me names. Who's this guy +Bed, I heard you mention? Lead me to her," and whether the collapse +was assumed or real Judith rolled over twice and once more stretched +out on the long runner at Jane's feet. + +"Have it your own way. Stay there if you insist and sneeze your head +off, but I'm going to bed," decided Jane helplessly. + +"That's the girl. Her name is Bed. I want to meet her. Heard so much +about her. Jane dear introduce me, there's a dar--link," Judith +muttered. + +"Someone is coming and I just hope it is Prexy or Proxy. I'll open +the door wide as I can," declared the outraged Jane. + +She stepped over the long girl but even the tap on the door did not +disturb Judith. + +"It's I--are you up, Jane?" The voice came as the tap subsided. + +"Yes Dozia. Come along in. I can't get Judy to bed. Just look at +her!" + +"Poor child," commiserated Dozia, surveying the figure on the floor +very much as a policeman looks upon an ambulance case. "We ought to +help her. Is the day bed translated?" + +"Yes, I got it ready. But Judy won't undress," Jane protested. + +"Why need she? If I ever slept like that I would murder a disturber. +Just get hold of that rug Janie, and we'll dump her into bed." + +Judith was actually sleeping when the two compassionate friends +picked up the rug, hammock fashion, and proceeded to "dump her into +bed." She never moved voluntarily. Judith Stearns knew a good thing +when it came her way, and what could be better than this? + +"She'll ruin her skirt," suggested Jane as they drew the rug out +from under the blue accordion pleats. + +"What's a mere skirt compared with that?" + +Dozia stood aside to admire the unconscious Judy, but striking a +statuesque pose she caught the critical eye of Jane and was rewarded +with a most complimentary smile. + +"Where did you get that wonderful robe, Dozia?" Jane asked. "You +simply look like--like some notable personage in those soft folds +and with your hair down. What a pity we must make ourselves ugly to +be conventional." + +"Ain't it now," mocked Dozia, abusing language to make comedy. She +swung the velveteen folds about her and spun around to wind them +tighter. "Like this? Do I resemble a movie queen? That's what +brought me, Janie. This nocturnal visit is consequent upon a +disaster. My hammer, the one I put my queens up with, fell through +the mirror. Silly little hammer. You know how this house staff feels +about breaking looking-glasses." + +"Yes, spoils the set of course. You are not insinuating anyone here +might be superstitious? I am awfully sorry you broke the mirror. How +did it happen?" + +"Sissh!" Dozia sibilated, pointing to Judith who had actually turned +over. "Don't wake her, this really is a secret. Girlie," dragging +Jane down into a chair, "have you noticed that ugly, fat, common +country girl, with the wire hair and gimlet eyes? Well, she came in, +pushed her way in really, and squatted down plumb in my best +Sheraton chair. The size of her!" (This with seething indignation.) +"I was so provoked--why, Jane, what is the matter? You are +frightened or nervous or something. Have you seen a ghost anywhere?" +broke off Dozia. + +"Oh no, but I am so tired," Jane edged away from the suspector. +"After all I do believe Judy is sensible, see her slumber." + +"Jane Allen, you are a fraud," pronounced the girl in the velveteen +robe. "You are smothering some mystery and I must have stepped on +the spring," guessed the inquisitive caller. "Was it the tack hammer +or the spindle chair or the fat girl? Not she, you have had no +chance to do uplift work yet. Land knows that farmer will need your +greatest skill, but dear, don't waste it on her. She's incurable." + +"Bad as all that?" asked Jane colorlessly. "But what happened? You +did not try to hit her with the hammer I hope?" + +"I didn't try to hit her, I did hit her. It fell accidentally on her +fat head and she tossed it through the mirror. Now what can a girl +do in a case like that?" + +The haunted look, so foreign to the face of Jane, shaped itself +again. + +"Is she--did you hurt her?" + +"I hope so," dared Dozia. "It would be a charity to send her home. +Her name is Shirley Duncan and she's from some country town. But +Jane, if she gets really horrid, I mean more horrid than she is now, +I want you to stand by me. That's what I came for." + +"All right Dozia," said Jane, "but I hope it won't have to go as far +as that." + +"Me too," responded the carefree Dozia. "But there's no telling what +Shirley may do." + +For some moments after Dozia glided out Jane stood there, her gray +eyes almost misty. + +"Of all the tragedies!" she was thinking. Then with a jerk she +pulled herself up. "But I guess I can handle it," she declared +finally, and when she succeeded in rousing Judith no one would have +suspected anything new amiss. + +Jane Allen might have worries but they could not dominate her. Sunny +Jane, with sunny hair and gray eyes, was no mope. It would take +fight to conquer this new condition, she realized, but Jane could +fight, and her dreams on this first night back in college were +strangely confused with school-day battles. + +More than once she awoke with a start, as if some danger were +impending, and a sense of uneasiness possessed her. Each time it +seemed more difficult to fall back into slumber, and all this was +new, indeed, to happy Jane. + +"Daddy!" she murmured. "It's because of daddy's----" + +She was finally sound asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MISFIT FRESHMAN + + +Yes, they were back in college and work was waiting. This thought +invaded confused brains and stood out like a corporal of the guard, +shouting orders into lazy ears on Wellington campus next morning. + +Jane Allen threw first one slipper and then another at Judith +Stearns' bed across the room from her own. But still Judith's hand +ignored the hair brush on the chair at her elbow. + +"Judy," called Jane, "the warning bell has warned. Turn down the +corner on that dream and wake up." Each word of this climbed a note +in tone until the last was almost a shout. Then Judith's hand moved +to Jane's slipper on her own (Judith's) forget-me-nots, the little +floral pieces that adorned a very dainty garment with the embroidery +on Judith's chest--arms and neck ignored in the pattern. + +"What say?" she muttered sleepily. + +"Up," answered Jane. "Ever hear that little word before?" + +"Yep, pony riding," drawled Judith. "Up, up, one, two, three, go!" +and at this Judith sprang up with such vigor and volume (in point of +scope) that she sprang over the neighboring bed and swooped down on +Jane's hat box! Her black hair now fell fearlessly over the +embroidered forget-me-nots, and her bare feet shot in their usual +skating strike. + +"Good thing that hat box is the new kind," commented Jane, "but even +at that it will hardly serve as a divan. Still, I am glad you are +up. Do you know where you are, Judy Stearns? And what you are +expected to do today?" + +"All of those things and additional horrors are seething through my +poor brain," moaned Judith, "but a moment ago I was having a fast +set of tennis with adorable Jack St. John--Sanzie they call him. +Have I told you about him, Jane darling?" Judith gathered herself +and her feet up from the black enameled box and glided over to her +own corner. + +"No, Judy, I do not recall Sanzie," replied Jane, who was already +armed with soap and towel for the lavatory. "But keep the story. I +shouldn't like to get interested in boy tennis just now. We must +forget--" proclaimed Jane in tones so dramatic a poet calendar on +the wall trembled in the vocal waves. "Forget! forget----" and Jane +was outside the door with a sweeping wave of her big fuzzy towel and +a rather alarming thrust of her fist full of soap. + +"Ye-eah," groaned Judith, "forget is the word, Sanzie and tennis." +She glanced at the tiny clock on a shelf of the bracket type. It was +Jane's idea the clock should not be cluttered with surroundings. + +"Gee-whiz! It is late, and this the first day. Glad the others on +this corridor are all nice and punctual." + +In bathrobe and slippers Judith soon followed Jane down the long +hall. Neither dallied long in the plunge, for Judith was wide awake +now, and presently, after dressing and patting herself and +belongings into place, she confronted Jane with this: "I heard Dozia +Dalton last night. And I know there will be trouble about the farmer +girl. Jane, tell me, is she the scholarship?" + +"Yes," almost gasped Jane the irreproachable. "And to think that I, +in any way, should be responsible for bringing her to college!" + +"But you are not, Janie dear," soothed Judith. "That your father +should give this college a scholarship each year is a noble thing, +and how can you tell who may win it? That girl is--well, a bit raw," +she ground her mouth around the word, "but we have nothing to do +with that. She doesn't belong among the juniors, and just leave it +to little Judy to steer her off. Don't go trying any uplift; just +cut her dead and watch her wilt. From the ashes there may arise a +nice little green thing, even if it is of the common garden variety +of onion. Now Jane, you have got to do exactly that. Keep Shirley +Duncan on her own grounds. Shoo her out of junior haunts." + +"You are right, Judy. I have been tortured with the idea that I +would have to play fairy godmother to that--that 'hoodlum.' +Honestly, did you ever see so ordinary a girl in Wellington?" + +"Never. But then she may be a genius. I have read such descriptions +of them. There's the first breakfast bell. Smile now and disappoint +the horde. They think you have been crossed in love and the old maid +depression has settled upon you. You acted that way yesterday," +teasingly. + +Jane's laugh pealed out at this. It was like ragging a down scale, +that rippling crescendo, and Judith needed no other assurance of her +friend's good humor. + +But the day's tasks left little time for trifles. College work is +serious and exacting, each day's programme being carefully and even +scientifically marked out to make the round year's schedule +complete. Jane and Judith, juniors, with a reputation made in their +previous years, "buckled" down to every period with that +intelligence and determination for which both had been credited. + +Everything was so delightful and the autumn air so full of promise! +Jane could not find a true reason for the haunting fear that seemed +to follow her in the person of that crude country girl, who somehow +had won the Alien scholarship. + +It was in free time late the next afternoon that this fear took +definite shape. Jane and her contingent were leaving the study hall +when Shirley Duncan brushed up through their arm linked line. + +She was garbed in a baronet satin skirt of daring hue with an +overblouse of variegated georgette. This as a school frock! At first +glance Jane almost recoiled, then the possibility of delayed baggage +suggested itself and softened her frown. + +"Don't notice her," whispered faithful Judith. + +Jane's glance just answered when the unpopular freshman broke +through the line, grasped Jane's hand and deliberately forced a +folded slip of paper into it. Then, with a mocking smile that ran +into an audible sneer, she turned and sped away. Her awkward gait +and frank romping so close to Wellington Hall brought questioning +glances from the line of juniors. + +"What's that, Jane Allen?" asked Janet Clarke good-naturedly. "I +hope you are not doing uplift for anything like that this year?" + +"The merry little mountain maid," mocked Inez Wilson, doing a few +skips and a couple of jumps in demonstration. + +"How on earth did she ever make Wellington?" demanded the +aristocratic Nettie Brocton, disapproval spoiling her leaky dimples. + +"Girls, you are horrid!" declared Judith to the rescue. "You all +know the freaks love Jane. It's her angel face," and Judith +playfully stroked the cheek into which streaks of bright pink +threatened admission of guilt--that Jane really knew the uncouth +country girl. + +"She's a stranger to me," said Jane truthfully, "but in spite of +that I must respect her confidence." The crumpled note was thereat +securely tucked into the pocket of Jane's blouse. + +Winifred Ayres tittered outright, but the advent of Dozia Dalton +furnished a welcome interruption. + +"Girls," she panted, "what ever do you think? Dol Vincez, our +dangerous adversary of last year, runs the beauty shop beyond our +gate! Can you comprehend the audacity?" + +"We can when you say Dolorez," replied Jane. "Do you actually mean +to say she has set up the College Beauty Shop at our very door?" + +"She has!" declared the excited Dozia. "Who would dare trust a live +and workable phiz to that--traitor?" + +"Not I," said Velma Sigsbee. + +"Nor I," from Maud Leslie. + +"My face must serve me this term," added Inez Wilson, twisting her +features to make sure they worked well. + +"All the same," demurred Judith, "the temptation is not to be +laughed at. Just imagine real dimples speared in," with a finger +poked in Maud Leslie's cheek, "and long silky lashes tangles in +one's violet gaze----" This was too much even for staid juniors and +the race that followed almost justified Shirley's much criticised +romp. With this difference: Wellington Hall was now out of the +shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting in +and out of the autumn sunshine that lay like stripes of panne velvet +on the sward, but Shirley's run had begun at the very steps. + +Recreation had its limits and that day was counted lost into which a +race over the pleasure grounds had not been crowded. It might be for +tennis, or even baseball, or yet to the lake, but a run was +inevitable. And so they ran. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THRILLING NEWS + + +Did you read your note, Dinksy?" Judith asked Jane, using the +particular pet name adopted because of its very remote distance from +the original. + +"You know I did, Pally." This was from Pal, of course. + +"A bomb threat?" + +"Not quite." Jane's hair was rebellious this morning and just now +received a real cuffing at its owner's hands. + +"How perfectly peachy you would look bobbed, Dinksy. That color and +those smooth silky curls! How the angels must have loved you. Know +this line? + + "'Methinks some cherub holds thee fair, + For kissing down thy sunny hair + I find his ringlets tangled there!'" + +"You would," interrupted Jane sacrilegiously. "More than his +ringlets tangled here this morning," with a final jab of the +strongest variety of golden bone hair-pin. "Aunt Mary always said my +mood (she meant temper) affected my hair. And I am sure she was +always right about it." + +"Well, you don't have to tell me about the note if you don't want +to, Janie," pouted Judith. "But my idea is, you need counsel and I +am as ever the expert." + +"Fair Portia, thou shalt be my counsel ever. I had no thought of +hiding the little note," insisted Jane, "but it is horribly +disappointing. Wait until I rescue it from the basket. There's +always a charm about the original." "Don't bother, please, Jane," +begged Judith. "We are almost late and I hope for a set of tennis +before class. I need it every day to keep off the heartbreak. +Darlink Sanzie," she sniffled. "To think he will nary again bat a +ball in my black eye." + +"Why never again? There are other vacations." + +"But no more Jacks like Sanzie. He is unique and has opened a law +office by now. Can't you see his stenographer kicking his shapely +shins as he dictates? They always do that in the movies, and Sanzie +is so up to date, even as to shins. Now, Janie dear, let's along. En +route you may tell me about the bomb threat. The corridors are +clear." + +"She simply wants a chance to talk to me, that's all----" + +"But she can't have it," declared Judith. "As your counsel I forbid +it. Just give that girl a chance and she will bind you over, body +and soul; refined blackmail, you know. Don't you dare answer that +note until I dictate the reply," Judith swung her arm around Jane's +waist in the most all-embracing manner. "Please, Dinksy," she almost +whispered, "wait until we are free this afternoon." + +Thus they separated; Judith for her tennis and Jane for a turn on +Bowling Green. + +But Jane had a deeper problem to solve than even her chum suspected. +There was the broken mirror in Dozia's room and the fact that Dozia +had actually hit Shirley on the head with a hammer! + +"A pretty record that--and made on the first night in college," Jane +reflected. + +Undoubtedly the freshman's demand that Jane "see her at once" had to +do with the outrage. And the interview would be granted, of course, +that very afternoon unless Judith interfered. + +Incidentally Judith was turning the situation over in her own good- +natured mind. + +"I would just like to see that gawk get Jane wound up in her +miseries," she told herself, while Janet Clarke hunted for stray +tennis balls in the hedge. "Jane is such a dear with sympathy that +this girl's very crimes would appeal to her--in compassion. No-sir- +ree!" She volleyed a vicious ball--"Jane will not see the impossible +Shirley alone just yet." + +Meanwhile news of Dolorez Vincez's Beauty Shop had spread over the +college like a holiday notice. Dolorez was the South American girl +who had been expelled from Wellington the previous year because of +irregularities in many things but particularly in basket ball games. +As told in the book, "Jane Allen: Center," this young lady was +really a teacher of athletics, and had been posing as an amateur. +Being forced to leave college after opening a prohibited beauty shop +she vowed vengeance, and many of the students now felt the Beauty +Parlor, opened at the very gates of Wellington and widely +advertised, was about to assume the dangers of a golden spider web. + +The girls were fairly quivering with excitement, when Dozia Dalton, +herald of the sensation, condescended to tell everybody all she knew +about the whole thing. + +Velma Sigsbee would insist upon interrupting with silly questions, +such as the price of a bob or the possible pain of operating for +double dimples, but eventually Dozia told the story while Ted +Guthrie held Velma's hand in a compelling grip. It was over on the +long low bench by the ball field where practice should have been +kicking up a dust. But Dol's Beauty Parlor outrage was too +delectable to forego even for a final ball game, + +"It's perfectly darling," confided the idolized Dozia (any girl with +that story on her person would be idolized although Dozia was +individually popular). "The place, I mean. It's fitted up----" + +"Were--you in?" gasped Winifred Ayres. + +"No, of course I was not in," disdained Dozia. "No one who ever knew +the trickery of Dolorez Vincez would enter that place." + +"Why?" asked the innocent Nettie Brocton. "Would she really do +something dreadful----" + +"She would, really," declared Jane, her tone not easy to interpret. +"She could turn your hair a bright red like mine by mere chemical +action of her ventilating system." + +"Really!" implored the dimply girl. + +"Pos-i-tive-ly!" declared Jane. "But don't attempt it dear. She +would send your dad an awful bill for doing a stunt like that. Think +of the price of hair like mine!" + +That suggestion brought disaster to Jane, for Ted Guthrie swayed at +the very end of the bench and the whole line almost went over +backwards. It was in Ted's attempt to punish Jane for her vanity +that the sudden sweep, like a current in physics, jerked feet from +the ground and upset balance generally. Some seconds elapsed (and +each was precious) before things again settled down, including +Velma's crochet balls, Janet's book, pad, and pencil, Dozia's small +bottle of salted peanuts as well as other sundries and supplies. + +"Please finish the yarn," implored Nettie Brocton. "Do tell us, +Dozia, how the place is fitted up." + +"First tell us, please," insisted judicial Judith, "how do you know +how it is fitted up? Does our plumber plumb there?" + +During all this nonsense Jane cast many a furtive glance along +Linger Lane, expecting the obnoxious Shirley to loom up large and +lanky by the way, but as yet she had not darkened the shadowy path. +If Jane could run off to the Rockery, that landmark between freshman +and later college campus lines, there to meet and have done with the +demands of her erstwhile tormentor. But no, Judith was openly +demanding Jane's concentration on the bench, and every point made by +Dozia in her tale of the beauty shop Judith flung at Jane in direct +challenge for stricter attention. She was not going to escape if +Judith Stearns knew it, and she surmised the intention. + +It had finally been told to tingling ears that the poisoned beauty +shop, as Winifred Ayres, the writer, had already dubbed the place, +was done in wonderful mirrors, and shiny faucets, windy wizzing hair +fans and electric permanent wavers and curlers; and when the full +description had been given, more girls than one sighed, groaned and +grumbled. + +"To think it has to be taboo," spoke Ted Guthrie. "Dol was always a +wizard, and now thus equipped she might have a lovely way of fanning +me thin." + +"And fattening me nice and fluffy with the same fan," sighed +Winifred. + +"My freckles might float away like powder from the butterfly's +wings," with a weird fluttering of Dozia's long arms. + +"But hair!" exclaimed Judith. "Think of turning me into a golden +blonde with eyes like blue-bells under dewiness----" + +"It cannot be! It cannot be!" moaned Dozia. "Instead we must raid +the place and banish the traitor. How about that for stunt night +with the sophs?" + +"Wonderful!" sang out Juliette De Puy. She had listened and waited +with a certain reserve for which this capable Juliette was famous, +but now that the story was told she deigned to add that one word +"wonderful." Everyone looked at her suddenly. + +"And have you tell the sophs," blurted out Nettie Brocton. "Dozia +Dalton you have spoiled it all. Didn't you see we had company?" + +"Never noticed the lovely Juliette. Never mind Julie, you may tell +the crowd all you've heard," condescended the redoubtable Dozia. "We +enjoyed having you and it is perfectly all right." + +"Thanks. Come over to our camp some night and I'll do as much for +you. I just came in this afternoon, you know, to sub on the ball +team." + +"Instead of which you subbed on the gossip club," finished Jane, +jumping up. "I've got to go back to my room. Don't let me hurry +anyone," she said indifferently. Then, just as a strange figure +turned from the big boxwood bumper into the lane, Jane escaped. + +She hurried to meet Shirley Duncan. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THREATS AND DEFIANCE + + +The girl approaching was not so easy to appraise as her unusual +costume proclaimed her to be. Jane realized this; country girls are +apt to make such mistakes, and even dinner gown tags on school day +togs would hardly be proof positive of inferiority, Jane reflected. + +Shirley Duncan swung along with a careless stride, but even the pose +might cover embarrassment. Jane sent a welcome smile out to meet her +and the stranger jerked her head rather saucily in recognition. + +"Have I kept you waiting?" asked Jane in the best of humor. + +"Well, rather," replied the freshman, "but I knew better than to +break in on that crowd," with an arm sweep toward the ball field. +"Can we go up to your room for a few minutes?" + +Jane thought quickly. To go to her room might mean an interruption +from Judith; also it might mean the danger from an undisciplined +voice. + +"I have been indoors so much today," she replied, "and our lovely +days are flying so, suppose we go over to the rose summer house? We +won't be interrupted there and we will both have the benefit of a +longer time out of doors. I suppose you feel it, freshmen usually +do." They were moving toward the rustic house that looked rather +desolate in its coat of faded rose leaves. + +"Oh, freshmen feel everything, I suppose," replied the other, "but I +can't see why we should be openly abused for all that. I heard there +was no more hazing allowed in colleges?" + +"We have never hazed at Wellington," Jane said rather indignantly, +"and Miss--Miss Duncan, I am sure no one will ever attempt the least +abuse even in a spirit of fun at this college." + +"They won't, eh?" type broke out in that challenge. "Well, that is +just what I wanted to see you about. I suppose I'm not good enough +to go to your rooms." Lip curled, nostrils quivered and head jerked +up impertinently with that accusation. + +"Why, Miss Duncan--" floundered Jane. + +"Why don't you call me Shirley? Isn't that a swell enough name?" +interrupted the other. + +Jane dropped down on the summer house seat with a thud. Here was a +problem surely. Antagonism fairly blazed in the girl's dark eyes. +Yet she was a stranger--actually Jane's guest. + +"Shirley is a very sweet name and I have always loved it," replied +Jane frankly. "But my dear young lady, we must not quarrel. We shall +never get acquainted that way." + +"Oh no, the juniors may do all the quarreling. We freshies must just +turn the other cheek of course. But I suppose you know that long +lanky friend of yours, they call some foolish name like Doses, hit +me on the head with her hammer the other night?" + +"You mean Dozia Dalton--yes, she told me her hammer slipped--" + +"Slipped indeed!" more scorn and lip curling. "She deliberately +dropped it on my head--" + +"And you threw it at the mirror," broke out Jane, weary of acting +the angel without gaining the slightest return from this rude girl. + +"Yes, I broke it and I'm glad of it! Now what are you going to do +about it?" Two hands not really pretty, dug deep into the satin +skirt pockets, and Shirley Duncan towered over Jane Allen defiantly. + +"What am I going to do about it?" repeated Jane. But the irony was +lost on her companion. "You did not ask to see me just to be +offensive?" parried Jane. + +"No indeed, I wanted to remind you I am in this college because your +father gave a scholarship, and I suppose that would mean you might +be nice to me at least." + +"I'm sure I want to be," Jane quickly toned down. "But no girl can +make friends with another when she insists on quarreling. I am +willing to pay for the broken mirror--" + +"You don't need to trouble yourself; if it is to be paid for I'll do +it myself. My folks wouldn't let me--sponge on anybody." + +"Sponge," repeated Jane, frowning with something like disgust. +"Please don't use such horrible slang." + +"Oh my! I suppose a scholarship girl must be a mouse or a kitten. +Well, when I took it I understood no one in Wellington was to know +about it and that the scholarship girl had equal rights with every +other girl." + +"So she has and no one here does know who wins the scholarship." +Somehow Jane stumbled over the word. It was fraught with terror in +the hands of this impossible creature. + +"Well, I don't believe it" (no regard for Jane's veracity), "but +I'll hold on awhile and see." (Condescending, thought Jane.) "My +folks always wanted me to go to college and I just came to satisfy +them. I don't give a snap for all the high brow stuff and I might as +well tell you I am nearly dead with homesickness." (She didn't look +it, Jane observed.) "But I'm no quitter, so I intend to stick. Now +let's get back to the girl who hit me. Can you make her apologize?" + +"No," said Jane flatly, "and what's more I have no intention of +trying to. You brought trouble on yourself by going into Dozia's +room without being invited. You should know that the younger girls, +the freshmen, are not supposed to take such privileges. Then when +you annoyed my friend" (Jane almost kissed the word) "she told you +outright she was busy and did not want to be bothered. Next thing, +you deliberately sat under her stepladder. Do you like to get in the +open path of tack hammers?" + +"Love to," sneered Shirley. "And I'm crazy about playing ball with +them when mirrors are up for back stops. All right, go ahead, as far +as you like. I believe now what I heard about the Jane Alien crowd. +A lot of goody goodies, too stuck up to bother with country girls." +Jane jumped from her seat and gasped at an interruption but did not +succeed in sustaining it. "But I've got friends around here who know +the ropes. They are not freshies either, so don't bother about me, +Miss Allen. I'll see about the looking-glass and the girl who hit me +with her hammer." + +Jane let her go, was actually glad to see the last of the satin +skirt as it swished out into the winding path, nor did she +immediately follow it. Instead she sat there, tearing little red +rose hips from the tenacious vines and tossing them away regardless +of their artistic value as decorative winter berries. + +"Tragic," she muttered, "positively tragic. And that is what my +darling dad wasted a perfectly good scholarship on." Thoughts of +"dad" mercifully intervened and saved the girl's temper further +violence. "But what puzzles me is how that girl ever won the +scholarship?" Jane silently questioned, and in that unspoken +sentence she unconsciously shaped the key to fit the mystery. + +How did this girl win the scholarship? For some moments longer Jane +sat there. She went over again the incident of Dozia's tack hammer. +That she could depend absolutely on Dozia, and knew this strange +girl had done more than sit in the path of the showering tack hammer +was irrefutable. + +"Dozia was a little bit reckless of course," admitted the mentor, +"and she did seem to coddle the fact that her hammer fell on +Shirley's head. I recall she even said she was glad it hit her and +hoped the blow would send the freshie home to her 'maw.'" + +Jane wanted to laugh but she refrained. There was a strange proctor +in office this year to be considered. If dear old Miss Weatherbee +were still in charge it might be much easier to explain the +accident. + +"And that girl defied me with a threat of friends! She has friends +who are not in the freshman ranks? I remember she said that. Who can +they be? My enemies naturally," decided Jane. + +How these enemies would fill that foolish head with nonsense, and +how far they might urge her on to mischief if not to actual danger, +Jane Allen did not venture to estimate. + +"But Dozia tried first shot to send her home to her 'maw!'" + +The humor of the situation now struck Jane like a blow on the funny +bone, and she burst out laughing in the very face of the thorny rose +bush. + +"After all it is too delicious!" she told herself. "And even if she +is my dad's scholarship girl there's a heap of fun in the ridiculous +situation. I'll find Judy and tell her the whole thing. Too good to +keep; too funny to spoil," and the blue serge skirt that fanned the +boxwood a moment later never swished a swish. Jane did not give it +tune to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JANE AND JUDITH + + +Oh, do tell me, Janie. I was watching behind the big elm the whole +time. Couldn't hear a word of course, but I could have seen any +attempt at violence. That girl, I tell you, is no ordinary +'critter.' I fully expected she would draw something from that broad +satin belt. But do tell? What was it all about?" + +"Thank you for the chance, Judy, I was just wondering when you would +take breath. It is funny--so funny I am laughing all over," and the +gray eyes sent out sparks of mirth, as a senior might have put it. + +"Isn't it!" howled Judith, pegging a pillow at Jane's head to keep +the fun a-going or the "pot a-boiling" as you will. + +"I don't know where to begin Judy. At first I was sort of awe- +stricken. Considering the handicaps poor Shirley has loaded herself +up with----" + +"Including the name. Have you analyzed that?" + +"Yes, love, I have. Some maiden aunt with a paper covered library +must have inflicted her with that. It doesn't suit at all, although +she seems very proud of it." + +"And no chance of her growing into it either. Like a chauffeur named +Claude or Clarence. Her last name now would be much snappier for +her. Duncan makes a topping Dunny," suggested Judith. + +"But the girl would never believe that," sighed Jane. "She asked me +to call her Shirley and I tried to; now, Judith, listen. Here are a +few difficult facts. Shirley Duncan is bound to fight. She has been +brought up in the school of affectionate antagonism, and with her it +is a case of getting the best of everyone and everything. I did not +say getting the better, I mean best." + +"I savvy, as our old friend cow-boy Pedro would say. Have you heard +from home lately, Dinks?" + +"Yes, Judith. All well and lonely. But please concentrate. This +matter is serious. Shirley threatened me with friends--says she has +friends here who are not freshies. Can you guess who they may be?" + +"Never saw a girl speak to her a second time unless she, Shirley, +stepped on the other's toes or knocked her hat off. Then the +conversation was naturally brief and snappy. It happened to Mabel." + +"I can't imagine whom she means, but they are somewhere ready to +pounce on us, so let us beware. Next point is: she seems to have +money: offered to pay for the broken mirror. In fact she sort of +lorded it over me." + +"Dozia should strike for a new vanity dresser. One with three side +glasses big enough to reflect her wonderful, long flowing locks. A +rare chance for Dozia." + +"But how could a girl coming in on scholarship have money to +squander?" reflected Jane. + +"That maiden aunt with the paper covered novels would love good +looking-glasses. It might be the salvation of this Shirley girl, if +she did have access to a true mirror." + +Judith snapped the top on her fountain pen and slammed shut her +note-book. Indifferent work was worse than none, she seemed to have +decided. + +"Had you finished your Lat? Isn't it awful to have to work off a +condition? Please don't let me bother you ever, Jude, when you have +that task on hand," said Jane seriously. + +"I have and it is, if you kept your two questions properly +tabulated. You see I am straining for mental stuff. I want to +improve the old condition of forgetfulness. That was what knocked +friend Virgil, or was it Cicero? I loved the stories and forgot the +period. But I am finished for this evening, dear, and you know we +have some initiation stunts to take part in. I am glad they are so +simple. It seems to me each year the nonsense gets more rational." + +"It really does, and I think, as you do, that shows progress. We can +all enjoy better fun than that of afflicting the innocent. Of course +we still have to have some ceremony or the young 'uns wouldn't think +they were really in college. I just wonder how it will strike our +rebel Shirley?" + +"That interests me too, Dinksy. Let's go and see. We have some +lovely little babes this year. That ivory blonde, the timid one with +a most atrocious name, Sarah Something, I just love her, don't you?" + +"Sarah Howland, I saw Inez marking her card. Yes, she is sweet in +spite of her name. Rather a pity sponsors cannot show +discrimination. Here is your sweater. Better take it; the wind +whistles. I'll pull my riding cap down as a disguise. It takes in +most of this-wig," Jane was struggling to stuff her bright tresses +into the pocket of her black velvet jockey cap. The effect towered +like a real English derby and Judith danced in delight. + +"I'll try that with my tarn," she declared. "One's hair is always +the surest give-away. Here are the masks--hanging neatly on the nail +of last year's tenants. I call that thoughtful." + +Mysterious calls and whistles were now creeping in under doorways +and through transoms. The sophs were ready to initiate the +frightened little freshmen. Tales of "they will do this and they +won't do that" had little effect on the individual candidate, but +served to keep up the collective nerve by way of distraction. + +"If they hold us under the pump I'll be glad of it," sang out +Shirley the Rebel. "Haven't had a decent drink of water since I left +home, and I suppose the pump has a spring." + +"And it's warm enough to enjoy a dip in the lake if they abduct us +in canoes," added Jessie Whitely. "I'm almost suffocated in this big +thing," with an impatient jerk at the criminal's black robe. + +"Say your prayers, say your prayers!" chanted another of the group, +seconded by moans and groans. They were waiting like prisoners +jammed into the gym lobby, and a guard of sophs patrolled the +entrance. + +Noticeable in the assemblage was little Sarah Howland-noticeable +because she sat on a window sill all alone and dangled her feet +contentedly. She actually appeared to be enjoying the prospect of +being "roughed." Shirley was noisy as usual, and for once her +raillery seemed appropriate. The more timid girls had taken shelter +about her, as if expecting she would easily and even gaily vanquish +the attacking foe. + +Friends had the strong girl now if never before, and she fairly +expanded under the compliment. She would show the sophs what country +training did for a girl in the way of self-protection, and a few +stories of real or fancied battles at High School (no town +mentioned) also served to thrill her audience until Shirley came +near being popular for the once. + +"Of course we shall have to do foolish things," mused Eleanor Meed, +"but I won't mind as long as I am not forced to eat something I hate +or drink vinegar--" + +"Don't worry on that score," spoke up Marie Coeyman. "Nothing like +that is apt to be attempted. I heard some of the sophs say--" + +"Because they knew you were listening," discerned another. "Don't +take any stock in what you overheard. They are apt to do directly +contrary to loudly whispered plans." + +"But whatever it is to be, I do wish they would get at it and let's +have it over," growled Shirley. "It's no fun being cooped up here--" + +"Hush, don't let the guards hear you complaining," cautioned Marie. +"It's like a trial, you get more for contempt of court if you don't +accept your sentence gracefully." + +The shuffling of many feet along the stone walk put an end to +further speculation. + +"Here they come! Here they come!" went a tremor through the crowd of +candidates, and when the doors were thrown open a masked committee +confronted them. + +Orders, all kinds and volumes of them, poured in quickly as tag +numbers could be singled out. Some were taken in little groups of +four "outside to cool off." Others were commanded to hop around in +circles, while still more were given such individual commands as +seemed most antagonistic to their particular propensities. + +Shirley was still unmolested. She stood bravely awaiting her turn, +now and then flinging out a wild arm to make sure its muscles were +in good shape for the fray. + +Finally someone (we hope it was not Judith) called her number-- +sixty-eight, and she sprang to the chalk line with what is usually +termed alacrity, but it really sounded much more ominous. + +"Does your head hurt?" asked the voice, and Shirley nodded. She +thought that might be safest. + +"What hit you?" went on the prosecutor. + +"A hammer!" responded Shirley. + +"A nice hard tack hammer?" came the query again. + +"Lovely," spoke the bewildered girl. + +"What did you do with it?" asked the inquisitor. + +There was no response. The Rebel was getting indignant. + +"Quick," demanded a second member "of the firing squad." + +"I threw it away," faltered sixty-eight. + +"What did it hit?" + +"A looking-glass." This reply came quickly enough. + +"And the glass smashed?" + +"Yes--" + +"Yes, madam," prompted a guard. + +"Yes, madam," repeated Shirley with a quiver. + +"For which show of temper you are to dust that room every day for a +full week, and you may come along now and get your first lesson." + +Shirley straightened up defiantly. + +"Go on! Go on!" begged the little freshman recognized as the pretty +Sarah Howland. "Hurry or they will make it worse." + +The leader marched out and Shirley followed. Those who had heard the +sentence realized the misery it inflicted that the strongest girl +should be denied the pump, the lake, tree climbing and even boxing +possible or gym work, for a mean little contemptible stunt like +dusting Dozia's room! + +Arrived at the room someone stuck something on Shirley's nose. She +attempted to brush it off but was warned not to do so. Presently she +realized it was a feather, and it seemed to stick in glue on the +very point of her nose! + +We will spare the reader an account of Shirley's agony as she vainly +tried to "dust" with that feather on her nose. It was too +humiliating, but a freshman should not have shown such temper, and +there was still the cracked mirror to accuse her! + +Every piece of furniture in the room had to be "dusted," that is it +was brushed with the evil feather, which somehow or other did stay +on the candidate's nose; and if the spectators clapped and laughed +Shirley could scarcely blame them, for Dozia Dalton had a foolish +lot of truck to be dusted. More than once she halted, but was +promptly prodded on until finally the humiliating task had been +accomplished. + +"Good girl!" called out a voice from behind a mask and Judith +quickly stepped up to take off the duster. Juniors favor the +freshman in spite of such conditions. + +"O--uch!" protested the culprit. "It is hard!" + +"Wait a minute!" cautioned Jane's voice. "This will remove it. Sit +down, sixty-eight." + +The unhappy candidate fell into a chair, while someone applied the +alcohol cloth and presently the tiny feather fell with its bit of +sticky felt into the palm awaiting to catch it. + +"Keep your hands down," insisted someone, for Shirley never knew +before the glory of a free nose and she just wanted to pet it a +little. But her tormentors intended to fix up any damage they might +have inadvertently perpetrated on the feature, and what coating +didn't come off with the alcohol was quickly covered with Dozia's +powder, until the freshman was made to look even better than nature +had intended she should. + +This fixing up was almost as hateful to Shirley as was the +abominable dusting, but she kept her temper-the lesson seemed +profitable already. + +Jane was arranging the disordered hair, and as she attempted to +stroke it with a wet brush Shirley put up a detaining hand. + +"Please don't wet it," she begged in a whisper, and Jane stopped +short with her brush raised for action. + +"Not wet it?" she thought quickly. "That must mean treatment, and +treatment meant the forbidden beauty shop!" + +This girl had been visiting that shop. More danger ahead, decided +Jane, as she lay down the brush and proceeded to finish the dressing +dry. + +Judith had overheard the request and pinched Jane's arm to admit it, +but a loud demand for the freshman from the group rounding up +candidates saved further delay and when Shirley left Dozia's room +the latter patted her affectionately. + +"Don't worry, dear," said Dozia, "I'll be careful not to raise too +much dust next week." + +But her sentence was not the most serious thing in prospect for the +rebel Shirley Duncan. Not even the good times prepared for the +candidates served to allay the dread she struggled against, and only +her natural delight in the rollicking fun, and the really fine +spread served them by the juniors, helped bring the girl back to a +happy frame of mind. + +Woe unto the freshie who shows ill will at an initiation! + +She may be obliged to walk in the gutter for the full first half +year, or wear a baby blue ribbon under her chin! + +But Shirley had heeded the warnings. