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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
-Margaret Vandercook
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
-
-Author: Margaret Vandercook
-
-Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine
-
-Release Date: December 1, 2017 [EBook #56097]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING
-ATTENDANCE ON JEAN]
-
-
-
-
-THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
-
-The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
-
-By
-
-Margaret Vandercook
-
-Illustrated By
-
-Hugh A. Bodine
-
-THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
-
-PHILADELPHIA
-
-
-
-
-Copyright, 1913, by
-
-THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-    I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”
-    II. IN DISGRACE
-    III. “GERRY”
-    IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS
-    V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
-    VI. HER TEMPTATION
-    VII. CINDERELLA
-    VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE
-    IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
-    X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
-    XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
-    XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
-    XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
-    XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
-    XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH
-    XVI. ELECTION DAY
-    XVII. CONGRATULATIONS
-    XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
-    XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE
-    XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
-    XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
-    XXII. READJUSTMENTS
-    XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”
-    XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
-    XXV. “JACK”
-
-
-
-
-The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-“STILL AS THE NIGHT”
-
-
-Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room
-stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as
-Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had
-struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn
-strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to
-announce the coming of morning.
-
-“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should
-flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and
-make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at
-them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a
-short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going
-to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted
-forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a
-door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in
-the other room was occupied by two persons.
-
-Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the
-“Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly
-from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that
-even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In
-the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against
-another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached
-forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.
-
-“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying to waken
-them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they sleep so soundly the
-first night at a strange boarding school when I am so homesick and
-lonely I know that I am going to die or cry or do something else
-desperate? If only Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
-Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch, sliding to the
-floor again, sat with her legs crossed under her and her head resting on
-her hands in a curious Indian posture of grief. And while she waited,
-watching beside the bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now
-quietly asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New York
-City, which held her beloved friend Jack.
-
-Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by their
-chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance at Primrose Hall
-to begin their first year of fashionable boarding school life. But once
-the girls had been introduced to the principal of the school, Miss
-Katherine Winthrop, and Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms
-assigned to the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
-train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles, for Jack had
-been left behind in a hospital and must not be long alone. There she lay
-awaiting the verdict of the New York surgeons to know whether after her
-accident at the Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect
-to walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow Lodge in
-Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the ranch girls an eastern
-education and to fit them for a more cosmopolitan life now that so great
-wealth was being brought forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out
-what could be done for Jack.
-
-Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend, a faint,
-chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings sounded along the
-outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting her head with a smothered cry of
-delight, the girl spied a thin streak of light shining across the floor.
-A moment later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her and
-her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning the unfamiliar
-scene before her. Dawn had come at last!
-
-The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her arrival at
-school the day before, in the first meeting with so many strangers,
-Olive had not spared time to see or think of the surroundings of
-Primrose Hall, but now she could examine the landscape thoroughly. Set
-in the midst of one of the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson
-River, this morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
-with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the immortelles; the
-low hills in the background were brown and red and gold with the October
-foliage of the trees. Beyond the fields the Hudson River ran broader and
-deeper than any stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across
-from it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now veiled
-in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine could be more
-wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson River; and yet, as Olive
-Ralston gazed out upon it, its beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the
-lump in her throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
-sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and nothing could be
-more unlike the low level sweep of their Wyoming prairie than this
-Hudson River country.
-
-“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we have named
-homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours, for surely this
-longing for home, for accustomed people and things in the midst of
-strange surroundings, may be a woe very deep and intense.
-
-From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come east to
-boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the change from the
-simple life of the ranch to the more conventional school atmosphere
-would be more difficult for her than for either Jean or Frieda. True,
-she had not spoken of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed
-Olive, had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl, with
-no name of her own and no people, and except for her friends’ generosity
-might still be living in the dirty hut in the Indian village with old
-Laska.
-
-After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all decided that it
-would be wiser not to mention Olive’s strange history to her new
-schoolmates. Now in the midst of her attack of homesickness, Olive
-wondered if the girls would not at once guess her mixed blood from her
-odd appearance, or else might she not some day betray her ignorance of
-the little manners and customs that reveal a good family and good
-breeding? In the two happy years spent at the Rainbow Ranch she had
-learned all she could from Ruth and the other three girls, but were
-there not fourteen other ignorant years back of those two years?
-
-A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window with her
-quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial casement. But now,
-finding both the autumn air and her own thoughts chilling, she turned
-away and began slowly to dress. She was still blue and yet at the same
-time ashamed of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
-foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here at Primrose
-Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of her big opportunity and
-have not big opportunities the world over the fashion of starting out
-with difficulties to be overcome? When Olive’s education was completed
-she had made up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
-she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the teaching of
-the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda Ralston, since the discovery
-of the gold mine near Rainbow Creek, were probably very wealthy and
-though it was but right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should
-share their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished to be
-always dependent even on the best of friends.
-
-Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the young girl’s
-mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and yet she could not make
-up her mind how best to amuse herself until the half-past seven o’clock
-bell should ring for breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but
-there was no news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
-hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken Jean and
-Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven famous sleepers. No
-other girl shared Olive’s room because Ruth and the four ranch girls
-hoped that after a few weeks’ treatment in the New York hospital Jack
-would then be able to join the others at school.
-
-Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to her open
-window and there stood listening to the “chug, chug, chug” of a big
-steamer out on the river and then to the shriek of an engine along its
-banks. Suddenly her face brightened.
-
-“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed aloud, “I think
-I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad temper and go and have a good
-walk to myself before breakfast.”
-
-Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out alone and
-without permission she would be breaking an iron law of Primrose Hall.
-Nothing was farther from her mind than disobedience, but no one had yet
-told her of the school rules and regulations and taking a walk alone
-seemed to her the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
-few hours longer she must have understood differently, for the students
-were expected to assemble that very morning to hear what was required of
-them at Primrose Hall.
-
-As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and hat, creeping
-along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb the other sleepers, and
-for the same reason she as quietly unlocked the big front door. But once
-out on the lawn, so innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that
-she paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house she was
-about to leave.
-
-Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new pupil felt a
-thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A red brick mansion of the
-old colonial period, it was set in a lovely garden with flowers and
-shrubs growing close about the house and an avenue of elm trees leading
-down to the gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
-of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This morning only a few
-late asters were in bloom in the garden and bushes of hardy hydrangeas
-with their great blossoms now turning rose and brown from the first
-early autumn frosts. The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged
-in the family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five generations
-and Olive smiled a little over her queer conceit, for the house somehow
-suggested its present owner to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared
-just as imposing and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with
-her the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any mere pile
-of brick and stone.
-
-Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the bedrooms and
-reception rooms necessary for its pupils and teachers, and the only
-other school buildings about the grounds were the recitation hall and
-two sorority houses devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had
-never heard of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
-“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.
-
-Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the ranch girls by
-Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they had learned to know at the
-Yellowstone Park, but apart from its excellent reputation as a finishing
-school, their choice had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty
-of its historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and Lafayette
-had been known to stay, and who can guess how many powdered belles and
-beaus may have flirted with one another in the garden by the old
-sun-dial?
-
-When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she determined
-to extend her walk over a portion of the estate, and coming to a low,
-stone wall, climbed over it without thinking or caring just where it led
-her. Being outdoors once more and free to wander as she choose after two
-weeks’ confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
-palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that Olive felt like
-singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that her own personality, which
-had somehow vanished since leaving the ranch, had come back to her this
-morning like a dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately
-been wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this hour
-had donned once again her own well-worn dress.
-
-Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early Indian days,
-soon the truant found herself in a woods thick with underbrush and trees
-never seen before by a Wyoming girl. The air was delicious, the leaves
-sparkled with the melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of
-youth and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot that
-she was in the midst of a highly civilized community and not in the
-heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not until she had come entirely
-out of the woods that her awakening took place. Then she found herself
-apparently in some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white
-house set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled
-windows on either side. At the entrance to its big front door stood two
-absurd iron dogs, and yet there was nothing in any of these ordinary
-details to make the onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she
-stared up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her seemed so
-utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she must be losing her
-senses.
-
-For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from the house,
-and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and walked back into the
-woods. At first she paid no particular attention to what direction she
-was taking until all at once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt
-reasonably sure they were following hers.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-IN DISGRACE
-
-
-It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with so slight
-cause, yet the thought that some one might be in pursuit of her filled
-her with a nervous terror. To the people not afflicted with timidity,
-most fears are ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
-overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid one, but
-before one criticizes her, remember her childhood. Now with her heart
-pounding and her breath coming in short gasps, she quickened her pace
-into a run, recalling at the same time their chaperon’s forgotten
-instruction that she must no longer expect the happy freedom of their
-western lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
-traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive dared not
-hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour was growing late and
-that any added delay would make her late for breakfast.
-
-Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the woods save her
-in emergencies of this sort, so in another moment she remembered that an
-Indian never runs away from his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has
-passed. Behind a low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself,
-crouching low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
-gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of private
-property, savagely on the lookout for her.
-
-Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally arrived just
-opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was the girl in hiding who
-suddenly sprang to her feet, startling the newcomer. For the enemy she
-had so dreaded was only another girl like herself with a smile on her
-face and a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
-perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before her
-illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had the same bright
-bronze hair and firm line to her chin and the same proud way of holding
-up her head.
-
-“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living in this
-underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the same color that I did
-not see you at first.”
-
-Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a tam-o’-shanter
-of velvet of the same shade, shook her head. “I am one of the new girls
-from Primrose Hall and I have been out for a walk, but as I am not very
-familiar with these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you
-mind—” Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression of
-surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.
-
-“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this hour of the
-morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen to give you permission?”
-she asked in the positive fashion that Olive was to learn to know so
-well later on.
-
-The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept over the
-truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without asking permission she
-had broken a rule of her new school? The idea seemed ridiculous to
-Olive, and yet—were not all things different than in the old days? “I am
-so sorry, but no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
-to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose Hall
-yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before breakfast at
-home, riding over the plains!”
-
-Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain to the older
-girl that straightway she slipped her arm through hers and without delay
-hurried her along toward school, talking as she went.
-
-“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at Primrose
-Hall, and I have been spending the night with some friends.” Jessica
-gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in hers. “You must not be
-frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop seems rather terrifying on your
-return. I used to be a pupil at Primrose Hall before I started in with
-the teaching and I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so
-severe as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is after
-breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never allowed to go out
-alone and never without permission, why she may scold you a bit.”
-
-If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the path to weep
-like a naughty child about to be punished for a fault, Olive would have
-felt it a great relief, and only the thought of her age prevented her
-doing this. Could she ever live through the embarrassment of facing
-fifty strange girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
-while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on being introduced
-to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and Frieda with her for protection,
-had she not felt as tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now
-must she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
-displeasure?
-
-Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive Ralston’s
-life were always unusual and romantic) would she ever forget the next
-half hour’s experience at Primrose Hall, nor the appearance of the great
-hall as she entered it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and
-towering above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding presence
-of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.
-
-Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing in front of
-Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers, heard the teacher of
-mathematics say, “Here is your new runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and
-realized that this teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she
-wore round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much to get
-her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her disgrace.
-
-But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only teacher at
-Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss Winthrop,” she now began
-coaxingly, “I have brought our new girl home. She was only taking a walk
-in the woods near by, but I am sure she would rather explain to you
-herself that in going out without permission she did not know she was
-breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the West and
-been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica was continuing her
-case for the defendant, realizing that Olive was still too frightened to
-speak for herself. But suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small,
-plump person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue eyes
-in the school, and without the least regard for either teachers or
-principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms about Olive.
-
-“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where you were
-going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened about you.”
-
-And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her other side,
-a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and demure brown eyes, whose
-nose had the faintest, most delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce
-said nothing, but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
-against all the world.
-
-Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three teachers were
-numbers of other students, most of whom were casting glances of sympathy
-at the new pupil who had so soon fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just
-over, they were supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
-Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until Miss
-Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.
-
-“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said quietly. “Miss
-Ralston will explain her absence to me in my private study.” As her
-words and look included Jean and Frieda, they also were compelled to
-follow the other students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to
-face her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a freckled
-nose actually had the courage to stop in passing and whisper to the
-offender:
-
-“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes unknown you go
-to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while Olive was trying to summon a
-smile in return, a beautiful girl with pale blonde hair joined both of
-them, and drawing the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen
-persons near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When will
-you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons whom no one knows
-anything about?” And so cool and indifferent did her expression appear
-as she made her unkind speech that it was hard to believe she understood
-that her words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and in
-spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or forgave them.
-
-A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared, Olive found
-herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated in a comfortable leather
-chair facing a desk at which Miss Winthrop was writing.
-
-“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they entered the
-room, and at first the prisoner had felt that waiting to hear her
-sentence would be unendurable. Of course she would be expelled from
-Primrose Hall; Olive had no other idea. And of course Ruth and Jack
-would understand and forgive her, but there would be no going back on
-her part to be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
-to support herself in the future!
-
-But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her writing, by
-and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own sorrows and she busied
-herself in studying her judge’s face. Miss Winthrop’s expression was not
-so stern in repose, for though the lines about her mouth were severe and
-her nose aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
-full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt obliged to
-admit that though she was taller and larger than almost any woman she
-had known, her grace and dignity were most unusual and the severity of
-her simple black silk gown showed her to great advantage.
-
-Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next traveled idly
-to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting there for an eager moment,
-while in her interest she forgot everything else. For the first time in
-her life this young girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had
-her attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.
-
-On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic figure of a
-woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and wonderful flowing draperies.
-The figure was without head or arms and yet was so inspiring that,
-without realizing it, Olive gave a sigh of delight.
-
-Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked
-quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged
-Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the
-stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some
-day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me
-and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the
-statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman,
-what all we women must hope to be some day. See the beauty and dignity
-of her, as though she had turned her back on all sin and injustice and
-was moving forward into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
-splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children in them.”
-
-Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above the head of
-her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to study the girl’s face.
-Now she saw by its sudden glow and softening that she had caught at
-least a measure of her meaning.
-
-“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the world held
-nothing else and that she knew all the varieties, and yet one could
-never be too sure, for here before her was a new type unlike all the
-others and for some reason at this moment she attracted her strongly.
-
-To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had thought it wise to
-confide as much as they knew of Olive’s extraordinary history, pledging
-her to secrecy. Now to herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly
-ridiculous to believe this child has Indian blood, for there is
-absolutely nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
-history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”
-
-But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after her first
-speech her manner appeared to change entirely. Sitting very erect in her
-chair, she turned upon her pupil “You may go,” she said coldly, “for I
-understand that by your action this morning you did not deliberately
-intend to break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
-future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience, whatever
-its cause.”
-
-With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall, wondering if
-she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who could be so stern one moment
-and so interesting the next. For her own part Olive felt that she much
-preferred their former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less
-handsome and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human. If
-only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to scold and pet
-them for their misdoings all in the same breath.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-“GERRY”
-
-
-The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of
-the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to
-reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long
-corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not
-interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean,
-and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
-conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.
-
-“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,” one of the
-voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as nice to these new
-Western girls as I know how. They are strangers and I think it horrid to
-try to snub them just because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
-fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you will try to
-turn as many of the other Juniors against them as you can twist around
-your finger, but kindly don’t include me in your list. Perhaps you think
-I don’t know why you have had me for one of your chums for so long.
-Goodness, child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
-homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the stately beauty
-than ever in contrast with poor little me. But maybe you won’t always be
-thought the prettiest girl in the school, for this queer looking Olive,
-what’s her name, is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way,
-and the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second. If you
-are angry with me, why you need not have me for a roommate, for I am
-going this very second to call on the new ranch girls and welcome them
-to Primrose Hall.” And with a flounce the same short-haired girl who had
-stopped to tease Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall
-after her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of fashions.
-“Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she inquired, “for I have
-been several years at Primrose Hall and know the place like an old shoe.
-Besides, I think that you and the older one of your sisters or friends,
-I can’t guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior class,
-and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close together these days.”
-
-By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door, but hearing
-queer noises in another room, they followed the sounds, discovering Jean
-and Frieda in the adjoining chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’
-sitting room. An immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean
-and Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the trunk of
-their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two sisters, Mollie and
-Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had come in to lend them hammer and
-nails and were now watching them with deep absorption.
-
-“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she stopped in some
-confusion, remembering that she had not yet heard their new friend’s
-name.
-
-The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see their new
-visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows, at your service,” she
-explained, “but I’m better known to the world as Gerry. See I have
-brought your Olive safe back from the lion’s den and, as she is no more
-eaten up than was the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint
-to start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you about
-Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what not to do?”
-
-Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully, but Jean
-closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard the question. She was
-not accustomed to feeling out of things as she had this morning and was
-not sure she cared to have strangers making an effort to be kind.
-Suppose this Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to
-be one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well even
-that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!
-
-But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness and having
-already taken a fancy to her, as strangers usually did, now seated
-herself cross-legged on the floor, beckoning to the others to follow
-suit. “All Gaul, my children, is divided into three parts, as we learn
-in our Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to say,
-is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred Graham likes and the
-girls she docs not. I used to belong to the first class, but now I
-probably belong to the second. I was kind of in love with Winifred last
-year and let her boss me around, but during the summer I thought things
-over and decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
-morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a snap about
-my desertion, for she never cares for people unless they are rich and
-I’m not a bit, only my father is a famous surgeon in New York and I’m
-going to be a doctor myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind
-gentleman to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
-didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively tongue,
-pretending not to be able to say anything more, although Jean was gazing
-at her in a more encouraging fashion than she had worn at the beginning
-of her speech.
-
-All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York City the four
-ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend, Frank Kent, had discussed
-this question: Should the girls on arriving at boarding school speak of
-their new-found gold mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack
-advised against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and Frank
-thought they might as well mention it now and then, while Jean was
-determined to speak of their gold mine whenever the chance offered and
-to make the biggest impression she possibly could. So now it was
-surprising to hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
-her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose Hall to care
-for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,” she answered demurely; “so
-I am afraid Miss Graham and her friends will not like us any too well.
-You see, we are simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by
-that. I suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because our
-clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks apiece as most of
-the girls here have. Olive and I were laughing yesterday because on our
-arrival we were given United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels!
-why we haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes that
-belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head warningly at
-Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and whose lips were
-about to form the name of the Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to
-divert her attention, Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics
-and diving down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
-baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to remind you
-that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall and we hope our first
-friends,” she said prettily, handing a basket to Gerry and then the
-others to the two sisters. But all the while Jean was talking and acting
-this little pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
-right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will find out who
-the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and then—” Well, it was
-comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last letter, written after they had
-left the ranch, he had said the pot of gold from the end of their
-Rainbow Mine had yielded five thousand dollars within the month just
-past and that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had come
-from.
-
-Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls started with
-surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining perfectly calm. Getting up
-from the floor, however, she stuck her Indian basket on her head for a
-hat, using the handle as a strap.
-
-“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the recitation
-hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just sounded, only a gentle
-reminder that we are to assemble within the next ten minutes to meet our
-teachers and to get ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I
-can only hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
-Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the room to the
-tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after her: “You were awfully
-good to come in to see us and we are obliged to you, so please help us
-out whenever you can. I am afraid that the things we know, such as
-riding bareback and raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be
-considered accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
-unusually humble and particularly pretty.
-
-Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned ourselves at
-Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of insects here, butterflies as
-well as bookworms. But I will say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is
-a fashionable school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as
-our P’s.”
-
-Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what does it mean
-‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired solemnly.
-
-“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and how to enter
-a room and what to say when you get there and all the things that mean
-Society with a big S, Miss Frieda Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s,
-Q’s are dreadful things called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find
-out what quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
-mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the delicious
-name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda, if you want to know the
-truth about the meaning of the old expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’
-the Century Dictionary tells us that the expression alluded to the
-difficulty in the early days of discerning the difference between the
-two letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of her curly
-head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’ room.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-GETTING INTO HARNESS
-
-
-Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch girls at
-boarding school and so many changes appeared to have taken place in
-their lives that already the weeks seemed as many months. One of the
-changes they themselves did not realize, but nevertheless it was a
-serious one, for Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as
-they had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was going her
-own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new friendships and
-apparently forgetting the importance of past ties.
-
-And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
-emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for Mollie Johnson,
-the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy Johnson was a good deal older than
-Frieda, but Mollie was a year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and
-looked up to her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
-that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made her appear
-like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of being treated like a
-baby by her family, and besides, as no one had ever told her before that
-she was in the least like a heroine, she found the idea distinctly
-pleasant. The two Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
-vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small and dark
-and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such a complete contrast
-to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements that it was small wonder the two
-girls were drawn together by their very unlikeness and that already
-their schoolmates were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
-everywhere together with their arms locked about one another, wore one
-another’s clothes when their different sizes permitted, and were never
-without true lover’s knots of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes,
-knots made from a sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair
-ribbons. Not that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
-the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and in spite of
-Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids had disappeared and in
-their place a Pysche knot of huge proportions could be seen at the back
-of her head. The Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did
-not have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest fashion and of
-course nothing else really matters. As Frieda’s school work was not the
-same as Jean’s and Olive’s, on account of her age and the fact that she
-never had cared much about books, the division of her time was different
-from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the excitement of her
-first independence and without Jack’s influence, she should be for the
-first time in her life “ganging her own gait.”
-
-But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
-unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed together over
-Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while they were laughing, though
-she had said nothing, Olive was wondering if Jean did not know that she
-saw almost as little of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without
-realizing it or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
-after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most popular girls in
-the school. As a proof of it she had already been invited to join both
-the two sororities and had not made up her mind which one she should
-choose. The fact that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
-certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,” for from the
-hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of Winifred’s character there had
-been open war between Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness
-to Olive was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was almost
-forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry. It was an open
-discussion that the choice for Junior class president, which must be
-made before the Christmas holidays, would lie between these two girls.
-For though Jean had continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls
-in the school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
-friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest
-families in New York City, people who looked down upon the Four Hundred
-as belonging to the dreadful “new rich.”
-
-But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly for Jean and
-Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was making no friends.
-Though it was customary to invite the new girls at Primrose Hall into
-one or the other of the secret societies almost immediately upon their
-arrival at school, Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority.
-Too shy and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she did
-not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon her. Only in
-secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if her blood showed itself so
-plainly that her classmates disliked her for that reason or if she were
-more unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack, who was
-finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world, had cared for her
-and if only the doctors would say that Jack was strong enough to join
-them at Primrose Hall, nothing else would make any difference! Letters
-from Ruth Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured the
-girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected, but as yet there
-had been no definite report from the surgeon?
-
-However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her
-classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her,
-who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher
-whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was
-something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a
-strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to
-reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and
-was trying her best to discover their cause. Some secret story might
-possibly be in circulation about the newcomer, but so far Jessica had
-not been able to find it out.
-
-One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting room for
-several hours. Always books had been her consolation for loneliness
-since the days when her only white friend had been the teacher in the
-Indian school in her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected
-knock at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to join
-her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on opening the door her
-eyes had widened with surprise.
-
-“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a
-visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you
-everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas.
-To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at
-the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the
-other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
-may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her
-the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter
-over sensibly together and she might be able to help. But alas for
-Olive! Though Ruth had warned her to try to overcome her reserve that
-day of the flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
-give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only answered Miss
-Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider than the other girls that I
-have to stay in my room to study more. But I am through with my work now
-and awfully glad to see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome
-revealed more of her real feeling than any number of words.
-
-Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave a little
-cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you don’t wish to be
-outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the most charming girls’ room at
-Primrose Hall! It makes me think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I
-was misquoting a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some
-day when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself. And
-surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are one.’”
-
-Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had dreamed of
-making it in the last days at home, a bit of the Rainbow Lodge in
-miniature, their own beloved ranch house living room reproduced many
-miles across the continent. By Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted
-to the three ranch girls a large and almost empty room, containing only
-a divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was covered
-with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright shawls were thrown
-over the divan, piled with sofa cushions of leather and silk, and on the
-walls were prints of Indian heads, one of them a picture of a young girl
-looking singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of cowboys
-on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace, about one-fourth the
-size of the one at The Lodge, was the head of an elk shot by Jim Colter
-himself on the border of their own ranch, and on the mantel the very
-brass candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home, besides
-several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient ornaments discovered by
-Frieda in the Indian cave on the day when Olive had made her first
-appearance in the ranch girls’ lives.
-
-But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room she began at
-once to look more closely at the few photographs which the ranch girls
-had placed on top of their bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker
-way to learn to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
-taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must represent
-the persons nearest and dearest, their families and closest friends.
-
-The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures, only an
-absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell present to them, but
-as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and his Sunday clothes, it was not
-in the least like their big, splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was
-one of Ruth and alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost
-instinctively Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
-girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched Olive’s heart.
-
-“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is just the type
-of girl I admire the most, so graceful and vigorous and with such a lot
-of character. Oh, I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended
-suddenly, seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.
-
-Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t vigorous any
-more.” And then, to her own surprise and relief, Olive poured forth the
-whole story of Jack’s accident and their reasons for coming east.
-
-Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing that takes
-place every day, but just as Olive was on the point of telling Miss Hunt
-that she expected each day to hear more definite news of Jack, a message
-was sent upstairs to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception
-room desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once. Would
-Olive find the other girls and come to the reception room immediately?
-
-With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew who had come
-to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with a hurried apology to
-Jessica, begging her to wait until her return, fled out, of her room
-down through the lower part of the house and then out into the school
-grounds to search for Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at
-once to Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls hear
-the good news with her.
-
-And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the ranch girls’
-room for a few minutes longer, for standing near the photograph of
-Jacqueline Ralston was another photograph whose presence in the room
-puzzled her greatly. She did not feel that she had the right to ask
-curious questions and yet she must look at this picture more closely,
-for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying in her own bureau
-drawer between folds of lavender-scented silk.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
-
-
-Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two great side
-porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many recreation hours on
-these warm Indian summer afternoons, but just in front of the sorority
-house with “Theta” engraved above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded
-by a dozen girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had her
-back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started to run toward her
-and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl in the group was known to her
-by name, all of them were Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of
-them, except Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
-conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to thrust herself
-among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the thought that Ruth must be
-waiting for them with news of Jack braced her. “Jean,” Olive called
-softly and then in a louder tone, “Jean!”
-
-At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve other pairs of
-eyes stared poor Olive up and down.
-
-“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her brown eyes
-shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been arranged that I am to join
-the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope that you will come in with me. Then we
-are going to form a dramatic club in our sorority and after a little
-while give a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
-to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than any one of us,
-or at least she used to when we had charades at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean
-paused, feeling a peculiar change in the atmosphere about her. Would no
-one echo her invitation to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in
-silence unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing right
-before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her lips to hide their
-trembling?
-
-Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you think for
-an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning to her best friend in
-the little company, a tall, distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that
-I will be in things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
-Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,” she
-whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had come to give her,
-without further thought of anything or anybody at Primrose Hall, the two
-friends hurried off together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying
-to find Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after them,
-in a few moments the two girls appeared at the reception room door.
-
-“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned white faces
-to stare at each other and at the tall figure that rose to greet them
-holding Frieda’s hand in one of his. “It is Peter Drummond, gooseys;
-don’t you know him?” Frieda cried happily. “Some one told me we had a
-caller and I came in here expecting to find some strange, horrid
-visitor, and when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
-and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him to come to
-see us,” she ended, rather crossly.
-
-“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied, coming to
-herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are terribly glad it is
-you; only—why—the truth is, we expected Ruth to be able to tell us that
-Jack was better or something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in
-weeks, ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
-friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to tell us
-about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly strained voice. “I
-am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we hoped she would be and Ruth
-couldn’t leave her. Won’t she ever be able to walk again like other
-people? Have the doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought
-you to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still for a
-second Peter Drummond did not reply.
-
-The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely surprised at
-Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had unexpectedly burst into tears.
-
-“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s hand, “it isn’t
-so bad as all this. Olive did guess the truth and I have come to tell
-you about Jack. Perhaps she isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t
-join you at school just at present or get about very much. The fact is—”
-Mr. Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not quite sure
-of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while longer and keep her very
-quiet before they can decide. But I saw her a minute the other day and
-she and Ruth send you their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so
-dreadful as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
-something, for never before in my life have I been with three women and
-had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with a man’s embarrassment at
-being the bearer of ill news, looked at the ranch girls with pretended
-indignation.
-
-“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?” Jean asked, and
-their visitor, not in the least offended by the question, emphatically
-bowed his head.
-
-Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda, I don’t
-think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly, “though of course we are
-terribly disappointed at not having Jack here at school with us, I have
-always felt she would be well some day. Even if the surgeons should say
-she won’t, my money is on old Jack!”
-
-Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous attitude, though
-Olive looked considerably depressed. But at this minute Mr. Drummond, to
-divert everybody’s attention, turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell
-me, please, what is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if
-two weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will a whole
-year do?”
-
-Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot. “Don’t tell Jack
-and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing her blonde head: “Oh, tell away
-if you like, Peter Drummond. I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you
-mean; I am just not a baby any longer.”
-
-Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and amusement. “If
-it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,” he said pulling at his own
-heavy iron-gray hair, “then you’ve got about the worst disease in the
-world and the most incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to
-overtake one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he turned
-again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been awfully nice to Jack and
-Ruth and they are coming out here to see you pretty soon. There is a
-queer old house in this neighborhood where an old relative of theirs
-lives. The house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
-mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”
-
-“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.
-
-“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the place Peter
-is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he hasn’t told you the name
-of it or what it looks like or anything to identify it.”
-
-Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a place called
-‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of it and a balcony and queer
-little windows.” Quite unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because
-for some strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
-had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her eyes closed.
-
-Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is called ‘The
-Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder if because Olive is
-perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is going to be a fortune teller.” But
-because Olive’s face had crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My
-dear Olive, suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
-There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive noticed that
-Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.
-
-But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a large box and
-a small one. The large box he handed to Jean. “You are please to conceal
-this from the powers that be, if it’s against boarding school laws to
-eat candy,” he said and then stood turning the smaller box about in his
-hand, surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
-Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains a great
-surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is inside of it, may I
-be present at its opening?”
-
-The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering outside the
-parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed which opened with a
-spring. Instantly Frieda touched this spring there were three cries of
-“Oh,” followed by a moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the
-box were three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
-quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels shading from red
-to pale violet. Each girl took her gift from the box, regarding it with
-characteristic expressions. Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the
-dimple showing at the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer
-than ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were overclouded and
-her face quivered with pleasure.
-
-[Illustration: THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S
-SILENCE]
-
-“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the grandest,
-and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor any more,” Frieda
-announced.
-
-“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor girls may have
-fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.
-
-“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our gifts to
-suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still resting on the glowing
-colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins
-represent rainbows? I have been repeating the rainbow colors to
-myself—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
-seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”
-
-Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you are, and
-Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been collecting jewels all
-my life and never thought of so pretty an idea as this. Here is a garnet
-to start with for the red, then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond
-next, an emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
-indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of violet.”
-
-“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and the mine and
-all the good things that have come to us through a rainbow,” Jean said
-thoughtfully and then more huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.”
-Frieda made a dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a
-piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when I
-opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she announced. “Oh,
-goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has written us a poem!” And
-Frieda read:
-
-    “Here are seven colors in nature and art,
-    What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;
-    Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day
-    And orange and yellow to shine on your way.
-    Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar
-    To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.
-    And yet to the end shall we ever forget
-    Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”
-
-“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes pretty well,”
-Frieda ended doubtfully.
-
-Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful, I think.
-And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever do go to Europe, as we
-sometimes have planned, we must never forget the Rainbow Ranch. You
-know, Frieda dear, that the alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and
-white like the clover in the east.”
-
-But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr. Drummond had now
-to tear himself away in order to catch his train back to New York.
-Hurrying out into the hall, with the three ranch girls close behind him,
-he suddenly came to an abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young
-woman, who also stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes
-and a haughtily held head.
-
-“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here when I told
-you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say with the least little
-nervous tremor in her voice.
-
-Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica, Miss Hunt,”
-he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest idea of seeing you at
-Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but the ranch girls are my very dear
-friends and my visit was solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically
-away when a hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
-This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might have known
-you would never trouble to come to see me again.”
-
-That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her
-head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that
-Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a
-certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
-child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall
-see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get
-married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how
-Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so
-silly and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too and
-let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very serious for the
-moment and also very bewitching.
-
-But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean Bruce, you will
-have the hardest time of us all in making up your mind when you are in
-love.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-HER TEMPTATION
-
-
-Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean Bruce. Always
-beyond anything else had she desired to be popular, even in the old days
-at the ranch when the only society in which she had a part was composed
-of the few neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
-Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her heart’s
-desire, and would she for the sake of another be compelled to give it
-up? For how could she accept the honor that might be bestowed upon her
-of being chosen for Junior class president without turning traitor to
-Olive. After her friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta”
-house on the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no longer
-shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the cause of it? Try as
-she might she could not find out, yet the prejudice was certainly deeper
-than any one could suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the
-bottom of the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she had
-circulated any story against Olive no one would confess it. “Miss
-Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so odd, I do not think
-she enjoys being with other girls,” these evasions of the truth were all
-Jean could get hold of. But in the meantime there was no doubt that
-Olive’s classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the two
-sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented in the history
-of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have appealed to Miss Winthrop
-or one of the other teachers, asking that their influence be exerted in
-Olive’s behalf, but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do.
-For even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities, how would
-it change her classmates’ attitude toward her? Would it not make them
-more unkind than ever? No, there were only two courses open to Jean,
-either she must join the sorority she had chosen without any question of
-Olive’s being a member or else she must decline to be admitted herself
-until such time as the girls should come to their senses and voluntarily
-desire the election of them both.
-
-Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two sororities had
-been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small excuse for her hesitation.
-But a larger issue was at stake. Unless she became a member of a
-sorority and as one of its leaders could influence new girls to her
-cause, she might lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the
-head of the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.
-
-Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very charming
-fashion, just by the power of her own personality, which is after all
-the greatest force in the world. She had no prominent family
-connections, as so many of the Primrose Hall girls had, and she
-continued to act as though she had no money except what was necessary
-for very simple requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done
-had the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the discovery of
-the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a hard fight and many times
-the young girl longed to break faith with herself.
-
-Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading of the
-Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the three ranch girls’
-school outfits, but now these clothes seemed so simple and ordinary that
-at least two of the girls hated the wearing of them.
-
-Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light weight
-flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon entertainments and
-dinner use and a single party dress for the monthly dances which were a
-feature of Primrose Hall school life. Their underclothes were plentiful
-but plain. Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
-lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very wealthy ones at
-that, could have such possessions. Just think of a single item of a
-dozen hand-made nightgowns at fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s
-outfit; and yet these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly
-expressed her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a gift
-of two of them without hurting her new friend’s feelings.
-
-To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed atmosphere that
-Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a revelation. She seemed not to know
-the meaning of snobbery, not to care who people were so long as she
-liked what they were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
-another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already asked Jean to
-visit her in her home in New York during the Christmas holidays, as she
-longed to introduce her to her own family in order that they might lose
-their prejudice against western girls. But more especially Margaret
-desired to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean together
-so as to find out what they would think of one another. She was only
-awaiting the first opportunity. In the meantime, although Jean would not
-accept other gifts from her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the
-flowers Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about school
-so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in her hair that she
-soon became known as “the pink carnation girl.”
-
-One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to send flowers
-to Margaret in return, but in order to retain her masquerade of poverty,
-most of the time she had to refrain. Only now and then she did relieve
-her feelings by presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses
-regardless of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
-would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been especially
-kind to Olive, Frieda or her.
-
-With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to spread
-abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no pocket money, but
-with Frieda the case was very different. It is quite certain that Jean
-would never have had her way with Frieda except by appealing directly to
-Jack for advice and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging
-her little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to agree to
-Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not that she saw any sense
-in her sacrifice or was in the least reconciled to it, but simply
-because under the circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could
-refuse her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard on
-both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives had they had
-any money of their own to spend and now Jack was sending each one of
-them fifty dollars a month for pin money. Think of the fortune of it, if
-you have had only one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use
-before!
-
-And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to
-temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the
-grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a
-dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy
-herself a pair of gloves.
-
-Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be
-dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed
-in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large,
-lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the
-bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked
-too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be
-ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a
-pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and
-twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for
-it.
-
-Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s
-extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it
-certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income
-away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day
-in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
-intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.
-
-While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose
-Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so
-much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of
-girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as
-Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief
-reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order
-to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose
-Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch,
-who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud
-of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its
-help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on
-Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin
-enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being
-the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious
-an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way
-or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her
-friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the
-“Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her
-pride.
-
-Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the
-evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding
-schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss
-Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were
-brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully
-introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall
-as a training school for the larger social world and desired her
-students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and
-naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls
-and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their
-school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false
-notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore,
-although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall
-toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a
-simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss
-Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first
-much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students
-and their friends together, the older woman could often give her
-students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of
-young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
-excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had
-positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted
-from either the Junior or Senior girls.
-
-It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at
-eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into
-Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but
-really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in
-overcoming her shyness.
-
-Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown
-to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of
-Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance
-and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a
-pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so
-pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?
-
-But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of
-Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her
-friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation
-girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep
-rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by
-accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
-particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her
-hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance
-made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.
-
-“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I
-think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”
-
-“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously.
-“I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t
-Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected
-in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy
-and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”
-
-Olive colored, but did not reply at once.
-
-“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would have some
-influence with you and not let you be so pokey and unfriendly. I am sure
-I have tried in vain to stir you up and now I think I’ll write Jack and
-Ruth how you are behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
-times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean, knowing that
-Olive did not yet understand how her failure to be invited into either
-sorority was influencing her chance for the class election, yet had the
-grace to turn her face away.
-
-For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or Ruth, Jean,”
-she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know I am not a success at
-school and if you tell them that no one here likes me they will then
-know that I am unhappy and will be worried, and Jack must not have any
-worry now. It isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
-mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter with me,
-Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”
-
-In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her
-warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you
-and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake.
-Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
-friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in
-some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else
-her classmates must see how charming she was.
-
-Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes would soon
-be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s, who would be noticing
-her unpopularity. And would she know a single guest at the dance?
-
-Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that Jean and
-Olive went down to the big reception rooms together, holding each
-other’s hands like little girls.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-CINDERELLA
-
-
-To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that she desired
-her students at Primrose Hall to grow into something more useful than
-mere society women. Her ambition was to have them fill many important
-positions in the modern world now offering such big opportunities to
-clever women. Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
-perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just always and
-interested in their welfare. But then none of her girls knew the story
-of her youth nor realized that the last life she had ever expected for
-herself in her rich and brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a
-fashionable boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
-the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York City and in
-the homes of the old Dutch and English families along the Hudson River,
-until she had let her pride spoil the one romance of her life. By and
-by, when her father died and her family fortune disappeared, she had
-then opened up her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
-aristocratic connections and old name immediately made Primrose Hall
-both fashionable and popular, until now its mere name lent its students
-an assured social prestige. Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her
-school to be something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
-been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her pupils from
-among a list of fifty or more applicants whom she had been obliged to
-refuse. There was little in the life of her school which she did not see
-and understand, and now her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda,
-with their freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
-looking at things, would bring the element most needed into their mere
-money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere. Though no one had
-mentioned it to her, she had already observed Jean’s great popularity
-with her classmates, Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and
-Olive’s failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this third
-ranch girl?
-
-Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the past month in
-getting her school into good working order, she had not forgotten the
-peculiar emotion that Olive had awakened in her at their first meeting.
-Because the child was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely
-a sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her, and
-to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss Winthrop had
-determined to watch Olive closely and find out for herself wherein lay
-the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night
-and had also wondered how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first
-evening entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
-informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they should train
-her girls for social life in any part of the world where in later years
-circumstances might chance to take them.
-
-Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in full
-evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening Miss Winthrop
-wore a plain black velvet gown with a small diamond star at her throat,
-a piece of jewelry for which she had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt,
-who was standing next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and
-the bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought) made a
-striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of the older woman.
-Though there were a dozen or more of the Primrose Hall girls grouped
-about the two women when Jean and Olive entered the reception room
-together, both of them immediately saw and watched them as they came
-slowly forward.
-
-The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
-anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know, as she moved
-through the room with an expression of fine unconsciousness, that this
-was the first really formal party she had ever attended in her life.
-Neither her blush nor her dimple betrayed her, although she was
-perfectly aware that a number of youths in long-tailed coats and black
-trousers, wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped talking
-for several moments to their girl friends in order to glance at Olive
-and at her. She even saw, without appearing to lift her lids, that a
-tall, blonde fellow standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was
-deliberately staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
-Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite of his
-fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared to Ralph Merrit or
-other simple western fellows whom she had known in the past.
-
-Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s passing
-observations in her forward progress toward Miss Winthrop, and yet in
-the same length of time Olive, who was close beside her, had seen
-nothing “but a sea of unknown faces.” Even her school companions
-to-night in their frocks of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet
-somehow, with Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
-Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to them. Then,
-still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne off for a short
-distance and there surrounded by a group of Jean’s girl friends.
-
-Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap in the
-number, had come up with their cousins, brothers and friends to meet
-Jean Bruce and to fill up her dance card. They were, of course, also
-introduced to Olive, but as she did not speak, no one noticed her
-particularly and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
-desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began she forgot her
-and marched off with an enthusiastic partner, who had asked Gerry
-Ferrows to introduce him to the most fascinating girl in the room, and
-Gerry had unhesitatingly chosen Jean.
-
-There were two or three other girls and young men standing near Olive
-when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds later and she was entirely
-alone.
-
-Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to society to
-find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first Olive felt
-desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with shame and fearing
-that her eyes were filling with tears. Then looking about her she soon
-discovered a group of palms in a corner of the room not far away and
-guessed that she could find shelter behind them. Slipping across she
-came upon a small sofa hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little
-sigh of thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
-serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see what a
-good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen herself. Once
-she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her hiding place—Frieda,
-who had been a fat, little girl with long plaits down her back just a
-few weeks ago, now attired in a blue silk and lace, was whirling about
-on the arm of a long-legged boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous
-quantity of blonde curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin
-brother. Five minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
-evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
-apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance with
-her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom Olive
-recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard brother, could
-be seen dancing attendance on Jean.
-
-Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this fashion until
-Olive felt perfectly safe in her green retreat, when unexpectedly a hand
-was laid upon her shoulder and a voice said sternly, “What in the world,
-child, are you doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
-stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you to take part
-in the dancing; there really isn’t much difference between your being
-concealed up there or here.”
-
-And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her breath made
-her unable to answer at once.
-
-Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as she had
-thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had seen first her
-embarrassment at being left alone and next her withdrawal. In much the
-same fashion that Jack would have followed, Jessica had wished to rush
-off at once to comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.
-
-“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes her so
-unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out of hearing. “I
-wish you would tell me if you know any explanation for it.”
-
-But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering, “I can’t
-for the life of me understand. There are a good many little things that
-Olive does not seem to know, and yet, as she studies very hard, I
-believe she will soon be one of the honor girls in my class. I have a
-friend in New York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
-unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well. Perhaps I
-had best ask him if there is anything unusual about Olive.”
-
-But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you would ask no
-questions, at least not now please, Jessica, for I have heard at least a
-part of the girl’s history, and yet I believe the real truth is not
-known to any one and perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive
-if it never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be so
-sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss Winthrop had
-moved across the room to where Olive was in hiding. As the girl’s
-startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not
-poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her
-queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from
-some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and
-young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty,
-forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary.
-
-Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older woman
-quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender brown fingers in
-hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in a voice that was gentler than
-usual, “for I understand it is timidity that is making you hide
-yourself. Don’t you think though that you would enjoy dancing?”
-
-Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she returned,
-forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no one has invited me.”
-Then as her teacher suddenly rose to her feet, as though intending to
-find her a partner, with a sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness
-Olive drew her down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me,
-Miss Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little while I
-am sure it will be delightful just watching the others.”
-
-While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers, Miss
-Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross at the end of
-it, which Olive was wearing around her throat. Leaning over she took the
-cross in her hand. “This is an odd piece of jewelry, child, and must be
-very old; it is so heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed
-inside it.”
-
-Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything about it,
-except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,” she replied. For some
-strange reason this shy girl was speaking of her mother to a comparative
-stranger, when she rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved
-friend, Jacqueline Ralston.
-
-But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice startled both of
-them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed, “what do you mean by hiding
-yourself away with Miss Winthrop when I have been searching the house
-over for you.”
-
-Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld Donald Harmon
-standing near them, the young fellow whose father had rented the Rainbow
-Ranch from the Ralston girls the summer before and whose sister had been
-responsible for Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.
-
-“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one of your
-guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and that my aunt is your
-old friend and lives near Primrose Hall.”
-
-While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had no idea
-that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald was trying to
-persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for her first dance with him.
-By accident it happened to be a Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced
-it before, but she had been watching the other girls. Donald was an
-excellent partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it all
-her life.
-
-Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different art, although
-both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean was gay and vivacious,
-full of grace and activity, keeping excellent time to the music, but
-Olive seemed to move like a flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly
-conscious of what she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet
-yielding her body to every note of the music and movement of her
-partner.
-
-By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many of the
-others stopped and at once the young men demanded to be told who Olive
-was and why she had been hidden away from their sight until now?
-Whatever replies the girls may have made to these questions, they did
-not apparently affect their questioners, for from the time of her first
-dance until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
-partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and her cheeks
-grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her low laugh rang out, and
-always she could dance. What did conversation at a ball amount to anyhow
-when movement was the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a
-fairy princess just awakened from a long enchantment?
-
-Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had ever brought
-Olive forth from her retreat, but just before midnight, when Primrose
-Hall parties must always come to an end, he did manage to get her away
-for a moment out on the veranda, where chairs were placed so that the
-young people could rest and talk.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-SHADOWS BEFORE
-
-
-The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded
-electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a
-corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for
-he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten
-the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the
-peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.
-
-But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really
-liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently
-brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude
-on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your
-mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
-coldness.
-
-Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both
-unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend
-Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot.
-But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just
-come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from
-college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls
-again,” he ended honestly.
-
-“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a
-glimpse of Jean or Frieda.
-
-“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with
-them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack
-of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can
-easily walk over.”
-
-Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have
-us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what
-seemed to her a reasonable excuse.
-
-Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner.
-“Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss
-Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest
-friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were
-girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is
-always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps
-some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss
-Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she
-always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown
-too old and too cranky to leave her place.”
-
-Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald
-had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry
-to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with
-more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will
-be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white
-house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer
-gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”
-
-The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are
-dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as
-children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our
-family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of
-color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial
-lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
-room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the
-walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”
-
-Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I
-made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I
-think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house
-somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few
-questions.”
-
-At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes
-and a voice asked:
-
-    “Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
-    Whose hands about thee are entwined?”
-
-The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come
-up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry
-Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with
-Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the
-others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive
-to do but to try to talk to Cecil.
-
-Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than
-Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that
-for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean
-laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
-evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through
-the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean
-smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a
-moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up
-a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had
-evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping
-over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was
-struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior
-companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single
-remark.
-
-Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for
-having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned
-to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to
-think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she
-is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
-and inscrutable.”
-
-Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small
-ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account
-of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a
-Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was
-impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had
-added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
-also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy?
-Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now
-hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.
-
-However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive
-aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and
-annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past
-hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
-every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single
-time. Has she spoken to you?”
-
-Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,”
-she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though
-we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”
-
-But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up
-airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it
-is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly
-twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
-personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child
-should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they
-have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”
-
-“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to
-be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see,
-we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to
-her independence.”
-
-But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of
-family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this
-moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened
-to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to
-boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began
-to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.
-
-Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired
-her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later
-Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and
-Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald
-would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second
-best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced
-upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other
-dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had
-promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
-forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.
-
-So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching
-Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for
-Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue,
-Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
-heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in
-the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would
-have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the
-western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice
-to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might
-induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared
-particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman.
-Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes
-a martyr of himself for her sake!
-
-However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls
-were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great
-room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone
-away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop
-and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and
-yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose
-Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and
-what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten
-into some kind of mischief?”
-
-Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been
-said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But
-outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such
-a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
-good-night long ago.”
-
-Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the
-room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was
-not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.
-
-Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says
-Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what
-on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and
-will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then
-if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
-from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a
-little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to
-her, she was both angry and frightened.
-
-“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly,
-knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss
-Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might
-be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads
-than the disappearance of one.
-
-“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you
-prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t
-help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here
-in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of
-bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls
-bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
-
-
-Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair, but Olive,
-still fully dressed, kept darting from her own bedroom to Jean’s and
-Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a sign of the wanderer.
-
-Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in the least
-what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds out how she has
-behaved, but you and I must go to look for her.”
-
-Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the lights were now
-being turned low, when a figure brushed by them. “Please let me get into
-my own room,” a voice said peevishly, and nothing loath, the three
-figures returned inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda
-Ralston,” Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
-excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is just barely
-possible that she may not have seen you sneaking along the hall.”
-
-Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive gazed upon the
-youngest ranch girl with an expression of disapproval.
-
-The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.
-
-“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss Sterne
-inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about through her large horn
-spectacles that Olive had so promptly disliked, like a wise old owl.
-
-“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?” she continued,
-“you know you are not expected to enter another girl’s sleeping
-apartment after the hour for retiring.”
-
-Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own room and
-rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning to talk to Jean or to
-Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s retreating footsteps were far out of
-hearing.
-
-And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand what the other
-two ranch girls were saying and then it was Jean’s tones that were the
-more distinct.
-
-Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and slipper,
-keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor, when Jean, now
-in her night gown, planted herself before her. “Where have you been all
-this time, Frieda Ralston, and why didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say
-good-night to Miss Winthrop when the rest of us did?”
-
-Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue stockings,
-swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean, and I didn’t dream of
-its being so late. Do you think Miss Winthrop noticed?” the culprit
-faltered.
-
-Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in this school,
-Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I suppose you will
-be able to explain to her in the morning why you were in the back hall
-instead of in the parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to
-tell anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”
-
-Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own heart was
-quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could not answer back in the
-cool fashion she desired. “Mollie Johnson was with me,” she managed to
-say, “and two boys.”
-
-Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or the present
-Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as she sat up in bed with
-her arms folded before her.
-
-“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly, “but will you
-please tell me why you went to the back hall when you knew perfectly
-well that Miss Winthrop was trusting you to behave like a lady and
-remain in the rooms where she was receiving her guests. I don’t know
-what Ruth and Jack will say.”
-
-Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she murmured,
-struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair. “You see, we had only
-ices and cake for the party, and about eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the
-boy I was with, said he wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as
-hungry for one, so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of
-the dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in the
-pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of good things.” And
-now Frieda’s courage returning in a small measure, she turned out the
-electric lights, hopping into bed. “I am not going to be treated like a
-criminal, though, Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she
-ended, burying herself under the cover.
-
-So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls were sound
-asleep, though in reality the three of them were still wide awake.
-
-Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet understanding the
-real facts of her escape, and Frieda was longing with all her might for
-some one to sympathize with her and help her in her scrape, some one who
-would let her cry herself out.
-
-By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s bedside. “Jean, has
-Frieda explained things to you?” she whispered.
-
-Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and two boys,
-and that they went into the pantry and had something to eat, but she
-didn’t say why they stayed in the back hall afterwards. They couldn’t
-have kept on eating pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls
-giggled softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
-greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she was
-constantly doing on their long trip through the Yellowstone the summer
-before?
-
-“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted, “and I don’t
-think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she hears that the pantry
-was the difficulty, for she knows how good the housekeeper is to all the
-little girls.”
-
-“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.” Jean’s voice
-became low and impressive, “What do you suppose that Frieda Ralston
-could have to talk about to a—boy?”
-
-A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both older girls
-started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted the outside of the
-blanket.
-
-“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a sterner manner
-than was usual to her, “or were all four of you just sitting around
-having a jolly time together?” Now that Frieda’s sobs assured the other
-two girls that she was awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on
-with her cross-examination.
-
-“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
-unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other boy were
-sitting on a higher step and the servants were around, but no one told
-us how late it was.”
-
-“Well, what were you talking about that you found so interesting that
-you could not hear the clock strike twelve, or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’
-waltz, or the good-byes being said?” Jean demanded fiercely.
-
-This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her sorrow, for
-the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were talking about worms!”
-she sobbed.
-
-“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that they could
-not have heard aright.
-
-“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see, we got to
-talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved it better than most
-anything he ever did and some summers he goes way up into the Maine
-woods and fishes in the lakes for trout. He uses flies for bait always,
-but I told him that we fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes
-when it wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way down
-under the ground to find them. I told him too how once I started a
-fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I could dig up in a glass
-bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys whenever they wished to go fishing.”
-
-Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up conversation
-with her first admirer, feeling too angry and too puzzled to go on for
-the minute, for her former irate judges were now holding their sides and
-doing their level best to keep from shrieking with laughter.
-
-“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of fishing worms,”
-Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.
-
-Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the covers more
-closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and dream of Jack,” she
-comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop will never hear of your mistaking
-the time for saying good-night.”
-
-“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda returned
-sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive, better than most any of
-the girls. I have seen her looking at you so strangely every now and
-then.”
-
-In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling so penitent
-over her escapade as the two older ranch girls supposed. But Frieda had
-always been a good deal spoiled and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed
-her failure to say good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault
-upon her mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that both
-little girls and big receive their punishment for a fault so soon as the
-fault is committed, in order not to keep on growing naughtier and
-naughtier until Fate punishes us for many sins at once.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
-
-
-After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be Saturday
-afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting room looking for
-Olive and Frieda. She had been playing basketball for the past two hours
-and in spite of having known nothing of the game on her arrival at
-school, was already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
-Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass above her
-face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in her hand she held a
-bundle of letters. One she tossed to Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa
-nursing a small cold due to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two
-for herself.
-
-Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed to her in Jack’s
-handwriting and Frieda followed suit. When Jack had first been taken to
-the hospital and there compelled to lie always flat on her back, her
-handwriting had been difficult to read, but now that she had gotten used
-to this method of writing, her stroke was again as vigorous and
-characteristic as of old.
-
-Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other girls. “Jack
-says she is getting on very well and we are to see her in a few
-weeks—perhaps,” she announced.
-
-Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of course,
-isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written you, for Jack never
-tells anything but the best news of herself.”
-
-“There may be an operation or something of the sort later on,” Jean
-conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it may not be for some
-months yet. Only if the operation does have to take place Jack has
-demanded that Jim come on from the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph
-Merrit to look after things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things
-are in a bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
-come?” And Jean sighed.
-
-An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should she behave
-in any special way?” she inquired, sitting straight up on the couch to
-gaze from Olive to Jean.
-
-Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed, for Frieda was
-the only one of the four ranch girls who knew nothing of what had
-happened at the ranch between Jim Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew,
-their chaperon. What had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
-understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware that Jim and
-Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one another and then some
-mysterious misunderstanding had suddenly parted them.
-
-“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested, knowing this
-would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one theme. “Sometimes I wish
-for Jack’s sake that we were all back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she
-was able to be out in the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of
-Jack lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three girls, so
-that there was a moment of painful silence in the room. Then Jean said
-more cheerfully after re-reading the latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim
-says that Ralph Merrit is doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and
-that he is a trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
-Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he has turned
-out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does Frank Kent.”
-
-The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet forgiven Jean for
-last night’s scolding. Now she turned up her small nose a trifle more
-than usual. “Oh, you just say that because Ralph likes you best and
-Frank Kent is more fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean
-flushed.
-
-“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that Jim should
-like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has to make his own way in
-the world just as Jim has; and Frank Kent, though he is awfully simple
-and a thorough good fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a
-title himself some day.”
-
-“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an English lady and
-own country estates and ride to hounds?” Frieda suggested more
-peacefully, gazing across the room at Frank Kent’s photograph, which
-ornamented the bookshelf. “I think I should love to be introduced into
-English society and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended
-lamely.
-
-A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled with
-mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about fishing worms,
-baby?” she queried with studied politeness.
-
-And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a sofa
-cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:
-
-“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at the Lodge.
-What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a second letter that Jean
-had brought to her, she began to read it.
-
-Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda, who
-resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get dressed, infant; no,
-your cold isn’t too bad for you to come. Olive is reading a note of
-invitation from Mrs. Harmon for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have
-tea and Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”
-
-But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom enjoyed by
-the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it easily.
-
-“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested resolutely;
-“only if they have any candy or cake and happen to mention sending me
-some you might bring it along. And I do wish both you girls would go out
-for a while, for Mollie is coming to spend the afternoon with me after
-she finishes her music lesson and we would love to have the sitting room
-to ourselves.”
-
-“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without being
-actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean said, seeing
-that Olive was hesitating about what she should do. “Come along, it will
-do us both good to get away and not to sit here thinking about what we
-can’t help,” she ended.
-
-While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks preparatory
-to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of her own room Olive
-was trying to persuade herself that her hesitation in going for the call
-upon the Harmons was because she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of
-Elizabeth of the old tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than
-this in her mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
-which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment her eyes
-had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have ever had with an
-old place like “The Towers,” or any house resembling it? Her impression
-that she must have seen the house somewhere before was sheer madness,
-for was it not an old Dutch mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years
-ago, and certainly wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?
-
-Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed her out
-of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and Jean started gayly
-forth on their walk. It was about four o’clock in the late November
-afternoon and instead of following the path through the woods, the
-little party set out along the lane that led through an exquisite part
-of the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed
-a short hill and from the top of it could see at some distance off the
-spire of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
-River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its deep
-hidden lungs.
-
-Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As Olive was
-particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through hers. “This is a land
-of legends and of dreams about here, dear, and some day I must take you
-western girls about the country and show you the historic places nearby.
-Do you know anything about them?” she asked.
-
-But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her head. “I
-don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem somehow familiar, yet
-it did not at first. Don’t you believe that all the world, at least the
-world of outside things, of hills and trees and valleys and water,
-somehow belongs alike to all of us and once we have seen a landscape and
-moved about in it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in
-nature, there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
-are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”
-
-Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on their
-approach to the house. As he was holding a great St. Bernard dog by the
-collar and as it bounded away from him all of a sudden, nearly upsetting
-Olive and Jessica in the rapture of its welcome, the little party
-entered “The Towers” with too much laughter and excitement for Olive to
-feel any self-consciousness or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of
-her past foolishness in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so
-many eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
-easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.
-
-Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both decided
-at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite of its
-magnificence, was one of the darkest and most unattractive rooms either
-of them had ever seen. For everything was very stiff and formal and
-without life or fragrance. Carved black furniture sat stiffly against
-the walls, which were hung with old portraits of men and women in high
-fluted ruffs, with gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces.
-Over in one corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen
-and having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And behind
-this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or twelve, who
-looked a little like Donald Harmon.
-
-“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon had said
-as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to wait tea for
-her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs. Harmon’s manner was a
-little constrained and that she kept looking at Olive as though she
-intended asking her some question, but as the question was never asked,
-the girls must have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the
-little company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
-seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a long
-stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow the butler
-flung open the drawing room door.
-
-Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean could not
-forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her heart rise up in her
-throat. Why on earth was the old mistress of “The Towers” so formidable
-that the entire neighborhood felt an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry
-that she was competing for one of her prizes offered to the Junior
-students at Primrose Hall.
-
-“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at the name
-of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard for the first
-time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young girl caught at the
-sides of her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. Then when no one was
-looking at her, smiled at herself and turned her gaze curiously on their
-ancient hostess.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
-
-
-For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom there is
-no English expression so good as the French, “a grande dame.”
-
-There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but she
-stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with brilliant,
-hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and slightly inclining her
-head. Then she walked over to the high, carved chair near the tea table
-and sat down under the picture of the little boy. Feeble from old age,
-she was yet of too determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for
-when Donald tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned
-it away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head by a
-careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of age, was yet as
-delicately powdered and rouged as if she had been an actress about to
-make her debut, and she was carefully dressed in a gown of deep purple
-silk with lace at her throat and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort
-could hide the ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the
-coldness of her air and expression suggested that she would have
-repelled grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.
-
-The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful after
-its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed to be able to
-speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was plainly ill at ease and
-even Elizabeth had been taught to treat this wealthy old aunt, whose
-fortune she expected some day to share with her brother, with more
-respect than she showed to any one else in the world.