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A QUEER MIX-UP + + +"Jane, the girls are frightened to death. Can you imagine ghost +stories having that effect in this staid, solid, absolutely reliable +old college?" asked Maud Leslie. + +"It is absurd," admitted Jane, "but Maudie, all students are not +scientifically inclined as you are. What about the ghost? Who is he +and who saw him?" + +"He is the usually uncanny weird noise, nothing even original about +him. One would expect more of a college ghost. And just as trite and +commonplace is the fact that these nocturnal howls come at safe +hours when we cannot be expected to go through a fire or panic +drill. I call the whole thing disgusting." + +"So do I," assented Jane. "But don't worry, Maud. If there is one +line of action I like better than another it is that of laying +ghosts. Whizz, whack, bang! I'll make the bones rattle if they come +my way." + +Jane was punching a bag in the gym when Maud unfolded the story of +the ghost scare. It was not really news, for Wellington had been +buzzing the spirit's ears for days and not until some of the younger +students appealed to the older girls did Jane and other juniors give +heed to the fear epidemic. + +"I'm glad you're still a junior, Jane," commented Maud, taking +breath after vaulting a horse or two. "We should never dare to bring +such trivial troubles to you were you a senior." + +"And I'm glad to be a junior still," replied Jane. "Judith and I +decided on this extra year to specialize. But even were I a senior, +Maud, I would be happy to hear your heartbreaks," with a twist of +her mouth that took care of the paradox. + +"Thanks a lot." Blanco, the wooden horse painted white on a former +"sorority spree," was cleared by Maud the scientific, and she came +up to Jane, a question in the sudden jerk of her bobbed head. "Jane, +will you help us organize a ghost raid? We cannot have the freshies +all scared blue by someone's nonsense, and Dozia, Inez, Winifred and +I have done all we could in the way of investigation. That's a trick +ghost, Jane, I am convinced of that much, and it will take a double +trick to lay it." + +"Certainly I'll organize a raid squad, Maud. I'd love to lead the +charge myself. Do we have outposts, and pickets, and-trench +companies? Or would a bathrobe drill answer as well?" + +"Jane, I am serious," Maud pouted. "I tell you some of the girls are +asking to have their quarters changed, and if all were given +transfers I am sure Lenox Hall would be abandoned to the ghost. +Rather shabby of him to choose the babes' quarters." + +"Spooks are cowardly as a rule," replied Jane. "And Maudie dear, I +realize you are serious. But I can hardly organize a raiding squad +instanter. I must at least have time to round up a few reliable +girls. No use going after the 'sperit' with a band of cowards. You +know yourself what fun that would be for his spookship." "Oh yes, +of course, Jane. I did not mean to be impatient, but the girls just +begged me to enlist your leadership. You have always been such a-- +successful leader." + +"Thanks again, girlie. But failure is sure to come to him who tries +once too often. Not that I should mind failure, except for the sake +of those excited children. Really I hate to think how the ghost will +feel when we get through rattling his bones." A sudden dash at a +pair of ceiling rings set the whole line dangling along the gym and +served to illustrate a possible way of rattling spectral dry bones, +although Jane's graceful figure, as she swung to and fro, did much +to soften the effect. + +"When can we make the raid?" persisted Maud. "I have promised to +bring a definite answer." + +Jane dropped to the mattress and sat with hands clasped over her +knees. "Is this ghost a person of regular habits? Does he take +exercise every night?" + +"The noise was perfectly dreadful last night, and Velma Sigsbee was +visiting Lenox night before and she almost went into hysterics when +the rattling began. You know what Velma is for signs. Won't wear a +thing green and all that." + +"And I suppose she attempts to explain it all on purely reasonable +grounds of modern thought. The brand that credits the dead with all +power, and limits the living with a very flexible and convenient +practical faith. The two work together beautifully, of course, for +what we can't understand we must put down to faith, and what we want +to believe we are inspired to by our friends on the other side. +Dovetails perfectly, sort of a fidele de convenance. Well, Maudie, +you may tell the babes that we juniors, their natural guardians, +will take care of his ghostship if possible this very night; if not +tonight then tomorrow at M. I suppose midnight is the time of clangs +and rattles?" + +"Yes, the girls say it is always midnight. And I just want to say, +Jane, that the big country girl, Shirley Duncan, is the only one not +terrified. But I suppose country girls are accustomed to wild +things." Everyone seemed loath to add further criticism to Shirley's +rather unenviable reputation. + +"Oh yes; haunted wells and spooky attics, to say nothing of barnyard +'sperits' that roam about to scare the cows into giving buttermilk +and cream cheese," replied Jane. "It might just be--" she hesitated, +then jumped to her feet with a little gleeful bounce--"it might be a +ghost from Shirley's own home town. Strange we never had one at +Wellington before." + +"Velma said something like that," admitted Maud. "She said Shirley +was so--so antagonistic that her presence here might disturb some +friendly communication, and--" + +Jane's laugh finished the hypothesis. + +"How delicious of Velma!" she exclaimed. "But we must be careful not +to bring any more trouble upon poor Shirley. She's only a freshman +and has apparently enjoyed few home opportunities," finished Jane. + +"But why does she tell the girls such horribly weird stories?" +objected the scientific Maud. "She seems to delight in getting an +audience for the wildest sort of yarns. And just now naturally they +go to the youngsters' heads. Honestly, Janie, no less than three +freshmen have begged me to crowd into their quarters tonight. They +seem to think a soph might keep off this animated Jinks." + +"I can just imagine Shirley telling country ghost stories," +reflected Jane, "and I agree with you, dear child, she is very +inopportune with them, but it would be worse than useless for me to +attempt to interfere. In fact, I think if I did so she would take up +Irish Folk Lore to keep stories going. Running out of ghosts she +might fall back on fairies. She really seems the queerest girl we +have had in a long time." + +"Except Dolorez Vincez, she was still more curious," recalled Maud, +referring to the South American character in Jane Allen: Center, who +still kept within the shadow of Wellington by now running that +protested beauty shop just outside the college gates. + +"But Dol is something of a foreigner, while Shirley seems to be all +American," replied Jane. "Just fancy Americanizing an American born +and bred! But this Shirley girl surely needs some sort of treatment. +Her week of dusting Dozia's room is up today. I hope the lesson +brought down her hoity-toity a peg or two. There come the girls from +the village. Be prepared for more ghost stories for I see Ted +Guthrie gasping, even at this distance. And behold the windmills-- +Dozia's arm! Something very exciting must have happened." + +"Jane! Jane!" shouted Janet Clarke, the advance guard of the line of +girls marching in from the village. "Oh, you missed it! Hello, +Maud," seeing Jane's companion. "You girls will stick around a +stuffy old gym, will you? Well, then, you have got to miss things. +Come on in, children, and watch Jane's hair shoot sparks. Inez, you +take the first two paragraphs while I get my breath, and, Winifred, +don't forget those adjectives you hit me with under the oaks." + +"Do tell?" begged Jane. "Whatever has happened and where is Judith?" + +"Arrested!" gasped Inez. + +"What? What are you talking about?" demanded Jane. The girls really +seemed frightened. + +"Yes--she is gone--gone with an officer," panted Inez. + +"There, you have had your two paragraphs," interposed Janet. "They +were short but complete and I have recovered my breath. It is so +exciting, Jane, and so confusing--" + +"If you will just be coherent enough to tell me where Judith is we +might wait for the emotional details," snapped Jane. "If Judith is +in any trouble we have no right to stand around gasping." + +"Right, Jane," assented Dozia. "But I did not want to take all the +responsibility from Inez. This is what happened. We were coming +along Cobble Lane when Judith espied two messenger boys on the rail +fence. They were apparently squabbling about something, and just as +we came along by the wild cherry tree, a few hundred yards from +them, the big fellow gave the little fellow a punch and sent him +sprawling in the bushes. Then the big fellow took to his heels--" + +"He had something--a package he grabbed from Tim, the little +fellow," interrupted Inez. + +"Yes, I know, but that is not essential now, we must get to Judith," +declared Dozia, showing irritation. "Judith ran--" + +"But the policeman darted out from the elderberry clump--" + +"Winifred, please!" implored Dozia. "I will not forget to tell that, +but if you think you can do it all more intelligently or quickly--" + +"Pardon me, Dozia, please, I am just too excited--" + +"Did Judith go to help the officer?" demanded Jane impatiently. + +"No," fired back Dozia. "It was old Sour Sandy, who always declares +we are up to mischief, and when the big boy ran, Judith chased after +him while Cop Sandy ran after both. We stood still--" + +"He was muttering and threatening so," ventured Janet. + +"Were you afraid of him?" charged Jane. + +"No, but we could not decide instantly that we should run after +Judith. It was all so sudden," said spokesman Dozia. "And of course +we realized any more commotion would really get us all in trouble; +that old officer is such a crank." + +"But to let Judith face it all alone," challenged Jane. + +"I really haven't told the one important detail," Dozia vainly +attempted to explain. "I was walking with Judith and two other girls +were just a little ahead. They were Shirley Duncan and that pretty +little thing, Sarah--something--" + +"Howland," Jane flung in. + +"Yes," went on Dozia. "And Judith seemed so intent on watching them +she hardly answered me intelligently." + +"There is something up between those two," declared Winifred Ayres. +"I know it, and I guess Judy knows it too." + +"But what have they to do with the fighting messengers?" demanded +Jane, now utterly bewildered from the snarled account. + +"The messenger, who got the package from Tiny Tim, shouted at +Shirley and she waited. Then, when he could get near enough he threw +the paper box to Shirley and she raced off toward the Beauty Shop. +When we saw the last of it we couldn't tell whom Judith was chasing, +but she ran right into Dol Vin's shop," declared Dozia, "and of +course Cop Sandy was not long in doing the same thing. We knew we +would be helpless to do anything there if Dol were in, so we came +back to see what you would suggest," ended Dozia with a trail of +relief in the last few words. + +"I suggest that we go after Judith," promptly ordered Jane, and if +precious time had been wasted in the recital, the loss was atoned in +the pace taken by that rescuing squad as they followed Jane in her +race toward Dol Vin's Beauty Shop. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +TO THE RESCUE + + +The Beauty Shop was presently besieged by an excited crowd of girls, +and to give due credit to the purely human element it must be +admitted the girls were delighted to be there--at the forbidden +post. + +"Thrilling!" whispered Velma Sigsbee, and she "said it" for all the +others. + +The redoubtable Dol Vin (short for Dolorez Vincez) appeared at the +quaint square paned door. She was gowned in a very close fitting and +striking black satin "clinger" gown. Her hair was done in the most +modern of styles, like a window show for her hair dressing parlor, +and her foreign face, with its natural olive tones, was very much +fixed up with many touches of peach and carmine, as well as darker +hints under the eyes; and her lashes--well, perhaps Dolorez had been +crying inky tears; that was the effect one gathered from a glance at +the vampish make-up. + +"Is Miss Stearns here?" asked Jane authoritatively. She and Dol had +clashed glances before, and Jane had no idea of condescending to the +apostate of Wellington. + +"Miss Stearns here!" repeated the highly colored lips. Then +shoulders shrugged and scorn fairly sizzled through an indescribable +sneer. "I do not check up the patrons. She may be in a chair within. +Will you enter?" + +The girls surrounding Jane tittered audibly. Since when had plain +Dol Vin become so foreign? + +"En--ter!" drawled Dozia. "Yes, let's," to Jane. This little hiss +was intended as a reactionary simper. + +"Miss Stearns would not be here on professional business," retorted +Jane. "And she would never occupy one of your treatment chairs." +Jane hated to dignify anything in the beauty shop with that +description, but acid terms were elusive just then; and besides Jane +was now getting anxious about Judith. + +"Oh, indeed!" more shoulder shrugging and a futurist pose of the +black satin "clinger," "What else, then, might the Lady Stearns be +doing at my place?" + +"Dol Vincez, you just stop that nonsense," flared Dozia Dalton, +stepping up to the fancy little door defiantly. "We saw Judith +Stearns run in here after Shirley Duncan, and you know very well +that old officer Sandy came in after her. Now where is Judith?" + +"Isn't it lovely to have you all here? And begging me for +something?" Hands on hips, then a shift of the right hand to a very +black ball of hair bunched out where the human ear usually reposes. +"I am delighted I am sure with this visitation, and I'd love to ask +you all in only I'm busy. You will have to excuse me," and with a +very Frenchy bow, the Queen of the Beauty Shop got behind the +squared glass door and pushed it shut till the latch clicked. + +"Shut the door in our faces," growled Velma, as if everyone had not +seen the insulting act. + +Jane stood for a moment, thinking seriously and swiftly. She was not +concerned with the girls about her; neither had she any of their +curiosity about the interior of the shop. She was wondering what it +all meant, and how she could trace Judith. A brilliant thought +captured her. Why not go inside for a shampoo? + +She turned to her companions. "I suppose it is perfectly proper +under the circumstances to go inside--somehow. I'll apply for a +shampoo!" + +"But the rest of us?" wailed the curious Velma. + +"Ask for something else," suggested the resourceful Jane. + +"Perhaps she won't answer the ring," parried Janet. + +"Then we'll knock," threatened Jane, as she pressed the little +button over the "treatment hours" sign. + +They waited. There were Jane, Dozia, Velma, Winifred, Janet and +Inez, six palpitating girls, each taking inventory of her possible +beauty spots that might need touching up. Even Dol Vin would succumb +to such an onslaught of orders, but-- + +"Suppose she charges us some dreadful price--like five dollars +each?" gasped Velma. + +"Can't do it," declared Jane. "We'll go by her price list. But no +one seems to answer." + +"Peeking out, I'll bet," whispered Janet. "Ring three times, Jane, +and she'll know we mean business." + +Jane followed that advice, but still no answer. + +"There's a side door," suggested Dozia, critically inspecting the +long, low old stone building that had been put up originally as a +rendezvous for Wellington faculty who might want to get away from +the buzz of girls and college. It seemed no one had that sort of +disease, however, and the rest cure "went to the wall" for want of +patronage. Just what company was now financing the rather expensive +venture of Dol Vin no one knew, but it must have taken a lot of +money even to buy the window scrim, the porch cretonne and the gold +lettering on window and door glass. These details were visible from +the exterior, and what, oh, what might the interior look like to +correspond? + +"The side door," agreed Jane, "for all but one or two. Then perhaps +we'll get an answer here." + +The ruse worked beautifully, for hardly had the tread of feet--eight +of them, four pairs--passed down the steps than in answer to a very +lady-like ring of Jane's a colored maid drew open the door. + +"May I get a shampoo?" asked Jane sweetly, stepping inside as she +spoke and covertly motioning Dozia to follow. + +"This way, please," said the white-capped and white-frocked, black- +faced maid. And behold! Jane and Dozia were within the mysterious +parlor! + +Neither spoke. Both were listening. Someone was sobbing in the next +room and Dol Vin's voice was remonstrating. + +As if suddenly realizing the situation the colored maid hurried out. +The sobbing ceased instantly and so did the talking. A step through +the hall indicated the coming of Dolorez. + +"What does this mean?" she demanded angrily, stepping up to Jane +with blazing eyes. "How dare you force your way in here?" + +"Is not this a public shop?" fired back Jane, equally angry. "Have +you not openly solicited Wellington patronage?" + +"As if you came for that! If you do not leave at once I shall phone +the police!" + +"Do," dared Jane. "And I shall demand that they search the place. +Someone is hidden here." + +A laugh, empty of mirth but bursting with scorn, followed Jane's +accusation. It ran down a falsetto scale like pebbles off a tin +roof. Then Dolorez turned to summon her maid. + +"Yolande!" she called. "Show these persons out." + +The perplexed darky muttered, "Yes'm," and proceeded to obey, but +Jane and Dozia never moved. They were listening now to noise of +another sort. The girls on the side porch seemed to be having a good +time of it. + +"Come," demanded the inexorable Dolorez. "My time is precious and I +must have this room. If you do not both leave I'll phone the +college." + +"How perfectly absurd you are, Dolorez," said Jane, more alarmed now +that no hint of Judith's whereabouts had leaked out. "You know +perfectly well we can explain all this, and you also know we are +here to find Judith Stearns and we will not leave until you have +told us where she is or where she went? May I use your telephone?" + +"Judith Stearns is not here," snapped the South American. "And +what's more I don't know nor care where she is. I can't spend my +time with wild college girls who try to run down poor messenger +boys." + +"Very well," said Jane, deciding no more time could be wasted in +argument. "But I warn you if our friend has been placed in any +compromising position, or has been misrepresented to that hateful +officer, we shall hold you responsible, for our girls saw her come +here." + +Jane and Dozia turned to the door. The maid was evidently well +pleased with the move, for she showed glittering teeth in an +inopportune smile. Dolorez had gained a very high natural color that +cut in streaks through her make-up. She was breathing hard, and +Dozia, usually fearless, thought it best not to anger her further. +She followed Jane without even throwing out a look of defiance or +challenge, and when the door closed on their heels both Jane and +Dozia felt and really looked pale. + +The situation was growing more complicated every moment, and now the +girls from the side porch pounced upon the others with frivolous +inquiries about that beauty shop. + +"Hush," ordered Jane. "Do you realize Judith may have been taken to +that horrible old station house? You three go back to college and +make sure she has not returned. We, Dozia, Janet and I, will go into +the town hall. You can phone us there in twenty minutes. Now hurry +and be prudent. Don't spread any sensational stories." + +Jane acted like a senior now, but the emergency was sufficiently +exacting to demand such forceful means. + +Where was Judith Stearns and what was the meaning of Dolorez Vincez' +sinister statement, about running down poor messenger boys? Also who +could have been sobbing in the room back of the parlors? + +"Look!" exclaimed Jane as they left the tanbark walk. "Who is that +running from the back driveway?" + +"Little Sarah Howland," replied Dozia in amazement. "Whatever can +that innocent little thing be doing around here?" + +"I--wonder," sighed Jane as they hurried off to the old town hall. + +"Jane," murmured Dozia, halting her companion for a moment as a +sudden calling was heard through the fields, "do you think that baby +can be implicated with those unscrupulous shop keepers?" + +"She was in there, and we saw her run," replied Jane. "I would like +to doubt my own eyes--" + +Dozia grasped her arm and again they hurried on. + +"Find Judith!" That was their slogan. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WHAT HAPPENED TO JUDITH + + +In that mysterious way peculiar to girls, the students knew, without +the facts being apparent, that something strange and perhaps even +desperate had happened to Judith. + +They had not been told any of the details, but when the party +walking in from the village was suddenly broken up, first by the +incident of the messenger boys' quarrel and then by Judith's +disappearance into Dol Vin's beauty shop, with officer Sandy +twirling his club and "gum-shoeing" after her, the whole situation +was as clear as if the pieces had been patched together on a movie +screen. + +Judith, fighting for justice, had been ranged with the culprits! + +There was no possibility of her return to the college grounds +without her companions' knowledge; neither was it probable she had +gone to take a youngster's part at the emergency court in the Town +Hall without first having notified Jane or some of the other girls. +She would have dragged them along with her, for Judith believed in +team play for all things, even at trials and courts of alleged +justice. + +So it was that the girls' anxiety was not so thinly supported as the +mere record of events might have indicated; they knew there was +something wrong, knew it instantly and knew it positively; and they +were right about it, too. + +The outstanding fact was a weighty argument. Dolorez Vincez had been +expelled from Wellington the year previous; she had vowed vengence +against Jane Allen and her friend, Judith Stearns (although both +girls had actually interceded for the culprit with the college +faculty), and now was the time and this was the place to wreak her +vengeance. + +In a shorter time than occupies this explanation Jane and Dozia and +Janet reached the Town Hall. The ancient building of dingy brick +filled a conspicuous spot facing the Square; its carriage stone was +a revolutionary relic and two reliable cannon set off the much +trampled green diamond in front with something of a stately +significance. It was fast growing dark in the early autumn evening, +but the excitement of an arrest had drawn a crowd from the few +business offices and from the passersby at the supper hour, flanked +and reinforced by boys, boys who seem to go with excitement--always, +at all times and in all places. + +The students made their way into the hall with its sputtering gas +light, and while Janet went to the telephone booth, Jane and Dozia +hurried to the office of the chief of police. + +"Judith!" + +Both girls had uttered the name and both now elbowed their way +through the curious crowd up to the rail, where stood the +disconsolate Judith. + +"Keep back, keep back," ordered an officer. He was the second and +only other active member of "the force" besides Sandy Jamison, he +who had "taken Judith in." + +Jane and Dozia urged forward in spite of orders, however, and now +Judith saw them! She flashed a look first defiant then hopeless. It +had defiance for the charge, but was hopeless to make that country +court understand. Jane and Dozia answered the code with unwavering +determination fairly emitting from their every feature. + +But the chief was talking or muttering, and he had been pompously +rapping for order. + +Officer Sandy was trying desperately to tell his story, but between +twirling his club and chewing tobacco he was sorely pressed for a +chance to say anything. + +"This here girl," he mumbled, "was racin' after a boy with a package +of joo-ell-ry. It was joo-ell-ry I know, for them boys from the city +store was called to deliver----" + +"Never mind about the boys," interrupted the chief, "tell us what +the charge is against this girl." + +Jane and Dozia exchanged a look complimentary to that chief. He had +some sense they privately admitted. + +"Yes, yer honor, I'm comin' to that," defended Sandy. "She ran first +after a boy, then after a girl, and I seen the package go through +the air----" + +"Flyin'? Had it wings or was it a toy balloon?" Chief Hadfield was +not a man to disappoint his audience, and the laugh that thanked him +for this quip set Sandy twirling and chewing more vigorously than +ever. + +"It was pegged, throwed, fired," shouted Sandy, and his club just +touched Judith's sleeve, electrifying her into open indignation. + +"Keep that--stick down," ordered the chief, while Judith's +indignation subsided. + +How pretty she looked standing there in those sordid surroundings! +Contrast, the maker of all standards, outlined the tall dark-haired +girl in her brilliant red junior cap and definite red sweater, like +the central figure in some old time country picture, where urchins +and queer men gave her the middle of the stage and plagiarized the +scene, "At the Bar of Justice." + +"You caught this here flying joo-ell-ry?" demanded the chief. + +"Oh no, oh no," parried Sandy. "Someone else caught that," and he +waddled his head from side to side in amplification. + +"Who? Where is it?" The chief was not playing the gallery now. + +"The propri-e-tor of that there beauty institooshun has it, and it's +hers. It had her name and address on it." + +A sneering titter from the audience followed that foolish statement. +Old Sour Sandy had balled things up considerably this time. + +"Then what's the charge and who makes it?" shouted and rapped Chief +Hadfield. + +"Loiterin' and disturbing and I make th' charge!" Sandy put his cap +on in the excitement of that speech but quickly yanked it off again +in respect to the court. + +Jane and Dozia could not remain longer silent. Evidently Judith had +been educated in the absurd proceedings before they came. Janet was +now in from the telephone booth and stood beside her companions, +while Jane attempted to interrupt. + +"May I speak?" she called out in the most musical tone her voice +would accept. + +"Certainly, miss," replied the chief. He evidently did not share the +opinion of his subordinate on Wellington girls' character. + +"This arrest is an outrage--a frame-up," declared Jane, glad to +recall the vernacular. "There are three witnesses here who saw the +trouble and we'll find others if you want them. The fact is Officer +Jamison is always cross with us students" (she put it mildly), "and +he was, perhaps, too willing to listen to our enemies. The +proprietor of the beauty shop is a former Wellington student who was +asked to withdraw last spring" (again the modification), "and this +afternoon she saw her chance to retaliate--to get even." Jane made +sure of being understood and now suddenly ceased speaking. She had +learned the maxim, "When you say a good thing, stop." + +The chief stroked his beard lines (no beard showed just now), then +pushed his cap back officially. Judith slid her white hands along +the brass rail playfully and even smiled at the man behind it. He +was a man if also an officer, and he must know by her manner that +Judith Stearns was just a very nice little girl being dreadfully +imposed upon. + +"Sit down, young lady. We'll be through in a few minutes," said the +considerate chief; and Judith dropped to the bench beside Jane, +Janet and Dozia. All three could not squeeze her hands at once, but +all three managed to do something affectionate, if Janet did have to +be content with a mere pluck at the white sweater sleeve. + +"Now see here," spoke the chief in a tone of irritated finality. +"Sandy, what do you mean by disturbin' and loiterin'?" + +"By loiterin' I mean that racin' after them little boys who was +going about their business, and by disturbin' I mean--I mean that-- +that them college girls is allus raisin' a rumpus." + +"Discharged!" sang out the chief and he did sing it. The tune of +that single word embraced at least three whole tones and suggested +several more. + +A tumult followed the announcement but the chief rapped again for +order. + +"I want you people and Officer Sandy to listen to me," he thundered. +"Because girls go to a college ain't no reason why they should be +pestered" (his errors were truly elegant), "and next time I hear any +such fool complaint there'll he some shiftin' of badges. Clear the +court!" + +And could you blame the Wellingtons present for shaking hands with +Chief Hadfield? + +Making their way out finally the girls smiled to those in the +curious throng who waited to sympathize or congratulate, and just at +the end of the dingy hall Judith felt a small, warm hand grasp her +own. + +"I want to thank you, miss," spoke a hesitant voice. "You saved me +from that 'guy' this after-noon, but I'm awful sorry you got into a +scrape." + +It was Tiny Tim, the messenger boy. + +"Oh, that's all right," declared Judith heartily. "I was glad to be +on hand and that doesn't matter. Did you manage to deliver the box +safely?" + +"I got it into the shop but the right one didn't sign for it. I know +that 'cause that black haired one has a queer name and the box was +for some Sarah Something. But I guess she'll get it all right," he +finished with a professional air of certainty. "She comes there a +lot." + +"A box of jewelry for little Sarah Howland," said Jane to Dozia. + +"And the sobbing in the back room," whispered Dozia in answer. + +"That was she who ran out the back way," concluded Jane while Judith +and the others were busy taking leave of the messenger boy. + +"Some experience!" exhaled Judith, stronger and braver for her +recent incarceration. + +"That, and something else," paraphrased Jane. "But someone please +run to that phone and tell the proctor we are coming. They may send +the guards out after us. It wants only ten minutes of tea time. +Run!" + +The command was followed out to the letter. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE INTERLUDE + + +Talk about antagonism," glowered Janet. "I call the whole +proceedings an outrage, and if you want to know what I would do +about it, I would ask a Wellington official to sue this dinky little +town for damages." She snapped out the words as if each syllable +were a blow on the very heads of the offenders. + +"Don't you get excited, Janet," cautioned Jane. "We have our lady- +like hands very full at the moment, and to run into more trouble +would be positively rash. Besides, here is Judy, unrumpled as a babe +from its cradle; seems to have enjoyed the whole thing and I can +guess why." + +"So can we," quickly followed Dozia. "She will put the experience +down in her field work for Social Service. This extra year promises +to turn out at least two stars in that course." + +They were in the lavatory hastily fixing up for tea, almost late but +thankful to be within the gates before the gong sounded. The +adventures of that afternoon had been thrilling indeed, and a few of +the girls shared with Jane the suspicions now settling upon the two +freshmen, Shirley Duncan and Sarah Howland. Their presence at Dol +Vin's shop, the sobbing heard behind doors, and that wild run of the +girl who tried to get away from the place by actually scaling a back +fence, and who was recognized as the demure little Sarah, all this +furnished plenty of material for a mystery story. + +But it was the innocent remark of the grateful messenger boy, that +put the climax in at the very peak of interest. + +"I know the right girl didn't sign the slip," he had told Jane and +Judith, "because that black haired one has a queer name and she +isn't Sarah Howland." + +So the precious package was for little Sarah Howland. And it was +being sent to her, care of Dol Vin. Also, and more important than +either particular, the delivery of that message had landed Judith +Stearns in court. + +Was it any wonder ghosts had been crowded out of the day's or +night's programme? + +"Don't worry," calmly advised the heroic Judith. "What happened this +afternoon is only an introduction. The real thriller is yet to +come." + +"When?" anticipated Velma. + +"Oh, it threatens to be a serial. I may be able to give you a reel +or two tonight after study hour." + +"Come down to my room," begged Janet. "I have such a big couch and a +whole raft may pile up on it." + +"That's a good idea," agreed Jane as the last towel was tossed into +its basket. "Besides, we haven't a thing to eat in our quarters and +what's a good yarn without grub? Land sakes, hear the crockery! +We'll miss the hash, I fear me," and only the restraining influence +of Miss Fairlie in the lower hall saved a third rail flight via +ballustrades. + +Sweeping into the dining room Jane's eyes seemed attracted to a +corner in freshmen's quarters. It might have been her excited +imagination or pure incident, but she did look straight into the +frightened blue eyes of little Sarah Howland. + +For the fraction of a second there was something like a clash. +Jane's look was one of indignant question while the other +unmistakably showed fear. Then Shirley Duncan said something to +Sarah and the connection was severed. + +Hash may have been served or even real lamb chops, but no power of +special dishes served to distract the students from their delicious +excitement. + +"What in the world are you watching that door for?" Jane asked +Dozia, who seemed hypnotized by a brass door knob. + +"Cops," replied Dozia cryptically. "I should hate to go out again +tonight." + +"That's a fork," Winifred Ayres prompted Judith as the latter +pierced her pretty sherbet with a prong. + +"I know," answered Judith, "but this mound is so pretty I don't want +to spoil it at one gulp. A fork is daintier." + +"And leakier," finished the critic. + +Altogether the air was charged and surcharged with thrills, but it +was Maud Leslie who broke the spell. + +"Jane," she whispered as they passed out, "don't forget tonight at +Lenox. The girls are depending on you." + +"Tonight at Lenox, what for?" puzzled Jane. + +"Ghosts," said Maud. Then Jane remembered she had promised to raid +the ghosts at Lenox Hall and to bring to the frightened freshmen a +whole company of braves with their resistless reinforcements. And +she had not yet been able to do a single thing about it! + +"We will all be finished with our work by 8:15, Judith," Dozia +Dalton announced authoritatively, "then you may recite the adventure +of a Wellington in Distress. I'll be prepared to take you down +verbatim, in case your counsel should need the confession." + +"Janet, please have plenty of cheese, crackers and a few nuts. I'm +losing weight," implored Winifred. + +"And Jane, will you be so good as to bring a few sample apples that +came in that last parcel post from Montana?" suggested Ted Guthrie. +"I missed things this afternoon but I don't intend to be overlooked +this evening." + +Jane clutched Judith's arm to disentangle her from the others. + +"I have got to speak to you alone, Judy," she whispered. "It's about +the noises and the ghosts. The babes are scared blue, threatening to +desert the camp. Get outside the door and we can vanish for a few +minutes before study hour." They waited at the foot of the stairs +until Janet and Winifred ascended, then Judith nearly fell over Jane +as they both tried to go through the door at once, but the escape +was successful in spite of too much noise from the loose old brass +knocker. + +Instinctively the two chums turned from the broad stone steps into +the left path that ran away from a brilliant arc light into Elm +Shadows. Silently both girls exchanged confidences, for Jane's arm +around Judith's waist was comprehensive, and each little hug told a +story of its own. + +"Dear heart!" breathed Judith. "I would just have died if you hadn't +rescued me when you did. And I know the others--ran away." + +"Judy, love," returned Jane, "they didn't know where you were, +really. And those country officers have threatened us before, you +know. I suppose they are a little bit jealous that we girls and not +their boys, are scattered over the landscape with yells and other +appropriate noises. Sit down" (they had reached a birch bench), "I +must tell you about Lenox Hall." + +"I know about the noises and I do believe they are really uncanny," +said Judith, "but what can we do away over at this end of the +campus?" + +"Go over to the other end, of course," said straightforward Jane, +"and I have promised to lay those ghosts tonight." + +"Tonight!" sighed Judith, dropping her head on Jane's shoulder. + +"Not you, of course. You shan't come," protested Jane. "I only +wanted to plan things with you. A warm bed and a nice cup of malted +milk will be about all for you this night, Judy dear." The head, as +black as Judith's own in the shadows, tried to fold itself on a +cheek if no closer, but the attempt scarcely felt comfortable, and +Jane just blew a kiss into Judith's ear, then straightened up again. + +"As if I would miss that!" murmured Judith. "I am dog-tired, Dinksy, +but ghosts! Oh, boy! Lead me to 'em!" and the courage of youth +defied that day's record for Judith Stearns. + +"We must hurry; see the lights in the girls' rooms, and you know +they are bound to slight work tonight. This is what I suppose we +will have to do. A few of us--you, if you insist, Dozia and +Winifred, and I will somehow get out after Miss Fairlie has made the +rounds. I don't know how we'll do it, but we have got to try. Then +over at Lenox we may hide in the shrubbery and wait for the ghosts. +I am perfectly sure they will come along the path from the gate +keeper's cottage. Either they are inside or permitted to enter, and +it isn't likely that ordinary spooks come through such walls as +ours." + +"All right. I'll be there if I don't fall asleep over my trig. But I +do think being arrested is awfully wearying--I could dream here in +spite of the howling winds. Jane Allen, do you realize this is a +cold, bleak, dreary night, and you are tempting ghosts to parade in- +-bathing suits or nighties?" + +"It is cold; take an end of my scarf and hurry in. May a kind +thought prompt us how to elude the wary Fairlie. Take care you don't +seem sociable when she taps. It would be fatal if she should enter +for a 'cozy little chat.' She has done it, you know." + +"Do I know it? Do you think I shall ever forget the cozy little chat +she dropped in for, when my alcohol lamp thrust under the couch +threatened to burn down the place? I have never been friendly with +the inspector since." + +Judith ceased speaking suddenly and Jane clutched her arm as voices +were heard somewhere. Yes--two girls were leaving Headley Hall and +now came close enough to Jane and Judith to send even their subdued +voices ahead in the darkness. + +"You're a baby," one said. "And you nearly spoiled it all this +afternoon." + +"I never thought it would be this way. I'm so sorry I--" said the +second voice. + +"Goodness sake, stop whimperin'. Aren't you satisfied? Hush, there's +someone on the bench." + +"Shirley and Sarah," whispered Jane in Judith's ear. + +But the two figures on the path had turned, and were now lost in the +darkness along the lonely hedged-in walk. + +"Imagine!" said Judith indignantly. "Those two little freshmen away +over here instead of being at their books!" + +"And did you notice Shirley was blaming little Sarah for whimpering? +I tell you, Judith, there is something queer about that Shirley. She +has money yet she came in on a scholarship. Then, there was the +registered package of jewelry that brought disaster upon you and the +messenger boy, Tim. He said it was addressed to Sarah. She surely +shows a woeful lack of luxury, yet someone was sending her jewelry." + +"And Dol Vin was receiving their mail, including the box," Judith +summed up. + +"I am sure it was Sarah I heard sobbing in that back room," insisted +Jane. + +"There are the girls looking for us. We will have to plead headaches +and need of fresh air, for you know I promised them the real story +of my incarceration," sighed Judith, following Jane's lead toward +the group of searchers who came down the path calling and whistling +for Jane and Judith. + +"Do tell it to them, they have been so splendid," pleaded Jane. +"Besides, we have a night's work before us if we can escape on the +ghost hunt, and a good yarn will do a lot to settle all our nerves. +Remember, you are not to come unless you simply can't stay in bed, +and if you remain in our building you may be able to allay suspicion +when Fairlie comes snooping. 'Lo girls!" to the whistlers. "Here we +are! Judy needed the air." + +With an all star cast and such headliners as were scheduled for Jane +and her constituents on that particular night, it was not easy to +anticipate the outcome. If the ghosts would only do their part and +appear on time! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A TWICE TOLD TALE + + +Judith tried to beg off on her story of the great adventure, but the +girls were insistent. "Just tell us what happened when you got +inside the Beauty Shop," begged Velma, who had secret dreams of C. +O. D. dimples and longed to hear of such possibilities. + +"It was like a screen comedy," replied Judith, who had been +beautifully pillowed up and otherwise made comfortable on Janet's +solo-couch. The audience was scattered around on cushions, on the +floor, on chairs, and even on the one narrow window sill. Queening +it from her pillows Judith looked quite Romanesque, with Jane +perched on a cretonne pedestal above the divan's level, waving her +riding crop regally. The pedestal really was a specially favored +trunk of Jane's which had escaped storage quarters and served many +useful and practical purposes, the present being one in point. + +"You were saying," Jane reminded Judith, placing a firm hand on the +heaving breast solemnly, "that the rush in was like a movie scene." + +"I said comedy, dear; there's a difference. First, Dol opened the +pigeon holed door, then Sarah Howland tumbled in howling--she was +honestly very much frightened, next went Shirley Duncan. She seemed +wild to get under cover. Then I tripped along--" + +"Not scared or anything?" from Nettie. + +"Not a bit scared but mad as fury," declared Judith, "for there was +old Sour Sandy at my heels taking such long and such big steps I +felt every next foot would crush me into the brand new door mat." + +"Poor Judy," soothed Jane. "And no one to say thee nay!" + +"Say me nix," moaned Judith. "I would have had thee say other things +than that. But to the tale. Have you ever seen a mouse run from a +cat and a dog after the cat and a boy after the dog? You know that +famous picture, I see. Well, when the messenger boy got away +somewhere about Dol's establishment, and Sarah went next, then went +Shirley and, Little Me, followed by that giant Sour Sandy! Well, +girls, I have to admit that for a few minutes I couldn't see a thing +but Dol Vin's eyes. She had me hypnotized," and Judith paused to +make sure of the dramatic impression. + +"I can see her glare!" declared Jane. "Dol's eyes were made for +nobler tasks than matching hair shades." + +"And mixing flesh tints," contributed Dozia, who just then managed +to purloin a sample of the fudge. + +"Are you girls sure that keyhole is sealed and the door still +impregnable?" demanded Judith the narrator, with a sweeping glance +about the room. + +Winifred Ayres dropped to the door sill and spread herself across it +while Dozia moved her chair to the jam in order to plank her +shoulders over the keyhole. + +"Air tight," announced Jane, "and every girl here is pledged, Judy. +You may proceed with absolute safety." + +"The responsibility is yours, Jane, for we had an awful time for a +brief interval under the doughty Dol's roof. Things flew--" + +"Hair brushes and sponges?" prompted Janet, eager for sensation. + +"Can't say as to the missiles," replied Judith, showing signs of +relaxing into indifference, "but the way that black head yelled, and +Sarah sobbed, and Shirley--I guess she shouted. I know her noise was +next loudest to Sour Sandy's and that was some racket!" + +"But what was it all about?" demanded Janet. + +"About the precious box--jewelry or something valuable. When I saw +the big boy take it from Tiny Tim and heard Tim yell, I knew there +was mischief brewing if nothing worse, but I never expected to see +Shirley Duncan jump into it. She aided and abetted the thief, for +she caught that box on a fly and would have escaped if little Judy +Stearns had not been right there Judy-on-the-spot." + +"But why did old Sour Sandy lay hands on you?" asked Jane, somewhat +bewildered by the maze into which Judith was leading her audience. + +"Oh, there was such a perfectly wild time of it," replied Judith, +"and of course Dol and Shirley had it all their own way--two to one, +you know." + +"But didn't--little Sarah try to help you?" pressed Jane. + +"Little Sarah was having a fit out in the kitchen, and the black +maid wanted to pour water over her, said she was in hysterics, only +the word she used was somewhat impaired." + +"What a perfectly rip-roaring time you must have had," commented +Dozia, eyeing the fudge. "And I suppose you were taken in by Sour +Sandy because you seemed easiest to convey to the Town Hall. Just +like the old detective stories, arrest someone, anyone, and depend +upon the evidence to do the rest." + +"Yes, I was handiest, nearest the door and dry eyed. Besides, I kept +kicking around on a jog trot all over the place because I could not +make any other sort of noise. Honestly, girls, it was too funny for +words!" and Judith doubled up in the pillows like a human jack- +knife. + +"I am suspicious, Judy Steams, that you tempted old Sour Sandy to do +his worst; sort of defied him," suggested Jane, dragging a Columbia +cushion from Judith's convulsed arms. "Did you really want to be +arrested?" + +"I did not!" shouted Judith, springing up straight and almost +upsetting the entire scene. "It was Dol Vin who insisted that we +Wellingtons were spoiling her business, interfering with her +customers and--she said this--'now this creature actually tries to +steal my parcels from a messenger boy!' Can you fancy that +accusation on this poor head?" + +"But you didn't have the box?" asked Janet. + +"Certainly not. Dol knew that, but old Sandy didn't. I could easily +have escaped when he ordered me to 'come along, girl,' but I knew to +resist arrest might bring real trouble upon us, whereas now the +whole thing is a farce, and whisper!" (she put her finger to her +lips) "it must never be told of within this campus. News from the +village rarely gets in here unless we bring it, and it would be a +shame to worry prexy with that sort of thing. She would never +understand it." + +Applause, silent but visible, followed this. Heads were wagged, arms +waved and even feet waggled in approval, but no unseemly sounds +escaped the secret chamber. + +"Never a word!" prompted Jane in a whisper with both hands uplifted. + +"Never a word!" repeated the conclave in appropriate response. + +"And that will be about all," finished Judith. "I am too tired to +move but I can't allow you to carry me. No, don't, please" (no one +had offered). "I'll just toddle along--it's lots better than keeping +step with Sandy." + +"But the treat," wailed Janet. "I have fudge and cheese sticks." + +"Please deliver mine," drawled Judith. "I am unable to collect in +person--I simply am--tired." + +"And you should be," agreed Jane, glad that Judith had been wise +enough to break up the party early. In fact Jane was not sure +whether genuine fatigue or possible ghost hunts, had inspired the +heroic Judy to leave that buzzing bevy of students. At any rate +Janet counted out four squares of fudge and measured three ink wells +of cheese tid-bits (the well was glass and only used for +refreshments), all of which was folded in a paper napkin and handed +to Jane. + +"Sorry you must leave," murmured Janet, "but Judith has had a trying +day. Come again and I'll treat you better." + +"We had a perfectly lovely time," insisted Jane, "but I must put +Judy to bed. She is apt to walk in her sleep when overtired. Come, +dearie, toddle along. Good night, girls. Pleasant dreams," and those +who were not too interested in the fudge and tid-bits responded +appropriately. + +"Oh," moaned Jane, when the two finally reached their own quarters, +room 19, "wasn't that an ordeal?" + +"Rather," replied Judith, kicking her shoes off. "How did I make +out?" + +"Wonderfully. You tied them all up in knots without leaving an end +to follow. Neither clues nor climax--just a jumble of sounds, but +thrilling for all that. I was so fearful they would ask more about +the unfortunate Shirley but you veered them off beautifully. Now, +Pally dear, tumble in, and I'll slip out and get Dozia. Lenox seems +far away just now, and those babes are trembling while we dare to +enjoy ourselves." + +"Jane dear," interrupted Judith, "I do not believe you should risk +going over there tonight. Really I am getting nervous of the whole +thing." + +"Just reaction," said Jane, her own eyes sparkling. "You have gone +through enough today to give you nerves, and I want you to shut your +eyes as soon as ever you can. After all I may just--do something +else. Leave it to me and Dozia the Fearless. You know what a brave +she can be in an emergency." + +"And I know what a star you can be in a pinch. But Lenox at +midnight--" + +"Hush, dear, and let me put out your light. There, you will be +asleep before the party winds up. There's the honor ring. Ten +minutes more to all lights out. I love an honor system with a +warning gong and an inspection. So complete." + +Judith required little coaxing to enter dreamland, and when Jane +heard Miss Fairlie's step in the hall, on that tripping little +inspection tour, the light in room 19 was out. + +Also, Jane under the coverlets was fully dressed for her ghost raid +at Lenox Hall. + +Miss Fairlie's step paused at the door! Jane tittered, but Judith +breathed the regular tones of sleep. + +For a moment it seemed the inspector would knock! She must want +something! + +Someone else came along the corridor and directly at that door they +chose to whisper! + +Jane felt her hour had come, but it was merely the fear of a +troubled mind, for presently Miss Fairlie laughed lightly, and the +pair journeyed on. + +It was a full hour before the coast was safely clear for Jane's +venture. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A WILD NIGHT OF IT + + +It was a beautiful night, with the Hunter's Moon set high and bright +in its ocean of flickering stars, like nothing else than moon and +stars in the same old blue canopy, brocaded and embossed with +incorrigible little gray clouds, ducking in and out of lacy paths +and shadowy skyscapes. + +Beneath, on Wellington campus, the dormitories stood up like tiny +cottages here and there, the more important building, Madison Hall, +towering pompously over the smaller flock. It was in Madison that +Jane and Judith as juniors were housed, while over in a west corner +grouped about the big walled entrance was, among the lesser +landmarks, Lenox, one of the first erected of the Wellington +buildings; quaint, roomy and just now decidedly "spooky." + +The scene was fascinating in its silence, for only the dimmest of +path lights seemed alive over the big place, and not a breath of +wind stirred the tenacious oak leaves or other rugged foliage, too +sparse to be counted, now that winter had given warning and was on +his ruthless way. + +The two figures creeping along like some elfin prowlers were Jane +and Dozia, and they made straight through that bold moonlight for +Lenox Hall. + +"Doesn't it seem silly?" Jane took time to remark. "The very idea of +expecting trouble on such a night." + +"It's all your doing, Lady Jane," Dozia retaliated, "and if I don't +see a ghost after all this I'll never forgive you." + +"There was no guarantee, Dozia. But I did promise to appease the +fears of those youngsters. What time is it?" + +"When I left my nice cozy room for this, it was twenty minutes to +twelve. I believe you were on time at the fire escape, so I would +say it is now about ten minutes of. Hold my hand, Jane. This may be +thrilling but it's awfully weird." + +"Don't you like it? Look at that moon, and all the sparklers!" + +"But think of those hedges, ugh! I'm wobbly at the knees already, +and we're not half way across. Never knew a campus could be so-- +oceanic. I shall be striking out with my arms presently, feet seem +unable to carry all the responsibility," and the tall girl cuddled +into Jane's cape as far as the garment would accommodate her. + +"You are not really nervous, Dozia the Fearless," Jane rebuked. +"Why, I'm just tingling with the spirit of adventure." + +"You may, and the spirit of adventure is a lot more attractive than +the spirits we're out gunning for. Do you expect to get off scot- +free if you smash anything with that golf stick? What do you think +Miss Rutledge will say?" + +"I shan't bang unless there is nothing else to do, and then I'm sure +I can explain. A Montana girl from a real ranch ought to have some +credit for field work." Jane was twirling her capable brassie with +rather a dangerous swing and the odd weapon now seemed formidable +indeed. + +"What's that?" exclaimed Dozia, as a shadow almost tripped them. +"It's an animal I know but--" + +"A frightened little rabbit," replied Jane. "They have a lovely time +when the thoughtless girls are safe behind doors. But, Dozia, +honestly I think I do see something else--bigger than--a rabbit!" + +Both girls stopped suddenly and drew back in the shadow of a tall +lilac bush. They were well across the campus and now, at the end of +the path, near the gate and not far from Lenox Hall, something moved +in and out of the moonlit way. It seemed to cross from the big stone +wall and glide into the grove of magnolia. + +Jane dropped Dozia's arm and stepped out to peer after the shadow. +They were scarcely near enough to hear footfalls even had the +padding of leaves and heavy grass not actually deadened that +possibility. + +"Lively ghost!" she whispered. "Let's head it off through the +grove." + +"But, Jane, it may be some dangerous prowler--" + +"How could he get in here? Besides we are protected." She had the +golf club firm in her right hand and seemed to depend on it to lay +ghosts or prowlers. "Come on, Dozia. Of course that is not a bona +fide ghost but it may be the noise maker." + +Dozia followed Jane, although she did hang on to an end of the blue +cape and pulled back whenever the darkness seemed too uncertain of +penetration. The little thickets of ornamental evergreens suddenly +loomed up into proportions of veritable forests, and every baby +Christmas tree was swelled out like a circular blue fir, thick and +prickly. + +But Jane headed straight as the foliage allowed, across the campus +to the magnolia grove, where the eucalyptus trees shot up bare and +leafless, ghostly, spectral in the searching moonlight. + +A crisp snapping of some dry brambles sent out an alarm from the +hedges close to Lenox Hall and the girls listened anxiously. + +"Human," whispered Jane, "and rather dainty. Hardly a masculine foot +to that light touch. Don't be alarmed, Dozia. We are two to one and +evidently that other one is a female." She said this with assumed +confidence, for she feared Dozia might turn and run at any moment. + +They were almost in the little grove and it was between there and +the boxwood that touched the side porch of Lenox that this hidden +thing must be. Jane was by no means as brave as her carefree manner +indicated, and every time she held a bush from brushing Dozia's face +she took occasion to listen intently for vagrant noises. + +Stumbling over low underbrush in their rubber soled tennis shoes was +not like walking out in the open, and just as Dozia breathed a sigh +of relief that the landscape gardening went no further, a wild +scream, shrill and piercing, cut the night like an arrow! + +Speechless, the girls stood terrified, while the wail seemed to +linger suspended somewhere! + +"Oh, what was it?" gasped Dozia, but Jane clung to her arm in +silence. + +The next instant a clanging of chains and rattling of metals broke +out from Lenox Hall. + +"Quick," exclaimed Jane, almost dragging her companion forward, "we +must locate it, we must reach the dormitory!" But before they could +even gain the pathway, the big fire bell pealed out its alarm and; +suddenly every window in Lenox Hall blazed with light at a single +flash--the answer of that electric button pressed by the matron, who +now swung open the big oaken door and stood summoning her frightened +charges to "come out" in the order of fire drill. + +"Don't hurry, be calm!" she called out in the voice of authority, +and by now the freshmen who lined the halls and stairways, had +recovered their composure and even courage in the face of rescue. + +Jane and Dozia rushed up to Miss Gifford, the matron, and asked +about the outside alarm. At her word Jane jumped to the fire box, +smashed the glass with her golf club and then turned the key. + +By this time the students were outside the building, and in their +night robes the seventy-five freshmen shivered from fear and +exposure, while Miss Gifford, Jane and Dozia tried to reassure them. + +"Where's the fire?" asked Jane, as the local brigade of volunteer +citizens dashed in the grounds through the main gateway. + +"Where is it?" demanded Miss Gifford of the students. There was no +smoke, no blaze, not even an odor of things burning could be +distinguished. + +"It must have been in the big attic," someone said, "for it was the +old brass bell that rang first." + +"Who gave the alarm?" demanded the matron. + +No one answered this, and the momentary pause was broken now by the +wild rush of the fire department along the roadway. + +First the hose cart, the "hook and ladder" jerked up to the porch +where the girls waited, breathless but calmer now that men and means +had come to their rescue. + +"One side! One side!" shouted the chief, and to the credit of that +department it must be said his men stretched their line of hose +along from the hydrant and up those steps, even through the crowd of +trembling students, in regular fire drill time. Jane stepped inside +the hall and was sniffing audibly. + +"Wait a minute!" she commanded. "We haven't located the fire yet and +it may not be very much. The house is equipped with extinguishers," +she informed the alert chief. "They may answer without water." + +The rubber coated men held their hose high and were ready to shout +in signal to the man at the hydrant, while Jane took the chief +upstairs. He never spoke but tramped ahead as if a word would +imperil the dignity of the Wide Awake Hose Company. Neither did Jane +venture further remarks for she was "gunning" for the fire and +thinking of ghosts! + +Doors to right and left were promptly pushed open but no evidence of +fire could be found. + +"Try the attic," said the chief finally, "rubbish might catch from a +flue." + +At his order Jane turned into the narrow box stairway, lighted only +by a flash in the hands of Chief Murry. + +The actual panic of that yell and its subsequent fire alarm was now +subsiding in Jane's mind, and instead of Fire the whole situation +assumed an aspect of Ghosts. In spite of her courage she was very +glad the chief was at her heels, and when she finally reached the +last narrow step and stood under the rafters, Jane Allen sent a +sweeping eye over that dark attic. + +"Not here!" declared the fireman before she could see more than the +inky blackness of the old garret, with only that one spot of +moonlight pasted on the slanting roof by an invisible window. + +As he turned Jane felt obliged to follow, although she would have +been glad to go further in and see what it was that moved over by +the patch of moonlight. Something did move--she was sure of that, +but a fireman and a chief could not be asked to investigate anything +but smoke or flame, and neither element was discernible, so she +followed down the box stairway to confront the waiting brigade. + +"Who pulled that box?" demanded Chief Murry, angrily. + +"I did," replied Jane. "But the alarm came from within and the +students were out before I did so." + +"Well, there's no fire here!" he announced witheringly. "And you +young 'uns better get indoors. Been in all the sheds and corners, +Ben?" to his assistant. + +"Every inch, and there being no kitchen here, 'tain't likely a fire +would be tucked away in a closet, though we looked thoroughly. Queer +how the thing happened." + +Miss Gifford was now trying to march her charges back, but a good +sized contingent refused flatly to comply with her orders. They +answered her quietly but firmly. + +"They would never sleep another night in Lenox Hall. If it wasn't +haunted it was surely queer." + +With the courage of juniors Jane and Dozia attempted to laugh the +whole thing off, but the freshmen were determined. + +"How did YOU get over here?" suddenly demanded little Nellie +Saunders of Dozia. '"I thought it was a rule to stay in your own +dorm when a first alarm fire gong sounded in another building?" + +"'We were visiting," replied Jane so quickly Nellie thought the +reply meant something, and was too absorbed in the crisis of the +situation to further press her question. + +"But you children will be ill!" wailed Miss Gifford helplessly. "You +simply must come indoors." + +"Come into the recreation room," insisted Jane. "We won't ask you to +go back upstairs yet." + +"We just wouldn't go," declared Daisy Blaire. "If I can't sleep in +another cottage I shall telegraph mamma to come and take me home +this very night or day, whichever it is." + +This resolve met with hearty approval, for it was seconded from many +quarters until open revolt or general mutiny seemed imminent. + +The firemen were driving out with the jog trot of a false alarm, and +ghosts or no ghosts, Jane, Dozia and Miss Gifford, each and all +realized that those frightened children must be persuaded to go +indoors. Their bare feet alone made the matter imperative, if bath +robes did somewhat lessen the danger from a cold night's exposure. + +The sudden tingling of the telephone shot another bolt of terror +through them. + +"There, that's the hall," said Miss Gifford. "At least make it +possible for me to report you are all safe in Lenox." + +Jane and Dozia wound arms around a few leaders and this with the +matron's appeal firmly broke their deadlock and a thin stream of +frowzy heads and pretty boudoir robes dripped into the old walnut +hall. + +Miss Gifford used the telephone at the foot of the circular +staircase. She was giving a very tactfully worded account of the +incident to the president, and it was very evident the whole +occurrence would be conspiciously free of sensation if the matron's +verbal report were embodied in official records. + +A long drawn out and happily intoned reply floated from Miss +Gifford's lips as she half turned from the telephone and surveyed +Jane and Dozia. + +"Oh, yes indeed, they are both here, perfectly safe," she announced, +"and I don't know what I should have done without their assistance." + +So the raiders had been "found missing" at Madison Hall! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE AFTERMATH + + +There was another panic over in Madison," explained Miss Gifford, +after leaving the telephone; "when Miss Allen and Miss Dalton were +found missing it is a wonder someone over there didn't send out a +second fire alarm. Miss Fairlie was much relieved to know her +charges were safe and sound here, and I obtained a leave of absence +for you for the remainder of the night," she finished. The very much +perturbed matron had no idea of being left alone with a flock of +obstreperous freshmen. + +"Lovely!" exclaimed Jane, dancing around with a group of barefoot +girls who threatened to turn the occasion into a Greek playlet. + +"Scrumbunctious!" sang out the ballet de chambre, dancing in wild +glee now that danger of ghosts and firemen had actually passed. + +"But girls," spoke Dozia, "did you notice the little fat fireman who +held that big hose nozzle? I do verily believe he was so +disappointed he wanted to hit someone. Just see where his old hose +scraped my best silken hose. I don't mean that for a parody, but +honestly, girls, these were the last and final gift from mater. She +has condemned me to wear ordinary lisle hereafter, and just look at +that--stock!" + +"Only dry dust, it will brush off," soothed Jane. "But I say, girls, +how about beds!" + +"Beds!" shrieked a chorus. + +"Not a bed!" spoke Nellie Saunders for her entire class. "We +wouldn't mind cuddling up here on blankets and cushions, but I for +one shall not mount those spooky stairs, this night." + +"Silly child," scolded Dozia, her own eyes heavy with the ordinary +common garden variety of sleep. "Would you expect company to do all +the lugging? Who's to set up the billet?" "Volunteers?" called Jane, +and from somewhere not before observed stepped out little Sarah +Rowland. + +"I shall be glad to help," she said timidly, and instantly a volley +of eyes challenged her. + +"Oh, Sally!" exclaimed Dolly Lloyd. "Don't you dare! The spooks +would just eat you up. You look exactly like a cream puff." + +Laughter of the most chummy sort followed this, and it was evident +Sally, in her cream and white striped robe with her yellow hair +flowing over her shoulders, was a popular girl with her companions. + +Jane noticed, however, that her face, usually prettily flushed with +pink, was now deadly white, and also that the child's eyes shifted +in a peculiarly nervous manner. + +"It's lovely of you, Sally, and we'll just set a good example while +Miss Gifford is searching for that miscreant fire. Come along and +get the swaddling clothes for these babes. Aren't they an unruly +lot?" and she tossed off her blue cape preparatory for the lugging +of couch quilts, pillows and whatever else might seem useful. + +Sally tripped up the stairs and Jane was after her. + +"Do they really mean to sleep in the recreation room?" asked the +freshman, waiting at a landing for Jane. + +"Land knows," replied Jane, "but I thought we had best humor them at +least past the pneumonia point. I am thankful they did not all break +away over the campus to some other building. We will probably shame +them into going back to bed when they see how much trouble they are +giving. Where might we find the bed clothes storeroom?" + +"Just here to your left. But wait until I switch that light." She +reached a button and gave the side light its current. Then she +stepped back to Jane. + +"Miss Allen," she began in more subdued voice, "I just wanted to +tell you it was I who rang--the fire bell!" + +"Oh, did you?" said Jane lightly, following the hushed tone of +voice, "but where did you think the fire was?" + +"I knew there was no fire," she confessed, "but I had to do it to +cover those other noises." + +Jane was mystified, but she realized by Sarah's manner that a +complete explanation was not possible just then. Here and there a +step or a voice threatened the snatched confidence. + +"Did you hear that scream?" whispered Jane. + +"Yes, and I--had my room changed to over at the foot of the attic +stairs just yesterday, but--but--oh, Miss Allen, it is too +dreadful!" she gasped, dropping into a window seat and bursting into +tears. + +"Don't, dear! Don't, Sally!" begged Jane. "You are all unnerved. +Tomorrow you can tell me your fears, if you wish," Jane qualified. +"But now let us get back to the girls. They will think something +dreadful HAS happened to us." + +"But I can't tell you, Miss Allen. If I did I should have to leave +dear old Wellington and this--opportunity means so much to me," and +again she sobbed convulsively, while Jane put an affectionate arm +around the little stranger. + +Clapping of hands and calling out foolish warnings from below +checked Jane's flow of sympathy, and presently she stumbled back to +the recreation room propelling a mountain of blankets and +comfortables. + +"There. Just see what you have done," she charged the students who +were instantly struggling for the blankets to the extent of +practically disrobing the accommodating Jane. "Leave me my blouse, +please do. It's the only real Jersey I possess. But aren't you +ashamed to treat juniors this way?" + +"Dreadfully!" drawled a girl already rolled like a cocoon in a +pretty blue "wooley" and coiling up on a rug in the farthest corner. +"Jane Alien, you're a perfect lamb, and I hope you'll stay with us +forever." + +"I am sure I have a congestive chill," chattered a fraud of a girl +who almost upset Jane in the blanket rush. "Give me the pink one. +It's my color," and another tug freed "the pink one" from its +company of neatly folded coverlets. + +"It is a shame," confessed someone else. "Come on upstairs, girls. +Let's defy the ghosts. I have always heard they shun a crowd. +Where's the crowd? Let's make them shun us." + +"Second the motion and hurrah!" added Nellie Saunders. "Also we +should put a price on that ghost's head--offer a reward for the +capture. I'm willing to chip in, although as usual I'm a little +short this week." + +Dozia had been going over the house with Miss Gifford and just then +both returned to the recreation room. + +"Does anyone know where Miss Duncan is--Miss Shirley Duncan?" asked +the matron, keeping her pencil at that name on her report pad. + +Jane started involuntarily at the question. She had been secretly +wondering where the rebellious Shirley was during all the +excitement. + +"Oh, yes," spoke up Margie Winters. "She is outside visiting with +her folks. She told me this afternoon she had obtained permission." + +"Not from me," declared Miss Gifford. Then as if fearing +complications she added more tactfully, "But of course I might not +have been within reach and someone else may have given permission. +Will you just step in here, dear?" to Margie. "I want to note what +you say of Miss Duncan's absence," and while the reclaimed mutineers +were being actually driven up the stairs by Jane, Dozia and the +braver element, Miss Gifford was obtaining what clue she might as to +Shirley Duncan's whereabouts. + +Herded successfully to second floor the visiting juniors set about +distributing their charges into beds--any beds in any rooms but +"under covers" was the order. + +"I can just about picture the parade trooping into the infirmary +tomorrow," said Dozia. "Here, Betty, this solo cot for yours. It is +just your cute little size. And those tosies," with a playful thrust +at a pair of shivering feet, "I think nervous freshies should wear +slippers about their necks at night--like we used to have our +mittens on a tape, you know. There," finished the querulous Dozia. +"You would have to roll down stairs if another alarm sounded. You're +a perfectly sealed packet." Just the tip of Betty's head stuck out +of the package. + +Somehow all were finally settled and it was Sally--Sarah Howland, +who came to the rescue of the visitors. + +"But you must rest," she insisted, only a tell-tale pink rim around +her blue eyes betraying the hysterical collapse she had so lately +experienced. + +"We are not the least bit afraid," declared Dozia. "In fact, we are +rather anxious to meet said spook. Which room might be one in +proximity? Where does the big noise seem to come from?" + +"No more shows tonight, Dozia," spoke Jane before Sally could +answer. "How much do you want for your money? Isn't a fire and a +volunteer fireman's comedy enough?" + +"But I am dreadfully keen on spooks," she was pinching Jane's arm +cruelly, "and I thought it was--something weird that set off the +original alarm." + +Sally winced. "Here is a nice big bed," she told them nervously, +pushing back a door and disclosing a tranquil untrammelled room, all +neat and orderly as if nothing unusual had happened in old Lenox. +"We call it the guest room but rarely have company to occupy it. I +am sure Miss Gifford will want you two juniors to make yourselves at +home in it," finished Sally with a quaver. She could not entirely +hide the fact of her anxiety to get Jane and Dozia behind a closed +door. Jane might have understood but Dozia was perplexed. + +"It's a lovely room," faltered Dozia, "but I feel more like camping +out. What time is it, anyhow?" + +"About two-thirty A. M.," said Jane, "and since the youngsters are +safely tucked in, I believe we should take Sally's advice. This is +quite sumptious," folding down the extra white shams and coverlet. +"Rather a pity to spoil it for such a sliver of sleep." + +Miss Gifford was at the door when Sally glided off. "I am so glad +you girls are getting to bed," she commended. "What a night we have +had? And what a mercy you happened to be within call? I'm sure I +don't know how you got here but I am not worrying about the details. +Sufficient unto the day is the evil, etc., and"--with a readjustment +of her glasses and a closer fold into the soft night shawl--"this +condition is dreadful. I have tried to fathom the mystery without +troubling the office, but I know now I should have reported it +before." (She referred to the nocturnal disturbances, of course.) +"Don't fear any further alarm, midnight is always the chosen hour." + +"Yes," blurted Dozia, "we know about it, Miss Gifford, and my friend +Jane inveigled me into this midnight raid. That is really how we got +over here, but I can't say we have to report progress--'stampede' +would be more accurate." + +"But this is only one night," Jane insisted, "and our fire brigade +spoiled every possibility of investigation. But, Miss Gifford, since +we have undertaken the task, I should like to propose that you give +us an opportunity to try our skill at it. Suppose" (Jane had in mind +the tearful face of little Sally) "you give us one more night before +you turn the alarm in to Miss Rutledge? I am sure we can control +your girls and get them to agree to our plan. In spite of +everything, you know, they just adore the fun and sensation of it +all." + +"Well," faltered Miss Gifford, weakening, "of course I could not +risk a repetition of this night's experience; at the same time I do +like to keep my records free from appeals to headquarters. It is so +much more efficient to manage each cottage independently, subject to +a general system. Well, go to bed children and thank you for your +moral and physical support. We shall discuss future plans on the +morrow," she said sweetly. Truth to tell Miss Agnes Gifford was a +very sweet girl--woman, and at the moment both Jane and Dozia fell +loyally under the spell of her charms. + +"Say, Dinks!" whispered Dozia from her side of the big double bed, +"what do you think Judy will say to all this?" + +"Judy had her own fun and shouldn't complain. Wasn't she all nicely +arrested and tried at a regular police court? What's a spook and a +fire to that!" + +But Jane knew better. That night at Lenox was a "thriller" indeed, +and Judith Stearns might well envy her chums its experiences. + +Then while Dozia slept Jane wondered. + +What did little Sally Howland mean about taking a room at the attic +stairs? And how was that charming little thing implicated with the +ghost of Lenox Hall? + +The plot was thickening. Sally did not in any way answer to the +deceitful type, but some mysterious force seemed to overshadow her. + +"Pretty little thing, with such appealing eyes and so honest--" + +Jane slept. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PLEADING FOR TIME + + +It's a very large order, Jane, but you're the merchant. How on earth +do you expect to obtain permission to stay at Lenox without giving +the whole thing away?" + +"I haven't an idea, but depend on old friend Circumstances to bob +something up. It is wonderful how very simple it is to flim-flam a +philosopher. They never seem to suspect intrigue and walk right into +the trap. I've tried it before with Rutledge! she's a lamb if you +watch your ba-as." + +It was "the morning after" and that trite phrase surely fitted the +occasion. Jane had dragged Dozia from her dreams in spite of threats +and defiance, and now both juniors were on their way back to the +dining hall at Madison. + +"Rather different from the last tramp we took over this prairie," +said Jane, "but as a thriller you can't beat midnight moonlight." + +"Not that I'd care to," Dozia answered witheringly. "I can't see +that the adventure 'got us anywhere' as brother Tom would say. I +haven't any brother, you know, Jane dear, but it always sounds +better to blame one's slang on him, don't you think?" + +"I'm positive," said Jane, "but I have a trick of blaming mine on +Judy. Wonder will she sleep all day because I, the faithful alarm +clock, did not go off at her ear. There's the bell! I'm not very +hungry. As an appetiser I think a night such as the last rather a +flivver." + +"Isn't it? I have that widely advertised gone feeling myself. Here's +a chance to duck in without being noticed." + +"We were out for early exercise," prompted Jane significantly, "and +don't be too intelligent about that fire when they ask." + +"'Deef' and dumb," quibbled Dozia. "Thank you for the party, Jane. I +had a lov-el-ly time." + +"Don't mention it," whispered Jane, as the line of students +swallowed the two adventurers. + +But the day was "fraught with questions," as Judith Stearns put it, +deploring her own inability to obtain any "intelligent account of +the whole performance." It became known early that the two juniors +who had been searched for during the night, were not others than +Jane and Dozia, but even a veritable grilling at the hands of a +picked corps of sophs brought nothing more definite from the +wayfarers than "they were over visiting Lenox and the 'fire' was a +false alarm." + +"And of course we couldn't put our heads out, for fear of panic," +grumbled Nettie Brocton. + +The day passed somehow, and it was conspicuous by an entire absence +of freshmen from the usual intermingling between periods. Even to +Jane the reason for this was not clear until, in a burst of +confidence with Judith, she outlined her plan of staying over at +Lenox "until the ghost business was disposed of." + +"Oh, I know," she explained while Judith pondered. "Miss Gifford is +keeping them home to prevent them gabbing. That's darling of her. +She wants to give me--the newly discovered spook sleuth--a decent +chance. Are you coming over with me tonight, Judy?" + +"Cables couldn't hold me back. Dinksy, you bribed me into staying +home last night but I'll never again 'list' to your blarney. But it +wasn't goblins I believe; however, we'll decide that when we trap +'em. Your benign influence has worked well thus far. I promised to +help a freshie with some Latin prose and she never came to collect. +Now I suppose I have to spoil my pretty hands with basket ball. +Don't you wonder how it was we used to love that unladylike game?" +Judith assumed a most sedate attitude, but did not succeed in hiding +a forlorn rent in her skirt even with a very broad palm plastered +over it. + +"'Ye strangers on my native sill tread lightly for I love it +still,'" quoted Jane. "Seems to me you take about as much pleasure +in the big game as you ever did, Judy. But let's away! We need it. +I'm all stiffened up with--" + +"Your night of terror," finished Judith. "I don't wonder. Anyone +might be sore and achey from running that Bingham Fire Brigade. I +would love to have seen Dozia at the spigot," and Judith went +through some fire antics. "Come along, Jane; we'll give the recruits +a try-out," she decided the next moment, "but don't ask me to put +them through the paces again tomorrow, for that's to be an afternoon +off, if I can arrange it." + +"Oh," said Jane tritely. + +"Yes, oh," repeated Judith most impressively and with a grimace that +supplied more than mere punctuation. + +Jane laughed and pushed the big girl ahead of her with sudden +playful force. + +"Choo-choo! the fire is out and we're going home," she laughed. +"This is just about the speed of the little red hose cart." + +"Wait a minute!" called Judith, halting so suddenly she almost threw +Jane. "I would rather be the driver if you don't mind." + +"Young ladies!" protested one of the faculty, Miss Roberts, she who +taught English and looked the part. "Is not that rather boisterous +for indoor play?" + +The culprits choked an appropriate reply and resumed the usual +"indoor" behavior. + +"One thing I hate knowledge for," remarked Jane, "it makes one so +inhuman." + +"Yes, doesn't it? We may break our precious necks in the gym and be +buried with military honors but we 'dassent' skin a shin anywhere +else. System, of course," witheringly from Dozia. + +"Quick!" exclaimed Jane. "There are Nettie and Janet heading this +way. They'll want me to tell the whole of last night's experience +over again. Let's get at practice and preclude the recitation. I +feel like singing the story to the tune of the 'Night Before +Christmas,' it's getting so monotonous." "You have no appreciation +for thrills, Jane Alien," eluded Judith. "That yarn will stand +telling for months to come. I've noticed your variations, however, +and can see the effort wearies you. But say, Dinksy, tonight is the +night and Lenox is the place. After that, if you like, I'll take up +the thread of your famous ghost story, and you may refer all +inquiries to me." The last word of this peroration was all but lost +on stone walls, for the oncoming horde seized Jane and, exactly as +she feared, demanded further details of the big night. + +"And did you really see a ghost?" begged Winifred Ayres with a +perfectly flagrant relish of the sordid details. + +"Packs of 'em," evaded Jane. + +"Safety in numbers," remarked Nettie Brocton. "That's my mother's +argument for large gatherings. All right, Jane, we'll let you off, +but we have our opinion of such utter selfishness. There's the scrub +team all lined up outside the gym. I suppose they also are waiting +to hear the story." + +"Save me from my audience!" wailed Jane, falling into convenient +arms. "Why not install a ghost in Madison if you are all so keen on +it? I can't see how you expect one paltry spook to cover the entire +campus." + +"Oh, Jane! Miss Allen, Jane!" called the girls from that basketball +line. "We've decided to beg off from practice this afternoon, if you +don't mind. We all want to go to the village to see the sights." It +was Inez Wilson who acted as spokesman and Inez was quite capable of +organizing "a lot of fun" in seeing the village sights. + +"What's new?" demanded Judith. + +"Oh, something," insinuated Mabel Peters. + +"Are we debarred? Too old and cranky or something like that?" teased +Jane. Her hair was bursting from her cap like an over-ripe thistle, +and her cheeks were velvety in a rich glow of early winter tints. +She hardly looked too old even for skipping rope just then. + +"Of course everyone may come who wants to," Inez condescended, "but +juniors usually don't enjoy henning (shopping)." + +"I adore it," insisted Jane. "Do let us tag on and we'll buy the +peanuts. But this really was to be an important afternoon at the +baskets. However do you children expect to maintain the honor of +Wellington if you do not keep fit? Now when I was center--" + +"Hear! Hear! Hear!" interrupted Mabel. "Remember that famous song, +'I know a girl and her name was Jane'!" + +"A rebold ribald rowdy!" shouted a chorus. + +But Jane was escaping--running down the walk with hands clapped over +her ears to shut out the memories of her earlier years when that +refrain was quite too popular to be enjoyable. + +Outside the big gate an auto horn honked, and the students drew back +to give the big car approaching full sweep of the country roadway. +Then another horn sounded, and from the opposite direction a smart +little run-about was seen cutting in at high speed. Both drivers saw +their danger and both jammed brakes. The big car rolled to the +gutter while the runabout picked up speed and shot by safely. This +brought the touring car to the curb where the Wellingtons stood +watching, and a glance at the seats showed these occupants: + +Dol Vin driving, Shirley Duncan at her side, and a rather elderly +country couple spread over the big back seat. + +"Shirley's folks!" whispered Inez. "We heard they were in town +seeing the sights, and hoped we would run across them." This was +evidently the "something" hinted at in the soph's outline of the +"henning" party. + +Dolorez Vincez was too clever to show embarrassment, and Shirley +Duncan was too cruel to hide it. She plainly was urging the driver +on. + +"That's your college, darter, ain't it?" the girls could hear the +elderly woman ask Shirley, but they did not hear the latter's +answer. Dolorez called, "Hello, girls," as she swung her car out +again in the dusty roadway, and the "darter" deprived that little +woman of her coveted information. + +"She said hello!" announced Judith. + +"Sweet of her," remarked Jane, but she was thinking of Shirley's +absence from Lenox on the night of the fire, and wondering if the +indifferent freshman had been absent during all the day as well? + +"Hurry, hurry!" begged Mabel Peters. "What a lark to meet them at +the drug store. They'll be sure to want hot chocolate." + +"I would guess at tea," drawled Judith, "but it's sure to be some +sort of drink. Come along and we may get a chance to return that +cordial hello." + +"I'm not going," suddenly determined Jane. "All go along if you like +but I'm not going to lap up any more of that sickening chocolate. +I've taken the pledge until next allowance day," and she turned back +to Wellington entrance. + +Judith, quick to interpret Jane's moods, knew the excuse covered a +more serious consideration and stepped back to ask "why?" + +"That daughter is ashamed of those country parents," Jane made +chance to answer Judith, "and it would be horrid to spoil their +opinion of us. Delay the girls a while and Dol will have gone +through town safely." + +"But isn't it dreadful she has such influence over that rebel +freshman?" commented Judith, slowly following the flock of students +headed for the village. "How are we going to stop it?" + +"I don't know," confessed Jane, "but we must stop it some way. Just +because she has a claim on my--patronage is no reason why she should +disgrace Wellington. You go along with the youngsters, Judy, and +I'll go right up to the office now and unburden my conscience." +Jane's red haired disposition was asserting itself. "Think of the +hair bleaching, then the police farce, and now out riding with that +traitor. I'm going to tell Miss Rutledge the whole thing!" and no +argument of Judith's could dissuade her. + +She turned back into the college grounds and struck a gait +calculated to bring her up to that office in short order, and was +more than half way through the campus when a small voice called out +her name. + +"Miss Allen!" + +She turned to a side path, following the call, and faced Sally +Howland. + +"Just a minute, Miss Allen, please," pleaded the strange little +freshman. Jane waited till she reached her, then smiled into the +serious face of Sally. + +"Hello, girlie," Jane greeted her. "What's the excitement?" + +"You were so splendid last night, Miss Allen," panted Sarah Howland, +"and I am so ashamed to have to deceive you as you must see I am +doing." A flush suffused her pale face and she dropped her eyes in +pained self-consciousness. "But just--now--for this little while--I +can't see what else I am going to do!" she stopped and her hands +twitched miserably at her knitted scarf. Evidently the attempt at +confession was more difficult than she had anticipated. + +"Don't distress yourself, dear," Jane soothed. "I realize you know +something of the queer happenings at Lenox, and I can see you have +some strong motive for withholding the explanation. There is a +reason, of course, and I have faith in your sincerity. After all, +Wellington is quite a little city in itself, and we are bound to +meet queer problems here. I am on my way to the office now to get +one off my mind." + +"Oh, please, Miss Allen, don't report--Shirley Duncan," she stumbled +and stuttered over the name. "I know she is doing queer things but +she is such a--a country girl, and has never had any chances--" + +"Did you know her before she came to Wellington?" asked Jane +directly. + +"No, yes, that is I knew her just before we came," replied the girl, +very much confused and plainly embarrassed. + +"I have noticed you seem to be friends," Jane pressed. + +"Yes, sort of. But I do not agree with her in her attitude toward +college life," replied Sarah hurriedly--markedly so. She was trying +to shift the subject, Jane saw that plainly. + +"It's good of you to plead for her," commented Jane, "but you see, +my dear, juniors are quite grown up and are expected to uphold the +college traditions. We really can't consider an individual where a +college principle is concerned." Jane had her eye on Madison and was +shifting to move that way. The freshman laid a detaining hand on her +arm. + +"If you could just--be persuaded to wait until after mid-year," she +said, "perhaps then--things might look differently." + +"But Sally, you know I saw you run out of that prohibited beauty +shop, and you must know we Wellingtons in good standing do not +patronize that place!" + +This accusation startled Sarah. She dropped Jane's arm and all but +gasped: "When did you see me there?" + +"The day of that absurd police business when my friend Miss Stearns +was so humiliated," Jane said severely. + +"Oh, Miss Allen," and tears welled into Sarah's eyes. "I can't +explain, and I am so miserable. Perhaps--perhaps I should not try--" +Tears choked the wretched girl, and Jane relented at sight of her +misery. + +"Really, Sally," she changed her tone, "I do feel awfully sorry to +see a freshman in distress, and I am sure I do not want to add to +it. I won't go to the office now, if that will make you feel better, +but I simply must do all I can to solve the mystery of the horrible +night noises at Lenox. Here come the girls from their hike; dry your +eyes and try to look pleasant." + +Jane did not relish yielding; she had passed that childish stage, +when "to give in" seemed noble; it was now a question of expediency, +which was best? Should she go on and unburden her own conscience +just because she had decided to do so, or should she follow the +pleadings of this girl without having an intelligent reason? + +Something stronger than psycho-analysis (Jane's new field of study) +forced her to look deeply into the tear-stained blue eyes of Sarah +Howland, and that same mystic power, older and surer than theory, +compelled Jane to reply: + +"All right, Sally. I'll wait a while. It's all very queer but even +queer things are sometimes reasonable," and she threw an +affectionate arm about the little freshman as she turned her back on +the judicial office in the big, gray stone building. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE PICKET AND THE SPOOK + + +Not going to bed at all, Janey?" queried Judith, letting her hair +fall over her shoulders and shaking her head like a happy care-free +Collie. "This bed is too inviting to slight that way. I never knew +that old spooky Lenox was so gorgeously equipped." Judith was +testing the comforts of the big double bed in the guest chamber of +Lenox Hall, the same that welcomed Jane and Dozia on the night +previous. + +"I am not going to run the risk of missing anything," Jane answered +from her place in the big cushioned steamer chair. "This is very +comfortable and I am all dressed ready to dive after the least +suspicious sound. Besides, I'm not a bit sleepy--gone past my sleep, +as Aunt Mary would say." + +"I don't want to desert you," volunteered Judith, "and it doesn't +seem just the thing for me to turn into this downy bed while you sit +there like a sentinel. But truth to tell I am shamefully human and +just counting on thirty winks before the ghost walks. Be sure to +call me at the very first hint. Of course you will want to bag him +personally, Jane, but I'll be glad to help you pull the draw +string." + +It was drawing close to the tainted hour, and Jane sat there +wondering how one single day could seem as long as that just past. +She had no idea of admitting what part actual fatigue can play in +one's perspective, neither would she have owned to nerves as the +cause of her unnatural wakefulness; nevertheless these were both +factors in her almost painful alertness. + +"At least now I have a chance to think," she temporized, "and I wish +I could solve the mystery of Sally Howland's peculiar connection +with Shirley Duncan." + +They were so unlike, so foreign in disposition and character; not +relatives, and Sally even disclaimed any previous acquaintance with +the country girl. Then Sally's attempt to forestall the midnight +noises by taking the shunned room at the very foot of the dreaded +attic stairs--what could that mean? + +Jane pondered feebly, and feeling just the least bit drowsy she left +her place in the steamer chair to get a drink of water in the +lavatory. It would not do to actually fall asleep "at the switch." + +Voices from the end of the hall near Sally's room forced their way +into the corridor as she glided past, and the unmistakable tone of +Shirley Duncan riveted Jane's attention. + +"You're too silly," she was insisting, no doubt to little Sally. +"Don't I give you enough? Here's something daddy gave me. You may +have it. Now do be a good, sensible little girl." + +A pause, perhaps a remonstrance, for the voice took up its cue +again. + +"Of course you must have plenty of use for it. Don't be a goose, +Kitten. You know how much I care about the old moldy college. But +I'm bound to get something for my money." + +Jane was at the lavatory door now but she did not at once enter. +Surely, under the circumstances it was permissible to listen to the +unguarded voice of Shirley Duncan. And she called Sally "Kitten!" + +"For mercy's sake don't start to howl," it came again. "I can stand +anything but that. It is all working beautifully and I guess before +I quit I'll be able to show them that a country girl isn't such a +simp as they imagine." + +"Miss Allen is here tonight," Jane next heard Sally say, "and you +know what that means, Bobbie." + +"As if I care for her," and a scornful laugh made the meaning +clearer. There were other words but Jane had heard enough. The +mention of her own name seemed to charge her honor, and the belated +drink of refreshing water was quickly drawn. + +Back in the steamer chair Jane had new cause to ponder. What was the +threat or power Shirley held over little Sally? And to bribe her +with money? Also the affectionate "Kitten" and "Bobbie"? + +The wind was stirring, but everything human now seemed withdrawn +from activity around Lenox. Jane was waiting, listening for what? +The frightened freshmen seemed secure tonight in their dormitories, +assured of protection by Jane and Judith, two of the bravest girls +in all Wellington. Also they had been promised a solution of the +noise mystery and was not that in itself sufficient alleviative? + +The clock in the hall tingled a chime, sweet almost playful music +for the elves of midnight and a challenge to baser intruders. Jane +must have dozed when she suddenly became conscious of something-- + +Was it a noise? She listened, alert and all but quivering in +anticipation. There never had been any question of actual danger +surrounding the weird happenings, but now that she faced the mystery +something very like panic seized her. + +Yes--again! That was surely something metallic! + +"Quick, Judy!" she roused the sleeping girl on the bed. "Follow me. +There it is--beginning." + +"Where! What!" Judith sat up and snatched her robe. + +"I'm going to the attic. I am sure it is up there!" and Jane flew +out quietly, in fact noiselessly, into the dimly lighted hall. + +A queer rumbling sound came from somewhere. Jane could not locate it +for it seemed shut in, walled up! It was mechanical yet muffled! + +Judith reached Jane as she stood listening. + +"Where is it?" she whispered. + +"I--can't tell," Jane replied. "Pass around the turn into the linen +room. We can reach the stairs that way." + +"Not--going up alone!" breathed Judith. + +"Why not? It's some lark of the girls, you may be sure, and I'm +going to find out what it is now." + +"But it's dark," cautioned Judith. + +"I have my flash. Listen!" + +"Oh," groaned Judith, clutching Jane's arm, for a rattling of +something like chains was now distinctly audible. + +"Hush!" breathed Jane, laying her fingers lightly on the door knob +of the boxed in stairway. The next moment there was a crash and both +girls darted up the stairs. + +"It was over that way!" insisted Judith, but in the darkness, with +nothing but Jane's flash to guide them, it was impossible to tread +safely through the attic, which was stored with all sorts of +discarded materials. + +"Wait a minute," whispered Jane, her heart pounding and nerves +almost jumping. + +They stood breathless, but not a move answered the silence. + +"Come down; do, Jane," begged Judith, shivering in actual fear. + +"Wait a few minutes," insisted Jane. "Whatever it is they know we +are here!" + +"Jane!" breathed the other, "I am honestly ready--to faint." + +"Nonsense, just a few minutes." Jane could feel her companion +tremble as she clung to her arm. + +But not a sound nor a move rewarded their brave defiance. + +"If only this place had a light," Jane whispered. "I suppose there +is a bulb somewhere." She remembered that the fireman found none, +however, and tonight even the patch of moonlight was not there. It +really would have been foolhardy to attempt to go further into the +low-beamed room, at the risk of running into attack, and evidently +the noise had not been heavy enough to arouse anyone else in the +Hall, for no sound of moving about came from the lower floors. + +"Do come down," begged Judith again, taking two steps herself on the +stairs. + +"No, I shan't," insisted Jane. "I can wait as long as they can." + +As if that gave a cue for action a rope--surely it was a rope-- +creaked and groaned and the rumbling heard first sounded again-- +somewhere, it seemed from the very roof. + +"There!" said Jane. "They're gone and they went by that rope. Come +on down. We can't do anything in this darkness," and, now satisfied +that the "ghost" had been scared off, she followed Judith's +precipitous escape down, and into the lower hallway. + +"What was it? Did you catch him? We heard it? Where is it?" + +To the astonishment of the two juniors the halls were dotted with +heads thrust out of half closed doors, and the alarmed freshmen +opened this volley of questions before Jane and Judith had recovered +their breath. + +"No, we did not get it," replied Judith, "but we scared it off, and +I have my opinion of a ghost afraid of two unarmed juniors." Judy +was very brave now, and rather proud of it. + +"Young ladies! Young ladies!" Miss Gifford was expostulating. "You +promised to stay in your rooms tonight." + +"Oh, they are very good girls, Miss Gifford," Jane attested, "and I +can assure them that friend spook is a rank coward and has gone by +way of a pulled rope. Any pulleys loose around this place?" + +"No, we have looked for such things," declared the matron. "But +please, girls, go back to bed, and if anything else happens I +promise to call you." This was a rash promise for Miss Gifford to +make, but she felt the urgency of getting those questioning heads +back on their respective pillows and so was willing to make +concessions. + +"Come in my room," she said aside to Jane and Judith, and they both +followed her to the open door. + +"That certainly is a noise made by someone who gets up to that +attic," insisted Jane without waiting for inquiries, "and I am sure +the sounds are made by metal chains." + +"That's the weird part of it," interposed Judith. + +"Why are chains more formidable than ropes?" asked Jane. "And in an +old place like this is it would not be hard to pick up a chain or +two, and you know, Judy, one old chain could make a fearful noise." + +"Yes--but--how does anyone get up there?" demanded Judith. + +"That's the mystery," admitted the matron, who had insisted on the +girls remaining while the students quieted down and were safe once +more until daylight. "We have looked all over the place, of course, +and have not been able to find any hidden way of making ascent to +that attic." + +"Airship," suggested Judith foolishly. + +"See how quickly the noise ceased," remarked Jane. "Someone +recognized us, Judy, and has flown before our vengeance." + +"Be that as it may," added Miss Gifford with a smile of assurance, +"I am convinced this thing is being done out of jealousy or even +revenge. You see, I am a new matron here, and when I came I put into +execution such rules as I have been trained to follow. That made +changes in our staff and a few dismissals. Such action is sure to +stir up the wrath of someone, but even with that as a basis, and +with all the detective skill I have been able to operate, I must +confess I am baffled. This very minute our janitor would be found in +his quarters over the stables, for I have phoned him there. And for +the past week I have gone over the ground with him personally, he +and his wife when they lock up. She is one of the day workers here," +explained Miss Gifford. + +Jane felt urged to tell of the shadowy figure she and Dozia had seen +creeping about the evergreens, but quickly decided the indefinite +detail would add little actual explanation. Instead she said: + +"We could do nothing in the dark, but just wait until daylight. I +have to sleep, of course, we are getting ready for our midyear +exams, but just wait until two-thirty tomorrow afternoon after +logic. Then expect me over here with perhaps a shotgun if I can find +such a weapon on the premises!" + +"But what would you shoot in daylight?" asked Judith, half jokingly, + +"Even suspicion," replied Jane, "but my chief concern would be to +find the way friend spook gets up into that attic and where he comes +from. Good night, Miss Gifford, we will follow the freshies now, and +I'm so sleepy it would take more noise than that first bombardment +made to arouse me." + +"Good night, my dears, and thank you so much for your wonderful +support," said Miss Gifford. + +"Support!" repeated Judith, back again in the guest room. "I suppose +she considers the ghost her opponent?" + +"I don't," said Jane cryptically. "I consider it the opponent of all +Wellington." + +"And I suppose, Janie, you are blaming me for holding you back in +the attic?" sleepily from Judith. + +"No, I'm not, Judy. You have no idea what a coward I am at heart; +but somehow you girls have taken a notion I should do things and I +can't bear to disappoint you. I must admit this is fascinating. I +like it better even than golf, and will also give up my canter on +Firefly this afternoon to see it through." + +"Oh Jane, don't do that!" objected Judith. "We were all going out to +Big Rock and have the horses engaged." + +"I'm sorry, Judy, but I've gotten into this thing and I have just +got to get out of it or I'll begin to believe in real spooks. I +simply can't let it drag me down another twenty-four hours." She +brushed her wavy red gold hair viciously. "You may take Firefly. He +knows your saddle and will behave, I'm sure. That will give someone +else your horse." + +"Maud Leslie is crazy to ride but has no habit here," commented +Judith significantly. + +"Help her to mine," responded Jane promptly. "She isn't far from my +size." + +"But I wouldn't want to go galloping for nuts while you stay here +alone hunting for spooks," Judith said loyally. "Better let two +girls take our places if you insist on staying out." + +"Oh, no, dear. I'm only going to look around for some sort of trap +entrance to Lenox. Besides, you know Dozia doesn't ride, and she'll +be here." + +"All right, love, I'll leave you with Dozia if you insist. She's big +enough to take care of you at any rate. Do you imagine Miss Gifford +has materialized some domestic enemy in her change of staff? And +that this super-conscious fired janitor or furnace man is operating +against her?" + +"I don't know, Judy," sighed Jane. "Looks to me more loosely +organized than that. Besides, even a fired furnace man would keep +union hours at one fifty per. No, I think you'll find the eternal +female back of that racket, it's too temperamental for masculine +action." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE HIDDEN CHAMBER + + +Was this Wellington and was Jane Allen, the darling of the gym and +the record maker for basket-ball, now so prone on solving a +perplexing noise mystery that her games were cancelled and even her +riding hours filled in with mundane matters, while her companions +flew away to gather mountain nuts and wonderful complexions? + +Jane's defiant laugh answered this very personal question. She was +proud and she was fiery, and someone had been trying to discredit +her father's scholarship. Of course that "someone" was Dolorez +Vincez, the expelled junior of the previous year. Every clue pointed +its accusing finger at Dol Vin. She it was who brought those two +freshmen, Shirley and Sarah, together at her beauty shop. It was she +also who "took care" of Shirley's folks when they came in to see the +"darter," and everyone who knew Dol knew, also, that these little +attentions must have been rather costly to the country folks, for +Dol always made things pay. + +In the back of Jane's mind there was growing the germ of suspicion +toward that same triangle in the spook alarms. Dol, Shirley and +Sarah must be somewhere in that demonstration, but Jane had to admit +the clues were not developing with such speed as she usually counted +on in college mysteries. + +But perhaps this one more day would unearth something tangible. At +any rate, the parties and teas and sorority dances were getting into +swing, and even a fascinating ghost would soon have to be turned +over to the proper authorities, thought Jane, if he did not quickly +become more co-operative with the juniors. + +Work was serious and exacting. Every period had a record of its own, +and while Jane was specializing in sociology she was also keeping up +with the regular college course for her A. B. degree. + +Promptly after logic dismissed, at two-thirty, she sought out Dozia. +"Come along, Doze," begged Jane, "don't let us waste a moment. The +girls are all busy now, and perhaps we can make a survey without +having a ballet de follies dancing around." Dozia made her notebook +safe and swung into Jane's trot for Lenox. Warburton Hall, one of +the larger buildings, was just emptying a class from lecture but +Jane and Dozia made a complete detour of it to escape attention. + +Lenox was deserted, but in less than half an hour it was sure to be +swarmed with freshmen running in after classes for a change of +blouse, or some other requirement of the day now three-fourths +spent. + +"Let us get a line on that old tower," suggested Jane, surveying the +secretive old building. "I know the racket was in that wing, and see +how the round tower begins here and shoots up past all that outside +plumbing? I know Lenox was one time a show building here, but +freshies have got to have some place to sleep, hence the +retrogression." + +"Things are pretty well trodden down around here," reported Dozia, +sending a critical eye over the little terrace that supported the +old stone tower. "Squirrels do not usually wear French heels. See +those footprints, Jane?" + +In the strong sun a film of soft earth showed the impress of +something quite like the pivoted French heel. This was in a small +space from which floral bulbs had been removed and where the +sheltering round tower had kept off the early winter frosts. + +"Seems to me," said Jane, "there is some sort of cubby hole under +here." She was poking around the vine-roped foundation. + +"Oh, you see they take cellar stuff out that window," explained +Dozia. "It saves steps. See the trail of ashes over there?" + +"Yes, but that doesn't come from this point, that does come from the +window. But I mean this spot here," she was tapping on a frame in +which the squares formed the foundation of the building, and where +the wooden arches had been originally painted a contrasting color +for the sake of trimming. + +"You can always push those lattice pieces in," said Dozia. "That was +the charmed spot for hide and seek I'll guess, when Wellington was +in rompers." + +"Just look here!" ordered Jane in a very definite tone of voice. +"This is more than a cubby hole." She was pulling at a piece of rope +strung through a broken staple. Nothing remained but the iron loop +over which the old time outside padlock was usually snapped. Jane +pulled so vigorously she opened the hidden door and toppled over +backward with the broken rope in her hand. Dozia was in front of the +opening before Jane could get to her feet. + +"Well, of all--things!" she drawled. "If here isn't some sort of old +elevator!" + +"A dumb-waiter!" cried Jane. "There are my groaning ropes. Pull, +Doze, and let's see if it carries a car." + +A couple of jerks at the big cables and the car came down to earth +with a bump. + +"Now!" exclaimed Jane gleefully. "There's the mystery. This airship +goes right up into that tower!" + +"But don't you dare ask me to make the ascent," warned Dozia. "The +tower may be thick with ghosts as a chimney with swallows." + +"But think of it," rattled on Jane. "That old hidden dumb-waiter! +Why have we never discovered it before?" + +"Didn't need it," said Dozia. "Wouldn't have a bit of use for it now +except to save you from getting gray headed and daffy over spooks. +Come along indoors and look at the tower from the other end. This +elevator must have a 'last stop, all out' platform some place," +drawled Dozia, as calmly as if a great part of the mystery had not +just been successfully cleared up. + +"But I'm not afraid to go up," declared Jane, almost dancing with +excitement, "and the elevator works by pulling the ropes from the +inside." + +"Don't you dare, Jane Allen!" cautioned the imperturbable Dozia. +"You might get half way up and stick in a smoke stack, or a rope +might break or anything of a large variety of possibilities might +occur. I can't be a party to your suicide pact. Walk right up the +red carpeted stairs with little bright-eyed Dozia, and view the +tower from the objective." She took Jane's arm and dragged her +around to the side door, which stood invitingly opened. + +By way of the red carpeted stairs they went as far as the attic +flight, and from that point tramped plain unvarnished and well worn +"treads" which Dozia took two at a time. + +In the attic, daylight dispelled many of the night's fancies. For +instance, the big black things in the corner were only stored +trunks, those shadowy forms hanging from rafters were Miss Gifford's +best summer togs in their tailored moth bags, and the thing that +glistened in the moonlight like horrible eyes in a ghastly face, +were almost that very thing, for some hallow'een trappings hung +right under the window, a veritable trap for spectral moonlight. + +Jane smiled. "These things had Judy and me scared blue last night. +They actually seemed to point long bony fingers at us, but behold! +nothing more sinister than a lot of storage stuff." + +Dozia was over in the other end of the low raftered room looking for +the dumb-waiter "objective," but there appeared to be nothing of the +sort either in bricked chimney wall or along weather-boarded +partitions. + +"I can't see where that tower ends," she said, "See, Jane, this is +nothing but a straight wall, and the tower surely is built round." + +Jane surveyed the brown boarded wall. "But this is not all the +attic," she exclaimed. "See how narrow this room is and gauge the +size of the building. There must be another attic back of those +boards and that fire brick wall. Now, how do you suppose one reaches +the other side?" + +"Via dummy," said Dozia. "But no little jaunt in that flivver for +me. No indeed, Janie, not even to bag a real, live, active, untamed +spook." They were both tapping along the boarded partition but had +found no evidence of an opening. "Say, Jane," whispered Dozia, her +brown eyes wide with pretended fright, "suppose some awful creature +is hidden in there and that she has her meals served from the old +dumbwaiter?" + +Jane howled at this and danced around in cruel imitation of a +possible "awful creature." That she tore a hole in her skirt from +contact with an unfriendly nail mattered little, for the dance took +in the length of the attic between trunks, boxes, disabled chairs +and even dodged an ancient sewing machine. + +"An attic party is attractive under certain conditions," Jane +repeated. "I thought once I saw something move over this way. Let me +look there more carefully." + +"Look away," replied Dozia, falling limply into a very uncertain old +willow porch rocker. + +Jane pulled aside some curtain stretchers, then pried from its +corner an old Japanese screen. + +"There!" she yelled. "There's the door, now we're getting to it. +Dozia, look, a real door into the other attic," and she paid no +attention to the noise of falling articles swept aside in her wild +rush to open the low door, so completely hidden by the old Japanese +screen. + +"Jane! Jane!" begged her companion. "Really do go carefully. How can +you tell what's in that other place?" + +"I can't till I see," insisted Jane, her hand on the iron latch that +held the door in place. + +"At least wait until I get a club or something," begged Dozia +inadequately. "I've heard of queer animals being shut up in such +quarters and they have often made splendid ghosts of themselves, +too." + +But Jane had no ears for warnings, and while Dozia held on to the +blue plaid skirt Jane yanked away into the great unknown! + +"Oh, look!" she cried in that tragic way girls discover things. +"Just look!" + +They had opened up a big storeroom forgotten and abandoned, and in +it--were all sorts of college paraphernalia, such as is used in +theatricals. The room literally groaned with the stuff, and from the +mass one object stood out boldly and significantly: + +It was a suit of Japanese armor! + +Jane yelled in delight at the discovery and pointed it out to Dozia. + +"Don't touch it!" whispered Dozia. "It may be inhabited!" + +"Bosh!" roared Jane, laying hold of a dangling armlet. + +As she did so the chains rattled! The metallic clangings clanged and +the whole array of ghostly noises sounded out in the unholy hour of +three o'clock broad daylight! + +"The ghost! The ghost!" boomed Jane. "Dozia, see, this thing is hung +so it goes off at a touch. Oh, isn't it delicious! To have found it +and this way." + +"I'm nervous watching that disappearing door," whined Dozia. +"Suppose we should get walled up in here, just two babes in the +tower?" + +"I'm going to get this thing down and show it to the girls," defied +Jane. "Oh, Dozia, look there--a companion. One for you and one for +me. Let's get into them and go down stairs. The girls will be there +and--" + +"Say, little girl!" drawled Dozia. "Do you expect me to get in under +that scrap iron works?" + +"It's all padded," interrupted the excited Jane. "Here," she had the +armor off its big hook and simply made Dozia hold the tumbling +parts. "There's the helmet, the visor and these---" + +"The trunks," said Dozia. "Cute little rompers, aren't they?" + +"Called tonlets," said the intelligent Jane, sighing under the +weight of the outfit she was trying to shift to a trunk and a couple +of boxes. + +"I'd hate to have to get in that for a fire," remarked Dozia. She +was, however, trying on the scaly breastplate, and attempting to +poke her head into the helmet. "Are you sure this stuff is no +world's war relic? I wouldn't care to rub shoulders with some old +Prussian guard." + +"Why, girlie, aside from bagging the ghost, I think we have made a +great discovery. Think of this acquisition to Wellington!" and then +Jane proceeded to dress up. + +But things rattled and fell off almost as often as they were put on, +and it was not an easy matter to get inside of anything pertaining +to this dilapidated costume. + +When an old sword dropped from its hook on a rafter, Jane danced in +glee and declared "a ghost did it," although Dozia insisted she had +cut a piece of cord on that very hook. Finally Jane was "canned," as +Dozia described the state of being inside of tin things, and an +attempt was made to move. + +"If we should fall--" suggested Jane. + +But they didn't. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +"BEHOLD THE GHOST OF LENOX HALL!" + + +Dozia insisted on carrying the "tin rompers" down stairs in her +hands and donning them in a convenient place to avoid possible +disaster. + +"Yours are shorter and jauntier than mine, Jane," she argued. +"Besides, you have a better figure for tonlets. Come along, I'll +stop at the landing and buckle into the things. Give me a couple of +chains. Don't they chime beautifully?" + +"Wait a minute," Jane ordered. "I just discovered the usual slip of +paper." She was extracting it from an armlet. "It's quite new and +very modern, in fact regular typewriting kind--" + +"Oh, tuck it away and come along," Dozia moaned. "I hear the horde +howling and the sooner I get this stuff off the better I'll feel. +Pickles! but it's heavy." + +Jane folded the slip of paper and made it secure some place, then +they proceeded to forge their way into the recreation room on the +second floor, whither the students had been hastily summoned by the +matron. + +"Now I know how the baby tanks felt in the big war," panted Jane, +who was valiantly leading the way. "I mean those big human machines +that rolled over the earth and ploughed things down, as they went." + +"Say, Janie, just wait a minute," begged Dozia at the first landing. +"This looks a little like a joke but who is the joker? Who got up in +that place and rattled these nightly? Also, who let out that wild +scream we heard on that first night?" She was talking quickly and in +a subdued voice. "We may be breaking the spell by raiding the secret +chamber, but suppose the old spook breaks out in a new spot?" + +"I've thought of all that," confessed Jane, her smile threatening to +unhinge the visor. "But we must give the youngsters their show +first. The details will be lost in their joy of rescue." + +"They come! They come!" called out Miss Gifford in an uncertain +treble. She had been waiting to give this signal. + +"Land, I'm losing the panties," groaned Dozia, trying to hold up the +tonlets with one hand while she made wild grabs all over the outfit +with the other. Dozia's artistic effect was surely in jeopardy. +Majestically the two big, black walnut doors swung back, and the +crusaders passed between them. + +"Behold the ghosts of Lenox Hall!" cried out Jane tragically. + +"Behold, behold!" echoed Dozia, raising her arm in its chained +gusset and attempting to salute at the peak of her helmet. + +Shouts from the girls spoiled further efforts at the theatrical, and +presently it was no longer a question of holding the old armor in +place, but rather that of getting out of it safely, for what those +freshmen didn't say and do to those ghosts! + +"Nothing but strung up dishrags," sneered Maud Leslie. "They must +have looted every hardware store in town for these. Look!" + +She sacrilegiously yanked from their wire strings the metal +dishcloths such as are used for scouring purposes, and truth to tell +there was indeed a big collection in the string of armor. + +"Let's try the breastplate," begged Nellie Saunders. "I've always +longed to be a Joan of Arc." And she got her pretty hair inside the +head cage with the mouth trap under her chin, then she corseted on +the breastplate. + +"And THAT'S the ghost?" scoffed Margie Winters, sitting far off in +the corner safe from "spiritual" infection. + +"Disappointed?" asked Jane. + +"Of course I am," growled Margie. "I expected a holiday at least to +fumigate, and here we have nothing but a lot of perfectly sanitary +junk." + +"And I thought we would find a beautiful maniac walled up there," +sighed Velma Sigsbee. "It's a perfect shame to have the thing end so +unromantically." + +"Hard to suit you youngsters," commented Jane. She had fully +divested herself of the trappings, and now stood aside while the +freshmen surveyed the wreck. Someone suggested getting up surprise +theatricals and bringing before the whole college the "ghosts of +Lenox," This was a fuse to the bomb of excitement, and presently the +roll was called, secrecy pledged, and a committee of arrangements +appointed. Prompt freshmen! + +"Give Sally Howland a part," called out Ruth Lawrence. "She's just +suited for something angelic." + +"We'll transpose Othello and sprinkle it with cherubs," said Nellie +Saunders, who had been made chairman of the cast. "But the one thing +to remember, girls, is secrecy," she announced loftily. "No one +outside of Lenox must know what the ghosts are, or anything about +the show." + +"You'll find tons of stuff up there to fit out the entire +performance," Jane informed the excited students. "It seems to me +the things have been stored there for ages, and perhaps were the +remains of some very grand affair in the early history of +Wellington. Now, girls, are you fully satisfied the ghost is +annihilated?" + +"Perfectly," spoke up Nellie. "And we just don't know how to thank +you juniors. Cheers, girls, for our rescuers." + +They cheered with the freshmen's dirge. + +"One, two, button my shoe; three, four, knock at the door" (they +knocked at everything). + +"Five, six, pick up sticks" (wild grabs). + +"Sticks, sticks, freshies can's mix." + +"Rawr! rawr! freshies all sore" (moans and groans). + +"Gore, sore, r-o-a-r" (and they roared)! + +"Thanks," responded Jane when the roar died down, "and we're glad to +be initiated in your sorority. Have a lovely time and be sure to let +us know if you need help with the spook revue." + +Dozia chimed in feebly and slipped out after Jane. + +"They were actually disappointed," she remarked. "I believe they +hoped for real gore." + +"To tell the truth," admitted Jane, "it did seem a bit commonplace +after all the symptoms. But I almost forgot the little note. Did you +ever yet meet a case in which the written word played no part? Where +did I put that piece of paper?" + +"In your shoe?" suggested Dozia as Jane exhausted all other +possibilities. + +"No, here it is in my sleeve. Sit down and we'll decipher it." They +dropped to the nearest bench and smoothed out the paper. + +"It's part of a letter," said Dozia, "and written by a boy! Oh, joy, +now we will have some fun--a love letter!" and she pored over the +torn page. + +"Neither the beginning nor the end," said Jane, "but the climax." +She read: "'You are a brick if not a wizard, and oh, boy! how that +two hundred dollar check did look to me!'" + +"Two hundred!" Dozia repeated. "No girl around these diggings ever +handled that tidy little sum. Read on, Jane, it may be a will or +something, and we may come in for a share--reward, you know." + +"Here's our clue," announced Jane. "The name Shirley! Read that." +She did so herself. "'Shirley, however did you do it, I know you +neither stole nor borrowed, so it is all right and'--wait," +interposed Jane, "that's torn." She lay the paper on her knees and +fitted in the damaged parts. "Here it is. 'I'm back in college and +in the big dorm, after the scare, and it's wonderful to have a +little sis like you.'" + +"Sis!" groaned Dozia. "The lover's only a big brother!" She slumped +in her seat dejectedly. + +"Shirley's brother," reasoned Jane, "and we have been blaming that +girl! She helped her brother to get back to college!" The voice +reeked with dismay and incredulity. + +"Can you imagine college running in her family?" questioned Dozia +the incredulous. + +"I suppose we should hardly have read the letter--" + +"Why not? Should we have risked our precious lives up in that attic +and then turned down this important clue? Indeed I'm all for asking +Shirley to introduce me," and Dozia strutted off to show her height +if not to display the "runs" in her hose and the "threadbares" in +her sweater elbows. + +"But it does sort of take one down," mused Jane, following her +companion toward Warburton Hall. "I hate to feel I have so misjudged +Shirley." + +"Pure personal pride on your part, Jane. I have proof positive of +the girl's perfidy. Every single day I must paste anew the paper +decoration that hides her work. I mean that crack in my mirror. More +than once it has done dreadful things to my poor face. If I move +just one inch to the left the crack gashes my right cheek. You know +how a glass reflects. But this brother. May I see the paper, Jane? +His name might be between the lines." + +"Oh, it's Ted," said Jane innocently. "See the signature here, but +no address, of course. And from that immature hand, Doze, I am sure +Ted is a junior." + +"But, Jane!" almost gasped Dozia. "What can you do with that letter? +It would be positively dangerous to let Shirley know you found it. +It would mean, logically, that she rang the ghost chains, and that +you knew she had helped her brother financially." All the nonsense +had now died out of Dozia's voice, and she compelled Jane to stand +while she proclaimed this ultimatum. + +"But how could she get up there, Dozia, when we know positively she +was not on the campus the night of the big alarm?" + +"And little Sarah is innocent, I am sure," went on Dozia, "for she +handled that trash with an interest too keen for previous +acquaintance with the stuff. Each piece gave her a little spasm of +surprise. I watched just how it affected her." + +"Queer, I noticed that also," said Jane. "Yes, I'm sure she never +saw the armor before. But Shirley is never around in any excitement. +I am afraid she spends a lot of time in Dol Vin's." + +"But how could she ever get two hundred dollars for brother Ted?" + +"I--wonder, Dozia, could she be in partnership with Dol?" + +"She might, but wouldn't that mean an outlay?" + +"Of course. There'll be little profit there--and two hundred!" The +amount was appalling to Jane's practical mind. + +Voices broke in on the soliloquy. + +"Here come the girls from their ride, and what a shame you didn't +go, Jane. Laying a ghost is all right, but if I rode a horse as you +do, I'd assign the ghosts to others. 'Lo, girls! Break your necks or +anything?" chirped Dozia. + +Judith hurried to gain Jane's arm and squeezed it affectionately as +she fell in step. + +"Such a glorious ride, Jane!" enthused Judith, "and we all missed +you so much. Firefly was good, but he knew you were not on his +back." Judith looked "nobby" in her riding togs. + +"And whom do you think we saw out with a stable horse and +instructor?" asked Janet Clarke. "The Rebel Shirley Duncan! And you +know, Jane, what a price Clayton asks for his horses." + +Jane was amazed. A riding instructor, horse and hired outfit for +Shirley Duncan! + +What was the secret spring of her prodigious income? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FATEFUL FROLIC + + +Excitement subsided with a thud at the discovery of the cast-iron +ghost, and for some days a round of studies and basketball +completely absorbed the girls of Wellington. Whatever the restless +freshmen had in hand was not evident to the other classes, and only +Jane, Judith and Dozia shared the interest, and possible anxiety, +following the clues and suspicions in the undertow. + +"It's a dreadful thing to be proud," confessed Jane to these +companions after a rather too vigorous hour in the gym on Saturday +afternoon. "Somehow, when I think of my own darling daddy's +scholarship being dragged in the mud this way, I feel--dangerous." + +"Don't blame you," acquiesced Judith. "The very impudence of a girl +like Shirley breaking into college that way, then boasting she +doesn't care a whang what happens! What do you suppose WILL happen +at mid-year?" + +"A neat little note, 'unable to keep up with her class,' I suppose," +said Jane. "And while I don't wish that girl any more harm than +she's bent on, I am bound to confess I would sigh in relief at her +departure." + +"But that lovely brother Ted," mourned Dozia. Judith had been made +fully acquainted with the fragmentary letter recovered in the ghost +raid. + +"That would be hard," agreed Judith. + +"And I'm sure there's a sweet little mother--but we saw the mother!" +Jane broke off suddenly. "How incongruous that those two country +folks should have a son at college like our Ted!" + +"Our Ted," echoed Judith, allowing her head to droop on Jane's +shoulder impressively. + +"Awful!" moaned Judith. + +"Turrible," groaned Dozia. + +They were walking leisurely up from the gym, and the clouds of young +Winter wrapt the gay sunset in fleecy blankets, while capering elves +picked up every frightened little leaf and tossed it cruelly from +its hiding place. + +"It seems to me," said Jane, influenced by the spirit of her +surroundings, "that this year has been rather unsatisfactory. Not +that I want to shine by the reflected glory of dad's winner, but it +would be consistent to have the scholarship always won by good +students." + +"Rather a jolt," agreed Judith, "to have the romp come in on merit +when she can't prove it. It really looks like a trick somewhere, +Jane." + +"But the exams are very severe and I've seen the report. Nothing +'foohey' about that. Yes, I have known girls to sail along +beautifully in school and flunk everything in college. It really can +be done." + +"But two hundred dollars can't be done that way," Dozia interposed, +"and no one seems to be missing her change purse." + +"Beyond me," Jane owned up, "and I've almost ceased to wonder about +the dumb-waiter tenant. Wish you would agree to my ascent in that +car, Judith." + +"Yes, you want a party to your folly. You don't feel free to break +your pretty neck without fastening the crime on poor Judy Stearns. +No, Jane, dear, you don't ride in that Ferris wheel while I'm your +side partner. You know scorpions are deadly and love dark corners. +Ugh! How could you think of going up in that beastly cage!" + +"Don't get excited, dear, I have promised not to try it," acceded +Jane. "Although I have felt there might be some clue in the old +derrick. Don't go indoors yet, the air is--" + +She stopped to watch two girls on horseback gallop along the bridle +path. + +"Shirley Duncan and some stranger," exclaimed Judith. "And how they +are going--oh, mercy!" + +"Oh, oh!" screamed all three, for at that moment both riders were +vainly trying to check their horses in a sudden dash down one of the +steepest grades, straight over a hill almost perpendicular in its +slope. + +"The horses have left the path," breathed Jane, watching with +fascinated gaze the two mounts galloping down at a speed surely +disastrous. One, the taller girl, seemed to have some control, but +poor Shirley! + +"Heavens!" screamed Judith, "she's gone!" + +The horse had stumbled and its rider was rolling headlong down the +hill, while the frightened animal pawed the earth in a wild attempt +to regain its feet. The girls, terrified, started swiftly for the +spot, but even as they ran the unfortunate rider went over a sharper +turn and struck. Then--she lay in an inert heap against a jagged +rock! In a moment they were at her side. + +"Her head!" exclaimed Jane, frightened at the deathly face she now +stared down at. + +"Can we carry her? This is so far from a building," gasped Judith. +"Oh, Jane, see the blood!" + +"I can easily carry her," answered Dozia quickly. "Let me pick her +up, and take her or my shoulder." + +"Wait," Jane cautioned. "It might be dangerous. We must stretch her +out flat so that her head is down. There, she may soon regain +consciousness. I wonder if one of us should run up to Madison?" + +"I'll go," volunteered Judith, evidently glad to escape from the +horror of the scene. "See, the other rider is still galloping! She +can't stop her horse. Oh, how terrible if the runaway gets out among +the autos." + +"Hurry, Judith," Jane begged. "Have them bring a stretcher. I am +sure we shouldn't lift her head; her face is bloodless." + +"She appears to be recovering," Dozia whispered. "Poor Shirley! How +dreadful that this should happen!" + +"If only she lives," moaned Jane, contrition in voice. Somehow it +was unbearable that this country girl had been so severely censored +by Jane and her companions. As she lay there, all the horrors of her +unhappy school days seemed to fly up and strike Jane in a charge of +bitterness. + +"I'm sure she is only stunned," Dozia said consolingly. "See, Jane, +there is a tiny streak of color coming. She will soon react." + +Yes, the pallor was melting into a film more lifelike, but the heavy +eyelids looked so deathly! How awful to gaze upon that mockery of +death-complete unconsciousness'. + +"Her horse is walking off quietly, Jane," again Dozia spoke. "I +believe the animal is wise enough to know he should not go without +his rider." + +Even the riderless horse, with his solemn clip-clapping, echoed a +terrifying note to the scene. It was all so appalling. + +"Shirley! Shirley!" whispered Jane, close to the ear of the stricken +girl. + +Then "Shirley?" repeated the blue lips in a questioning answer. +"Where? Oh, my head!" and a spasm of pain struck across the white +face. + +"You are all right, Shirley, dear," Jane comforted, relief in her +voice. "You just fell from your horse. Lie still until we can take +you to the infirmary. Do you feel a little better?" How wonderful to +hear the stricken girl speak again! + +"The awful noise in my ears!" she gasped. "Like a torrent rushing--" + +"That's only the returning circulation," said Dozia in the same +quiet monotone Jane had used. + +What a relief! To know her mind was clear! And the blood streak on +her neck seemed now only from surface scratches--the briars had torn +her flesh cruelly as she dashed down that hill. + +Over the same hill, but not by the same route, could now be seen the +stretcher bearers. With four seniors were also Miss Rutledge, the +dean, and Miss Fairlie, the matron of Madison. They were hurrying +and silent, only the light tread of crackling leaves on the bridle +path accompanying the grave little procession. + +Jane and Dozia were chafing Shirley's hands. At the approach of the +litter they stood waiting to lift with gentle hands the prostrate +girl. It seemed so strangely pathetic: the big country girl in that +gay riding habit, the glaring red coat such a contrast now to the +helpless wearer. Her little velvet jockey cap still held on with its +chin strap, and the new chamois gloves hiding her untamed hands were +so strikingly new! + +Few words were spoken as the rescuers met. Miss Rutledge gave quiet +orders and these were carried out with intelligent care. Finally +Shirley was on the canvas stretcher, and Jane was holding a +restorative close to her nostrils. + +"There, dear. It's all done and you won't move another bit now to +hurt your head. See how steadily the girls carry you?" + +Dozia held one hand opposite Jane's side and the older students +moved, over the uncertain hill, tense and powerful against a +possible jolt or jarring movement of the patient. Once down on the +path the task was less difficult, and as the corps turned back to +take the path from the gateway into the grounds again, Shirley's +horse, standing by the post, whinnied after them. No one spoke, but +Shirley put a gloved hand over her strained eyes, and it was plain +she feared even the sound of the faithful animal's call to her. + +At the infirmary Dr. Pawley was waiting, and quickly as they reached +the big white room the students were dismissed, while he and his +nurse took charge. + +"Judy," Jane gulped, but before they could reach a secluded spot her +tense nerves gave way. + +"Judy! Judy!" she cried. "Why didn't we try to save her from those +reckless strangers? Why didn't we beg her to give up the company of +Dolorez Vincez?" + +"But we did, Janie. We tried every possible way," consoled Judith. +"This accident could happen to anyone--to a skilled rider as well as +to a beginner. Besides--she will be all right. See how quickly she +became fully conscious!" + +"But to think--" Jane's words were lost in choking sobs, and for the +first time Judith saw what genuine grief could do to sunny little +Jane Allen. + +Wisely her companion allowed the storm to beat itself out. That sort +of hysteria is always best spent unchecked, and Judith Stearns +merely stroked the red gold head that had buried itself in her lap, +while the shoulders pulsed and throbbed under Jane's continuous +sobbing. At last she raised her head and smiled piteously. + +"I feel better," she said. "It's awful to have that sort of thing +clutch at one's throat. Now my weakness has passed, let us see if +there is anything wanted. Hereafter I shall not trust dad's +scholarship girl to strangers' handling." And she meant every word +she said. + +Quickly the news of the accident spread, and gust as quickly came +the keen suspense and wave of suppressed excitement. Rumors were +whispered: first that the victim was in danger of death, next that +her injuries were not serious, until even the most sensational among +the many pupils realized the importance of withholding their +opinions. + +Hushed voices around that part of college where the infirmary was +situated bespoke an active sympathy, and the weight of oppression +that comes with dread had suddenly changed the whole atmosphere into +a cloud of gloom. + +Dear, thoughtless, headstrong Shirley! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE MIRACLE + + +The days of watching and anxiety that followed the accident left no +time for the lesser interests among Shirley's group at Wellington. +For that awful uncertain period there was grave danger of brain +concussion, and in the fear of that it must be said every girl in +Lenox, besides many outside the freshmen's quarters, showed their +loyalty to the untamed country girl. No messages could be sent, no +flowers even allowed to attest to their kindness, as in the critical +time absolute solitude was imperative. Then, like a flash of that +robust country vitality, the patient rallied and all danger was +pronounced past. + +One particular, however, caused Jane keen annoyance. All messages to +Shirley's folks had been passed out through Dolorez Vincez, who +claimed to be a personal friend of the family. Not even a mother +would have been allowed to see the patient, and as Shirley begged +that this plan of Dolorez' agency be carried out, no objection was +made to it by the very much alarmed dean, Miss Rutledge. + +Another puzzling detail was the fact that Sarah Howland begged Jane +not to interfere with these arrangements, as any such interference +would undoubtedly shock the stricken girl, she argued. Sally and +Jane had just left Lenox and were discussing these details. + +"And I'm so glad now," breathed Sally in her entreaty to Jane, "that +you listened to me and did not report that matter to Miss Rutledge." + +"So am I," said Jane in bewilderment. "I am glad of anything I may +have done to make her path smoother here. I can't see why Dolorez +should step in at this critical moment, though, but I do know she +took Shirley's folks around when they were here, and as you say, +Sally, to suddenly change the whole line of communication with her +family might not only shock Shirley, but also terrify her folks. +What a relief that she is now out of danger!" + +"I felt like running away at first," confessed Sally, "it was so +terrifying. But I realized I might be the very one most wanted here- +-if anything serious should happen." + +Jane cast a quick inquiring glance at the younger girl following +that statement, but was not rewarded by a further gleam of +confidence. + +"I'm afraid I have neglected her," said Jane, "and I mean to make +amends. The juniors usually help backward freshmen, but Shirley +seemed to resent my attempts even at friendship." + +"Miss Allen," said Sarah in a compelling voice, "you may not know it +but--that girl is gifted at mathematics. She can solve the most +difficult problems and is always ahead at geometry and trig. Other +studies seem to confuse her, and she just laughs at the languages, +but she's a perfect gem at math." + +"Is that so? I'm so glad!" exclaimed Jane, "for if she is capable at +math she ought to pull through her other work. How strange I never +heard anyone mention her talent?" + +Sally shook her head and smiled. "She is so odd and defiant, but +under it all I believe the girl is just a big-hearted, untamed +creature. That is why, Miss Allen, I have kept as near to her as she +would allow me to come. She is too honest even to affect changes." + +"Capable at math?" Jane repeated, trying to believe it. "I am so +glad, Sally. I can't tell you what it means to me that this student +is not wholly--dull." + +"I can guess," replied Sally simply, and Jane wondered then if she +knew about the scholarship. + +"Why did the girls abandon their plans for the ghost show?" asked +Jane suddenly. "I thought they were all so keen about it." + +"Perhaps I am to blame," faltered Sally timidly. "But you see, Miss +Allen--well, there was a complication there--and--" she stumbled +piteously. Jane tried to rescue her. + +"But it would only have been a lark, and the freshmen have had no +Barnstorm this season!" + +"I know," said Sally helplessly, "but Shirley was so sick and--we +have given the idea up." + +Jane had to be content with that, but the veiled explanation only +whetted her curiosity. + +Few accidents were recorded in Wellington's history, and the mishap +of Shirley ran its course in intense interest. Then presently the +patient was again defending herself just as before, scorning even +the humblest sympathy offered. + +"Served me right," she insisted, talking to Sally. "I know how to +ride and can handle any old farm horse that ever pulled a plough, +but I want my hands free and my horse must be unchecked. Stylish +togs, gloves, saddles and trappings get in my way, and that hill!" + +So the accident had served as a lesson, and the fallen pride was not +wasted in its effect upon the ambitious equestrian. + +Thanksgiving had passed with few of the girls leaving college, as +special permission was required for that privilege, and now the +holiday season was imminent. Even basketball had lost some of its +power to enthuse, and the fact that Shirley was not considered well +enough to go into the rough game, and also that Sally Howland was +too small and light to be eligible, served to lessen the interest of +Jane and Judith in the personnel of the teams, for as juniors in a +second extension year they felt a little too grown up to go +themselves generally into the big games. + +Jane was chosen and acted as referee, and Judith was forced to play +center in the Breslin game, but even winning over the neighboring +academy somehow had lost its thrill. Golf was the popular game now +with Jane, Judith, Dozia and Janet Clarke; Ted Guthrie, too, toddled +around the links, and golf permitted such opportunities for +confidences and was so independent of stated hours and limits of +endurance that time was given on the course to talk many things +over. + +The girls had covered the frosted field and were returning before +the first period of study, and that magic beautifier, the air of +early morning, left little undone in his art of tone and tonic for +Jane and Judith, when they dropped their bags and hurried to the +day's tasks in mental exploits, + +"This very afternoon I am going to talk with Shirley," Jane decided. +"And wouldn't it be wonderful, Judy, if she turned out worth while +after all?" + +"No, it wouldn't," glowered Judith. "Any girl who can be as sick as +she was and not have her brother Ted come to see her--well, my +interest lags at that point and I don't intend to 'rouse it." + +"I still have that letter," Jane reflected. "Never seem to get a +chance to turn it in. And I didn't want to destroy it." + +"Give it to me, Janie, do," teased Judith. "Next to knowing the +darling Ted, having his letter in installments might serve. Tonight +we'll read it over again. It seems so long since we found it with +the ghost." + +"Doesn't it? And even the play was given up when Shirley was +stricken." + +"But they used the armor the other night in their pageant," said +Judith, "and everyone thought it wonderful. What a shame they +expunged the ghost story." + +"Freshmen are so unreliable," sagely commented Jane. "But I'm afraid +outside influence spoiled the plot for the spook tragedy. I hope my +things come today for the prom. I feel rather in need of a first +class time under the beneficent influence of a real orchestra and +prudently shaded lights." + +"Me, too," agreed Judith promptly if inelegantly. + +So the gay season advanced apace, and it was soon one round of +trying on gowns and fussing with sample hair dressing in all the +"dorms" of Wellington. For the one big function known simply as The +Dance all students were eligible, and it was just in advance of this +that Shirley "broke loose." + +She openly and unqualifiedly "cut loose" from Dol Vin's +"interference," as she called it. + +"I'm through with her," she told her companions; but it was to Sally +she confided the details. + +The girls had been planning their dance costumes and Sally was +insisting she did not care to go to the dance, when Shirley took +another spasm of revolt. She would never again go into that hateful +place, she declared, and more than that, she threatened exposure to +the beauty shop methods if its proprietor did not soon return some +of the "loans" long over due to her (Shirley). + +"Kitten," she exploded without warning, "I've had my lesson. Do you +know that Dol Vin is actually sending bills to my innocent dad for +her entertainment of the country folks? Imagine all she's begged and +borrowed from me to meet 'emergencies' in her business, and then to +ask my dad to pay her dinner bills! Of course she thinks I'm +helpless, and that she has me in her power, but I am not such a +'greenie' now. And we will both be free soon!" + +The deep-set eyes took