-
-Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had huddled
-close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having little to say to
-one another.
-
-Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was barely able
-to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater said, “bring the girl,
-whom you tell me you met in the West and who bears so strange a
-resemblance to your mother, closer to me. I think all resemblances are
-ridiculous and yet you have made me curious.”
-
-Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of all
-things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for her to do in
-this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead her across the room
-to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged forgiveness for the old woman’s
-peremptory manner, and yet he showed no sign of disobedience.
-
-“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the dusk was
-creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing her hostess,
-Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.
-
-It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers even to
-raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared straight at Madame Van
-Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as hers and almost as searching
-and haughty. For Olive’s emotion was immediately one of the deepest
-antagonism toward this woman, however old she might be, who summoned her
-as a queen might summon a subject.
-
-Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her slowly
-through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of course, resting
-longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she drew one of relief as she
-turned again to Donald and to Mrs. Harmon? “I do not see the least
-likeness in this girl to any member of my family,” she announced.
-“Whatever her name may be, her appearance is quite foreign and I should
-prefer never to have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.”
-And nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
-seat.
-
-But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her drawing
-her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she murmured. “I had
-not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has seemed to me that I have
-seen some one a little like you somewhere, I fancied in some old
-picture.” Then smiling she shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I
-see any likeness to your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is
-enough of a suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”
-
-And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair, where she
-sat down pretending to look out of the window, though all the time she
-was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in which she had just been
-compelled to play an unwilling part. Why, because she was so uncertain
-of her ancestry, should she be forced to go through these moments that
-made the fact more bitterly painful to her?
-
-Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls had tried
-their best to keep her story from the ears of the Harmons during their
-stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald, his sister and mother had
-learned through Aunt Ellen, through the cowboys on the ranch and through
-one or two of their closest neighbors. And for this reason the young
-fellow was perhaps even more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he
-wished very much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into
-which his own idle talk had led her.
-
-Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and Miss
-Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with me?” he
-asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I am sure that
-Elizabeth will excuse us.”
-
-Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being left with
-only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was the only one of the
-ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she made no objection,
-particularly as no one waited for her to speak. For Jean fairly bounced
-from her chair with relief, Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon
-after, feeling that she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged
-to remain another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
-Towers.”
-
-Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared suddenly to
-have been released from prison. Jean danced a two-step, Jessica clapped
-her hands softly together and Olive laughed, while Donald straightway
-plunged head first up the dark mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he
-begged, “for there isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well
-enough to tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great
-view that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
-rather a long climb.”
-
-Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then Jessica.
-Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like those in any
-ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral resembling the steps in
-a lighthouse. About midway up these steps Jessica noticed that Olive
-paused, pressing her hands to her eyes as though to shut out some idea
-or some vision that assailed her, and that she wavered as though she
-felt faint.
-
-“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired, knowing that
-climbing to unexpected heights often has this effect on sensitive
-persons. And though Olive now shook her head, moving on again, Jessica
-determined to watch her.
-
-To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a small,
-closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big, spacious apartment out
-of which the little gabled windows winked like so many friendly eyes.
-The room was fitted up as a boy’s room with a bed apparently just ready
-to be slept in, there was a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but
-the bookcases were filled with books of all kinds and for all ages,
-French, Spanish and German books and plays from the days of the miracle
-plays down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
-long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which seemed to
-be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols were hung on the
-walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete figure of a knight in
-armor stood in one corner. Curious why these masculine trophies should
-interest a girl, and yet for some reason they did interest Olive, for
-she waited there alone; Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one
-of the windows were gazing out over the countryside made famous the
-world over through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
-Dreams.”
-
-Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to see the
-view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in the next few
-minutes.”
-
-And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also looked out
-the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the bridge over which
-they had lately passed, with the stretch of woodlands to one side and
-the autumn-colored hills rising in the background. Very quietly she
-began to speak:
-
-“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
-valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the
-quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it,
-with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional
-whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound
-that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.”
-
-These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape and her
-lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of poetry long ago
-forgotten and now brought back to mind by the objects that inspired it.
-
-It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to herself by
-reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement, but neither Donald
-Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least surprised and after a moment,
-as though again striking the strings of her memory, the young girl went
-on: “If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the
-world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
-troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
-And then her recitation abruptly ended.
-
-“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded; “or tell
-us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur of the moment to
-impress your English teacher?”
-
-Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is repeating! I
-should have taught it you before now, but Olive seems to have gotten
-ahead of me and learned it first.”
-
-“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing a thing
-like that and then waiting for a critical minute to recite it so as to
-impress her audience. I never should have suspected her!”
-
-But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica said in
-explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington Irving’s
-description of this countryside, which he gives in his ‘Legend of Sleepy
-Hollow,’ and when you get back to school, Jean, I advise you to ask
-Olive to lend you her book.”
-
-Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to Primrose
-Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first both the woman
-and the girl were silent, but as they neared the school Olive spoke
-suddenly:
-
-“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the feeling
-of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking that you have been
-there before, seen the same things or people and even heard the same
-words said?”
-
-Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and yet not
-appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s expression was both
-puzzled and intent.
-
-“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered. “No one
-can understand or explain it very well, but the impression is more apt
-to come to you when you are young. I can recall once having gone into a
-ballroom and there having had some one make a perfectly ordinary speech
-to me and yet I had a sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was
-I that at some past time I had been in the same place, under the same
-circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the time it
-was impossible.”
-
-“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in a
-certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into one’s mind
-without our remembering where we have learned it before,” Olive
-persisted.
-
-Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said quietly,
-“I think there are many wonderful things in the world around us that we
-do not believe in because we do not yet understand them, just as long
-years ago men and women did not believe that our world was round because
-it had not then been revealed to them. And so I do not understand about
-these strange psychical experiences about which we have just been
-talking. But I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
-remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In this
-story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the hero’s mind
-from the time he is a little boy all through his life. He does not
-understand why he remembers this song, but by and by it is explained to
-the reader that this song had played an important part in the life of
-one of Peter Ibbetson’s ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color
-of our eyes, the shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some
-far-off ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
-impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing to
-understand, but the idea is interesting.”
-
-“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the book.”
-
-Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the darkness of
-the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.
-
-“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you ever
-felt that you have been in a certain place before, where you know you
-could never really have been, or have you thought suddenly of something
-that you did not remember having in your mind before? But please do not
-answer me if you would rather not, for I know that these queer
-experiences most of us would rather keep to ourselves.”
-
-“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women started
-up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
-
-
-While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda and
-Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch girls’ sitting
-room, school politics were playing an important part in the precincts of
-Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and Gerry Ferrows were devoting that
-same Saturday afternoon to canvassing their class in order to discover
-whether Jean or Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
-president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for Jean, while
-Winifred was conducting a personal investigation. Indeed, the situation
-between these two girls was a peculiar and a difficult one, for having
-once been intimate friends, they had now become violently estranged from
-one another and yet continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than
-because Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
-afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together and with
-their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively refused to work for
-herself, having turned over her cause to her two best friends, Gerry and
-Margaret Belknap.
-
-But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning Jean and
-Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances for her election
-and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the whole situation.
-
-Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s success. If
-even at this late date Jean would allow herself to be elected into one
-of the sororities and thus proclaim her independence of the girl whose
-presence in the school her classmates resented, she might yet win their
-complete allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case
-that Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
-her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart for the
-honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on this question of
-Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while she was too good a sport
-to be unkind to any one in adversity, yet she did not herself care to
-associate with Olive on terms of perfect equality, although she had
-never mentioned this fact to Jean. And lately she had felt her own
-decision waver, for since her father had written her that he had charge
-of Jack Ralston’s case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl
-he had ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
-protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.
-
-Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice grew deeper
-on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to the other of her
-classmates, asking them point-blank whether they intended to cast their
-votes for Winifred or for Jean at the coming election. Some of the girls
-were quite frank. They had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided
-that it would be wiser not to have as the representative of their class
-a girl who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
-the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean, not
-having entirely made up their minds between her and Winifred; a number
-of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and loyal supporters and yet it
-was with a feeling of discouragement that Gerry at the close of her
-canvass returned to her own room. She had taken a note book with her and
-written down each girl’s position in regard to the election, and yet she
-could not now decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it
-was peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room to
-find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde hair down
-her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the pages of a magazine,
-wearing a particularly cheerful and self-satisfied expression.
-
-Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an agreeable
-one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a certain portion of
-American society. As long as Winifred could remember she had been taught
-these two things: By her brains and her beauty she must some day win for
-herself the wealth and the position that her family had always longed to
-have and yet never had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her
-mother and father had been spending more money than they could afford in
-trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more prominent
-than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at Primrose Hall was but
-another proof of their extravagance, for they could by no means afford
-the expense of such a school, yet their hope was that there Winifred
-would make so many wealthy and aristocratic friends that later on they
-might help her to a wealthy marriage.
-
-But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good mind and
-longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her friendships, so it
-was hardly to be wondered at that she should cordially dislike the two
-older ranch girls, who, coming out of nowhere and pretending to nothing,
-seemed likely to prove her rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the
-way of her being chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior
-class, Olive was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which
-the old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior students in
-Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also competing for this prize,
-but as it represented a fairly large sum of money, sufficient to cover a
-year’s tuition at Primrose Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must
-be hers.
-
-She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down on their
-couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a nap.
-
-“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend Gerry?” she
-asked in an irritating fashion.
-
-“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none too
-truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm assurance.
-
-Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you know it,
-and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if it half killed
-you, being anxious to prove that women are as honest as men, as brave
-and as straight-forward and as clever, and therefore should be entitled
-to equal suffrage.”
-
-Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely face
-crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite truthful; I am
-afraid that your chance for the presidency is better than Jean’s. But
-you know that it is all because the girls here think that Olive isn’t a
-fit associate for the rest of us, or else Jean would have won in a
-walkover. I wonder if the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her
-parentage is true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me.
-Where did you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”
-
-“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and heard the
-tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the younger girls she knew
-in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth meant any harm in telling, for
-she seemed to think that we would be pleased to have an Indian enliven
-us at Primrose Hall. You may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean
-and Frieda have been very quiet about the whole question of this
-objectionable Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why
-don’t you inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.
-
-Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss Winthrop
-treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is any mystery about
-Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private affair,’ she said. ‘But
-kindly remember that she is a student at Primrose Hall and if I thought
-her unfit for the companionship of my other girls, she would not be
-among you.’ You can imagine that I felt about the size of a small
-caterpillar when she got through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore
-from Miss Winthrop’s snubbing.
-
-“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind your own
-business,” Winifred interposed with secret satisfaction, knowing from
-Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had heard of Olive’s past and glad to
-have the truth of the story that she had been repeating confirmed.
-
-“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to a girl
-for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so anxious to have
-Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her own mind.
-
-Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
-honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think
-she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss
-Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’
-parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is
-just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she
-seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you
-and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why
-don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix
-yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
-and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”
-
-Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked
-sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election!
-And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan
-that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten
-things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
-
-
-And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
-personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by
-making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was
-as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta
-sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the
-invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been
-deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck
-her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’
-attitude toward her?
-
-The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as
-both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her
-leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could
-have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business;
-I wish to talk to you quite alone.”
-
-Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her
-other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive
-appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak
-to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all
-mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no
-one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.
-
-“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive
-nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not
-come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the
-afternoon?”
-
-But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No,
-I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided,
-“and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish
-to say to you.”
-
-“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one
-else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”
-
-Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were
-walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the
-subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.
-
-Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure of
-having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to make, and
-yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s manner that made
-her companion a little fearful of approaching her with advice or
-entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as well to have laid this
-matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last resort, Miss Winthrop, before
-forging ahead. But Gerry was an ardent suffragette in the making and, as
-she had determined to follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father,
-she knew that indecision must never be a characteristic of the new
-woman. However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl recognize
-her entire friendliness before she made known her mission.
-
-Having talked of many things together, of their love of the outdoors, of
-Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at last opened up the way
-for her companion’s disclosure.
-
-“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I have not
-yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me. What is it?”
-
-And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened and she
-looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this moment it had not
-occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire for a private interview
-with her could have any serious import, but noticing Gerry’s hesitation
-and apparent embarrassment, Olive suddenly believed that she intended
-questioning her about her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack
-had advised her not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now
-asked her for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
-than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her false,
-her desire now might be to disprove it.
-
-With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she hoped for
-the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she asked again.
-
-Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean to be
-elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.
-
-Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
-rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me. And I am
-awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving Jean, for she is
-awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter and all of us would
-be so proud of her if she should win after being so short a time at
-school.”
-
-“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do something
-to help her instead of standing in her way?” This question was even more
-blunt than the first. And it hurt, because Olive bit her lips.
-
-“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her walk and
-turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me, please, how I can
-help her and how I stand in the way of her election?”
-
-At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she was not
-of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a whole lot by making
-her join our Theta Sorority at once and not hold back any longer because
-you have not been invited to join also.”
-
-There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine.
-“Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls
-tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I
-thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the
-matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make
-me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class
-president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays
-out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
-sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”
-
-Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly
-for her either to add to it or to contradict.
-
-“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what
-I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very
-sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a
-student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I
-could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth
-Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
-of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much
-because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West
-these things do not count to so great an extent.”
-
-To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this
-proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive
-seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she
-had no part.
-
-But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
-attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in
-times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because
-Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride,
-but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses
-itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated
-with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with
-dignity and in silence.
-
-Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes
-quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of
-color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank
-you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did
-not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness
-and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I
-surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this
-before.”
-
-And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult,
-though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had
-intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion
-across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not
-angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an
-apology.
-
-“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must
-not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place
-so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply
-don’t know what I should do!”
-
-And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home,
-walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a
-characteristic of her training.
-
-Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to
-keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a
-brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose
-Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in
-their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever
-unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to
-breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first
-intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
-for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her
-allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been
-too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And
-at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive
-to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And
-as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned
-that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
-Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.
-
-    “Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater
-      than herself,
-    Too noble for this place.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
-
-
-Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking for Jean,
-for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the school than she was
-seen talking with a group of friends.
-
-“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had been out
-together for a walk and grateful for what she thought Gerry’s
-friendliness to Olive.
-
-Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed by the
-presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room, Jean,” she begged,
-“for Gerry and I have something to talk to you about that must be
-decided at once.”
-
-It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought a little
-impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name in speaking to
-Jean and plainly wished her to be present at their coming interview, for
-there was, of course, a possibility that Jean might be a good deal vexed
-at her interference. But as Jean left her other friends immediately,
-slipping one arm through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and
-propelling them as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was
-there for Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?
-
-“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston, that you
-wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as they reached their
-own door, “kindly remember that three heads are better than one, even if
-one is a dunce’s head, else I should never have allowed Geraldine
-Ferrows to be present at our council.” And giving each of the girls an
-added shove, the three of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.
-
-Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before their open
-fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large open box of flowers on
-her lap, with her cheeks a good deal flushed, possibly from the heat of
-the fire.
-
-“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of your
-apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to have a present
-for you sent through my care and it seemed to me that the surest way to
-find you was to wait at your own hearthstone until you chose to appear.”
-While Jessica was speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward
-Jean and Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me
-asking me to see that you get them.”
-
-With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great box,
-which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its fragrances.
-
-“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,” Jean
-exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t Frieda be
-homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even if she is so
-enraptured with boarding school that she hardly talks of home any more?”
-
-While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers from the
-box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate bouquet, wrapped in
-white paper and bearing a card with a name inscribed upon it.
-
-“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive announced,
-trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and Jean both guessed
-at once that the gift of the large box of flowers to them had been made
-largely in order to include the smaller offering inside it.
-
-Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete indifference, took
-the flowers; they were lilies of the valley encircled with violets and
-it was difficult for any girl to conceal her delight in them.
-
-Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a dangerously demure
-look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you
-have known our Mr. Drummond? You see, we are awfully fond of him and he
-has been very good to all of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have
-wondered if he could think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive
-and I think you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
-that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very kind. Can’t
-you tell us something more?”
-
-Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can tell you
-about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any importance. Just that
-he is rich and good looking and kind. He is so rich that he has never
-done anything or been anything else, and I have known him a great many
-years, since I was a small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live
-near one another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
-some of our money.”
-
-“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a good
-deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there are lots of
-people who are not one of those three things.”
-
-And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the moment,
-Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she returned, “but I
-am afraid that I want a man to be more and to mean more in this world
-than just that.” She was about to leave the room when Olive put her hand
-on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica, Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but
-I so often think of you as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to
-Jean about something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
-sensibly.”
-
-Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now that it
-was important, else she would not have called in so many persons to her
-assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming up to her friend placed
-one hand on each of her shoulders, looking closely with her own
-autumn-toned brown eyes into her friend’s darker ones.
-
-“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish me to do
-that requires so much persuasion?”
-
-And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
-shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
-illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
-
-“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.
-
-Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the first that
-you were going to ask me something I could not grant,” Jean returned
-plaintively. “Has any one in this world ever heard of a goose who chose
-to be one?”
-
-Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too intense
-for interruption. Without allowing Jean another opportunity for a
-moment’s speech she began her request, imploring her to join the Theta
-Society at once and not to put it off a day longer than necessary. “For
-how, dear, can you do me the least good by not belonging when the girls
-want you so much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
-Junior election,” she ended.
-
-“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a member of
-the Theta Society and that my chance for the presidency will be
-influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired angrily, although she did not
-glance toward any one for her answer save Olive.
-
-But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she feel in
-any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now she moved quietly
-forward.
-
-“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with me, but I
-have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of me I cannot see
-how it will hurt Olive for you to join the Thetas without her and it
-will hurt you very much in your election if you don’t. Olive is not
-going to be invited to become a member if you stay out and you may lose
-the class presidency if you are so obstinate.”
-
-Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that Gerry is
-perfectly right and that there is no other way of looking at this
-matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my heart if she does not,
-and I can’t see a bit of sense in her position.”
-
-“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say anything
-at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about this whole
-business.”
-
-A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward Gerry.
-
-“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because of
-course I know you are being good as gold to me and only acting for what
-you believe to be my good, but I don’t think either you or Olive in the
-least understand my position. I am not staying out of the Theta Society
-for Olive’s sake; I am staying out for my own.”
-
-“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.
-
-“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to
-think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would be (leaving me
-out of the case entirely) if that girl should win out in a big matter
-like a class election by turning her back on her best friend and more
-than her friend, her almost sister. And you, Olive, suppose you had no
-part in this business at all, or suppose you and I had changed places,
-what would you think of a girl who would say to another group of girls,
-‘Yes, thank you, I am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to
-enjoy your superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
-and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with you?’ I,
-of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a traitor if you
-will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown eyes were flashing and
-her face was pale, yet she laughed a little at her own fierceness.
-
-“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just this
-thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on, “and I argued
-it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt Olive by joining the
-Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself that such an action would not
-hurt me. See here, dear,” and Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling
-as she spoke again directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to
-forget our friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for
-wouldn’t you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
-me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day time
-and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was? No, sir-ee,”
-and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude, pretending to slip her
-fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the words of that famous
-gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick Henry, or Daniel Webster, I
-can’t remember, ‘I would rather be right than President!’”
-
-“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I take off my
-hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this question any further
-with Jean, for she has just said something that we all know to be a
-fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any
-man.’”
-
-Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like an
-embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right, Jean,” she
-conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are if you feel as you
-say you do, so I shall not try to make you change your opinion.”
-
-But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in the
-center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good, but I don’t
-care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself in the
-way you are doing for me. I must find out how to prevent it and I warn
-you now that I shall write to Jack and have her ask you to change your
-mind.”
-
-Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow to be a
-poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t let us talk about
-this tedious subject any longer and do let us put the kettle on and all
-take tea, for I have talked so much I am nearly dying of thirst.”
-
-Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch girls
-getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for just such
-occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was said until they
-were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then Jean turned to Olive.
-
-“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t hurt your
-feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us it seems to me
-the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have known for some time
-that there has been some gossip about Olive going the rounds of the
-school, but we have never known who started it nor just what the story
-is. Would you mind telling us?”
-
-Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face showing
-nervousness and discomfort.
-
-“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are and that
-we ranch girls found her several years ago with an Indian woman and that
-she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean continued inexorably.
-
-Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally through the
-Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”
-
-“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her questioner
-continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her saucer, “Yes, that is
-all.”
-
-“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they have heard
-is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was trying to speak
-calmly. “I can see now that we have made a mistake; it would have been
-better if we had been perfectly candid about Olive’s past from the
-first. There never has been a minute when we would have minded telling
-it, if any one of the girls had come and asked us, but lately I have
-thought that some extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive
-and joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any human
-beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose Hall girls have
-been to Olive, unless they had been told something perfectly dreadful
-about her. Well, I don’t think I care a snap about being class president
-of such a set of girls,” Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her
-guests. “Olive Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than
-I am, but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
-promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good red Indian
-blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood that must run in the
-veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry, dear, I do beg your pardon
-and of course I don’t mean you, but if I hadn’t been allowed to speak
-this out loud, I should certainly have exploded.”
-
-Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the snobs, too,
-Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will forgive me and make
-up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”
-
-Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure, clothed in
-a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace, with yellow hair
-piled high on its head, entered the room. “What on earth is Jean
-preaching about?” the voice of no other person than the youngest Miss
-Ralston inquired. “I have just been across the hall with Mollie and Lucy
-Johnson and I declare she has been talking steadily for an hour.”
-
-Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean could
-only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she gotten so
-marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage affair. But at this
-instant, beholding the violets, Frieda, forgetting her grown-up manner
-for a moment, jumped at them. “Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said
-like the small girl who once had taken care of her own violet beds at
-The Rainbow Lodge.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV
-
-THE DANGER OF WEALTH
-
-
-The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been somewhat
-happier and certainly a great deal better off in many respects could she
-now have turned back the pages of her existence for a few months and
-been again that same little yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of
-every man, woman and child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow
-Ranch, for Frieda had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that
-is of a serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
-much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.
-
-After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk gown and
-velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for beautiful clothes
-awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a Western ranch girl and had
-never dreamed of such splendors as the New York shops afforded, neither
-did she have any very clear idea of the real value of money. Because
-gold had been discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her
-fifty dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
-wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very dangerous
-habit of buying whatever she wished without considering the cost, and
-the way she managed to do this was by making bills!
-
-Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to go into
-town for every little purchase it became necessary for them to make,
-Ruth had opened a charge account for the three ranch girls at one of the
-best of the New York shops, but the bills were expected to be sent to
-the girls and to be paid out of their allowances. Jean and Olive had
-made only a few necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it,
-Frieda had lately been buying with utter recklessness.
-
-Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other two
-ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had arrived that
-very afternoon and been delivered in the care of Mollie Johnson. Hanging
-up in Mollie’s closet at the same instant was an equally charming
-garment, almost of the same kind as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and
-but lately presented by Frieda to her best friend.
-
-So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the letter
-of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose Hall, she was
-certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she had broken her
-promise altogether on the afternoon when she and Mollie had been alone
-together, while Olive and Jean were drinking tea at “The Towers.”
-
-Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from it. The
-story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For Frieda
-naturally began the conversation with her friend by telling her that
-Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the Harmons, and then that they had
-learned to know the Harmons because they had rented their ranch to them
-the summer before. From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to
-the Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
-coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to buy the
-Rainbow Mine.
-
-When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly, but it
-was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s eyes had grown
-wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at her words. “Why, Frieda
-Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once, “you don’t mean to tell me that
-you are an heiress as well as everything else that is interesting! Why,
-you have let me think that you were poor before, though I have wondered
-sometimes about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell
-me whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”
-
-To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began her
-very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once both sorry and
-frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began; “that is, I don’t see
-any sense in its being, but I have promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew
-not to talk about our money at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have
-our friends just know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine.
-Do you see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”
-
-Earnestly Mollie shook her head.
-
-“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,” Frieda
-conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning to, I am glad,
-for I do just want to talk about it with somebody and you are my dearest
-friend and I wish you to know everything about me.”
-
-Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the nice
-things about her, for it really is not our faults that we long to pour
-into the ears of our friends.
-
-The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold for the
-past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and rested her chin on
-her hands. “Want me to tell you every single thing about our mine?” she
-demanded. “It is quite like a fairy story.”
-
-And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not Mollie
-Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a mine.
-
-“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you wish you
-may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising everything and making
-all the mystic signs necessary to eternal secrecy, Mollie then had
-listened to the unfolding of the fairy tale.
-
-Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale, but she
-had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine produced than a
-baby, and of course with the telling of her tale the size of the nuggets
-that Jim was getting out of the mine each week naturally grew.
-
-“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we simply don’t
-know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the ranch, who now looks
-after our mine, says you never can tell at first how much a mine may
-yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires some day.”
-
-The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s vocabulary,
-which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall, but certainly it
-had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.
-
-“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed, “and I
-do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than most anybody I
-should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my father is just a lawyer in
-Richmond and while we have a pretty house and all that, why we have some
-other brothers and sisters, and father says all he can afford to do is
-to let Lucy and me have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give
-us money for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
-make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your lovely
-things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into curls the ends of
-her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at her with an even increased
-admiration.
-
-Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on the
-youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the question with
-Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and rushing to her desk
-indited a letter to a New York firm asking that the two kimonos be sent
-her at once with slippers and stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie
-was just too sweet and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted
-sisters and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
-went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of writing her
-letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s feet, but all that
-she could do more was to invite her to come into town the next week to
-be her guest at the matinee and lunch and to help her make a few more
-purchases.
-
-For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check had, and so
-for the time being, like many another person, she felt fairly well off,
-although her allowance for the past two months had melted away like wax
-without her being able to pay back a single cent of the money to either
-Jean or Olive, which they had advanced to help with her first
-extravagance, the blue silk dress and velvet coat.
-
-One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a good deal
-more money at their disposal than Frieda had at present, is the way that
-five-dollar bills have of disappearing in New York City. So by the time
-Frieda had paid for three tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of
-course compelled to bring a chaperon into town with them, and three
-lunches at a fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money
-left out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
-charging on her account, in order to get the few more things that she
-and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the visit in
-Richmond toward the close of December.
-
-On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train and
-feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent this extra
-money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts until January, and what
-with Christmas coming, there would be so many presents for others that
-she would wish to buy! So once Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving
-her a hug, demanded to know what worried her, she would not say. For how
-confess that money matters were worrying her but a few days after the
-time when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
-Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at Christmas time,
-if they should consent to let her make the trip south, and out of this
-amount she would certainly save enough to pay her bills, without having
-to confess her extravagances. For Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would
-both be angry and ashamed of her for breaking her promise and for buying
-things which she did not really need.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-ELECTION DAY
-
-
-The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class had
-arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three o’clock until
-six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne would remain in the
-library at Primrose Hall watching over the ballot box. Immediately after
-six the box would be opened, the ballots counted and the choice of the
-Juniors announced.
-
-For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant days and
-the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now and then in the
-past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the shore waters of the
-Hudson River would then be trimmed with a fine fringe of ice. Once the
-election was over the Primrose Hall students would be making plans for
-the Christmas holidays, but until then nothing else, not even home and
-family, appeared of so great importance.
-
-Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had gone
-astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s cause. Indeed,
-like many another brave campaigner, she had only worked the harder,
-rallying Jean’s friends closer around her, exhorting her enemies and
-trying to persuade the girls on the fence that there was no real point
-in their antagonism toward Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made
-she had had an able lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted
-friend.
-
-For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that unless
-her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of the character
-she had already established among them, nothing she could do or say at
-this late day should influence them. And Jean had also never wavered
-from the attitude she had taken in regard to Olive on the afternoon of
-their final discussion of the subject. She had not needed that her
-resolution be strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and
-Jack Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
-her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that Jean be
-persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the reply she hoped
-for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically declared Jean’s position the
-only possible one.
-
-All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had been
-conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever their presence in
-one of the class rooms made it possible. Her expression was so wistful
-and apologetic that Jean began to care more for her own success on
-Olive’s account than her own. So as soon as luncheon was over and three
-o’clock had come around, slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s,
-she drew her along the hall toward the library door.
-
-“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let us go
-upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over. Then Gerry and
-Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a really high-minded
-person I suppose I should now vote for my rival, Miss Graham, but as I
-can’t bring myself up to that point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper
-for old Gerry.”
-
-Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their own
-sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign outside
-announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both ranch girls
-were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was plainly the more
-affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in a perfectly natural
-fashion, she was pale and silent and oftentimes on the verge of tears.
-
-The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the bare
-upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of the earth.
-
-“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the writing
-table before one of their windows, “why should you behave as though the
-question of my election was the only important thing in the world. On a
-day like this I only feel desperately homesick for Jack and the old
-ranch. What wouldn’t I give if we were all there to-day and just
-starting out on a long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about
-never seeing Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to
-Jim and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
-time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated Ralph
-rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have only written
-twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really coming east to see how
-Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will hate to see Ruth again or like
-it? One never can tell about a person in love.”
-
-Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the Rainbow
-Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no sooner had she
-put her pen to the paper than apparently all worry and suspense left her
-and she scratched away rapidly and clearly for several hours.
-
-But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she kept up
-such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room that at any other
-time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded. First she tried studying
-her Shakespeare, since she was making a special effort to succeed in the
-Shakespeare class, and before coming east to school had read only a few
-plays with Ruth and the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge.
-But not the most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy
-by William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea that
-engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to read, she flung
-her book down on the floor, saying petulantly: “Tiresome stuff! I wonder
-what ever made me think for an instant I could stand any chance of
-getting the Shakespeare prize?”
-
-Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us thought
-you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you dearly love to
-read and study at most times. But why don’t you go out for a walk, you
-can find Frieda somewhere around downstairs and make her go with you. I
-don’t want to.”
-
-“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a good deal
-more temper than usual with her, and flying into her own room, she
-banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for some occupation, she
-came across a piece of sewing which she had once started at the Lodge,
-some white silk cut in the shape of a round cap to be covered over with
-small white pearl beads.
-
-Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low stool
-by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would have a more
-soothing influence upon her than reading for the two more hours that had
-somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing on this occasion was more
-distracting than reading, for very soon Olive’s fingers worked
-automatically while her brain began to concern itself with interesting
-and puzzling ideas. The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose
-Hall had not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
-we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of and to
-ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led such eventful
-lives.
-
-After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation later with
-Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books in the school
-library that she could find, which might help her explain the curious
-experience—confided to no one—through which she had passed that
-afternoon. But it was not just this one experience that had puzzled and
-worried Olive, for many strange fancies, impressions, memories, she knew
-not what to call them, had been drifting into her mind since her first
-sight of that white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival
-at Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything that
-was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe that she could
-recall dim ideas and events having no connection with the years she had
-spent in the Indian tent with old Laska. But why had these far-off
-memories not assailed her in the two years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps
-then the recollection of Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her
-with such an odd mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people
-about her whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent
-in her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
-associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was impossible, for
-Olive felt sure that she had never been east before in her life.
-
-Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last six.
-
-Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly folding
-up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective envelopes. She
-looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but composed. At last she got up
-from her chair and crossing the floor knelt down in front of Olive,
-taking the piece of sewing from her cold fingers.
-
-“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill
-from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our
-sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next
-hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have
-really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an
-hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been
-thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet
-look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply
-disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion.
-“Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
-have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think
-that you have had anything to do with my failure.”
-
-Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know
-perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide
-the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were
-strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward
-their door.
-
-Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do
-with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president
-nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”
-
-The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean
-tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had
-not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing
-about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming
-down the hall.”
-
-As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
-appeared to interrupt them.
-
-“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because
-it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and
-Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few
-ballots of the Junior class.”
-
-However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall
-approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.
-
-It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean
-waited calmly in the center of the room.
-
-Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie
-Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the
-truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a
-farm clasp of Olive’s hand.
-
-“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-CONGRATULATIONS
-
-
-By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping bitterly in
-Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on the back. Gerry looked
-utterly exhausted, her hair was in a perfect tumble and a smut
-ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda had turned toward the wall and Lucy
-and Mollie Johnson each had an arm about her.
-
-“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but Olive
-simply would not accept what her eyes had already told her.
-
-“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
-entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.
-
-“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior class at
-Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced stoically, and then
-there was a sudden sound of weeping from all parts of the sitting room.
-
-“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,” Jean
-insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene. “Margaret dear,
-you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of course, I am sorry not to
-have been elected, but I’m not disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately
-that I could be. And please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean
-kissed Margaret and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.
-
-“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease to be
-grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let us show the
-girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow. Please everybody stop
-crying at once and come on with me to shake hands and offer my
-congratulations to Winifred Graham. Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the
-next time she beheld us we should all appear to have been washed away in
-tears? The first person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a
-five-pound box of candy from me in the morning.”
-
-Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not learn the
-bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had an immediate
-effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and Margaret. Both girls
-stiffened up at once.
-
-“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it will
-never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior class just
-because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of the girls did vote
-for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely, why Winifred Graham and her
-set can’t crow over us half so much as if we show our chagrin.”
-
-Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s crowing
-that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.
-
-“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations to
-Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking point. For my
-part I would rather do my duty and remember my manners without delay.”
-
-And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would follow
-her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that Olive was
-missing and going back called out softly: “Come on, Olive, and help us
-congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us show an ugly spirit now,
-would you?”
-
-But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means sure how
-Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she forbore to insist
-on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be disagreeable under the
-present circumstances Jean was not perfectly sure of being able to keep
-cool; and of all things she must not show temper at the present moment.
-Besides, her few minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of
-the girls to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
-Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of the
-election. After a first moment of breaking down she had entirely
-regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at seeing her so
-sensible.
-
-One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure and an
-entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing perfectly still. Had
-Jean been pleased because she had accepted her failure so sensibly?
-Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken simply because she could not trust
-herself to speak. She had not cried, because in the first moments of
-humiliation and regret, there are but few people who can at once summon
-tears. Of course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
-view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated herself,
-she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and this last blow had
-come to her after months of coldness and neglect on the part of her
-classmates, which she had borne bravely and in silence. Now Olive was
-through with courage and with silence.
-
-At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for the
-relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung herself face
-downward on the bed, giving herself up to the luxury of this weakness.
-When she arose her face wore a look of unusual determination. Whatever
-her fight, it was ended now. First she walked over to her bureau and
-there unlocking a small iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which
-all who have followed her history, know to be the single possession she
-had rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for the
-last time.
-
-The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before beginning the
-letter she plainly intended writing, she picked them up one by one,
-looking at them closely, the silver cross and chain worn on the evening
-of the dance, the small book only a few inches in size, and the watch
-with the picture of a woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the
-ranch girls had always believed to look like Olive.
-
-At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this also was
-laid aside for the work she had in mind.
-
-“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):
-
-“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a student
-at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this news and if Jack
-is too ill to be worried, please do not mention this to her. I have
-tried very hard to bear my difficulties here and truly I would have gone
-on without complaining, for I can live without the friendship of other
-girls so long as you and the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot
-bear is to be a drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as
-I do here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot go
-back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do now and am
-able to teach them. Can I not go to some little school where the girls
-will not care so much about my past? But if you are not willing for me
-to do this, and I know how little I am worthy of all you and the ranch
-girls have done for me, you must not mind if I find some work to do, so
-that I can make my living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no
-longer at Primrose Hall.
-
-“With all love, OLIVE.”
-
-And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and aching,
-rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms. When she lifted
-it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine Winthrop was standing only
-a few feet away.
-
-“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must have
-failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to talk to you.”
-
-The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion seemed
-always to know, almost before it happened, every event that transpired
-at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to it, was well recognized by
-her pupils. So of course she now knew not only that Winifred Graham had
-been elected to the Junior Class presidency, but the particular reason
-why Jean had been defeated.
-
-“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss Winthrop,”
-Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying to disguise the
-truth. “I know you think it very foolish and stupid of me.”
-
-Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl to a
-stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually discourage tears,”
-she answered with a half smile; “at least, I know my girls think I am
-very unsympathetic about them. But I suppose now and then we women are
-just obliged to weep, being made that way. What I want to talk to you
-about is Jean’s defeat at the election this afternoon. You feel
-responsible for it, don’t you?”
-
-Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings, as
-apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her head.
-
-“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just written
-asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall because of what has
-happened.”
-
-Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an instant
-toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she could not have
-seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared, almost gasped. “How could
-you know, Miss Winthrop?”
-
-Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that it seemed
-to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t know about your
-letter, dear, I only guessed that after the experience you have passed
-through this afternoon, with what has gone before, you were almost sure
-to have written it. And I want to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”
-
-Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my mind,”
-she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now I am quite
-determined.”
-
-A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as though she
-were not speaking directly to the girl before her, Miss Winthrop went
-on. “I believe there are but three types of people in this world, be
-they men or women, that I cannot endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob.
-Unfortunately I have discovered that there are among the girls here in
-my school a good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to
-me and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am very
-sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the weakness, the
-ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you help me, if though
-not a snob, you are one or both of the other two things I have
-mentioned?”
-
-“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at the older
-woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that no others could
-express her meaning so forcibly.
-
-“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the sake of
-Jean and Frieda,” she defended.
-
-“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if you
-think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You feel you
-have endured the slights and coldness of your classmates without
-flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like the hurt that comes to you
-with the feeling that your presence in the school is reflecting on
-Frieda and Jean. They do not wish you to go away, Olive, they will be
-deeply sorry if you do and whatever harm you may think you have done
-them has already been done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away
-from Primrose Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings,
-because your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
-at last!”
-
-Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from her
-listener.
-
-For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed no
-further influence from the outside. By and by she put her small hand on
-Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she replied. “I believe I
-_have_ been thinking all this time about myself without knowing it, You
-made me think of Jack when you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they
-are the kind of words she would have been apt to use.”
-
-Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too, Olive, and
-I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe I learned those two
-words and what they stood for from a boy friend of mine long years ago.
-Now I want to talk to you about yourself.” The woman leaned over, and
-putting her two fingers under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted
-her head back so that she could see in sharp outline every feature of
-the girl’s face.
-
-“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to Primrose
-Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious story, of their
-finding you with an old Indian woman with whom you had apparently lived
-a great many years. I believe that the woman claimed you as her
-daughter, but though no one believed her, your Western friends have
-never made any investigation about your past, fearing that this Indian
-woman might again appear to claim you.”
-
-“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.
-
-“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very many people
-in it and since the idea that you are an Indian worries you so much, I
-want to assure you I do not believe for a moment you have a trace of
-Indian blood in you. Except that you have black hair and your skin is a
-little darker than Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to
-carry a remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
-are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is too
-absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about yourself and if you
-would like me to try to find out something of your history. Perhaps I
-might know better how to go about it than your Western friends.”
-
-For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with the
-sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all I have of my
-own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss Winthrop’s lap and then
-tearing up the letter just written to Ruth, before sitting down again on
-her stool near the older woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss
-Winthrop’s hand, saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can
-recall about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come to
-me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life, whom I
-must have known long before old Laska and the Indian days.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII
-
-FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
-
-
-Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and keep back
-nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I will not
-understand. Whoever your father and mother may have been, you certainly
-have ancestors of whom you need not be ashamed.”
-
-Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her eyes on
-the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story of the Indian
-village and of Laska and how she could not recall a time when she had
-not spoken English as white people speak it, then of her years at the
-Government school for Indians taught by a white woman, who had always
-been her friend and assured her that she was not of the same race as the
-Indian children about her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the
-ornaments in the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story,
-Miss Winthrop had not yet examined.
-
-Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the years she
-had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old Laska in the mail
-each month a certain sum of money, large enough to keep her and her son
-in greater wealth and idleness than any of the other Indians in the
-village enjoyed. But from what place this money had come nor who had
-sent it Olive did not know, and so to her this fact did not seem of
-great value, although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on
-hearing it.
-
-“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?” she
-demanded.
-
-Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when puzzled, the
-girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she said slowly. “How
-strange and stupid of me never to have thought of this before! The
-postmark was New York! But New York meant nothing to me in those days,
-Miss Winthrop, except just a name on a map at school. You cannot guess
-how strange and ignorant I was until the ranch girls found me and began
-teaching me a few things that were not to be found in school books. But
-no one could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
-been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have always hoped.
-Laska must have received it for some other reason.” And then Olive,
-either from weariness or disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not
-as though she had told all that she knew, but because she could not
-quite make up her mind to go on.
-
-A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
-
-“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it. But
-this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have told to
-other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon, Miss Drew. What I
-most wish you to confide to me are the ideas and impressions of the
-years when you may not always have lived in the Indian village.”
-
-Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that I have
-had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can confide even to
-you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be possible that a human
-being can remember things at one time of their life and not have known
-them always? Why, since my arrival at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall
-impressions that I did not have at the Rainbow Ranch?”
-
-The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over the
-question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I believe I can
-in a measure understand this problem that troubles you. Half the
-memories that we have in the world come through association. It is the
-sight of an object that recalls something in our past which brings that
-past back to us. Now when you were living at the Rainbow Ranch the
-memory of your life with Laska, the fear that she might take you away
-from your friends, was so close to you that you thought of little else.
-But now you are in an entirely different place, the fear of the woman
-has gone from you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
-associations should bring to life new memories. What is there that you
-have been recalling in these past few months?”
-
-And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she murmured at
-last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I have seen the big,
-white house where Madame Van Mater lives at some time before. Of course,
-I know I have not seen it, for I have never been in this part of the
-world before. But the other day, standing at the window, I suddenly
-remembered a description of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have
-read and learned long years ago, though I never thought of it until that
-moment.”
-
-Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by reason
-of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted quietly. “Can you
-recall anything more about the house and do you think that you ever saw
-Madame Van Mater before the other day?” The strange note in her
-questioner’s voice was lost upon the girl at her feet.
-
-“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like her,”
-Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house did not seem
-familiar, only the outside and the tower room and those ridiculous iron
-dogs guarding the front door. But I want to tell you something that
-seems to me important—of course, my impression about Madame Van Mater’s
-home is sheer madness. What I really can remember is this—” Olive
-stopped for a moment as though trying to be very careful of only telling
-the truth. “I remember that when I was a very little girl I must have
-traveled about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not
-think I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately I
-have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s eyes, turned
-toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope. “He must have been
-very tall, or at least he seemed so to me then, and I went about with
-him everywhere. Finally we came to a place where we stayed a much longer
-time and there Laska first must have come to take care of us. I think
-now that my father must have died in that place, for I can not remember
-anything more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
-Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I perfectly
-certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss Winthrop had not
-spoken and supposing therefore that she considered her idle fancies of
-little account.
-
-The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair, her hand
-shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the expression of
-her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the hearing of her pupil’s
-strange story, she did not now mean to reveal.
-
-“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and surely
-very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting but little
-faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any possible
-connection between your travels in the West as a little child and your
-idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The Towers.’ But there is
-one person who can tell us something of your early history without
-doubt—and that person is this woman Laska! She kept you with her all
-those years for money and probably pretends that you are with her still,
-so that she continues to receive the same money each month, else she
-would have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love of
-money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an offer of
-more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of this, Olive dear,
-to any one in the world at present, but I will write to your old teacher
-at the Government school in the Indian village and perhaps through her
-aid we may reach this Laska.”
-
-Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in the face
-of so great interest and kindness would have been too inadequate. What
-could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now looking at her few
-treasures in the sandalwood box.
-
-“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it slip
-through her fingers as once more she examined its curious workmanship,
-“but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish and is a Spanish
-prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss Winthrop put her hand under
-Olive’s chin, studying the unusual outline of her face. “I wonder if you
-are a Spanish girl, child, for that would explain why you are darker
-than most Americans and why you have so foreign an appearance?”
-
-Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it to her
-friend’s gaze.
-
-Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began turning the
-watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so deeply interested in
-the photograph as in the watch itself. “This watch was sold here in New
-York, Olive, and I have seen one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice
-trembled a little and she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of
-this any more this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to
-ask you to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
-them more closely.”
-
-And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left the room.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX
-
-NEW YEAR’S EVE
-
-
-Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and Miss
-Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the Christmas holidays
-at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For twelve days, save for Olive
-and its owner, the great house had been empty of all its other pupils
-and teachers; now in another thirty-six hours they would be returning to
-take up their work again.
-
-The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean and
-gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap and
-Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson sisters. The ranch girls
-had not wished to leave Olive alone and each one of them had offered to
-remain at school with her, but this sacrifice could hardly be accepted
-because Olive had made no friends who had wished her to be with them.
-Jessica Hunt would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she
-had no home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
-babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their common
-disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these Invitations
-Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared for in a trip to
-New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and this privilege was still
-denied the ranch girls.
-
-Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left alone at
-Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion during the
-holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see what arrangements
-could be made for her pleasure. However, after a serious half hour’s
-talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter consultation with Olive, she had
-gone away again content to leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands
-than her own.
-
-And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for Olive, yet
-they had never been dull, for each moment she was hoping and praying to
-hear some news from old Laska and each hour being drawn into closer
-intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For now that the discipline of school life
-had been relaxed, the principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her
-favorite pupil in a light that would have surprised most of her
-students. She was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive
-with an affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
-private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl would sit
-close together under the shadow of “The Winged Victory,” reading aloud
-or talking of the great world of men and cities about which Miss
-Winthrop knew so much and Olive so little. But of the secret of the
-girl’s past her new friend did not encourage her to talk for the
-present.
-
-“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for us not
-to go into this subject again until we hear from the Indian woman, and
-then should she fail us, I must try to think of some other plan to help
-you.”
-
-And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under every
-human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska, though it was
-now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had been alone all morning
-and unusually depressed, for although she had not heard what she so
-eagerly waited to hear, she had learned that the surgeons had at last
-decided an operation must be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her
-that there was supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s
-spine that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
-operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had insisted
-that it should be tried.
-
-The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of Sleepy
-Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its Indian summer
-mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that she might brace up,
-for certainly she did not intend to let Frieda and Jean find her in the
-dumps on their return from their holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably
-go out with her, as she had been attending to school matters all
-morning, seeing that the house was made ready for the return of her
-students, and Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had
-eaten lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.
-
-While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend she
-herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to find her in
-the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in the library, nor in
-the drawing rooms, could she be found and by and by the maid came back
-to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had gone out and would probably not
-return till tea time. She had left word that Olive must not be lonely
-and that she must entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive
-knew of but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
-would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were no
-longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly familiar
-with the nearby neighborhood.
-
-Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s Christmas
-present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they might have their
-Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given Olive a brown fur coat and
-cap. Olive had not worn them before, but now, with the snow falling and
-the thought of Jack in her mind, she put them both on. For a minute she
-glanced at herself in her mirror before leaving the house and though her
-vanity was less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
-pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her new
-furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people. The soft
-brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness of her hair and
-in her olive cheeks there was a bright color which grew brighter the
-longer and faster she trudged through the lightly falling snow.
-
-Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken for her
-walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a visit to Madame Van
-Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on the old lady every few days
-and knew Olive’s dislike to accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been
-inside “The Towers” nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit
-there. But now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
-her friend returning toward home.
-
-The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity of
-Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because the trees
-had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and were covered only
-with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No man or woman who has
-lived a great deal out of doors in their youth fails to draw new
-strength and cheerfulness from the air and sunshine, and Olive, who had
-left school thinking only that Jack’s operation might not be successful
-and of the pain her friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the
-beautiful possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
-the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some day not
-too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she would never
-hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably dead or had
-disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now with her blood
-running quickly in her veins from the cold and the snow, she determined
-if Laska failed her to go west the next summer and try to trace out her
-ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop, Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew
-stood ready to help her in anything she might undertake.
-
-“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare of
-relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the opening where
-she could catch the first glimpse of the big white house. “I wish Miss
-Winthrop would come along out of there,” she said aloud after waiting a
-minute and finding that standing still made her shiver in spite of her
-furs. “I wonder why I can’t get up the courage to march up to that front
-door past those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
-don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little late,
-Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back alone. Besides,
-I want to walk with her.”
-
-Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very true and
-deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss Winthrop, she cared
-for her with all her heart.
-
-Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and looking up
-toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to recall her own
-foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction to it. There was no one
-about in the front of the house, not a servant nor a caller. For a
-moment Olive stopped, smiling, by one of the big iron dogs that seemed
-to guard the entrance to the old place. She brushed off a little snow
-from the head of one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly
-of me to think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
-Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to be
-brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow from the
-statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have only heard about
-you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I have been told about it
-until I felt almost as if I had seen it,” she announced with greater
-conviction in her tones than she had ever used before, even to herself,
-in trying to recall the confused impressions of her childhood.
-
-But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house and
-ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the door was
-suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss Winthrop stepped
-with an expression on her face no one had ever seen it wear before—one
-of surprise and wonder, anger and pleasure.
-
-“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find the
-girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to Madame Van
-Mater. We have something to tell you.”
-
-[Illustration: “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO
-ME.”]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX
-
-THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
-
-
-In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of
-Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently
-waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically
-arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger
-girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.
-
-“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,”
-she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former
-occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old
-lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost
-unconscious antagonism, their glances met.
-
-“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine
-Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said
-coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I
-feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see
-the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And
-possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now
-picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
-strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and
-Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your
-connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as
-possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has
-ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”
-
-Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about
-and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped
-into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.
-
-“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed.
-“Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the
-granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to
-explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an
-only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had
-died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son.
-She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and
-that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
-by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of
-the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to
-me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while
-for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother
-and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the
-stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and
-even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
-their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as
-your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this
-part of the country to the far west and there after several years we
-learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after
-her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that
-they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always
-known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
-paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that
-Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes
-it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now
-paused for a moment.
-
-Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish
-to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my
-mother a lady?” she asked quietly.
-
-“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.
-
-“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this
-house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really
-believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at
-the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of
-Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that
-Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own
-I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy
-on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked
-you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she
-questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.
-
-Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to
-school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay
-here any longer at present.”
-
-                   *       *       *       *       *
-
-In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking
-home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of
-Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers”
-and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and
-confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.
-
-“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and
-over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the
-queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has
-always been intended that you should some day know your own people and
-for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very
-neighborhood.”
-
-After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my
-grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one
-another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might
-have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I
-give up them.”
-
-There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
-“I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in
-the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother
-did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at
-Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my
-pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now
-I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me
-be her friend.”
-
-“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one
-save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of
-trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.
-
-In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with
-her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing
-to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery
-of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it
-better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the
-same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she
-set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at
-the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed
-very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender
-certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry
-dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an
-entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared
-for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
-existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was
-being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of
-Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and
-learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could
-have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really
-believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to
-Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s
-first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
-However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at
-rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her
-mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance
-to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon.
-Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied
-Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she
-believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have
-had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive
-the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?
-
-In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to
-Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van
-Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant
-this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being
-brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as
-Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of
-twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her.
-She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
-she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as
-her heiress and the bearer of her name.
-
-By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their
-long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on
-a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a
-fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they
-could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive
-believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s
-description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and
-that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly
-brought the lines back to her recollection.
-
-Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and
-answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying
-with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night.
-She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss
-Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still
-another question she wished to ask.
-
-“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such
-a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her
-picture in my father’s watch.”
-
-Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and
-foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother
-could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I
-heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own
-appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your
-grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress,
-that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is
-that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
-mentioned as long as she lived.”
-
-With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s
-at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI
-
-JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
-
-
-In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last chapter
-Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and loneliness and
-gay with the returning of its students now that the holiday season was
-well past.
-
-Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since trains
-at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the school carryall
-would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the steps, sitting in one
-another’s laps. And it happened that in one of these overloaded parties
-Jean and Frieda arrived at Primrose Hall together.
-
-There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such a number
-of students at one time and so much kissing and embracing among some of
-the girls tragically separated from their best chums for two weeks, that
-in the general hubbub Jean and Frieda noticed no special change in
-Olive. If Jean thought at first that she had looked a little tired she
-forgot about it in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell
-of their own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
-one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing of
-forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very little of
-each other without outside friends being present until almost bedtime
-that night.
-
-Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their lights
-were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire, wearing their
-kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at last for the
-confidential talk to which for different reasons they had all been
-looking forward for some time.
-
-A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their door and on
-the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat two large boxes of
-candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving Richmond, Va., and the other
-a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil Belknap in New York.
-
-For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three girls at
-being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once they began
-talking in chorus.
-
-“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I am the
-youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda protested.
-
-Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the first
-chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both of them
-turned their attention full upon her. It was strange, for of course
-Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a southern city fails to
-have—and yet in spite of all her accounts of dances and dinner parties
-and germans given for the school girls in Richmond during the holidays,
-both Jean and Olive noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual,
-but that, if it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of
-worry appeared to pucker her brow.
-
-“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing altogether too
-much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when Frieda had
-triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets received as favors at
-germans at their feet.
-
-But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t either,
-Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt girls to have a
-good time in the holidays if they only study hard and behave themselves
-properly at school.”
-
-“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.
-
-And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired. Why
-should you girls think there is anything the matter with me?” And she
-turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her audience that it became
-silenced. For five, ten minutes afterwards Frieda continued to hold the
-floor, and then in the midst of an account of a party given at the
-Johnson home she had suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on
-the floor, tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am
-tired to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
-don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you haven’t
-anything special to say, just having stayed here at school with Miss
-Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in New York.”
-
-Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly, both the
-older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had even ceased talking
-her eyes had filled with tears.
-
-The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New York City
-was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was several years older
-than her cousin, in New York school girls are never allowed the same
-privileges that they enjoy in the South. But Jean had been to the
-theatre many times and to luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken
-Margaret and Jean and Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap
-had been very nice and she had liked him a little better, though she
-still thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a leading
-question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded her story.
-“There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell everybody when the
-lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not willing to tell now.”
-
-Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping a large
-chocolate into her mouth.
-
-“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away like
-selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have had a
-dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.
-
-Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time; at
-least, not lately.”
-
-Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s lips.
-
-“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and you took
-long walks together and things like that. I believe Miss Winthrop is
-really fond of you, Olive, even more than she is of Jean and me. I
-wonder why?”
-
-At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she thinks
-Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of course you and
-I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I hope, Olive dear, that
-she was good to you.”
-
-And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly flushed
-scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better than any one
-else in the world except you ranch girls,” she replied.
-
-Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression, Jean’s
-own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she have been so
-unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a sudden flash of
-illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something important on your mind
-that you want to tell us. I might have guessed that you have been
-keeping it a secret ever since we returned, letting us chat all this
-nonsense about our visits first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss
-Winthrop wants to adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented,
-or none of us will ever forgive you in this world!”
-
-Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you yet,” she
-murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen different ways of
-starting in the last two days.”
-
-“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda darkly.
-“I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us for having left
-you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas holidays. Of course Miss
-Winthrop decided that we really do not care much for you and for all her
-coldness to the other girls she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just
-crazy about you, Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But
-whether you like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have
-believed that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
-when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.
-
-“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want to tell
-you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with her if you should
-ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I don’t want to live with her
-if you ranch girls want me. I was only trying to explain——”
-
-“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as white and
-shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty in making her
-confession.
-
-“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her accustomed
-voice and manner, “it is only that since you have been away Miss
-Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an Indian girl. I am not
-even a western girl, or at least my father was not a Westerner. You
-remember the day we went to see the Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old
-Madame Van Mater stared at me so strangely and scolded Donald for
-thinking I was like his mother. She did not wish me to look like Mrs.
-Harmon because Mrs. Harmon was my father’s first cousin and——”
-
-“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!” Frieda
-interposed.
-
-And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling the other
-girls the history of her father and of herself as far back as she had
-learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I have told you all at
-once, girls, for it does sound like a miracle or a fable and we never
-would have believed such a story had we read of it in a book. But Miss
-Winthrop says that every day in the real world just such wonderful
-things are happening as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very
-neighborhood where my father used to live and finding my grandmother
-alive. In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
-coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without interruption,
-of course she believed by this time that both Jean and Frieda understood
-the news she had been trying to make plain to them. Frieda had risen to
-a sitting posture and was staring at her with frightened eyes, Jean was
-frowning deeply.
-
-“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said Frieda at the
-same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of the situation the three
-girls giggled hysterically.
-
-“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story over
-again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean had then
-commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole tale again.
-
-Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime hour,
-until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was preceptress of
-their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop had already told her
-something of Olive’s history, she readily allowed the ranch girls a half
-hour’s extra talk. She could not help their lights going out at ten
-o’clock, however, but the ranch girls did not really care. A candle
-under an umbrella makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any
-the wiser!
-
-Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was Olive’s
-strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more devoted to one
-another than they did to-night. They were sitting with their arms about
-one another when Olive jumped up. “Please lend me the candle a minute,”
-she begged unexpectedly, “I have been talking so much about myself that
-I forgot I had some letters for you. They may be important.”
-
-In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped several
-envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if they are
-Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she said carelessly,
-“but if they are letters you had best wait till morning.”
-
-With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and the paper
-enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my goodness gracious,
-what ever am I going to do?” she asked desperately, seeing three large
-black figures staring at her even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in
-all this world and I owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”
-
-The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed. Instead of
-having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas present during her
-Christmas visit she had spent every cent of it. Now, without waiting for
-her to find out what she could do to get the money for her dreadful
-bill, the wretched, unkind shop people had sent it her on the very first
-day of the New Year.
-
-“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I haven’t
-paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight, uncomfortable moment
-of surprise on the part of the other ranch girls, “but what can I do? I
-suppose I have just got to write to Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it
-for me.”
-
-“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean demanded,
-looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of the candle light.
-
-“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.
-
-Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby. What I
-wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is that I became a
-backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent told Gerry and Margaret
-that we were not absolutely paupers. I just had to spend some of the
-money I had saved, the things in New York were so fascinating. So I
-haven’t much left to lend you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth
-says the mine is not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we
-must all be economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
-away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at Primrose
-Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we are not after
-all; gold mines are often uncertain.”
-
-“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda murmured.
-And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh. “Oh, no, it need
-not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured her, “for I have hardly
-spent a cent since coming to Primrose Hall, so I have nearly enough to
-help you out, so you need not worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that
-however much I may dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to
-allow her to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for
-the money that is now hers should _rightfully_ have come to my father
-even though she did not wish him to have it.”
-
-“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean repeated,
-just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a fortune untold,
-Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of gold.’ I used to think she
-meant our mine.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII
-
-READJUSTMENTS
-
-
-In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection with the
-wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of psychology would
-have had an interesting opportunity in the study of the changed attitude
-of her schoolmates toward her. In the first place, from being an Indian
-girl of uncertain origin, Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance
-and also there was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress,
-should her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
-the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some portion
-of the old estate. So you see that instead of being looked down upon as
-the most undesirable student at Primrose Hall, the fourth ranch girl had
-suddenly become exalted upon a pedestal, and perhaps it is just as
-deceptive in this world to look up to other people as it is to look down
-upon them, since a fair judgment can only be attained by standing face
-to face.
-
-Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position than she
-had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded as ill breeding,
-was called haughtiness and her classmates stood a little in awe of her.
-The position was indeed a trying one for everybody concerned in it, for
-scarcely could the girls who had been unkind to Olive, now throw
-themselves about her neck begging her forgiveness, simply because so
-unexpected a turn had come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the
-unwise girls did do this, but not those with better judgment and taste,
-for they understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
-greater tact.
-
-Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one could
-be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent snubbing of
-Olive from the first day of her entrance into Primrose Hall, not because
-she liked Olive any better than she had at first, but because Winifred
-only cared for persons who might be useful to her, and now this
-ridiculous Olive with her romantic history, might be very useful indeed.
-The point at issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
-hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the Junior
-students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made before that the
-three girls who stood closest in line for this prize were Winifred,
-Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that Olive would of course
-withdraw from the contest, since she could hardly take a prize presented
-by her own grandmother, but what Winifred feared was that Olive might
-throw the balance of her influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she
-now undertook to show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls
-without offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
-confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their friend,
-was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but there was little
-assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the first place Jessica
-declared immediately that Olive was not to give up her effort to win the
-Shakespeare prize. Jessica had talked the matter over both with Olive
-and Miss Winthrop and they had decided in council that Olive need not
-give up her cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
-Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
-reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have the best
-yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the close of the
-school year and give the best recitation from any one of the Shakespeare
-plays.