on a look more confident than defiant, and +even "Kitten" did not fail to observe a marked improvement in the +speaker's manner and appearance. + +Shirley was powerful and forceful, with that unruly aggressiveness +conspicuous in young children, when the weakness is classified as +"having their own way" before twelve years, and as "being capable" +after that--the latter faculty true fruit of the former germ. So it +was with this country girl; her very crimes were molding into +virtues, and that again proves a world old philosophy. + +"Your hair is very becoming that way," ventured the blonde Sally, +whose own hair was always a most exacting halo--Sally had to live up +to it. "And you don't mind being called Bobbie?" + +"I like it," answered Shirley. "I suppose you know what a time I had +to get the wig back to hair after the treatment. I am positive that +east side French woman was trying an experiment on my poor head. But +among other things the accident did for me, it gave my hair a chance +to shoot." She ran her long fingers through the rather stubby growth +that had taken on a decided unruliness in splendid imitation of +curl. "You see it was rubbed every day, and that charitable nurse +rubbed curl right in it. I just love it and wouldn't interfere with +it for anything. Curling hair artificially, I know, simply makes it +cranky." + +"Yes, spoils its temper and breaks its character. Just like twisting +a tender vine and forcing it to turn away from its chosen paths. How +are you getting on with your cramming? Can I help you?" asked Sally, +diverging suddenly. + +"Hopeless," replied the other. "I don't believe I'll wait to face +the music." + +"Oh, you must, Miss Allen is so interested----" + +"That's the hard part of it now. I can't face Miss Allen. She's such +a good sport." The bobbed brown head was suddenly dropped into her +cupped hands reflectively. "You see, at first, Kitten, I was just a +rebel; satisfied to get in here and to have the name of it. Then, +these girls whom I so despised were so fine to me," again the look +of dejection, "and, girlie, when I lay on my back at the foot of +that hill and Jane Allen whispered 'Shirley' into my buzzing ears-- +it did something to me." Her companion allowed the pause to act +without venturing to interrupt it. It was the working of the +miracle! "Yes, and she meant it, too," went on Shirley +reflectively. "No silly stuff just because she feared I was done +for. She and big, brown-freckled Dozia just seemed to drag me back +to earth, while the other!" her eyes blazed. "Do you know why I have +never spoken of my companion on that hateful ride?" + +"No--I've wondered?" + +"I've been ashamed to," declared Shirley, "and thankful the juniors +who helped me did not torture me with questions. Well--she was that +foreign element with a name like a crocheted alphabet and a face +like a week old Easter egg--running its colors, you know. Dol has +her down from New York to practice for the stage," this thought +revived Shirley's spirits and she gave a gay howl. "I can see why +she needs the woods to practice the yells she's cultivating," a foot +was kicked out at the thought. "But I'm through with them, Kitten, +but please don't think I've reformed," she gasped. "I despise +turncoats and--traitors." + +Shirley wore an angora tarn, leaf green sweater and big plaid golf +skirt just then. No one in Wellington could have criticised her +outfit. Even her attire seemed benefited by the miracle. + +"Bye-by, little sister," she addressed Sally. "This experience has +done something else for me other than opening my stupid eyes--it has +given me a real chum." + +And she got away before Sally could answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +TOUCHSTONE + + +"Have you noticed, Judy," asked Jane, "what a miraculous improvement +is manifest in our two pet freshies? To wit: Sally and Shirley." + +"Yes," snapped Judith, "and I've noticed something else. You are apt +to fall in love with the rebel." + +Jane laughed. She was looking so lovely after a wild time in the +pool, and a girl who can look well after a swim is surely very +pretty. But Jane's hair loved the water, and a flash of sunshine +after it just whipped the little ringlets into flossy tangles. Then +her eyes always danced from excitement, and her agile form just +vibrated energy. Don't blame Jane for this description--it is given +through Judy's eyes, whose hair went stringy, whose eyes went +blinky, and who actually turned "goose flesh" from a pool swim in +December. + +"No," said Jane, "I couldn't really love a girl who has been so +temperamental, but I could tolerate her, and that's a concession." + +"If I don't rub down quickly I'm afraid these goose fleshings will +freeze into pebbles. I fee like a big stone as it is," said Judith, +shivering, chattering and turning bluer. "Wait for me in the run; I +want to talk to you." + +The "run" was that part of the gym kept clear for free exercise and +was used especially by such students as demanded a substitute for +the "beach run in the sand" after swimming. Also, it gave space for +track work, although the open season for cross country runs was +rarely closed at Wellington. + +Jane was dressed and out before Judith appeared. It was Saturday +again, a free day; free from study but simply crowded with other +contingencies. Students were knotted together, ready for basketball, +golf, handball and all other forms of exercise, not to omit the +dress rehearsal at dancing already well under way in a corner clear +of apparatus and ropes. Here girls were dreamily dancing who knew +how to dance well, while others were showing steps to companions and +comparing notes on new dances, as applied from various sections of +the country. What Boston had last year, Chicago was disclaiming as +too old; and again there was Maud Leslie from Jersey actually +teaching Nellie Saunders from Buffalo the Drop Step. + +Inez Wilson was endangering her life and limb "toeing" and each time +she pirouetted on those toes, without the usual padding of the +oriental shaped supports, a perfect flock of other dancers slid from +danger of her avalanche. + +"You'll skid, Ina!" yelled Nellie Brocton. "Besides, this dance +isn't going to be for soloists," and Nettie swung away with Janet, +crooning and humming to the imaginary orchestra. + +Judith came out from the lockers, a challenge now to the effects of +her long swim. True, her hair was wispy, and every snap on her +blouse had not joined its partner, but taking her all in all Judith +Stearns "looked dandy" and said she felt just like that. + +"I'm too lazy to run," she told Jane, "besides, my shoe laces would +trip me. I'm plenty warm and proof positive against getting cold. +Sit down while I tie my shoes." + +"See Shirley and Sally practicing," remarked Jane indifferently. + +"I don't want to!" retorted Judith. "Jane, I'm alarmed and I know +your sinister motive. You have heard Teddy is coming to the dance!" + +"No!" gasped Jane, unable to hide her surprise. + +"There, I knew you would take it that way. But be warned! Teddy is +to be my partner for as many dances as his sister can spare," and +Judith tucked a wad of shoestring in at her ankles as if the pocket +were in a commodious knitting bag instead of a tennis shoe. + +"I hope he's fat and awkward and red headed and clumsy," snapped +Jane, tearing off the qualifications like coupons. + +"And I know he's tall and graceful and has chestnut hair," fawned +Judith. "I've loved Ted from the moment I saw how he curls his cross +letters like a riding crop. That's always a sign of originality and +genius." There was a hint of strut in Judith's ordinarily graceful +motion, and tiny drops of pool water flicked her eyelashes +unnoticed. When Judith Stearns professed to "love a boy" she did so +heroically, though he be myth or just an ordinary "full back." + +Jane made her way over to the dancers' corner. Shirley was howling +over her own failure at the Drop Step. She choked back her +uproariousness as Jane came along. + +"Can't do it," she confessed. "Guess I shall have to stick to 'One +Steps.'" + +"Every fault is an art at the big dance," said Jane. "It's the one +chance we have to stand by our home towns; we all seem to dance so +differently. But that's very good, Shirley. I wouldn't give it up if +you really want to get it. There's just a queer little knack this +way." She threw her arm around the novice and led her off. Judith +had condescended to follow Jane up and was now talking to Sally. + +For the length of the "arena" Jane and Shirley struggled along, +chatting and smiling without restraint or self-consciousness. Girls +"made eyes" in criticism, but none ventured to shape their criticism +into words, for the rebel Shirley was doing pretty well in +everything these days, and why should not a junior take her up if +she wished to? + +At the turn Shirley drew Jane aside from the dancers and said in an +undertone: + +"Miss Allen, I do wish you could persuade little Kitten--I mean +Sally, to come to the dance. First, I was determined not to go and +she persuaded me. Then I found she herself had no idea of attending. +Of course it's always a question of clothes!" + +"Surely we must insist on her coming," said Jane decisively. "But it +is awkward to get around clothes. You know her so well, can you +suggest a way?" Jane dared not hint that she would ask nothing +better than providing the dance dress for little Sally herself. + +"She is so proud, and then lately she has had reverses," said +Shirley gently. "But if she doesn't go I simply won't. Nothing could +induce me to," and she flashed through with her old time defiance. + +"But this one dance is counted the real get-together of the whole +year," argued Jane. "When a girl absents herself it usually sort of +disqualifies her for all the other affairs. Besides, it is really a +benefit and we do so need a new dormitory." + +"If we could smuggle a box to her and pretend---Here she comes! I'll +think it over and come for advice if I may," said Shirley quickly. + +Jane stepped back to the dancers' whirling rim. She was almost +deciding that the country girl was charming! But like the country +girl herself, Jane detested "reformers" and was unwilling to admit +that a change of heart is something wholesome and even commendable. +She knew naught of the miracle. + +More puzzled than ever at Shirley's proposal that they "smuggle a +box to Sally," Jane became anxious lest Shirley might be getting +funds from some unusual, if not unlawful, source. The malicious +influence of Dol Vin was ever a disturbing factor to be reckoned +with, and as yet Jane had no way of knowing that the confidential +relation between the two freshmen and the beauty parlor proprietor +had been broken off. + +Later that day Jane confided in Judith. + +"What would I do if I had no Judy to tell my troubles to," she said +with a show of sincerity. "You may talk about new loves, but there +is, and only will be, one darling Judy." + +"Don't kiss me," protested Judy, although Jane was on the other side +of the room and gave no hint of any such intention. "I can't bear +being babied--makes me homesick." Then she laughed and blew a +substitute over to Jane. "Have you seen my dance frock? I know Ted +will adore it. Even the box is pretty and has violets on the cover," +she sniffed. "I'll try it on tonight--not the box--and make believe +you're Teddy." + +"Judy, if some of the girls were to hear you rave that way they +might take it seriously----" + +"And they would be perfectly justified in so doing," mocked Judith. + +"Please hear me. I want to talk seriously and started off with such +a lovely preamble," interrupted Jane. "It's this way, Judy. Shirley +shows the earmarks of wealth, I mean money. Now, where does she get +it, and after that poor boy's letter?" + +"If I only knew," pursued Judith, refusing to be serious. "How I'd +love two hundred!" + +"Well, we have got to find out where it comes from," fired back +Jane, flushing with determination. "I am not going to be fooled by a +change in manner and an improvement in style. If beauty shop money +is beginning to flow in here it must be stopped." + +"Bravo! We haven't had a real lively little scrap since the ghost +fell, and I'd love it." + +"You may joke, Judith, but----" + +"Calling me by my baptismal name settles it," said Judith, with +assumed finality. "I'll apologize, Jane Allen. What do you propose +to do, and when are you going to do it? May I act as your honorable +secretary?" + +"Yes, come with me tonight and pay a visit at Lenox. I want to talk +Sally into going to the dance. The girls are so fond of her and she +happens to be one of our pets. I really don't know how it happens +but it has, and it would look shabby if we were to leave her out. So +she must come." + +"Got to," agreed Judith. "She's so smart, every freshman is envious. +Did you hear Miss Roberts, the real Noah Webster of Wellington, rave +about her thesis?" + +"Clever girls are so apt to cut dances," said Jane. "We must assume +the missionary spirit---" her voice trailed solemnly. + +This was too much for the turbulent Judith, as Jane intended it +should be. + +"I'll go, I'll go!" she cried out in protest. "Although I hate to +think of Teddy having to choose between me and daffodilly Sally; +still I'll go, Jane, to save you another spasm like that. Where's +the Logic? Do you suppose Ethics will be easier? Or perhaps worse-- +likely worse," she was slamming book pages violently. "Now don't +speak to me for one half hour. Then do your worst." + +But while Judith was studying Jane slipped out of the room +ostensibly for a breath of fresh air. All her chum's hilarity was +appreciated, but just now things were assuming a serious turn and +Jane felt some responsibility for the swing of the turntable. + +"Judy's a dear, but she hasn't a daddy's scholarship to fight for," +Jane told herself. "And the marked change in my rebellious Shirley +may only be a preliminary to another outbreak. I've just got to see +the girls before the lecture," and she flew from the inopportune +mirth of Judith Stearns. + +Shirley and Sarah were together in Shirley's room--not at the foot +of the attic stairs now, but a tiny "nest" under the artistic eaves, +chosen for effect on the purse, as well as on the eye. + +"I can't do it," Shirley was arguing, as Jane came to the door. "I +simply am through at mid-year." + +Surprised at this statement, Jane knocked quickly to forestall +further disclosure. Both girls answered, and Jane found them glad-- +even anxious to see her. + +"You are both surely coming to the dance," she began, falling into +Sally's prettiest cushions. "I came over just to make sure." "Oh, +Miss Allen," wavered Sally. "I can't go----" + +"Now, Sally," Jane began, "please don't consider it is at all +ignoble to be financially embarrassed. In fact, more than half of +our girls are continually 'rationed,' as they call a cut in +allowance. And if it is only a matter of a pretty little flowered +gown----" + +"No, that isn't it," interrupted Sally. + +"The fact is, Miss Allen, we are both getting ready to--escape," +said Shirley, with a double-edged laugh. + +"Escape?" + +"Go home and desert!" + +Jane showed her astonishment. "You couldn't mean anything like +that!" she gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't be so disloyal!" + +The girls looked at each other, puzzled, neither seeming to know +what might be best to reply. Finally Shirley said: + +"You must know, Miss Allen, I am totally unprepared for exams, and I +see no reason why I should face them. I plan to stay home after the +Christmas vacation." + +"Shirley!" exclaimed Jane. "If you ever knew my dad you wouldn't +treat him like that," her voice quavered with excitement. "He seems +to think more of the record of his scholarship girl than of his own +daughter's achievements. Oh, you can't mean you are going to cut!" + +"Your daddy!" repeated Shirley. "I didn't suppose he cared a snap +for his--beneficiary." + +"Beneficiary indeed! He called you a very different name. He is a +great, big western man, with a heart as fine as the hills and a soul +as true as their granite." Jane did not pause to note the effect of +her words, although Shirley was almost gasping. "He has what some +might call a deep personal interest in the girl he sponsors at +Wellington, but it's more than interest," she was almost breathless, +"it's affection; my dad just naturally loves the girl he sends here, +and if she fails him utterly---" + +"Stop! Miss Allen, please do," Shirley entreated. Her face was +flushed and her breathing plainly audible. "I had no idea it was +like that. Your dad would care? And I would be a coward?" + +Sally stood like one shocked into deadly silence. Not even her lips +parted, and the color left her face sickly white. + +"Don't you know, don't you understand what it means for a student to +deliberately flunk? Not even to try?" demanded Jane. + +"Bobbie!" said Sally to the big girl who was trying to find words. +"We have got to try--you cannot--go." + +Then Jane knew why the girls had been calling Shirley Bobbie. It was +her companion's affectionate name for her. + +"Yes, Kitten," Shirley said. "We have got to, but now, how can we do +it?" + +The situation was becoming more difficult each moment, and when +presently Jane Allen left the two freshmen, she had taken on the +weight of a new mystery. + +Those girls were in a conspiracy to desert before exams. Why? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +CRAMMING EVENTS + + +"Now, what can we do? However are we going to get out of this?" +Sally asked Shirley. They seemed desperate. + +"I don't know. How differently things have turned out from our +expectations? I wouldn't mind anything but that darling dad of +Jane's. The thought sickens me," and the bobbed head drooped +dejectedly. + +"But I am more at fault than you," sobbed Sally. "I feel like +running away from everything." + +"So do I, but we neither will do it. That's the trouble with +reformation. I told you I should hate to be reformed--it tags on so +many responsibilities. But we are both in for it. And the dance and +Ted wanting to come!" + +"Yes, isn't it just dreadful? What shall we do?" + +"He has got to come, of course. Couldn't disappoint that boy. Oh, +I'll tell you, Kitten! Let's write and tell him he must play cousin +to both of us. We'll give him a name, say Teddy Barrett, and then +all the girls will be crazy about him, and he will be sure to go in +for a lark!" + +"That might do," agreed Sally. "It would seem cruel to keep him +away. But how about our mail? We can't have it come to Dol's box any +more." + +"Don't want to; won't have anything to do with her," snapped +Shirley. "I have a box of our own, and don't see why we didn't think +of it before. She is writing me all sorts of apologies, of course, +just wants more money, but I know now we might have done this whole +thing differently if it had not been for her interference. It was +she who scared us so of Jane Allen and her friends. And they would +have been such a help if I had not been--so mulish." + +"Never mind," Sally tried to console her. "We could not possibly +foresee--although I should like to foresee how to get out of it all +without scandalizing Jane." + +"Trust one step to lead to the next," said Shirley, and that sounded +like a proverb of Jane's. (Queer how much Jane and Shirley were +alike fundamentally.) "Write to Ted and we'll have one 'whale' of a +time at the dance." + +"But I haven't decided to go?" + +"Oh, yes, you have, Kitten. Wait until you see the old fairy +godmother unload her pumpkin. Or did she carry the dress on a +broomstick? I forget the details. At any rate, while I'm thinking of +a way to appease the wrath of Jane's father by not dishonoring his +scholarship, it is the very least you can do to get ready for the +dance. I know where you can hire a love of a dress--lots of girls do +it--" as Sally drew up a little, "and it only costs five dollars. +Let me give you that for Christmas. Write your letter, or shall I do +it? Bamboozle Ted until he won't even guess our real meaning, but +insist we are his cousins, with first names only." + +"But he would have to introduce us to his boy friends?" objected +Sally. + +"Well, that's all right. He can do that and we'll just tell him we +are playing a joke. College boys adore jokes, don't they?" + +"Pretty much of a muddle, but I'll try it," assented Sally finally. +"And I suppose I could spare that five dollars." + +"I can at any rate. And did you see Miss Allen stare when you called +me Bobbie?" + +"Yes, but many of the girls have taken that up. It goes so well with +your bobbed hair. Don't mind do you?" + +"Not a bit. Call me Pickles if you like--that would go well with my +disposition." Shirley was hurriedly gathering up books and papers +from the little table both girls used as a desk in Sally's room +under the eaves. "Do you realize we have spent one hour talking? +It's all very well for you, Kitten; you can have a recitation +prepared or write a theme as easily as I can fail. If I had your +talent I would never leave this college without an A.B.," she +declared emphatically. + +"I wonder, Bobbie, did we make a gigantic mistake. If we had not +been so influenced by Dol Vin's idea, perhaps we might have managed +some way without all that hateful pretense. I can't help blaming +myself dreadfully. And to think Miss Allen is so kind without being +patronizing---" + +"Look here, Kit," demanded Shirley. "I know YOU could have come here +without that plan, but what could have put ME through? Nothing but +the scholarship. So please don't be getting morbid. We may have been +foolish, but we did what seemed right, and Dol Vin was a mighty +convincing friend, I'll admit. The question now is the dance, then +Ted, and then--I don't know, maybe I'll escape in the night," and +the old time rebel spirit danced in the sharp, dark eyes. + +Sally piled up her notes and followed Shirley out to recitation. It +was not easy now to finish the task which at first seemed almost +alluring. It was like trying to uproot some gentle affection to plan +to actually leave Wellington. + +The girls' secret was spreading poisonous tendrils over every other +act and thought; nothing now seemed untouched by that malicious +deception, and the very crisis now imminent--was ugly! And this was +what both had planned and worked for--to leave Wellington at +midyear? + +They had not reckoned on the power of girls' love for girls, and of +education's influence on sentiment. + +Sally Howland had been steeling herself against "growing fond of +things" and that very repression made her its victim; Shirley Duncan +defied these conditions and was punished with a "true case" of the +epidemic called Environment. So that both now seemed all but +helpless at the crisis. + +A day or two before the dance, when arrangements were running as +smoothly as the little lake that dripped through the big grounds of +Wellington, a general hike was planned. Each department, freshmen, +sophs, juniors and seniors, arranging to go out tramping over the +wonderful hills of upper New York state, touching quarries, testing +rocks, hunting nuts and cramming into the one pre-holiday jaunt such +various needs of outdoor work as were found in the studies then +being under test in all grades and classes. + +Thus far it was an open winter; no snow, flurries failing miserably +to do more than make the air look pretty for a few minutes, and even +brooks had kept up their rippling music, chattering away over rock +and rill, blissfully unconscious that Winter's deathly breath must +soon paralyze every little vein and artery into a rigid, frozen +crystal surface. + +The December hike was a fixture at Wellington, and as many of the +faculty as could do so went with the classes, to urge, to inspire, +to prompt and to supervise; not to omit the more enjoyable function +of chumming with the students. Troopers they all were, dressed in +imitation of the Girl Scouts as far as khaki went around, the others +sporting golf togs and carrying water bottles or even "grub" in the +convenient golf bags slung over sturdy young shoulders. + +No need to dwell on the glories of that day, for a hike on paper +carries little sport and usually less material of vital interest. A +hike must be "hiked" to be real, the "grub" must be munched by the +side of a stream, and the wild things venturing out for crumbs must +be "seen to be appreciated," as the "ad" says; so that it would seem +unreal to attempt to put into words the glories of a day in the +woods with the Wellingtons. + +What if Ted Guthrie, the fat, funny, facetious Ted, did slide down a +hill and take most of the hill with her? or if Nettie Brocton +climbing a tree for dogwood berries attempted to fly by the merest +accident? She had no choice but to drop into an ugly hole otherwise, +so she spread out and gave a flying leap to the side of safety and +made it. No one tried to keep track of "Bobbie," as the country girl +was now popularly known, for she ran, climbed, crawled and burrowed, +until Jane and Judith had cause to step lively indeed to keep up +with her. Jane, accustomed to the great fastnesses of the Northwest +around her Montana home, fairly glowed with the spirit of contest, +and being Jane it must ultimately be set down that Bobbie lost a +point or two in the final scoring. + +What a day and what scratches, bruises and blisters recorded it! + +"No bones broken!" was the guide's slogan, and they were well +satisfied to have the precept fulfilled without undue court plaster. + +Coming home the gay groups fell into their usual lines, and +separated into such little parties as suited best the confidences of +their members. + +Ted Guthrie chose to take a ride in the big car of Temple Gaitley, +the sponsor of Wellington who lived at its gates and shared her +prosperity with any student worthy of the name. Ted would rather +ride than walk, after her sliding tournament, and along with her +there piled into the car as many foot-sore hikers as the big open +car could possibly hold, stretching the word at that. + +It was almost evening, the day turned so quickly, when Jane, Judith, +Dozia and the two freshmen, Sally and Shirley, cut across the golf +links to touch town for some drug store supplies, before going into +the college grounds. + +The little village always seemed kindly at this hour, for folks +going home from work formed its chief feature of public interest, +and the tan bark streets were now being fairly well utilized. + +"I'll get some stamps," said Shirley, "while you girls hunt for your +soaps. Let's round this corner---" She stopped short, for as they +cut suddenly from the side street into the main avenue they almost +stumbled into a crowd! + +"What's up?" asked Shirley tritely. + +"An arrest," answered a man pushing his bicycle. "And I guess old +Sandy ain't made no mistake this time. He's caught the banshee!" + +"Yes, sir," snapped an overgrown boy. "That's what she is. Keepin' +folks awake howlin'!" + +Sally clutched Shirley's arm. "See, it's Dol's friend, the actress!" + +"Sure enough, the foreign element with a name like crocheting," said +Shirley. "I always knew she would come to grief with that howling. +Girls!" to Jane and the others. "Could we go to the Town Hall and +find out what happens? That's the ghost of Lenox Hall, the woman who +screamed at midnight." + +Too astonished to offer comment the girls drifted along with the +crowd, and a break in the ranks afforded just a glimpse of Officer +Sandy with a very tall, fancifully dressed, but very much disheveled +prisoner. She walked along with the officer as if he might have been +a creature of a lower order of creation, but as the boys said, +"Sandy did have her goin'." + +And she was the "foreign element," the obnoxious visitor at the +beauty shop, who was so sorely and fatally stage struck that she had +seriously disturbed the peace of decorous little Bingham! + +"She would yell right out in the night, like a hoot owl only +fiercer!" insisted one of her followers. "And she ain't safe to be +loose with a habit like that." + +"Defyin' the law and disturbin' the peace," growled Sandy. "I've had +a warrant for that noise ever since it scared old Mrs. Miner into +fits and she was took to the horspittal on account of it." + +"City folks is all right in their place," squeaked a thin little +woman, one of the very few women in that crowd, "but if that kind is +allowed to run wild over our quiet home towns, I say what is Bingham +comin' to?" Queer noises without words gave answer. + +The Wellingtons, with other followers, were now almost in front of +the Town Hall, when the victim of this country prejudice espied +Shirley. + +"There is someone who knows me!" she cried out. "Ask that young lady +and she'll tell you I'm a legitimate actress, and that I came out +here to have room to practice!" + +Shirley "ducked," as Judith put it, but Sally, more sympathetic, +offered to interfere. + +"Don't," begged Jane. "We were at this court only a short time ago. +We don't want to wear out our welcome. Come along, girls; I, as +junior, am responsible for getting you back on time. Come along." + +"Yes," said Shirley bitterly. "Do come along, girls. That's about +the way this lady left me when my horse threw me off on the hill. +She was not anxious about me then and I guess she isn't as much in +danger now as I was at that time," and when Officer Sandy piloted +his charge in before the recorder, the doors were closed and the +hearing was made private. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +STARTLING DISCLOSURES + + +Once more Shirley had the center of the stage--a position she loved +when it entailed the telling of a thrilling story. And at last the +ghost story "was ripe," as Jane expressed it. + +"Tell us," she demanded, without regard for the race to college +during the telling, "who is that woman and what do you mean by +calling her the ghost." + +"She's an actress," declared Shirley, "that is, she thinks she is, +and she has lots of money and a poor head for managing it. In fact, +I have always thought her erratic. You see," went on Shirley, +supporting herself by "linking" into the accommodating arms +extended, "Dol Vin fetched her out here from the city so that she +could practice her howling. She was cast for a part with a wild +scream in it, and every time she attempted to practice someone +interfered, the police usually." + +"No wonder," interrupted Jane. "Why couldn't she stick to the +theater for rehearsing?" + +"Her own idea," went on Shirley, importance of the occasion echoing +in her tone. "She wanted to get it down pat and startle her manager +into starring her. It seems a great deal depended on that frightful +scream and she kept at it every chance she got." Here the girls +threatened to outdo the "lady of the scream," but rough walking +checked the attempts. They also realized her fate. + +"But how did she get the chance to go up in Lenox attic?" asked +Dozia when her voice could be heard. "As I suppose it was she who +ripped out that terrifying yell---" + +"That I rang the fire bell to cover," put in Sally gleefully. + +"And that the fire department wanted to turn the hose on," chimed in +Judith. + +"Now let me tell it," demanded Shirley. + +"Please do," insisted Jane. + +"Well, she had more than a scream to put in her important part, so +she said! She had also to do some wild acting and Dol Vin is +responsible for the idea of Madam Zwachevsky---" + +"Oh, spare us," cried Jane. "That sounds like an epidemic." + +"It's the name she wastes ink on, but I will spare you girls. +Hereafter she shall be Madam Z," agreed Shirley. + +"Oh, hurry! Shirley," entreated Dozia. "Here we are at the Cedars, +and we never could wait for the rest of that story until after +supper." + +"I'll rush it through, but Sally, do stop pinching me," she teased, +just to make Sally run on ahead in contradiction. "Well, Dol Vin +didn't want that racket around her shop, so I suppose she told Madam +Z to try it on Lenox," continued the raconteur. "They both insisted +it would be a wonderful hazing stunt, and that no college freshman's +life was complete without a lively ghost scare. I didn't think it +would be more than a lot of fun, so I promised not to tell," +admitted Shirley. + +They were at the very gate now where the girls had no choice but to +separate in preparation for the evening meal, but it was wonderful +how quickly the food was disposed of and how soon they were back +again in Jane's room for the conclusion of the ghost story. + +Jane and Judith could not but notice satisfaction glowing in the +freshmen's manner when they were invited into the junior's room. +This had been one of Shirley's ambitions, and she did not hide her +pleasure at its fulfillment. And if she and Sally felt any qualms of +conscience for their own small part in the tragedy of Madam Zeit was +entirely covered by the eagerness with which the girls hailed the +recital. + +"We both insisted at first that she should not dare come on the +campus---" began Sally. + +"Now, Kitten, I'll take all the blame," interrupted Bobbie. "Land +knows, you made fuss enough. Cried---" + +"Oh please---" + +"Well, you did," insisted Bobbie, "even went into hysterics. But I +thought it would be a lark, although really I had no idea the +creature would ever find her way up there. I don't see how she did. +We had no part in her getting in," she explained eagerly. + +"Dol Vin knew all about the attic," declared Janet Clarke. "She was +always prowling about there for theatrical stuff; don't you +remember, Jane, how she frightened the girls one night with some +foolish prank when she was dressed like a bear or something worse?" + +"Oh, yes, of course I do," recalled Jane. "And she did continually +hunt around Lenox, although she belonged with the sophs." + +"That accounts for it then," finished Bobbie. "I am willing to +confess that I conspired to hide the crime, but I took no part in +planning it. Little Kitten almost died of fright during the whole +thing, but I thought it a lot of fun to hear the chains rattle, and +I hunted up stories to match. But I was not in Lenox the night of +the grand finale when she actually tried out the big scream." + +"Well, no wonder the poor babes were scared blue," said Judith. "And +Jane, you can now tell all about your discovery of the old dumb- +waiter under the tower. That will make the story complete." + +"Don't let any more girls in here," ordered Dozia, for knocking at +the door gave warning of an influx. "There is no need to give +everyone this private hearing. We might want to make a real story of +it for the 'Blare'--our holiday edition just needs a live feature +like this." So the taps were "deflected" and Jane recounted her +story. She told it so graphically that by the time she reached the +"big, black hole, and the groaning ropes of the old dummy" the girls +were howling and tumbling around in a pretty good imitation of Madam +Z herself. They shuddered, acted the spook, and Judith proclaimed +something like the old "Curfew shall not" in her swing out the +window that she imagined went with the wild night's terrors. This +detail of Judith's upset things some, for she fell off the couch +(her pedestal for the tragic act), and although she rebounded +quickly there were squeals and protests from "toes and fingers." + +Sally's eyes were like two twinkling blue stars during all this. +Jane and Judith, more than any of the others, guessed correctly what +a relief this hour of fun had brought to her tortured mind. And to +think there was no blame, not even criticism! What is there more +delightfully elastic than the mind and the heart of the young +college girl? + +"And I'll tell you how this same lady induced me to put on those +foolish togs and hire the friskiest horse at Clayton's," further +volunteered Shirley. She evidently thought if that much had been +good a lot more would be a lot better. So she allowed herself to +rock a little in Jane's cozy chair while she told of a bet--yes, she +had actually fallen so low--she did bet five dollars that she could +ride any horse in that stable. Again the girls applauded--there was +danger now in their generous approval. + +"And so I could have done it safely if old Zeezie had kept to the +roads. But she wanted to show off on the hill in front of Warburton +Hall," flared Shirley, "and you all know how I made out at that." +Howls, groans and wails answered this. + +"And what happened to the five?" asked practical Dozia. + +"She never had the courage to collect," replied Shirley, and Jane +then felt the obligation of quickly shifting the subject, for just a +hint of gloom crossed the country girl's face at this point. + +"But what about this last episode?" asked Jane. "How do you suppose +Zeezie came into Sour Sandy's clutches?" + +"I know how that happened," spoke up Sally, doing her part to +relieve Shirley of the embarrassment that seized her at mention of +her accident. "This so-called actress is really not right mentally. +I know it, but, as Bobbie says, she has lots of money, so of course- +-" + +"Dol Vin snapped her up," said Judith. + +"Yes, and you know the Rumson place? That old stone mansion right in +the heart of the country folks settlement?" (They all knew the +Rumson.) "Well, I believe she has been going out there every +afternoon to rehearse. She would drive out in a hired car and +dismiss the man. Then she raved around and did so much loud talking +to herself, and even screaming, that the whole neighborhood was up +in arms. I heard the other day the folks around Rumson had called on +the police to stop the nuisance." + +"No wonder they would," agreed Jane. "The children must have been +frightened out of their senses." + +"They were," went on Sally. "So I suppose old Sandy just set his +trap for her--" + +"And snapped it tonight," concluded Jane. "Well, I must say she was +a character. And to think we all missed the open air performance!" + +"And to think you and I let her escape from Lenox, Jane, the night +of the alarm." + +"What a shame we didn't know she was making her exit by way of the +dummy?" + +"But in that awful dark place," put in Janet with an appropriate +shudder. + +"Oh, she was just armed to the eyes with flash lights," Shirley told +them. "I never saw such an outfit as that tragedy queen sported." + +"Oh, woe is us!" cried out Judith, so loudly that a pair of hands, +one from Jane, the other from Janet, was clapped over the unruly +mouth. When she promised to speak lower she was allowed to proceed. +"But think of missing the court room scene! I am sure she went +through a Lady Macbeth act and tried to stab poor old Sour Sandy!" +Again the spontaneity of Dozia illustrated the talk, and she made a +jab at Jane with the latter's riding crop. + +"And then think of the fun of actually hearing her give the famous +screech as exhibit A?" put in Jane. "What a pity they made the +hearing private?" + +"I'll explain that," condescended Janet, who, having no story to +tell, needed some outlet. "You see, they arrest people here in +Bingham just to keep things going, and have the officers do +something besides draw their pay envelopes, so Sandy took in Zeezie +as his quota of service for December." + +"And I suppose I filled that requirement for November," recalled +Judith, with a disdainful pucker. + +"Take care YOU are not listed next, Dozia," warned Janet. "You do +talk very loud at times. Woke me up last night." + +Shirley arose and glanced at the little gilt clock. + +"I guess we little 'uns will have to cut this lovely party," she +said politely. "We really have a lot of things to do tonight. And +who hasn't for the dance?" + +"We will walk over with you," volunteered Jane. "Judy and I always +take a stroll before we start cramming." + +"Which is just about equivalent to saying we may vamoose," said +Dozia. "All right, stroll along, the ghost is safe tonight, at any +rate." + +"And if she gets off with a fine I suppose she will be on a train +for New York before morning," concluded Sally, with a satisfied +quirk of her yellow head. + +Outside the hall Shirley and Sally almost smothered Jane with +protestations. + +"I thought I would die!" cried Shirley, "but the steely fire of your +eyes, Miss Allen, kept urging me on. And now I have at least told +all that hateful story!" + +"I could hardly sit still," gasped Sally, holding tightly to Jane's +friendly arm. "It was like a play, but I was so ashamed--" + +"Ashamed! I was never more proud of two girls in all my life," +declared resourceful Jane, with unmistakable sincerity. "Why, you +both had the girls fascinated--" + +"You had them hypnotized," insisted Sally. "It is really wonderful +to be popular among such a set of girls," and her voice just touched +a tone of regret. + +"Indeed, we all have to share honors with you two entertainers," +said Jane positively. "You see, the girls first of all want a good +time, and if you help provide that legitimately, of course, you can +count on polling a heavy vote in any popularity contest." + +"Jane Allen is no monopolist," said Judith significantly. It was +obvious Jane was determined to share honors with the two bewildered +freshmen. That was her way of making things pleasant. + +"Now run along and get your togs ready for the dance," said Jane, +"and be sure to give me a lot of dances with Teddy!" + +"Teddie!" sang out the two freshmen. + +"Why yes, your nice brother, Ted," said Judith innocently. "We heard +he was coming--" + +"And we found a piece of paper long ago," added Jane gently, "that +bore the name Ted. It was in the attic, and we dug it out of the +ghost's breastplate." + +"You didn't!" exclaimed Shirley, in a tone that meant "You don't say +so!" She stopped short in her tracks. "And that was the letter we +never got, Kitten. Zeezie had been entrusted to deliver it and she +claimed she lost it." Shirley could hardly speak distinctly--emotion +seemed to choke her. + +"Oh, can we have it?" asked Sally, her trembling lips telling on the +jerky sentence. + +"Right here," replied Jane indifferently, taking a small white slip +from her blouse. "I have wanted so much to give it to you, but there +never seemed to be a real opportunity." + +It was Sally who put out her hand. + +"I think it is for Shirley," interposed Jane. + +"Give it to Kitten," said Shirley. "We have no secrets from each +other now." + +"But Ted and the dance?" asked Judith, not to be put off on that +score. + +"Oh," faltered Sally. "Of course we will hand Ted around." She had +not quite recovered from her surprise at the finding of the long +lost letter. "And, Miss Allen, please, whatever happens, don't let +anything spoil tonight--" + +"I won't, certainly not," replied Jane, as the freshmen broke away +towards Lenox. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE DANCE + + +The night of the dance had come, than which Wellington could produce +no more momentous occasion. For days the students had been +decorating Old Warburton Hall, stripping their own rooms to the +point of desolation to pile their banners, their flags, and even +their mandolins around the big hall, in artistic and effective +settings from ceiling to the smallest nook around the chimney corner +windows. Judith and Jane were responsible for the "Bosky Dell" +created around the Inglenook. Here the mandolins were cluttered, and +about the walls were such artistic woodiness as branches of bright +red berries, then sprays of dark gray bayberry, glowing sumac, deep +brown oak leaves, and this applied foliage provided the "Bosky" for +the juniors' pretty dell. + +All college departments shared the honors of decorating, each +depending upon its originality to outshine the others, so that now +when all was finished and the students drew apart to decorate +themselves the atmosphere fairly vibrated with expectancy. + +Under the eaves in Sally's room she and Bobbie were putting on +finishing touches. Too full of youth to give place to regret, these +two freshmen were keyed to the full pitch of the big, jolly, gleeful +occasion. + +"Can you imagine us going, and bound for such a good time?" said +Sally, while Bobbie fluffed the maline butterfly from her +companion's shoulders. + +"Like a jolly time at a funeral," replied the other, her tone of +voice softening the comparison. + +"Dear me, must we really leave?" sighed Sally. "I have been hoping +for a miracle." + +"So have I, Kitten, but we have had a couple of miracles lately and +it wouldn't be fair to overwork the fairies. There, you look just +like a golden butterfly. Oh, really, Kit, you--are--a dream!" + +Bobbie was responsible for the color scheme adopted by her chum, and +its success was just now rather inadequately reflected in the +conventional mirror that formed a door to the narrow wardrobe. Sally +was gowned in gold and white, and the gold of her hair completed the +"dream." A big yellow butterfly she was indeed, with the sleazy, +clinging, white draperies wound around her slender form, then the +wings of golden maline pinioned on either softly rounded shoulder. +Sally was a perfect little beauty, and also possessed that whimsical +manner so attractive in this delicate, fragile type. + +"How do I look, anyhow?" asked Bobbie, and the "anyhow" betrayed her +hopelessness. + +"Don't you really know you are stunning?" replied Sally. "Bobbie, +your height and figure are in such splendid accord with that +American Beauty! Whew, girl! I can see who shall charm the partners +tonight." + +"Do I honestly look--well?" persisted the other. "I wish my hair +were long enough to turn up." + +"I don't. It is so becoming in that halo just as round as a crown, +and more curly every minute. If all misfortunes really have their +compensations, then, Bobbie, put down the curls opposite your +accident." + +The big girl peered closer to the mirror. She never could be vain +but just now she might be pardoned a flicker of satisfaction. She +did look well, the American Beauty satin made such a startling +background for her peculiarly true American type. + +"Now, if we are all primped and preened, suppose we rehearse," said +Bobbie, powdering the last finger of her left hand to a finish. "You +are sure Ted has his lesson all clear and that our--masquerade will +not be spoiled?" + +"He was just wild about the lark, and wrote a whole page of +effusions such as boys always indulge in," replied Sally. "He says +he may stick to Barrett for a name, it has such a twangy sound, +whatever that may mean; and he also promised to be led by us even to +the extent of breaking his own gay heart." + +"Nice boy. I hope our little skit won't spoil his fun. It is just +for that, you know, little chum, I have agreed to postpone my +flight. But be sure of one thing--I shall fly before I ever face +that wonderful crowd of girls we were with last night, after the +discovery." + +"Does it all seem so hideous still?" asked Sally. "I have felt as if +some of the black horror were wearing off." + +"Mine is turning green--a dark, dark moldy green of envy. Why didn't +I know four months ago just a few of the precious things I see so +vividly now?" Bobbie sat down at the risk of spoiling some of her +preening. Also she ruffed her long (now well cared for) fingers +through her short hair with distracting indifference, but not a +ringlet showed any ill effects, each fell back on her broad, low +forehead in its original place, without a kink of disorder in the +line. + +"I have learned more than the Wellington course offered," said +Sally, "and one thing I am now sure of. Our small towns may offer +advantages in freedom and security, but they restrict us in a choice +of friends and companions. How could we possibly have guessed that +the very girl and her group we expected to antagonize should be our +deliverers?" + +"I don't quite get your flow of words, Kitten, but I do agree with +their meaning. Yes, small towns can turn out gigantic specimens of +conceited ego. And that conceit is like a paraffine coating; air +tight against personal progress, absorbent for the poisons of +jealousy and envy. There, that sounds as if I have learned a little +English, doesn't it? But it isn't enough to face Miss Robert's +exams." + +"It's after eight. There are the girls slamming doors in the first +jazz number," said Sally. "Come along, Bobbie, and smile your +warmest. Then we shall defy fate for a few more happy hours at +least." + +Swallowed up immediately in the swirl of young students heading for +the dance "Kitten and Bobbie" were presently on the high road to +defying fate as per schedule. The music from the dance room was just +feeling its way out of brilliantly lighted windows, and the grand +old campus seemed very proud of itself indeed, as it stretched out +and made a background for the entire picture. + +Flocks of automobiles were nestling along the drives, and many a +Wellington heart skipped its regular beat at the preliminary +thought: + +"I wonder if he came yet?" + +From companion colleges the boys were making their way into old +Wellington, and the students of Yorktown were apt to be especially +plentiful. It was from this big college that Ted Barrett--alias Ted- +-somebody's brother, was expected. + +In contrast to the usual line for receiving, such as so often makes +a farce of the formal social event, the seniors and juniors had +formed themselves into a ring that surrounded the entrance, and +through this ring each guest was forced to pass in at one end and +out at the other in initiation to Wellington. Jane was chosen to +form one "clasp" of the circlet, with two tall seniors at her side. +She gave the welcoming pass-word for the juniors, and in her hand +clasp delivered the secret sign. + +As the girls from Lenox entered, the eyes of our two special friends +immediately sought out Jane. Not even the possible presence of Teddy +offered a distraction, for it seemed now as if their fate rested +more fully than ever in the hands of the girl whose father had given +them the much abused scholarship. + +"How sweet!" breathed Sally. "Like a pansy." + +"Exactly," answered Shirley. "Did you ever see anything prettier?" + +Jane's appearance supported this flattery in every detail. She wore +a flowered frock, georgette with pansies sprinkled over it, and in +her coppery hair a small bunch of the same velvet flowers was +clustered. Among all the others this flowered gown seemed +distinctive, although Dozia in her ruffles (to cut her height), and +Judith in her sea foam green (to give her color), were indeed highly +attractive. + +The indescribable jazz music was see-sawing in and out of harmony, +and if there were anything actually shy on the score it was more +than plentifully supplied by the "ukes," mandolins and banjos of the +visiting college boys. + +Sally and Shirley had scarcely crossed the circle and were melting +into the crowd, when someone tapped Sally on the shoulder. + +"Teddy!" exclaimed both girls at once. + +"The same, your obedient coz," replied the good looking young +fellow, eager to show at once how well he had learned his lesson. + +"Come over here," breathed Sally. "I am just dying to speak to you." + +"No fair," cautioned Shirley. "Don't forget your lines, Kit." + +"Say, girls, tell me," implored the youth, letting his critical eye +scale the crowd of pretty girls, "what's this your name is? You're--" +to Sally. + +"I'm Sally," she replied, twinkling prettily, "and this is Shirley," +indicating Bobbie. + +"Shirley?" he echoed increduously. + +"Yes, and please don't ask any more questions just now, Cousin Ted. +I have promised to introduce you to half of Wellington." This was +said so that more than one girl standing near overheard; one was +Nettie Brocton and she quickly took the cue. + +"Just look at that?" she said to Ted Guthrie. "Sally acts as if the +Teddy were her especial cousin." + +"Yes, and Shirley is all but blushing." + +"Queer," commented Ted Guthrie. + +Presently the music suggested a One Step and without waiting for +further coaxing Shirley and the handsome Ted floated out among the +assembling dancers. + +He was handsome, and, although that fact seems trite just here, it +may better be known and reckoned with. He was tall, light, nimble +and flexible as a young birch, as he swayed in and out leading the +excited Bobbie. + +"Guess I'll have to call you Bobbie, too," he said in his partner's +ear, after more than one girl had pointedly called out, "Hello, +Bobbie!" + +"Yes, do, please," replied Bobbie. "I am getting so accustomed to it +I rather feel it is really mine." + +"Suits you splendidly," said Ted, with a boy's idea of compliments +being put on thick at dances. "And I am sure I would give the game +away if I ever tried on the Shirley." + +Bobbie acquiesced just in time to feel Judith Stearns' black eyes +demanding to know Teddy. The dancers stopped, and after an +introduction Bobbie was swept off her feet by a new partner, while +Judith glided off with Teddy. + +"Where is Sally?" asked Judith, not seeing the little butterfly on +the floor. + +"Sally?" repeated the bewildered Ted. Then he recovered himself. +"Oh, yes, Cousin Sally. She's just over there," pointing to Jane's +"Bosky Dell" in a far corner. + +"Your cousin?" repeated the shrewd Judith. + +"Yes, little coz, I allus calls her," he lisped, to cover any +possible attempt at piercing his disguise. + +"But she said she was not related to Bobbie?" persisted the +irrepressible Judith. + +"She isn't," frankly offered Ted. "She is only related to me. Oh, I +say, Miss Stearns," he broke off. "Who's the golden girl over by the +punch bowl?" + +"I knew it," trilled Judith. "No one could possibly miss her. She's +Jane Allen." + +"Jane Allen!" he almost interrupted. "She whose pater is a +benefactor of Wellington?" + +"Yes, the only Jane," answered Judith glibly. "Come over and meet +her. I know you will like her even better on acquaintance. I don't +mind being generous, for Jane and I started together here, and from +present appearances we seem liable to end it together." + +While she spoke they had ceased dancing, and Judith fancied she just +caught a look of question on the young man's face. This coupled with +his inquiry about Jane's father, Judith at once assigned to his +knowledge of the scholarship Bobbie had obtained. But even that was +not just a correct guess, and it seemed the actual presence of this +good looking boy from Yorktown threatened to add new complications +to those already surrounding the mysterious freshmen. + +Both reached Jane's side as Judith and her partner came up. Judith +presented the much talked of "lovely Ted" and perhaps a part of +Jane's ebullition was attributable to the code shot out from +Judith's flashing eyes. It said plainly: + +"Now isn't he lovely? I told you so!" + +While Jane remembered her own wish: + +"I hope he's big, clumsy, ugly, etc.," and of course he wasn't. + +He claimed the dance and presently swept the Golden Girl from her +place in the little circle. + +"Your cousin?" questioned Judith with a very comprehensive smile. +"Bobbie, I never saw a girl blush as you did when a coz whispered +into her dancing ear." + +Wise, discerning Judith! + +Bobbie blushed again, but she was not going to be tricked into +telling her secret. Her eyes flickered until they rested on Nettie +Brocton. + +"I must ask Net for a dance," she said. "I suppose it is perfectly +proper for a mere freshie to do so?" + +"Absolutely," replied Judith, "but you are not slighting me?" + +"Not for worlds, Judy. May I have the next?" + +"What's your hurry just now Bobbie? Trying to duck me?" + +But a sly glance of challenge gave Judith answer, as Bobbie hurried +away to dance with Nettie Brocton. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +KING PIN OF THE FRESHIES + + +Music and laughter, youth and happiness! + +What a splendid affair the dance turned out to be! Even the staid +faculty, acting as patronesses, looked on with generous smiles of +absolute approval. + +As if to add to the gentle flame of curiosity in Jane's circles, she +accepted a number of dances from Teddy--in fact the big fanciful "T" +which Jane remembered so well in the spook letter, was scribbled all +over her dancing card, while Judith accepted Ray Mann, a chum of +Ted's, in complacent substitution. Ray was a capital fellow, with +such a stock of chestnut hair he might have matched up pretty well +with Bobbie, if her spare time had not been so filled in with Dave +Jordan, also a "Yorktown man." + +Wellington had a reputation for this one big social event, the +invitations for which were always censored by a committee of the +officials, each boy accepted being socially vouched for by the +patronesses. This was as near as the old college would go to co-ed +functions, and perhaps the fact that these young girls were always +left to themselves for good times (except at the big dance) gave +added zest and novelty to the pre-holiday event. + +All went merrily indeed, except that Jane was almost lost in +bewilderment before she and Teddie had finished out two dances +(halves) and one "sitting out" in the Bosky Dell. + +Who was this boy's relation? she wanted to know. And why did Sally +so promptly surrender him to all other partners? Sally danced so +gracefully, and they seemed to step together as dancers do who have +learned at the same functions, yet she did surrender him willingly. + +Jane dragged Judith out of the din, and after fortifying herself and +her chum with two drinks of fruit punch, she dragged her further +into semi-seclusion in the cloak room. + +"What do you make of it?" asked Judith fairly twittering with +suppressed excitement. + +"That is what I wanted to ask you," replied Jane, swirling her scarf +over her shoulders to tame down a frolicsome little breeze that +danced to the jazz music stealing in the cloak room. "There is a +positive mystery about all this. Can't you see how much Ted Barrett +looks like Sally Howland?" + +"Of course I can," replied Judith. "But surely that letter said +'sister' and was written to Shirley." + +"And he is not in any way like Bobbie." + +"No, and Bobbie is as shy as a baby when speaking with him." Jane +bit her lip in serious reflection. + +"But isn't he very nice?" + +"Lovely manners and a very takable boy," admitted Jane. "And say, +Judy, I love this mystery, but we can't let the freshies beat us at +it. Be sure you keep your eyes and ears open and report anything-- +suspicious." + +"Glad to," Judith accepted the commission. "But don't you like my +Ray?" + +"Couldn't help it," said Jane affably. "Of the two boys I like Ray's +hair best. It's so--smoky." + +"And Jane! Have you seen who Dozia is lugging around? That awfully +big boy, the football giant of Yorktown." + +"Makes Doze look small by comparison, and that's an achievement," +said Jane. "There's my dance with Nettie Brocton. It would be +dreadful if we forgot to take care of our own little playmates. +Isn't everything going lovely?" + +"Nothing could be improved upon unless it be Miss Robert's hair. +That's a bit lopsided." + +"But her feather fan is a gem," said Jane, moving toward the dance +floor. + +"So is her back comb," laughed Judith, as the chums drifted apart +among the dancers. + +A waltz encore was just then being demanded. The dancers stood about +clapping and insisting upon a repetition of the number. Jane and +Judith waited a moment before their partners espied them, and as +they lingered they heard the girls commenting on Sally. She was, +indeed, a charming figure as she stood out there with her partner, +who happened to be Ted; and it was Inez Wilson who most particularly +noticed the two dancers in the center of the floor. She seized +Jane's hand and whispered: + +"Oh, Jane, just see how much Sally looks like her partner!" + +"Yes," put in Janet Clarke, "they even have the same pose." + +"Cousins," said Jane simply, as she and Nettie swung out into the +repeated waltz. + +The resemblance was very remarkable and standing with the tall boy +in his "Tux" the girl in her butterfly gown made quite a charming +little picture. Their isolation at the moment, standing well out on +the floor almost alone at the end of the "first half," gave them +somewhat undue prominence, but it also gave everyone a splendid +opportunity of seeing Ted and of admiring Sally's evening frock. + +When the number ended a group of freshmen cornered themselves in a +window arch and promptly set about whispering some plans. Nellie +Saunders was leading, and she declared Sally was the one to make the +presentation. Presently a committee of seniors joined them, and the +purpose of the secret session became evident. + +Miss Rutledge, dean of Wellington and beloved mother of the entire +flock, was to be presented with a glorious bouquet of golden +chrysanthemums and Sally Howland, the pet freshman, had been voted +by her class the one to do the public honors. + +"Where is she?" asked Anne Morley, the senior, waiting to complete +the details. + +"Just finished dancing," volunteered Nellie. "I'll go get her." + +"When the orchestra plays 'Wellington,' that's your cue," said Miss +Morley. "The senior class president will make her speech and you +freshmen then send up the flowers. Be sure you do it promptly, as +the speech has the flowers planted in it," finished the tall, +capable senior, leaving the younger girls to carry out her orders. + +Nellie was back with Sally immediately. + +"Here she is, and doesn't her gown go wonderfully with the golden +ball chrysanthemums?" panted Nellie. + +"Just like a picture," exclaimed Dolly Lloyd. "Be sure you carry +them like a bride's-maid, Sally. Maybe a long time before you get +another chance." + +"But what is this all about?" gasped Sally, a little bit frightened +at the importance of the great sheaf of yellow blooms propped up in +the corner. + +"You are to present the flowers to Deanie," said Nellie. "You see, +the girls always give her something at this dance, and they choose +the freshies just to act in the capacity of page. You don't have to +say a word," as Sally showed reticence. "A senior makes a speech and +you just walk up prettily with this corn shock." + +"Oh, girls, I couldn't," exclaimed Sally tragically. + +"You couldn't! Why not?" came a chorus. + +"Because--oh, I can't just explain, but won't you please excuse me?" + +"No, indeed we will not," declared Nellie. "Just another touch of +that timidity we fought out when you first came. This is an honor, +Sally, and we know whom to choose for it. We know how you stand in +the half year's record," and she proceeded to straighten out the +maline butterfly on Sally's shoulders--no one could seem to resist +that temptation. + +"I do appreciate the honor," faltered Sally, "but there is a reason- +-a serious reason why I feel I should decline." + +"Wait a minute! I'll persuade her," said Dolly, and in the time +specified she was back in the corner again and had Jane with her. + +"She simply has got to deliver those flowers," explained Nellie. +"She matches as if she were dressed for the part. See her yellow +head, her yellow and white gown, the dear little golden slippers; +then the great huge, gigantic bunch of chrysis--we all chipped in +for those--" + +"Miss Allen, please let me off," begged Sally, turning two blue +eyes, overflowing with meaning, full on Jane. + +"I cannot go back on a sorority order," said Jane, wondering why she +should. "There's your cue, and Sally, here are the flowers. Bun +along, little girl. There's a dear." + +Sally was "running along" in the freshmen's glide, almost hidden +behind the shock of golden balls, before she could further protest. + +"Wellington, dear Wellington!" finished the chorus; and then the +senior who was on the little platform by the orchestra, called the +dean forward and in "a few well chosen words" told Miss Rutledge how +much every girl in college loved her. + +Dear, gentle, beloved Miss Rutledge! Her cameo beauty was not lost +even in that group of glowing students. She wore her stately +heliotrope brocade, and her perfectly white wavy hair just framed a +face soft as damask, with enough natural warmth of color to defy any +record of years. + +Sally glided along with the bouquet, while the dean spoke softly, +gently, in that strangely far-reaching voice peculiar to those who +train for such concentration. Directly Sally placed the flowers in +her extended hands applause broke loose. + +What music can compete with the simple inspiration of hand clapping? +And these students knew that score in jazz perfectly. + +Finally, Sally turned back again in the little aisle made for her +through the assemblage, and before she had proceeded more than a few +paces Bobbie rescued her. + +"Kitten!" she whispered, putting her strong arms about the now +trembling Sally. "How perfectly lovely! Here's Ted. He is too +excited to speak. I have just been trying to restore him." + +"King Pin of the Freshies!" Ted managed to orate, seizing Sally's +hand in congratulation. "That stunt is something we fellows miss. If +it were our old 'Shuffles' now, likely we would treat him to a soft +little ball on his renowned pate." + +"King Pin of the Freshies!" took up Bobbie. "Splendid! I'll tell +Nellie that and she can chime it in her new class song. Here they +are claiming you, Kitten. Come on and see what's doing in the rear. +Boys"--to Teddy--"not allowed." + +"Never are when there's anything good in sight," replied Ted +pleasantly. "Where's that pretty girl--my dance--oh, here she is," +and he seized Judith for the Drop Step just being inaugurated. + +In another hour--how short a time it seemed--the dance was over. +University boys were piling into their cars, and the girls of +Wellington would presently be back again in that cozy, if limited, +little world, all their very own. + +What a glorious success it had been! Even the night was perfect, and +now at the happy shouting of "good-byes" the stars blinked down +mischievously, and a busy old moon took time from his science to +send out a couple of searchlight flashes to greet youth on its merry +way. + +Ted "Barrett" was saying good-bye to Jane. He made opportunity for +this, although his companions were honking their horn recklessly, +bidding him "come now or stay as long as he pleased." + +"Miss Allen," said the Yorktown boy, "I can't help telling you +personally how fine this has been. To have--the girls here, I know +is due to your--special generosity, and some day I hope I'll have a +chance to tell you what it has meant to me. Just now," he smiled +broadly, "those freshies have me bound in their riddle game and I +can't talk intelligently; tongue-tied," he finished. + +"I understand," spoke up Jane, smiling herself. "They are a +wonderful team--and I am much interested in both." + +"So am I," called out the chivalrous Ted, as he answered an ear- +splitting honk from his chums and rushed out to the big waiting car. + +Sally and Shirley were at the steps to see him off, and now Jane +joined them. Ted tossed back a freshman's cap, snatched from the +head of a luckless "stude" who must go all the way to Yorktown +uncapped. He threw the "inkspot" out high in the air, and as it came +down, somehow it managed to come within reach of Jane's outstretched +palm. + +Promptly she donned it, of course, and the trophy instantly became +an object of excited interest among the retiring dancers. + +It was only a very small black cloth cap, and a poor freshman was +now going home with his inadequate hand on a cold head in lieu of +it, but somehow when Jane stuck it on the wall between two +Wellington pennants, the juniors' and freshmen's, it seemed a symbol +of her mystic relationship with the girl who carried the Allen +scholarship. + +"I'll leave it here until we can clean up," she said looking +affectionately at the small black spot on the wall. "Then, of +course, it goes to my room." + +"Of course," echoed Judith dolefully. "I suppose the ownership of +that puts you in a Yorktown frat." + +"Hardly, but it will be a little souvenir of this wonderful night." + +Both Sally and Bobbie were beside her now. Their cheeks blazed still +with excitement, and eyes continued the dance even now echoing +through those beam-bedecked walls. + +"Wasn't it wonderful?" exclaimed Sally. + +"I never thought I could have such a perfect time," sighed Bobbie. + +"That's Wellington," commented Jane loyally. "We do everything just +right under that banner," and picking up her little party bag she +was ready to leave for sleeping quarters. + +"And do you know what Ted called Kitten when she came down from +presenting the flowers?" teased Bobbie. + +"What?" asked Jane merrily. + +"King Pin of the Freshies!" replied Bobbie. "Doesn't that sound like +a class yell?" + +"I hope it will be some day," said Jane. But Sally's blue eyes were +proclaiming something--something far removed from the honor and +glory promised by her junior sponsor. + +And even Bobbie's insistent joking could not dispel that strange +foreboding. + +"Sally!" charged Jane, noting her sudden preoccupating, "are you +seeing things?" + +"Why?" A flush suffused the face just showing the tell-tale lines of +fatigue. + +"I sometimes think you two girls are base deceivers," Jane joked. +"You change your cast of countenance as quickly as--" + +"Now Janie, you leave our little star alone," ordered Judith. "Seems +to me any girl would be flustered after a first night of this kind." + +"Of course," dimpled Jane. "Here, children, please take these +things. I will be held responsible for them and there's no telling +who might take a notion to cover her couch with that lovely silk +scarf." + +They gathered up the precious trophies, flags and scarfs. Then the +lights were out at last. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE DAY AFTER THE BIG NIGHT. + + +The flush of success invaded old Wellington. As a whole the place +seemed suffused with a pardonable pride, and as individuals each +girl seemed justly proud of the small part she played in making up +that grand total. Even the big city papers sent out reporters to get +a "good story" of the mid-year dance, and more than one scribe +waylaid the popular girls, pleading for pictures. + +Judith Stearns, as sub-editor of the Blare, the college paper, had a +part in giving out this general publicity, and what a joy it was to +describe the gowns of Jane, Bobbie, Doze and lists of others! + +Jane was busy dismantling the dance room--the big assembly room in +Warburton--and no classes were to be called for any work during the +morning, so that conditions and students might just slide back into +orderliness and thence to the serious work of finishing the last +semester. + +Party dresses were packed away by reluctant hands, boxes tied up and +labelled hopefully for the next dance, while heads that had been +curled for the big occasion bore testimony to the skill of many +willing fingers (not a few of the fingers bearing blisters to still +further testify to such achievements), and altogether the atmosphere +was distinctly and decidedly that of the small day after the big +night before. + +Sally was ruefully tieing up her finery in rather compressed +packages and Bobbie was begging her not to spoil the stuff outright. + +"Don't act so suicidal, Kitten. Be brave today for tomorrow we fly!" +she misquoted. + +"I can't see how you can joke about it," whimpered Sally, bruising +her fingers with a jerk at too strong a piece of bundle cord. +"Really, Bobbie, if I ever dreamed it would be as hard as this to +go, I don't believe anything would have induced me to come." She bit +her bruised finger as well as her trembling lip. + +"You don't mean that, Kitten," drawled the indifferent Bobbie, who +had agreed to help pack, although she much preferred "firing things +in trunks" and utilizing packing time out of doors. "You would never +have known the fun we have had here, if you hadn't come, and isn't +it heaps better to pay now than never to have known it?" + +"Nothing seems better now--everything is worse, coal black, pitch +dark, bitter, worse," snapped the usually complaisant Sally. + +"If I had your talent, wild horses couldn't drag me from +Wellington," said Bobbie seriously. "And I do hope, little Kitten, +that I am not wholly to blame for your unhappy predicament," her +voice dropped to seriousness. + +"Now, Bobbie," and the good-natured little Sally smiled through, +"never forget that you really made it possible for me to come here, +and that you--" + +"Now, that's enough, Kitten. If you start going back we shall find +ourselves in each other's arms with awfully red eyes--first thing +you know. I still think the miracle will save you, but poor me!" and +she affected a most juvenile boohoo. "I am surely doomed." + +"Why don't you try it, Bobbie? You might get through--" + +"Not in a thousand years. And suppose I did, where would it land +me?" + +"In your proper place, in class, of course." + +"And have every one know--I couldn't, Kitten. I talk bravely, but +I'm a rank coward at heart. There, the boxes are tied, I hope to +your satisfaction, and it's sweet of you to do the tags. No one +would be able to read the addresses if I wrote them. Oh, me, oh, my! +somehow today reminds me of old Polly Jenkins' funeral. Her +abandoned bedroom looked just about like this," surveying the +disorder of the little room under the eaves. + +"Well, you run along and attend to the outside errands; I must hide +the evidences of our flight," said Sally, with something between a +laugh and a sigh. "You may pay all my bills, just say we want to +settle things so we can run off home when the holiday is proclaimed, +then, if you don't mind, just hand this music to Dolly Lloyd." + +"Couldn't I kiss a few of the girls for you so as to save time +later?" asked Bobbie in naive sarcasm. "I am so sentimental today I +could hug the very old trees, I do believe. All right, little +sister, I'll go out and do the financial chores, but my head and my +heart are still at the dance," and she hummed herself out with a +feeble dance step--to do the aforesaid chores. + +Left alone the blonde little freshman dropped her hands in her lap +and ceased her nervous activity. + +"Really going!" she kept thinking, "and I thought the half year +would be endless in its days and hours!" A newly painted calendar- +sample just finished by Nellie Saunders and offered as a model for +Christmas gifts--focused the girl's attention. How dainty, yet how +rugged the deft bit of water color! Trees and landscape all melting +into that big flourish "W" for Wellington! It seemed like that; +everything attractive just now was blended into the college +opportunities, and Sally was about to turn her back on them, for +what? + +The housemaid tapped at her door and announced a caller. Hurriedly +gathering up trifles to put the room in a semblance of order, she +hurried down to the reception room, there to confront Dolorez +Vincez! + +"Oh, good morning," said Sally, trying to cover her surprise. +"Bobbie has just gone out." + +"I met her," replied the visitor, without returning the salutation. +"But I would like a few words with you--if we could be alone." + +Sally glanced about at the open doors and continually flapping +draperies: whatever Dol Vin had to say could certainly not be said +in that public room. A coat tree at the door held Sally's tam and +Mackinaw. She got into these and suggested a walk outside. + +There was no denying it, Dol Vin was a striking looking girl, and +even her flashy clothes could not altogether disguise her rather +handsome foreign type. Today she wore a big black velvet tam jabbed +rakishly on her black head, a flame colored coat that buttoned +around her tight as a toboggan ulster, and only the deep olive tint +of her face in any way withheld the eye from a criticism of "too +much color." Today Dol's cheeks were not tinted, and the way her +deep set black eyes flashed, further told how angry she was, and how +reckless. + +Scarcely had the girls from Lenox gone far enough to be out of +hearing than she started in on helpless little Sally. + +"What are you two thinking of?" she demanded angrily. "Do you think +you can kick out and leave me without warning? Don't you know how +short I am--" + +"Miss Vincez," interrupted Sally, "I don't see what possible claim +you have on either of us. The