-
-Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred had then
-freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards to Olive, but
-though her manner was now entirely friendly, her protest had not the
-least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed, when things had settled down
-into routine again Olive continued to work harder than ever during the
-following winter and spring months. Of course, her position among her
-classmates had altered somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her
-friends as well as a number of other girls who had never been actively
-disagreeable, but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a
-faint pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like one
-another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real antagonism of
-temperament. They exchanged greetings in their class rooms and several
-times Winifred called on the ranch girls, but as her visits were never
-returned, she had to try other methods of softening the hostility her
-own unkindness had created, hoping that before the school year was over
-something would give her a chance to win their liking.
-
-One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from their
-Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and with
-distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their mystic order.
-When finally the invitation, so much discussed, had been extended to the
-two ranch girls they had not known what to do in the matter. Of course,
-they had not wished to show continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s
-advice, had joined the society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty
-club house and the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority
-gave during the rest of the school year.
-
-So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
-Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother were
-still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop had been in
-the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and Frieda, but there were
-times when pilgrimages had to be made alone. Why they had to be made at
-all Olive did not understand, for Madame Van Mater still showed but
-little liking for the granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop
-had surely thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch
-girls it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least fear
-of her and when they had made their first call it was with difficulty
-that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of her mind in regard
-to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van Mater’s age prevented her
-from receiving the scolding and perhaps her manner. For instead Jean
-told her the story of the ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how
-much she had previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well
-as the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly invited
-Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but of their life at
-the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls could be eloquent on the
-subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed the floor and three times in the
-course of the conversation Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud,
-a proceeding most unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her
-hardness and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
-treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her son had
-forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions. But whatever
-her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was forced to continue the
-weekly calls.
-
-One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school matters
-and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of basketball, Olive found
-herself compelled to go alone to see her grandmother. And she was
-particularly vexed over this special visit, as she had wished to join
-the other girls in their game.
-
-Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame Van Mater
-with entire formality in the old drawing room, where they had had their
-two memorable meetings, but to-day she found the drawing room empty and
-while she waited a maid came to say that she was kindly to walk
-upstairs.
-
-Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old drawing
-room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going upstairs found her
-grandmother before an open fire wrapped about with silk shawls and
-comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as high as usual and her
-costume as handsome, but it was plain to see that she was not so well.
-
-“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe cold,” she
-announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with her, never having at
-any time offered her any more intimate greeting.
-
-Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really feeling
-bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half hour. These
-calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston was still a prisoner
-in New York were the only worries she now seemed to have at Primrose
-Hall.
-
-“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her remark
-waved aside.
-
-“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but if I were
-there are other more important matters than my health which I wish to
-discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I very glad to see you
-alone.”
-
-There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had never
-attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by pretending to feel
-any affection for her. She now simply sat perfectly still and
-respectful, waiting to hear what was to be said next. But rarely had she
-looked more attractive than on this afternoon. In the first place, her
-walk had given her a bright color and she was wearing a particularly
-becoming frock.
-
-Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great care on
-these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock, which Ruth
-lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the first time. It was
-of some soft material of silk and wool made with a short waist and
-softly clinging skirt of a bright golden brown with a girdle of brown
-velvet. Olive was very slender always and of only medium height, but her
-dark coloring was rich and unusual and now her expression was gayer and
-in some unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
-manner than formerly.
-
-For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
-continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting opposite
-her, and then, without the least warning of her intention, said
-abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not understood why I have insisted
-on your coming to see me so regularly and constantly since my discovery
-of your connection with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you
-have not I am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying
-you and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a great
-injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his choice of an
-occupation and by his marriage to your mother instead of Katherine
-Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off from me all responsibility in
-regard to his child. You are not altogether what I would have you to be,
-you have less social ease of manner and less conversational ability than
-I desire in my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults
-in you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them. What I
-am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make reparation to you
-by having you come here to live with me when your year at Primrose Hall
-is passed, and if I find you as refined and as capable of being managed
-as I now suppose you to be, I am prepared to change my will, making you
-heir to the greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and
-nephew, Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
-for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I wish to
-do it. And also because it will please Katherine Winthrop, who is one of
-the few persons for whom I have always cared.”
-
-Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips, but
-seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no intention of
-thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly, “only of refusing your
-offer. It may be very kind of you to desire me to live with you, but I
-thought you understood that nothing and no one in the world could ever
-persuade me to stop living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me
-to be with them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or
-anything else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”
-
-“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far more
-inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her. “Of course, I
-wish to say nothing against these friends of yours; under the
-circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful to them for their
-kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect to live forever on their
-bounty, and what can they offer you in the way of social opportunity? I
-believe they have no parents to introduce them into society, only this
-chaperon named Ruth Drew and some man or other who manages their ranch.”
-
-Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very anxious or
-very well fitted for social opportunity,” she answered, “but I don’t
-think you need worry about the ranch girls, for when the time comes for
-them to take any part in society I am sure they will find opportunities
-enough. I wrote Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation
-was over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she wanted me
-to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would travel or do
-whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any of us know yet
-whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean and Frieda and I have
-positively made up our minds that nothing will induce us to be separated
-from her after this year.”
-
-“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater returned
-coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this question with you. I
-shall have Katherine Winthrop put the matter before you. But you can
-rest assured, Olive, of these two things: In the first place, that if at
-any time you displease me I can leave my money to any one whom I may
-select, as my husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and
-in the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you are
-not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your natural
-guardian.”
-
-Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to be
-violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature anger must
-get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the girl now got up from
-her chair and crossing the room faced Madame Van Mater with an
-expression as determined as her own. “Please understand that I do not
-want to defraud either Donald or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have
-always promised them. They have been very kind since the discovery of my
-connection with them and of course you must be more fond of them than
-you can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I don’t
-want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother, nor do I feel
-that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect of me. Do you think it
-is quite fair for you now to speak of being my natural guardian when for
-so many years you desired nothing so much as that my name should never
-be mentioned to you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any
-more, but understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”
-
-Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger, for
-until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her rather too
-gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her shoulders
-indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of course, Olive, I shall
-decide later what course in regard to you I shall consider it advisable
-to take.”
-
-So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever before in
-her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for consolation to
-Primrose Hall.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII
-
-“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”
-
-
-May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along the
-Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with sail boats
-dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky and toward the
-water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats chugged along, making
-more noise than automobiles; while the steam yachts, ever the
-aristocrats among all water craft, sailing into their own harbors up and
-down the Hudson shores, ever and anon put forth again as though
-intending to leave home behind for adventures on the open sea. All the
-hills beyond and near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like
-mammoth bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
-while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater variety
-of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places in this land.
-
-Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine Winthrop’s old
-home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before ever the school was
-thought of. For wild primroses blossomed everywhere, although the season
-was late, until the garden about the old place looked like the famous
-field of “The Cloth of Gold.”
-
-As much as possible on these bright May days the students at Primrose
-Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year drawing to a close it
-was not always easy to desert lessons and the thought of approaching
-examinations.
-
-One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a corner of one
-of the big verandas with a table between them and a screen carefully set
-up to protect them from interruption. The girls were not talking, indeed
-an utter silence had reigned between them for the last ten minutes,
-broken only by the squeak of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the
-present term and by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an
-oration by Cicero.
-
-Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short time
-later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair of feet but
-of several, and yet not a single head appeared above it.
-
-Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work, determined not
-to be lured from the strict path of duty.
-
-“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself, “seeing
-our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’ will go away and
-leave us in peace.”
-
-But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few inches from
-where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion to the study of
-literature and the classics will prevent one from jumping up with a
-scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at the same instant, and behold,
-there, with only the prostrate screen dividing them, were Gerry and
-Margaret, Lucy and Mollie Johnson, besides several other members of
-their Junior class!
-
-“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry announced,
-pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised dagger.
-
-Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want with
-us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come interrupting a fellow
-at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”
-
-“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily. “Do you
-suppose that when school is nearly over that we care half so much for
-the views and wishes of our lady principal as we do earlier in the year,
-when we might have to live on under the shadow of her displeasure?
-However, on this one occasion the fear of that august personage need not
-darken our young lives, since she has given her consent to what I am now
-about to propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I
-had best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to accept
-it beforehand.”
-
-Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such moral
-hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything agreeable this
-afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t accept any invitation,
-and yet if you ask us we may.”
-
-Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what it is.
-You must get your coats and hats at once and come and drive with us for
-a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and there father and Cecil will
-be waiting for us in our yacht to take us for a sail.”
-
-“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically, gathering
-her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think that I have never
-been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole life!”
-
-Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies this
-afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the overturned
-screen in their efforts to get up to their room for hats and coats
-without delay.
-
-However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for Jean to
-have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen slowly returning
-toward her group of friends.
-
-“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please excuse
-us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”
-
-Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please don’t think
-I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she said softly, “but
-really I don’t believe I had better go with you this afternoon after
-all. Frieda says she _will_ go,” and unconsciously the speaker put an
-added emphasis on the verb will.
-
-Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
-particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.
-
-“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make you
-change your mind in the distance between the veranda and your bedroom
-door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you won’t go for a sail
-on the Hudson for the first time in your life because you love your
-Cicero so.”
-
-Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not exactly.”
-
-“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have asked
-Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join us. Of course
-she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare essay of hers. And to
-think that once I believed I had a chance at that Shakespeare prize.”
-
-At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh, if
-Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us, she shall
-not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she could vanish for the
-second time Margaret and Gerry both clutched at her skirts.
-
-“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really want her,
-and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.” Margaret
-explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson with anger and
-resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.
-
-“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get over being
-so touchy about one another? You know that now we know Olive better, we
-like her as much as any girl in our class. To tell you the truth, it is
-just because we are trying to fix up some plan to show Olive how we feel
-toward her that we did not want her to come along with us now. It seemed
-to us this would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
-what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at first,”
-Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and perhaps put things
-pretty badly.”
-
-“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get my
-belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in mind.”
-
-An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and Mollie and
-Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private landing pier not far
-from their school, were assisted aboard the steam yacht “Marathon” by
-Cecil Belknap and his father.
-
-During the first half of the sail there was little real conversation
-among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at the beauty of the
-river scenery and the wonders of the yacht. But by and by on their
-return journey when Margaret and her guests were seated around the salon
-dining table drinking afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting
-off things, turned to her hostess.
-
-“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the entire
-company to overhear, “if your father and brother will pardon us, I vote
-that we plunge right into the subject we have come together to discuss
-this afternoon. I suppose your father and Cecil must both have heard
-something of Olive’s story by now.”
-
-Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have Olive’s
-difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap, whom she did not
-yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest she did not like to
-protest.
-
-Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with her
-teaspoon poised in the air.
-
-“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You know that
-when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most of us liked two of
-the three girls right from the first, after a few of their western
-peculiarities had rubbed up against our eastern ones. But with the third
-girl, with Olive—well, it was different. In the first place, Olive was
-shy and did not look exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier
-than I am, for example); in the second place, the story was circulated
-about among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
-dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and that now
-she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to her own mother. Of
-course, had any one of us ever looked at Olive very hard we must have
-known that this story was an untruth, or else only a half truth, which
-is the worst kind of a lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy
-to stand up for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this
-horrid part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
-end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little further
-than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as clever as Olive
-in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as refined and gentle in
-her manner, could hardly be what we had believed her, simply couldn’t.
-And now I want to say just one thing in excuse for myself. I did know
-that Olive was a lady and more than a lady, a trump, before I learned
-that she was not an Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused
-an instant to sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express
-her romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.
-
-Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s respite.
-
-“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did try to
-be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas holidays, intending
-on my return to ask her to overlook the past and be friends. I suppose
-there were other girls in our class who felt the same way and had this
-same intention?”
-
-As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There certainly
-were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we got back from our
-holidays it was then too late to make Olive believe in our good
-intentions, because in that short time things had so changed for her
-that she had become more interesting than any of the rest of us. You can
-see, Jean and Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The
-well-broughtup Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment
-and only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
-rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had learned
-of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that she would care
-very much for such a belated repentance. So for months now we have been
-trying to think of some pretty and tactful way to show our real feeling
-toward her and now we hope we have at last hit upon the right plan.”
-
-“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long time,”
-and though a laugh went all around the table at her expense, Gerry again
-burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we are to have our school finals
-now in a short time and see the Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who
-are trying for the Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the
-committee specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
-luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests at the
-commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps you two ranch
-girls don’t know and that is that we always choose one of the Primrose
-Hall girls as our Queen for commencement day. Of course she must be
-selected from among the entire school, not from any one class; but
-Margaret and some of the other Juniors and I have been talking things
-over with the Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and
-that they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
-and Frieda?”
-
-Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda still
-appeared mystified.
-
-“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if you
-really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although she was
-trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil Belknap, who had
-been watching her pretty closely all afternoon through his same hateful
-pair of eyeglasses.
-
-“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first toward Mollie
-and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation of this everlasting
-preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.
-
-“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,” Gerry
-returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose you can call
-her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she does preside over
-our dances all afternoon, leads any special ones, and we pay her
-whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t you, Cecil, or any other
-human being at this table start reciting: ‘You must wake and call me
-early, call me early, mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not
-for that tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May
-Queen one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
-that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
-commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose because it
-is so ridiculously easy to remember.”
-
-As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the table, her
-guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all settled,” she
-exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup, “so let us drink to
-Olive as our next queen and to the other ranch girls.”
-
-“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,” Frieda
-suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And Gerry’s hearty “Of
-course,” ended the pretty scene.
-
-For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made their way
-again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group Jean was the last to
-leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.
-
-“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My sister
-tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our cottage on the
-Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you are going to be jolly
-enough to come, for I should enjoy it most awfully.”
-
-“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?” Jean’s
-eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she ended prettily,
-extending her hand to the young man.
-
-Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
-twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore. “No, it
-is not what I would call good of me,” he replied quietly. “I thought I
-told you at our house at Christmas that I liked you and that if there
-wasn’t any fellow out West, I would like to see more of you anyhow. Do
-say you will make us the visit?”
-
-With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped develop in
-her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “I have already
-explained to Margaret that I shan’t be able to come to her this summer.
-You see, my cousin, Jack Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to
-leave the hospital in New York early in June and then we expect to go
-back to the Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
-knows where?”
-
-The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now running
-in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the soft, spring dusk
-the travelers could see the old school carryall and in another carriage
-Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting to drive the party back to Primrose
-Hall. But before anybody was allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had
-solemnly whispered to each one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not
-to hear a single, solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up
-to the very last minute.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV
-
-SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
-
-
-“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,” Gerry
-Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back view of herself
-in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly lovely, Winifred, and I would
-not be a bit surprised if you get the Shakespeare prize after all, even
-though Olive has the best class record for the year and I the highest
-mark for my essay. We are so close together in this contest that the
-least thing may change the balance. It is my private opinion that
-whoever gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
-prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to adjust her
-doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I have been born a
-stately blonde beauty like you so that I might have appeared as lovely
-Ophelia instead of having to represent Rosalind on account of my short
-hair?”
-
-Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently, happening at
-that moment to catch sight of her own fair reflection. She was dressed
-in a long clinging robe of some soft white material and her pale blonde
-hair, bound with a fillet of silver, hung loose about her neck. In her
-hand she held a sheet of paper with her speech written upon it, which
-she glanced at a little nervously every now and then.
-
-    “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
-    The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
-    The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”
-
-“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my recitation,”
-Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of stage fright
-already, and to think that I have to make the first speech!” She glanced
-up at the clock on their mantel. “It is only a half hour now before we
-must go downstairs and I believe that there have never been so many
-guests at one of our commencements before. I suppose it is because the
-day is so beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
-wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least a
-hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the ranch girls’
-room we can see out into the yard and I can have a look at Olive. I am
-simply dying to find out what she looks like!”
-
-Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to come near
-Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her herself and to slip
-around to the entrance to the stage in the pavilion, so that no one
-shall dare speak to her. So I suppose if the truth be known, Winifred,
-Olive is just about as badly scared as you are and a good deal more so,
-considering how dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not
-look pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never saw
-any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare costume.
-And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in ‘The Winter’s
-Tale’ for her character because I asked her to. She had once made me
-think of a description of Perdita.”
-
-Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the room.
-“See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too hateful for you to
-have kept on encouraging Olive to try for this prize. It will look
-awfully queer to people if she accepts a prize from her own grandmother
-anyhow, and I do need it most dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper
-Winifred was almost in tears, though not for worlds would she
-consciously have marred her lovely appearance.
-
-A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t leave me
-out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she begged. “I may not have
-so great beauty as you and Olive to commend me, but remember:
-
-    “‘From the east to western Ind,
-    No jewel is like Rosalind.
-    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
-    Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”
-
-Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling stride
-toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more friendliness than
-she had shown her in many weeks. “Come, Winifred, what is the use of our
-worrying now? I believe I need this prize money quite as much as you do,
-since my father has just made some unfortunate investments and may not
-be able to let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year.
-And of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
-take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have an
-equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive wins we ought
-not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand how she wants the glory
-of winning and not the prize itself. She told me that she had been
-working for this prize ever since she first came to Primrose Hall in
-order to show her beloved Jack Ralston how much she had appreciated the
-opportunities she had given her.”
-
-In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but at the
-same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great clapping of
-hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her hand. “Good gracious,
-there is someone’s speech just ending!” she exclaimed, “so our turns
-will come soon.”
-
-And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
-Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are April when
-they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You Like It” and began
-once more to read over her part.
-
-So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s voice was
-heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare heroines?” she
-demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long coats around you and
-come on downstairs now. The coast is clear and it is almost time for
-your speeches. I will tell Olive.”
-
-Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose Hall had
-ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had one called forth
-so many guests.
-
-Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a stage had
-been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many yards from the
-great house and a kind of covered arbor temporarily arranged so that the
-girls who took part in the commencement exercises might pass from the
-house to the stage without being seen by the audience. The stage had no
-curtain and only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
-clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either side were
-piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from the woods,
-delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and the floor of the
-stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups, violets and daisies.
-
-In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was seated,
-perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her first public
-appearance before it might reasonably be frightened. Perhaps it was the
-beauty of the day, perhaps the novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage
-arrangements, for surely no audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic
-than hers, and as each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently
-entering from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
-applause and interest had increased.
-
-The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
-programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were half a
-dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act as judges, and
-a few feet from them in a chair next Miss Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van
-Mater, the owner of “The Towers” and the donor of the Shakespeare prize.
-Her appearance at the commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but
-whether she came because of her interest in her newly-found
-granddaughter or whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no
-one had been told.
-
-When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur of
-admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to her, giving
-her just the confidence she had needed for the making of her speech. And
-truly her beauty justified the admiration, for she was wearing the
-costume that best suited her and was most effective against the natural
-background of evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the
-leaves of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
-gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her dress.
-
-Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her upstairs, nor a
-moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred recited Ophelia’s famous
-description of Hamlet, ending with the words, “O, woe is me, To have
-seen what I have seen, see what I see.” Then for just a moment she
-paused with a pretty, pathetic gesture and her gaze swept the faces of
-her judges before she vanished from the stage amid much clapping of
-hands. Three times Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each
-call Gerry’s heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.
-
-“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred has
-already won.” When a friend standing near whispered something in her ear
-she laughed in her usual good-humored fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can
-recite better than Winifred, but what avails it me when I can’t look
-like the goddess of spring as she does at this moment there on the stage
-with her arms full of flowers.”
-
-Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed arbor in
-the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her recitation came next,
-and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded by Jean, was also waiting.
-
-Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean. Then she
-darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for the last time;
-are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely, but she did not speak
-distinctly enough. Remember it is difficult to hear out of doors.”
-
-Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses, she
-tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the stage in
-her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find her way through
-an unknown woods, had stumbled in the underbrush.
-
-No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and yet in the
-character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly at her best. Perhaps
-the description that the heroine gives of herself in masquerade will
-best describe Gerry’s present appearance.
-
-    “More than common tall,
-    That I did suit me all points like a man?
-    A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,
-    A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart
-    Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—
-    We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”
-
-And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her recitation she
-did not in any way betray it, for at once the gayety of Rosalind, her
-wit and gallant courage, seemed to have fallen like a mantle upon Gerry.
-Twice her audience laughed aloud in the course of her recitation and
-once two of the judges nodded at each other, which had not happened
-during Winifred’s speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to
-the stage again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain
-that unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
-would be the winner of their contest.
-
-For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the third
-girl, who was to close the competition, made her appearance. And this
-was unfortunate for Olive. In the first place, the large audience was
-growing a little bit tired and hungry, and in the second place, it gave
-them the opportunity to begin talking of Olive’s curious history,
-retailing to one another as much or as little as each one of them knew.
-
-Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New York and
-shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica Hunt and Miss
-Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure the planning of it had
-given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome days at the hospital. Not that she
-and Ruth were Shakespeare scholars, only it had happened that years
-before Ruth had seen a famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from
-the stage, in this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and
-had never forgotten the details of her dress.
-
-Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last skipped on to
-the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress that came down to her
-ankles, covered with an overdress of flowered tulle. Her long and
-curiously black hair was braided in the two familiar loose braids with a
-single pink flower at one side, and on her arm she carried a basket of
-spring flowers.
-
-Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from the first
-that Olive would be frightened to death before so many people? It was
-odd, therefore, that as she first came down toward the edge of the
-platform she smiled assurance at Miss Winthrop, who was trying her best
-not to appear too anxious or too interested in her favorite pupil.
-
-Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly to dance
-an old English folk dance such as the country people must have danced in
-rustic England long before even Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art
-with Olive, so that before she commenced her speech her audience was
-won.
-
-Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when her
-dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the center of the
-open-air stage:
-
-    “I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might
-    Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”
-
-She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people watching her
-as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to them.
-
-Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater stiffened and
-her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten her part and is going
-to make a spectacle of herself and me!” she whispered in her friend’s
-ear. “I wish I had never come.”
-
-And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown suddenly ill,
-for she continued standing perfectly still and speechless for a period
-of one, two minutes, though surely it seemed like ten, while waves of
-color swept over her face, turning it crimson and then leaving it pale.
-“Oh, I cannot believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking
-her eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
-exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.
-
-What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to the
-girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught it, for she
-smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of wild-flowers appeared
-to present them to various characters, who in Shakespeare’s play stand
-grouped around the figure of Perdita as she makes this speech:
-
-    “Daffodils,
-    That come before the swallow dares, and take
-    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
-    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
-    Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
-    That die unmarried—”
-
-As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket, dropping
-them to the ground and moving gradually backwards toward the entrance to
-the stage. Then, when she had recited the last line of her speech, she
-made a quick bow and before her audience realized that her speech was
-actually over, had disappeared.
-
-Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s and
-Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For Jean was
-waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her at once.
-
-“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I didn’t see?
-It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me before?”
-
-“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered, trying
-to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack wishes you to
-come to her at once.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV
-
-“JACK”
-
-
-Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms about
-her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and fragile and
-leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep bronze, the color of
-copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes, were now unusually dark with
-emotion. She was evidently trying to appear less disturbed than she
-felt, for her head was tilted back the least bit and her lips were held
-close together; indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
-self-control.
-
-“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely unconscious of
-the number of persons about them, and the girl in the costume of an
-English shepherdess arrived at the desired goal first.
-
-“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first meeting
-after a long separation from one we love. And so for several moments the
-two ranch girls clung together trying hard to keep back their tears,
-while Jean, standing a little apart from them, pretended to laugh at
-their emotion.
-
-“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did it
-happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I don’t care
-whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are here.” Olive said at
-last.
-
-“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so much by
-surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But you see it was
-like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more heavily on her cane,
-although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it. “When my operation was over
-neither the surgeons nor anybody knew just at first whether or not I was
-to get well. So of course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until
-we were certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
-I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out here at
-Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I did not mean to
-put off coming until commencement day,” Jack continued apologetically,
-“but somehow I did not get well quite as fast as I expected, until it
-had to be now or never, so Ruth wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this
-morning but not to let you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would
-somehow affect your speech.”
-
-“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think how I
-felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I saw you
-standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you used to do.”
-
-“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only I got
-so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am perfectly
-well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not accustomed to
-standing so long.”
-
-Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried off,
-returning in another minute empty handed. But following close behind her
-was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked a little out of place at
-Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a freedom and power that did not
-speak of city streets, neither did the deep tan of his skin. He was
-carrying the big, comfortable chair for Jean.
-
-“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so many
-surprises in one day!” Olive protested.
-
-Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of the
-Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so that he
-could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another moment his big
-hands closed over hers.
-
-“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied. “To
-think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books, and here I
-was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow Ranch, whose
-history makes most of the fiction tales look real pale! But ain’t it
-great to see the boss herself again. I couldn’t believe she was getting
-well when she wrote me; I was like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to
-show me’.” And here Jim put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.
-
-“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
-demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five minutes
-together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to let my sister get
-out of my sight again as long as I live!” Frieda had joined the little
-group under the linden tree just as Jim was finishing his speech and
-before Olive could answer him.
-
-Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my
-grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.
-
-[Illustration: “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”]
-
-Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully
-glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us
-less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well
-enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your
-grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had
-been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who
-are all those persons coming towards us now?”
-
-Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
-Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the
-line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and
-apparently unconscious of every one else.
-
-With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
-immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.
-
-“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received
-the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the
-most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in
-the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I
-want to congratulate you.”
-
-With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious
-rival.
-
-But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
-congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,”
-she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”
-
-“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with
-them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly
-trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were
-standing together.
-
-“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss Winthrop at
-once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying for it just to see
-what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does not wish the prize given
-her, and of course under the circumstances Olive does not wish it
-herself.”
-
-Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were peremptorily borne
-away by a number of their classmates. Later on from a kind of throne on
-one of the Primrose Hall verandas Jack and some of her friends witnessed
-the pretty ceremony of the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For
-several hours afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive
-raising a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
-royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during the
-afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once, when Jack had
-been watching them, she happened to turn to speak to Madame Van Mater,
-who sat next her. But whatever she may have intended to say she did not,
-but instead waited to study her companion’s expression.
-
-There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly pleased
-at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was almost a smile
-of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack flushed, biting her
-lips, then she leaned over and spoke:
-
-“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have Olive go
-home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if afterwards you will
-do something that is kinder still?” she asked.
-
-With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there was an
-air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was very pleasing.
-
-“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere with my
-granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but what more would
-you have me to do?”
-
-For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa cushions
-looking out over the garden and fields to where afar off she could see
-just a silver line marking the course of the Hudson River.
-
-“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame Van
-Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t believe I
-had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my life. And all the
-time lately I have been thinking and longing for just two things. One to
-see our beloved ranch again, to get on horseback and ride for miles and
-miles over the prairie. And then—”
-
-“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest than you
-would believe she could show.
-
-Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I can.
-You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used to think
-perhaps I should never see much more of the world than just four walls.”
-Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders in her old, determined way.
-“But I am well now and, as the doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I
-want you to promise to let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and
-me next fall?”
-
-“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent idea! I
-could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel and experience
-may give her just the ease and culture she needs. But who will look
-after you?”
-
-At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
-companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil of
-watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight hold of her
-hand.
-
-“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She will not
-go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go abroad
-afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”
-
-Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss Winthrop
-arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying farewell to her
-guests.
-
-So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking about in
-the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left alone. Not far off
-they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda
-holding on to his hands like little girls.
-
-Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.
-
-“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to
-hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw
-each other again you would forget what has separated you and only
-remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill,
-love seems the only thing that is really important.”
-
-Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at
-the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to
-her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered,
-although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone
-since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my
-hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.”
-
-Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than it had
-been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not forget,” she
-answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest, kindest person in the
-world.” And then the oldest ranch girl sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the
-horridest thing in the world to have to wait for the nice things to
-happen?” she asked. “Of course, we all know, Ruth, that some day
-everything will turn out for the best, but it is just that silly old
-indefinite word some that makes the waiting so difficult.”
-
-The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will appear
-under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this story the
-histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be more fully
-developed, for having put childhood and school life behind them, they
-will enter that broader world of young womanhood, where romance stands
-ever waiting round the corner.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
-Margaret Vandercook
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56097 ***
+
+[Illustration: MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING
+ATTENDANCE ON JEAN]
+
+
+
+
+THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
+
+The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+By
+
+Margaret Vandercook
+
+Illustrated By
+
+Hugh A. Bodine
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1913, by
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”
+    II. IN DISGRACE
+    III. “GERRY”
+    IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS
+    V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
+    VI. HER TEMPTATION
+    VII. CINDERELLA
+    VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE
+    IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
+    X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
+    XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
+    XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
+    XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
+    XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
+    XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH
+    XVI. ELECTION DAY
+    XVII. CONGRATULATIONS
+    XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
+    XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE
+    XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
+    XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
+    XXII. READJUSTMENTS
+    XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”
+    XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
+    XXV. “JACK”
+
+
+
+
+The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“STILL AS THE NIGHT”
+
+
+Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room
+stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as
+Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had
+struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn
+strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to
+announce the coming of morning.
+
+“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should
+flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and
+make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at
+them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a
+short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going
+to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted
+forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a
+door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in
+the other room was occupied by two persons.
+
+Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the
+“Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly
+from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that
+even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In
+the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against
+another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached
+forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.
+
+“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying to waken
+them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they sleep so soundly the
+first night at a strange boarding school when I am so homesick and
+lonely I know that I am going to die or cry or do something else
+desperate? If only Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
+Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch, sliding to the
+floor again, sat with her legs crossed under her and her head resting on
+her hands in a curious Indian posture of grief. And while she waited,
+watching beside the bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now
+quietly asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New York
+City, which held her beloved friend Jack.
+
+Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by their
+chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance at Primrose Hall
+to begin their first year of fashionable boarding school life. But once
+the girls had been introduced to the principal of the school, Miss
+Katherine Winthrop, and Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms
+assigned to the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
+train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles, for Jack had
+been left behind in a hospital and must not be long alone. There she lay
+awaiting the verdict of the New York surgeons to know whether after her
+accident at the Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect
+to walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow Lodge in
+Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the ranch girls an eastern
+education and to fit them for a more cosmopolitan life now that so great
+wealth was being brought forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out
+what could be done for Jack.
+
+Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend, a faint,
+chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings sounded along the
+outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting her head with a smothered cry of
+delight, the girl spied a thin streak of light shining across the floor.
+A moment later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her and
+her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning the unfamiliar
+scene before her. Dawn had come at last!
+
+The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her arrival at
+school the day before, in the first meeting with so many strangers,
+Olive had not spared time to see or think of the surroundings of
+Primrose Hall, but now she could examine the landscape thoroughly. Set
+in the midst of one of the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson
+River, this morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
+with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the immortelles; the
+low hills in the background were brown and red and gold with the October
+foliage of the trees. Beyond the fields the Hudson River ran broader and
+deeper than any stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across
+from it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now veiled
+in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine could be more
+wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson River; and yet, as Olive
+Ralston gazed out upon it, its beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the
+lump in her throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
+sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and nothing could be
+more unlike the low level sweep of their Wyoming prairie than this
+Hudson River country.
+
+“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we have named
+homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours, for surely this
+longing for home, for accustomed people and things in the midst of
+strange surroundings, may be a woe very deep and intense.
+
+From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come east to
+boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the change from the
+simple life of the ranch to the more conventional school atmosphere
+would be more difficult for her than for either Jean or Frieda. True,
+she had not spoken of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed
+Olive, had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl, with
+no name of her own and no people, and except for her friends’ generosity
+might still be living in the dirty hut in the Indian village with old
+Laska.
+
+After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all decided that it
+would be wiser not to mention Olive’s strange history to her new
+schoolmates. Now in the midst of her attack of homesickness, Olive
+wondered if the girls would not at once guess her mixed blood from her
+odd appearance, or else might she not some day betray her ignorance of
+the little manners and customs that reveal a good family and good
+breeding? In the two happy years spent at the Rainbow Ranch she had
+learned all she could from Ruth and the other three girls, but were
+there not fourteen other ignorant years back of those two years?
+
+A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window with her
+quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial casement. But now,
+finding both the autumn air and her own thoughts chilling, she turned
+away and began slowly to dress. She was still blue and yet at the same
+time ashamed of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
+foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here at Primrose
+Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of her big opportunity and
+have not big opportunities the world over the fashion of starting out
+with difficulties to be overcome? When Olive’s education was completed
+she had made up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
+she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the teaching of
+the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda Ralston, since the discovery
+of the gold mine near Rainbow Creek, were probably very wealthy and
+though it was but right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should
+share their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished to be
+always dependent even on the best of friends.
+
+Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the young girl’s
+mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and yet she could not make
+up her mind how best to amuse herself until the half-past seven o’clock
+bell should ring for breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but
+there was no news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
+hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken Jean and
+Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven famous sleepers. No
+other girl shared Olive’s room because Ruth and the four ranch girls
+hoped that after a few weeks’ treatment in the New York hospital Jack
+would then be able to join the others at school.
+
+Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to her open
+window and there stood listening to the “chug, chug, chug” of a big
+steamer out on the river and then to the shriek of an engine along its
+banks. Suddenly her face brightened.
+
+“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed aloud, “I think
+I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad temper and go and have a good
+walk to myself before breakfast.”
+
+Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out alone and
+without permission she would be breaking an iron law of Primrose Hall.
+Nothing was farther from her mind than disobedience, but no one had yet
+told her of the school rules and regulations and taking a walk alone
+seemed to her the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
+few hours longer she must have understood differently, for the students
+were expected to assemble that very morning to hear what was required of
+them at Primrose Hall.
+
+As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and hat, creeping
+along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb the other sleepers, and
+for the same reason she as quietly unlocked the big front door. But once
+out on the lawn, so innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that
+she paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house she was
+about to leave.
+
+Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new pupil felt a
+thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A red brick mansion of the
+old colonial period, it was set in a lovely garden with flowers and
+shrubs growing close about the house and an avenue of elm trees leading
+down to the gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
+of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This morning only a few
+late asters were in bloom in the garden and bushes of hardy hydrangeas
+with their great blossoms now turning rose and brown from the first
+early autumn frosts. The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged
+in the family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five generations
+and Olive smiled a little over her queer conceit, for the house somehow
+suggested its present owner to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared
+just as imposing and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with
+her the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any mere pile
+of brick and stone.
+
+Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the bedrooms and
+reception rooms necessary for its pupils and teachers, and the only
+other school buildings about the grounds were the recitation hall and
+two sorority houses devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had
+never heard of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
+“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.
+
+Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the ranch girls by
+Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they had learned to know at the
+Yellowstone Park, but apart from its excellent reputation as a finishing
+school, their choice had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty
+of its historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and Lafayette
+had been known to stay, and who can guess how many powdered belles and
+beaus may have flirted with one another in the garden by the old
+sun-dial?
+
+When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she determined
+to extend her walk over a portion of the estate, and coming to a low,
+stone wall, climbed over it without thinking or caring just where it led
+her. Being outdoors once more and free to wander as she choose after two
+weeks’ confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
+palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that Olive felt like
+singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that her own personality, which
+had somehow vanished since leaving the ranch, had come back to her this
+morning like a dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately
+been wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this hour
+had donned once again her own well-worn dress.
+
+Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early Indian days,
+soon the truant found herself in a woods thick with underbrush and trees
+never seen before by a Wyoming girl. The air was delicious, the leaves
+sparkled with the melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of
+youth and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot that
+she was in the midst of a highly civilized community and not in the
+heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not until she had come entirely
+out of the woods that her awakening took place. Then she found herself
+apparently in some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white
+house set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled
+windows on either side. At the entrance to its big front door stood two
+absurd iron dogs, and yet there was nothing in any of these ordinary
+details to make the onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she
+stared up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her seemed so
+utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she must be losing her
+senses.
+
+For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from the house,
+and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and walked back into the
+woods. At first she paid no particular attention to what direction she
+was taking until all at once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt
+reasonably sure they were following hers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN DISGRACE
+
+
+It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with so slight
+cause, yet the thought that some one might be in pursuit of her filled
+her with a nervous terror. To the people not afflicted with timidity,
+most fears are ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
+overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid one, but
+before one criticizes her, remember her childhood. Now with her heart
+pounding and her breath coming in short gasps, she quickened her pace
+into a run, recalling at the same time their chaperon’s forgotten
+instruction that she must no longer expect the happy freedom of their
+western lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
+traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive dared not
+hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour was growing late and
+that any added delay would make her late for breakfast.
+
+Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the woods save her
+in emergencies of this sort, so in another moment she remembered that an
+Indian never runs away from his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has
+passed. Behind a low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself,
+crouching low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
+gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of private
+property, savagely on the lookout for her.
+
+Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally arrived just
+opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was the girl in hiding who
+suddenly sprang to her feet, startling the newcomer. For the enemy she
+had so dreaded was only another girl like herself with a smile on her
+face and a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
+perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before her
+illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had the same bright
+bronze hair and firm line to her chin and the same proud way of holding
+up her head.
+
+“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living in this
+underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the same color that I did
+not see you at first.”
+
+Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a tam-o’-shanter
+of velvet of the same shade, shook her head. “I am one of the new girls
+from Primrose Hall and I have been out for a walk, but as I am not very
+familiar with these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you
+mind—” Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression of
+surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.
+
+“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this hour of the
+morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen to give you permission?”
+she asked in the positive fashion that Olive was to learn to know so
+well later on.
+
+The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept over the
+truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without asking permission she
+had broken a rule of her new school? The idea seemed ridiculous to
+Olive, and yet—were not all things different than in the old days? “I am
+so sorry, but no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
+to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose Hall
+yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before breakfast at
+home, riding over the plains!”
+
+Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain to the older
+girl that straightway she slipped her arm through hers and without delay
+hurried her along toward school, talking as she went.
+
+“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at Primrose
+Hall, and I have been spending the night with some friends.” Jessica
+gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in hers. “You must not be
+frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop seems rather terrifying on your
+return. I used to be a pupil at Primrose Hall before I started in with
+the teaching and I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so
+severe as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is after
+breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never allowed to go out
+alone and never without permission, why she may scold you a bit.”
+
+If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the path to weep
+like a naughty child about to be punished for a fault, Olive would have
+felt it a great relief, and only the thought of her age prevented her
+doing this. Could she ever live through the embarrassment of facing
+fifty strange girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
+while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on being introduced
+to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and Frieda with her for protection,
+had she not felt as tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now
+must she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
+displeasure?
+
+Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive Ralston’s
+life were always unusual and romantic) would she ever forget the next
+half hour’s experience at Primrose Hall, nor the appearance of the great
+hall as she entered it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and
+towering above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding presence
+of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.
+
+Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing in front of
+Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers, heard the teacher of
+mathematics say, “Here is your new runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and
+realized that this teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she
+wore round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much to get
+her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her disgrace.
+
+But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only teacher at
+Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss Winthrop,” she now began
+coaxingly, “I have brought our new girl home. She was only taking a walk
+in the woods near by, but I am sure she would rather explain to you
+herself that in going out without permission she did not know she was
+breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the West and
+been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica was continuing her
+case for the defendant, realizing that Olive was still too frightened to
+speak for herself. But suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small,
+plump person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue eyes
+in the school, and without the least regard for either teachers or
+principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms about Olive.
+
+“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where you were
+going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened about you.”
+
+And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her other side,
+a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and demure brown eyes, whose
+nose had the faintest, most delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce
+said nothing, but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
+against all the world.
+
+Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three teachers were
+numbers of other students, most of whom were casting glances of sympathy
+at the new pupil who had so soon fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just
+over, they were supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
+Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until Miss
+Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.
+
+“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said quietly. “Miss
+Ralston will explain her absence to me in my private study.” As her
+words and look included Jean and Frieda, they also were compelled to
+follow the other students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to
+face her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a freckled
+nose actually had the courage to stop in passing and whisper to the
+offender:
+
+“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes unknown you go
+to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while Olive was trying to summon a
+smile in return, a beautiful girl with pale blonde hair joined both of
+them, and drawing the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen
+persons near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When will
+you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons whom no one knows
+anything about?” And so cool and indifferent did her expression appear
+as she made her unkind speech that it was hard to believe she understood
+that her words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and in
+spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or forgave them.
+
+A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared, Olive found
+herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated in a comfortable leather
+chair facing a desk at which Miss Winthrop was writing.
+
+“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they entered the
+room, and at first the prisoner had felt that waiting to hear her
+sentence would be unendurable. Of course she would be expelled from
+Primrose Hall; Olive had no other idea. And of course Ruth and Jack
+would understand and forgive her, but there would be no going back on
+her part to be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
+to support herself in the future!
+
+But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her writing, by
+and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own sorrows and she busied
+herself in studying her judge’s face. Miss Winthrop’s expression was not
+so stern in repose, for though the lines about her mouth were severe and
+her nose aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
+full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt obliged to
+admit that though she was taller and larger than almost any woman she
+had known, her grace and dignity were most unusual and the severity of
+her simple black silk gown showed her to great advantage.
+
+Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next traveled idly
+to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting there for an eager moment,
+while in her interest she forgot everything else. For the first time in
+her life this young girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had
+her attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.
+
+On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic figure of a
+woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and wonderful flowing draperies.
+The figure was without head or arms and yet was so inspiring that,
+without realizing it, Olive gave a sigh of delight.
+
+Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked
+quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged
+Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the
+stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some
+day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me
+and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the
+statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman,
+what all we women must hope to be some day. See the beauty and dignity
+of her, as though she had turned her back on all sin and injustice and
+was moving forward into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
+splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children in them.”
+
+Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above the head of
+her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to study the girl’s face.
+Now she saw by its sudden glow and softening that she had caught at
+least a measure of her meaning.
+
+“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the world held
+nothing else and that she knew all the varieties, and yet one could
+never be too sure, for here before her was a new type unlike all the
+others and for some reason at this moment she attracted her strongly.
+
+To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had thought it wise to
+confide as much as they knew of Olive’s extraordinary history, pledging
+her to secrecy. Now to herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly
+ridiculous to believe this child has Indian blood, for there is
+absolutely nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
+history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”
+
+But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after her first
+speech her manner appeared to change entirely. Sitting very erect in her
+chair, she turned upon her pupil “You may go,” she said coldly, “for I
+understand that by your action this morning you did not deliberately
+intend to break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
+future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience, whatever
+its cause.”
+
+With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall, wondering if
+she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who could be so stern one moment
+and so interesting the next. For her own part Olive felt that she much
+preferred their former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less
+handsome and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human. If
+only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to scold and pet
+them for their misdoings all in the same breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+“GERRY”
+
+
+The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of
+the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to
+reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long
+corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not
+interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean,
+and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
+conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.
+
+“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,” one of the
+voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as nice to these new
+Western girls as I know how. They are strangers and I think it horrid to
+try to snub them just because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
+fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you will try to
+turn as many of the other Juniors against them as you can twist around
+your finger, but kindly don’t include me in your list. Perhaps you think
+I don’t know why you have had me for one of your chums for so long.
+Goodness, child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
+homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the stately beauty
+than ever in contrast with poor little me. But maybe you won’t always be
+thought the prettiest girl in the school, for this queer looking Olive,
+what’s her name, is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way,
+and the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second. If you
+are angry with me, why you need not have me for a roommate, for I am
+going this very second to call on the new ranch girls and welcome them
+to Primrose Hall.” And with a flounce the same short-haired girl who had
+stopped to tease Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall
+after her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of fashions.
+“Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she inquired, “for I have
+been several years at Primrose Hall and know the place like an old shoe.
+Besides, I think that you and the older one of your sisters or friends,
+I can’t guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior class,
+and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close together these days.”
+
+By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door, but hearing
+queer noises in another room, they followed the sounds, discovering Jean
+and Frieda in the adjoining chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’
+sitting room. An immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean
+and Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the trunk of
+their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two sisters, Mollie and
+Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had come in to lend them hammer and
+nails and were now watching them with deep absorption.
+
+“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she stopped in some
+confusion, remembering that she had not yet heard their new friend’s
+name.
+
+The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see their new
+visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows, at your service,” she
+explained, “but I’m better known to the world as Gerry. See I have
+brought your Olive safe back from the lion’s den and, as she is no more
+eaten up than was the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint
+to start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you about
+Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what not to do?”
+
+Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully, but Jean
+closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard the question. She was
+not accustomed to feeling out of things as she had this morning and was
+not sure she cared to have strangers making an effort to be kind.
+Suppose this Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to
+be one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well even
+that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!
+
+But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness and having
+already taken a fancy to her, as strangers usually did, now seated
+herself cross-legged on the floor, beckoning to the others to follow
+suit. “All Gaul, my children, is divided into three parts, as we learn
+in our Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to say,
+is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred Graham likes and the
+girls she docs not. I used to belong to the first class, but now I
+probably belong to the second. I was kind of in love with Winifred last
+year and let her boss me around, but during the summer I thought things
+over and decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
+morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a snap about
+my desertion, for she never cares for people unless they are rich and
+I’m not a bit, only my father is a famous surgeon in New York and I’m
+going to be a doctor myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind
+gentleman to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
+didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively tongue,
+pretending not to be able to say anything more, although Jean was gazing
+at her in a more encouraging fashion than she had worn at the beginning
+of her speech.
+
+All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York City the four
+ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend, Frank Kent, had discussed
+this question: Should the girls on arriving at boarding school speak of
+their new-found gold mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack
+advised against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and Frank
+thought they might as well mention it now and then, while Jean was
+determined to speak of their gold mine whenever the chance offered and
+to make the biggest impression she possibly could. So now it was
+surprising to hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
+her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose Hall to care
+for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,” she answered demurely; “so
+I am afraid Miss Graham and her friends will not like us any too well.
+You see, we are simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by
+that. I suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because our
+clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks apiece as most of
+the girls here have. Olive and I were laughing yesterday because on our
+arrival we were given United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels!
+why we haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes that
+belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head warningly at
+Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and whose lips were
+about to form the name of the Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to
+divert her attention, Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics
+and diving down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
+baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to remind you
+that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall and we hope our first
+friends,” she said prettily, handing a basket to Gerry and then the
+others to the two sisters. But all the while Jean was talking and acting
+this little pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
+right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will find out who
+the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and then—” Well, it was
+comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last letter, written after they had
+left the ranch, he had said the pot of gold from the end of their
+Rainbow Mine had yielded five thousand dollars within the month just
+past and that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had come
+from.
+
+Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls started with
+surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining perfectly calm. Getting up
+from the floor, however, she stuck her Indian basket on her head for a
+hat, using the handle as a strap.
+
+“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the recitation
+hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just sounded, only a gentle
+reminder that we are to assemble within the next ten minutes to meet our
+teachers and to get ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I
+can only hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
+Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the room to the
+tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after her: “You were awfully
+good to come in to see us and we are obliged to you, so please help us
+out whenever you can. I am afraid that the things we know, such as
+riding bareback and raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be
+considered accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
+unusually humble and particularly pretty.
+
+Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned ourselves at
+Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of insects here, butterflies as
+well as bookworms. But I will say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is
+a fashionable school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as
+our P’s.”
+
+Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what does it mean
+‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired solemnly.
+
+“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and how to enter
+a room and what to say when you get there and all the things that mean
+Society with a big S, Miss Frieda Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s,
+Q’s are dreadful things called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find
+out what quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
+mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the delicious
+name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda, if you want to know the
+truth about the meaning of the old expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’
+the Century Dictionary tells us that the expression alluded to the
+difficulty in the early days of discerning the difference between the
+two letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of her curly
+head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’ room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GETTING INTO HARNESS
+
+
+Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch girls at
+boarding school and so many changes appeared to have taken place in
+their lives that already the weeks seemed as many months. One of the
+changes they themselves did not realize, but nevertheless it was a
+serious one, for Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as
+they had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was going her
+own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new friendships and
+apparently forgetting the importance of past ties.
+
+And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
+emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for Mollie Johnson,
+the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy Johnson was a good deal older than
+Frieda, but Mollie was a year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and
+looked up to her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
+that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made her appear
+like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of being treated like a
+baby by her family, and besides, as no one had ever told her before that
+she was in the least like a heroine, she found the idea distinctly
+pleasant. The two Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
+vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small and dark
+and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such a complete contrast
+to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements that it was small wonder the two
+girls were drawn together by their very unlikeness and that already
+their schoolmates were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
+everywhere together with their arms locked about one another, wore one
+another’s clothes when their different sizes permitted, and were never
+without true lover’s knots of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes,
+knots made from a sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair
+ribbons. Not that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
+the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and in spite of
+Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids had disappeared and in
+their place a Pysche knot of huge proportions could be seen at the back
+of her head. The Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did
+not have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest fashion and of
+course nothing else really matters. As Frieda’s school work was not the
+same as Jean’s and Olive’s, on account of her age and the fact that she
+never had cared much about books, the division of her time was different
+from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the excitement of her
+first independence and without Jack’s influence, she should be for the
+first time in her life “ganging her own gait.”
+
+But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
+unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed together over
+Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while they were laughing, though
+she had said nothing, Olive was wondering if Jean did not know that she
+saw almost as little of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without
+realizing it or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
+after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most popular girls in
+the school. As a proof of it she had already been invited to join both
+the two sororities and had not made up her mind which one she should
+choose. The fact that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
+certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,” for from the
+hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of Winifred’s character there had
+been open war between Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness
+to Olive was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was almost
+forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry. It was an open
+discussion that the choice for Junior class president, which must be
+made before the Christmas holidays, would lie between these two girls.
+For though Jean had continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls
+in the school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
+friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest
+families in New York City, people who looked down upon the Four Hundred
+as belonging to the dreadful “new rich.”
+
+But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly for Jean and
+Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was making no friends.
+Though it was customary to invite the new girls at Primrose Hall into
+one or the other of the secret societies almost immediately upon their
+arrival at school, Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority.
+Too shy and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she did
+not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon her. Only in
+secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if her blood showed itself so
+plainly that her classmates disliked her for that reason or if she were
+more unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack, who was
+finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world, had cared for her
+and if only the doctors would say that Jack was strong enough to join
+them at Primrose Hall, nothing else would make any difference! Letters
+from Ruth Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured the
+girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected, but as yet there
+had been no definite report from the surgeon?
+
+However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her
+classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her,
+who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher
+whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was
+something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a
+strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to
+reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and
+was trying her best to discover their cause. Some secret story might
+possibly be in circulation about the newcomer, but so far Jessica had
+not been able to find it out.
+
+One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting room for
+several hours. Always books had been her consolation for loneliness
+since the days when her only white friend had been the teacher in the
+Indian school in her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected
+knock at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to join
+her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on opening the door her
+eyes had widened with surprise.
+
+“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a
+visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you
+everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas.
+To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at
+the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the
+other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
+may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her
+the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter
+over sensibly together and she might be able to help. But alas for
+Olive! Though Ruth had warned her to try to overcome her reserve that
+day of the flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
+give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only answered Miss
+Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider than the other girls that I
+have to stay in my room to study more. But I am through with my work now
+and awfully glad to see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome
+revealed more of her real feeling than any number of words.
+
+Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave a little
+cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you don’t wish to be
+outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the most charming girls’ room at
+Primrose Hall! It makes me think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I
+was misquoting a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some
+day when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself. And
+surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are one.’”
+
+Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had dreamed of
+making it in the last days at home, a bit of the Rainbow Lodge in
+miniature, their own beloved ranch house living room reproduced many
+miles across the continent. By Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted
+to the three ranch girls a large and almost empty room, containing only
+a divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was covered
+with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright shawls were thrown
+over the divan, piled with sofa cushions of leather and silk, and on the
+walls were prints of Indian heads, one of them a picture of a young girl
+looking singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of cowboys
+on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace, about one-fourth the
+size of the one at The Lodge, was the head of an elk shot by Jim Colter
+himself on the border of their own ranch, and on the mantel the very
+brass candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home, besides
+several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient ornaments discovered by
+Frieda in the Indian cave on the day when Olive had made her first
+appearance in the ranch girls’ lives.
+
+But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room she began at
+once to look more closely at the few photographs which the ranch girls
+had placed on top of their bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker
+way to learn to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
+taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must represent
+the persons nearest and dearest, their families and closest friends.
+
+The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures, only an
+absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell present to them, but
+as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and his Sunday clothes, it was not
+in the least like their big, splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was
+one of Ruth and alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost
+instinctively Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
+girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched Olive’s heart.
+
+“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is just the type
+of girl I admire the most, so graceful and vigorous and with such a lot
+of character. Oh, I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended
+suddenly, seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t vigorous any
+more.” And then, to her own surprise and relief, Olive poured forth the
+whole story of Jack’s accident and their reasons for coming east.
+
+Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing that takes
+place every day, but just as Olive was on the point of telling Miss Hunt
+that she expected each day to hear more definite news of Jack, a message
+was sent upstairs to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception
+room desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once. Would
+Olive find the other girls and come to the reception room immediately?
+
+With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew who had come
+to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with a hurried apology to
+Jessica, begging her to wait until her return, fled out, of her room
+down through the lower part of the house and then out into the school
+grounds to search for Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at
+once to Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls hear
+the good news with her.
+
+And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the ranch girls’
+room for a few minutes longer, for standing near the photograph of
+Jacqueline Ralston was another photograph whose presence in the room
+puzzled her greatly. She did not feel that she had the right to ask
+curious questions and yet she must look at this picture more closely,
+for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying in her own bureau
+drawer between folds of lavender-scented silk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
+
+
+Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two great side
+porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many recreation hours on
+these warm Indian summer afternoons, but just in front of the sorority
+house with “Theta” engraved above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded
+by a dozen girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had her
+back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started to run toward her
+and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl in the group was known to her
+by name, all of them were Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of
+them, except Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
+conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to thrust herself
+among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the thought that Ruth must be
+waiting for them with news of Jack braced her. “Jean,” Olive called
+softly and then in a louder tone, “Jean!”
+
+At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve other pairs of
+eyes stared poor Olive up and down.
+
+“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her brown eyes
+shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been arranged that I am to join
+the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope that you will come in with me. Then we
+are going to form a dramatic club in our sorority and after a little
+while give a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
+to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than any one of us,
+or at least she used to when we had charades at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean
+paused, feeling a peculiar change in the atmosphere about her. Would no
+one echo her invitation to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in
+silence unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing right
+before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her lips to hide their
+trembling?
+
+Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you think for
+an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning to her best friend in
+the little company, a tall, distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that
+I will be in things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
+Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,” she
+whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had come to give her,
+without further thought of anything or anybody at Primrose Hall, the two
+friends hurried off together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying
+to find Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after them,
+in a few moments the two girls appeared at the reception room door.
+
+“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned white faces
+to stare at each other and at the tall figure that rose to greet them
+holding Frieda’s hand in one of his. “It is Peter Drummond, gooseys;
+don’t you know him?” Frieda cried happily. “Some one told me we had a
+caller and I came in here expecting to find some strange, horrid
+visitor, and when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
+and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him to come to
+see us,” she ended, rather crossly.
+
+“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied, coming to
+herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are terribly glad it is
+you; only—why—the truth is, we expected Ruth to be able to tell us that
+Jack was better or something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in
+weeks, ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
+friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to tell us
+about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly strained voice. “I
+am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we hoped she would be and Ruth
+couldn’t leave her. Won’t she ever be able to walk again like other
+people? Have the doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought
+you to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still for a
+second Peter Drummond did not reply.
+
+The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely surprised at
+Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had unexpectedly burst into tears.
+
+“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s hand, “it isn’t
+so bad as all this. Olive did guess the truth and I have come to tell
+you about Jack. Perhaps she isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t
+join you at school just at present or get about very much. The fact is—”
+Mr. Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not quite sure
+of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while longer and keep her very
+quiet before they can decide. But I saw her a minute the other day and
+she and Ruth send you their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so
+dreadful as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
+something, for never before in my life have I been with three women and
+had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with a man’s embarrassment at
+being the bearer of ill news, looked at the ranch girls with pretended
+indignation.
+
+“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?” Jean asked, and
+their visitor, not in the least offended by the question, emphatically
+bowed his head.
+
+Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda, I don’t
+think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly, “though of course we are
+terribly disappointed at not having Jack here at school with us, I have
+always felt she would be well some day. Even if the surgeons should say
+she won’t, my money is on old Jack!”
+
+Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous attitude, though
+Olive looked considerably depressed. But at this minute Mr. Drummond, to
+divert everybody’s attention, turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell
+me, please, what is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if
+two weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will a whole
+year do?”
+
+Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot. “Don’t tell Jack
+and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing her blonde head: “Oh, tell away
+if you like, Peter Drummond. I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you
+mean; I am just not a baby any longer.”
+
+Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and amusement. “If
+it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,” he said pulling at his own
+heavy iron-gray hair, “then you’ve got about the worst disease in the
+world and the most incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to
+overtake one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he turned
+again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been awfully nice to Jack and
+Ruth and they are coming out here to see you pretty soon. There is a
+queer old house in this neighborhood where an old relative of theirs
+lives. The house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
+mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”
+
+“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.
+
+“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the place Peter
+is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he hasn’t told you the name
+of it or what it looks like or anything to identify it.”
+
+Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a place called
+‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of it and a balcony and queer
+little windows.” Quite unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because
+for some strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
+had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her eyes closed.
+
+Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is called ‘The
+Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder if because Olive is
+perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is going to be a fortune teller.” But
+because Olive’s face had crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My
+dear Olive, suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
+There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive noticed that
+Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.
+
+But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a large box and
+a small one. The large box he handed to Jean. “You are please to conceal
+this from the powers that be, if it’s against boarding school laws to
+eat candy,” he said and then stood turning the smaller box about in his
+hand, surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
+Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains a great
+surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is inside of it, may I
+be present at its opening?”
+
+The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering outside the
+parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed which opened with a
+spring. Instantly Frieda touched this spring there were three cries of
+“Oh,” followed by a moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the
+box were three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
+quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels shading from red
+to pale violet. Each girl took her gift from the box, regarding it with
+characteristic expressions. Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the
+dimple showing at the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer
+than ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were overclouded and
+her face quivered with pleasure.
+
+[Illustration: THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S
+SILENCE]
+
+“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the grandest,
+and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor any more,” Frieda
+announced.
+
+“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor girls may have
+fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.
+
+“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our gifts to
+suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still resting on the glowing
+colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins
+represent rainbows? I have been repeating the rainbow colors to
+myself—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
+seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”
+
+Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you are, and
+Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been collecting jewels all
+my life and never thought of so pretty an idea as this. Here is a garnet
+to start with for the red, then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond
+next, an emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
+indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of violet.”
+
+“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and the mine and
+all the good things that have come to us through a rainbow,” Jean said
+thoughtfully and then more huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.”
+Frieda made a dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a
+piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when I
+opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she announced. “Oh,
+goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has written us a poem!” And
+Frieda read:
+
+    “Here are seven colors in nature and art,
+    What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;
+    Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day
+    And orange and yellow to shine on your way.
+    Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar
+    To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.
+    And yet to the end shall we ever forget
+    Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”
+
+“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes pretty well,”
+Frieda ended doubtfully.
+
+Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful, I think.
+And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever do go to Europe, as we
+sometimes have planned, we must never forget the Rainbow Ranch. You
+know, Frieda dear, that the alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and
+white like the clover in the east.”
+
+But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr. Drummond had now
+to tear himself away in order to catch his train back to New York.
+Hurrying out into the hall, with the three ranch girls close behind him,
+he suddenly came to an abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young
+woman, who also stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes
+and a haughtily held head.
+
+“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here when I told
+you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say with the least little
+nervous tremor in her voice.
+
+Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica, Miss Hunt,”
+he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest idea of seeing you at
+Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but the ranch girls are my very dear
+friends and my visit was solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically
+away when a hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
+This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might have known
+you would never trouble to come to see me again.”
+
+That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her
+head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that
+Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a
+certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
+child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall
+see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get
+married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how
+Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so
+silly and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too and
+let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very serious for the
+moment and also very bewitching.
+
+But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean Bruce, you will
+have the hardest time of us all in making up your mind when you are in
+love.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HER TEMPTATION
+
+
+Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean Bruce. Always
+beyond anything else had she desired to be popular, even in the old days
+at the ranch when the only society in which she had a part was composed
+of the few neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
+Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her heart’s
+desire, and would she for the sake of another be compelled to give it
+up? For how could she accept the honor that might be bestowed upon her
+of being chosen for Junior class president without turning traitor to
+Olive. After her friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta”
+house on the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no longer
+shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the cause of it? Try as
+she might she could not find out, yet the prejudice was certainly deeper
+than any one could suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the
+bottom of the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she had
+circulated any story against Olive no one would confess it. “Miss
+Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so odd, I do not think
+she enjoys being with other girls,” these evasions of the truth were all
+Jean could get hold of. But in the meantime there was no doubt that
+Olive’s classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the two
+sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented in the history
+of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have appealed to Miss Winthrop
+or one of the other teachers, asking that their influence be exerted in
+Olive’s behalf, but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do.
+For even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities, how would
+it change her classmates’ attitude toward her? Would it not make them
+more unkind than ever? No, there were only two courses open to Jean,
+either she must join the sorority she had chosen without any question of
+Olive’s being a member or else she must decline to be admitted herself
+until such time as the girls should come to their senses and voluntarily
+desire the election of them both.
+
+Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two sororities had
+been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small excuse for her hesitation.
+But a larger issue was at stake. Unless she became a member of a
+sorority and as one of its leaders could influence new girls to her
+cause, she might lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the
+head of the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.
+
+Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very charming
+fashion, just by the power of her own personality, which is after all
+the greatest force in the world. She had no prominent family
+connections, as so many of the Primrose Hall girls had, and she
+continued to act as though she had no money except what was necessary
+for very simple requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done
+had the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the discovery of
+the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a hard fight and many times
+the young girl longed to break faith with herself.
+
+Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading of the
+Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the three ranch girls’
+school outfits, but now these clothes seemed so simple and ordinary that
+at least two of the girls hated the wearing of them.
+
+Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light weight
+flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon entertainments and
+dinner use and a single party dress for the monthly dances which were a
+feature of Primrose Hall school life. Their underclothes were plentiful
+but plain. Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
+lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very wealthy ones at
+that, could have such possessions. Just think of a single item of a
+dozen hand-made nightgowns at fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s
+outfit; and yet these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly
+expressed her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a gift
+of two of them without hurting her new friend’s feelings.
+
+To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed atmosphere that
+Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a revelation. She seemed not to know
+the meaning of snobbery, not to care who people were so long as she
+liked what they were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
+another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already asked Jean to
+visit her in her home in New York during the Christmas holidays, as she
+longed to introduce her to her own family in order that they might lose
+their prejudice against western girls. But more especially Margaret
+desired to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean together
+so as to find out what they would think of one another. She was only
+awaiting the first opportunity. In the meantime, although Jean would not
+accept other gifts from her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the
+flowers Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about school
+so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in her hair that she
+soon became known as “the pink carnation girl.”
+
+One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to send flowers
+to Margaret in return, but in order to retain her masquerade of poverty,
+most of the time she had to refrain. Only now and then she did relieve
+her feelings by presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses
+regardless of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
+would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been especially
+kind to Olive, Frieda or her.
+
+With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to spread
+abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no pocket money, but
+with Frieda the case was very different. It is quite certain that Jean
+would never have had her way with Frieda except by appealing directly to
+Jack for advice and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging
+her little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to agree to
+Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not that she saw any sense
+in her sacrifice or was in the least reconciled to it, but simply
+because under the circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could
+refuse her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard on
+both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives had they had
+any money of their own to spend and now Jack was sending each one of
+them fifty dollars a month for pin money. Think of the fortune of it, if
+you have had only one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use
+before!
+
+And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to
+temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the
+grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a
+dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy
+herself a pair of gloves.
+
+Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be
+dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed
+in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large,
+lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the
+bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked
+too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be
+ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a
+pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and
+twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for
+it.
+
+Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s
+extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it
+certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income
+away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day
+in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
+intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.
+
+While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose
+Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so
+much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of
+girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as
+Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief
+reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order
+to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose
+Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch,
+who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud
+of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its
+help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on
+Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin
+enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being
+the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious
+an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way
+or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her
+friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the
+“Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her
+pride.
+
+Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the
+evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding
+schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss
+Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were
+brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully
+introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall
+as a training school for the larger social world and desired her
+students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and
+naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls
+and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their
+school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false
+notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore,
+although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall
+toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a
+simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss
+Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first
+much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students
+and their friends together, the older woman could often give her
+students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of
+young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
+excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had
+positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted
+from either the Junior or Senior girls.
+
+It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at
+eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into
+Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but
+really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in
+overcoming her shyness.
+
+Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown
+to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of
+Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance
+and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a
+pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so
+pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?
+
+But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of
+Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her
+friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation
+girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep
+rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by
+accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
+particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her
+hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance
+made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.
+
+“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I
+think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”
+
+“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously.
+“I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t
+Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected
+in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy
+and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”
+
+Olive colored, but did not reply at once.
+
+“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would have some
+influence with you and not let you be so pokey and unfriendly. I am sure
+I have tried in vain to stir you up and now I think I’ll write Jack and
+Ruth how you are behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
+times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean, knowing that
+Olive did not yet understand how her failure to be invited into either
+sorority was influencing her chance for the class election, yet had the
+grace to turn her face away.
+
+For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or Ruth, Jean,”
+she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know I am not a success at
+school and if you tell them that no one here likes me they will then
+know that I am unhappy and will be worried, and Jack must not have any
+worry now. It isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
+mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter with me,
+Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”
+
+In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her
+warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you
+and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake.
+Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
+friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in
+some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else
+her classmates must see how charming she was.
+
+Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes would soon
+be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s, who would be noticing
+her unpopularity. And would she know a single guest at the dance?
+
+Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that Jean and
+Olive went down to the big reception rooms together, holding each
+other’s hands like little girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that she desired
+her students at Primrose Hall to grow into something more useful than
+mere society women. Her ambition was to have them fill many important
+positions in the modern world now offering such big opportunities to
+clever women. Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
+perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just always and
+interested in their welfare. But then none of her girls knew the story
+of her youth nor realized that the last life she had ever expected for
+herself in her rich and brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a
+fashionable boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
+the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York City and in
+the homes of the old Dutch and English families along the Hudson River,
+until she had let her pride spoil the one romance of her life. By and
+by, when her father died and her family fortune disappeared, she had
+then opened up her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
+aristocratic connections and old name immediately made Primrose Hall
+both fashionable and popular, until now its mere name lent its students
+an assured social prestige. Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her
+school to be something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
+been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her pupils from
+among a list of fifty or more applicants whom she had been obliged to
+refuse. There was little in the life of her school which she did not see
+and understand, and now her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda,
+with their freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
+looking at things, would bring the element most needed into their mere
+money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere. Though no one had
+mentioned it to her, she had already observed Jean’s great popularity
+with her classmates, Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and
+Olive’s failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this third
+ranch girl?
+
+Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the past month in
+getting her school into good working order, she had not forgotten the
+peculiar emotion that Olive had awakened in her at their first meeting.
+Because the child was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely
+a sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her, and
+to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss Winthrop had
+determined to watch Olive closely and find out for herself wherein lay
+the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night
+and had also wondered how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first
+evening entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
+informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they should train
+her girls for social life in any part of the world where in later years
+circumstances might chance to take them.
+
+Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in full
+evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening Miss Winthrop
+wore a plain black velvet gown with a small diamond star at her throat,
+a piece of jewelry for which she had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt,
+who was standing next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and
+the bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought) made a
+striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of the older woman.
+Though there were a dozen or more of the Primrose Hall girls grouped
+about the two women when Jean and Olive entered the reception room
+together, both of them immediately saw and watched them as they came
+slowly forward.
+
+The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
+anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know, as she moved
+through the room with an expression of fine unconsciousness, that this
+was the first really formal party she had ever attended in her life.
+Neither her blush nor her dimple betrayed her, although she was
+perfectly aware that a number of youths in long-tailed coats and black
+trousers, wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped talking
+for several moments to their girl friends in order to glance at Olive
+and at her. She even saw, without appearing to lift her lids, that a
+tall, blonde fellow standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was
+deliberately staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
+Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite of his
+fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared to Ralph Merrit or
+other simple western fellows whom she had known in the past.
+
+Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s passing
+observations in her forward progress toward Miss Winthrop, and yet in
+the same length of time Olive, who was close beside her, had seen
+nothing “but a sea of unknown faces.” Even her school companions
+to-night in their frocks of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet
+somehow, with Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
+Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to them. Then,
+still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne off for a short
+distance and there surrounded by a group of Jean’s girl friends.
+
+Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap in the
+number, had come up with their cousins, brothers and friends to meet
+Jean Bruce and to fill up her dance card. They were, of course, also
+introduced to Olive, but as she did not speak, no one noticed her
+particularly and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
+desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began she forgot her
+and marched off with an enthusiastic partner, who had asked Gerry
+Ferrows to introduce him to the most fascinating girl in the room, and
+Gerry had unhesitatingly chosen Jean.
+
+There were two or three other girls and young men standing near Olive
+when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds later and she was entirely
+alone.
+
+Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to society to
+find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first Olive felt
+desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with shame and fearing
+that her eyes were filling with tears. Then looking about her she soon
+discovered a group of palms in a corner of the room not far away and
+guessed that she could find shelter behind them. Slipping across she
+came upon a small sofa hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little
+sigh of thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
+serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see what a
+good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen herself. Once
+she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her hiding place—Frieda,
+who had been a fat, little girl with long plaits down her back just a
+few weeks ago, now attired in a blue silk and lace, was whirling about
+on the arm of a long-legged boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous
+quantity of blonde curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin
+brother. Five minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
+evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
+apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance with
+her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom Olive
+recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard brother, could
+be seen dancing attendance on Jean.
+
+Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this fashion until
+Olive felt perfectly safe in her green retreat, when unexpectedly a hand
+was laid upon her shoulder and a voice said sternly, “What in the world,
+child, are you doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
+stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you to take part
+in the dancing; there really isn’t much difference between your being
+concealed up there or here.”
+
+And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her breath made
+her unable to answer at once.
+
+Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as she had
+thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had seen first her
+embarrassment at being left alone and next her withdrawal. In much the
+same fashion that Jack would have followed, Jessica had wished to rush
+off at once to comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.
+
+“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes her so
+unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out of hearing. “I
+wish you would tell me if you know any explanation for it.”
+
+But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering, “I can’t
+for the life of me understand. There are a good many little things that
+Olive does not seem to know, and yet, as she studies very hard, I
+believe she will soon be one of the honor girls in my class. I have a
+friend in New York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
+unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well. Perhaps I
+had best ask him if there is anything unusual about Olive.”
+
+But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you would ask no
+questions, at least not now please, Jessica, for I have heard at least a
+part of the girl’s history, and yet I believe the real truth is not
+known to any one and perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive
+if it never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be so
+sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss Winthrop had
+moved across the room to where Olive was in hiding. As the girl’s
+startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not
+poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her
+queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from
+some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and
+young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty,
+forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary.
+
+Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older woman
+quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender brown fingers in
+hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in a voice that was gentler than
+usual, “for I understand it is timidity that is making you hide
+yourself. Don’t you think though that you would enjoy dancing?”
+
+Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she returned,
+forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no one has invited me.”
+Then as her teacher suddenly rose to her feet, as though intending to
+find her a partner, with a sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness
+Olive drew her down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me,
+Miss Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little while I
+am sure it will be delightful just watching the others.”
+
+While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers, Miss
+Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross at the end of
+it, which Olive was wearing around her throat. Leaning over she took the
+cross in her hand. “This is an odd piece of jewelry, child, and must be
+very old; it is so heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed
+inside it.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything about it,
+except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,” she replied. For some
+strange reason this shy girl was speaking of her mother to a comparative
+stranger, when she rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved
+friend, Jacqueline Ralston.
+
+But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice startled both of
+them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed, “what do you mean by hiding
+yourself away with Miss Winthrop when I have been searching the house
+over for you.”
+
+Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld Donald Harmon
+standing near them, the young fellow whose father had rented the Rainbow
+Ranch from the Ralston girls the summer before and whose sister had been
+responsible for Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.
+
+“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one of your
+guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and that my aunt is your
+old friend and lives near Primrose Hall.”
+
+While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had no idea
+that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald was trying to
+persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for her first dance with him.
+By accident it happened to be a Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced
+it before, but she had been watching the other girls. Donald was an
+excellent partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it all
+her life.
+
+Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different art, although
+both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean was gay and vivacious,
+full of grace and activity, keeping excellent time to the music, but
+Olive seemed to move like a flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly
+conscious of what she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet
+yielding her body to every note of the music and movement of her
+partner.
+
+By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many of the
+others stopped and at once the young men demanded to be told who Olive
+was and why she had been hidden away from their sight until now?
+Whatever replies the girls may have made to these questions, they did
+not apparently affect their questioners, for from the time of her first
+dance until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
+partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and her cheeks
+grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her low laugh rang out, and
+always she could dance. What did conversation at a ball amount to anyhow
+when movement was the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a
+fairy princess just awakened from a long enchantment?
+
+Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had ever brought
+Olive forth from her retreat, but just before midnight, when Primrose
+Hall parties must always come to an end, he did manage to get her away
+for a moment out on the veranda, where chairs were placed so that the
+young people could rest and talk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SHADOWS BEFORE
+
+
+The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded
+electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a
+corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for
+he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten
+the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the
+peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.
+
+But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really
+liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently
+brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude
+on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your
+mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
+coldness.
+
+Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both
+unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend
+Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot.
+But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just
+come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from
+college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls
+again,” he ended honestly.
+
+“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a
+glimpse of Jean or Frieda.
+
+“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with
+them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack
+of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can
+easily walk over.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have
+us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what
+seemed to her a reasonable excuse.
+
+Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner.
+“Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss
+Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest
+friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were
+girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is
+always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps
+some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss
+Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she
+always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown
+too old and too cranky to leave her place.”
+
+Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald
+had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry
+to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with
+more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will
+be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white
+house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer
+gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”
+
+The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are
+dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as
+children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our
+family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of
+color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial
+lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
+room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the
+walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”
+
+Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I
+made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I
+think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house
+somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few
+questions.”
+
+At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes
+and a voice asked:
+
+    “Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
+    Whose hands about thee are entwined?”
+
+The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come
+up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry
+Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with
+Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the
+others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive
+to do but to try to talk to Cecil.
+
+Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than
+Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that
+for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean
+laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
+evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through
+the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean
+smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a
+moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up
+a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had
+evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping
+over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was
+struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior
+companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single
+remark.
+
+Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for
+having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned
+to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to
+think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she
+is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
+and inscrutable.”
+
+Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small
+ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account
+of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a
+Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was
+impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had
+added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
+also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy?
+Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now
+hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.
+
+However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive
+aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and
+annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past
+hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
+every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single
+time. Has she spoken to you?”
+
+Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,”
+she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though
+we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”
+
+But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up
+airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it
+is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly
+twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
+personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child
+should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they
+have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”
+
+“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to
+be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see,
+we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to
+her independence.”
+
+But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of
+family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this
+moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened
+to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to
+boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began
+to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.
+
+Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired
+her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later
+Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and
+Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald
+would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second
+best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced
+upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other
+dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had
+promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
+forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.
+
+So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching
+Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for
+Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue,
+Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
+heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in
+the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would
+have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the
+western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice
+to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might
+induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared
+particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman.
+Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes
+a martyr of himself for her sake!
+
+However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls
+were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great
+room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone
+away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop
+and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and
+yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose
+Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and
+what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten
+into some kind of mischief?”
+
+Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been
+said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But
+outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such
+a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
+good-night long ago.”
+
+Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the
+room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was
+not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.
+
+Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says
+Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what
+on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and
+will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then
+if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
+from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a
+little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to
+her, she was both angry and frightened.
+
+“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly,
+knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss
+Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might
+be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads
+than the disappearance of one.
+
+“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you
+prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t
+help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here
+in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of
+bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls
+bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
+
+
+Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair, but Olive,
+still fully dressed, kept darting from her own bedroom to Jean’s and
+Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a sign of the wanderer.
+
+Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in the least
+what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds out how she has
+behaved, but you and I must go to look for her.”
+
+Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the lights were now
+being turned low, when a figure brushed by them. “Please let me get into
+my own room,” a voice said peevishly, and nothing loath, the three
+figures returned inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda
+Ralston,” Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
+excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is just barely
+possible that she may not have seen you sneaking along the hall.”
+
+Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive gazed upon the
+youngest ranch girl with an expression of disapproval.
+
+The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.
+
+“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss Sterne
+inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about through her large horn
+spectacles that Olive had so promptly disliked, like a wise old owl.
+
+“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?” she continued,
+“you know you are not expected to enter another girl’s sleeping
+apartment after the hour for retiring.”
+
+Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own room and
+rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning to talk to Jean or to
+Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s retreating footsteps were far out of
+hearing.
+
+And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand what the other
+two ranch girls were saying and then it was Jean’s tones that were the
+more distinct.
+
+Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and slipper,
+keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor, when Jean, now
+in her night gown, planted herself before her. “Where have you been all
+this time, Frieda Ralston, and why didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say
+good-night to Miss Winthrop when the rest of us did?”
+
+Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue stockings,
+swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean, and I didn’t dream of
+its being so late. Do you think Miss Winthrop noticed?” the culprit
+faltered.
+
+Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in this school,
+Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I suppose you will
+be able to explain to her in the morning why you were in the back hall
+instead of in the parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to
+tell anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”
+
+Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own heart was
+quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could not answer back in the
+cool fashion she desired. “Mollie Johnson was with me,” she managed to
+say, “and two boys.”
+
+Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or the present
+Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as she sat up in bed with
+her arms folded before her.
+
+“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly, “but will you
+please tell me why you went to the back hall when you knew perfectly
+well that Miss Winthrop was trusting you to behave like a lady and
+remain in the rooms where she was receiving her guests. I don’t know
+what Ruth and Jack will say.”
+
+Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she murmured,
+struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair. “You see, we had only
+ices and cake for the party, and about eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the
+boy I was with, said he wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as
+hungry for one, so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of
+the dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in the
+pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of good things.” And
+now Frieda’s courage returning in a small measure, she turned out the
+electric lights, hopping into bed. “I am not going to be treated like a
+criminal, though, Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she
+ended, burying herself under the cover.
+
+So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls were sound
+asleep, though in reality the three of them were still wide awake.
+
+Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet understanding the
+real facts of her escape, and Frieda was longing with all her might for
+some one to sympathize with her and help her in her scrape, some one who
+would let her cry herself out.
+
+By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s bedside. “Jean, has
+Frieda explained things to you?” she whispered.
+
+Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and two boys,
+and that they went into the pantry and had something to eat, but she
+didn’t say why they stayed in the back hall afterwards. They couldn’t
+have kept on eating pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls
+giggled softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
+greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she was
+constantly doing on their long trip through the Yellowstone the summer
+before?
+
+“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted, “and I don’t
+think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she hears that the pantry
+was the difficulty, for she knows how good the housekeeper is to all the
+little girls.”
+
+“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.” Jean’s voice
+became low and impressive, “What do you suppose that Frieda Ralston
+could have to talk about to a—boy?”
+
+A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both older girls
+started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted the outside of the
+blanket.
+
+“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a sterner manner
+than was usual to her, “or were all four of you just sitting around
+having a jolly time together?” Now that Frieda’s sobs assured the other
+two girls that she was awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on
+with her cross-examination.
+
+“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
+unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other boy were
+sitting on a higher step and the servants were around, but no one told
+us how late it was.”
+
+“Well, what were you talking about that you found so interesting that
+you could not hear the clock strike twelve, or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’
+waltz, or the good-byes being said?” Jean demanded fiercely.
+
+This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her sorrow, for
+the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were talking about worms!”
+she sobbed.
+
+“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that they could
+not have heard aright.
+
+“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see, we got to
+talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved it better than most
+anything he ever did and some summers he goes way up into the Maine
+woods and fishes in the lakes for trout. He uses flies for bait always,
+but I told him that we fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes
+when it wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way down
+under the ground to find them. I told him too how once I started a
+fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I could dig up in a glass
+bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys whenever they wished to go fishing.”
+
+Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up conversation
+with her first admirer, feeling too angry and too puzzled to go on for
+the minute, for her former irate judges were now holding their sides and
+doing their level best to keep from shrieking with laughter.
+
+“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of fishing worms,”
+Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.
+
+Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the covers more
+closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and dream of Jack,” she
+comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop will never hear of your mistaking
+the time for saying good-night.”
+
+“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda returned
+sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive, better than most any of
+the girls. I have seen her looking at you so strangely every now and
+then.”
+
+In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling so penitent
+over her escapade as the two older ranch girls supposed. But Frieda had
+always been a good deal spoiled and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed
+her failure to say good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault
+upon her mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that both
+little girls and big receive their punishment for a fault so soon as the
+fault is committed, in order not to keep on growing naughtier and
+naughtier until Fate punishes us for many sins at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
+
+
+After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be Saturday
+afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting room looking for
+Olive and Frieda. She had been playing basketball for the past two hours
+and in spite of having known nothing of the game on her arrival at
+school, was already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
+Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass above her
+face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in her hand she held a
+bundle of letters. One she tossed to Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa
+nursing a small cold due to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two
+for herself.
+
+Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed to her in Jack’s
+handwriting and Frieda followed suit. When Jack had first been taken to
+the hospital and there compelled to lie always flat on her back, her
+handwriting had been difficult to read, but now that she had gotten used
+to this method of writing, her stroke was again as vigorous and
+characteristic as of old.
+
+Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other girls. “Jack
+says she is getting on very well and we are to see her in a few
+weeks—perhaps,” she announced.
+
+Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of course,
+isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written you, for Jack never
+tells anything but the best news of herself.”
+
+“There may be an operation or something of the sort later on,” Jean
+conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it may not be for some
+months yet. Only if the operation does have to take place Jack has
+demanded that Jim come on from the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph
+Merrit to look after things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things
+are in a bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
+come?” And Jean sighed.
+
+An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should she behave
+in any special way?” she inquired, sitting straight up on the couch to
+gaze from Olive to Jean.
+
+Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed, for Frieda was
+the only one of the four ranch girls who knew nothing of what had
+happened at the ranch between Jim Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew,
+their chaperon. What had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
+understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware that Jim and
+Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one another and then some
+mysterious misunderstanding had suddenly parted them.
+
+“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested, knowing this
+would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one theme. “Sometimes I wish
+for Jack’s sake that we were all back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she
+was able to be out in the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of
+Jack lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three girls, so
+that there was a moment of painful silence in the room. Then Jean said
+more cheerfully after re-reading the latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim
+says that Ralph Merrit is doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and
+that he is a trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
+Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he has turned
+out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does Frank Kent.”
+
+The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet forgiven Jean for
+last night’s scolding. Now she turned up her small nose a trifle more
+than usual. “Oh, you just say that because Ralph likes you best and
+Frank Kent is more fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean
+flushed.
+
+“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that Jim should
+like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has to make his own way in
+the world just as Jim has; and Frank Kent, though he is awfully simple
+and a thorough good fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a
+title himself some day.”
+
+“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an English lady and
+own country estates and ride to hounds?” Frieda suggested more
+peacefully, gazing across the room at Frank Kent’s photograph, which
+ornamented the bookshelf. “I think I should love to be introduced into
+English society and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended
+lamely.
+
+A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled with
+mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about fishing worms,
+baby?” she queried with studied politeness.
+
+And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a sofa
+cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:
+
+“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at the Lodge.
+What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a second letter that Jean
+had brought to her, she began to read it.
+
+Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda, who
+resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get dressed, infant; no,
+your cold isn’t too bad for you to come. Olive is reading a note of
+invitation from Mrs. Harmon for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have
+tea and Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”
+
+But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom enjoyed by
+the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it easily.
+
+“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested resolutely;
+“only if they have any candy or cake and happen to mention sending me
+some you might bring it along. And I do wish both you girls would go out
+for a while, for Mollie is coming to spend the afternoon with me after
+she finishes her music lesson and we would love to have the sitting room
+to ourselves.”
+
+“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without being
+actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean said, seeing
+that Olive was hesitating about what she should do. “Come along, it will
+do us both good to get away and not to sit here thinking about what we
+can’t help,” she ended.
+
+While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks preparatory
+to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of her own room Olive
+was trying to persuade herself that her hesitation in going for the call
+upon the Harmons was because she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of
+Elizabeth of the old tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than
+this in her mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
+which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment her eyes
+had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have ever had with an
+old place like “The Towers,” or any house resembling it? Her impression
+that she must have seen the house somewhere before was sheer madness,
+for was it not an old Dutch mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years
+ago, and certainly wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?
+
+Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed her out
+of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and Jean started gayly
+forth on their walk. It was about four o’clock in the late November
+afternoon and instead of following the path through the woods, the
+little party set out along the lane that led through an exquisite part
+of the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed
+a short hill and from the top of it could see at some distance off the
+spire of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
+River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its deep
+hidden lungs.
+
+Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As Olive was
+particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through hers. “This is a land
+of legends and of dreams about here, dear, and some day I must take you
+western girls about the country and show you the historic places nearby.
+Do you know anything about them?” she asked.
+
+But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her head. “I
+don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem somehow familiar, yet
+it did not at first. Don’t you believe that all the world, at least the
+world of outside things, of hills and trees and valleys and water,
+somehow belongs alike to all of us and once we have seen a landscape and
+moved about in it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in
+nature, there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
+are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”
+
+Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on their
+approach to the house. As he was holding a great St. Bernard dog by the
+collar and as it bounded away from him all of a sudden, nearly upsetting
+Olive and Jessica in the rapture of its welcome, the little party
+entered “The Towers” with too much laughter and excitement for Olive to
+feel any self-consciousness or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of
+her past foolishness in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so
+many eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
+easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.
+
+Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both decided
+at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite of its
+magnificence, was one of the darkest and most unattractive rooms either
+of them had ever seen. For everything was very stiff and formal and
+without life or fragrance. Carved black furniture sat stiffly against
+the walls, which were hung with old portraits of men and women in high
+fluted ruffs, with gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces.
+Over in one corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen
+and having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And behind
+this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or twelve, who
+looked a little like Donald Harmon.
+
+“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon had said
+as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to wait tea for
+her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs. Harmon’s manner was a
+little constrained and that she kept looking at Olive as though she
+intended asking her some question, but as the question was never asked,
+the girls must have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the
+little company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
+seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a long
+stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow the butler
+flung open the drawing room door.
+
+Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean could not
+forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her heart rise up in her
+throat. Why on earth was the old mistress of “The Towers” so formidable
+that the entire neighborhood felt an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry
+that she was competing for one of her prizes offered to the Junior
+students at Primrose Hall.
+
+“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at the name
+of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard for the first
+time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young girl caught at the
+sides of her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. Then when no one was
+looking at her, smiled at herself and turned her gaze curiously on their
+ancient hostess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
+
+
+For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom there is
+no English expression so good as the French, “a grande dame.”
+
+There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but she
+stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with brilliant,
+hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and slightly inclining her
+head. Then she walked over to the high, carved chair near the tea table
+and sat down under the picture of the little boy. Feeble from old age,
+she was yet of too determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for
+when Donald tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned
+it away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head by a
+careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of age, was yet as
+delicately powdered and rouged as if she had been an actress about to
+make her debut, and she was carefully dressed in a gown of deep purple
+silk with lace at her throat and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort
+could hide the ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the
+coldness of her air and expression suggested that she would have
+repelled grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.
+
+The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful after
+its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed to be able to
+speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was plainly ill at ease and
+even Elizabeth had been taught to treat this wealthy old aunt, whose
+fortune she expected some day to share with her brother, with more
+respect than she showed to any one else in the world.
+
+Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had huddled
+close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having little to say to
+one another.
+
+Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was barely able
+to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater said, “bring the girl,
+whom you tell me you met in the West and who bears so strange a
+resemblance to your mother, closer to me. I think all resemblances are
+ridiculous and yet you have made me curious.”
+
+Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of all
+things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for her to do in
+this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead her across the room
+to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged forgiveness for the old woman’s
+peremptory manner, and yet he showed no sign of disobedience.
+
+“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the dusk was
+creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing her hostess,
+Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.
+
+It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers even to
+raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared straight at Madame Van
+Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as hers and almost as searching
+and haughty. For Olive’s emotion was immediately one of the deepest
+antagonism toward this woman, however old she might be, who summoned her
+as a queen might summon a subject.
+
+Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her slowly
+through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of course, resting
+longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she drew one of relief as she
+turned again to Donald and to Mrs. Harmon? “I do not see the least
+likeness in this girl to any member of my family,” she announced.
+“Whatever her name may be, her appearance is quite foreign and I should
+prefer never to have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.”
+And nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
+seat.
+
+But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her drawing
+her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she murmured. “I had
+not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has seemed to me that I have
+seen some one a little like you somewhere, I fancied in some old
+picture.” Then smiling she shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I
+see any likeness to your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is
+enough of a suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”
+
+And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair, where she
+sat down pretending to look out of the window, though all the time she
+was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in which she had just been
+compelled to play an unwilling part. Why, because she was so uncertain
+of her ancestry, should she be forced to go through these moments that
+made the fact more bitterly painful to her?
+
+Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls had tried
+their best to keep her story from the ears of the Harmons during their
+stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald, his sister and mother had
+learned through Aunt Ellen, through the cowboys on the ranch and through
+one or two of their closest neighbors. And for this reason the young
+fellow was perhaps even more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he
+wished very much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into
+which his own idle talk had led her.
+
+Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and Miss
+Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with me?” he
+asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I am sure that
+Elizabeth will excuse us.”
+
+Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being left with
+only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was the only one of the
+ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she made no objection,
+particularly as no one waited for her to speak. For Jean fairly bounced
+from her chair with relief, Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon
+after, feeling that she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged
+to remain another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
+Towers.”
+
+Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared suddenly to
+have been released from prison. Jean danced a two-step, Jessica clapped
+her hands softly together and Olive laughed, while Donald straightway
+plunged head first up the dark mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he
+begged, “for there isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well
+enough to tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great
+view that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
+rather a long climb.”
+
+Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then Jessica.
+Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like those in any
+ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral resembling the steps in
+a lighthouse. About midway up these steps Jessica noticed that Olive
+paused, pressing her hands to her eyes as though to shut out some idea
+or some vision that assailed her, and that she wavered as though she
+felt faint.
+
+“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired, knowing that
+climbing to unexpected heights often has this effect on sensitive
+persons. And though Olive now shook her head, moving on again, Jessica
+determined to watch her.
+
+To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a small,
+closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big, spacious apartment out
+of which the little gabled windows winked like so many friendly eyes.
+The room was fitted up as a boy’s room with a bed apparently just ready
+to be slept in, there was a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but
+the bookcases were filled with books of all kinds and for all ages,
+French, Spanish and German books and plays from the days of the miracle
+plays down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
+long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which seemed to
+be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols were hung on the
+walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete figure of a knight in
+armor stood in one corner. Curious why these masculine trophies should
+interest a girl, and yet for some reason they did interest Olive, for
+she waited there alone; Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one
+of the windows were gazing out over the countryside made famous the
+world over through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
+Dreams.”
+
+Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to see the
+view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in the next few
+minutes.”
+
+And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also looked out
+the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the bridge over which
+they had lately passed, with the stretch of woodlands to one side and
+the autumn-colored hills rising in the background. Very quietly she
+began to speak:
+
+“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
+valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the
+quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it,
+with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional
+whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound
+that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.”
+
+These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape and her
+lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of poetry long ago
+forgotten and now brought back to mind by the objects that inspired it.
+
+It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to herself by
+reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement, but neither Donald
+Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least surprised and after a moment,
+as though again striking the strings of her memory, the young girl went
+on: “If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the
+world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
+troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
+And then her recitation abruptly ended.
+
+“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded; “or tell
+us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur of the moment to
+impress your English teacher?”
+
+Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is repeating! I
+should have taught it you before now, but Olive seems to have gotten
+ahead of me and learned it first.”
+
+“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing a thing
+like that and then waiting for a critical minute to recite it so as to
+impress her audience. I never should have suspected her!”
+
+But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica said in
+explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington Irving’s
+description of this countryside, which he gives in his ‘Legend of Sleepy
+Hollow,’ and when you get back to school, Jean, I advise you to ask
+Olive to lend you her book.”
+
+Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to Primrose
+Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first both the woman
+and the girl were silent, but as they neared the school Olive spoke
+suddenly:
+
+“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the feeling
+of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking that you have been
+there before, seen the same things or people and even heard the same
+words said?”
+
+Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and yet not
+appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s expression was both
+puzzled and intent.
+
+“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered. “No one
+can understand or explain it very well, but the impression is more apt
+to come to you when you are young. I can recall once having gone into a
+ballroom and there having had some one make a perfectly ordinary speech
+to me and yet I had a sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was
+I that at some past time I had been in the same place, under the same
+circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the time it
+was impossible.”
+
+“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in a
+certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into one’s mind
+without our remembering where we have learned it before,” Olive
+persisted.
+
+Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said quietly,
+“I think there are many wonderful things in the world around us that we
+do not believe in because we do not yet understand them, just as long
+years ago men and women did not believe that our world was round because
+it had not then been revealed to them. And so I do not understand about
+these strange psychical experiences about which we have just been
+talking. But I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
+remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In this
+story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the hero’s mind
+from the time he is a little boy all through his life. He does not
+understand why he remembers this song, but by and by it is explained to
+the reader that this song had played an important part in the life of
+one of Peter Ibbetson’s ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color
+of our eyes, the shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some
+far-off ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
+impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing to
+understand, but the idea is interesting.”
+
+“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the book.”
+
+Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the darkness of
+the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.
+
+“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you ever
+felt that you have been in a certain place before, where you know you
+could never really have been, or have you thought suddenly of something
+that you did not remember having in your mind before? But please do not
+answer me if you would rather not, for I know that these queer
+experiences most of us would rather keep to ourselves.”
+
+“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women started
+up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
+
+
+While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda and
+Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch girls’ sitting
+room, school politics were playing an important part in the precincts of
+Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and Gerry Ferrows were devoting that
+same Saturday afternoon to canvassing their class in order to discover
+whether Jean or Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
+president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for Jean, while
+Winifred was conducting a personal investigation. Indeed, the situation
+between these two girls was a peculiar and a difficult one, for having
+once been intimate friends, they had now become violently estranged from
+one another and yet continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than
+because Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
+afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together and with
+their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively refused to work for
+herself, having turned over her cause to her two best friends, Gerry and
+Margaret Belknap.
+
+But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning Jean and
+Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances for her election
+and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the whole situation.
+
+Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s success. If
+even at this late date Jean would allow herself to be elected into one
+of the sororities and thus proclaim her independence of the girl whose
+presence in the school her classmates resented, she might yet win their
+complete allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case
+that Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
+her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart for the
+honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on this question of
+Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while she was too good a sport
+to be unkind to any one in adversity, yet she did not herself care to
+associate with Olive on terms of perfect equality, although she had
+never mentioned this fact to Jean. And lately she had felt her own
+decision waver, for since her father had written her that he had charge
+of Jack Ralston’s case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl
+he had ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
+protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.
+
+Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice grew deeper
+on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to the other of her
+classmates, asking them point-blank whether they intended to cast their
+votes for Winifred or for Jean at the coming election. Some of the girls
+were quite frank. They had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided
+that it would be wiser not to have as the representative of their class
+a girl who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
+the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean, not
+having entirely made up their minds between her and Winifred; a number
+of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and loyal supporters and yet it
+was with a feeling of discouragement that Gerry at the close of her
+canvass returned to her own room. She had taken a note book with her and
+written down each girl’s position in regard to the election, and yet she
+could not now decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it
+was peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room to
+find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde hair down
+her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the pages of a magazine,
+wearing a particularly cheerful and self-satisfied expression.
+
+Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an agreeable
+one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a certain portion of
+American society. As long as Winifred could remember she had been taught
+these two things: By her brains and her beauty she must some day win for
+herself the wealth and the position that her family had always longed to
+have and yet never had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her
+mother and father had been spending more money than they could afford in
+trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more prominent
+than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at Primrose Hall was but
+another proof of their extravagance, for they could by no means afford
+the expense of such a school, yet their hope was that there Winifred
+would make so many wealthy and aristocratic friends that later on they
+might help her to a wealthy marriage.
+
+But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good mind and
+longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her friendships, so it
+was hardly to be wondered at that she should cordially dislike the two
+older ranch girls, who, coming out of nowhere and pretending to nothing,
+seemed likely to prove her rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the
+way of her being chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior
+class, Olive was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which
+the old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior students in
+Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also competing for this prize,
+but as it represented a fairly large sum of money, sufficient to cover a
+year’s tuition at Primrose Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must
+be hers.
+
+She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down on their
+couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a nap.
+
+“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend Gerry?” she
+asked in an irritating fashion.
+
+“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none too
+truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm assurance.
+
+Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you know it,
+and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if it half killed
+you, being anxious to prove that women are as honest as men, as brave
+and as straight-forward and as clever, and therefore should be entitled
+to equal suffrage.”
+
+Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely face
+crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite truthful; I am
+afraid that your chance for the presidency is better than Jean’s. But
+you know that it is all because the girls here think that Olive isn’t a
+fit associate for the rest of us, or else Jean would have won in a
+walkover. I wonder if the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her
+parentage is true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me.
+Where did you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”
+
+“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and heard the
+tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the younger girls she knew
+in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth meant any harm in telling, for
+she seemed to think that we would be pleased to have an Indian enliven
+us at Primrose Hall. You may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean
+and Frieda have been very quiet about the whole question of this
+objectionable Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why
+don’t you inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.
+
+Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss Winthrop
+treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is any mystery about
+Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private affair,’ she said. ‘But
+kindly remember that she is a student at Primrose Hall and if I thought
+her unfit for the companionship of my other girls, she would not be
+among you.’ You can imagine that I felt about the size of a small
+caterpillar when she got through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore
+from Miss Winthrop’s snubbing.
+
+“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind your own
+business,” Winifred interposed with secret satisfaction, knowing from
+Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had heard of Olive’s past and glad to
+have the truth of the story that she had been repeating confirmed.
+
+“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to a girl
+for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so anxious to have
+Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her own mind.
+
+Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
+honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think
+she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss
+Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’
+parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is
+just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she
+seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you
+and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why
+don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix
+yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
+and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”
+
+Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked
+sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election!
+And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan
+that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten
+things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
+
+
+And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
+personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by
+making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was
+as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta
+sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the
+invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been
+deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck
+her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’
+attitude toward her?
+
+The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as
+both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her
+leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could
+have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business;
+I wish to talk to you quite alone.”
+
+Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her
+other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive
+appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak
+to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all
+mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no
+one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.
+
+“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive
+nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not
+come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the
+afternoon?”
+
+But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No,
+I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided,
+“and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish
+to say to you.”
+
+“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one
+else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”
+
+Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were
+walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the
+subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.
+
+Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure of
+having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to make, and
+yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s manner that made
+her companion a little fearful of approaching her with advice or
+entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as well to have laid this
+matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last resort, Miss Winthrop, before
+forging ahead. But Gerry was an ardent suffragette in the making and, as
+she had determined to follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father,
+she knew that indecision must never be a characteristic of the new
+woman. However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl recognize
+her entire friendliness before she made known her mission.
+
+Having talked of many things together, of their love of the outdoors, of
+Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at last opened up the way
+for her companion’s disclosure.
+
+“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I have not
+yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me. What is it?”
+
+And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened and she
+looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this moment it had not
+occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire for a private interview
+with her could have any serious import, but noticing Gerry’s hesitation
+and apparent embarrassment, Olive suddenly believed that she intended
+questioning her about her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack
+had advised her not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now
+asked her for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
+than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her false,
+her desire now might be to disprove it.
+
+With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she hoped for
+the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she asked again.
+
+Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean to be
+elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.
+
+Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
+rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me. And I am
+awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving Jean, for she is
+awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter and all of us would
+be so proud of her if she should win after being so short a time at
+school.”
+
+“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do something
+to help her instead of standing in her way?” This question was even more
+blunt than the first. And it hurt, because Olive bit her lips.
+
+“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her walk and
+turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me, please, how I can
+help her and how I stand in the way of her election?”
+
+At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she was not
+of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a whole lot by making
+her join our Theta Sorority at once and not hold back any longer because
+you have not been invited to join also.”
+
+There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine.
+“Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls
+tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I
+thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the
+matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make
+me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class
+president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays
+out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
+sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”
+
+Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly
+for her either to add to it or to contradict.
+
+“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what
+I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very
+sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a
+student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I
+could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth
+Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
+of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much
+because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West
+these things do not count to so great an extent.”
+
+To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this
+proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive
+seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she
+had no part.
+
+But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
+attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in
+times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because
+Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride,
+but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses
+itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated
+with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with
+dignity and in silence.
+
+Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes
+quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of
+color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank
+you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did
+not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness
+and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I
+surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this
+before.”
+
+And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult,
+though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had
+intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion
+across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not
+angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an
+apology.
+
+“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must
+not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place
+so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply
+don’t know what I should do!”
+
+And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home,
+walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a
+characteristic of her training.
+
+Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to
+keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a
+brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose
+Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in
+their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever
+unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to
+breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first
+intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
+for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her
+allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been
+too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And
+at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive
+to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And
+as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned
+that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
+Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.
+
+    “Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater
+      than herself,
+    Too noble for this place.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
+
+
+Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking for Jean,
+for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the school than she was
+seen talking with a group of friends.
+
+“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had been out
+together for a walk and grateful for what she thought Gerry’s
+friendliness to Olive.
+
+Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed by the
+presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room, Jean,” she begged,
+“for Gerry and I have something to talk to you about that must be
+decided at once.”
+
+It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought a little
+impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name in speaking to
+Jean and plainly wished her to be present at their coming interview, for
+there was, of course, a possibility that Jean might be a good deal vexed
+at her interference. But as Jean left her other friends immediately,
+slipping one arm through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and
+propelling them as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was
+there for Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?
+
+“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston, that you
+wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as they reached their
+own door, “kindly remember that three heads are better than one, even if
+one is a dunce’s head, else I should never have allowed Geraldine
+Ferrows to be present at our council.” And giving each of the girls an
+added shove, the three of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.
+
+Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before their open
+fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large open box of flowers on
+her lap, with her cheeks a good deal flushed, possibly from the heat of
+the fire.
+
+“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of your
+apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to have a present
+for you sent through my care and it seemed to me that the surest way to
+find you was to wait at your own hearthstone until you chose to appear.”
+While Jessica was speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward
+Jean and Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me
+asking me to see that you get them.”
+
+With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great box,
+which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its fragrances.
+
+“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,” Jean
+exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t Frieda be
+homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even if she is so
+enraptured with boarding school that she hardly talks of home any more?”
+
+While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers from the
+box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate bouquet, wrapped in
+white paper and bearing a card with a name inscribed upon it.
+
+“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive announced,
+trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and Jean both guessed
+at once that the gift of the large box of flowers to them had been made
+largely in order to include the smaller offering inside it.
+
+Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete indifference, took
+the flowers; they were lilies of the valley encircled with violets and
+it was difficult for any girl to conceal her delight in them.
+
+Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a dangerously demure
+look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you
+have known our Mr. Drummond? You see, we are awfully fond of him and he
+has been very good to all of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have
+wondered if he could think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive
+and I think you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
+that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very kind. Can’t
+you tell us something more?”
+
+Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can tell you
+about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any importance. Just that
+he is rich and good looking and kind. He is so rich that he has never
+done anything or been anything else, and I have known him a great many
+years, since I was a small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live
+near one another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
+some of our money.”
+
+“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a good
+deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there are lots of
+people who are not one of those three things.”
+
+And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the moment,
+Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she returned, “but I
+am afraid that I want a man to be more and to mean more in this world
+than just that.” She was about to leave the room when Olive put her hand
+on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica, Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but
+I so often think of you as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to
+Jean about something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
+sensibly.”
+
+Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now that it
+was important, else she would not have called in so many persons to her
+assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming up to her friend placed
+one hand on each of her shoulders, looking closely with her own
+autumn-toned brown eyes into her friend’s darker ones.
+
+“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish me to do
+that requires so much persuasion?”
+
+And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
+shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
+illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
+
+“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.
+
+Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the first that
+you were going to ask me something I could not grant,” Jean returned
+plaintively. “Has any one in this world ever heard of a goose who chose
+to be one?”
+
+Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too intense
+for interruption. Without allowing Jean another opportunity for a
+moment’s speech she began her request, imploring her to join the Theta
+Society at once and not to put it off a day longer than necessary. “For
+how, dear, can you do me the least good by not belonging when the girls
+want you so much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
+Junior election,” she ended.
+
+“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a member of
+the Theta Society and that my chance for the presidency will be
+influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired angrily, although she did not
+glance toward any one for her answer save Olive.
+
+But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she feel in
+any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now she moved quietly
+forward.
+
+“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with me, but I
+have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of me I cannot see
+how it will hurt Olive for you to join the Thetas without her and it
+will hurt you very much in your election if you don’t. Olive is not
+going to be invited to become a member if you stay out and you may lose
+the class presidency if you are so obstinate.”
+
+Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that Gerry is
+perfectly right and that there is no other way of looking at this
+matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my heart if she does not,
+and I can’t see a bit of sense in her position.”
+
+“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say anything
+at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about this whole
+business.”
+
+A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward Gerry.
+
+“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because of
+course I know you are being good as gold to me and only acting for what
+you believe to be my good, but I don’t think either you or Olive in the
+least understand my position. I am not staying out of the Theta Society
+for Olive’s sake; I am staying out for my own.”
+
+“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.
+
+“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to
+think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would be (leaving me
+out of the case entirely) if that girl should win out in a big matter
+like a class election by turning her back on her best friend and more
+than her friend, her almost sister. And you, Olive, suppose you had no
+part in this business at all, or suppose you and I had changed places,
+what would you think of a girl who would say to another group of girls,
+‘Yes, thank you, I am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to
+enjoy your superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
+and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with you?’ I,
+of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a traitor if you
+will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown eyes were flashing and
+her face was pale, yet she laughed a little at her own fierceness.
+
+“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just this
+thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on, “and I argued
+it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt Olive by joining the
+Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself that such an action would not
+hurt me. See here, dear,” and Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling
+as she spoke again directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to
+forget our friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for
+wouldn’t you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
+me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day time
+and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was? No, sir-ee,”
+and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude, pretending to slip her
+fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the words of that famous
+gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick Henry, or Daniel Webster, I
+can’t remember, ‘I would rather be right than President!’”
+
+“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I take off my
+hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this question any further
+with Jean, for she has just said something that we all know to be a
+fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any
+man.’”
+
+Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like an
+embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right, Jean,” she
+conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are if you feel as you
+say you do, so I shall not try to make you change your opinion.”
+
+But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in the
+center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good, but I don’t
+care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself in the
+way you are doing for me. I must find out how to prevent it and I warn
+you now that I shall write to Jack and have her ask you to change your
+mind.”
+
+Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow to be a
+poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t let us talk about
+this tedious subject any longer and do let us put the kettle on and all
+take tea, for I have talked so much I am nearly dying of thirst.”
+
+Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch girls
+getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for just such
+occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was said until they
+were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then Jean turned to Olive.
+
+“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t hurt your
+feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us it seems to me
+the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have known for some time
+that there has been some gossip about Olive going the rounds of the
+school, but we have never known who started it nor just what the story
+is. Would you mind telling us?”
+
+Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face showing
+nervousness and discomfort.
+
+“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are and that
+we ranch girls found her several years ago with an Indian woman and that
+she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean continued inexorably.
+
+Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally through the
+Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”
+
+“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her questioner
+continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her saucer, “Yes, that is
+all.”
+
+“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they have heard
+is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was trying to speak
+calmly. “I can see now that we have made a mistake; it would have been
+better if we had been perfectly candid about Olive’s past from the
+first. There never has been a minute when we would have minded telling
+it, if any one of the girls had come and asked us, but lately I have
+thought that some extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive
+and joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any human
+beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose Hall girls have
+been to Olive, unless they had been told something perfectly dreadful
+about her. Well, I don’t think I care a snap about being class president
+of such a set of girls,” Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her
+guests. “Olive Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than
+I am, but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
+promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good red Indian
+blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood that must run in the
+veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry, dear, I do beg your pardon
+and of course I don’t mean you, but if I hadn’t been allowed to speak
+this out loud, I should certainly have exploded.”
+
+Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the snobs, too,
+Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will forgive me and make
+up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”
+
+Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure, clothed in
+a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace, with yellow hair
+piled high on its head, entered the room. “What on earth is Jean
+preaching about?” the voice of no other person than the youngest Miss
+Ralston inquired. “I have just been across the hall with Mollie and Lucy
+Johnson and I declare she has been talking steadily for an hour.”
+
+Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean could
+only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she gotten so
+marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage affair. But at this
+instant, beholding the violets, Frieda, forgetting her grown-up manner
+for a moment, jumped at them. “Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said
+like the small girl who once had taken care of her own violet beds at
+The Rainbow Lodge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE DANGER OF WEALTH
+
+
+The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been somewhat
+happier and certainly a great deal better off in many respects could she
+now have turned back the pages of her existence for a few months and
+been again that same little yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of
+every man, woman and child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow
+Ranch, for Frieda had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that
+is of a serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
+much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.
+
+After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk gown and
+velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for beautiful clothes
+awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a Western ranch girl and had
+never dreamed of such splendors as the New York shops afforded, neither
+did she have any very clear idea of the real value of money. Because
+gold had been discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her
+fifty dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
+wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very dangerous
+habit of buying whatever she wished without considering the cost, and
+the way she managed to do this was by making bills!
+
+Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to go into
+town for every little purchase it became necessary for them to make,
+Ruth had opened a charge account for the three ranch girls at one of the
+best of the New York shops, but the bills were expected to be sent to
+the girls and to be paid out of their allowances. Jean and Olive had
+made only a few necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it,
+Frieda had lately been buying with utter recklessness.
+
+Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other two
+ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had arrived that
+very afternoon and been delivered in the care of Mollie Johnson. Hanging
+up in Mollie’s closet at the same instant was an equally charming
+garment, almost of the same kind as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and
+but lately presented by Frieda to her best friend.
+
+So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the letter
+of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose Hall, she was
+certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she had broken her
+promise altogether on the afternoon when she and Mollie had been alone
+together, while Olive and Jean were drinking tea at “The Towers.”
+
+Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from it. The
+story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For Frieda
+naturally began the conversation with her friend by telling her that
+Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the Harmons, and then that they had
+learned to know the Harmons because they had rented their ranch to them
+the summer before. From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to
+the Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
+coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to buy the
+Rainbow Mine.
+
+When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly, but it
+was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s eyes had grown
+wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at her words. “Why, Frieda
+Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once, “you don’t mean to tell me that
+you are an heiress as well as everything else that is interesting! Why,
+you have let me think that you were poor before, though I have wondered
+sometimes about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell
+me whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”
+
+To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began her
+very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once both sorry and
+frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began; “that is, I don’t see
+any sense in its being, but I have promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew
+not to talk about our money at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have
+our friends just know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine.
+Do you see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”
+
+Earnestly Mollie shook her head.
+
+“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,” Frieda
+conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning to, I am glad,
+for I do just want to talk about it with somebody and you are my dearest
+friend and I wish you to know everything about me.”
+
+Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the nice
+things about her, for it really is not our faults that we long to pour
+into the ears of our friends.
+
+The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold for the
+past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and rested her chin on
+her hands. “Want me to tell you every single thing about our mine?” she
+demanded. “It is quite like a fairy story.”
+
+And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not Mollie
+Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a mine.
+
+“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you wish you
+may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising everything and making
+all the mystic signs necessary to eternal secrecy, Mollie then had
+listened to the unfolding of the fairy tale.
+
+Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale, but she
+had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine produced than a
+baby, and of course with the telling of her tale the size of the nuggets
+that Jim was getting out of the mine each week naturally grew.
+
+“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we simply don’t
+know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the ranch, who now looks
+after our mine, says you never can tell at first how much a mine may
+yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires some day.”
+
+The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s vocabulary,
+which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall, but certainly it
+had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.
+
+“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed, “and I
+do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than most anybody I
+should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my father is just a lawyer in
+Richmond and while we have a pretty house and all that, why we have some
+other brothers and sisters, and father says all he can afford to do is
+to let Lucy and me have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give
+us money for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
+make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your lovely
+things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into curls the ends of
+her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at her with an even increased
+admiration.
+
+Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on the
+youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the question with
+Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and rushing to her desk
+indited a letter to a New York firm asking that the two kimonos be sent
+her at once with slippers and stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie
+was just too sweet and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted
+sisters and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
+went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of writing her
+letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s feet, but all that
+she could do more was to invite her to come into town the next week to
+be her guest at the matinee and lunch and to help her make a few more
+purchases.
+
+For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check had, and so
+for the time being, like many another person, she felt fairly well off,
+although her allowance for the past two months had melted away like wax
+without her being able to pay back a single cent of the money to either
+Jean or Olive, which they had advanced to help with her first
+extravagance, the blue silk dress and velvet coat.
+
+One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a good deal
+more money at their disposal than Frieda had at present, is the way that
+five-dollar bills have of disappearing in New York City. So by the time
+Frieda had paid for three tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of
+course compelled to bring a chaperon into town with them, and three
+lunches at a fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money
+left out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
+charging on her account, in order to get the few more things that she
+and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the visit in
+Richmond toward the close of December.
+
+On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train and
+feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent this extra
+money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts until January, and what
+with Christmas coming, there would be so many presents for others that
+she would wish to buy! So once Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving
+her a hug, demanded to know what worried her, she would not say. For how
+confess that money matters were worrying her but a few days after the
+time when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
+Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at Christmas time,
+if they should consent to let her make the trip south, and out of this
+amount she would certainly save enough to pay her bills, without having
+to confess her extravagances. For Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would
+both be angry and ashamed of her for breaking her promise and for buying
+things which she did not really need.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ELECTION DAY
+
+
+The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class had
+arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three o’clock until
+six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne would remain in the
+library at Primrose Hall watching over the ballot box. Immediately after
+six the box would be opened, the ballots counted and the choice of the
+Juniors announced.
+
+For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant days and
+the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now and then in the
+past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the shore waters of the
+Hudson River would then be trimmed with a fine fringe of ice. Once the
+election was over the Primrose Hall students would be making plans for
+the Christmas holidays, but until then nothing else, not even home and
+family, appeared of so great importance.
+
+Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had gone
+astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s cause. Indeed,
+like many another brave campaigner, she had only worked the harder,
+rallying Jean’s friends closer around her, exhorting her enemies and
+trying to persuade the girls on the fence that there was no real point
+in their antagonism toward Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made
+she had had an able lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted
+friend.
+
+For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that unless
+her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of the character
+she had already established among them, nothing she could do or say at
+this late day should influence them. And Jean had also never wavered
+from the attitude she had taken in regard to Olive on the afternoon of
+their final discussion of the subject. She had not needed that her
+resolution be strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and
+Jack Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
+her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that Jean be
+persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the reply she hoped
+for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically declared Jean’s position the
+only possible one.
+
+All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had been
+conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever their presence in
+one of the class rooms made it possible. Her expression was so wistful
+and apologetic that Jean began to care more for her own success on
+Olive’s account than her own. So as soon as luncheon was over and three
+o’clock had come around, slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s,
+she drew her along the hall toward the library door.
+
+“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let us go
+upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over. Then Gerry and
+Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a really high-minded
+person I suppose I should now vote for my rival, Miss Graham, but as I
+can’t bring myself up to that point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper
+for old Gerry.”
+
+Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their own
+sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign outside
+announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both ranch girls
+were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was plainly the more
+affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in a perfectly natural
+fashion, she was pale and silent and oftentimes on the verge of tears.
+
+The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the bare
+upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of the earth.
+
+“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the writing
+table before one of their windows, “why should you behave as though the
+question of my election was the only important thing in the world. On a
+day like this I only feel desperately homesick for Jack and the old
+ranch. What wouldn’t I give if we were all there to-day and just
+starting out on a long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about
+never seeing Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to
+Jim and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
+time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated Ralph
+rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have only written
+twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really coming east to see how
+Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will hate to see Ruth again or like
+it? One never can tell about a person in love.”
+
+Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the Rainbow
+Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no sooner had she
+put her pen to the paper than apparently all worry and suspense left her
+and she scratched away rapidly and clearly for several hours.
+
+But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she kept up
+such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room that at any other
+time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded. First she tried studying
+her Shakespeare, since she was making a special effort to succeed in the
+Shakespeare class, and before coming east to school had read only a few
+plays with Ruth and the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge.
+But not the most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy
+by William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea that
+engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to read, she flung
+her book down on the floor, saying petulantly: “Tiresome stuff! I wonder
+what ever made me think for an instant I could stand any chance of
+getting the Shakespeare prize?”
+
+Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us thought
+you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you dearly love to
+read and study at most times. But why don’t you go out for a walk, you
+can find Frieda somewhere around downstairs and make her go with you. I
+don’t want to.”
+
+“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a good deal
+more temper than usual with her, and flying into her own room, she
+banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for some occupation, she
+came across a piece of sewing which she had once started at the Lodge,
+some white silk cut in the shape of a round cap to be covered over with
+small white pearl beads.
+
+Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low stool
+by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would have a more
+soothing influence upon her than reading for the two more hours that had
+somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing on this occasion was more
+distracting than reading, for very soon Olive’s fingers worked
+automatically while her brain began to concern itself with interesting
+and puzzling ideas. The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose
+Hall had not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
+we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of and to
+ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led such eventful
+lives.
+
+After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation later with
+Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books in the school
+library that she could find, which might help her explain the curious
+experience—confided to no one—through which she had passed that
+afternoon. But it was not just this one experience that had puzzled and
+worried Olive, for many strange fancies, impressions, memories, she knew
+not what to call them, had been drifting into her mind since her first
+sight of that white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival
+at Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything that
+was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe that she could
+recall dim ideas and events having no connection with the years she had
+spent in the Indian tent with old Laska. But why had these far-off
+memories not assailed her in the two years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps
+then the recollection of Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her
+with such an odd mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people
+about her whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent
+in her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
+associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was impossible, for
+Olive felt sure that she had never been east before in her life.
+
+Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last six.
+
+Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly folding
+up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective envelopes. She
+looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but composed. At last she got up
+from her chair and crossing the floor knelt down in front of Olive,
+taking the piece of sewing from her cold fingers.
+
+“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill
+from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our
+sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next
+hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have
+really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an
+hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been
+thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet
+look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply
+disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion.
+“Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
+have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think
+that you have had anything to do with my failure.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know
+perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide
+the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were
+strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward
+their door.
+
+Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do
+with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president
+nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”
+
+The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean
+tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had
+not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing
+about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming
+down the hall.”
+
+As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
+appeared to interrupt them.
+
+“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because
+it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and
+Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few
+ballots of the Junior class.”
+
+However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall
+approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.
+
+It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean
+waited calmly in the center of the room.
+
+Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie
+Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the
+truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a
+farm clasp of Olive’s hand.
+
+“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CONGRATULATIONS
+
+
+By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping bitterly in
+Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on the back. Gerry looked
+utterly exhausted, her hair was in a perfect tumble and a smut
+ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda had turned toward the wall and Lucy
+and Mollie Johnson each had an arm about her.
+
+“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but Olive
+simply would not accept what her eyes had already told her.
+
+“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
+entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.
+
+“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior class at
+Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced stoically, and then
+there was a sudden sound of weeping from all parts of the sitting room.
+
+“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,” Jean
+insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene. “Margaret dear,
+you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of course, I am sorry not to
+have been elected, but I’m not disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately
+that I could be. And please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean
+kissed Margaret and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.
+
+“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease to be
+grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let us show the
+girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow. Please everybody stop
+crying at once and come on with me to shake hands and offer my
+congratulations to Winifred Graham. Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the
+next time she beheld us we should all appear to have been washed away in
+tears? The first person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a
+five-pound box of candy from me in the morning.”