fact is we both feel you have very +much overworked your alleged claim as it is." + +"Oh, you do!" and she gripped Sally's arm viciously. "Well, I'll +just tell you, sissy, I fixed it so you both could get in here." +(Sally pried her arm loose and kept at a safe distance.) "I helped +you along, played all your tricks--" + +"Stop, please," demanded Sally indignantly. "You know perfectly well +it was against any wish of ours that you brought that crazy creature +in here to frighten the girls sick in the name of sport, hazing," +declared Sally, her voice rising at each word. "And then, you turned +the same foolish creature loose to frighten all the other children +who might hear her wild voice. How can you dare say to me that such +a trick was ever countenanced by us?" + +"Oh, my, really!" sneered the foreigner. "How we have grown! Please +don't bite me with your sharp tongue. As you say, yes, I did turn +her loose, and do you know that now she has been sent away? Put in a +hospital! Bah! It is in an asylum for the crazy" (Dol was very +foreign now), "where the state, this great big powerful state, shall +take all that poor harmless woman's money! Could I not allow her to +live a little when she paid me? But they will kill her and get paid +for the murder! That's the way they treat the poor crazy folks in +their big stone prisons!" she alleged angrily. + +"She has been declared insane?" + +"Declared insane!" she mocked. "You call it that? Yes, I call it +kidnapped, and poor old Zola was so harmless if they would but let +her scream and play at acting." + +Sally was dumbfounded. The woman who had played ghost was really a +lunatic, and this unprincipled adventuress had dared allow her to +get into a place like Lenox, and to go about the countryside without +restraint! Sally felt almost sick at the thought, and having walked +the full length of the hedge-rows she attempted to end the +unpleasant interview. + +"If you will excuse me--" she began feebly. + +"But I shall not," almost shouted the angry South American. "I know +what this place can do! I know how your spiteful Jane Allen and her +chums got me out--" + +"Stop!" cried Sally sharply. "Jane Allen is my friend, and I will +not hear her spoken of in that manner." + +"Your friend!" and she sneered like some animal snorting. "She may +make of you a cat's paw to play at her feet, but she shall never be +your friend. If she just knows what you are--" + +But Sally turned and deliberately fled from her persecutor. She +could no longer stand the tirade, and nothing that she seemed able +to do or say had any softening effect upon the angry young woman. +Suppose she did meet some of the girls and attempt to tell what she +knew of Sally's secret? Would anyone stand by and listen? Was not +this expelled pupil actually trespassing even to be upon Wellington +grounds? + +It was getting close to the noon hour and studies were to be resumed +after the luncheon period. Students who had taken advantage of the +morning recess to be out at some favorite sports were now returning +in flocks, and Sally quickened her steps to reach Lenox before the +rush of late comers. She turned just once to see if Dolorez was +going through the grounds to leave at the opposite gate, but the +blazing red coat was not in sight. + +"She probably knows some other way of leaving," thought Sally, +recalling the uncanny knowledge of the campus secrets that had been +responsible for the entrance of the eccentric Madam Z--. + +In the hall Sally met a very much excited Bobbie. "Oh, did she eat +you up? Or put horns on you? Or turn you into a goat?" she began. It +happened that the hallway was clear just then. "Wasn't she furious? +I am so glad I escaped! Come in and tell me all about it." + +"Not much to tell," replied Sally, "except that I just turned on her +and defied her. I felt the time had passed for intimidation, and I +told her so." + +"Good for you, Kitten," and Bobbie demonstrated her approval. "I +always knew your spunk was just smoldering, ready to burst into +flame at the right moment. Now, I saw the cause of Dol's +disquietude. Her shop is closed, shut up tight, barred windows and a +cute little white sign tacked right under the former artistic door. +The sign reads 'To Let' and it is easy to imagine the crepe hanging +from the knocker." + +"She told me she lost a lot--by the arrest of Madam Z, and do you +know, Bobbie, that woman was a real lunatic?" + +"Of course I know it. Didn't I ride horseback with her? But they are +all gone now and as the poet says: 'Good riddance.' Come along, +Kitten, and eat grub. That's a function I decline to omit, Dol Vin +or any other threat hanging over my poor bobbed head. Come on, dear, +cheer up! The worst is yet to come!" + +"Wait a minute, please do, Bobbie. I just can't think straight. You +know every afternoon now there is an open forum or a class meeting +and I wish we could go before we run into a further danger." + +"Oh, no, dearie, don't think of that," cheered Bobbie, strangely +irrepressible ever since the big dance. "You can't tell yet what may +happen. Stay on the burning deck until the fog horn blows, then take +to the life-boats, is my plan of action. I hope we have a +substantial meal right now, for paying up bills and collecting +receipts is painfully appetising. Come on, dear, and smile while the +smiling is good." + +"But just suppose Jane or Judy should drop in on us this afternoon +and see the things packed up?" + +"Tell them I am eloping, break the news gently and blame it on me. I +feel as if I could stand for any monumental conspiracy that was ever +conspired. I am that experienced in intrigue. Perhaps I'll apply for +a government position in the diplomatic corps. I believe I could +carry it off beautifully, brass buttons, plumes and all. There's +Dolly. Just look at her hair! Like an escaped watch spring." + +"Did you meet any little fairy in your walk? Some one who has +promised immunity? You seem tragically jolly?" + +"No, not a fairy, nor yet a ghost. This is just my natural reaction. +And while I think of it, Kit," she let the door slam violently, +"don't forget I have not reformed. I positively refuse to be any +better than I ever was; I have simply developed, and outgrown the +antagonistic influence of some defunct ancestors. Oh, how good it +all seems here today? I believe I am glad Dol came and went and took +her particular influence with her. Wasn't it lucky I had called in +my head and that she didn't leave me with one side done and one side +undone? Wonder if we will notice any painfully deserted blondes in +her wake?" + +It might be the reaction, but Sally could not help wondering why +Bobbie was in such high spirits. Then she recalled the old saying, +"Too much joy is sorrowful," and hoped her chum's joy would not be +thus rudely transformed. + +Judith and Jane were waiting for them at the dining hall door. + +"Truants," said Jane, "where have you been? We have been planning to +send a bell boy after you. My famous dad has just written he is +coming through New York and wants to take me and my stepsister home +with me. You know who he thinks bears that relationship to me, of +course?" + +They knew she referred to the scholarship girl, and Sally looked +dumb while Shirley looked startled. + +"Oh, that would be lovely," said Shirley with marked evasion, "but-- +" + +"My dad never entertains a but," said Jane, "so I hope, Bobbie, you +will hurry up your plans to come out and ride a real horse on a real +ranch in Montana. Won't she look stunning on a bronco, Sally?" + +But the invitation, alluring as it was, did not seem to add zest to +the appetite of Bobbie. It had simply swept her off her trustworthy +feet, and Sally seemed little better. Another corner to escape from! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A SURPRISE IN RECORDS + + +Holidays, holidays! The air was full of them, and it seemed all the +girls in Jane's group were to spend the big Christmas event away +from Wellington. + +Jane's letter from her father, that which suggested she bring "the +little country girl" back to Montana with her for the holidays, +seemed like an answer to her own secret wish. She wanted to bring +Bobbie home with her, but very much preferred the invitation would +come from headquarters. Jane, like Bobbie, did not wish to appear +too ingratiating, also she did not want to make the girl feel she +was in any way patronizing her. + +The bulletin boards in all "dorms" bore the notice of special +assembly in the study hall, and thither the students were now +progressing. + +"This is where we get all that is coming to us," said Bobbie more +literally than elegantly. "I believe the idea is, we are to know +before we leave, where we will be put when we come back." She was +talking to Sally as they walked out from Lenox. + +"Yes, and I wish, Bobbie, we might have escaped it. Think of hearing +all the reports read and not being able to take up our exams?" + +"If only we didn't have to take them I would feel better. Of course +you are safe," said Bobbie ruefully. + +"Perhaps it is better to have this one last spasm of courage," +replied Sally, although her whimsical expression did not register +anything "better"; it bespoke the condition as "worse." + +The assembly was well filled up when the two conspiring freshmen +took their places as near the door as seats could be found. The +biting wintry air permeated the big auditorium, and when the +restless shuffling of feet had finally come down to a murmur of soft +sporadic shiftings--some girls never could keep their feet still-- +then the dean, Miss Rutledge, made her annual announcement. + +No girl was ever dropped from Wellington without having first +received due warning, she told the classes; also she announced that +ratings given at this time would afford students opportunity to make +the next half year's plans while at home with their families. + +It is easy to guess that many hearts fluttered wildly in anxious +anticipation during this trying moment. But Wellington was always +fair, and no one would be denied a chance to "pull up" if native +ability seemed equal to the trial. + +The seniors, almost all self-reliant and assured of their standing, +had little to speculate upon, and their report was quickly disposed +of. In the juniors were many whose standing held interest, but +almost all got off favorably. Ted Guthrie had worked off +"conditions," as had Inez and Janet, one in math and the other in +Greek, but the first half year was pronounced satisfactory for +almost all the students whose names have figured in this little +tale. Jane and Judith were always counted among the lucky number. + +It was in the freshmen's ranks that things were sure to happen. Here +were girls just trying out college; some sure to be found unsuitable +for pursuing the higher branches of education, others evidently +capable as to intellect but poorly prepared, and were thus +handicapped with too heavy a burden of "conditions." Again there +were those who had drifted through "High" without much effort, and +relying on this pace had mistaken the very serious work of college +for that of the rather indifferent preparatory work. + +Much of this explanation was embodied in Miss Rutledge's statement +to the assembled pupils. + +"There is also this to be considered," she said. "Some pupils show +remarkable aptitude in certain studies, and when this is found in +the exact science of mathematics we have reason to feel that the +student will eventually make up other deficiencies, and so keep up +with her class." + +"That's for you," whispered Sally to Bobbie with a very broad nudge, +but Bobbie's eyes answered with that look pet animals throw out when +in doubt of a master's exact meaning. + +Then, there were cited the highest averages, and the first name +called was that of Miss Sarah Howland! As Miss Rutledge read the +name she looked up from her reports. + +"I feel I should add," she said gently, "that Miss Howland has +covered more than the work required, and has the peculiarly well +balanced intellect that seems to feed from one subject to another. I +must congratulate Miss Howland upon her splendid record as a first- +year student." + +Jane Allen's hands led the applause that followed this, but it was +not ended until the ranks of the freshmen had paid ample tribute to +their star member. Sally was dreadfully embarrassed. She shook her +head in continual protest, but her objection had only the effect of +increasing the acclamation. Finally the dean proceeded. + +Bobbie was all but biting her nails in sheer nervousness. After all, +this had required an amount of courage. Her nails pressed into her +palms fiercely. Perhaps it would have been simpler to have avoided +the final reckoning? The girls' names being read gave to her +tingling ears merely a blurred murmur. Yes, Dolly Lloyd would pass: +and there was Margie Winters--Margie was a star in English. Next-- + +"Miss Shirley Duncan," came the dean's voice, and then she paused. + +"Here is a student who has shown exceptional work in mathematics," +she continued, "and while her preparation for college has been +undoubtedly faulty, her teachers recommend that she continue her +work and apply herself with special tutors for those studies in +which she has been especially deficient." + +Shirley was all but gasping, when again from Jane Allen's seat came +the approval of applause. + +"She made it," the girls were whispering. "I always knew she was a +wizard at math," insisted Nellie Saunders. + +"Bobbie is perfectly all right," declared the wise little Margie +Winters. "It was all on account of her country ideas--" + +"Hush," whispered Dolly Lloyd. "We are all more or less from the +country. Do you want to claim the Grand Central Station?" + +This set Margie back in her seat--and presently all the "freshies" +had been given their ratings. A few very sharp warnings were +administered, and that a great deal of cramming would have to be +done by some before the mid-year exams, to take place early in +January, was made especially plain by the dean. No one would be +dropped without warning, but the standards of Wellington would have +to be maintained, she concluded. + +Little reader, if you expect to get to college begin your "cramming" +now in high school, and let each day's record be such as will surely +make a satisfactory total in preparation. If more students could +only realize this in time! + +Assembly was dismissed and the girls surrounded Bobbie and Sally. +Jane and Judith seemed personally responsible for these two +freshmen, and no one could discount the gleam in Jane's eyes when +she squeezed Bobbie's clammy hand. + +"Why so--frightened?" she demanded. "Isn't it just wonderful to know +you couldn't break away even though you tried so flagrantly?" There +was a twinkle thrown in with this, and Jane next piled compliments +on Sally. + +Never were there two "satisfactory" students so manifestly unhappy. +No one could miss the nervous manner Sally tried so hard to hide, +nor yet the heightened color in Bobbie's cheeks when she flatly +refused to comment on the surprise. + +"Queer," observed Dolly Lloyd. "If I turned out satisfactory when I +just waited for my little return home notice, it seems to me I would +at least emit a smile." + +Freed from the scrutiny of their companions at last, Sally and +Bobbie bolted for Lenox. It had been a trying ordeal and both felt +its effects too keenly to throw it off at once. + +"It's over," eulogized Bobbie, slamming down her hat on Sally's camp +chair and promptly sitting on it. + +"Yes, and you ought to be the happiest girl in all Wellington," +declared Sally, standing limp before the dresser that reflected a +sad little face unobserved. + +"I ought to be happy!" repeated Bobbie. "How about you? Ted knew his +guess when he called you King Pin of the Freshies. Sallylun, why +don't you try to finish? Couldn't I help you?" + +"You know the conditions, Bob? We went into this together and +together we quit--" said Sally, rather crudely for her. + +"It's a shame," grumbled Bobbie. "I just love it all now." + +"But you can remain! Even your conditions are assured." + +"And as you said we went in together, etc.," said Bobbie. + +Jane Allen was at the door before they heard her step. + +"Now," she called out in announcement of her presence, "Bobbie, you +have no excuse. Even dad will be delighted, but he couldn't feel as +I do about it. Bobbie, I'm just proud of you!" The dry lips moved +but did not answer. + +"Why don't you trust me?" asked Jane flatly. "I know you are +planning something, of course." + +"Oh, we do trust you, indeed," declared Sally with quivering lips, +"and we both are too grateful to frame words in expression." + +"But you are not quite--confidential," pressed Jane. Her eye was +checking up the hat boxes and other evidences of "house cleaning" +scattered around. + +They had positively decided to write her a full explanation to be +delivered after they left. This was finally agreed upon as the one +practical plan and neither would attempt to violate it now. But this +moment, with Jane's affectionate manner as a lure, was indeed a +strong temptation! What might have happened did not happen, however, +for a team of girls burst in at that very minute and put an abrupt +end to the developing confidences. + +They descended upon the serious ones with such exhilaration that +even the neatly tied-up boxes were threatened with violence. + +"We are going to give a 'Dingus' tonight," shouted Betty, "and you +are not going to spoil it as you did our ghost party. Sally, this +time you two will be left off the committee, then perhaps we can +have our fun without your interference. Not that we wouldn't love to +have you," she hastened to temporize, "but we know how you do duck +our sports, and this time we are bound to put one through. We merely +dropped in to invite you, and if you are not on hand be warned!" + +"Be warned that we will drag you from your lair!" threatened Nellie +Saunders. "This is going to be one grand final rally, and we want +above all the two famous members of the clan." + +"You may wear your kilts and whitewash brushes," conceded Nellie. + +"You should wear a laurel crown, Sally. I suppose next half you will +jump right in junior and skip us poor little sophs, at least I hope +we'll be sophs," said Margie Winters. + +Jane managed to hide her impatience, but she was disappointed. She +had expected to draw out the confidence of Sally and Bobbie, +realizing she might help them if she but understood the mysterious +predicament. But there was no chance of further pressing that point, +so she turned and fled, to leave the freshies to their own +particular little affairs. + +Judith was anxiously waiting to hear the outcome of her visit, as it +had been planned between them. + +"No wiser than when I left you," confessed Jane. "Whatever those two +youngsters are up to I can't sense it nor get them to own up. But, +Judy, just keep a sharp watch out. If they run off it shall be our +joyful ju-ty to run them back. Some of the old Dol Vin nonsense is +still brewing in their childish brains I fear, and it behooves us to +eliminate it." + +"But why should they want to go now?" puzzled Judith. + +"I have admitted I cannot even guess," replied Jane, "but whatever +it is it began long ago and it just ripened now. Keep a watch on +Lenox, that is all I can advise. I hardly know now which of the two +fascinating little creatures I am most in love with. Sally is as +dear as ever, and Bobbie more--compelling. If I had a brother I +should imagine him just about as deliciously rebellious as Bobbie." + +Which was saying a good deal for Bobbie when it came from Jane. + +"Do you really think they will attempt to run away?" queried Judith, +deeply perplexed. + +"There is every evidence of it." + +"After everything turning out so beautifully--" + +"That's just it. There is some secret behind it all," reasoned Jane. +"I am just as much in the dark as ever." + +"Didn't you--couldn't you ask them outright Janie? How dreadful if +they should spoil everything, by acting so horrid! To run away!" + +"But we must not allow them to do so," argued Jane. "Surely now that +we are both warned, we ought to be able to forestall any such +attempt." + +"You know now how hard it is to keep track of things over at Lenox," +faltered Judith. "Not that I wouldn't be willing to sit up nights to +watch those babes, but even at that they could slip off," she +reasoned. + +"The freshies are having an affair tonight, that will mean we must +be doubly watchful during the excitement." + +"Why not tell some of the other girls, and get them to help us?" + +"I should hate to do that," replied Jane. "After all we have only +suspicion; it would never do to start a story like that." + +"I suppose you are right," sighed Judith, "but if I thought Dol Vin- +-" + +"There is nothing you can't think about Dol Vin, if that helps you +any. But just the same, she still acts the adroit meddler. When I +recall how she tried all last year to spoil our time here--yours and +mine--and now when I see she is making tools of these two innocents- +-" Jane paused from sheer indignation. + +"I don't believe the girl is fully civilized," blurted out Judith. + +"Of course she isn't, if you mean by 'civilized' being human and +kind and American. I would rather be hot headed and fiery, and have +all the other bad traits I plead guilty of, than to be as smart and +business-like as she is, but have no heart. I honestly believe Dol +Vin has a human motor in place of a flesh and blood heart." Jane was +getting excited now, and she paced up and down quite like a regular +stage person. + +"My poor noodle just thumps with the thinking," confessed Judith. +"Of course I am not willing to take the responsibility of policing +Lenox Hall all night Jane. There must be some other way." + +"I positively decline, Judy, to tell the office or ask for official +help. That would be too silly if we have made a mistake," decided +Jane falling into a convenient seat. + +Judith did not speak directly. She was loath to cross Jane further, +yet unwilling to shoulder this rather serious responsibility. + +"Why not invite both Bobbie and Sally over here and have them remain +all night?" she suggested. "That would be a treat for the--" + +"You forget the Lenox girls are having a party," Jane interrupted. + +"Then let us break in on the party," followed Judith quickly. + +"I agree, Judy, we must keep as close to them for a day at least, as +it is possible to do without actually locking them up. Dear me, +Jude! Look at the time! And I've got to get in some gym practice. My +joints are as stiff as sticks, and I had congested headaches just +from laziness. Coming to the gym?" + +"No, not today. My head aches from activity. You have me all swirled +up. Don't mind if I take a rest, do you? Suppose we have to go on +picket duty?" + +Jane laughed, defying her fears for Sally and Bobbie. + +"When I have anything important to do I must be alert," explained +Jane. "Go to sleep if you like Judy, but be ready if you hear me +whistle. It may be a race between the freshies and juniors you +know." + +"Oh--hum!" groaned Judith as Jane raced off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE REAL STORY + + +It was just before six o'clock that same evening when Dolly Lloyd +burst into the gym where Jane was exercising. + +"They're gone!" she exclaimed. "Sally and Bobbie have left Lenox, +and are rushing to get the six-thirty train. Why do you suppose they +have sneaked off like that?" + +"Gone? Are you sure?" asked Jane. + +"Positive, we have a note and--" + +But Jane heard no more. Snatching up her sweater, she jabbed her +arms into it as she ran, and hardly stopped until she hammered on +the door of the stable where her horse, Firefly, with others were +kept. + +Jim, the stable-boy, answered immediately, but seemed unable to +comprehend the unseemly haste, as Jane dashed in, loosened the +headstall of her intelligent mount, led him to the path and then +sprang up bareback to overtake the runaways. + +Jim stood speechless. That a student should romp off like that in +bloomers too--and without a hat! + +And how she was a-going it! + +Her hair flew out in a cloud about her head, while Firefly, who was +plainly wildly excited at his unexpected caper, just did as Jane +told him without the slightest regard for lack of bridle or saddle. +Wasn't he from Montana and didn't his mistress train him to go as +she chose without foolish restrictions? Students along the way +looked in amazement at the racing girl, but being Jane Allen some +allowance was made for the caprice. + +At the cedars a shrill train whistle warned Jane she had but a few +seconds more to make the little Bingham station, and she promptly +imparted the same message to Firefly. + +"We'll make it, boy," she whispered. "Take Janie to the station, +careful--careful--" in that droning, even voice a horse always knows +how to interpret. + +There, she touched the back platform, told her horse to wait, and +threw his strap over the livery post; then she hurried to the front +to find her freshmen. + +There they were! Bags in hand, standing now as the train was pulling +in. + +Jane saw them some seconds before they espied her, and quick as a +flash she had a hand on each of the others. + +"Girls," she called, "drop those bags. Where are you going?" + +Sally dropped her bag from sheer surprise, but Bobbie had a firmer +grip. + +"Oh, please, Miss Allen," begged Bobbie tearfully, "don't detain us, +we must go. This is our train." + +"If you go you must take me with you--and this way," she included +her gym togs in the statement. "Just be reasonable and rational. +There, let the train go" (it was going). "There are others. But you +just come over to that bench and tell me. What does all this mean?" +There was no time for recrimination. The story so long bound up in +the hearts of these two girls sprung freely to their lips. + +"You will hate us both, Miss Allen," stumbled Sally. "But we never +meant to deceive you for so long a time." + +"We were silly geese," retorted the impetuous Bobbie, "and I suppose +now, outside of Wellington grounds, we may as well try--to confess. +We have both deceived you! There is Shirley Duncan and I am Sally +Howland." + +"What!" gasped Jane, unable to understand the shifting of names from +one to the other. + +"I never won your father's scholarship," went on Bobbie, her voice +trailing evenly over every incriminating word. "Shirley won it and-- +" + +"I sold it to her," sobbed the other, eager to have done with the +hateful admission. + +"Sold it?" + +"Yes, there was no other way. Ted--my brother Ted--had to have two +hundred dollars to get back to Yorktown, and everything seemed gone +when uncle died. I had won the scholarship, to come to Wellington, +but I couldn't leave Ted stranded in his junior year," choked the +little freshman. + +"That was it!" exclaimed Jane, leading the girls away from the +tracks, now cleared of the New York express, and guiding them to the +back of the station where Firefly waited proudly. What a relief! + +"You rode--that way?" gasped Bobbie. "Without a saddle?" + +"Why certainly. It was the best gallop I've had in months. Now, +naughty girls, wait. Sit down. I'm too excited to stand up. You" (to +Sally) "are Shirley Duncan, and you" (to Bobbie) "are Sally +Rowland?" + +"Yes," replied both miserably. + +Then she, whom we must know as the real Shirley, spoke. + +"I know it must seem despicable, Miss Allen, but there was dear Ted, +so disappointed, and he was such a splendid student. I could come +here, but he simply had to have that two hundred dollars to go back +to Yorktown." The voice took courage with its tale of loyalty. + +"And you are simply a wonderful little girl to have managed it all," +declared Jane, showing not a single trace of resentment. "It is +actually fascinating--to think you actually exchanged identities!" + +"But I had no such laudable excuse," moaned Bobbie. "My folks just +wanted me to go to college--any old college in any old way--and we +always thought dad's good honest money would pave the way. But it +didn't, and I never could pass the exams, so I simply fell into this +from sheer vanity." + +"That is not so," expostulated the new Shirley. "Bobbie would never +have dreamed such a thing if Dol Vin did not happen along with her +wonderful plan. You may imagine she was the real brains--of the +plot." + +"Dol Vin--" + +"Yes, she taught--a summer gym class at our place," explained +Bobbie, "and when she heard my wail about not being able to get into +college she offered the scheme. At first it did seem abhorrent, but +she glossed it over so--" + +"And obtained such a generous commission--" put in the real Shirley. + +"Then you see, Kitten here was passed right in on her second exams, +while I sailed in on the exams she took for the scholarship," +confessed Bobbie, digging her heels in the cinder path recklessly. + +"And you both thought this an unpardonable offense?" + +"Certainly, we knew every moment we were both hypocrites," blurted +Bobbie. "Kitten has been fairly blistering under the stigma." + +"The train is gone," said Shirley the original. "And, Miss Allen, +you are not dressed for this. We will have to go back, I suppose." + +Jane had been thinking quickly, in fact her brain had been fairly +churning with the new turn in events. She jumped from the bench and +confronted the downcast freshmen. + +"I have it!" she exclaimed. "It is just perfect. Here you two girls +both came in on dad's scholarship, have both made good and are both +now eligible to finish the course. Don't you see how magically it +has all turned out?" + +"We don't," admitted Bobbie. + +"That's because you don't know how generous Deanie Rutledge can be. +We will go right back and tell her the whole thing and she will, I +am positive, think the matter one inspired by the noble effort you +made" (to Shirley) "to keep your brother in college. Bobbie, you did +want to come to college, that is always a laudable ambition, and +think of the thousands who fail every year?" + +"But they don't come," persisted the still doubting Bobbie. "But you +did. And if you WERE a little rebel at first, doesn't that explain +it? Your preparation was all wrong--you heard Deanie say so. Come +on, now, I'll walk and let you lead Firefly, Bobbie. I know it will +be a treat to you to even lead him. Sorry you can't ride in that +tight skirt." + +"Wait a minute," demanded Bobbie, stopping short, "do you mean to +say, Miss Allen--" + +"Jane--" + +"All right," with a smile. "Do you mean to say, Jane, that the dean +would ever understand and condone all this?" + +"What are deans for?" asked Jane, the miracle worker. "I'm just wild +over the whole thing and daddy will want to adopt you both. It is +simply thrilling! You have doubled the value of the scholarship." + +"But if we did come back and the girls knew it? Our change of +names?" queried the real Shirley, apprehensively. + +"Don't you see how simple it is? We will just explain that you +exchanged identities to try out how one girl could work on another +girl's reputation. That you both intended to go back to your real +selves at the half year--" + +"So we did," declared Bobbie. "Shirley was to be transferred to +Breslin and I expected to--withdraw." + +"But you don't want to?" + +"No," hesitating, "but I can't see--" + +"I can. The whole thing is a wonderful story and when we give the +girls the one fact, that you simply exchanged places for a lark, and +then didn't know how to get out of it, that will be enough for them. +Come along there, Firefly, meet my two college chums. And now, +Bobbie, talk to him once in a while, so he will remember you when +you dash over the hills of Montana." + +"Sort of--fairy story," breathed Shirley, a little tragically. + +"And Teddy is your brother?" asked Jane. "However did he keep the +lark up at the dance?" + +"He thought it was only a lark," replied his sister. + +"And so it was," suddenly declared Bobbie. "Jane Allen has made it +so and I'm for a full A.B. course at old Wellington! Let gossips do +their worst," and she capered ahead to the playful clip-clap of +Firefly, every step indicating the relief she was experiencing. + +"If Bobbie feels that way I am sure I should not hold out," relented +Shirley. "In fact, both Ted and I have our own incomes now. We only +had to wait for an adjustment, but at the time we were simply panic- +stricken. I wanted to pay Bobbie back last month, but have not +succeeded in getting her to take the money as yet." + +"I think it is all perfectly delicious!" declared Jane. "Won't Judy +and Dozia just howl? Of course no one need know about the loan. That +is purely a personal matter." (More miracles.) + +"Jane," called back Bobbie, "don't you remember how you used to +question that name Shirley? Didn't seem to think it fitted me. Well, +you see how you were right. I should have been plain old-fashioned +country Sarah." + +"Nevertheless," insisted Jane, "you have proven how well you can +act. Take care we don't cast you for a leading role in some of our +masquerades!" + +They turned into the campus again, happy in their new-found +security, for what Jane undertook she was sure to accomplish, and +even this complication melted away into a fascinating story under +her skillful guidance. + +"Hurry! Hurry!" she prompted, "we must account for this little race. +There's Judy. Run on ahead and tell anyone you meet--tell them we're +coming," she ended foolishly to Bobbie. "Your turn to think." + +"Tell them we had a race, and with a good handicap, Kitten won," +suggested Bobbie, responding quickly to Jane's suggestion. + +"But what about all our things? Our hats and coats?" demurred the +real Shirley. + +"They'll be too interested to notice that detail," said Jane. "I'm +so happy, happy, happy! Run along Firefly--there's Jim waiting. Now, +come girls, after we deliver Firefly to his keeper we are going +right up to the hall--Judy! Judy!" she broke off, for Judith +evidently had not seen them come in the gate. "Over here Judy!" she +shouted again, and this time Judy responded. + +She rushed up to the culprits and likewise confronted Jane. + +"Don't you three dare to deceive me!" she stormed with good nature +sufficient to hide the girl's evident embarassment. "Where have you +been and what have you been doing?" + +"I wouldn't attempt to deceive you Judith," said Bobbie bravely, "we +were running away!" + +"Why?" the question was put seriously. + +"Because we have both been deceiving you all, and no matter how +generous you two friends try to be, I am at least going to set that +matter straight before the whole college. I am Sarah Howland and +this is Shirley Duncan." She placed her hand on little Shirley's +arm. + +Judith was dumfounded! They expected she would be, naturally, but +she now stood there speechless. + +"Be a good sport Judy," urged Jane, "and help us stage a real happy +ending. Don't you want to jump on Firefly and ride him over to the +stable?" + +"I don't. Why has Shirley become Bobbie?" + +Jane wanted to laugh, but Bobbie's face was very serious, and +Shirley's lip was quivering. Jane released her horse and watched him +canter over to the stable. + +"We'll all be late for tea, but never mind," she said. "Let us tell +Judy all about it. She'll die of curiosity if we don't. Look at her +poor face." + +"Jane Allen if I knew a big secret I'd tell you," declared the +abused one. + +"Here's a seat; there, now listen," began Jane. "Shirley Duncan +exchanged places on the scholarship certificate with Sally Howland, +that's Bobbie, because Sally couldn't get in otherwise, and Shirley- +-" + +"Needed the money," confessed Shirley, insisting on having a part in +the confession. + +"But it was for her brother Ted, you know," interrupted Bobbie +loyally. + +"Is that Teddy your brother? And Bobbie you blushed so when you +danced with him, and I accused you--" It was Judith's turn to talk +quickly now, and she made good use of the opportunity. + +Finally something like order was restored. + +"You must help us Judy--" pleaded Jane. "I insisted the girls should +come right along and simply tell their story frankly to Deanie. You +know how splendidly she came to the rescue of our friends last +year." + +"You need not be afraid to tell her your story girls," agreed +Judith. "In fact I think she'll be just tickled to death to have two +such little Trojans in our midst. But what about the others?" + +"Oh, I don't want to face it," faltered Shirley nearly in tears. +"Why can't we withdraw and do as we planned, Bobbie?" + +"Because we won't let you," insisted Jane. "Just now you are bound +to feel a little frightened, but if you could see it as I do; as +Judy does," she hurried to add. "I tell you girls the others will +just want to carry you around on their shoulders, they'll be so +proud of you," finished Jane a little breathlessly. + +"Carry us around?" questioned Bobbie. "If you hadn't caught us we +would be making pictures of ourselves with our faces pressed to the +damp window panes of that train you hear whistling now," she +declared, with a flash of her natural humor. "Kitten's face wouldn't +be pretty either, if she puckered it that way." + +Jane knew the battle was won, now that Bobbie joked and smiled, so +she jumped up quickly and urged them along. + +"Come on everyone, there's a light in the office," she said. "We +will just have a few minutes to talk to Deanie." + +The girls went back, and when the holiday finally came both freshmen +were hailed as the particular friends of Miss Allen and were to +spend their vacation at her father's ranch in Montana. + + * * * * * * + +The next volume of this series will sustain Jane's reputation for +unmatched personality in her Wellington record as "Jane Allen: +Senior." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jane Allen: Junior, by Edith Bancroft + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JANE ALLEN: JUNIOR *** + +This file should be named 4945.txt or 4945.zip + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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