+
+Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not learn the
+bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had an immediate
+effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and Margaret. Both girls
+stiffened up at once.
+
+“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it will
+never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior class just
+because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of the girls did vote
+for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely, why Winifred Graham and her
+set can’t crow over us half so much as if we show our chagrin.”
+
+Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s crowing
+that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.
+
+“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations to
+Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking point. For my
+part I would rather do my duty and remember my manners without delay.”
+
+And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would follow
+her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that Olive was
+missing and going back called out softly: “Come on, Olive, and help us
+congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us show an ugly spirit now,
+would you?”
+
+But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means sure how
+Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she forbore to insist
+on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be disagreeable under the
+present circumstances Jean was not perfectly sure of being able to keep
+cool; and of all things she must not show temper at the present moment.
+Besides, her few minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of
+the girls to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
+Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of the
+election. After a first moment of breaking down she had entirely
+regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at seeing her so
+sensible.
+
+One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure and an
+entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing perfectly still. Had
+Jean been pleased because she had accepted her failure so sensibly?
+Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken simply because she could not trust
+herself to speak. She had not cried, because in the first moments of
+humiliation and regret, there are but few people who can at once summon
+tears. Of course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
+view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated herself,
+she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and this last blow had
+come to her after months of coldness and neglect on the part of her
+classmates, which she had borne bravely and in silence. Now Olive was
+through with courage and with silence.
+
+At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for the
+relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung herself face
+downward on the bed, giving herself up to the luxury of this weakness.
+When she arose her face wore a look of unusual determination. Whatever
+her fight, it was ended now. First she walked over to her bureau and
+there unlocking a small iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which
+all who have followed her history, know to be the single possession she
+had rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for the
+last time.
+
+The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before beginning the
+letter she plainly intended writing, she picked them up one by one,
+looking at them closely, the silver cross and chain worn on the evening
+of the dance, the small book only a few inches in size, and the watch
+with the picture of a woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the
+ranch girls had always believed to look like Olive.
+
+At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this also was
+laid aside for the work she had in mind.
+
+“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):
+
+“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a student
+at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this news and if Jack
+is too ill to be worried, please do not mention this to her. I have
+tried very hard to bear my difficulties here and truly I would have gone
+on without complaining, for I can live without the friendship of other
+girls so long as you and the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot
+bear is to be a drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as
+I do here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot go
+back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do now and am
+able to teach them. Can I not go to some little school where the girls
+will not care so much about my past? But if you are not willing for me
+to do this, and I know how little I am worthy of all you and the ranch
+girls have done for me, you must not mind if I find some work to do, so
+that I can make my living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no
+longer at Primrose Hall.
+
+“With all love, OLIVE.”
+
+And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and aching,
+rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms. When she lifted
+it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine Winthrop was standing only
+a few feet away.
+
+“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must have
+failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to talk to you.”
+
+The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion seemed
+always to know, almost before it happened, every event that transpired
+at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to it, was well recognized by
+her pupils. So of course she now knew not only that Winifred Graham had
+been elected to the Junior Class presidency, but the particular reason
+why Jean had been defeated.
+
+“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss Winthrop,”
+Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying to disguise the
+truth. “I know you think it very foolish and stupid of me.”
+
+Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl to a
+stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually discourage tears,”
+she answered with a half smile; “at least, I know my girls think I am
+very unsympathetic about them. But I suppose now and then we women are
+just obliged to weep, being made that way. What I want to talk to you
+about is Jean’s defeat at the election this afternoon. You feel
+responsible for it, don’t you?”
+
+Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings, as
+apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her head.
+
+“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just written
+asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall because of what has
+happened.”
+
+Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an instant
+toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she could not have
+seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared, almost gasped. “How could
+you know, Miss Winthrop?”
+
+Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that it seemed
+to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t know about your
+letter, dear, I only guessed that after the experience you have passed
+through this afternoon, with what has gone before, you were almost sure
+to have written it. And I want to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”
+
+Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my mind,”
+she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now I am quite
+determined.”
+
+A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as though she
+were not speaking directly to the girl before her, Miss Winthrop went
+on. “I believe there are but three types of people in this world, be
+they men or women, that I cannot endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob.
+Unfortunately I have discovered that there are among the girls here in
+my school a good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to
+me and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am very
+sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the weakness, the
+ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you help me, if though
+not a snob, you are one or both of the other two things I have
+mentioned?”
+
+“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at the older
+woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that no others could
+express her meaning so forcibly.
+
+“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the sake of
+Jean and Frieda,” she defended.
+
+“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if you
+think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You feel you
+have endured the slights and coldness of your classmates without
+flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like the hurt that comes to you
+with the feeling that your presence in the school is reflecting on
+Frieda and Jean. They do not wish you to go away, Olive, they will be
+deeply sorry if you do and whatever harm you may think you have done
+them has already been done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away
+from Primrose Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings,
+because your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
+at last!”
+
+Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from her
+listener.
+
+For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed no
+further influence from the outside. By and by she put her small hand on
+Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she replied. “I believe I
+_have_ been thinking all this time about myself without knowing it, You
+made me think of Jack when you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they
+are the kind of words she would have been apt to use.”
+
+Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too, Olive, and
+I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe I learned those two
+words and what they stood for from a boy friend of mine long years ago.
+Now I want to talk to you about yourself.” The woman leaned over, and
+putting her two fingers under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted
+her head back so that she could see in sharp outline every feature of
+the girl’s face.
+
+“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to Primrose
+Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious story, of their
+finding you with an old Indian woman with whom you had apparently lived
+a great many years. I believe that the woman claimed you as her
+daughter, but though no one believed her, your Western friends have
+never made any investigation about your past, fearing that this Indian
+woman might again appear to claim you.”
+
+“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.
+
+“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very many people
+in it and since the idea that you are an Indian worries you so much, I
+want to assure you I do not believe for a moment you have a trace of
+Indian blood in you. Except that you have black hair and your skin is a
+little darker than Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to
+carry a remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
+are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is too
+absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about yourself and if you
+would like me to try to find out something of your history. Perhaps I
+might know better how to go about it than your Western friends.”
+
+For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with the
+sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all I have of my
+own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss Winthrop’s lap and then
+tearing up the letter just written to Ruth, before sitting down again on
+her stool near the older woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss
+Winthrop’s hand, saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can
+recall about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come to
+me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life, whom I
+must have known long before old Laska and the Indian days.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
+
+
+Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and keep back
+nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I will not
+understand. Whoever your father and mother may have been, you certainly
+have ancestors of whom you need not be ashamed.”
+
+Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her eyes on
+the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story of the Indian
+village and of Laska and how she could not recall a time when she had
+not spoken English as white people speak it, then of her years at the
+Government school for Indians taught by a white woman, who had always
+been her friend and assured her that she was not of the same race as the
+Indian children about her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the
+ornaments in the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story,
+Miss Winthrop had not yet examined.
+
+Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the years she
+had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old Laska in the mail
+each month a certain sum of money, large enough to keep her and her son
+in greater wealth and idleness than any of the other Indians in the
+village enjoyed. But from what place this money had come nor who had
+sent it Olive did not know, and so to her this fact did not seem of
+great value, although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on
+hearing it.
+
+“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?” she
+demanded.
+
+Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when puzzled, the
+girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she said slowly. “How
+strange and stupid of me never to have thought of this before! The
+postmark was New York! But New York meant nothing to me in those days,
+Miss Winthrop, except just a name on a map at school. You cannot guess
+how strange and ignorant I was until the ranch girls found me and began
+teaching me a few things that were not to be found in school books. But
+no one could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
+been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have always hoped.
+Laska must have received it for some other reason.” And then Olive,
+either from weariness or disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not
+as though she had told all that she knew, but because she could not
+quite make up her mind to go on.
+
+A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
+
+“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it. But
+this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have told to
+other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon, Miss Drew. What I
+most wish you to confide to me are the ideas and impressions of the
+years when you may not always have lived in the Indian village.”
+
+Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that I have
+had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can confide even to
+you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be possible that a human
+being can remember things at one time of their life and not have known
+them always? Why, since my arrival at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall
+impressions that I did not have at the Rainbow Ranch?”
+
+The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over the
+question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I believe I can
+in a measure understand this problem that troubles you. Half the
+memories that we have in the world come through association. It is the
+sight of an object that recalls something in our past which brings that
+past back to us. Now when you were living at the Rainbow Ranch the
+memory of your life with Laska, the fear that she might take you away
+from your friends, was so close to you that you thought of little else.
+But now you are in an entirely different place, the fear of the woman
+has gone from you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
+associations should bring to life new memories. What is there that you
+have been recalling in these past few months?”
+
+And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she murmured at
+last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I have seen the big,
+white house where Madame Van Mater lives at some time before. Of course,
+I know I have not seen it, for I have never been in this part of the
+world before. But the other day, standing at the window, I suddenly
+remembered a description of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have
+read and learned long years ago, though I never thought of it until that
+moment.”
+
+Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by reason
+of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted quietly. “Can you
+recall anything more about the house and do you think that you ever saw
+Madame Van Mater before the other day?” The strange note in her
+questioner’s voice was lost upon the girl at her feet.
+
+“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like her,”
+Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house did not seem
+familiar, only the outside and the tower room and those ridiculous iron
+dogs guarding the front door. But I want to tell you something that
+seems to me important—of course, my impression about Madame Van Mater’s
+home is sheer madness. What I really can remember is this—” Olive
+stopped for a moment as though trying to be very careful of only telling
+the truth. “I remember that when I was a very little girl I must have
+traveled about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not
+think I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately I
+have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s eyes, turned
+toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope. “He must have been
+very tall, or at least he seemed so to me then, and I went about with
+him everywhere. Finally we came to a place where we stayed a much longer
+time and there Laska first must have come to take care of us. I think
+now that my father must have died in that place, for I can not remember
+anything more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
+Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I perfectly
+certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss Winthrop had not
+spoken and supposing therefore that she considered her idle fancies of
+little account.
+
+The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair, her hand
+shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the expression of
+her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the hearing of her pupil’s
+strange story, she did not now mean to reveal.
+
+“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and surely
+very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting but little
+faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any possible
+connection between your travels in the West as a little child and your
+idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The Towers.’ But there is
+one person who can tell us something of your early history without
+doubt—and that person is this woman Laska! She kept you with her all
+those years for money and probably pretends that you are with her still,
+so that she continues to receive the same money each month, else she
+would have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love of
+money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an offer of
+more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of this, Olive dear,
+to any one in the world at present, but I will write to your old teacher
+at the Government school in the Indian village and perhaps through her
+aid we may reach this Laska.”
+
+Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in the face
+of so great interest and kindness would have been too inadequate. What
+could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now looking at her few
+treasures in the sandalwood box.
+
+“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it slip
+through her fingers as once more she examined its curious workmanship,
+“but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish and is a Spanish
+prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss Winthrop put her hand under
+Olive’s chin, studying the unusual outline of her face. “I wonder if you
+are a Spanish girl, child, for that would explain why you are darker
+than most Americans and why you have so foreign an appearance?”
+
+Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it to her
+friend’s gaze.
+
+Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began turning the
+watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so deeply interested in
+the photograph as in the watch itself. “This watch was sold here in New
+York, Olive, and I have seen one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice
+trembled a little and she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of
+this any more this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to
+ask you to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
+them more closely.”
+
+And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+NEW YEAR’S EVE
+
+
+Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and Miss
+Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the Christmas holidays
+at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For twelve days, save for Olive
+and its owner, the great house had been empty of all its other pupils
+and teachers; now in another thirty-six hours they would be returning to
+take up their work again.
+
+The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean and
+gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap and
+Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson sisters. The ranch girls
+had not wished to leave Olive alone and each one of them had offered to
+remain at school with her, but this sacrifice could hardly be accepted
+because Olive had made no friends who had wished her to be with them.
+Jessica Hunt would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she
+had no home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
+babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their common
+disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these Invitations
+Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared for in a trip to
+New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and this privilege was still
+denied the ranch girls.
+
+Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left alone at
+Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion during the
+holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see what arrangements
+could be made for her pleasure. However, after a serious half hour’s
+talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter consultation with Olive, she had
+gone away again content to leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands
+than her own.
+
+And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for Olive, yet
+they had never been dull, for each moment she was hoping and praying to
+hear some news from old Laska and each hour being drawn into closer
+intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For now that the discipline of school life
+had been relaxed, the principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her
+favorite pupil in a light that would have surprised most of her
+students. She was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive
+with an affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
+private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl would sit
+close together under the shadow of “The Winged Victory,” reading aloud
+or talking of the great world of men and cities about which Miss
+Winthrop knew so much and Olive so little. But of the secret of the
+girl’s past her new friend did not encourage her to talk for the
+present.
+
+“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for us not
+to go into this subject again until we hear from the Indian woman, and
+then should she fail us, I must try to think of some other plan to help
+you.”
+
+And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under every
+human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska, though it was
+now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had been alone all morning
+and unusually depressed, for although she had not heard what she so
+eagerly waited to hear, she had learned that the surgeons had at last
+decided an operation must be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her
+that there was supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s
+spine that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
+operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had insisted
+that it should be tried.
+
+The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of Sleepy
+Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its Indian summer
+mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that she might brace up,
+for certainly she did not intend to let Frieda and Jean find her in the
+dumps on their return from their holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably
+go out with her, as she had been attending to school matters all
+morning, seeing that the house was made ready for the return of her
+students, and Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had
+eaten lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.
+
+While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend she
+herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to find her in
+the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in the library, nor in
+the drawing rooms, could she be found and by and by the maid came back
+to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had gone out and would probably not
+return till tea time. She had left word that Olive must not be lonely
+and that she must entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive
+knew of but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
+would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were no
+longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly familiar
+with the nearby neighborhood.
+
+Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s Christmas
+present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they might have their
+Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given Olive a brown fur coat and
+cap. Olive had not worn them before, but now, with the snow falling and
+the thought of Jack in her mind, she put them both on. For a minute she
+glanced at herself in her mirror before leaving the house and though her
+vanity was less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
+pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her new
+furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people. The soft
+brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness of her hair and
+in her olive cheeks there was a bright color which grew brighter the
+longer and faster she trudged through the lightly falling snow.
+
+Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken for her
+walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a visit to Madame Van
+Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on the old lady every few days
+and knew Olive’s dislike to accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been
+inside “The Towers” nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit
+there. But now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
+her friend returning toward home.
+
+The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity of
+Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because the trees
+had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and were covered only
+with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No man or woman who has
+lived a great deal out of doors in their youth fails to draw new
+strength and cheerfulness from the air and sunshine, and Olive, who had
+left school thinking only that Jack’s operation might not be successful
+and of the pain her friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the
+beautiful possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
+the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some day not
+too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she would never
+hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably dead or had
+disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now with her blood
+running quickly in her veins from the cold and the snow, she determined
+if Laska failed her to go west the next summer and try to trace out her
+ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop, Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew
+stood ready to help her in anything she might undertake.
+
+“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare of
+relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the opening where
+she could catch the first glimpse of the big white house. “I wish Miss
+Winthrop would come along out of there,” she said aloud after waiting a
+minute and finding that standing still made her shiver in spite of her
+furs. “I wonder why I can’t get up the courage to march up to that front
+door past those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
+don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little late,
+Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back alone. Besides,
+I want to walk with her.”
+
+Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very true and
+deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss Winthrop, she cared
+for her with all her heart.
+
+Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and looking up
+toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to recall her own
+foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction to it. There was no one
+about in the front of the house, not a servant nor a caller. For a
+moment Olive stopped, smiling, by one of the big iron dogs that seemed
+to guard the entrance to the old place. She brushed off a little snow
+from the head of one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly
+of me to think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
+Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to be
+brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow from the
+statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have only heard about
+you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I have been told about it
+until I felt almost as if I had seen it,” she announced with greater
+conviction in her tones than she had ever used before, even to herself,
+in trying to recall the confused impressions of her childhood.
+
+But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house and
+ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the door was
+suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss Winthrop stepped
+with an expression on her face no one had ever seen it wear before—one
+of surprise and wonder, anger and pleasure.
+
+“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find the
+girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to Madame Van
+Mater. We have something to tell you.”
+
+[Illustration: “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO
+ME.”]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
+
+
+In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of
+Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently
+waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically
+arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger
+girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.
+
+“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,”
+she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former
+occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old
+lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost
+unconscious antagonism, their glances met.
+
+“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine
+Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said
+coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I
+feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see
+the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And
+possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now
+picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
+strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and
+Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your
+connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as
+possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has
+ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”
+
+Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about
+and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped
+into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.
+
+“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed.
+“Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the
+granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to
+explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an
+only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had
+died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son.
+She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and
+that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
+by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of
+the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to
+me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while
+for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother
+and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the
+stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and
+even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
+their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as
+your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this
+part of the country to the far west and there after several years we
+learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after
+her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that
+they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always
+known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
+paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that
+Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes
+it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now
+paused for a moment.
+
+Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish
+to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my
+mother a lady?” she asked quietly.
+
+“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.
+
+“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this
+house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really
+believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at
+the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of
+Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that
+Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own
+I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy
+on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked
+you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she
+questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.
+
+Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to
+school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay
+here any longer at present.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking
+home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of
+Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers”
+and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and
+confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.
+
+“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and
+over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the
+queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has
+always been intended that you should some day know your own people and
+for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very
+neighborhood.”
+
+After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my
+grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one
+another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might
+have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I
+give up them.”
+
+There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
+“I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in
+the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother
+did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at
+Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my
+pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now
+I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me
+be her friend.”
+
+“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one
+save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of
+trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.
+
+In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with
+her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing
+to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery
+of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it
+better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the
+same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she
+set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at
+the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed
+very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender
+certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry
+dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an
+entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared
+for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
+existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was
+being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of
+Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and
+learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could
+have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really
+believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to
+Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s
+first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
+However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at
+rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her
+mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance
+to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon.
+Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied
+Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she
+believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have
+had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive
+the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?
+
+In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to
+Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van
+Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant
+this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being
+brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as
+Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of
+twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her.
+She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
+she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as
+her heiress and the bearer of her name.
+
+By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their
+long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on
+a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a
+fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they
+could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive
+believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s
+description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and
+that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly
+brought the lines back to her recollection.
+
+Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and
+answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying
+with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night.
+She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss
+Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still
+another question she wished to ask.
+
+“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such
+a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her
+picture in my father’s watch.”
+
+Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and
+foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother
+could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I
+heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own
+appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your
+grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress,
+that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is
+that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
+mentioned as long as she lived.”
+
+With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s
+at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
+
+
+In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last chapter
+Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and loneliness and
+gay with the returning of its students now that the holiday season was
+well past.
+
+Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since trains
+at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the school carryall
+would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the steps, sitting in one
+another’s laps. And it happened that in one of these overloaded parties
+Jean and Frieda arrived at Primrose Hall together.
+
+There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such a number
+of students at one time and so much kissing and embracing among some of
+the girls tragically separated from their best chums for two weeks, that
+in the general hubbub Jean and Frieda noticed no special change in
+Olive. If Jean thought at first that she had looked a little tired she
+forgot about it in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell
+of their own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
+one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing of
+forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very little of
+each other without outside friends being present until almost bedtime
+that night.
+
+Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their lights
+were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire, wearing their
+kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at last for the
+confidential talk to which for different reasons they had all been
+looking forward for some time.
+
+A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their door and on
+the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat two large boxes of
+candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving Richmond, Va., and the other
+a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil Belknap in New York.
+
+For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three girls at
+being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once they began
+talking in chorus.
+
+“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I am the
+youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda protested.
+
+Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the first
+chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both of them
+turned their attention full upon her. It was strange, for of course
+Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a southern city fails to
+have—and yet in spite of all her accounts of dances and dinner parties
+and germans given for the school girls in Richmond during the holidays,
+both Jean and Olive noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual,
+but that, if it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of
+worry appeared to pucker her brow.
+
+“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing altogether too
+much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when Frieda had
+triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets received as favors at
+germans at their feet.
+
+But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t either,
+Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt girls to have a
+good time in the holidays if they only study hard and behave themselves
+properly at school.”
+
+“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.
+
+And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired. Why
+should you girls think there is anything the matter with me?” And she
+turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her audience that it became
+silenced. For five, ten minutes afterwards Frieda continued to hold the
+floor, and then in the midst of an account of a party given at the
+Johnson home she had suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on
+the floor, tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am
+tired to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
+don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you haven’t
+anything special to say, just having stayed here at school with Miss
+Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in New York.”
+
+Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly, both the
+older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had even ceased talking
+her eyes had filled with tears.
+
+The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New York City
+was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was several years older
+than her cousin, in New York school girls are never allowed the same
+privileges that they enjoy in the South. But Jean had been to the
+theatre many times and to luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken
+Margaret and Jean and Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap
+had been very nice and she had liked him a little better, though she
+still thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a leading
+question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded her story.
+“There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell everybody when the
+lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not willing to tell now.”
+
+Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping a large
+chocolate into her mouth.
+
+“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away like
+selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have had a
+dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.
+
+Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time; at
+least, not lately.”
+
+Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s lips.
+
+“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and you took
+long walks together and things like that. I believe Miss Winthrop is
+really fond of you, Olive, even more than she is of Jean and me. I
+wonder why?”
+
+At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she thinks
+Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of course you and
+I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I hope, Olive dear, that
+she was good to you.”
+
+And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly flushed
+scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better than any one
+else in the world except you ranch girls,” she replied.
+
+Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression, Jean’s
+own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she have been so
+unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a sudden flash of
+illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something important on your mind
+that you want to tell us. I might have guessed that you have been
+keeping it a secret ever since we returned, letting us chat all this
+nonsense about our visits first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss
+Winthrop wants to adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented,
+or none of us will ever forgive you in this world!”
+
+Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you yet,” she
+murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen different ways of
+starting in the last two days.”
+
+“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda darkly.
+“I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us for having left
+you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas holidays. Of course Miss
+Winthrop decided that we really do not care much for you and for all her
+coldness to the other girls she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just
+crazy about you, Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But
+whether you like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have
+believed that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
+when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.
+
+“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want to tell
+you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with her if you should
+ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I don’t want to live with her
+if you ranch girls want me. I was only trying to explain——”
+
+“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as white and
+shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty in making her
+confession.
+
+“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her accustomed
+voice and manner, “it is only that since you have been away Miss
+Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an Indian girl. I am not
+even a western girl, or at least my father was not a Westerner. You
+remember the day we went to see the Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old
+Madame Van Mater stared at me so strangely and scolded Donald for
+thinking I was like his mother. She did not wish me to look like Mrs.
+Harmon because Mrs. Harmon was my father’s first cousin and——”
+
+“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!” Frieda
+interposed.
+
+And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling the other
+girls the history of her father and of herself as far back as she had
+learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I have told you all at
+once, girls, for it does sound like a miracle or a fable and we never
+would have believed such a story had we read of it in a book. But Miss
+Winthrop says that every day in the real world just such wonderful
+things are happening as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very
+neighborhood where my father used to live and finding my grandmother
+alive. In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
+coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without interruption,
+of course she believed by this time that both Jean and Frieda understood
+the news she had been trying to make plain to them. Frieda had risen to
+a sitting posture and was staring at her with frightened eyes, Jean was
+frowning deeply.
+
+“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said Frieda at the
+same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of the situation the three
+girls giggled hysterically.
+
+“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story over
+again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean had then
+commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole tale again.
+
+Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime hour,
+until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was preceptress of
+their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop had already told her
+something of Olive’s history, she readily allowed the ranch girls a half
+hour’s extra talk. She could not help their lights going out at ten
+o’clock, however, but the ranch girls did not really care. A candle
+under an umbrella makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any
+the wiser!
+
+Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was Olive’s
+strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more devoted to one
+another than they did to-night. They were sitting with their arms about
+one another when Olive jumped up. “Please lend me the candle a minute,”
+she begged unexpectedly, “I have been talking so much about myself that
+I forgot I had some letters for you. They may be important.”
+
+In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped several
+envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if they are
+Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she said carelessly,
+“but if they are letters you had best wait till morning.”
+
+With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and the paper
+enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my goodness gracious,
+what ever am I going to do?” she asked desperately, seeing three large
+black figures staring at her even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in
+all this world and I owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”
+
+The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed. Instead of
+having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas present during her
+Christmas visit she had spent every cent of it. Now, without waiting for
+her to find out what she could do to get the money for her dreadful
+bill, the wretched, unkind shop people had sent it her on the very first
+day of the New Year.
+
+“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I haven’t
+paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight, uncomfortable moment
+of surprise on the part of the other ranch girls, “but what can I do? I
+suppose I have just got to write to Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it
+for me.”
+
+“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean demanded,
+looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of the candle light.
+
+“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.
+
+Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby. What I
+wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is that I became a
+backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent told Gerry and Margaret
+that we were not absolutely paupers. I just had to spend some of the
+money I had saved, the things in New York were so fascinating. So I
+haven’t much left to lend you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth
+says the mine is not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we
+must all be economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
+away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at Primrose
+Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we are not after
+all; gold mines are often uncertain.”
+
+“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda murmured.
+And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh. “Oh, no, it need
+not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured her, “for I have hardly
+spent a cent since coming to Primrose Hall, so I have nearly enough to
+help you out, so you need not worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that
+however much I may dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to
+allow her to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for
+the money that is now hers should _rightfully_ have come to my father
+even though she did not wish him to have it.”
+
+“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean repeated,
+just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a fortune untold,
+Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of gold.’ I used to think she
+meant our mine.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+READJUSTMENTS
+
+
+In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection with the
+wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of psychology would
+have had an interesting opportunity in the study of the changed attitude
+of her schoolmates toward her. In the first place, from being an Indian
+girl of uncertain origin, Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance
+and also there was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress,
+should her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
+the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some portion
+of the old estate. So you see that instead of being looked down upon as
+the most undesirable student at Primrose Hall, the fourth ranch girl had
+suddenly become exalted upon a pedestal, and perhaps it is just as
+deceptive in this world to look up to other people as it is to look down
+upon them, since a fair judgment can only be attained by standing face
+to face.
+
+Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position than she
+had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded as ill breeding,
+was called haughtiness and her classmates stood a little in awe of her.
+The position was indeed a trying one for everybody concerned in it, for
+scarcely could the girls who had been unkind to Olive, now throw
+themselves about her neck begging her forgiveness, simply because so
+unexpected a turn had come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the
+unwise girls did do this, but not those with better judgment and taste,
+for they understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
+greater tact.
+
+Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one could
+be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent snubbing of
+Olive from the first day of her entrance into Primrose Hall, not because
+she liked Olive any better than she had at first, but because Winifred
+only cared for persons who might be useful to her, and now this
+ridiculous Olive with her romantic history, might be very useful indeed.
+The point at issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
+hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the Junior
+students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made before that the
+three girls who stood closest in line for this prize were Winifred,
+Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that Olive would of course
+withdraw from the contest, since she could hardly take a prize presented
+by her own grandmother, but what Winifred feared was that Olive might
+throw the balance of her influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she
+now undertook to show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls
+without offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
+confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their friend,
+was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but there was little
+assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the first place Jessica
+declared immediately that Olive was not to give up her effort to win the
+Shakespeare prize. Jessica had talked the matter over both with Olive
+and Miss Winthrop and they had decided in council that Olive need not
+give up her cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
+Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
+reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have the best
+yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the close of the
+school year and give the best recitation from any one of the Shakespeare
+plays.
+
+Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred had then
+freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards to Olive, but
+though her manner was now entirely friendly, her protest had not the
+least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed, when things had settled down
+into routine again Olive continued to work harder than ever during the
+following winter and spring months. Of course, her position among her
+classmates had altered somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her
+friends as well as a number of other girls who had never been actively
+disagreeable, but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a
+faint pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like one
+another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real antagonism of
+temperament. They exchanged greetings in their class rooms and several
+times Winifred called on the ranch girls, but as her visits were never
+returned, she had to try other methods of softening the hostility her
+own unkindness had created, hoping that before the school year was over
+something would give her a chance to win their liking.
+
+One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from their
+Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and with
+distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their mystic order.
+When finally the invitation, so much discussed, had been extended to the
+two ranch girls they had not known what to do in the matter. Of course,
+they had not wished to show continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s
+advice, had joined the society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty
+club house and the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority
+gave during the rest of the school year.
+
+So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
+Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother were
+still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop had been in
+the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and Frieda, but there were
+times when pilgrimages had to be made alone. Why they had to be made at
+all Olive did not understand, for Madame Van Mater still showed but
+little liking for the granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop
+had surely thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch
+girls it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least fear
+of her and when they had made their first call it was with difficulty
+that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of her mind in regard
+to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van Mater’s age prevented her
+from receiving the scolding and perhaps her manner. For instead Jean
+told her the story of the ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how
+much she had previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well
+as the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly invited
+Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but of their life at
+the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls could be eloquent on the
+subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed the floor and three times in the
+course of the conversation Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud,
+a proceeding most unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her
+hardness and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
+treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her son had
+forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions. But whatever
+her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was forced to continue the
+weekly calls.
+
+One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school matters
+and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of basketball, Olive found
+herself compelled to go alone to see her grandmother. And she was
+particularly vexed over this special visit, as she had wished to join
+the other girls in their game.
+
+Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame Van Mater
+with entire formality in the old drawing room, where they had had their
+two memorable meetings, but to-day she found the drawing room empty and
+while she waited a maid came to say that she was kindly to walk
+upstairs.
+
+Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old drawing
+room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going upstairs found her
+grandmother before an open fire wrapped about with silk shawls and
+comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as high as usual and her
+costume as handsome, but it was plain to see that she was not so well.
+
+“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe cold,” she
+announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with her, never having at
+any time offered her any more intimate greeting.
+
+Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really feeling
+bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half hour. These
+calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston was still a prisoner
+in New York were the only worries she now seemed to have at Primrose
+Hall.
+
+“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her remark
+waved aside.
+
+“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but if I were
+there are other more important matters than my health which I wish to
+discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I very glad to see you
+alone.”
+
+There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had never
+attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by pretending to feel
+any affection for her. She now simply sat perfectly still and
+respectful, waiting to hear what was to be said next. But rarely had she
+looked more attractive than on this afternoon. In the first place, her
+walk had given her a bright color and she was wearing a particularly
+becoming frock.
+
+Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great care on
+these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock, which Ruth
+lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the first time. It was
+of some soft material of silk and wool made with a short waist and
+softly clinging skirt of a bright golden brown with a girdle of brown
+velvet. Olive was very slender always and of only medium height, but her
+dark coloring was rich and unusual and now her expression was gayer and
+in some unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
+manner than formerly.
+
+For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
+continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting opposite
+her, and then, without the least warning of her intention, said
+abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not understood why I have insisted
+on your coming to see me so regularly and constantly since my discovery
+of your connection with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you
+have not I am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying
+you and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a great
+injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his choice of an
+occupation and by his marriage to your mother instead of Katherine
+Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off from me all responsibility in
+regard to his child. You are not altogether what I would have you to be,
+you have less social ease of manner and less conversational ability than
+I desire in my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults
+in you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them. What I
+am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make reparation to you
+by having you come here to live with me when your year at Primrose Hall
+is passed, and if I find you as refined and as capable of being managed
+as I now suppose you to be, I am prepared to change my will, making you
+heir to the greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and
+nephew, Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
+for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I wish to
+do it. And also because it will please Katherine Winthrop, who is one of
+the few persons for whom I have always cared.”
+
+Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips, but
+seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no intention of
+thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly, “only of refusing your
+offer. It may be very kind of you to desire me to live with you, but I
+thought you understood that nothing and no one in the world could ever
+persuade me to stop living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me
+to be with them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or
+anything else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”
+
+“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far more
+inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her. “Of course, I
+wish to say nothing against these friends of yours; under the
+circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful to them for their
+kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect to live forever on their
+bounty, and what can they offer you in the way of social opportunity? I
+believe they have no parents to introduce them into society, only this
+chaperon named Ruth Drew and some man or other who manages their ranch.”
+
+Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very anxious or
+very well fitted for social opportunity,” she answered, “but I don’t
+think you need worry about the ranch girls, for when the time comes for
+them to take any part in society I am sure they will find opportunities
+enough. I wrote Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation
+was over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she wanted me
+to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would travel or do
+whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any of us know yet
+whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean and Frieda and I have
+positively made up our minds that nothing will induce us to be separated
+from her after this year.”
+
+“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater returned
+coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this question with you. I
+shall have Katherine Winthrop put the matter before you. But you can
+rest assured, Olive, of these two things: In the first place, that if at
+any time you displease me I can leave my money to any one whom I may
+select, as my husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and
+in the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you are
+not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your natural
+guardian.”
+
+Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to be
+violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature anger must
+get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the girl now got up from
+her chair and crossing the room faced Madame Van Mater with an
+expression as determined as her own. “Please understand that I do not
+want to defraud either Donald or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have
+always promised them. They have been very kind since the discovery of my
+connection with them and of course you must be more fond of them than
+you can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I don’t
+want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother, nor do I feel
+that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect of me. Do you think it
+is quite fair for you now to speak of being my natural guardian when for
+so many years you desired nothing so much as that my name should never
+be mentioned to you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any
+more, but understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”
+
+Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger, for
+until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her rather too
+gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her shoulders
+indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of course, Olive, I shall
+decide later what course in regard to you I shall consider it advisable
+to take.”
+
+So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever before in
+her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for consolation to
+Primrose Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”
+
+
+May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along the
+Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with sail boats
+dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky and toward the
+water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats chugged along, making
+more noise than automobiles; while the steam yachts, ever the
+aristocrats among all water craft, sailing into their own harbors up and
+down the Hudson shores, ever and anon put forth again as though
+intending to leave home behind for adventures on the open sea. All the
+hills beyond and near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like
+mammoth bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
+while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater variety
+of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places in this land.
+
+Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine Winthrop’s old
+home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before ever the school was
+thought of. For wild primroses blossomed everywhere, although the season
+was late, until the garden about the old place looked like the famous
+field of “The Cloth of Gold.”
+
+As much as possible on these bright May days the students at Primrose
+Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year drawing to a close it
+was not always easy to desert lessons and the thought of approaching
+examinations.
+
+One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a corner of one
+of the big verandas with a table between them and a screen carefully set
+up to protect them from interruption. The girls were not talking, indeed
+an utter silence had reigned between them for the last ten minutes,
+broken only by the squeak of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the
+present term and by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an
+oration by Cicero.
+
+Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short time
+later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair of feet but
+of several, and yet not a single head appeared above it.
+
+Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work, determined not
+to be lured from the strict path of duty.
+
+“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself, “seeing
+our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’ will go away and
+leave us in peace.”
+
+But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few inches from
+where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion to the study of
+literature and the classics will prevent one from jumping up with a
+scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at the same instant, and behold,
+there, with only the prostrate screen dividing them, were Gerry and
+Margaret, Lucy and Mollie Johnson, besides several other members of
+their Junior class!
+
+“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry announced,
+pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised dagger.
+
+Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want with
+us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come interrupting a fellow
+at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”
+
+“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily. “Do you
+suppose that when school is nearly over that we care half so much for
+the views and wishes of our lady principal as we do earlier in the year,
+when we might have to live on under the shadow of her displeasure?
+However, on this one occasion the fear of that august personage need not
+darken our young lives, since she has given her consent to what I am now
+about to propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I
+had best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to accept
+it beforehand.”
+
+Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such moral
+hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything agreeable this
+afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t accept any invitation,
+and yet if you ask us we may.”
+
+Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what it is.
+You must get your coats and hats at once and come and drive with us for
+a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and there father and Cecil will
+be waiting for us in our yacht to take us for a sail.”
+
+“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically, gathering
+her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think that I have never
+been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole life!”
+
+Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies this
+afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the overturned
+screen in their efforts to get up to their room for hats and coats
+without delay.
+
+However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for Jean to
+have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen slowly returning
+toward her group of friends.
+
+“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please excuse
+us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”
+
+Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please don’t think
+I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she said softly, “but
+really I don’t believe I had better go with you this afternoon after
+all. Frieda says she _will_ go,” and unconsciously the speaker put an
+added emphasis on the verb will.
+
+Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
+particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.
+
+“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make you
+change your mind in the distance between the veranda and your bedroom
+door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you won’t go for a sail
+on the Hudson for the first time in your life because you love your
+Cicero so.”
+
+Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not exactly.”
+
+“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have asked
+Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join us. Of course
+she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare essay of hers. And to
+think that once I believed I had a chance at that Shakespeare prize.”
+
+At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh, if
+Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us, she shall
+not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she could vanish for the
+second time Margaret and Gerry both clutched at her skirts.
+
+“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really want her,
+and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.” Margaret
+explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson with anger and
+resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.
+
+“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get over being
+so touchy about one another? You know that now we know Olive better, we
+like her as much as any girl in our class. To tell you the truth, it is
+just because we are trying to fix up some plan to show Olive how we feel
+toward her that we did not want her to come along with us now. It seemed
+to us this would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
+what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at first,”
+Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and perhaps put things
+pretty badly.”
+
+“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get my
+belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in mind.”
+
+An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and Mollie and
+Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private landing pier not far
+from their school, were assisted aboard the steam yacht “Marathon” by
+Cecil Belknap and his father.
+
+During the first half of the sail there was little real conversation
+among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at the beauty of the
+river scenery and the wonders of the yacht. But by and by on their
+return journey when Margaret and her guests were seated around the salon
+dining table drinking afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting
+off things, turned to her hostess.
+
+“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the entire
+company to overhear, “if your father and brother will pardon us, I vote
+that we plunge right into the subject we have come together to discuss
+this afternoon. I suppose your father and Cecil must both have heard
+something of Olive’s story by now.”
+
+Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have Olive’s
+difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap, whom she did not
+yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest she did not like to
+protest.
+
+Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with her
+teaspoon poised in the air.
+
+“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You know that
+when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most of us liked two of
+the three girls right from the first, after a few of their western
+peculiarities had rubbed up against our eastern ones. But with the third
+girl, with Olive—well, it was different. In the first place, Olive was
+shy and did not look exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier
+than I am, for example); in the second place, the story was circulated
+about among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
+dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and that now
+she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to her own mother. Of
+course, had any one of us ever looked at Olive very hard we must have
+known that this story was an untruth, or else only a half truth, which
+is the worst kind of a lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy
+to stand up for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this
+horrid part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
+end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little further
+than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as clever as Olive
+in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as refined and gentle in
+her manner, could hardly be what we had believed her, simply couldn’t.
+And now I want to say just one thing in excuse for myself. I did know
+that Olive was a lady and more than a lady, a trump, before I learned
+that she was not an Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused
+an instant to sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express
+her romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.
+
+Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s respite.
+
+“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did try to
+be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas holidays, intending
+on my return to ask her to overlook the past and be friends. I suppose
+there were other girls in our class who felt the same way and had this
+same intention?”
+
+As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There certainly
+were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we got back from our
+holidays it was then too late to make Olive believe in our good
+intentions, because in that short time things had so changed for her
+that she had become more interesting than any of the rest of us. You can
+see, Jean and Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The
+well-broughtup Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment
+and only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
+rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had learned
+of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that she would care
+very much for such a belated repentance. So for months now we have been
+trying to think of some pretty and tactful way to show our real feeling
+toward her and now we hope we have at last hit upon the right plan.”
+
+“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long time,”
+and though a laugh went all around the table at her expense, Gerry again
+burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we are to have our school finals
+now in a short time and see the Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who
+are trying for the Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the
+committee specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
+luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests at the
+commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps you two ranch
+girls don’t know and that is that we always choose one of the Primrose
+Hall girls as our Queen for commencement day. Of course she must be
+selected from among the entire school, not from any one class; but
+Margaret and some of the other Juniors and I have been talking things
+over with the Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and
+that they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
+and Frieda?”
+
+Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda still
+appeared mystified.
+
+“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if you
+really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although she was
+trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil Belknap, who had
+been watching her pretty closely all afternoon through his same hateful
+pair of eyeglasses.
+
+“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first toward Mollie
+and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation of this everlasting
+preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.
+
+“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,” Gerry
+returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose you can call
+her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she does preside over
+our dances all afternoon, leads any special ones, and we pay her
+whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t you, Cecil, or any other
+human being at this table start reciting: ‘You must wake and call me
+early, call me early, mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not
+for that tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May
+Queen one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
+that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
+commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose because it
+is so ridiculously easy to remember.”
+
+As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the table, her
+guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all settled,” she
+exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup, “so let us drink to
+Olive as our next queen and to the other ranch girls.”
+
+“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,” Frieda
+suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And Gerry’s hearty “Of
+course,” ended the pretty scene.
+
+For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made their way
+again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group Jean was the last to
+leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.
+
+“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My sister
+tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our cottage on the
+Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you are going to be jolly
+enough to come, for I should enjoy it most awfully.”
+
+“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?” Jean’s
+eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she ended prettily,
+extending her hand to the young man.
+
+Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
+twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore. “No, it
+is not what I would call good of me,” he replied quietly. “I thought I
+told you at our house at Christmas that I liked you and that if there
+wasn’t any fellow out West, I would like to see more of you anyhow. Do
+say you will make us the visit?”
+
+With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped develop in
+her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “I have already
+explained to Margaret that I shan’t be able to come to her this summer.
+You see, my cousin, Jack Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to
+leave the hospital in New York early in June and then we expect to go
+back to the Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
+knows where?”
+
+The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now running
+in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the soft, spring dusk
+the travelers could see the old school carryall and in another carriage
+Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting to drive the party back to Primrose
+Hall. But before anybody was allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had
+solemnly whispered to each one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not
+to hear a single, solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up
+to the very last minute.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
+
+
+“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,” Gerry
+Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back view of herself
+in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly lovely, Winifred, and I would
+not be a bit surprised if you get the Shakespeare prize after all, even
+though Olive has the best class record for the year and I the highest
+mark for my essay. We are so close together in this contest that the
+least thing may change the balance. It is my private opinion that
+whoever gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
+prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to adjust her
+doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I have been born a
+stately blonde beauty like you so that I might have appeared as lovely
+Ophelia instead of having to represent Rosalind on account of my short
+hair?”
+
+Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently, happening at
+that moment to catch sight of her own fair reflection. She was dressed
+in a long clinging robe of some soft white material and her pale blonde
+hair, bound with a fillet of silver, hung loose about her neck. In her
+hand she held a sheet of paper with her speech written upon it, which
+she glanced at a little nervously every now and then.
+
+    “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
+    The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
+    The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”
+
+“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my recitation,”
+Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of stage fright
+already, and to think that I have to make the first speech!” She glanced
+up at the clock on their mantel. “It is only a half hour now before we
+must go downstairs and I believe that there have never been so many
+guests at one of our commencements before. I suppose it is because the
+day is so beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
+wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least a
+hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the ranch girls’
+room we can see out into the yard and I can have a look at Olive. I am
+simply dying to find out what she looks like!”
+
+Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to come near
+Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her herself and to slip
+around to the entrance to the stage in the pavilion, so that no one
+shall dare speak to her. So I suppose if the truth be known, Winifred,
+Olive is just about as badly scared as you are and a good deal more so,
+considering how dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not
+look pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never saw
+any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare costume.
+And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in ‘The Winter’s
+Tale’ for her character because I asked her to. She had once made me
+think of a description of Perdita.”
+
+Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the room.
+“See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too hateful for you to
+have kept on encouraging Olive to try for this prize. It will look
+awfully queer to people if she accepts a prize from her own grandmother
+anyhow, and I do need it most dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper
+Winifred was almost in tears, though not for worlds would she
+consciously have marred her lovely appearance.
+
+A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t leave me
+out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she begged. “I may not have
+so great beauty as you and Olive to commend me, but remember:
+
+    “‘From the east to western Ind,
+    No jewel is like Rosalind.
+    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
+    Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”
+
+Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling stride
+toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more friendliness than
+she had shown her in many weeks. “Come, Winifred, what is the use of our
+worrying now? I believe I need this prize money quite as much as you do,
+since my father has just made some unfortunate investments and may not
+be able to let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year.
+And of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
+take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have an
+equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive wins we ought
+not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand how she wants the glory
+of winning and not the prize itself. She told me that she had been
+working for this prize ever since she first came to Primrose Hall in
+order to show her beloved Jack Ralston how much she had appreciated the
+opportunities she had given her.”
+
+In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but at the
+same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great clapping of
+hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her hand. “Good gracious,
+there is someone’s speech just ending!” she exclaimed, “so our turns
+will come soon.”
+
+And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
+Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are April when
+they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You Like It” and began
+once more to read over her part.
+
+So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s voice was
+heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare heroines?” she
+demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long coats around you and
+come on downstairs now. The coast is clear and it is almost time for
+your speeches. I will tell Olive.”
+
+Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose Hall had
+ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had one called forth
+so many guests.
+
+Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a stage had
+been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many yards from the
+great house and a kind of covered arbor temporarily arranged so that the
+girls who took part in the commencement exercises might pass from the
+house to the stage without being seen by the audience. The stage had no
+curtain and only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
+clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either side were
+piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from the woods,
+delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and the floor of the
+stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups, violets and daisies.
+
+In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was seated,
+perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her first public
+appearance before it might reasonably be frightened. Perhaps it was the
+beauty of the day, perhaps the novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage
+arrangements, for surely no audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic
+than hers, and as each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently
+entering from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
+applause and interest had increased.
+
+The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
+programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were half a
+dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act as judges, and
+a few feet from them in a chair next Miss Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van
+Mater, the owner of “The Towers” and the donor of the Shakespeare prize.
+Her appearance at the commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but
+whether she came because of her interest in her newly-found
+granddaughter or whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no
+one had been told.
+
+When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur of
+admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to her, giving
+her just the confidence she had needed for the making of her speech. And
+truly her beauty justified the admiration, for she was wearing the
+costume that best suited her and was most effective against the natural
+background of evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the
+leaves of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
+gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her dress.
+
+Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her upstairs, nor a
+moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred recited Ophelia’s famous
+description of Hamlet, ending with the words, “O, woe is me, To have
+seen what I have seen, see what I see.” Then for just a moment she
+paused with a pretty, pathetic gesture and her gaze swept the faces of
+her judges before she vanished from the stage amid much clapping of
+hands. Three times Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each
+call Gerry’s heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.
+
+“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred has
+already won.” When a friend standing near whispered something in her ear
+she laughed in her usual good-humored fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can
+recite better than Winifred, but what avails it me when I can’t look
+like the goddess of spring as she does at this moment there on the stage
+with her arms full of flowers.”
+
+Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed arbor in
+the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her recitation came next,
+and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded by Jean, was also waiting.
+
+Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean. Then she
+darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for the last time;
+are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely, but she did not speak
+distinctly enough. Remember it is difficult to hear out of doors.”
+
+Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses, she
+tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the stage in
+her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find her way through
+an unknown woods, had stumbled in the underbrush.
+
+No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and yet in the
+character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly at her best. Perhaps
+the description that the heroine gives of herself in masquerade will
+best describe Gerry’s present appearance.
+
+    “More than common tall,
+    That I did suit me all points like a man?
+    A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,
+    A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart
+    Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—
+    We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”
+
+And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her recitation she
+did not in any way betray it, for at once the gayety of Rosalind, her
+wit and gallant courage, seemed to have fallen like a mantle upon Gerry.
+Twice her audience laughed aloud in the course of her recitation and
+once two of the judges nodded at each other, which had not happened
+during Winifred’s speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to
+the stage again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain
+that unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
+would be the winner of their contest.
+
+For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the third
+girl, who was to close the competition, made her appearance. And this
+was unfortunate for Olive. In the first place, the large audience was
+growing a little bit tired and hungry, and in the second place, it gave
+them the opportunity to begin talking of Olive’s curious history,
+retailing to one another as much or as little as each one of them knew.
+
+Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New York and
+shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica Hunt and Miss
+Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure the planning of it had
+given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome days at the hospital. Not that she
+and Ruth were Shakespeare scholars, only it had happened that years
+before Ruth had seen a famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from
+the stage, in this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and
+had never forgotten the details of her dress.
+
+Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last skipped on to
+the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress that came down to her
+ankles, covered with an overdress of flowered tulle. Her long and
+curiously black hair was braided in the two familiar loose braids with a
+single pink flower at one side, and on her arm she carried a basket of
+spring flowers.
+
+Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from the first
+that Olive would be frightened to death before so many people? It was
+odd, therefore, that as she first came down toward the edge of the
+platform she smiled assurance at Miss Winthrop, who was trying her best
+not to appear too anxious or too interested in her favorite pupil.
+
+Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly to dance
+an old English folk dance such as the country people must have danced in
+rustic England long before even Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art
+with Olive, so that before she commenced her speech her audience was
+won.
+
+Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when her
+dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the center of the
+open-air stage:
+
+    “I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might
+    Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”
+
+She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people watching her
+as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to them.
+
+Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater stiffened and
+her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten her part and is going
+to make a spectacle of herself and me!” she whispered in her friend’s
+ear. “I wish I had never come.”
+
+And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown suddenly ill,
+for she continued standing perfectly still and speechless for a period
+of one, two minutes, though surely it seemed like ten, while waves of
+color swept over her face, turning it crimson and then leaving it pale.
+“Oh, I cannot believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking
+her eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
+exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.
+
+What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to the
+girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught it, for she
+smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of wild-flowers appeared
+to present them to various characters, who in Shakespeare’s play stand
+grouped around the figure of Perdita as she makes this speech:
+
+    “Daffodils,
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
+    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
+    Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
+    That die unmarried—”
+
+As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket, dropping
+them to the ground and moving gradually backwards toward the entrance to
+the stage. Then, when she had recited the last line of her speech, she
+made a quick bow and before her audience realized that her speech was
+actually over, had disappeared.
+
+Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s and
+Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For Jean was
+waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her at once.
+
+“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I didn’t see?
+It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me before?”
+
+“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered, trying
+to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack wishes you to
+come to her at once.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+“JACK”
+
+
+Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms about
+her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and fragile and
+leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep bronze, the color of
+copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes, were now unusually dark with
+emotion. She was evidently trying to appear less disturbed than she
+felt, for her head was tilted back the least bit and her lips were held
+close together; indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
+self-control.
+
+“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely unconscious of
+the number of persons about them, and the girl in the costume of an
+English shepherdess arrived at the desired goal first.
+
+“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first meeting
+after a long separation from one we love. And so for several moments the
+two ranch girls clung together trying hard to keep back their tears,
+while Jean, standing a little apart from them, pretended to laugh at
+their emotion.
+
+“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did it
+happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I don’t care
+whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are here.” Olive said at
+last.
+
+“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so much by
+surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But you see it was
+like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more heavily on her cane,
+although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it. “When my operation was over
+neither the surgeons nor anybody knew just at first whether or not I was
+to get well. So of course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until
+we were certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
+I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out here at
+Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I did not mean to
+put off coming until commencement day,” Jack continued apologetically,
+“but somehow I did not get well quite as fast as I expected, until it
+had to be now or never, so Ruth wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this
+morning but not to let you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would
+somehow affect your speech.”
+
+“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think how I
+felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I saw you
+standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you used to do.”
+
+“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only I got
+so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am perfectly
+well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not accustomed to
+standing so long.”
+
+Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried off,
+returning in another minute empty handed. But following close behind her
+was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked a little out of place at
+Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a freedom and power that did not
+speak of city streets, neither did the deep tan of his skin. He was
+carrying the big, comfortable chair for Jean.
+
+“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so many
+surprises in one day!” Olive protested.
+
+Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of the
+Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so that he
+could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another moment his big
+hands closed over hers.
+
+“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied. “To
+think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books, and here I
+was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow Ranch, whose
+history makes most of the fiction tales look real pale! But ain’t it
+great to see the boss herself again. I couldn’t believe she was getting
+well when she wrote me; I was like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to
+show me’.” And here Jim put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.
+
+“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
+demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five minutes
+together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to let my sister get
+out of my sight again as long as I live!” Frieda had joined the little
+group under the linden tree just as Jim was finishing his speech and
+before Olive could answer him.
+
+Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my
+grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.
+
+[Illustration: “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”]
+
+Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully
+glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us
+less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well
+enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your
+grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had
+been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who
+are all those persons coming towards us now?”
+
+Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
+Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the
+line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and
+apparently unconscious of every one else.
+
+With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
+immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.
+
+“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received
+the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the
+most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in
+the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I
+want to congratulate you.”
+
+With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious
+rival.
+
+But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
+congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,”
+she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”
+
+“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with
+them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly
+trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were
+standing together.
+
+“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss Winthrop at
+once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying for it just to see
+what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does not wish the prize given
+her, and of course under the circumstances Olive does not wish it
+herself.”
+
+Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were peremptorily borne
+away by a number of their classmates. Later on from a kind of throne on
+one of the Primrose Hall verandas Jack and some of her friends witnessed
+the pretty ceremony of the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For
+several hours afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive
+raising a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
+royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during the
+afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once, when Jack had
+been watching them, she happened to turn to speak to Madame Van Mater,
+who sat next her. But whatever she may have intended to say she did not,
+but instead waited to study her companion’s expression.
+
+There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly pleased
+at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was almost a smile
+of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack flushed, biting her
+lips, then she leaned over and spoke:
+
+“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have Olive go
+home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if afterwards you will
+do something that is kinder still?” she asked.
+
+With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there was an
+air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was very pleasing.
+
+“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere with my
+granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but what more would
+you have me to do?”
+
+For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa cushions
+looking out over the garden and fields to where afar off she could see
+just a silver line marking the course of the Hudson River.
+
+“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame Van
+Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t believe I
+had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my life. And all the
+time lately I have been thinking and longing for just two things. One to
+see our beloved ranch again, to get on horseback and ride for miles and
+miles over the prairie. And then—”
+
+“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest than you
+would believe she could show.
+
+Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I can.
+You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used to think
+perhaps I should never see much more of the world than just four walls.”
+Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders in her old, determined way.
+“But I am well now and, as the doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I
+want you to promise to let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and
+me next fall?”
+
+“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent idea! I
+could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel and experience
+may give her just the ease and culture she needs. But who will look
+after you?”
+
+At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
+companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil of
+watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight hold of her
+hand.
+
+“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She will not
+go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go abroad
+afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”
+
+Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss Winthrop
+arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying farewell to her
+guests.
+
+So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking about in
+the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left alone. Not far off
+they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda
+holding on to his hands like little girls.
+
+Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.
+
+“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to
+hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw
+each other again you would forget what has separated you and only
+remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill,
+love seems the only thing that is really important.”
+
+Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at
+the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to
+her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered,
+although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone
+since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my
+hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.”
+
+Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than it had
+been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not forget,” she
+answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest, kindest person in the
+world.” And then the oldest ranch girl sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the
+horridest thing in the world to have to wait for the nice things to
+happen?” she asked. “Of course, we all know, Ruth, that some day
+everything will turn out for the best, but it is just that silly old
+indefinite word some that makes the waiting so difficult.”
+
+The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will appear
+under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this story the
+histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be more fully
+developed, for having put childhood and school life behind them, they
+will enter that broader world of young womanhood, where romance stands
+ever waiting round the corner.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
+Margaret Vandercook
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56097 ***
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
-Margaret Vandercook
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
-
-Author: Margaret Vandercook
-
-Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine
-
-Release Date: December 1, 2017 [EBook #56097]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank
-
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-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class='d000'>
-<div class='d001'>
-  <div class='d002'>
-    <img class='d003'
-    alt='MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN'
-    src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' />
-  </div>
-  <p class='d004'>
-  MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN
-  </p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='d005'>
-<p class='d006'>THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES</p>
-<p class='d007'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</p>
-<p class='d008'>By</p>
-<p class='d006'>Margaret Vandercook</p>
-<p class='d008'>Illustrated By</p>
-<p class='d006'>Hugh A. Bodine</p>
-<p class='d009'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
-<p class='d010'>PHILADELPHIA</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class='d005'>
-<p class='d006'>Copyright, 1913, by</p>
-<p class='d006'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class='d011'>
-  <p class='d012'>CONTENTS</p>
-  <div class='d013'>
-      <div class='d014'>
-          <p class='d015'>
-              <a href='#chI'>I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”</a><br />
-              <a href='#chII'>II. IN DISGRACE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chIII'>III. “GERRY”</a><br />
-              <a href='#chIV'>IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS</a><br />
-              <a href='#chV'>V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</a><br />
-              <a href='#chVI'>VI. HER TEMPTATION</a><br />
-              <a href='#chVII'>VII. CINDERELLA</a><br />
-              <a href='#chVIII'>VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chIX'>IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chX'>X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXI'>XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXII'>XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXIII'>XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXIV'>XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXV'>XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXVI'>XVI. ELECTION DAY</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXVII'>XVII. CONGRATULATIONS</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXVIII'>XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXIX'>XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXX'>XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXXI'>XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXXII'>XXII. READJUSTMENTS</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXXIII'>XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXXIV'>XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</a><br />
-              <a href='#chXXV'>XXV. “JACK”</a>
-          </p>
-      </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<h1 class='d016'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</h1>
-
-<h2 id='chI' class='d017'>CHAPTER I<br/>“STILL AS THE NIGHT”</h2>
-
-<p>Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big
-bare room stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the
-great house known as Primrose Hall, not far from the famous
-region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had struck three, then four, and
-now one, two, three, four, five solemn strokes boomed forth
-and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to announce the
-coming of morning.</p>
-
-<p>“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul,
-that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the
-ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrow within the
-quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true
-of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a short
-pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever
-going to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to
-have lasted forever and ever!” For no answer had followed
-the question, although a door stood wide open between this
-and an adjoining room and the bed in the other room was
-occupied by two persons.</p>
-
-<p>Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of
-reciting the “Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful
-figure slipped suddenly from its own bed and a slim ghost
-stole across the floor—a ghost that even in the darkness
-revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In the
-farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek
-against another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful,
-while its hand reached forth to find another hand that lay
-outside the coverlet.</p>
-
-<p>“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying
-to waken them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they
-sleep so soundly the first night at a strange boarding
-school when I am so homesick and lonely I know that I am
-going to die or cry or do something else desperate? If only
-Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
-Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch,
-sliding to the floor again, sat with her legs crossed under
-her and her head resting on her hands in a curious Indian
-posture of grief. And while she waited, watching beside the
-bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now quietly
-asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New
-York City, which held her beloved friend Jack.</p>
-
-<p>Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by
-their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance
-at Primrose Hall to begin their first year of fashionable
-boarding school life. But once the girls had been introduced
-to the principal of the school, Miss Katherine Winthrop, and
-Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms assigned to
-the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
-train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles,
-for Jack had been left behind in a hospital and must not be
-long alone. There she lay awaiting the verdict of the New
-York surgeons to know whether after her accident at the
-Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect to
-walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow
-Lodge in Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the
-ranch girls an eastern education and to fit them for a more
-cosmopolitan life now that so great wealth was being brought
-forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out what could be
-done for Jack.</p>
-
-<p>Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend,
-a faint, chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings
-sounded along the outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting
-her head with a smothered cry of delight, the girl spied a
-thin streak of light shining across the floor. A moment
-later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her
-and her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning
-the unfamiliar scene before her. Dawn had come at last!</p>
-
-<p>The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her
-arrival at school the day before, in the first meeting with
-so many strangers, Olive had not spared time to see or think
-of the surroundings of Primrose Hall, but now she could
-examine the landscape thoroughly. Set in the midst of one of
-the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson River, this
-morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
-with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the
-immortelles; the low hills in the background were brown and
-red and gold with the October foliage of the trees. Beyond
-the fields the Hudson River ran broader and deeper than any
-stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across from
-it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now
-veiled in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine
-could be more wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson
-River; and yet, as Olive Ralston gazed out upon it, its
-beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the lump in her
-throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
-sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and
-nothing could be more unlike the low level sweep of their
-Wyoming prairie than this Hudson River country.</p>
-
-<p>“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we
-have named homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours,
-for surely this longing for home, for accustomed people and
-things in the midst of strange surroundings, may be a woe
-very deep and intense.</p>
-
-<p>From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come
-east to boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the
-change from the simple life of the ranch to the more
-conventional school atmosphere would be more difficult for
-her than for either Jean or Frieda. True, she had not spoken
-of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed Olive,
-had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl,
-with no name of her own and no people, and except for her
-friends’ generosity might still be living in the dirty hut
-in the Indian village with old Laska.</p>
-
-<p>After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all
-decided that it would be wiser not to mention Olive’s
-strange history to her new schoolmates. Now in the midst of
-her attack of homesickness, Olive wondered if the girls
-would not at once guess her mixed blood from her odd
-appearance, or else might she not some day betray her
-ignorance of the little manners and customs that reveal a
-good family and good breeding? In the two happy years spent
-at the Rainbow Ranch she had learned all she could from Ruth
-and the other three girls, but were there not fourteen other
-ignorant years back of those two years?</p>
-
-<p>A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window
-with her quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial
-casement. But now, finding both the autumn air and her own
-thoughts chilling, she turned away and began slowly to
-dress. She was still blue and yet at the same time ashamed
-of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
-foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here
-at Primrose Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of
-her big opportunity and have not big opportunities the world
-over the fashion of starting out with difficulties to be
-overcome? When Olive’s education was completed she had made
-up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
-she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the
-teaching of the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda
-Ralston, since the discovery of the gold mine near Rainbow
-Creek, were probably very wealthy and though it was but
-right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should share
-their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished
-to be always dependent even on the best of friends.</p>
-
-<p>Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the
-young girl’s mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and
-yet she could not make up her mind how best to amuse herself
-until the half-past seven o’clock bell should ring for
-breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but there was no
-news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
-hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken
-Jean and Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven
-famous sleepers. No other girl shared Olive’s room because
-Ruth and the four ranch girls hoped that after a few weeks’
-treatment in the New York hospital Jack would then be able
-to join the others at school.</p>
-
-<p>Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to
-her open window and there stood listening to the “chug,
-chug, chug” of a big steamer out on the river and then to
-the shriek of an engine along its banks. Suddenly her face
-brightened.</p>
-
-<p>“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed
-aloud, “I think I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad
-temper and go and have a good walk to myself before
-breakfast.”</p>
-
-<p>Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out
-alone and without permission she would be breaking an iron
-law of Primrose Hall. Nothing was farther from her mind than
-disobedience, but no one had yet told her of the school
-rules and regulations and taking a walk alone seemed to her
-the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
-few hours longer she must have understood differently, for
-the students were expected to assemble that very morning to
-hear what was required of them at Primrose Hall.</p>
-
-<p>As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and
-hat, creeping along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb
-the other sleepers, and for the same reason she as quietly
-unlocked the big front door. But once out on the lawn, so
-innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that she
-paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house
-she was about to leave.</p>
-
-<p>Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new
-pupil felt a thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A
-red brick mansion of the old colonial period, it was set in
-a lovely garden with flowers and shrubs growing close about
-the house and an avenue of elm trees leading down to the
-gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
-of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This
-morning only a few late asters were in bloom in the garden
-and bushes of hardy hydrangeas with their great blossoms now
-turning rose and brown from the first early autumn frosts.
-The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged in the
-family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five
-generations and Olive smiled a little over her queer
-conceit, for the house somehow suggested its present owner
-to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared just as imposing
-and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with her
-the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any
-mere pile of brick and stone.</p>
-
-<p>Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the
-bedrooms and reception rooms necessary for its pupils and
-teachers, and the only other school buildings about the
-grounds were the recitation hall and two sorority houses
-devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had never heard
-of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
-“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.</p>
-
-<p>Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the
-ranch girls by Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they
-had learned to know at the Yellowstone Park, but apart from
-its excellent reputation as a finishing school, their choice
-had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty of its
-historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and
-Lafayette had been known to stay, and who can guess how many
-powdered belles and beaus may have flirted with one another
-in the garden by the old sun-dial?</p>
-
-<p>When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she
-determined to extend her walk over a portion of the estate,
-and coming to a low, stone wall, climbed over it without
-thinking or caring just where it led her. Being outdoors
-once more and free to wander as she choose after two weeks’
-confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
-palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that
-Olive felt like singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that
-her own personality, which had somehow vanished since
-leaving the ranch, had come back to her this morning like a
-dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately been
-wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this
-hour had donned once again her own well-worn dress.</p>
-
-<p>Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early
-Indian days, soon the truant found herself in a woods thick
-with underbrush and trees never seen before by a Wyoming
-girl. The air was delicious, the leaves sparkled with the
-melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of youth
-and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot
-that she was in the midst of a highly civilized community
-and not in the heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not
-until she had come entirely out of the woods that her
-awakening took place. Then she found herself apparently in
-some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white house
-set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer
-gabled windows on either side. At the entrance to its big
-front door stood two absurd iron dogs, and yet there was
-nothing in any of these ordinary details to make the
-onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she stared
-up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her
-seemed so utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she
-must be losing her senses.</p>
-
-<p>For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from
-the house, and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and
-walked back into the woods. At first she paid no particular
-attention to what direction she was taking until all at
-once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt reasonably
-sure they were following hers.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chII' class='d018'>CHAPTER II<br/>IN DISGRACE</h2>
-
-<p>It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with
-so slight cause, yet the thought that some one might be in
-pursuit of her filled her with a nervous terror. To the
-people not afflicted with timidity, most fears are
-ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
-overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid
-one, but before one criticizes her, remember her childhood.
-Now with her heart pounding and her breath coming in short
-gasps, she quickened her pace into a run, recalling at the
-same time their chaperon’s forgotten instruction that she
-must no longer expect the happy freedom of their western
-lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
-traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive
-dared not hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour
-was growing late and that any added delay would make her
-late for breakfast.</p>
-
-<p>Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the
-woods save her in emergencies of this sort, so in another
-moment she remembered that an Indian never runs away from
-his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has passed. Behind a
-low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself, crouching
-low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
-gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of
-private property, savagely on the lookout for her.</p>
-
-<p>Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally
-arrived just opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was
-the girl in hiding who suddenly sprang to her feet,
-startling the newcomer. For the enemy she had so dreaded was
-only another girl like herself with a smile on her face and
-a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
-perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before
-her illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had
-the same bright bronze hair and firm line to her chin and
-the same proud way of holding up her head.</p>
-
-<p>“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living
-in this underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the
-same color that I did not see you at first.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a
-tam-o’-shanter of velvet of the same shade, shook her head.
-“I am one of the new girls from Primrose Hall and I have
-been out for a walk, but as I am not very familiar with
-these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you mind—”
-Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression
-of surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.</p>
-
-<p>“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this
-hour of the morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen
-to give you permission?” she asked in the positive fashion
-that Olive was to learn to know so well later on.</p>
-
-<p>The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept
-over the truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without
-asking permission she had broken a rule of her new school?
-The idea seemed ridiculous to Olive, and yet—were not all
-things different than in the old days? “I am so sorry, but
-no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
-to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose
-Hall yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before
-breakfast at home, riding over the plains!”</p>
-
-<p>Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain
-to the older girl that straightway she slipped her arm
-through hers and without delay hurried her along toward
-school, talking as she went.</p>
-
-<p>“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at
-Primrose Hall, and I have been spending the night with some
-friends.” Jessica gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in
-hers. “You must not be frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop
-seems rather terrifying on your return. I used to be a pupil
-at Primrose Hall before I started in with the teaching and
-I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so severe
-as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is
-after breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never
-allowed to go out alone and never without permission, why
-she may scold you a bit.”</p>
-
-<p>If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the
-path to weep like a naughty child about to be punished for a
-fault, Olive would have felt it a great relief, and only the
-thought of her age prevented her doing this. Could she ever
-live through the embarrassment of facing fifty strange
-girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
-while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on
-being introduced to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and
-Frieda with her for protection, had she not felt as
-tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now must
-she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
-displeasure?</p>
-
-<p>Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive
-Ralston’s life were always unusual and romantic) would she
-ever forget the next half hour’s experience at Primrose
-Hall, nor the appearance of the great hall as she entered
-it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and towering
-above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding
-presence of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.</p>
-
-<p>Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing
-in front of Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers,
-heard the teacher of mathematics say, “Here is your new
-runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and realized that this
-teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she wore
-round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much
-to get her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her
-disgrace.</p>
-
-<p>But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only
-teacher at Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss
-Winthrop,” she now began coaxingly, “I have brought our new
-girl home. She was only taking a walk in the woods near by,
-but I am sure she would rather explain to you herself that
-in going out without permission she did not know she was
-breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the
-West and been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica
-was continuing her case for the defendant, realizing that
-Olive was still too frightened to speak for herself. But
-suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small, plump
-person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue
-eyes in the school, and without the least regard for either
-teachers or principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms
-about Olive.</p>
-
-<p>“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where
-you were going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened
-about you.”</p>
-
-<p>And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her
-other side, a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and
-demure brown eyes, whose nose had the faintest, most
-delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce said nothing,
-but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
-against all the world.</p>
-
-<p>Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three
-teachers were numbers of other students, most of whom were
-casting glances of sympathy at the new pupil who had so soon
-fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just over, they were
-supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
-Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until
-Miss Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.</p>
-
-<p>“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said
-quietly. “Miss Ralston will explain her absence to me in my
-private study.” As her words and look included Jean and
-Frieda, they also were compelled to follow the other
-students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to face
-her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a
-freckled nose actually had the courage to stop in passing
-and whisper to the offender:</p>
-
-<p>“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes
-unknown you go to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while
-Olive was trying to summon a smile in return, a beautiful
-girl with pale blonde hair joined both of them, and drawing
-the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen persons
-near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When
-will you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons
-whom no one knows anything about?” And so cool and
-indifferent did her expression appear as she made her unkind
-speech that it was hard to believe she understood that her
-words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and
-in spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or
-forgave them.</p>
-
-<p>A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared,
-Olive found herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated
-in a comfortable leather chair facing a desk at which Miss
-Winthrop was writing.</p>
-
-<p>“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they
-entered the room, and at first the prisoner had felt that
-waiting to hear her sentence would be unendurable. Of course
-she would be expelled from Primrose Hall; Olive had no other
-idea. And of course Ruth and Jack would understand and
-forgive her, but there would be no going back on her part to
-be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
-to support herself in the future!</p>
-
-<p>But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her
-writing, by and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own
-sorrows and she busied herself in studying her judge’s face.
-Miss Winthrop’s expression was not so stern in repose, for
-though the lines about her mouth were severe and her nose
-aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
-full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt
-obliged to admit that though she was taller and larger than
-almost any woman she had known, her grace and dignity were
-most unusual and the severity of her simple black silk gown
-showed her to great advantage.</p>
-
-<p>Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next
-traveled idly to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting
-there for an eager moment, while in her interest she forgot
-everything else. For the first time in her life this young
-girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had her
-attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.</p>
-
-<p>On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic
-figure of a woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and
-wonderful flowing draperies. The figure was without head or
-arms and yet was so inspiring that, without realizing it,
-Olive gave a sigh of delight.</p>
-
-<p>Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?”
-she asked quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the
-statue of ‘The Winged Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue
-now stands at the top of the stairs in the Louvre in Paris
-and there you will probably see it some day. But I like to
-keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me and to
-my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than
-the statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of
-the superwoman, what all we women must hope to be some day.
-See the beauty and dignity of her, as though she had turned
-her back on all sin and injustice and was moving forward
-into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
-splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children
-in them.”</p>
-
-<p>Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above
-the head of her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to
-study the girl’s face. Now she saw by its sudden glow and
-softening that she had caught at least a measure of her
-meaning.</p>
-
-<p>“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the
-world held nothing else and that she knew all the varieties,
-and yet one could never be too sure, for here before her was
-a new type unlike all the others and for some reason at this
-moment she attracted her strongly.</p>
-
-<p>To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had
-thought it wise to confide as much as they knew of Olive’s
-extraordinary history, pledging her to secrecy. Now to
-herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly ridiculous to
-believe this child has Indian blood, for there is absolutely
-nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
-history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”</p>
-
-<p>But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after
-her first speech her manner appeared to change entirely.
-Sitting very erect in her chair, she turned upon her pupil
-“You may go,” she said coldly, “for I understand that by
-your action this morning you did not deliberately intend to
-break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
-future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience,
-whatever its cause.”</p>
-
-<p>With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall,
-wondering if she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who
-could be so stern one moment and so interesting the next.
-For her own part Olive felt that she much preferred their
-former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less handsome
-and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human.
-If only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to
-scold and pet them for their misdoings all in the same
-breath.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER III<br/>“GERRY”</h2>
-
-<p>The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the
-front of the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so
-in order for Olive to reach her room it was necessary that
-she should pass along a long corridor into which various
-other apartments opened. She was not interested in anything
-but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean, and yet,
-hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
-conversation between two girls who were talking in rather
-loud tones.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,”
-one of the voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as
-nice to these new Western girls as I know how. They are
-strangers and I think it horrid to try to snub them just
-because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
-fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you
-will try to turn as many of the other Juniors against them
-as you can twist around your finger, but kindly don’t
-include me in your list. Perhaps you think I don’t know why
-you have had me for one of your chums for so long. Goodness,
-child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
-homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the
-stately beauty than ever in contrast with poor little me.
-But maybe you won’t always be thought the prettiest girl in
-the school, for this queer looking Olive, what’s her name,
-is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way, and
-the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second.
-If you are angry with me, why you need not have me for a
-roommate, for I am going this very second to call on the new
-ranch girls and welcome them to Primrose Hall.” And with a
-flounce the same short-haired girl who had stopped to tease
-Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall after
-her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of
-fashions. “Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she
-inquired, “for I have been several years at Primrose Hall
-and know the place like an old shoe. Besides, I think that
-you and the older one of your sisters or friends, I can’t
-guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior
-class, and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close
-together these days.”</p>
-
-<p>By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door,
-but hearing queer noises in another room, they followed the
-sounds, discovering Jean and Frieda in the adjoining
-chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’ sitting room. An
-immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean and
-Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the
-trunk of their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two
-sisters, Mollie and Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had
-come in to lend them hammer and nails and were now watching
-them with deep absorption.</p>
-
-<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she
-stopped in some confusion, remembering that she had not yet
-heard their new friend’s name.</p>
-
-<p>The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see
-their new visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows,
-at your service,” she explained, “but I’m better known to
-the world as Gerry. See I have brought your Olive safe back
-from the lion’s den and, as she is no more eaten up than was
-the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint to
-start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you
-about Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what
-not to do?”</p>
-
-<p>Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully,
-but Jean closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard
-the question. She was not accustomed to feeling out of
-things as she had this morning and was not sure she cared to
-have strangers making an effort to be kind. Suppose this
-Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to be
-one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well
-even that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!</p>
-
-<p>But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness
-and having already taken a fancy to her, as strangers
-usually did, now seated herself cross-legged on the floor,
-beckoning to the others to follow suit. “All Gaul, my
-children, is divided into three parts, as we learn in our
-Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to
-say, is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred
-Graham likes and the girls she docs not. I used to belong to
-the first class, but now I probably belong to the second. I
-was kind of in love with Winifred last year and let her boss
-me around, but during the summer I thought things over and
-decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
-morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a
-snap about my desertion, for she never cares for people
-unless they are rich and I’m not a bit, only my father is a
-famous surgeon in New York and I’m going to be a doctor
-myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind gentleman
-to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
-didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively
-tongue, pretending not to be able to say anything more,
-although Jean was gazing at her in a more encouraging
-fashion than she had worn at the beginning of her speech.</p>
-
-<p>All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York
-City the four ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend,
-Frank Kent, had discussed this question: Should the girls on
-arriving at boarding school speak of their new-found gold
-mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack advised
-against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and
-Frank thought they might as well mention it now and then,
-while Jean was determined to speak of their gold mine
-whenever the chance offered and to make the biggest
-impression she possibly could. So now it was surprising to
-hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
-her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose
-Hall to care for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,”
-she answered demurely; “so I am afraid Miss Graham and her
-friends will not like us any too well. You see, we are
-simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by that. I
-suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because
-our clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks
-apiece as most of the girls here have. Olive and I were
-laughing yesterday because on our arrival we were given
-United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels! why we
-haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes
-that belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head
-warningly at Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than
-ever and whose lips were about to form the name of the
-Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to divert her attention,
-Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics and diving
-down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
-baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to
-remind you that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall
-and we hope our first friends,” she said prettily, handing a
-basket to Gerry and then the others to the two sisters. But
-all the while Jean was talking and acting this little
-pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
-right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will
-find out who the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and
-then—” Well, it was comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last
-letter, written after they had left the ranch, he had said
-the pot of gold from the end of their Rainbow Mine had
-yielded five thousand dollars within the month just past and
-that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had
-come from.</p>
-
-<p>Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls
-started with surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining
-perfectly calm. Getting up from the floor, however, she
-stuck her Indian basket on her head for a hat, using the
-handle as a strap.</p>
-
-<p>“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the
-recitation hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just
-sounded, only a gentle reminder that we are to assemble
-within the next ten minutes to meet our teachers and to get
-ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I can only
-hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
-Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the
-room to the tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after
-her: “You were awfully good to come in to see us and we are
-obliged to you, so please help us out whenever you can. I am
-afraid that the things we know, such as riding bareback and
-raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be considered
-accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
-unusually humble and particularly pretty.</p>
-
-<p>Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned
-ourselves at Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of
-insects here, butterflies as well as bookworms. But I will
-say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is a fashionable
-school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as our
-P’s.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what
-does it mean ‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired
-solemnly.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and
-how to enter a room and what to say when you get there and
-all the things that mean Society with a big S, Miss Frieda
-Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s, Q’s are dreadful things
-called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find out what
-quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
-mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the
-delicious name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda,
-if you want to know the truth about the meaning of the old
-expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’ the Century Dictionary
-tells us that the expression alluded to the difficulty in
-the early days of discerning the difference between the two
-letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of
-her curly head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’
-room.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER IV<br/>GETTING INTO HARNESS</h2>
-
-<p>Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch
-girls at boarding school and so many changes appeared to
-have taken place in their lives that already the weeks
-seemed as many months. One of the changes they themselves
-did not realize, but nevertheless it was a serious one, for
-Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as they
-had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was
-going her own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new
-friendships and apparently forgetting the importance of past
-ties.</p>
-
-<p>And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
-emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for
-Mollie Johnson, the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy
-Johnson was a good deal older than Frieda, but Mollie was a
-year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and looked up to
-her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
-that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made
-her appear like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of
-being treated like a baby by her family, and besides, as no
-one had ever told her before that she was in the least like
-a heroine, she found the idea distinctly pleasant. The two
-Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
-vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small
-and dark and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such
-a complete contrast to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements
-that it was small wonder the two girls were drawn together
-by their very unlikeness and that already their schoolmates
-were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
-everywhere together with their arms locked about one
-another, wore one another’s clothes when their different
-sizes permitted, and were never without true lover’s knots
-of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes, knots made from a
-sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair ribbons. Not
-that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
-the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and
-in spite of Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids
-had disappeared and in their place a Pysche knot of huge
-proportions could be seen at the back of her head. The
-Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did not
-have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest
-fashion and of course nothing else really matters. As
-Frieda’s school work was not the same as Jean’s and Olive’s,
-on account of her age and the fact that she never had cared
-much about books, the division of her time was different
-from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the
-excitement of her first independence and without Jack’s
-influence, she should be for the first time in her life
-“ganging her own gait.”</p>
-
-<p>But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
-unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed
-together over Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while
-they were laughing, though she had said nothing, Olive was
-wondering if Jean did not know that she saw almost as little
-of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without realizing it
-or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
-after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most
-popular girls in the school. As a proof of it she had
-already been invited to join both the two sororities and had
-not made up her mind which one she should choose. The fact
-that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
-certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,”
-for from the hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of
-Winifred’s character there had been open war between
-Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness to Olive
-was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was
-almost forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry.
-It was an open discussion that the choice for Junior class
-president, which must be made before the Christmas holidays,
-would lie between these two girls. For though Jean had
-continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls in the
-school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
-friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and
-wealthiest families in New York City, people who looked down
-upon the Four Hundred as belonging to the dreadful “new
-rich.”</p>
-
-<p>But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly
-for Jean and Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was
-making no friends. Though it was customary to invite the new
-girls at Primrose Hall into one or the other of the secret
-societies almost immediately upon their arrival at school,
-Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority. Too shy
-and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she
-did not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon
-her. Only in secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if
-her blood showed itself so plainly that her classmates
-disliked her for that reason or if she were more
-unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack,
-who was finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world,
-had cared for her and if only the doctors would say that
-Jack was strong enough to join them at Primrose Hall,
-nothing else would make any difference! Letters from Ruth
-Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured
-the girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected,
-but as yet there had been no definite report from the
-surgeon?</p>
-
-<p>However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among
-her classmates, there were other persons in the school
-interested in her, who were more important. Among them was
-Jessica Hunt, the young teacher whom Olive had met on the
-morning of her unfortunate walk. There was something in the
-strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a strong
-appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity
-to reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put
-upon Olive and was trying her best to discover their cause.
-Some secret story might possibly be in circulation about the
-newcomer, but so far Jessica had not been able to find it
-out.</p>
-
-<p>One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting
-room for several hours. Always books had been her
-consolation for loneliness since the days when her only
-white friend had been the teacher in the Indian school in
-her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected knock
-at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to
-join her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on
-opening the door her eyes had widened with surprise.</p>
-
-<p>“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I
-am a visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been
-looking for you everywhere in the garden and at the sorority
-houses and on the verandas. To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the
-world and under the world and back at the last to you,’ here
-in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the other girls?”
-Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
-may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might
-confide in her the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then
-they might talk the matter over sensibly together and she
-might be able to help. But alas for Olive! Though Ruth had
-warned her to try to overcome her reserve that day of the
-flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
-give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only
-answered Miss Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider
-than the other girls that I have to stay in my room to study
-more. But I am through with my work now and awfully glad to
-see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome revealed
-more of her real feeling than any number of words.</p>
-
-<p>Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave
-a little cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you
-don’t wish to be outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the
-most charming girls’ room at Primrose Hall! It makes me
-think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I was misquoting
-a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some day
-when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself.
-And surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are
-one.’”</p>
-
-<p>Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had
-dreamed of making it in the last days at home, a bit of the
-Rainbow Lodge in miniature, their own beloved ranch house
-living room reproduced many miles across the continent. By
-Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted to the three ranch
-girls a large and almost empty room, containing only a
-divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was
-covered with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright
-shawls were thrown over the divan, piled with sofa cushions
-of leather and silk, and on the walls were prints of Indian
-heads, one of them a picture of a young girl looking
-singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of
-cowboys on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace,
-about one-fourth the size of the one at The Lodge, was the
-head of an elk shot by Jim Colter himself on the border of
-their own ranch, and on the mantel the very brass
-candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home,
-besides several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient
-ornaments discovered by Frieda in the Indian cave on the day
-when Olive had made her first appearance in the ranch girls’
-lives.</p>
-
-<p>But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room
-she began at once to look more closely at the few
-photographs which the ranch girls had placed on top of their
-bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker way to learn
-to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
-taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must
-represent the persons nearest and dearest, their families
-and closest friends.</p>
-
-<p>The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures,
-only an absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell
-present to them, but as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and
-his Sunday clothes, it was not in the least like their big,
-splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was one of Ruth and
-alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost instinctively
-Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
-girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched
-Olive’s heart.</p>
-
-<p>“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is
-just the type of girl I admire the most, so graceful and
-vigorous and with such a lot of character. Oh, I hope I
-haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended suddenly,
-seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.</p>
-
-<p>Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t
-vigorous any more.” And then, to her own surprise and
-relief, Olive poured forth the whole story of Jack’s
-accident and their reasons for coming east.</p>
-
-<p>Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing
-that takes place every day, but just as Olive was on the
-point of telling Miss Hunt that she expected each day to
-hear more definite news of Jack, a message was sent upstairs
-to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception room
-desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once.
-Would Olive find the other girls and come to the reception
-room immediately?</p>
-
-<p>With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew
-who had come to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with
-a hurried apology to Jessica, begging her to wait until her
-return, fled out, of her room down through the lower part of
-the house and then out into the school grounds to search for
-Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at once to
-Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls
-hear the good news with her.</p>
-
-<p>And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the
-ranch girls’ room for a few minutes longer, for standing
-near the photograph of Jacqueline Ralston was another
-photograph whose presence in the room puzzled her greatly.
-She did not feel that she had the right to ask curious
-questions and yet she must look at this picture more
-closely, for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying
-in her own bureau drawer between folds of lavender-scented
-silk.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chV' class='d018'>CHAPTER V<br/>NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</h2>
-
-<p>Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two
-great side porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many
-recreation hours on these warm Indian summer afternoons, but
-just in front of the sorority house with “Theta” engraved
-above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded by a dozen
-girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had
-her back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started
-to run toward her and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl
-in the group was known to her by name, all of them were
-Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of them, except
-Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
-conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to
-thrust herself among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the
-thought that Ruth must be waiting for them with news of Jack
-braced her. “Jean,” Olive called softly and then in a louder
-tone, “Jean!”</p>
-
-<p>At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve
-other pairs of eyes stared poor Olive up and down.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her
-brown eyes shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been
-arranged that I am to join the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope
-that you will come in with me. Then we are going to form a
-dramatic club in our sorority and after a little while give
-a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
-to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than
-any one of us, or at least she used to when we had charades
-at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean paused, feeling a peculiar change in
-the atmosphere about her. Would no one echo her invitation
-to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in silence
-unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing
-right before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her
-lips to hide their trembling?</p>
-
-<p>Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you
-think for an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning
-to her best friend in the little company, a tall,
-distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that I will be in
-things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
-Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,”
-she whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had
-come to give her, without further thought of anything or
-anybody at Primrose Hall, the two friends hurried off
-together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying to find
-Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after
-them, in a few moments the two girls appeared at the
-reception room door.</p>
-
-<p>“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned
-white faces to stare at each other and at the tall figure
-that rose to greet them holding Frieda’s hand in one of his.
-“It is Peter Drummond, gooseys; don’t you know him?” Frieda
-cried happily. “Some one told me we had a caller and I came
-in here expecting to find some strange, horrid visitor, and
-when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
-and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him
-to come to see us,” she ended, rather crossly.</p>
-
-<p>“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied,
-coming to herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are
-terribly glad it is you; only—why—the truth is, we expected
-Ruth to be able to tell us that Jack was better or
-something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in weeks,
-ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
-friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to
-tell us about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly
-strained voice. “I am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we
-hoped she would be and Ruth couldn’t leave her. Won’t she
-ever be able to walk again like other people? Have the
-doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought you
-to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still
-for a second Peter Drummond did not reply.</p>
-
-<p>The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely
-surprised at Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had
-unexpectedly burst into tears.</p>
-
-<p>“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s
-hand, “it isn’t so bad as all this. Olive did guess the
-truth and I have come to tell you about Jack. Perhaps she
-isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t join you at school
-just at present or get about very much. The fact is—” Mr.
-Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not
-quite sure of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while
-longer and keep her very quiet before they can decide. But I
-saw her a minute the other day and she and Ruth send you
-their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so dreadful
-as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
-something, for never before in my life have I been with
-three women and had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with
-a man’s embarrassment at being the bearer of ill news,
-looked at the ranch girls with pretended indignation.</p>
-
-<p>“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?”
-Jean asked, and their visitor, not in the least offended by
-the question, emphatically bowed his head.</p>
-
-<p>Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda,
-I don’t think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly,
-“though of course we are terribly disappointed at not having
-Jack here at school with us, I have always felt she would be
-well some day. Even if the surgeons should say she won’t, my
-money is on old Jack!”</p>
-
-<p>Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous
-attitude, though Olive looked considerably depressed. But at
-this minute Mr. Drummond, to divert everybody’s attention,
-turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell me, please, what
-is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if two
-weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will
-a whole year do?”</p>
-
-<p>Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot.
-“Don’t tell Jack and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing
-her blonde head: “Oh, tell away if you like, Peter Drummond.
-I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you mean; I am just
-not a baby any longer.”</p>
-
-<p>Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and
-amusement. “If it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,”
-he said pulling at his own heavy iron-gray hair, “then
-you’ve got about the worst disease in the world and the most
-incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to overtake
-one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he
-turned again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been
-awfully nice to Jack and Ruth and they are coming out here
-to see you pretty soon. There is a queer old house in this
-neighborhood where an old relative of theirs lives. The
-house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
-mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”</p>
-
-<p>“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.</p>
-
-<p>“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the
-place Peter is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he
-hasn’t told you the name of it or what it looks like or
-anything to identify it.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a
-place called ‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of
-it and a balcony and queer little windows.” Quite
-unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because for some
-strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
-had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her
-eyes closed.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is
-called ‘The Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder
-if because Olive is perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is
-going to be a fortune teller.” But because Olive’s face had
-crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My dear Olive,
-suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
-There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive
-noticed that Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.</p>
-
-<p>But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a
-large box and a small one. The large box he handed to Jean.
-“You are please to conceal this from the powers that be, if
-it’s against boarding school laws to eat candy,” he said and
-then stood turning the smaller box about in his hand,
-surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
-Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains
-a great surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is
-inside of it, may I be present at its opening?”</p>
-
-<p>The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering
-outside the parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed
-which opened with a spring. Instantly Frieda touched this
-spring there were three cries of “Oh,” followed by a
-moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the box were
-three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
-quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels
-shading from red to pale violet. Each girl took her gift
-from the box, regarding it with characteristic expressions.
-Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the dimple showing at
-the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer than
-ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were
-overclouded and her face quivered with pleasure.</p>
-
-<div class='d001'>
-  <div class='d002'>
-    <img class='d003'
-    alt='THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE'
-    src='images/illus-001.jpg' />
-  </div>
-  <p class='d004'>
-  THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE
-  </p>
-</div>
-
-<p>“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the
-grandest, and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor
-any more,” Frieda announced.</p>
-
-<p>“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor
-girls may have fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.</p>
-
-<p>“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our
-gifts to suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still
-resting on the glowing colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t
-you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins represent rainbows? I
-have been repeating the rainbow colors to myself—red,
-orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
-seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”</p>
-
-<p>Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you
-are, and Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been
-collecting jewels all my life and never thought of so pretty
-an idea as this. Here is a garnet to start with for the red,
-then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond next, an
-emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
-indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of
-violet.”</p>
-
-<p>“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and
-the mine and all the good things that have come to us
-through a rainbow,” Jean said thoughtfully and then more
-huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.” Frieda made a
-dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a piece
-of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when
-I opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she
-announced. “Oh, goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has
-written us a poem!” And Frieda read:</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-        <div class='d021'>“Here are seven colors in nature and art,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day</div>
-        <div class='d021'>And orange and yellow to shine on your way.</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar</div>
-        <div class='d021'>To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.</div>
-        <div class='d021'>And yet to the end shall we ever forget</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes
-pretty well,” Frieda ended doubtfully.</p>
-
-<p>Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful,
-I think. And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever
-do go to Europe, as we sometimes have planned, we must never
-forget the Rainbow Ranch. You know, Frieda dear, that the
-alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and white like the
-clover in the east.”</p>
-
-<p>But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr.
-Drummond had now to tear himself away in order to catch his
-train back to New York. Hurrying out into the hall, with the
-three ranch girls close behind him, he suddenly came to an
-abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young woman, who also
-stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes and a
-haughtily held head.</p>
-
-<p>“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here
-when I told you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say
-with the least little nervous tremor in her voice.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica,
-Miss Hunt,” he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest
-idea of seeing you at Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but
-the ranch girls are my very dear friends and my visit was
-solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically away when a
-hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
-This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might
-have known you would never trouble to come to see me again.”</p>
-
-<p>That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner
-Jean poked her head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it
-ever occurred to you that Peter Drummond may have
-recommended Primrose Hall to us because a certain young
-woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
-child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see
-what we shall see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men
-can’t fall in love and get married without such a lot of
-fussing and misunderstanding. Think how Ruth is treating
-poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so silly
-and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too
-and let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very
-serious for the moment and also very bewitching.</p>
-
-<p>But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean
-Bruce, you will have the hardest time of us all in making up
-your mind when you are in love.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER VI<br/>HER TEMPTATION</h2>
-
-<p>Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean
-Bruce. Always beyond anything else had she desired to be
-popular, even in the old days at the ranch when the only
-society in which she had a part was composed of the few
-neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
-Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her
-heart’s desire, and would she for the sake of another be
-compelled to give it up? For how could she accept the honor
-that might be bestowed upon her of being chosen for Junior
-class president without turning traitor to Olive. After her
-friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta” house on
-the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no
-longer shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the
-cause of it? Try as she might she could not find out, yet
-the prejudice was certainly deeper than any one could
-suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the bottom of
-the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she
-had circulated any story against Olive no one would confess
-it. “Miss Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so
-odd, I do not think she enjoys being with other girls,”
-these evasions of the truth were all Jean could get hold of.
-But in the meantime there was no doubt that Olive’s
-classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the
-two sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented
-in the history of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have
-appealed to Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers,
-asking that their influence be exerted in Olive’s behalf,
-but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do. For
-even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities,
-how would it change her classmates’ attitude toward her?
-Would it not make them more unkind than ever? No, there were
-only two courses open to Jean, either she must join the
-sorority she had chosen without any question of Olive’s
-being a member or else she must decline to be admitted
-herself until such time as the girls should come to their
-senses and voluntarily desire the election of them both.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two
-sororities had been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small
-excuse for her hesitation. But a larger issue was at stake.
-Unless she became a member of a sorority and as one of its
-leaders could influence new girls to her cause, she might
-lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the head of
-the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.</p>
-
-<p>Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very
-charming fashion, just by the power of her own personality,
-which is after all the greatest force in the world. She had
-no prominent family connections, as so many of the Primrose
-Hall girls had, and she continued to act as though she had
-no money except what was necessary for very simple
-requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done had
-the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the
-discovery of the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a
-hard fight and many times the young girl longed to break
-faith with herself.</p>
-
-<p>Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading
-of the Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the
-three ranch girls’ school outfits, but now these clothes
-seemed so simple and ordinary that at least two of the girls
-hated the wearing of them.</p>
-
-<p>Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light
-weight flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon
-entertainments and dinner use and a single party dress for
-the monthly dances which were a feature of Primrose Hall
-school life. Their underclothes were plentiful but plain.
-Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
-lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very
-wealthy ones at that, could have such possessions. Just
-think of a single item of a dozen hand-made nightgowns at
-fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s outfit; and yet
-these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly expressed
-her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a
-gift of two of them without hurting her new friend’s
-feelings.</p>
-
-<p>To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed
-atmosphere that Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a
-revelation. She seemed not to know the meaning of snobbery,
-not to care who people were so long as she liked what they
-were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
-another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already
-asked Jean to visit her in her home in New York during the
-Christmas holidays, as she longed to introduce her to her
-own family in order that they might lose their prejudice
-against western girls. But more especially Margaret desired
-to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean
-together so as to find out what they would think of one
-another. She was only awaiting the first opportunity. In the
-meantime, although Jean would not accept other gifts from
-her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the flowers
-Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about
-school so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in
-her hair that she soon became known as “the pink carnation
-girl.”</p>
-
-<p>One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to
-send flowers to Margaret in return, but in order to retain
-her masquerade of poverty, most of the time she had to
-refrain. Only now and then she did relieve her feelings by
-presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses regardless
-of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
-would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been
-especially kind to Olive, Frieda or her.</p>
-
-<p>With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to
-spread abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no
-pocket money, but with Frieda the case was very different.
-It is quite certain that Jean would never have had her way
-with Frieda except by appealing directly to Jack for advice
-and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging her
-little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to
-agree to Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not
-that she saw any sense in her sacrifice or was in the least
-reconciled to it, but simply because under the
-circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could refuse
-her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard
-on both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives
-had they had any money of their own to spend and now Jack
-was sending each one of them fifty dollars a month for pin
-money. Think of the fortune of it, if you have had only
-one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use before!</p>
-
-<p>And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded
-to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her
-first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big
-department store with half a dozen of the other school girls
-and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.</p>
-
-<p>Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the
-time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant
-young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat
-encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering
-Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. A cry brought
-Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked too
-pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended
-to be ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to
-her, not even when a pale blue silk followed next morning by
-the early express and twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed
-from Olive and Jean to pay for it.</p>
-
-<p>Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at
-Frieda’s extravagance, because, while saving money is a
-virtuous act, it certainly is a very dull one. And while
-Olive was storing her income away in a lock box, wondering
-if it were possible to return it some day in a gift for
-Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
-intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.</p>
-
-<p>While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty
-at Primrose Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom.
-That there could be so much talk and thought of money as she
-had lately heard among the set of girls of whom Winifred
-Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as Jean already
-had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief reasons
-for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in
-order to prove that this snobbish set was not really in
-control of Primrose Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim
-Colter, the overseer of their ranch, who had always said
-money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud of her
-if they could hear that she won out in her battle without
-its help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned
-her back on Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed
-and torn between the twin enemies, ambition and love, she
-would hardly have accused Olive of being the cause of her
-own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious an
-hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind
-one way or another was drawing close at hand and so far
-Olive had no idea of her friend’s struggle, naturally
-supposing that Jean had already entered the “Theta” society
-without mentioning it to her in order to spare her pride.</p>
-
-<p>Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it
-was now the evening of the first one of them. Of course,
-dances at girls’ boarding schools are not unusual, but the
-dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss Winthrop allowed
-young men to be present at them. Her guests were brothers
-and cousins of her students or else intimate friends,
-carefully introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop
-regarded Primrose Hall as a training school for the larger
-social world and desired her students to learn to accept an
-acquaintance with young men as simply and naturally as they
-did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls and
-boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of
-their school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they
-developed false notions in regard to one another and false
-attitudes. Therefore, although no one could be more severe
-than the principal of Primrose Hall toward any shadow of
-flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a simple
-friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected
-Miss Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly
-dances, at first much criticized, had since become a great
-success. Watching her students and their friends together,
-the older woman could often give her students the help and
-advice they needed in their first knowledge of young men. So
-when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
-excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss
-Winthrop had positively refused her request. No excuse save
-illness was ever accepted from either the Junior or Senior
-girls.</p>
-
-<p>It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to
-begin at eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed,
-strolled slowly into Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending
-that she wished to assist them, but really longing for some
-word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in overcoming
-her shyness.</p>
-
-<p>Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her
-new blue gown to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was
-alone. At the very instant of Olive’s entrance she was
-thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance and
-uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so
-charming in a pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than
-ever. When Olive was so pretty how could the school girls
-fail to like her?</p>
-
-<p>But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely
-unconscious of Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost
-in admiration of her friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night
-Jean was “a pink carnation girl,” for Margaret Belknap had
-sent her a great box of the deep rose-colored variety and
-she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by accident her
-frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
-particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark
-brown of her hair, while to-night the excitement of
-attending her first school dance made Jean’s brown eyes
-sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.</p>
-
-<p>“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said
-wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you
-than even for Frieda or Jack.”</p>
-
-<p>“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered
-ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of
-depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other
-day that we generally got what we expected in this world and
-if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and
-proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”</p>
-
-<p>Olive colored, but did not reply at once.</p>
-
-<p>“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would
-have some influence with you and not let you be so pokey and
-unfriendly. I am sure I have tried in vain to stir you up
-and now I think I’ll write Jack and Ruth how you are
-behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
-times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean,
-knowing that Olive did not yet understand how her failure to
-be invited into either sorority was influencing her chance
-for the class election, yet had the grace to turn her face
-away.</p>
-
-<p>For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or
-Ruth, Jean,” she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know
-I am not a success at school and if you tell them that no
-one here likes me they will then know that I am unhappy and
-will be worried, and Jack must not have any worry now. It
-isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
-mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter
-with me, Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”</p>
-
-<p>In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was
-kissing her warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is
-nothing the matter with you and you are not unpopular
-really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake. Now promise
-me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
-friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her
-mind that in some unexplainable way Olive must be standing
-in her own light or else her classmates must see how
-charming she was.</p>
-
-<p>Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes
-would soon be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s,
-who would be noticing her unpopularity. And would she know a
-single guest at the dance?</p>
-
-<p>Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that
-Jean and Olive went down to the big reception rooms
-together, holding each other’s hands like little girls.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VII<br/>CINDERELLA</h2>
-
-<p>To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that
-she desired her students at Primrose Hall to grow into
-something more useful than mere society women. Her ambition
-was to have them fill many important positions in the modern
-world now offering such big opportunities to clever women.
-Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
-perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just
-always and interested in their welfare. But then none of her
-girls knew the story of her youth nor realized that the last
-life she had ever expected for herself in her rich and
-brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a fashionable
-boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
-the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York
-City and in the homes of the old Dutch and English families
-along the Hudson River, until she had let her pride spoil
-the one romance of her life. By and by, when her father died
-and her family fortune disappeared, she had then opened up
-her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
-aristocratic connections and old name immediately made
-Primrose Hall both fashionable and popular, until now its
-mere name lent its students an assured social prestige.
-Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her school to be
-something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
-been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her
-pupils from among a list of fifty or more applicants whom
-she had been obliged to refuse. There was little in the life
-of her school which she did not see and understand, and now
-her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda, with their
-freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
-looking at things, would bring the element most needed into
-their mere money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere.
-Though no one had mentioned it to her, she had already
-observed Jean’s great popularity with her classmates,
-Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and Olive’s
-failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this
-third ranch girl?</p>
-
-<p>Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the
-past month in getting her school into good working order,
-she had not forgotten the peculiar emotion that Olive had
-awakened in her at their first meeting. Because the child
-was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely a
-sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her,
-and to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss
-Winthrop had determined to watch Olive closely and find out
-for herself wherein lay the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was
-receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night and had also wondered
-how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first evening
-entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
-informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they
-should train her girls for social life in any part of the
-world where in later years circumstances might chance to
-take them.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in
-full evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening
-Miss Winthrop wore a plain black velvet gown with a small
-diamond star at her throat, a piece of jewelry for which she
-had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt, who was standing
-next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and the
-bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought)
-made a striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of
-the older woman. Though there were a dozen or more of the
-Primrose Hall girls grouped about the two women when Jean
-and Olive entered the reception room together, both of them
-immediately saw and watched them as they came slowly
-forward.</p>
-
-<p>The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
-anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know,
-as she moved through the room with an expression of fine
-unconsciousness, that this was the first really formal party
-she had ever attended in her life. Neither her blush nor her
-dimple betrayed her, although she was perfectly aware that a
-number of youths in long-tailed coats and black trousers,
-wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped
-talking for several moments to their girl friends in order
-to glance at Olive and at her. She even saw, without
-appearing to lift her lids, that a tall, blonde fellow
-standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was deliberately
-staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
-Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite
-of his fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared
-to Ralph Merrit or other simple western fellows whom she had
-known in the past.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s
-passing observations in her forward progress toward Miss
-Winthrop, and yet in the same length of time Olive, who was
-close beside her, had seen nothing “but a sea of unknown
-faces.” Even her school companions to-night in their frocks
-of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet somehow, with
-Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
-Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to
-them. Then, still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne
-off for a short distance and there surrounded by a group of
-Jean’s girl friends.</p>
-
-<p>Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
-Belknap in the number, had come up with their cousins,
-brothers and friends to meet Jean Bruce and to fill up her
-dance card. They were, of course, also introduced to Olive,
-but as she did not speak, no one noticed her particularly
-and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
-desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began
-she forgot her and marched off with an enthusiastic partner,
-who had asked Gerry Ferrows to introduce him to the most
-fascinating girl in the room, and Gerry had unhesitatingly
-chosen Jean.</p>
-
-<p>There were two or three other girls and young men standing
-near Olive when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds
-later and she was entirely alone.</p>
-
-<p>Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to
-society to find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first
-Olive felt desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with
-shame and fearing that her eyes were filling with tears. Then
-looking about her she soon discovered a group of palms in a
-corner of the room not far away and guessed that she could find
-shelter behind them. Slipping across she came upon a small sofa
-hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little sigh of
-thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
-serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see
-what a good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen
-herself. Once she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her
-hiding place—Frieda, who had been a fat, little girl with long
-plaits down her back just a few weeks ago, now attired in a blue
-silk and lace, was whirling about on the arm of a long-legged
-boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous quantity of blonde
-curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin brother. Five
-minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
-evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
-apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance
-with her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom
-Olive recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard
-brother, could be seen dancing attendance on Jean.</p>
-
-<p>Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this
-fashion until Olive felt perfectly safe in her green
-retreat, when unexpectedly a hand was laid upon her shoulder
-and a voice said sternly, “What in the world, child, are you
-doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
-stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you
-to take part in the dancing; there really isn’t much
-difference between your being concealed up there or here.”</p>
-
-<p>And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her
-breath made her unable to answer at once.</p>
-
-<p>Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as
-she had thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had
-seen first her embarrassment at being left alone and next
-her withdrawal. In much the same fashion that Jack would
-have followed, Jessica had wished to rush off at once to
-comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.</p>
-
-<p>“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes
-her so unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out
-of hearing. “I wish you would tell me if you know any
-explanation for it.”</p>
-
-<p>But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering,
-“I can’t for the life of me understand. There are a good
-many little things that Olive does not seem to know, and
-yet, as she studies very hard, I believe she will soon be
-one of the honor girls in my class. I have a friend in New
-York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
-unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well.
-Perhaps I had best ask him if there is anything unusual
-about Olive.”</p>
-
-<p>But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you
-would ask no questions, at least not now please, Jessica,
-for I have heard at least a part of the girl’s history, and
-yet I believe the real truth is not known to any one and
-perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive if it
-never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be
-so sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss
-Winthrop had moved across the room to where Olive was in
-hiding. As the girl’s startled brown eyes were upturned to
-hers Miss Winthrop, who was not poetic, yet thought that her
-pupil in her pale green dress with her queer pointed chin
-and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from some
-old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls
-and young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s
-unusual beauty, forgetting that young people seldom admire
-what is out of the ordinary.</p>
-
-<p>Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older
-woman quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender
-brown fingers in hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in
-a voice that was gentler than usual, “for I understand it is
-timidity that is making you hide yourself. Don’t you think
-though that you would enjoy dancing?”</p>
-
-<p>Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she
-returned, forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no
-one has invited me.” Then as her teacher suddenly rose to
-her feet, as though intending to find her a partner, with a
-sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness Olive drew her
-down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me, Miss
-Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little
-while I am sure it will be delightful just watching the
-others.”</p>
-
-<p>While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers,
-Miss Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross
-at the end of it, which Olive was wearing around her throat.
-Leaning over she took the cross in her hand. “This is an odd
-piece of jewelry, child, and must be very old; it is so
-heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed inside
-it.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything
-about it, except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,”
-she replied. For some strange reason this shy girl was
-speaking of her mother to a comparative stranger, when she
-rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved friend,
-Jacqueline Ralston.</p>
-
-<p>But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice
-startled both of them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed,
-“what do you mean by hiding yourself away with Miss Winthrop
-when I have been searching the house over for you.”</p>
-
-<p>Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld
-Donald Harmon standing near them, the young fellow whose
-father had rented the Rainbow Ranch from the Ralston girls
-the summer before and whose sister had been responsible for
-Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one
-of your guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and
-that my aunt is your old friend and lives near Primrose
-Hall.”</p>
-
-<p>While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had
-no idea that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald
-was trying to persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for
-her first dance with him. By accident it happened to be a
-Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced it before, but she
-had been watching the other girls. Donald was an excellent
-partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it
-all her life.</p>
-
-<p>Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different
-art, although both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean
-was gay and vivacious, full of grace and activity, keeping
-excellent time to the music, but Olive seemed to move like a
-flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly conscious of what
-she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet yielding
-her body to every note of the music and movement of her
-partner.</p>
-
-<p>By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many
-of the others stopped and at once the young men demanded to
-be told who Olive was and why she had been hidden away from
-their sight until now? Whatever replies the girls may have
-made to these questions, they did not apparently affect
-their questioners, for from the time of her first dance
-until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
-partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and
-her cheeks grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her
-low laugh rang out, and always she could dance. What did
-conversation at a ball amount to anyhow when movement was
-the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a fairy
-princess just awakened from a long enchantment?</p>
-
-<p>Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had
-ever brought Olive forth from her retreat, but just before
-midnight, when Primrose Hall parties must always come to an
-end, he did manage to get her away for a moment out on the
-veranda, where chairs were placed so that the young people
-could rest and talk.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VIII<br/>SHADOWS BEFORE</h2>
-
-<p>The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and
-shaded electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and
-himself in a corner where they could see the dancers and yet
-not be interrupted, for he wished to talk to her alone for a
-few moments, never having forgotten the impression she had
-made upon him at their first meeting, nor the peculiar
-likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.</p>
-
-<p>But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never
-really liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which
-Elizabeth had innocently brought upon her beloved Jack. And
-yet, as she knew that this attitude on her part was hardly
-fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your mother and
-Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
-coldness.</p>
-
-<p>Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they
-are both unusually well these days, and if Beth could only
-hear that your friend Miss Ralston was going to get quite
-well, why she would brace up a lot. But she worries about
-her a great deal, so she and my mother have just come out
-here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away
-from college for a few days to be with them and to see you
-ranch girls again,” he ended honestly.</p>
-
-<p>“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by
-for a glimpse of Jean or Frieda.</p>
-
-<p>“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and
-have tea with them,” the young man urged, appearing not to
-notice his companion’s lack of interest. “My aunt’s place is
-very near Primrose Hall, so you can easily walk over.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would
-care to have us go about the neighborhood making visits,”
-she announced, glad of what seemed to her a reasonable
-excuse.</p>
-
-<p>Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by
-Olive’s manner. “Don’t try to get out of coming to see us
-for any such cause, Miss Olive,” he protested, “for Miss
-Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest friends and she and my
-mother have known one another since they were girls. Why, my
-aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is always
-offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and
-perhaps some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was
-going to ask Miss Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and
-Frieda over to us, as she always comes to see my aunt every
-week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown too old and too cranky
-to leave her place.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing
-that Donald had always been their friend in all family
-difficulties, she was sorry to have seemed unkind. “I’ll
-tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with more enthusiasm,
-“and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will be
-happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you,
-the white house at the end of the woods with a tower at the
-top of it and queer gabled windows and two absurd dogs on
-either side the front door?”</p>
-
-<p>The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you?
-We are dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to
-love them as children; I suppose a good many generations of
-the children in our family have had glorious rides on their
-backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of color sweeping over her
-face which even in the glow of the artificial lights Donald
-was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
-room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things
-around the walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in
-one corner?”</p>
-
-<p>Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I
-am sorry I made such a silly speech. Of course your tower
-room isn’t like that. I think I must just have read of some
-such a room at the top of a house somewhere that looks like
-yours. Only I want to ask you a few questions.”</p>
-
-<p>At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over
-Olive’s eyes and a voice asked:</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-        <div class='d021'>“Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Whose hands about thee are entwined?”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for
-Jean had come up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil
-Belknap and with Gerry Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean
-promptly began a conversation with Donald; Gerry and her
-friend, after being properly introduced to the others,
-continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor
-Olive to do but to try to talk to Cecil.</p>
-
-<p>Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his
-invitation than Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated
-his request to her, so that for five minutes or more they
-were deep in questions and answers, Jean laughingly
-reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
-evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to
-break through the wall of her admirers. When a truce was
-finally declared Jean smilingly accepted his invitation to
-tea and then turning stood for a moment with her eyes
-dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up a
-conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather
-had evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon
-even now peeping over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow
-hills, and still Olive was struggling bravely on without the
-least assistance from her superior companion, who merely
-stared at her without volunteering a single remark.</p>
-
-<p>Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon,
-Olive, for having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long.
-Just think,” she turned to look up at the young man with her
-most demure expression, “I used to think the sphinx a woman,
-but now I am entirely convinced that he or she is a Harvard
-student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
-and inscrutable.”</p>
-
-<p>Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that
-this small ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to
-all evening on account of his sister’s affection for her,
-was actually poking fun at him, a Harvard Senior and heir to
-half a million dollars? The thing was impossible! Had she
-not realized that his mere presence near her had added to
-her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
-also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary
-schoolboy? Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous
-ideas and Cecil now hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean
-to a proper state of humility.</p>
-
-<p>However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her
-rudeness, drew Olive aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her
-friend’s ear in rather anxious and annoyed tones, “have you
-seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past hour? I told
-that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
-every half hour all this evening and she has never been near
-me a single time. Has she spoken to you?”</p>
-
-<p>Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never
-spoken to me,” she replied, “but once in dancing by me she
-did deign to smile as though we had met somewhere before.
-Isn’t she funny?”</p>
-
-<p>But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with
-her grown-up airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her
-upstairs to bed. You know it is nearly twelve o’clock,
-Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly twelve and then
-Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
-personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that
-Johnson child should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie
-either. I wonder if they have gone off anywhere with that
-long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”</p>
-
-<p>“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she
-is sure to be in the parlor and will say good-night with the
-rest of us. You see, we are so used to thinking of her as a
-baby that we can’t get used to her independence.”</p>
-
-<p>But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to
-talk of family matters with strangers waiting near them.
-Anyhow, just at this moment the big clock in the hall, the
-same clock that Olive had listened to so long on that first
-night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to boom forth the
-hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began to
-play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.</p>
-
-<p>Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that
-he desired her as a partner, but that he wished to punish
-Jean. A moment later Gerry and her friend entered the
-ballroom, so that naturally Donald and Jean were compelled
-to have this last dance together. Of course Donald would
-have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being
-second best. However, Donald need not have worried over
-Jean’s being forced upon him, for no sooner had they come
-into the parlor with the other dancers, than two young
-fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had promised the
-“Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
-forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.</p>
-
-<p>So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment
-watching Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a
-conspicuously sad time, for Cecil could not dance and so
-Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue, Donald bore his
-first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
-heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of
-the evening in the society of her rival, Winifred Graham.
-However, the young man would have been better satisfied
-could he have known whether or not the western girl noticed
-his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice to Jean
-in order that the mere influence of his presence near her
-might induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had
-not appeared particularly grateful. It is the old story with
-a girl or a woman. Strange, but she never seems to care for
-a man’s attention when he makes a martyr of himself for her
-sake!</p>
-
-<p>However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older
-ranch girls were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda.
-Nowhere about the great room could she be seen, not even
-after the young men guests had gone away and the girls had
-formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop and
-Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several
-students and yet the same questions traveled from one face
-to the other. “Suppose Miss Winthrop asks us what has become
-of Frieda, what must we say, and what will she do if, after
-trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten into some kind
-of mischief?”</p>
-
-<p>Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own
-good-nights had been said and no questions asked, rushed
-upstairs to their bedrooms. But outside Jean’s door Olive
-suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such a baby, she
-has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
-good-night long ago.”</p>
-
-<p>Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was
-burning inside the room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s
-bed, but that young lady was not in it, neither was there
-any sign of her presence about the place.</p>
-
-<p>Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room.
-“Lucy says Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported
-immediately, “so what on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has
-charge of our floor to-night and will be around in a few
-minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then if Frieda
-isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
-from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep
-Frieda a little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid
-any attention to her, she was both angry and frightened.</p>
-
-<p>“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested
-faintly, knowing that she could never get downstairs and
-back again before Miss Sterne’s appearance and feeling that
-the vanishment of two girls might be even more conspicuous
-and draw greater wrath down upon their heads than the
-disappearance of one.</p>
-
-<p>“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see
-you prowling around and would have to know the reason why,
-so that wouldn’t help the present situation,” Jean answered.
-“Surely Frieda will be here in a few minutes.” All up and
-down the hall the opening and shutting of bedroom doors
-could now be heard and the voices of the other girls bidding
-Miss Sterne and each other good-night.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER IX<br/>FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</h2>
-
-<p>Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair,
-but Olive, still fully dressed, kept darting from her own
-bedroom to Jean’s and Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a
-sign of the wanderer.</p>
-
-<p>Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in
-the least what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds
-out how she has behaved, but you and I must go to look for
-her.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the
-lights were now being turned low, when a figure brushed by
-them. “Please let me get into my own room,” a voice said
-peevishly, and nothing loath, the three figures returned
-inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda Ralston,”
-Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
-excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is
-just barely possible that she may not have seen you sneaking
-along the hall.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive
-gazed upon the youngest ranch girl with an expression of
-disapproval.</p>
-
-<p>The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.</p>
-
-<p>“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss
-Sterne inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about
-through her large horn spectacles that Olive had so promptly
-disliked, like a wise old owl.</p>
-
-<p>“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?”
-she continued, “you know you are not expected to enter
-another girl’s sleeping apartment after the hour for
-retiring.”</p>
-
-<p>Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own
-room and rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning
-to talk to Jean or to Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s
-retreating footsteps were far out of hearing.</p>
-
-<p>And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand
-what the other two ranch girls were saying and then it was
-Jean’s tones that were the more distinct.</p>
-
-<p>Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and
-slipper, keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor,
-when Jean, now in her night gown, planted herself before her.
-“Where have you been all this time, Frieda Ralston, and why
-didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say good-night to Miss Winthrop
-when the rest of us did?”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue
-stockings, swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean,
-and I didn’t dream of its being so late. Do you think Miss
-Winthrop noticed?” the culprit faltered.</p>
-
-<p>Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in
-this school, Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she
-inquired. “I suppose you will be able to explain to her in
-the morning why you were in the back hall instead of in the
-parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to tell
-anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own
-heart was quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could
-not answer back in the cool fashion she desired. “Mollie
-Johnson was with me,” she managed to say, “and two boys.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or
-the present Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as
-she sat up in bed with her arms folded before her.</p>
-
-<p>“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly,
-“but will you please tell me why you went to the back hall
-when you knew perfectly well that Miss Winthrop was trusting
-you to behave like a lady and remain in the rooms where she
-was receiving her guests. I don’t know what Ruth and Jack
-will say.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she
-murmured, struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair.
-“You see, we had only ices and cake for the party, and about
-eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the boy I was with, said he
-wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as hungry for one,
-so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of the
-dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in
-the pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of
-good things.” And now Frieda’s courage returning in a small
-measure, she turned out the electric lights, hopping into
-bed. “I am not going to be treated like a criminal, though,
-Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she ended,
-burying herself under the cover.</p>
-
-<p>So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls
-were sound asleep, though in reality the three of them were
-still wide awake.</p>
-
-<p>Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet
-understanding the real facts of her escape, and Frieda was
-longing with all her might for some one to sympathize with
-her and help her in her scrape, some one who would let her
-cry herself out.</p>
-
-<p>By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s
-bedside. “Jean, has Frieda explained things to you?” she
-whispered.</p>
-
-<p>Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and
-two boys, and that they went into the pantry and had
-something to eat, but she didn’t say why they stayed in the
-back hall afterwards. They couldn’t have kept on eating
-pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls giggled
-softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
-greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she
-was constantly doing on their long trip through the
-Yellowstone the summer before?</p>
-
-<p>“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted,
-“and I don’t think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she
-hears that the pantry was the difficulty, for she knows how
-good the housekeeper is to all the little girls.”</p>
-
-<p>“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.”
-Jean’s voice became low and impressive, “What do you suppose
-that Frieda Ralston could have to talk about to a—boy?”</p>
-
-<p>A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both
-older girls started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted
-the outside of the blanket.</p>
-
-<p>“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a
-sterner manner than was usual to her, “or were all four of
-you just sitting around having a jolly time together?” Now
-that Frieda’s sobs assured the other two girls that she was
-awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on with her
-cross-examination.</p>
-
-<p>“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
-unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other
-boy were sitting on a higher step and the servants were
-around, but no one told us how late it was.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, what were you talking about that you found so
-interesting that you could not hear the clock strike twelve,
-or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’ waltz, or the good-byes being
-said?” Jean demanded fiercely.</p>
-
-<p>This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her
-sorrow, for the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were
-talking about worms!” she sobbed.</p>
-
-<p>“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that
-they could not have heard aright.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see,
-we got to talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved
-it better than most anything he ever did and some summers he
-goes way up into the Maine woods and fishes in the lakes for
-trout. He uses flies for bait always, but I told him that we
-fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes when it
-wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way
-down under the ground to find them. I told him too how once
-I started a fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I
-could dig up in a glass bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys
-whenever they wished to go fishing.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up
-conversation with her first admirer, feeling too angry and
-too puzzled to go on for the minute, for her former irate
-judges were now holding their sides and doing their level
-best to keep from shrieking with laughter.</p>
-
-<p>“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of
-fishing worms,” Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.</p>
-
-<p>Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the
-covers more closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and
-dream of Jack,” she comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop
-will never hear of your mistaking the time for saying
-good-night.”</p>
-
-<p>“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda
-returned sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive,
-better than most any of the girls. I have seen her looking
-at you so strangely every now and then.”</p>
-
-<p>In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling
-so penitent over her escapade as the two older ranch girls
-supposed. But Frieda had always been a good deal spoiled
-and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed her failure to say
-good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault upon her
-mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that
-both little girls and big receive their punishment for a
-fault so soon as the fault is committed, in order not to
-keep on growing naughtier and naughtier until Fate punishes
-us for many sins at once.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chX' class='d018'>CHAPTER X<br/>THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</h2>
-
-<p>After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be
-Saturday afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting
-room looking for Olive and Frieda. She had been playing
-basketball for the past two hours and in spite of having
-known nothing of the game on her arrival at school, was
-already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
-Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass
-above her face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in
-her hand she held a bundle of letters. One she tossed to
-Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa nursing a small cold due
-to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two for herself.</p>
-
-<p>Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed
-to her in Jack’s handwriting and Frieda
-followed suit. When Jack had first been taken
-to the hospital and there compelled to lie
-always flat on her back, her handwriting had
-been difficult to read, but now that she had
-gotten used to this method of writing, her
-stroke was again as vigorous and characteristic as of old.</p>
-
-<p>Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other
-girls. “Jack says she is getting on very well and we are to
-see her in a few weeks—perhaps,” she announced.</p>
-
-<p>Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of
-course, isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written
-you, for Jack never tells anything but the best news of
-herself.”</p>
-
-<p>“There may be an operation or something of the sort later
-on,” Jean conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it
-may not be for some months yet. Only if the operation does
-have to take place Jack has demanded that Jim come on from
-the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph Merrit to look after
-things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things are in a
-bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
-come?” And Jean sighed.</p>
-
-<p>An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should
-she behave in any special way?” she inquired, sitting
-straight up on the couch to gaze from Olive to Jean.</p>
-
-<p>Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed,
-for Frieda was the only one of the four ranch girls who knew
-nothing of what had happened at the ranch between Jim
-Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew, their chaperon. What
-had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
-understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware
-that Jim and Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one
-another and then some mysterious misunderstanding had
-suddenly parted them.</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested,
-knowing this would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one
-theme. “Sometimes I wish for Jack’s sake that we were all
-back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she was able to be out in
-the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of Jack
-lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three
-girls, so that there was a moment of painful silence in the
-room. Then Jean said more cheerfully after re-reading the
-latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim says that Ralph Merrit is
-doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and that he is a
-trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
-Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he
-has turned out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does
-Frank Kent.”</p>
-
-<p>The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet
-forgiven Jean for last night’s scolding. Now she turned up
-her small nose a trifle more than usual. “Oh, you just say
-that because Ralph likes you best and Frank Kent is more
-fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean flushed.</p>
-
-<p>“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that
-Jim should like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has
-to make his own way in the world just as Jim has; and Frank
-Kent, though he is awfully simple and a thorough good
-fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a title
-himself some day.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an
-English lady and own country estates and ride to hounds?”
-Frieda suggested more peacefully, gazing across the room at
-Frank Kent’s photograph, which ornamented the bookshelf. “I
-think I should love to be introduced into English society
-and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended lamely.</p>
-
-<p>A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled
-with mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about
-fishing worms, baby?” she queried with studied politeness.</p>
-
-<p>And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a
-sofa cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:</p>
-
-<p>“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at
-the Lodge. What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a
-second letter that Jean had brought to her, she began to
-read it.</p>
-
-<p>Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda,
-who resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get
-dressed, infant; no, your cold isn’t too bad for you to
-come. Olive is reading a note of invitation from Mrs. Harmon
-for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have tea and Miss
-Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”</p>
-
-<p>But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom
-enjoyed by the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it
-easily.</p>
-
-<p>“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested
-resolutely; “only if they have any candy or cake and happen to
-mention sending me some you might bring it along. And I do wish
-both you girls would go out for a while, for Mollie is coming to
-spend the afternoon with me after she finishes her music lesson
-and we would love to have the sitting room to ourselves.”</p>
-
-<p>“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without
-being actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean
-said, seeing that Olive was hesitating about what she should do.
-“Come along, it will do us both good to get away and not to sit
-here thinking about what we can’t help,” she ended.</p>
-
-<p>While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks
-preparatory to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of
-her own room Olive was trying to persuade herself that her
-hesitation in going for the call upon the Harmons was because
-she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of Elizabeth of the old
-tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than this in her
-mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
-which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment
-her eyes had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have
-ever had with an old place like “The Towers,” or any house
-resembling it? Her impression that she must have seen the house
-somewhere before was sheer madness, for was it not an old Dutch
-mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years ago, and certainly
-wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?</p>
-
-<p>Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed
-her out of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and
-Jean started gayly forth on their walk. It was about four
-o’clock in the late November afternoon and instead of following
-the path through the woods, the little party set out along the
-lane that led through an exquisite part of the Sleepy Hollow
-neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed a short hill
-and from the top of it could see at some distance off the spire
-of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
-River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its
-deep hidden lungs.</p>
-
-<p>Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As
-Olive was particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through
-hers. “This is a land of legends and of dreams about here, dear,
-and some day I must take you western girls about the country and
-show you the historic places nearby. Do you know anything about
-them?” she asked.</p>
-
-<p>But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her
-head. “I don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem
-somehow familiar, yet it did not at first. Don’t you believe
-that all the world, at least the world of outside things, of
-hills and trees and valleys and water, somehow belongs alike to
-all of us and once we have seen a landscape and moved about in
-it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in nature,
-there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
-are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”</p>
-
-<p>Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on
-their approach to the house. As he was holding a great St.
-Bernard dog by the collar and as it bounded away from him all of
-a sudden, nearly upsetting Olive and Jessica in the rapture of
-its welcome, the little party entered “The Towers” with too much
-laughter and excitement for Olive to feel any self-consciousness
-or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of her past foolishness
-in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so many
-eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
-easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.</p>
-
-<p>Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both
-decided at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite
-of its magnificence, was one of the darkest and most
-unattractive rooms either of them had ever seen. For everything
-was very stiff and formal and without life or fragrance. Carved
-black furniture sat stiffly against the walls, which were hung
-with old portraits of men and women in high fluted ruffs, with
-gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces. Over in one
-corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen and
-having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And
-behind this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or
-twelve, who looked a little like Donald Harmon.</p>
-
-<p>“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon
-had said as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to
-wait tea for her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs.
-Harmon’s manner was a little constrained and that she kept
-looking at Olive as though she intended asking her some
-question, but as the question was never asked, the girls must
-have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the little
-company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
-seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a
-long stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow
-the butler flung open the drawing room door.</p>
-
-<p>Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean
-could not forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her
-heart rise up in her throat. Why on earth was the old mistress
-of “The Towers” so formidable that the entire neighborhood felt
-an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry that she was competing for
-one of her prizes offered to the Junior students at Primrose
-Hall.</p>
-
-<p>“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at
-the name of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard
-for the first time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young
-girl caught at the sides of her chair, and drew in her breath
-sharply. Then when no one was looking at her, smiled at herself
-and turned her gaze curiously on their ancient hostess.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XI<br/>“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</h2>
-
-<p>For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom
-there is no English expression so good as the French, “a grande
-dame.”</p>
-
-<p>There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but
-she stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with
-brilliant, hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and
-slightly inclining her head. Then she walked over to the high,
-carved chair near the tea table and sat down under the picture
-of the little boy. Feeble from old age, she was yet of too
-determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for when Donald
-tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned it
-away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head
-by a careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of
-age, was yet as delicately powdered and rouged as if she had
-been an actress about to make her debut, and she was carefully
-dressed in a gown of deep purple silk with lace at her throat
-and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort could hide the
-ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the coldness of
-her air and expression suggested that she would have repelled
-grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.</p>
-
-<p>The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful
-after its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed
-to be able to speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was
-plainly ill at ease and even Elizabeth had been taught to treat
-this wealthy old aunt, whose fortune she expected some day to
-share with her brother, with more respect than she showed to any
-one else in the world.</p>
-
-<p>Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had
-huddled close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having
-little to say to one another.</p>
-
-<p>Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was
-barely able to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater
-said, “bring the girl, whom you tell me you met in the West and
-who bears so strange a resemblance to your mother, closer to me.
-I think all resemblances are ridiculous and yet you have made me
-curious.”</p>
-
-<p>Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of
-all things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for
-her to do in this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead
-her across the room to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged
-forgiveness for the old woman’s peremptory manner, and yet he
-showed no sign of disobedience.</p>
-
-<p>“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the
-dusk was creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing
-her hostess, Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.</p>
-
-<p>It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers
-even to raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared
-straight at Madame Van Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as
-hers and almost as searching and haughty. For Olive’s emotion
-was immediately one of the deepest antagonism toward this woman,
-however old she might be, who summoned her as a queen might
-summon a subject.</p>
-
-<p>Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her
-slowly through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of
-course, resting longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she
-drew one of relief as she turned again to Donald and to Mrs.
-Harmon? “I do not see the least likeness in this girl to any
-member of my family,” she announced. “Whatever her name may be,
-her appearance is quite foreign and I should prefer never to
-have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.” And
-nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
-seat.</p>
-
-<p>But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her
-drawing her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she
-murmured. “I had not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has
-seemed to me that I have seen some one a little like you
-somewhere, I fancied in some old picture.” Then smiling she
-shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I see any likeness to
-your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is enough of a
-suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”</p>
-
-<p>And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair,
-where she sat down pretending to look out of the window, though
-all the time she was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in
-which she had just been compelled to play an unwilling part.
-Why, because she was so uncertain of her ancestry, should she be
-forced to go through these moments that made the fact more
-bitterly painful to her?</p>
-
-<p>Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls
-had tried their best to keep her story from the ears of the
-Harmons during their stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald,
-his sister and mother had learned through Aunt Ellen, through
-the cowboys on the ranch and through one or two of their closest
-neighbors. And for this reason the young fellow was perhaps even
-more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he wished very
-much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into which
-his own idle talk had led her.</p>
-
-<p>Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and
-Miss Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with
-me?” he asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I
-am sure that Elizabeth will excuse us.”</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being
-left with only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was
-the only one of the ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she
-made no objection, particularly as no one waited for her to
-speak. For Jean fairly bounced from her chair with relief,
-Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon after, feeling that
-she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged to remain
-another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
-Towers.”</p>
-
-<p>Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared
-suddenly to have been released from prison. Jean danced a
-two-step, Jessica clapped her hands softly together and Olive
-laughed, while Donald straightway plunged head first up the dark
-mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he begged, “for there
-isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well enough to
-tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great view
-that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
-rather a long climb.”</p>
-
-<p>Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then
-Jessica. Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like
-those in any ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral
-resembling the steps in a lighthouse. About midway up these
-steps Jessica noticed that Olive paused, pressing her hands to
-her eyes as though to shut out some idea or some vision that
-assailed her, and that she wavered as though she felt faint.</p>
-
-<p>“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired,
-knowing that climbing to unexpected heights often has this
-effect on sensitive persons. And though Olive now shook her
-head, moving on again, Jessica determined to watch her.</p>
-
-<p>To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a
-small, closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big,
-spacious apartment out of which the little gabled windows winked
-like so many friendly eyes. The room was fitted up as a boy’s
-room with a bed apparently just ready to be slept in, there was
-a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but the bookcases were
-filled with books of all kinds and for all ages, French, Spanish
-and German books and plays from the days of the miracle plays
-down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
-long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which
-seemed to be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols
-were hung on the walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete
-figure of a knight in armor stood in one corner. Curious why
-these masculine trophies should interest a girl, and yet for
-some reason they did interest Olive, for she waited there alone;
-Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one of the windows
-were gazing out over the countryside made famous the world over
-through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
-Dreams.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to
-see the view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in
-the next few minutes.”</p>
-
-<p>And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also
-looked out the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the
-bridge over which they had lately passed, with the stretch of
-woodlands to one side and the autumn-colored hills rising in the
-background. Very quietly she began to speak:</p>
-
-<p>“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a
-little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is
-one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook
-glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
-repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
-woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the
-uniform tranquillity.”</p>
-
-<p>These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape
-and her lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of
-poetry long ago forgotten and now brought back to mind by the
-objects that inspired it.</p>
-
-<p>It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to
-herself by reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement,
-but neither Donald Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least
-surprised and after a moment, as though again striking the
-strings of her memory, the young girl went on: “If ever I should
-wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its
-distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled
-life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
-And then her recitation abruptly ended.</p>
-
-<p>“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded;
-“or tell us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur
-of the moment to impress your English teacher?”</p>
-
-<p>Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is
-repeating! I should have taught it you before now, but Olive
-seems to have gotten ahead of me and learned it first.”</p>
-
-<p>“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing
-a thing like that and then waiting for a critical minute to
-recite it so as to impress her audience. I never should have
-suspected her!”</p>
-
-<p>But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica
-said in explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington
-Irving’s description of this countryside, which he gives in his
-‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ and when you get back to school,
-Jean, I advise you to ask Olive to lend you her book.”</p>
-
-<p>Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to
-Primrose Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first
-both the woman and the girl were silent, but as they neared the
-school Olive spoke suddenly:</p>
-
-<p>“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the
-feeling of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking
-that you have been there before, seen the same things or people
-and even heard the same words said?”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and
-yet not appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s
-expression was both puzzled and intent.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered.
-“No one can understand or explain it very well, but the
-impression is more apt to come to you when you are young. I can
-recall once having gone into a ballroom and there having had
-some one make a perfectly ordinary speech to me and yet I had a
-sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was I that at some
-past time I had been in the same place, under the same
-circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the
-time it was impossible.”</p>
-
-<p>“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in
-a certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into
-one’s mind without our remembering where we have learned it
-before,” Olive persisted.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said
-quietly, “I think there are many wonderful things in the world
-around us that we do not believe in because we do not yet
-understand them, just as long years ago men and women did not
-believe that our world was round because it had not then been
-revealed to them. And so I do not understand about these strange
-psychical experiences about which we have just been talking. But
-I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
-remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In
-this story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the
-hero’s mind from the time he is a little boy all through his
-life. He does not understand why he remembers this song, but by
-and by it is explained to the reader that this song had played
-an important part in the life of one of Peter Ibbetson’s
-ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color of our eyes, the
-shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some far-off
-ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
-impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing
-to understand, but the idea is interesting.”</p>
-
-<p>“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the
-book.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the
-darkness of the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.</p>
-
-<p>“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you
-ever felt that you have been in a certain place before, where
-you know you could never really have been, or have you thought
-suddenly of something that you did not remember having in your
-mind before? But please do not answer me if you would rather
-not, for I know that these queer experiences most of us would
-rather keep to ourselves.”</p>
-
-<p>“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women
-started up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XII<br/>WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</h2>
-
-<p>While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda
-and Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch
-girls’ sitting room, school politics were playing an important
-part in the precincts of Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and
-Gerry Ferrows were devoting that same Saturday afternoon to
-canvassing their class in order to discover whether Jean or
-Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
-president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for
-Jean, while Winifred was conducting a personal investigation.
-Indeed, the situation between these two girls was a peculiar and
-a difficult one, for having once been intimate friends, they had
-now become violently estranged from one another and yet
-continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than because
-Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
-afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together
-and with their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively
-refused to work for herself, having turned over her cause to her
-two best friends, Gerry and Margaret Belknap.</p>
-
-<p>But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning
-Jean and Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances
-for her election and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the
-whole situation.</p>
-
-<p>Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s
-success. If even at this late date Jean would allow herself to
-be elected into one of the sororities and thus proclaim her
-independence of the girl whose presence in the school her
-classmates resented, she might yet win their complete
-allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case that
-Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
-her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart
-for the honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on
-this question of Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while
-she was too good a sport to be unkind to any one in adversity,
-yet she did not herself care to associate with Olive on terms of
-perfect equality, although she had never mentioned this fact to
-Jean. And lately she had felt her own decision waver, for since
-her father had written her that he had charge of Jack Ralston’s
-case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl he had
-ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
-protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.</p>
-
-<p>Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice
-grew deeper on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to
-the other of her classmates, asking them point-blank whether
-they intended to cast their votes for Winifred or for Jean at
-the coming election. Some of the girls were quite frank. They
-had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided that it would
-be wiser not to have as the representative of their class a girl
-who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
-the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean,
-not having entirely made up their minds between her and
-Winifred; a number of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and
-loyal supporters and yet it was with a feeling of discouragement
-that Gerry at the close of her canvass returned to her own room.
-She had taken a note book with her and written down each girl’s
-position in regard to the election, and yet she could not now
-decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it was
-peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room
-to find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde
-hair down her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the
-pages of a magazine, wearing a particularly cheerful and
-self-satisfied expression.</p>
-
-<p>Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an
-agreeable one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a
-certain portion of American society. As long as Winifred could
-remember she had been taught these two things: By her brains and
-her beauty she must some day win for herself the wealth and the
-position that her family had always longed to have and yet never
-had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her mother and
-father had been spending more money than they could afford in
-trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more
-prominent than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at
-Primrose Hall was but another proof of their extravagance, for
-they could by no means afford the expense of such a school, yet
-their hope was that there Winifred would make so many wealthy
-and aristocratic friends that later on they might help her to a
-wealthy marriage.</p>
-
-<p>But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good
-mind and longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her
-friendships, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should
-cordially dislike the two older ranch girls, who, coming out of
-nowhere and pretending to nothing, seemed likely to prove her
-rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the way of her being
-chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior class, Olive
-was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which the
-old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior
-students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also
-competing for this prize, but as it represented a fairly large
-sum of money, sufficient to cover a year’s tuition at Primrose
-Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must be hers.</p>
-
-<p>She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down
-on their couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a
-nap.</p>
-
-<p>“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend
-Gerry?” she asked in an irritating fashion.</p>
-
-<p>“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none
-too truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm
-assurance.</p>
-
-<p>Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you
-know it, and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if
-it half killed you, being anxious to prove that women are as
-honest as men, as brave and as straight-forward and as clever,
-and therefore should be entitled to equal suffrage.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely
-face crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite
-truthful; I am afraid that your chance for the presidency is
-better than Jean’s. But you know that it is all because the
-girls here think that Olive isn’t a fit associate for the rest
-of us, or else Jean would have won in a walkover. I wonder if
-the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her parentage is
-true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me. Where did
-you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and
-heard the tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the
-younger girls she knew in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth
-meant any harm in telling, for she seemed to think that we would
-be pleased to have an Indian enliven us at Primrose Hall. You
-may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean and Frieda have
-been very quiet about the whole question of this objectionable
-Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why don’t you
-inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.</p>
-
-<p>Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss
-Winthrop treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is
-any mystery about Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private
-affair,’ she said. ‘But kindly remember that she is a student at
-Primrose Hall and if I thought her unfit for the companionship
-of my other girls, she would not be among you.’ You can imagine
-that I felt about the size of a small caterpillar when she got
-through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore from Miss
-Winthrop’s snubbing.</p>
-
-<p>“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind
-your own business,” Winifred interposed with secret
-satisfaction, knowing from Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had
-heard of Olive’s past and glad to have the truth of the story
-that she had been repeating confirmed.</p>
-
-<p>“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to
-a girl for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so
-anxious to have Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her
-own mind.</p>
-
-<p>Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
-honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t
-think she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall,
-If Miss Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of
-the girls’ parents would have complained of Olive before this,
-but that lady is just as likely to fire us all out and to keep
-just this one girl, as she seems to have such an unaccountable
-fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you and I used to be good
-friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why don’t you give
-up working for her and come over to my side and not mix yourself
-up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
-and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so
-plague-taked sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a
-chance for the election! And not for anything would I go back on
-her now! Besides, I have a plan that, has just come into my mind
-this very second that may straighten things out for Jean most
-beau-ti-fully.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIII<br/>THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</h2>
-
-<p>And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
-personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for
-Jean by making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know
-that Olive was as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s
-refusal to join the Theta sorority because of the failure of the
-girls to include her in the invitation, but even with this
-knowledge Gerry would hardly have been deterred from her plan.
-For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck her own chances
-on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’ attitude
-toward her?</p>
-
-<p>The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook
-Olive, as both girls were leaving their class room, and coming
-up close behind her leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh,
-Olive, I wonder if you could have a little talk with me this
-afternoon on strictly private business; I wish to talk to you
-quite alone.”</p>
-
-<p>Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of
-her other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy,
-Olive appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be
-wishing to speak to her of the class election, for Jean had
-carefully excluded all mention of this subject from the
-conversation in their own rooms and no one else had seen fit to
-mention the subject to Olive.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,”
-Olive nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her
-alone. “Why not come up to our sitting room right now, as our
-lessons are over for the afternoon?”</p>
-
-<p>But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly
-head. “No, I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any
-minute,” she confided, “and I particularly don’t want her to
-know just at present what I wish to say to you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without
-any one else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”</p>
-
-<p>Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall,
-were walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not
-mentioned the subject of conversation they had come forth to
-discuss.</p>
-
-<p>Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure
-of having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to
-make, and yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s
-manner that made her companion a little fearful of approaching
-her with advice or entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as
-well to have laid this matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last
-resort, Miss Winthrop, before forging ahead. But Gerry was an
-ardent suffragette in the making and, as she had determined to
-follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father, she knew that
-indecision must never be a characteristic of the new woman.
-However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl
-recognize her entire friendliness before she made known her
-mission.</p>
-
-<p>Having talked of many things together, of their love of the
-outdoors, of Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at
-last opened up the way for her companion’s disclosure.</p>
-
-<p>“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I
-have not yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me.
-What is it?”</p>
-
-<p>And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened
-and she looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this
-moment it had not occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire
-for a private interview with her could have any serious import,
-but noticing Gerry’s hesitation and apparent embarrassment,
-Olive suddenly believed that she intended questioning her about
-her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack had advised her
-not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now asked her
-for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
-than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her
-false, her desire now might be to disprove it.</p>
-
-<p>With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she
-hoped for the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she
-asked again.</p>
-
-<p>Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean
-to be elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.</p>
-
-<p>Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
-rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me.
-And I am awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving
-Jean, for she is awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim
-Colter and all of us would be so proud of her if she should win
-after being so short a time at school.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do
-something to help her instead of standing in her way?” This
-question was even more blunt than the first. And it hurt,
-because Olive bit her lips.</p>
-
-<p>“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her
-walk and turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me,
-please, how I can help her and how I stand in the way of her
-election?”</p>
-
-<p>At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she
-was not of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a
-whole lot by making her join our Theta Sorority at once and not
-hold back any longer because you have not been invited to join
-also.”</p>
-
-<p>There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly
-genuine. “Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already
-with the girls tormenting her every minute for weeks to come
-into the society? Why, I thought that Jean had joined long ago
-and simply had not mentioned the matter to me because of not
-wishing to talk of a thing that might make me uncomfortable. I
-can see now that the girls may not want a class president who
-isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays out of
-the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
-sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is
-befriending.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too
-plainly for her either to add to it or to contradict.</p>
-
-<p>“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and
-just what I should have expected,” she went on. “Please
-understand that I am very sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s
-sakes that I ever came with them as a student to Primrose Hall
-and I would have gone away before now only I could not worry
-Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth Drew,
-who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
-of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so
-much because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In
-the West these things do not count to so great an extent.”</p>
-
-<p>To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given
-to this proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of
-old, Olive seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a
-crime in which she had no part.</p>
-
-<p>But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
-attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her
-in times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed.
-Perhaps because Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as
-though she had no pride, but this is not true, for her pride was
-of a deeper kind than expresses itself in noise and protest: it
-was of that unconscious kind associated with high birth and
-breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with dignity and
-in silence.</p>
-
-<p>Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark
-eyes quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright
-spots of color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you
-how much I thank you for telling me this about Jean,” she said
-“and please believe I did not know of it. Of course you wish me
-to make Jean see the foolishness and the utter uselessness of
-her sacrifice of herself for me and I surely will. I suppose you
-must have wondered why I did not do this before.”</p>
-
-<p>And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly
-difficult, though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very
-things she had intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in
-school-girl fashion across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl
-drew herself away, not angrily in the least, but as if she
-wished neither sympathy nor an apology.</p>
-
-<p>“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for
-I must not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is
-to take place so soon. If her connection with me should make her
-lose it I simply don’t know what I should do!”</p>
-
-<p>And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started
-for home, walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which
-was so marked a characteristic of her training.</p>
-
-<p>Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic,
-tried to keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged,
-“and you are a brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if
-we girls at Primrose Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For
-somehow at this late hour in their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows
-had begun to realize that whatever unfortunate past Olive
-Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to breathe a
-higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first intimate
-talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
-for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to
-claim her allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No,
-she had only been too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the
-way straight for Jean. And at this moment quite humbly Gerry
-would have liked to have begged Olive to allow her to be her
-friend, only at this time she did not dare. And as they walked
-on together in silence some lines that she had learned that
-morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
-Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-        <div class='d021'>“Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater than herself,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Too noble for this place.”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<h2 id='chXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIV<br/>“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</h2>
-
-<p>Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking
-for Jean, for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the
-school than she was seen talking with a group of friends.</p>
-
-<p>“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had
-been out together for a walk and grateful for what she thought
-Gerry’s friendliness to Olive.</p>
-
-<p>Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed
-by the presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room,
-Jean,” she begged, “for Gerry and I have something to talk to
-you about that must be decided at once.”</p>
-
-<p>It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought
-a little impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name
-in speaking to Jean and plainly wished her to be present at
-their coming interview, for there was, of course, a possibility
-that Jean might be a good deal vexed at her interference. But as
-Jean left her other friends immediately, slipping one arm
-through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and propelling them
-as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was there for
-Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?</p>
-
-<p>“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston,
-that you wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as
-they reached their own door, “kindly remember that three heads
-are better than one, even if one is a dunce’s head, else I
-should never have allowed Geraldine Ferrows to be present at our
-council.” And giving each of the girls an added shove, the three
-of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.</p>
-
-<p>Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before
-their open fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large
-open box of flowers on her lap, with her cheeks a good deal
-flushed, possibly from the heat of the fire.</p>
-
-<p>“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of
-your apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to
-have a present for you sent through my care and it seemed to me
-that the surest way to find you was to wait at your own
-hearthstone until you chose to appear.” While Jessica was
-speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward Jean and
-Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me asking
-me to see that you get them.”</p>
-
-<p>With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great
-box, which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its
-fragrances.</p>
-
-<p>“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,”
-Jean exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t
-Frieda be homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even
-if she is so enraptured with boarding school that she hardly
-talks of home any more?”</p>
-
-<p>While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers
-from the box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate
-bouquet, wrapped in white paper and bearing a card with a name
-inscribed upon it.</p>
-
-<p>“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive
-announced, trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and
-Jean both guessed at once that the gift of the large box of
-flowers to them had been made largely in order to include the
-smaller offering inside it.</p>
-
-<p>Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete
-indifference, took the flowers; they were lilies of the valley
-encircled with violets and it was difficult for any girl to
-conceal her delight in them.</p>
-
-<p>Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a
-dangerously demure look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I
-wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you have known our Mr. Drummond? You
-see, we are awfully fond of him and he has been very good to all
-of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have wondered if he could
-think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive and I think
-you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
-that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very
-kind. Can’t you tell us something more?”</p>
-
-<p>Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can
-tell you about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any
-importance. Just that he is rich and good looking and kind. He
-is so rich that he has never done anything or been anything
-else, and I have known him a great many years, since I was a
-small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live near one
-another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
-some of our money.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a
-good deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there
-are lots of people who are not one of those three things.”</p>
-
-<p>And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the
-moment, Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she
-returned, “but I am afraid that I want a man to be more and to
-mean more in this world than just that.” She was about to leave
-the room when Olive put her hand on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica,
-Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but I so often think of you
-as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to Jean about
-something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
-sensibly.”</p>
-
-<p>Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now
-that it was important, else she would not have called in so many
-persons to her assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming
-up to her friend placed one hand on each of her shoulders,
-looking closely with her own autumn-toned brown eyes into her
-friend’s darker ones.</p>
-
-<p>“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish
-me to do that requires so much persuasion?”</p>
-
-<p>And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
-shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
-illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we
-fall.”</p>
-
-<p>“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.</p>
-
-<p>Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the
-first that you were going to ask me something I could not
-grant,” Jean returned plaintively. “Has any one in this world
-ever heard of a goose who chose to be one?”</p>
-
-<p>Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too
-intense for interruption. Without allowing Jean another
-opportunity for a moment’s speech she began her request,
-imploring her to join the Theta Society at once and not to put
-it off a day longer than necessary. “For how, dear, can you do
-me the least good by not belonging when the girls want you so
-much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
-Junior election,” she ended.</p>
-
-<p>“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a
-member of the Theta Society and that my chance for the
-presidency will be influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired
-angrily, although she did not glance toward any one for her
-answer save Olive.</p>
-
-<p>But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she
-feel in any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now
-she moved quietly forward.</p>
-
-<p>“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with
-me, but I have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of
-me I cannot see how it will hurt Olive for you to join the
-Thetas without her and it will hurt you very much in your
-election if you don’t. Olive is not going to be invited to
-become a member if you stay out and you may lose the class
-presidency if you are so obstinate.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that
-Gerry is perfectly right and that there is no other way of
-looking at this matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my
-heart if she does not, and I can’t see a bit of sense in her
-position.”</p>
-
-<p>“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say
-anything at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about
-this whole business.”</p>
-
-<p>A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward
-Gerry.</p>
-
-<p>“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because
-of course I know you are being good as gold to me and only
-acting for what you believe to be my good, but I don’t think
-either you or Olive in the least understand my position. I am
-not staying out of the Theta Society for Olive’s sake; I am
-staying out for my own.”</p>
-
-<p>“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.</p>
-
-<p>“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want
-you to think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would
-be (leaving me out of the case entirely) if that girl should win
-out in a big matter like a class election by turning her back on
-her best friend and more than her friend, her almost sister. And
-you, Olive, suppose you had no part in this business at all, or
-suppose you and I had changed places, what would you think of a
-girl who would say to another group of girls, ‘Yes, thank you, I
-am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to enjoy your
-superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
-and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with
-you?’ I, of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a
-traitor if you will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown
-eyes were flashing and her face was pale, yet she laughed a
-little at her own fierceness.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just
-this thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on,
-“and I argued it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt
-Olive by joining the Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself
-that such an action would not hurt me. See here, dear,” and
-Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling as she spoke again
-directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to forget our
-friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for wouldn’t
-you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
-me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day
-time and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was?
-No, sir-ee,” and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude,
-pretending to slip her fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the
-words of that famous gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick
-Henry, or Daniel Webster, I can’t remember, ‘I would rather be
-right than President!’”</p>
-
-<p>“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I
-take off my hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this
-question any further with Jean, for she has just said something
-that we all know to be a fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou
-canst not then be false to any man.’”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like
-an embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right,
-Jean,” she conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are
-if you feel as you say you do, so I shall not try to make you
-change your opinion.”</p>
-
-<p>But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in
-the center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good,
-but I don’t care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to
-sacrifice yourself in the way you are doing for me. I must find
-out how to prevent it and I warn you now that I shall write to
-Jack and have her ask you to change your mind.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow
-to be a poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t
-let us talk about this tedious subject any longer and do let us
-put the kettle on and all take tea, for I have talked so much I
-am nearly dying of thirst.”</p>
-
-<p>Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch
-girls getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for
-just such occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was
-said until they were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then
-Jean turned to Olive.</p>
-
-<p>“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t
-hurt your feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us
-it seems to me the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have
-known for some time that there has been some gossip about Olive
-going the rounds of the school, but we have never known who
-started it nor just what the story is. Would you mind telling
-us?”</p>
-
-<p>Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face
-showing nervousness and discomfort.</p>
-
-<p>“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are
-and that we ranch girls found her several years ago with an
-Indian woman and that she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean
-continued inexorably.</p>
-
-<p>Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally
-through the Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”</p>
-
-<p>“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her
-questioner continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her
-saucer, “Yes, that is all.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they
-have heard is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was
-trying to speak calmly. “I can see now that we have made a
-mistake; it would have been better if we had been perfectly
-candid about Olive’s past from the first. There never has been a
-minute when we would have minded telling it, if any one of the
-girls had come and asked us, but lately I have thought that some
-extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive and
-joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any
-human beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose
-Hall girls have been to Olive, unless they had been told
-something perfectly dreadful about her. Well, I don’t think I
-care a snap about being class president of such a set of girls,”
-Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her guests. “Olive
-Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than I am,
-but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
-promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good
-red Indian blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood
-that must run in the veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry,
-dear, I do beg your pardon and of course I don’t mean you, but
-if I hadn’t been allowed to speak this out loud, I should
-certainly have exploded.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the
-snobs, too, Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will
-forgive me and make up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”</p>
-
-<p>Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure,
-clothed in a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace,
-with yellow hair piled high on its head, entered the room. “What
-on earth is Jean preaching about?” the voice of no other person
-than the youngest Miss Ralston inquired. “I have just been
-across the hall with Mollie and Lucy Johnson and I declare she
-has been talking steadily for an hour.”</p>
-
-<p>Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean
-could only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she
-gotten so marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage
-affair. But at this instant, beholding the violets, Frieda,
-forgetting her grown-up manner for a moment, jumped at them.
-“Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said like the small girl who
-once had taken care of her own violet beds at The Rainbow Lodge.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XV<br/>THE DANGER OF WEALTH</h2>
-
-<p>The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been
-somewhat happier and certainly a great deal better off in many
-respects could she now have turned back the pages of her
-existence for a few months and been again that same little
-yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of every man, woman and
-child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow Ranch, for Frieda
-had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that is of a
-serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
-much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.</p>
-
-<p>After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk
-gown and velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for
-beautiful clothes awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a
-Western ranch girl and had never dreamed of such splendors as
-the New York shops afforded, neither did she have any very clear
-idea of the real value of money. Because gold had been
-discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her fifty
-dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
-wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very
-dangerous habit of buying whatever she wished without
-considering the cost, and the way she managed to do this was by
-making bills!</p>
-
-<p>Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to
-go into town for every little purchase it became necessary for
-them to make, Ruth had opened a charge account for the three
-ranch girls at one of the best of the New York shops, but the
-bills were expected to be sent to the girls and to be paid out
-of their allowances. Jean and Olive had made only a few
-necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it, Frieda
-had lately been buying with utter recklessness.</p>
-
-<p>Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other
-two ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had
-arrived that very afternoon and been delivered in the care of
-Mollie Johnson. Hanging up in Mollie’s closet at the same
-instant was an equally charming garment, almost of the same kind
-as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and but lately presented by
-Frieda to her best friend.</p>
-
-<p>So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the
-letter of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose
-Hall, she was certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she
-had broken her promise altogether on the afternoon when she and
-Mollie had been alone together, while Olive and Jean were
-drinking tea at “The Towers.”</p>
-
-<p>Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from
-it. The story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For
-Frieda naturally began the conversation with her friend by
-telling her that Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the
-Harmons, and then that they had learned to know the Harmons
-because they had rented their ranch to them the summer before.
-From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to the
-Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
-coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to
-buy the Rainbow Mine.</p>
-
-<p>When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly,
-but it was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s
-eyes had grown wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at
-her words. “Why, Frieda Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once,
-“you don’t mean to tell me that you are an heiress as well as
-everything else that is interesting! Why, you have let me think
-that you were poor before, though I have wondered sometimes
-about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell me
-whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”</p>
-
-<p>To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began
-her very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once
-both sorry and frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began;
-“that is, I don’t see any sense in its being, but I have
-promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew not to talk about our money
-at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have our friends just
-know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine. Do you
-see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”</p>
-
-<p>Earnestly Mollie shook her head.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,”
-Frieda conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning
-to, I am glad, for I do just want to talk about it with somebody
-and you are my dearest friend and I wish you to know everything
-about me.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the
-nice things about her, for it really is not our faults that we
-long to pour into the ears of our friends.</p>
-
-<p>The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold
-for the past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and
-rested her chin on her hands. “Want me to tell you every single
-thing about our mine?” she demanded. “It is quite like a fairy
-story.”</p>
-
-<p>And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not
-Mollie Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a
-mine.</p>
-
-<p>“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you
-wish you may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising
-everything and making all the mystic signs necessary to eternal
-secrecy, Mollie then had listened to the unfolding of the fairy
-tale.</p>
-
-<p>Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale,
-but she had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine
-produced than a baby, and of course with the telling of her tale
-the size of the nuggets that Jim was getting out of the mine
-each week naturally grew.</p>
-
-<p>“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we
-simply don’t know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the
-ranch, who now looks after our mine, says you never can tell at
-first how much a mine may yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires
-some day.”</p>
-
-<p>The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s
-vocabulary, which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall,
-but certainly it had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.</p>
-
-<p>“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed,
-“and I do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than
-most anybody I should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my
-father is just a lawyer in Richmond and while we have a pretty
-house and all that, why we have some other brothers and sisters,
-and father says all he can afford to do is to let Lucy and me
-have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give us money
-for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
-make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your
-lovely things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into
-curls the ends of her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at
-her with an even increased admiration.</p>
-
-<p>Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on
-the youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the
-question with Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and
-rushing to her desk indited a letter to a New York firm asking
-that the two kimonos be sent her at once with slippers and
-stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie was just too sweet
-and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted sisters
-and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
-went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of
-writing her letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s
-feet, but all that she could do more was to invite her to come
-into town the next week to be her guest at the matinee and lunch
-and to help her make a few more purchases.</p>
-
-<p>For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check
-had, and so for the time being, like many another person, she
-felt fairly well off, although her allowance for the past two
-months had melted away like wax without her being able to pay
-back a single cent of the money to either Jean or Olive, which
-they had advanced to help with her first extravagance, the blue
-silk dress and velvet coat.</p>
-
-<p>One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a
-good deal more money at their disposal than Frieda had at
-present, is the way that five-dollar bills have of disappearing
-in New York City. So by the time Frieda had paid for three
-tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of course compelled to
-bring a chaperon into town with them, and three lunches at a
-fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money left
-out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
-charging on her account, in order to get the few more things
-that she and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the
-visit in Richmond toward the close of December.</p>
-
-<p>On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train
-and feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent
-this extra money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts
-until January, and what with Christmas coming, there would be so
-many presents for others that she would wish to buy! So once
-Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving her a hug, demanded to
-know what worried her, she would not say. For how confess that
-money matters were worrying her but a few days after the time
-when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
-Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at
-Christmas time, if they should consent to let her make the trip
-south, and out of this amount she would certainly save enough to
-pay her bills, without having to confess her extravagances. For
-Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would both be angry and ashamed
-of her for breaking her promise and for buying things which she
-did not really need.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVI<br/>ELECTION DAY</h2>
-
-<p>The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class
-had arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three
-o’clock until six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne
-would remain in the library at Primrose Hall watching over the
-ballot box. Immediately after six the box would be opened, the
-ballots counted and the choice of the Juniors announced.</p>
-
-<p>For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant
-days and the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now
-and then in the past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the
-shore waters of the Hudson River would then be trimmed with a
-fine fringe of ice. Once the election was over the Primrose Hall
-students would be making plans for the Christmas holidays, but
-until then nothing else, not even home and family, appeared of
-so great importance.</p>
-
-<p>Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had
-gone astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s
-cause. Indeed, like many another brave campaigner, she had only
-worked the harder, rallying Jean’s friends closer around her,
-exhorting her enemies and trying to persuade the girls on the
-fence that there was no real point in their antagonism toward
-Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made she had had an able
-lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted friend.</p>
-
-<p>For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that
-unless her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of
-the character she had already established among them, nothing
-she could do or say at this late day should influence them. And
-Jean had also never wavered from the attitude she had taken in
-regard to Olive on the afternoon of their final discussion of
-the subject. She had not needed that her resolution be
-strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and Jack
-Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
-her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that
-Jean be persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the
-reply she hoped for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically
-declared Jean’s position the only possible one.</p>
-
-<p>All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had
-been conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever
-their presence in one of the class rooms made it possible. Her
-expression was so wistful and apologetic that Jean began to care
-more for her own success on Olive’s account than her own. So as
-soon as luncheon was over and three o’clock had come around,
-slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s, she drew her
-along the hall toward the library door.</p>
-
-<p>“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let
-us go upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over.
-Then Gerry and Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a
-really high-minded person I suppose I should now vote for my
-rival, Miss Graham, but as I can’t bring myself up to that
-point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper for old Gerry.”</p>
-
-<p>Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their
-own sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign
-outside announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both
-ranch girls were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was
-plainly the more affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in
-a perfectly natural fashion, she was pale and silent and
-oftentimes on the verge of tears.</p>
-
-<p>The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the
-bare upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of
-the earth.</p>
-
-<p>“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the
-writing table before one of their windows, “why should you
-behave as though the question of my election was the only
-important thing in the world. On a day like this I only feel
-desperately homesick for Jack and the old ranch. What wouldn’t I
-give if we were all there to-day and just starting out on a
-long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about never seeing
-Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to Jim
-and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
-time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated
-Ralph rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have
-only written twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really
-coming east to see how Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will
-hate to see Ruth again or like it? One never can tell about a
-person in love.”</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the
-Rainbow Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no
-sooner had she put her pen to the paper than apparently all
-worry and suspense left her and she scratched away rapidly and
-clearly for several hours.</p>
-
-<p>But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she
-kept up such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room
-that at any other time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded.
-First she tried studying her Shakespeare, since she was making a
-special effort to succeed in the Shakespeare class, and before
-coming east to school had read only a few plays with Ruth and
-the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge. But not the
-most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy by
-William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea
-that engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to
-read, she flung her book down on the floor, saying petulantly:
-“Tiresome stuff! I wonder what ever made me think for an instant
-I could stand any chance of getting the Shakespeare prize?”</p>
-
-<p>Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us
-thought you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you
-dearly love to read and study at most times. But why don’t you
-go out for a walk, you can find Frieda somewhere around
-downstairs and make her go with you. I don’t want to.”</p>
-
-<p>“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a
-good deal more temper than usual with her, and flying into her
-own room, she banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for
-some occupation, she came across a piece of sewing which she had
-once started at the Lodge, some white silk cut in the shape of a
-round cap to be covered over with small white pearl beads.</p>
-
-<p>Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low
-stool by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would
-have a more soothing influence upon her than reading for the
-two more hours that had somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing
-on this occasion was more distracting than reading, for very
-soon Olive’s fingers worked automatically while her brain
-began to concern itself with interesting and puzzling ideas.
-The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose Hall had
-not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
-we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of
-and to ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led
-such eventful lives.</p>
-
-<p>After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation
-later with Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books
-in the school library that she could find, which might help her
-explain the curious experience—confided to no one—through which
-she had passed that afternoon. But it was not just this one
-experience that had puzzled and worried Olive, for many strange
-fancies, impressions, memories, she knew not what to call them,
-had been drifting into her mind since her first sight of that
-white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival at
-Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything
-that was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe
-that she could recall dim ideas and events having no connection
-with the years she had spent in the Indian tent with old Laska.
-But why had these far-off memories not assailed her in the two
-years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps then the recollection of
-Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her with such an odd
-mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people about her
-whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent in
-her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
-associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was
-impossible, for Olive felt sure that she had never been east
-before in her life.</p>
-
-<p>Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last
-six.</p>
-
-<p>Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly
-folding up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective
-envelopes. She looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but
-composed. At last she got up from her chair and crossing the
-floor knelt down in front of Olive, taking the piece of sewing
-from her cold fingers.</p>
-
-<p>“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively
-ill from thinking of something or other and worrying over me.
-For both our sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this
-afternoon just for the next hour. I know I have not been elected
-the Junior president. I never have really expected to be, but
-just as I sat there writing about half an hour ago I knew I had
-not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been thinking that I have
-been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet look at me!
-Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply disappointed?”
-And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion. “Promise
-me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
-have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and
-not think that you have had anything to do with my failure.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean,
-when I know perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly
-attempting to hide the fact that she was trembling with
-excitement and that her ears were strained forward to catch the
-first noise of footsteps coming toward their door.</p>
-
-<p>Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say
-or do with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me
-for president nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”</p>
-
-<p>The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly
-made Jean tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew
-positively you had not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really
-know absolutely nothing about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I
-thought I heard some one coming down the hall.”</p>
-
-<p>As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
-appeared to interrupt them.</p>
-
-<p>“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said,
-“because it must now be some little time after six o’clock and
-Miss Sterne and Jessica could never have taken so long a time as
-this to count the few ballots of the Junior class.”</p>
-
-<p>However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the
-hall approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting
-room.</p>
-
-<p>It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open,
-while Jean waited calmly in the center of the room.</p>
-
-<p>Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and
-Mollie Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting
-girls the truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean
-and Gerry took a farm clasp of Olive’s hand.</p>
-
-<p>“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVII<br/>CONGRATULATIONS</h2>
-
-<p>By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping
-bitterly in Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on
-the back. Gerry looked utterly exhausted, her hair was in a
-perfect tumble and a smut ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda
-had turned toward the wall and Lucy and Mollie Johnson each had
-an arm about her.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but
-Olive simply would not accept what her eyes had already told
-her.</p>
-
-<p>“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
-entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.</p>
-
-<p>“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior
-class at Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced
-stoically, and then there was a sudden sound of weeping from all
-parts of the sitting room.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,”
-Jean insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene.
-“Margaret dear, you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of
-course, I am sorry not to have been elected, but I’m not
-disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately that I could be. And
-please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean kissed Margaret
-and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.</p>
-
-<p>“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease
-to be grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let
-us show the girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow.
-Please everybody stop crying at once and come on with me to
-shake hands and offer my congratulations to Winifred Graham.
-Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the next time she beheld us we
-should all appear to have been washed away in tears? The first
-person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a five-pound
-box of candy from me in the morning.”</p>
-
-<p>Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not
-learn the bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had
-an immediate effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and
-Margaret. Both girls stiffened up at once.</p>
-
-<p>“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it
-will never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior
-class just because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of
-the girls did vote for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely,
-why Winifred Graham and her set can’t crow over us half so much
-as if we show our chagrin.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s
-crowing that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.</p>
-
-<p>“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations
-to Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking
-point. For my part I would rather do my duty and remember my
-manners without delay.”</p>
-
-<p>And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would
-follow her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that
-Olive was missing and going back called out softly: “Come on,
-Olive, and help us congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us
-show an ugly spirit now, would you?”</p>
-
-<p>But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means
-sure how Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she
-forbore to insist on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be
-disagreeable under the present circumstances Jean was not
-perfectly sure of being able to keep cool; and of all things she
-must not show temper at the present moment. Besides, her few
-minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of the girls
-to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
-Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of
-the election. After a first moment of breaking down she had
-entirely regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at
-seeing her so sensible.</p>
-
-<p>One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure
-and an entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing
-perfectly still. Had Jean been pleased because she had accepted
-her failure so sensibly? Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken
-simply because she could not trust herself to speak. She had not
-cried, because in the first moments of humiliation and regret,
-there are but few people who can at once summon tears. Of
-course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
-view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated
-herself, she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and
-this last blow had come to her after months of coldness and
-neglect on the part of her classmates, which she had borne
-bravely and in silence. Now Olive was through with courage and
-with silence.</p>
-
-<p>At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for
-the relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung
-herself face downward on the bed, giving herself up to the
-luxury of this weakness. When she arose her face wore a look of
-unusual determination. Whatever her fight, it was ended now.
-First she walked over to her bureau and there unlocking a small
-iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which all who have
-followed her history, know to be the single possession she had
-rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for
-the last time.</p>
-
-<p>The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before
-beginning the letter she plainly intended writing, she picked
-them up one by one, looking at them closely, the silver cross
-and chain worn on the evening of the dance, the small book only
-a few inches in size, and the watch with the picture of a
-woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the ranch girls
-had always believed to look like Olive.</p>
-
-<p>At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this
-also was laid aside for the work she had in mind.</p>
-
-<p>“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):</p>
-
-<p>“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a
-student at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this
-news and if Jack is too ill to be worried, please do not mention
-this to her. I have tried very hard to bear my difficulties here
-and truly I would have gone on without complaining, for I can
-live without the friendship of other girls so long as you and
-the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot bear is to be a
-drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as I do
-here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot
-go back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do
-now and am able to teach them. Can I not go to some little
-school where the girls will not care so much about my past? But
-if you are not willing for me to do this, and I know how little
-I am worthy of all you and the ranch girls have done for me, you
-must not mind if I find some work to do, so that I can make my
-living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no longer at
-Primrose Hall.</p>
-
-<p class='d022'>“With all love, OLIVE.”</p>
-
-<p>And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and
-aching, rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms.
-When she lifted it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine
-Winthrop was standing only a few feet away.</p>
-
-<p>“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must
-have failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to
-talk to you.”</p>
-
-<p>The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion
-seemed always to know, almost before it happened, every event
-that transpired at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to
-it, was well recognized by her pupils. So of course she now knew
-not only that Winifred Graham had been elected to the Junior
-Class presidency, but the particular reason why Jean had been
-defeated.</p>
-
-<p>“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss
-Winthrop,” Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying
-to disguise the truth. “I know you think it very foolish and
-stupid of me.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl
-to a stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually
-discourage tears,” she answered with a half smile; “at least, I
-know my girls think I am very unsympathetic about them. But I
-suppose now and then we women are just obliged to weep, being
-made that way. What I want to talk to you about is Jean’s defeat
-at the election this afternoon. You feel responsible for it,
-don’t you?”</p>
-
-<p>Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings,
-as apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her
-head.</p>
-
-<p>“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just
-written asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall
-because of what has happened.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an
-instant toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she
-could not have seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared,
-almost gasped. “How could you know, Miss Winthrop?”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that
-it seemed to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t
-know about your letter, dear, I only guessed that after the
-experience you have passed through this afternoon, with what has
-gone before, you were almost sure to have written it. And I want
-to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my
-mind,” she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now
-I am quite determined.”</p>
-
-<p>A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as
-though she were not speaking directly to the girl before her,
-Miss Winthrop went on. “I believe there are but three types of
-people in this world, be they men or women, that I cannot
-endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob. Unfortunately I have
-discovered that there are among the girls here in my school a
-good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to me
-and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am
-very sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the
-weakness, the ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you
-help me, if though not a snob, you are one or both of the other
-two things I have mentioned?”</p>
-
-<p>“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at
-the older woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that
-no others could express her meaning so forcibly.</p>
-
-<p>“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the
-sake of Jean and Frieda,” she defended.</p>
-
-<p>“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if
-you think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You
-feel you have endured the slights and coldness of your
-classmates without flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like
-the hurt that comes to you with the feeling that your presence
-in the school is reflecting on Frieda and Jean. They do not wish
-you to go away, Olive, they will be deeply sorry if you do and
-whatever harm you may think you have done them has already been
-done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away from Primrose
-Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings, because
-your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
-at last!”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from
-her listener.</p>
-
-<p>For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed
-no further influence from the outside. By and by she put her
-small hand on Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she
-replied. “I believe I <i>have</i> been thinking all this time
-about myself without knowing it, You made me think of Jack when
-you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they are the kind of
-words she would have been apt to use.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too,
-Olive, and I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe
-I learned those two words and what they stood for from a boy
-friend of mine long years ago. Now I want to talk to you about
-yourself.” The woman leaned over, and putting her two fingers
-under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted her head back so
-that she could see in sharp outline every feature of the girl’s
-face.</p>
-
-<p>“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to
-Primrose Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious
-story, of their finding you with an old Indian woman with whom
-you had apparently lived a great many years. I believe that the
-woman claimed you as her daughter, but though no one believed
-her, your Western friends have never made any investigation
-about your past, fearing that this Indian woman might again
-appear to claim you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very
-many people in it and since the idea that you are an Indian
-worries you so much, I want to assure you I do not believe for a
-moment you have a trace of Indian blood in you. Except that you
-have black hair and your skin is a little darker than
-Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to carry a
-remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
-are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is
-too absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about
-yourself and if you would like me to try to find out something
-of your history. Perhaps I might know better how to go about it
-than your Western friends.”</p>
-
-<p>For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with
-the sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all
-I have of my own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss
-Winthrop’s lap and then tearing up the letter just written to
-Ruth, before sitting down again on her stool near the older
-woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss Winthrop’s hand,
-saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can recall
-about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come
-to me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life,
-whom I must have known long before old Laska and the Indian
-days.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVIII<br/>FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</h2>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and
-keep back nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I
-will not understand. Whoever your father and mother may have
-been, you certainly have ancestors of whom you need not be
-ashamed.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her
-eyes on the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story
-of the Indian village and of Laska and how she could not recall
-a time when she had not spoken English as white people speak it,
-then of her years at the Government school for Indians taught by
-a white woman, who had always been her friend and assured her
-that she was not of the same race as the Indian children about
-her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the ornaments in
-the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story, Miss
-Winthrop had not yet examined.</p>
-
-<p>Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the
-years she had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old
-Laska in the mail each month a certain sum of money, large
-enough to keep her and her son in greater wealth and idleness
-than any of the other Indians in the village enjoyed. But from
-what place this money had come nor who had sent it Olive did not
-know, and so to her this fact did not seem of great value,
-although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on hearing
-it.</p>
-
-<p>“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?”
-she demanded.</p>
-
-<p>Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when
-puzzled, the girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she
-said slowly. “How strange and stupid of me never to have thought
-of this before! The postmark was New York! But New York meant
-nothing to me in those days, Miss Winthrop, except just a name
-on a map at school. You cannot guess how strange and ignorant I
-was until the ranch girls found me and began teaching me a few
-things that were not to be found in school books. But no one
-could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
-been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have
-always hoped. Laska must have received it for some other
-reason.” And then Olive, either from weariness or
-disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not as though she had
-told all that she knew, but because she could not quite make up
-her mind to go on.</p>
-
-<p>A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke
-again:</p>
-
-<p>“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it.
-But this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have
-told to other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon,
-Miss Drew. What I most wish you to confide to me are the ideas
-and impressions of the years when you may not always have lived
-in the Indian village.”</p>
-
-<p>Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that
-I have had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can
-confide even to you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be
-possible that a human being can remember things at one time of
-their life and not have known them always? Why, since my arrival
-at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall impressions that I did not
-have at the Rainbow Ranch?”</p>
-
-<p>The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over
-the question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I
-believe I can in a measure understand this problem that troubles
-you. Half the memories that we have in the world come through
-association. It is the sight of an object that recalls something
-in our past which brings that past back to us. Now when you were
-living at the Rainbow Ranch the memory of your life with Laska,
-the fear that she might take you away from your friends, was so
-close to you that you thought of little else. But now you are in
-an entirely different place, the fear of the woman has gone from
-you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
-associations should bring to life new memories. What is there
-that you have been recalling in these past few months?”</p>
-
-<p>And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she
-murmured at last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I
-have seen the big, white house where Madame Van Mater lives at
-some time before. Of course, I know I have not seen it, for I
-have never been in this part of the world before. But the other
-day, standing at the window, I suddenly remembered a description
-of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have read and learned
-long years ago, though I never thought of it until that moment.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by
-reason of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted
-quietly. “Can you recall anything more about the house and do
-you think that you ever saw Madame Van Mater before the other
-day?” The strange note in her questioner’s voice was lost upon
-the girl at her feet.</p>
-
-<p>“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like
-her,” Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house
-did not seem familiar, only the outside and the tower room and
-those ridiculous iron dogs guarding the front door. But I want
-to tell you something that seems to me important—of course, my
-impression about Madame Van Mater’s home is sheer madness. What
-I really can remember is this—” Olive stopped for a moment as
-though trying to be very careful of only telling the truth. “I
-remember that when I was a very little girl I must have traveled
-about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not think
-I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately
-I have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s
-eyes, turned toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope.
-“He must have been very tall, or at least he seemed so to me
-then, and I went about with him everywhere. Finally we came to a
-place where we stayed a much longer time and there Laska first
-must have come to take care of us. I think now that my father
-must have died in that place, for I can not remember anything
-more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
-Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I
-perfectly certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss
-Winthrop had not spoken and supposing therefore that she
-considered her idle fancies of little account.</p>
-
-<p>The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair,
-her hand shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the
-expression of her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the
-hearing of her pupil’s strange story, she did not now mean to
-reveal.</p>
-
-<p>“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and
-surely very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting
-but little faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any
-possible connection between your travels in the West as a little
-child and your idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The
-Towers.’ But there is one person who can tell us something of
-your early history without doubt—and that person is this woman
-Laska! She kept you with her all those years for money and
-probably pretends that you are with her still, so that she
-continues to receive the same money each month, else she would
-have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love
-of money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an
-offer of more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of
-this, Olive dear, to any one in the world at present, but I will
-write to your old teacher at the Government school in the Indian
-village and perhaps through her aid we may reach this Laska.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in
-the face of so great interest and kindness would have been too
-inadequate. What could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now
-looking at her few treasures in the sandalwood box.</p>
-
-<p>“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it
-slip through her fingers as once more she examined its curious
-workmanship, “but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish
-and is a Spanish prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss
-Winthrop put her hand under Olive’s chin, studying the unusual
-outline of her face. “I wonder if you are a Spanish girl, child,
-for that would explain why you are darker than most Americans
-and why you have so foreign an appearance?”</p>
-
-<p>Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it
-to her friend’s gaze.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began
-turning the watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so
-deeply interested in the photograph as in the watch itself.
-“This watch was sold here in New York, Olive, and I have seen
-one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice trembled a little and
-she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of this any more
-this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to ask you
-to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
-them more closely.”</p>
-
-<p>And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left
-the room.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIX<br/>NEW YEAR’S EVE</h2>
-
-<p>Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and
-Miss Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the
-Christmas holidays at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For
-twelve days, save for Olive and its owner, the great house had
-been empty of all its other pupils and teachers; now in another
-thirty-six hours they would be returning to take up their work
-again.</p>
-
-<p>The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean
-and gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
-Belknap and Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson
-sisters. The ranch girls had not wished to leave Olive alone and
-each one of them had offered to remain at school with her, but
-this sacrifice could hardly be accepted because Olive had made
-no friends who had wished her to be with them. Jessica Hunt
-would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she had no
-home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
-babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their
-common disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these
-Invitations Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared
-for in a trip to New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and
-this privilege was still denied the ranch girls.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left
-alone at Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion
-during the holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see
-what arrangements could be made for her pleasure. However, after
-a serious half hour’s talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter
-consultation with Olive, she had gone away again content to
-leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands than her own.</p>
-
-<p>And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for
-Olive, yet they had never been dull, for each moment she was
-hoping and praying to hear some news from old Laska and each
-hour being drawn into closer intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For
-now that the discipline of school life had been relaxed, the
-principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her favorite pupil
-in a light that would have surprised most of her students. She
-was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive with an
-affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
-private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl
-would sit close together under the shadow of “The Winged
-Victory,” reading aloud or talking of the great world of men and
-cities about which Miss Winthrop knew so much and Olive so
-little. But of the secret of the girl’s past her new friend did
-not encourage her to talk for the present.</p>
-
-<p>“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for
-us not to go into this subject again until we hear from the
-Indian woman, and then should she fail us, I must try to think
-of some other plan to help you.”</p>
-
-<p>And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under
-every human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska,
-though it was now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had
-been alone all morning and unusually depressed, for although she
-had not heard what she so eagerly waited to hear, she had
-learned that the surgeons had at last decided an operation must
-be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her that there was
-supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s spine
-that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
-operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had
-insisted that it should be tried.</p>
-
-<p>The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of
-Sleepy Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its
-Indian summer mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that
-she might brace up, for certainly she did not intend to let
-Frieda and Jean find her in the dumps on their return from their
-holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably go out with her, as she
-had been attending to school matters all morning, seeing that
-the house was made ready for the return of her students, and
-Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had eaten
-lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.</p>
-
-<p>While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend
-she herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to
-find her in the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in
-the library, nor in the drawing rooms, could she be found and by
-and by the maid came back to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had
-gone out and would probably not return till tea time. She had
-left word that Olive must not be lonely and that she must
-entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive knew of
-but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
-would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were
-no longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly
-familiar with the nearby neighborhood.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s
-Christmas present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they
-might have their Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given
-Olive a brown fur coat and cap. Olive had not worn them before,
-but now, with the snow falling and the thought of Jack in her
-mind, she put them both on. For a minute she glanced at herself
-in her mirror before leaving the house and though her vanity was
-less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
-pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her
-new furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people.
-The soft brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness
-of her hair and in her olive cheeks there was a bright color
-which grew brighter the longer and faster she trudged through
-the lightly falling snow.</p>
-
-<p>Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken
-for her walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a
-visit to Madame Van Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on
-the old lady every few days and knew Olive’s dislike to
-accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been inside “The Towers”
-nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit there. But
-now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
-her friend returning toward home.</p>
-
-<p>The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity
-of Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because
-the trees had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and
-were covered only with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No
-man or woman who has lived a great deal out of doors in their
-youth fails to draw new strength and cheerfulness from the air
-and sunshine, and Olive, who had left school thinking only that
-Jack’s operation might not be successful and of the pain her
-friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the beautiful
-possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
-the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some
-day not too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she
-would never hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably
-dead or had disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now
-with her blood running quickly in her veins from the cold and
-the snow, she determined if Laska failed her to go west the next
-summer and try to trace out her ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop,
-Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew stood ready to help her
-in anything she might undertake.</p>
-
-<p>“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare
-of relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the
-opening where she could catch the first glimpse of the big white
-house. “I wish Miss Winthrop would come along out of there,” she
-said aloud after waiting a minute and finding that standing
-still made her shiver in spite of her furs. “I wonder why I
-can’t get up the courage to march up to that front door past
-those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
-don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little
-late, Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back
-alone. Besides, I want to walk with her.”</p>
-
-<p>Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very
-true and deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss
-Winthrop, she cared for her with all her heart.</p>
-
-<p>Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and
-looking up toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to
-recall her own foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction
-to it. There was no one about in the front of the house, not a
-servant nor a caller. For a moment Olive stopped, smiling, by
-one of the big iron dogs that seemed to guard the entrance to
-the old place. She brushed off a little snow from the head of
-one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly of me to
-think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
-Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to
-be brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow
-from the statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have
-only heard about you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I
-have been told about it until I felt almost as if I had seen
-it,” she announced with greater conviction in her tones than she
-had ever used before, even to herself, in trying to recall the
-confused impressions of her childhood.</p>
-
-<p>But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house
-and ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the
-door was suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss
-Winthrop stepped with an expression on her face no one had ever
-seen it wear before—one of surprise and wonder, anger and
-pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find
-the girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to
-Madame Van Mater. We have something to tell you.”</p>
-
-<div class='d001'>
-  <div class='d002'>
-    <img class='d003'
-    alt='“I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”'
-    src='images/illus-002.jpg' />
-  </div>
-  <p class='d004'>
-  “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”
-  </p>
-</div>
-
-<h2 id='chXX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XX<br/>THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</h2>
-
-<p>In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon
-of Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat
-apparently waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were
-as artistically arranged and she was as carefully dressed as
-ever. At the stranger girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop
-she showed no marked surprise.</p>
-
-<p>“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close
-to me,” she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used
-on a former occasion, and now for the second time Olive found
-herself facing the old lady and being critically surveyed by
-her. Again, with almost unconscious antagonism, their glances
-met.</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me,
-Katherine Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame
-Van Mater said coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her
-appearance is not what I feared it might be, considering my
-son’s marriage. However, I do not see the least trace of
-resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And possibly to
-hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now picked
-up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
-strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to
-Olive, “and Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary
-circumstance of your connection with me. Because I tried to keep
-you as far away from me as possible, fate has therefore brought
-you here under my very nose. It has ever been the way of
-circumstances to thwart me.”</p>
-
-<p>Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking
-about and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees,
-Olive dropped into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this
-instant placed near her.</p>
-
-<p>“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop
-interposed. “Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to
-hear that you are the granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will
-not take long for me to explain the necessary facts to you.
-Years ago your grandmother had an only child, a son of whom she
-was very proud, and as her husband had died some time before,
-all her great wealth was to be given to this son. She hoped that
-some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and that he
-would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
-by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law
-or any of the interests that his mother wished and one day
-announced to her and to me that he had chosen the stage as his
-profession. It is not worth while for me to try to explain to
-you what this decision meant to his mother and to me then,” Miss
-Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the stage did not hold
-the position in the world that it does to-day, and even now
-there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
-their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats,
-but as your father was determined on his own course, he went
-away from this part of the country to the far west and there
-after several years we learned that he had married. I knew that
-your mother had died soon after her marriage and some years
-later your father, but I was never told that they had left a
-child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always known of
-your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
-paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact
-that Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s
-own hand makes it impossible for your relationship to be
-doubted.” Miss Winthrop now paused for a moment.</p>
-
-<p>Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did
-not wish to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did
-not believe my mother a lady?” she asked quietly.</p>
-
-<p>“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.</p>
-
-<p>“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I
-remembered this house because my father had talked of it so much
-to me that I really believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom
-in the tower, the old dogs at the front door that he used to
-play with as a child and all the story of Sleepy Hollow. Well, I
-am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that Miss Winthrop has
-discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own I am very
-glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy on
-the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and
-asked you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of
-Laska?” she questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.</p>
-
-<p>Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going
-back to school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would
-rather not stay here any longer at present.”</p>
-
-<hr class='d023' />
-
-<p>In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were
-walking home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a
-tight clutch of Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well
-away from “The Towers” and the cold woman who was its mistress,
-she felt frightened and confused, as though the story she had
-just heard was a ridiculous dream.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated
-over and over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot
-believe that the queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I
-believe that it has always been intended that you should some
-day know your own people and for that reason you were brought
-from your home in the West to this very neighborhood.”</p>
-
-<p>After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not
-like my grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will
-never like one another. But I am very glad, because if she had
-cared for me she might have wished me to leave the ranch girls,
-and not for all the world can I give up them.”</p>
-
-<p>There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke
-again: “I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I
-have cared in the same way for no one else since, but I also
-felt as your grandmother did about the work he chose to do and
-so here in the old garden at Primrose Hall we said good-bye one
-afternoon for all time. I suppose my pride was greater than my
-love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now I care very much
-for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me be her
-friend.”</p>
-
-<p>“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently;
-“no one save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women
-talked only of trivial matters until after dinner time that
-evening.</p>
-
-<p>In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat
-with her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth
-Drew, disclosing to her the story of the afternoon and asking
-her to keep the discovery of the secret of her ancestry from
-Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it better that Jack be not
-informed at present. And at her desk during the same hour Miss
-Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she set
-forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher
-at the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money
-(which seemed very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been
-induced to surrender certain papers proving that the old
-mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry dale was undoubtedly Olive’s
-grandmother. Though the news had come as an entire surprise to
-Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared for the
-revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
-existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who
-was being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the
-state of Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the
-summer before and learning of her extraordinary history she had
-wondered if the girl could have any connection with her own
-family. Although she had not really believed this possible,
-knowing that Olive had come as a student to Primrose Hall, she
-had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s first
-visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
-However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her
-mind at rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his
-mother, was to her mind wholly unlike her; neither could she
-catch the faintest resemblance to her son, who had been supposed
-to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon. Then Olive’s quiet beauty
-and refined appearance had also satisfied Madame Van Mater that
-this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she believed that
-Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have had so
-lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to
-receive the allowance sent her each month for her
-granddaughter’s care?</p>
-
-<p>In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of
-explanation to Ruth she added the only apology that could ever
-be made for Madame Van Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had
-not understood how ignorant this Indian woman Laska was, nor had
-she dreamed that Olive was being brought up as an Indian. She
-had simply told the woman to continue as Olive’s servant until
-such time as the girl should reach the age of twenty-one, when
-she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her. She had
-not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
-she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize
-her as her heiress and the bearer of her name.</p>
-
-<p>By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of
-their long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room,
-placed herself on a low stool near her companion, resting her
-chin on her hands in a fashion she had when interested. Both
-women talked of her father; they could recall his reading aloud
-to them hour after hour and Olive believed that she must have
-learned by rote Washington Irving’s description of Sleepy Hollow
-valley when she was only a tiny girl and that her first look out
-of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly brought the lines
-back to her recollection.</p>
-
-<p>Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked
-and answered between the two friends, but just as the old year
-was dying with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall,
-Olive said good night. She was half way out the door when she
-turned back again and Miss Winthrop could see by the color in
-her cheeks that there was still another question she wished to
-ask.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have
-been such a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a
-lovelier face than her picture in my father’s watch.”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her
-strange and foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my
-dear, your mother could most certainly not have been dreadful,”
-she answered. “I think I heard that she was a Spanish girl and
-these curios you have and your own appearance make me feel
-assured of the fact. It was because your grandmother was
-informed that your mother was a singer or an actress, that she
-felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is that
-she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
-mentioned as long as she lived.”</p>
-
-<p>With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old
-woman’s at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to
-bed.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXI<br/>JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</h2>
-
-<p>In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last
-chapter Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and
-loneliness and gay with the returning of its students now that
-the holiday season was well past.</p>
-
-<p>Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since
-trains at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the
-school carryall would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the
-steps, sitting in one another’s laps. And it happened that in
-one of these overloaded parties Jean and Frieda arrived at
-Primrose Hall together.</p>
-
-<p>There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such
-a number of students at one time and so much kissing and
-embracing among some of the girls tragically separated from
-their best chums for two weeks, that in the general hubbub Jean
-and Frieda noticed no special change in Olive. If Jean thought
-at first that she had looked a little tired she forgot about it
-in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell of their
-own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
-one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing
-of forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very
-little of each other without outside friends being present until
-almost bedtime that night.</p>
-
-<p>Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their
-lights were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire,
-wearing their kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at
-last for the confidential talk to which for different reasons
-they had all been looking forward for some time.</p>
-
-<p>A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their
-door and on the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat
-two large boxes of candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving
-Richmond, Va., and the other a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil
-Belknap in New York.</p>
-
-<p>For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three
-girls at being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once
-they began talking in chorus.</p>
-
-<p>“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I
-am the youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda
-protested.</p>
-
-<p>Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the
-first chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both
-of them turned their attention full upon her. It was strange,
-for of course Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a
-southern city fails to have—and yet in spite of all her accounts
-of dances and dinner parties and germans given for the school
-girls in Richmond during the holidays, both Jean and Olive
-noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual, but that, if
-it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of worry
-appeared to pucker her brow.</p>
-
-<p>“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing
-altogether too much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when
-Frieda had triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets
-received as favors at germans at their feet.</p>
-
-<p>But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t
-either, Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt
-girls to have a good time in the holidays if they only study
-hard and behave themselves properly at school.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.</p>
-
-<p>And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired.
-Why should you girls think there is anything the matter with
-me?” And she turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her
-audience that it became silenced. For five, ten minutes
-afterwards Frieda continued to hold the floor, and then in the
-midst of an account of a party given at the Johnson home she had
-suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on the floor,
-tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am tired
-to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
-don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you
-haven’t anything special to say, just having stayed here at
-school with Miss Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in
-New York.”</p>
-
-<p>Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly,
-both the older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had
-even ceased talking her eyes had filled with tears.</p>
-
-<p>The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New
-York City was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was
-several years older than her cousin, in New York school girls
-are never allowed the same privileges that they enjoy in the
-South. But Jean had been to the theatre many times and to
-luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken Margaret and Jean and
-Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap had been very
-nice and she had liked him a little better, though she still
-thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a
-leading question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded
-her story. “There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell
-everybody when the lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not
-willing to tell now.”</p>
-
-<p>Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping
-a large chocolate into her mouth.</p>
-
-<p>“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away
-like selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have
-had a dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.</p>
-
-<p>Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time;
-at least, not lately.”</p>
-
-<p>Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s
-lips.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and
-you took long walks together and things like that. I believe
-Miss Winthrop is really fond of you, Olive, even more than she
-is of Jean and me. I wonder why?”</p>
-
-<p>At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she
-thinks Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of
-course you and I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I
-hope, Olive dear, that she was good to you.”</p>
-
-<p>And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly
-flushed scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better
-than any one else in the world except you ranch girls,” she
-replied.</p>
-
-<p>Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression,
-Jean’s own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she
-have been so unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a
-sudden flash of illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something
-important on your mind that you want to tell us. I might have
-guessed that you have been keeping it a secret ever since we
-returned, letting us chat all this nonsense about our visits
-first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss Winthrop wants to
-adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented, or none
-of us will ever forgive you in this world!”</p>
-
-<p>Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you
-yet,” she murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen
-different ways of starting in the last two days.”</p>
-
-<p>“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda
-darkly. “I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us
-for having left you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas
-holidays. Of course Miss Winthrop decided that we really do not
-care much for you and for all her coldness to the other girls
-she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just crazy about you,
-Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But whether you
-like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have believed
-that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
-when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.</p>
-
-<p>“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want
-to tell you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with
-her if you should ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I
-don’t want to live with her if you ranch girls want me. I was
-only trying to explain——”</p>
-
-<p>“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as
-white and shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty
-in making her confession.</p>
-
-<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her
-accustomed voice and manner, “it is only that since you have
-been away Miss Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an
-Indian girl. I am not even a western girl, or at least my father
-was not a Westerner. You remember the day we went to see the
-Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old Madame Van Mater stared at me so
-strangely and scolded Donald for thinking I was like his mother.
-She did not wish me to look like Mrs. Harmon because Mrs. Harmon
-was my father’s first cousin and——”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!”
-Frieda interposed.</p>
-
-<p>And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling
-the other girls the history of her father and of herself as far
-back as she had learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I
-have told you all at once, girls, for it does sound like a
-miracle or a fable and we never would have believed such a story
-had we read of it in a book. But Miss Winthrop says that every
-day in the real world just such wonderful things are happening
-as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very neighborhood
-where my father used to live and finding my grandmother alive.
-In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
-coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without
-interruption, of course she believed by this time that both Jean
-and Frieda understood the news she had been trying to make plain
-to them. Frieda had risen to a sitting posture and was staring
-at her with frightened eyes, Jean was frowning deeply.</p>
-
-<p>“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said
-Frieda at the same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of
-the situation the three girls giggled hysterically.</p>
-
-<p>“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story
-over again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean
-had then commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole
-tale again.</p>
-
-<p>Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime
-hour, until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was
-preceptress of their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop
-had already told her something of Olive’s history, she readily
-allowed the ranch girls a half hour’s extra talk. She could not
-help their lights going out at ten o’clock, however, but the
-ranch girls did not really care. A candle under an umbrella
-makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any the
-wiser!</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was
-Olive’s strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more
-devoted to one another than they did to-night. They were sitting
-with their arms about one another when Olive jumped up. “Please
-lend me the candle a minute,” she begged unexpectedly, “I have
-been talking so much about myself that I forgot I had some
-letters for you. They may be important.”</p>
-
-<p>In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped
-several envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if
-they are Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she
-said carelessly, “but if they are letters you had best wait till
-morning.”</p>
-
-<p>With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and
-the paper enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my
-goodness gracious, what ever am I going to do?” she asked
-desperately, seeing three large black figures staring at her
-even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in all this world and I
-owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”</p>
-
-<p>The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed.
-Instead of having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas
-present during her Christmas visit she had spent every cent of
-it. Now, without waiting for her to find out what she could do
-to get the money for her dreadful bill, the wretched, unkind
-shop people had sent it her on the very first day of the New
-Year.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I
-haven’t paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight,
-uncomfortable moment of surprise on the part of the other ranch
-girls, “but what can I do? I suppose I have just got to write to
-Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it for me.”</p>
-
-<p>“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean
-demanded, looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of
-the candle light.</p>
-
-<p>“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.</p>
-
-<p>Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby.
-What I wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is
-that I became a backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent
-told Gerry and Margaret that we were not absolutely paupers. I
-just had to spend some of the money I had saved, the things in
-New York were so fascinating. So I haven’t much left to lend
-you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth says the mine is
-not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we must all be
-economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
-away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at
-Primrose Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we
-are not after all; gold mines are often uncertain.”</p>
-
-<p>“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda
-murmured. And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh.
-“Oh, no, it need not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured
-her, “for I have hardly spent a cent since coming to Primrose
-Hall, so I have nearly enough to help you out, so you need not
-worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that however much I may
-dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to allow her
-to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for the
-money that is now hers should <i>rightfully</i> have come to my
-father even though she did not wish him to have it.”</p>
-
-<p>“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean
-repeated, just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a
-fortune untold, Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of
-gold.’ I used to think she meant our mine.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXII<br/>READJUSTMENTS</h2>
-
-<p>In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection
-with the wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of
-psychology would have had an interesting opportunity in the
-study of the changed attitude of her schoolmates toward her. In
-the first place, from being an Indian girl of uncertain origin,
-Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance and also there
-was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress, should
-her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
-the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some
-portion of the old estate. So you see that instead of being
-looked down upon as the most undesirable student at Primrose
-Hall, the fourth ranch girl had suddenly become exalted upon a
-pedestal, and perhaps it is just as deceptive in this world to
-look up to other people as it is to look down upon them, since a
-fair judgment can only be attained by standing face to face.</p>
-
-<p>Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position
-than she had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded
-as ill breeding, was called haughtiness and her classmates stood
-a little in awe of her. The position was indeed a trying one for
-everybody concerned in it, for scarcely could the girls who had
-been unkind to Olive, now throw themselves about her neck
-begging her forgiveness, simply because so unexpected a turn had
-come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the unwise girls did do
-this, but not those with better judgment and taste, for they
-understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
-greater tact.</p>
-
-<p>Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one
-could be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent
-snubbing of Olive from the first day of her entrance into
-Primrose Hall, not because she liked Olive any better than she
-had at first, but because Winifred only cared for persons who
-might be useful to her, and now this ridiculous Olive with her
-romantic history, might be very useful indeed. The point at
-issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
-hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the
-Junior students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made
-before that the three girls who stood closest in line for this
-prize were Winifred, Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that
-Olive would of course withdraw from the contest, since she could
-hardly take a prize presented by her own grandmother, but what
-Winifred feared was that Olive might throw the balance of her
-influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she now undertook to
-show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls without
-offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
-confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their
-friend, was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but
-there was little assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the
-first place Jessica declared immediately that Olive was not to
-give up her effort to win the Shakespeare prize. Jessica had
-talked the matter over both with Olive and Miss Winthrop and
-they had decided in council that Olive need not give up her
-cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
-Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
-reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have
-the best yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the
-close of the school year and give the best recitation from any
-one of the Shakespeare plays.</p>
-
-<p>Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred
-had then freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards
-to Olive, but though her manner was now entirely friendly, her
-protest had not the least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed,
-when things had settled down into routine again Olive continued
-to work harder than ever during the following winter and spring
-months. Of course, her position among her classmates had altered
-somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her friends as well as a
-number of other girls who had never been actively disagreeable,
-but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a faint
-pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like
-one another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real
-antagonism of temperament. They exchanged greetings in their
-class rooms and several times Winifred called on the ranch
-girls, but as her visits were never returned, she had to try
-other methods of softening the hostility her own unkindness had
-created, hoping that before the school year was over something
-would give her a chance to win their liking.</p>
-
-<p>One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from
-their Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and
-with distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their
-mystic order. When finally the invitation, so much discussed,
-had been extended to the two ranch girls they had not known what
-to do in the matter. Of course, they had not wished to show
-continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s advice, had joined the
-society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty club house and
-the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority gave
-during the rest of the school year.</p>
-
-<p>So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
-Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother
-were still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop
-had been in the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and
-Frieda, but there were times when pilgrimages had to be made
-alone. Why they had to be made at all Olive did not understand,
-for Madame Van Mater still showed but little liking for the
-granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop had surely
-thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch girls
-it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least
-fear of her and when they had made their first call it was with
-difficulty that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of
-her mind in regard to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van
-Mater’s age prevented her from receiving the scolding and
-perhaps her manner. For instead Jean told her the story of the
-ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how much she had
-previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well as
-the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly
-invited Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but
-of their life at the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls
-could be eloquent on the subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed
-the floor and three times in the course of the conversation
-Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud, a proceeding most
-unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her hardness
-and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
-treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her
-son had forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions.
-But whatever her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was
-forced to continue the weekly calls.</p>
-
-<p>One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school
-matters and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of
-basketball, Olive found herself compelled to go alone to see her
-grandmother. And she was particularly vexed over this special
-visit, as she had wished to join the other girls in their game.</p>
-
-<p>Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame
-Van Mater with entire formality in the old drawing room, where
-they had had their two memorable meetings, but to-day she found
-the drawing room empty and while she waited a maid came to say
-that she was kindly to walk upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old
-drawing room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going
-upstairs found her grandmother before an open fire wrapped about
-with silk shawls and comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as
-high as usual and her costume as handsome, but it was plain to
-see that she was not so well.</p>
-
-<p>“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe
-cold,” she announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with
-her, never having at any time offered her any more intimate
-greeting.</p>
-
-<p>Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really
-feeling bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half
-hour. These calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston
-was still a prisoner in New York were the only worries she now
-seemed to have at Primrose Hall.</p>
-
-<p>“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her
-remark waved aside.</p>
-
-<p>“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but
-if I were there are other more important matters than my health
-which I wish to discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I
-very glad to see you alone.”</p>
-
-<p>There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had
-never attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by
-pretending to feel any affection for her. She now simply sat
-perfectly still and respectful, waiting to hear what was to be
-said next. But rarely had she looked more attractive than on
-this afternoon. In the first place, her walk had given her a
-bright color and she was wearing a particularly becoming frock.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great
-care on these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock,
-which Ruth lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the
-first time. It was of some soft material of silk and wool made
-with a short waist and softly clinging skirt of a bright golden
-brown with a girdle of brown velvet. Olive was very slender
-always and of only medium height, but her dark coloring was rich
-and unusual and now her expression was gayer and in some
-unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
-manner than formerly.</p>
-
-<p>For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
-continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting
-opposite her, and then, without the least warning of her
-intention, said abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not
-understood why I have insisted on your coming to see me so
-regularly and constantly since my discovery of your connection
-with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you have not I
-am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying you
-and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a
-great injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his
-choice of an occupation and by his marriage to your mother
-instead of Katherine Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off
-from me all responsibility in regard to his child. You are not
-altogether what I would have you to be, you have less social
-ease of manner and less conversational ability than I desire in
-my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults in
-you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them.
-What I am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make
-reparation to you by having you come here to live with me when
-your year at Primrose Hall is passed, and if I find you as
-refined and as capable of being managed as I now suppose you to
-be, I am prepared to change my will, making you heir to the
-greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and nephew,
-Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
-for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I
-wish to do it. And also because it will please Katherine
-Winthrop, who is one of the few persons for whom I have always
-cared.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips,
-but seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no
-intention of thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly,
-“only of refusing your offer. It may be very kind of you to
-desire me to live with you, but I thought you understood that
-nothing and no one in the world could ever persuade me to stop
-living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me to be with
-them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or anything
-else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”</p>
-
-<p>“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far
-more inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her.
-“Of course, I wish to say nothing against these friends of
-yours; under the circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful
-to them for their kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect
-to live forever on their bounty, and what can they offer you in
-the way of social opportunity? I believe they have no parents to
-introduce them into society, only this chaperon named Ruth Drew
-and some man or other who manages their ranch.”</p>
-
-<p>Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very
-anxious or very well fitted for social opportunity,” she
-answered, “but I don’t think you need worry about the ranch
-girls, for when the time comes for them to take any part in
-society I am sure they will find opportunities enough. I wrote
-Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation was
-over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she
-wanted me to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would
-travel or do whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any
-of us know yet whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean
-and Frieda and I have positively made up our minds that nothing
-will induce us to be separated from her after this year.”</p>
-
-<p>“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater
-returned coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this
-question with you. I shall have Katherine Winthrop put the
-matter before you. But you can rest assured, Olive, of these two
-things: In the first place, that if at any time you displease me
-I can leave my money to any one whom I may select, as my
-husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and in
-the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you
-are not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your
-natural guardian.”</p>
-
-<p>Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to
-be violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature
-anger must get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the
-girl now got up from her chair and crossing the room faced
-Madame Van Mater with an expression as determined as her own.
-“Please understand that I do not want to defraud either Donald
-or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have always promised them.
-They have been very kind since the discovery of my connection
-with them and of course you must be more fond of them than you
-can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I
-don’t want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother,
-nor do I feel that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect
-of me. Do you think it is quite fair for you now to speak of
-being my natural guardian when for so many years you desired
-nothing so much as that my name should never be mentioned to
-you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any more, but
-understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”</p>
-
-<p>Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger,
-for until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her
-rather too gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her
-shoulders indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of
-course, Olive, I shall decide later what course in regard to you
-I shall consider it advisable to take.”</p>
-
-<p>So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever
-before in her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for
-consolation to Primrose Hall.</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIII<br/>“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”</h2>
-
-<p>May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along
-the Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with
-sail boats dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky
-and toward the water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats
-chugged along, making more noise than automobiles; while the
-steam yachts, ever the aristocrats among all water craft,
-sailing into their own harbors up and down the Hudson shores,
-ever and anon put forth again as though intending to leave home
-behind for adventures on the open sea. All the hills beyond and
-near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like mammoth
-bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
-while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater
-variety of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places
-in this land.</p>
-
-<p>Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine
-Winthrop’s old home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before
-ever the school was thought of. For wild primroses blossomed
-everywhere, although the season was late, until the garden about
-the old place looked like the famous field of “The Cloth of
-Gold.”</p>
-
-<p>As much as possible on these bright May days the students at
-Primrose Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year
-drawing to a close it was not always easy to desert lessons and
-the thought of approaching examinations.</p>
-
-<p>One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a
-corner of one of the big verandas with a table between them and
-a screen carefully set up to protect them from interruption. The
-girls were not talking, indeed an utter silence had reigned
-between them for the last ten minutes, broken only by the squeak
-of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the present term and
-by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an oration by
-Cicero.</p>
-
-<p>Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short
-time later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair
-of feet but of several, and yet not a single head appeared above
-it.</p>
-
-<p>Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work,
-determined not to be lured from the strict path of duty.</p>
-
-<p>“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself,
-“seeing our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’
-will go away and leave us in peace.”</p>
-
-<p>But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few
-inches from where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion
-to the study of literature and the classics will prevent one
-from jumping up with a scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at
-the same instant, and behold, there, with only the prostrate
-screen dividing them, were Gerry and Margaret, Lucy and Mollie
-Johnson, besides several other members of their Junior class!</p>
-
-<p>“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry
-announced, pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised
-dagger.</p>
-
-<p>Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want
-with us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come
-interrupting a fellow at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily.
-“Do you suppose that when school is nearly over that we care
-half so much for the views and wishes of our lady principal as
-we do earlier in the year, when we might have to live on under
-the shadow of her displeasure? However, on this one occasion the
-fear of that august personage need not darken our young lives,
-since she has given her consent to what I am now about to
-propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I had
-best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to
-accept it beforehand.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such
-moral hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything
-agreeable this afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t
-accept any invitation, and yet if you ask us we may.”</p>
-
-<p>Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what
-it is. You must get your coats and hats at once and come and
-drive with us for a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and
-there father and Cecil will be waiting for us in our yacht to
-take us for a sail.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically,
-gathering her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think
-that I have never been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole
-life!”</p>
-
-<p>Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies
-this afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the
-overturned screen in their efforts to get up to their room for
-hats and coats without delay.</p>
-
-<p>However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for
-Jean to have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen
-slowly returning toward her group of friends.</p>
-
-<p>“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please
-excuse us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please
-don’t think I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she
-said softly, “but really I don’t believe I had better go with
-you this afternoon after all. Frieda says she <i>will</i> go,”
-and unconsciously the speaker put an added emphasis on the verb
-will.</p>
-
-<p>Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
-particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.</p>
-
-<p>“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make
-you change your mind in the distance between the veranda and
-your bedroom door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you
-won’t go for a sail on the Hudson for the first time in your
-life because you love your Cicero so.”</p>
-
-<p>Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not
-exactly.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have
-asked Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join
-us. Of course she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare
-essay of hers. And to think that once I believed I had a chance
-at that Shakespeare prize.”</p>
-
-<p>At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh,
-if Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us,
-she shall not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she
-could vanish for the second time Margaret and Gerry both
-clutched at her skirts.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really
-want her, and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.”
-Margaret explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson
-with anger and resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get
-over being so touchy about one another? You know that now we
-know Olive better, we like her as much as any girl in our class.
-To tell you the truth, it is just because we are trying to fix
-up some plan to show Olive how we feel toward her that we did
-not want her to come along with us now. It seemed to us this
-would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
-what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at
-first,” Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and
-perhaps put things pretty badly.”</p>
-
-<p>“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get
-my belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in
-mind.”</p>
-
-<p>An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and
-Mollie and Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private
-landing pier not far from their school, were assisted aboard the
-steam yacht “Marathon” by Cecil Belknap and his father.</p>
-
-<p>During the first half of the sail there was little real
-conversation among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at
-the beauty of the river scenery and the wonders of the yacht.
-But by and by on their return journey when Margaret and her
-guests were seated around the salon dining table drinking
-afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting off things,
-turned to her hostess.</p>
-
-<p>“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the
-entire company to overhear, “if your father and brother will
-pardon us, I vote that we plunge right into the subject we have
-come together to discuss this afternoon. I suppose your father
-and Cecil must both have heard something of Olive’s story by
-now.”</p>
-
-<p>Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have
-Olive’s difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap,
-whom she did not yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest
-she did not like to protest.</p>
-
-<p>Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with
-her teaspoon poised in the air.</p>
-
-<p>“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You
-know that when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most
-of us liked two of the three girls right from the first, after a
-few of their western peculiarities had rubbed up against our
-eastern ones. But with the third girl, with Olive—well, it was
-different. In the first place, Olive was shy and did not look
-exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier than I am, for
-example); in the second place, the story was circulated about
-among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
-dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and
-that now she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to
-her own mother. Of course, had any one of us ever looked at
-Olive very hard we must have known that this story was an
-untruth, or else only a half truth, which is the worst kind of a
-lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy to stand up
-for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this horrid
-part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
-end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little
-further than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as
-clever as Olive in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as
-refined and gentle in her manner, could hardly be what we had
-believed her, simply couldn’t. And now I want to say just one
-thing in excuse for myself. I did know that Olive was a lady and
-more than a lady, a trump, before I learned that she was not an
-Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused an instant to
-sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express her
-romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.</p>
-
-<p>Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s
-respite.</p>
-
-<p>“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did
-try to be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas
-holidays, intending on my return to ask her to overlook the past
-and be friends. I suppose there were other girls in our class
-who felt the same way and had this same intention?”</p>
-
-<p>As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There
-certainly were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we
-got back from our holidays it was then too late to make Olive
-believe in our good intentions, because in that short time
-things had so changed for her that she had become more
-interesting than any of the rest of us. You can see, Jean and
-Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The well-broughtup
-Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment and
-only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
-rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had
-learned of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that
-she would care very much for such a belated repentance. So for
-months now we have been trying to think of some pretty and
-tactful way to show our real feeling toward her and now we hope
-we have at last hit upon the right plan.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long
-time,” and though a laugh went all around the table at her
-expense, Gerry again burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we
-are to have our school finals now in a short time and see the
-Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who are trying for the
-Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the committee
-specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
-luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests
-at the commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps
-you two ranch girls don’t know and that is that we always choose
-one of the Primrose Hall girls as our Queen for commencement
-day. Of course she must be selected from among the entire
-school, not from any one class; but Margaret and some of the
-other Juniors and I have been talking things over with the
-Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and that
-they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
-and Frieda?”</p>
-
-<p>Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda
-still appeared mystified.</p>
-
-<p>“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if
-you really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although
-she was trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil
-Belknap, who had been watching her pretty closely all afternoon
-through his same hateful pair of eyeglasses.</p>
-
-<p>“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first
-toward Mollie and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation
-of this everlasting preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.</p>
-
-<p>“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,”
-Gerry returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose
-you can call her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she
-does preside over our dances all afternoon, leads any special
-ones, and we pay her whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t
-you, Cecil, or any other human being at this table start
-reciting: ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early,
-mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not for that
-tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May Queen
-one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
-that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
-commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose
-because it is so ridiculously easy to remember.”</p>
-
-<p>As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the
-table, her guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all
-settled,” she exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup,
-“so let us drink to Olive as our next queen and to the other
-ranch girls.”</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,”
-Frieda suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And
-Gerry’s hearty “Of course,” ended the pretty scene.</p>
-
-<p>For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made
-their way again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group
-Jean was the last to leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My
-sister tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our
-cottage on the Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you
-are going to be jolly enough to come, for I should enjoy it most
-awfully.”</p>
-
-<p>“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?”
-Jean’s eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she
-ended prettily, extending her hand to the young man.</p>
-
-<p>Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
-twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore.
-“No, it is not what I would call good of me,” he replied
-quietly. “I thought I told you at our house at Christmas that I
-liked you and that if there wasn’t any fellow out West, I would
-like to see more of you anyhow. Do say you will make us the
-visit?”</p>
-
-<p>With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped
-develop in her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied
-quietly, “I have already explained to Margaret that I shan’t be
-able to come to her this summer. You see, my cousin, Jack
-Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to leave the hospital
-in New York early in June and then we expect to go back to the
-Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
-knows where?”</p>
-
-<p>The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now
-running in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the
-soft, spring dusk the travelers could see the old school
-carryall and in another carriage Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting
-to drive the party back to Primrose Hall. But before anybody was
-allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had solemnly whispered to each
-one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not to hear a single,
-solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up to the
-very last minute.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIV<br/>SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</h2>
-
-<p>“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,”
-Gerry Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back
-view of herself in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly
-lovely, Winifred, and I would not be a bit surprised if you get
-the Shakespeare prize after all, even though Olive has the best
-class record for the year and I the highest mark for my essay.
-We are so close together in this contest that the least thing
-may change the balance. It is my private opinion that whoever
-gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
-prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to
-adjust her doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I
-have been born a stately blonde beauty like you so that I might
-have appeared as lovely Ophelia instead of having to represent
-Rosalind on account of my short hair?”</p>
-
-<p>Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently,
-happening at that moment to catch sight of her own fair
-reflection. She was dressed in a long clinging robe of some soft
-white material and her pale blonde hair, bound with a fillet of
-silver, hung loose about her neck. In her hand she held a sheet
-of paper with her speech written upon it, which she glanced at a
-little nervously every now and then.</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-        <div class='d021'>“Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!</div>
-        <div class='d021'>The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;</div>
-        <div class='d021'>The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my
-recitation,” Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of
-stage fright already, and to think that I have to make the first
-speech!” She glanced up at the clock on their mantel. “It is
-only a half hour now before we must go downstairs and I believe
-that there have never been so many guests at one of our
-commencements before. I suppose it is because the day is so
-beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
-wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least
-a hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the
-ranch girls’ room we can see out into the yard and I can have a
-look at Olive. I am simply dying to find out what she looks
-like!”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to
-come near Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her
-herself and to slip around to the entrance to the stage in the
-pavilion, so that no one shall dare speak to her. So I suppose
-if the truth be known, Winifred, Olive is just about as badly
-scared as you are and a good deal more so, considering how
-dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not look
-pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never
-saw any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare
-costume. And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in
-‘The Winter’s Tale’ for her character because I asked her to.
-She had once made me think of a description of Perdita.”</p>
-
-<p>Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the
-room. “See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too
-hateful for you to have kept on encouraging Olive to try for
-this prize. It will look awfully queer to people if she accepts
-a prize from her own grandmother anyhow, and I do need it most
-dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper Winifred was almost
-in tears, though not for worlds would she consciously have
-marred her lovely appearance.</p>
-
-<p>A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t
-leave me out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she
-begged. “I may not have so great beauty as you and Olive to
-commend me, but remember:</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-    <div class='d021'>“‘From the east to western Ind,</div>
-    <div class='d021'>No jewel is like Rosalind.</div>
-    <div class='d021'>Her worth, being mounted on the wind,</div>
-    <div class='d021'>Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling
-stride toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more
-friendliness than she had shown her in many weeks. “Come,
-Winifred, what is the use of our worrying now? I believe I need
-this prize money quite as much as you do, since my father has
-just made some unfortunate investments and may not be able to
-let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year. And
-of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
-take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have
-an equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive
-wins we ought not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand
-how she wants the glory of winning and not the prize itself. She
-told me that she had been working for this prize ever since she
-first came to Primrose Hall in order to show her beloved Jack
-Ralston how much she had appreciated the opportunities she had
-given her.”</p>
-
-<p>In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but
-at the same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great
-clapping of hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her
-hand. “Good gracious, there is someone’s speech just ending!”
-she exclaimed, “so our turns will come soon.”</p>
-
-<p>And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
-Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are
-April when they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You
-Like It” and began once more to read over her part.</p>
-
-<p>So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s
-voice was heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare
-heroines?” she demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long
-coats around you and come on downstairs now. The coast is clear
-and it is almost time for your speeches. I will tell Olive.”</p>
-
-<p>Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose
-Hall had ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had
-one called forth so many guests.</p>
-
-<p>Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a
-stage had been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many
-yards from the great house and a kind of covered arbor
-temporarily arranged so that the girls who took part in the
-commencement exercises might pass from the house to the stage
-without being seen by the audience. The stage had no curtain and
-only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
-clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either
-side were piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from
-the woods, delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and
-the floor of the stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups,
-violets and daisies.</p>
-
-<p>In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was
-seated, perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her
-first public appearance before it might reasonably be
-frightened. Perhaps it was the beauty of the day, perhaps the
-novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage arrangements, for surely no
-audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic than hers, and as
-each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently entering
-from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
-applause and interest had increased.</p>
-
-<p>The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
-programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were
-half a dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act
-as judges, and a few feet from them in a chair next Miss
-Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van Mater, the owner of “The Towers”
-and the donor of the Shakespeare prize. Her appearance at the
-commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but whether she
-came because of her interest in her newly-found granddaughter or
-whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no one had
-been told.</p>
-
-<p>When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur
-of admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to
-her, giving her just the confidence she had needed for the
-making of her speech. And truly her beauty justified the
-admiration, for she was wearing the costume that best suited her
-and was most effective against the natural background of
-evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the leaves
-of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
-gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her
-dress.</p>
-
-<p>Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her
-upstairs, nor a moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred
-recited Ophelia’s famous description of Hamlet, ending with the
-words, “O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I
-see.” Then for just a moment she paused with a pretty, pathetic
-gesture and her gaze swept the faces of her judges before she
-vanished from the stage amid much clapping of hands. Three times
-Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each call Gerry’s
-heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.</p>
-
-<p>“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred
-has already won.” When a friend standing near whispered
-something in her ear she laughed in her usual good-humored
-fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can recite better than Winifred,
-but what avails it me when I can’t look like the goddess of
-spring as she does at this moment there on the stage with her
-arms full of flowers.”</p>
-
-<p>Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed
-arbor in the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her
-recitation came next, and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded
-by Jean, was also waiting.</p>
-
-<p>Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean.
-Then she darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for
-the last time; are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely,
-but she did not speak distinctly enough. Remember it is
-difficult to hear out of doors.”</p>
-
-<p>Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses,
-she tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the
-stage in her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find
-her way through an unknown woods, had stumbled in the
-underbrush.</p>
-
-<p>No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and
-yet in the character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly
-at her best. Perhaps the description that the heroine gives of
-herself in masquerade will best describe Gerry’s present
-appearance.</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d024'>
-        <div class='d021'>“More than common tall,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>That I did suit me all points like a man?</div>
-        <div class='d021'>A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—</div>
-        <div class='d021'>We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her
-recitation she did not in any way betray it, for at once the
-gayety of Rosalind, her wit and gallant courage, seemed to have
-fallen like a mantle upon Gerry. Twice her audience laughed
-aloud in the course of her recitation and once two of the judges
-nodded at each other, which had not happened during Winifred’s
-speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to the stage
-again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain that
-unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
-would be the winner of their contest.</p>
-
-<p>For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the
-third girl, who was to close the competition, made her
-appearance. And this was unfortunate for Olive. In the first
-place, the large audience was growing a little bit tired and
-hungry, and in the second place, it gave them the opportunity to
-begin talking of Olive’s curious history, retailing to one
-another as much or as little as each one of them knew.</p>
-
-<p>Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New
-York and shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica
-Hunt and Miss Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure
-the planning of it had given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome
-days at the hospital. Not that she and Ruth were Shakespeare
-scholars, only it had happened that years before Ruth had seen a
-famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from the stage, in
-this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and had
-never forgotten the details of her dress.</p>
-
-<p>Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last
-skipped on to the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress
-that came down to her ankles, covered with an overdress of
-flowered tulle. Her long and curiously black hair was braided in
-the two familiar loose braids with a single pink flower at one
-side, and on her arm she carried a basket of spring flowers.</p>
-
-<p>Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from
-the first that Olive would be frightened to death before so many
-people? It was odd, therefore, that as she first came down
-toward the edge of the platform she smiled assurance at Miss
-Winthrop, who was trying her best not to appear too anxious or
-too interested in her favorite pupil.</p>
-
-<p>Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly
-to dance an old English folk dance such as the country people
-must have danced in rustic England long before even
-Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art with Olive, so that
-before she commenced her speech her audience was won.</p>
-
-<p>Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when
-her dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the
-center of the open-air stage:</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d024'>
-        <div>“I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might</div>
-        <div>Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people
-watching her as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to
-them.</p>
-
-<p>Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater
-stiffened and her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten
-her part and is going to make a spectacle of herself and me!”
-she whispered in her friend’s ear. “I wish I had never come.”</p>
-
-<p>And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown
-suddenly ill, for she continued standing perfectly still and
-speechless for a period of one, two minutes, though surely it
-seemed like ten, while waves of color swept over her face,
-turning it crimson and then leaving it pale. “Oh, I cannot
-believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking her
-eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
-exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.</p>
-
-<p>What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to
-the girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught
-it, for she smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of
-wild-flowers appeared to present them to various characters, who
-in Shakespeare’s play stand grouped around the figure of Perdita
-as she makes this speech:</p>
-
-<div class='d019'>
-  <div class='d014'>
-    <div class='d020'>
-        <div class='d021'>“Daffodils,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>
-        <div class='d021'>The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes</div>
-        <div class='d021'>Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,</div>
-        <div class='d021'>That die unmarried—”</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket,
-dropping them to the ground and moving gradually backwards
-toward the entrance to the stage. Then, when she had recited the
-last line of her speech, she made a quick bow and before her
-audience realized that her speech was actually over, had
-disappeared.</p>
-
-<p>Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s
-and Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For
-Jean was waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her
-at once.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I
-didn’t see? It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me
-before?”</p>
-
-<p>“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered,
-trying to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack
-wishes you to come to her at once.”</p>
-
-<h2 id='chXXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXV<br/>“JACK”</h2>
-
-<p>Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms
-about her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and
-fragile and leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep
-bronze, the color of copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes,
-were now unusually dark with emotion. She was evidently trying
-to appear less disturbed than she felt, for her head was tilted
-back the least bit and her lips were held close together;
-indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
-self-control.</p>
-
-<p>“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely
-unconscious of the number of persons about them, and the girl in
-the costume of an English shepherdess arrived at the desired
-goal first.</p>
-
-<p>“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first
-meeting after a long separation from one we love. And so for
-several moments the two ranch girls clung together trying hard
-to keep back their tears, while Jean, standing a little apart
-from them, pretended to laugh at their emotion.</p>
-
-<p>“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did
-it happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I
-don’t care whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are
-here.” Olive said at last.</p>
-
-<p>“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so
-much by surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But
-you see it was like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more
-heavily on her cane, although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it.
-“When my operation was over neither the surgeons nor anybody
-knew just at first whether or not I was to get well. So of
-course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until we were
-certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
-I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out
-here at Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I
-did not mean to put off coming until commencement day,” Jack
-continued apologetically, “but somehow I did not get well quite
-as fast as I expected, until it had to be now or never, so Ruth
-wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this morning but not to let
-you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would somehow affect
-your speech.”</p>
-
-<p>“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think
-how I felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I
-saw you standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you
-used to do.”</p>
-
-<p>“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only
-I got so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am
-perfectly well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not
-accustomed to standing so long.”</p>
-
-<p>Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried
-off, returning in another minute empty handed. But following
-close behind her was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked
-a little out of place at Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a
-freedom and power that did not speak of city streets, neither
-did the deep tan of his skin. He was carrying the big,
-comfortable chair for Jean.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so
-many surprises in one day!” Olive protested.</p>
-
-<p>Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of
-the Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so
-that he could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another
-moment his big hands closed over hers.</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied.
-“To think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books,
-and here I was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow
-Ranch, whose history makes most of the fiction tales look real
-pale! But ain’t it great to see the boss herself again. I
-couldn’t believe she was getting well when she wrote me; I was
-like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to show me’.” And here Jim
-put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.</p>
-
-<p>“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
-demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five
-minutes together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to
-let my sister get out of my sight again as long as I live!”
-Frieda had joined the little group under the linden tree just as
-Jim was finishing his speech and before Olive could answer him.</p>
-
-<p>Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything,
-my grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.</p>
-
-<div class='d001'>
-  <div class='d002'>
-    <img class='d003'
-    alt='“DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”'
-    src='images/illus-003.jpg' />
-  </div>
-  <p class='d004'>
-  “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”
-  </p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am
-awfully glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you
-belong to us less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as
-she thought I was well enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I
-have even had a letter from your grandmother thanking me for
-rescuing you from a person by whom she had been deceived,
-meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who are all
-those persons coming towards us now?”</p>
-
-<p>Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
-Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end
-of the line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one
-another and apparently unconscious of every one else.</p>
-
-<p>With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
-immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.</p>
-
-<p>“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have
-received the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges
-voted your speech the most effective, and as you already had the
-best record for the year in the Junior Shakespeare class, why of
-course the honors are yours and I want to congratulate you.”</p>
-
-<p>With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her
-victorious rival.</p>
-
-<p>But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
-congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t
-deserve,” she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second
-choice?”</p>
-
-<p>“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely
-disagree with them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for
-Olive was almost forcibly trying to drag her over to where
-Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were standing together.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss
-Winthrop at once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying
-for it just to see what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does
-not wish the prize given her, and of course under the
-circumstances Olive does not wish it herself.”</p>
-
-<p>Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were
-peremptorily borne away by a number of their classmates. Later
-on from a kind of throne on one of the Primrose Hall verandas
-Jack and some of her friends witnessed the pretty ceremony of
-the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For several hours
-afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive raising
-a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
-royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during
-the afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once,
-when Jack had been watching them, she happened to turn to speak
-to Madame Van Mater, who sat next her. But whatever she may have
-intended to say she did not, but instead waited to study her
-companion’s expression.</p>
-
-<p>There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly
-pleased at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was
-almost a smile of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack
-flushed, biting her lips, then she leaned over and spoke:</p>
-
-<p>“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have
-Olive go home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if
-afterwards you will do something that is kinder still?” she
-asked.</p>
-
-<p>With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there
-was an air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was
-very pleasing.</p>
-
-<p>“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere
-with my granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but
-what more would you have me to do?”</p>
-
-<p>For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa
-cushions looking out over the garden and fields to where afar
-off she could see just a silver line marking the course of the
-Hudson River.</p>
-
-<p>“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame
-Van Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t
-believe I had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my
-life. And all the time lately I have been thinking and longing
-for just two things. One to see our beloved ranch again, to get
-on horseback and ride for miles and miles over the prairie. And
-then—”</p>
-
-<p>“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest
-than you would believe she could show.</p>
-
-<p>Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I
-can. You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used
-to think perhaps I should never see much more of the world than
-just four walls.” Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders
-in her old, determined way. “But I am well now and, as the
-doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I want you to promise to
-let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and me next fall?”</p>
-
-<p>“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent
-idea! I could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel
-and experience may give her just the ease and culture she needs.
-But who will look after you?”</p>
-
-<p>At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
-companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil
-of watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight
-hold of her hand.</p>
-
-<p>“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She
-will not go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go
-abroad afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”</p>
-
-<p>Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss
-Winthrop arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying
-farewell to her guests.</p>
-
-<p>So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking
-about in the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left
-alone. Not far off they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching
-them with Jean and Frieda holding on to his hands like little
-girls.</p>
-
-<p>Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at
-her side.</p>
-
-<p>“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I
-used to hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when
-you and Jim saw each other again you would forget what has
-separated you and only remember you care for one another.
-Somehow when one has been very ill, love seems the only thing
-that is really important.”</p>
-
-<p>Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last
-weeks at the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of
-his past fault to her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack
-dear,” she whispered, although no one was near enough to hear.
-“He has not spoken to me alone since he arrived in New York, so
-I suppose he has not forgiven my hardness and narrowness;
-besides, men forget love very easily.”</p>
-
-<p>Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than
-it had been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not
-forget,” she answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest,
-kindest person in the world.” And then the oldest ranch girl
-sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the horridest thing in the world to
-have to wait for the nice things to happen?” she asked. “Of
-course, we all know, Ruth, that some day everything will turn
-out for the best, but it is just that silly old indefinite word
-some that makes the waiting so difficult.”</p>
-
-<p>The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will
-appear under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this
-story the histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be
-more fully developed, for having put childhood and school life
-behind them, they will enter that broader world of young
-womanhood, where romance stands ever waiting round the corner.</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
-Margaret Vandercook
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+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+  <title>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by Margaret Vandercook</title>
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+  </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56097 ***</div>
+
+<div class='d000'>
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN'
+    src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN
+  </p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d005'>
+<p class='d006'>THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES</p>
+<p class='d007'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</p>
+<p class='d008'>By</p>
+<p class='d006'>Margaret Vandercook</p>
+<p class='d008'>Illustrated By</p>
+<p class='d006'>Hugh A. Bodine</p>
+<p class='d009'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
+<p class='d010'>PHILADELPHIA</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d005'>
+<p class='d006'>Copyright, 1913, by</p>
+<p class='d006'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d011'>
+  <p class='d012'>CONTENTS</p>
+  <div class='d013'>
+      <div class='d014'>
+          <p class='d015'>
+              <a href='#chI'>I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chII'>II. IN DISGRACE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIII'>III. “GERRY”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIV'>IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chV'>V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVI'>VI. HER TEMPTATION</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVII'>VII. CINDERELLA</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVIII'>VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIX'>IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chX'>X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXI'>XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXII'>XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIII'>XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIV'>XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXV'>XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVI'>XVI. ELECTION DAY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVII'>XVII. CONGRATULATIONS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVIII'>XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIX'>XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXX'>XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXI'>XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXII'>XXII. READJUSTMENTS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXIII'>XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXIV'>XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXV'>XXV. “JACK”</a>
+          </p>
+      </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h1 class='d016'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</h1>
+
+<h2 id='chI' class='d017'>CHAPTER I<br/>“STILL AS THE NIGHT”</h2>
+
+<p>Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big
+bare room stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the
+great house known as Primrose Hall, not far from the famous
+region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had struck three, then four, and
+now one, two, three, four, five solemn strokes boomed forth
+and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to announce the
+coming of morning.</p>
+
+<p>“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul,
+that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the
+ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrow within the
+quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true
+of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a short
+pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever
+going to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to
+have lasted forever and ever!” For no answer had followed
+the question, although a door stood wide open between this
+and an adjoining room and the bed in the other room was
+occupied by two persons.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of
+reciting the “Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful
+figure slipped suddenly from its own bed and a slim ghost
+stole across the floor—a ghost that even in the darkness
+revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In the
+farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek
+against another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful,
+while its hand reached forth to find another hand that lay
+outside the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying
+to waken them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they
+sleep so soundly the first night at a strange boarding
+school when I am so homesick and lonely I know that I am
+going to die or cry or do something else desperate? If only
+Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
+Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch,
+sliding to the floor again, sat with her legs crossed under
+her and her head resting on her hands in a curious Indian
+posture of grief. And while she waited, watching beside the
+bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now quietly
+asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New
+York City, which held her beloved friend Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by
+their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance
+at Primrose Hall to begin their first year of fashionable
+boarding school life. But once the girls had been introduced
+to the principal of the school, Miss Katherine Winthrop, and
+Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms assigned to
+the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
+train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles,
+for Jack had been left behind in a hospital and must not be
+long alone. There she lay awaiting the verdict of the New
+York surgeons to know whether after her accident at the
+Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect to
+walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow
+Lodge in Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the
+ranch girls an eastern education and to fit them for a more
+cosmopolitan life now that so great wealth was being brought
+forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out what could be
+done for Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend,
+a faint, chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings
+sounded along the outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting
+her head with a smothered cry of delight, the girl spied a
+thin streak of light shining across the floor. A moment
+later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her
+and her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning
+the unfamiliar scene before her. Dawn had come at last!</p>
+
+<p>The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her
+arrival at school the day before, in the first meeting with
+so many strangers, Olive had not spared time to see or think
+of the surroundings of Primrose Hall, but now she could
+examine the landscape thoroughly. Set in the midst of one of
+the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson River, this
+morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
+with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the
+immortelles; the low hills in the background were brown and
+red and gold with the October foliage of the trees. Beyond
+the fields the Hudson River ran broader and deeper than any
+stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across from
+it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now
+veiled in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine
+could be more wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson
+River; and yet, as Olive Ralston gazed out upon it, its
+beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the lump in her
+throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
+sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and
+nothing could be more unlike the low level sweep of their
+Wyoming prairie than this Hudson River country.</p>
+
+<p>“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we
+have named homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours,
+for surely this longing for home, for accustomed people and
+things in the midst of strange surroundings, may be a woe
+very deep and intense.</p>
+
+<p>From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come
+east to boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the
+change from the simple life of the ranch to the more
+conventional school atmosphere would be more difficult for
+her than for either Jean or Frieda. True, she had not spoken
+of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed Olive,
+had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl,
+with no name of her own and no people, and except for her
+friends’ generosity might still be living in the dirty hut
+in the Indian village with old Laska.</p>
+
+<p>After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all
+decided that it would be wiser not to mention Olive’s
+strange history to her new schoolmates. Now in the midst of
+her attack of homesickness, Olive wondered if the girls
+would not at once guess her mixed blood from her odd
+appearance, or else might she not some day betray her
+ignorance of the little manners and customs that reveal a
+good family and good breeding? In the two happy years spent
+at the Rainbow Ranch she had learned all she could from Ruth
+and the other three girls, but were there not fourteen other
+ignorant years back of those two years?</p>
+
+<p>A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window
+with her quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial
+casement. But now, finding both the autumn air and her own
+thoughts chilling, she turned away and began slowly to
+dress. She was still blue and yet at the same time ashamed
+of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
+foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here
+at Primrose Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of
+her big opportunity and have not big opportunities the world
+over the fashion of starting out with difficulties to be
+overcome? When Olive’s education was completed she had made
+up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
+she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the
+teaching of the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda
+Ralston, since the discovery of the gold mine near Rainbow
+Creek, were probably very wealthy and though it was but
+right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should share
+their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished
+to be always dependent even on the best of friends.</p>
+
+<p>Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the
+young girl’s mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and
+yet she could not make up her mind how best to amuse herself
+until the half-past seven o’clock bell should ring for
+breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but there was no
+news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
+hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken
+Jean and Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven
+famous sleepers. No other girl shared Olive’s room because
+Ruth and the four ranch girls hoped that after a few weeks’
+treatment in the New York hospital Jack would then be able
+to join the others at school.</p>
+
+<p>Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to
+her open window and there stood listening to the “chug,
+chug, chug” of a big steamer out on the river and then to
+the shriek of an engine along its banks. Suddenly her face
+brightened.</p>
+
+<p>“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed
+aloud, “I think I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad
+temper and go and have a good walk to myself before
+breakfast.”</p>
+
+<p>Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out
+alone and without permission she would be breaking an iron
+law of Primrose Hall. Nothing was farther from her mind than
+disobedience, but no one had yet told her of the school
+rules and regulations and taking a walk alone seemed to her
+the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
+few hours longer she must have understood differently, for
+the students were expected to assemble that very morning to
+hear what was required of them at Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p>As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and
+hat, creeping along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb
+the other sleepers, and for the same reason she as quietly
+unlocked the big front door. But once out on the lawn, so
+innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that she
+paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house
+she was about to leave.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new
+pupil felt a thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A
+red brick mansion of the old colonial period, it was set in
+a lovely garden with flowers and shrubs growing close about
+the house and an avenue of elm trees leading down to the
+gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
+of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This
+morning only a few late asters were in bloom in the garden
+and bushes of hardy hydrangeas with their great blossoms now
+turning rose and brown from the first early autumn frosts.
+The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged in the
+family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five
+generations and Olive smiled a little over her queer
+conceit, for the house somehow suggested its present owner
+to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared just as imposing
+and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with her
+the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any
+mere pile of brick and stone.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the
+bedrooms and reception rooms necessary for its pupils and
+teachers, and the only other school buildings about the
+grounds were the recitation hall and two sorority houses
+devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had never heard
+of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
+“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the
+ranch girls by Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they
+had learned to know at the Yellowstone Park, but apart from
+its excellent reputation as a finishing school, their choice
+had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty of its
+historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and
+Lafayette had been known to stay, and who can guess how many
+powdered belles and beaus may have flirted with one another
+in the garden by the old sun-dial?</p>
+
+<p>When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she
+determined to extend her walk over a portion of the estate,
+and coming to a low, stone wall, climbed over it without
+thinking or caring just where it led her. Being outdoors
+once more and free to wander as she choose after two weeks’
+confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
+palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that
+Olive felt like singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that
+her own personality, which had somehow vanished since
+leaving the ranch, had come back to her this morning like a
+dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately been
+wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this
+hour had donned once again her own well-worn dress.</p>
+
+<p>Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early
+Indian days, soon the truant found herself in a woods thick
+with underbrush and trees never seen before by a Wyoming
+girl. The air was delicious, the leaves sparkled with the
+melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of youth
+and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot
+that she was in the midst of a highly civilized community
+and not in the heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not
+until she had come entirely out of the woods that her
+awakening took place. Then she found herself apparently in
+some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white house
+set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer
+gabled windows on either side. At the entrance to its big
+front door stood two absurd iron dogs, and yet there was
+nothing in any of these ordinary details to make the
+onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she stared
+up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her
+seemed so utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she
+must be losing her senses.</p>
+
+<p>For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from
+the house, and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and
+walked back into the woods. At first she paid no particular
+attention to what direction she was taking until all at
+once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt reasonably
+sure they were following hers.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chII' class='d018'>CHAPTER II<br/>IN DISGRACE</h2>
+
+<p>It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with
+so slight cause, yet the thought that some one might be in
+pursuit of her filled her with a nervous terror. To the
+people not afflicted with timidity, most fears are
+ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
+overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid
+one, but before one criticizes her, remember her childhood.
+Now with her heart pounding and her breath coming in short
+gasps, she quickened her pace into a run, recalling at the
+same time their chaperon’s forgotten instruction that she
+must no longer expect the happy freedom of their western
+lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
+traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive
+dared not hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour
+was growing late and that any added delay would make her
+late for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the
+woods save her in emergencies of this sort, so in another
+moment she remembered that an Indian never runs away from
+his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has passed. Behind a
+low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself, crouching
+low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
+gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of
+private property, savagely on the lookout for her.</p>
+
+<p>Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally
+arrived just opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was
+the girl in hiding who suddenly sprang to her feet,
+startling the newcomer. For the enemy she had so dreaded was
+only another girl like herself with a smile on her face and
+a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
+perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before
+her illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had
+the same bright bronze hair and firm line to her chin and
+the same proud way of holding up her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living
+in this underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the
+same color that I did not see you at first.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a
+tam-o’-shanter of velvet of the same shade, shook her head.
+“I am one of the new girls from Primrose Hall and I have
+been out for a walk, but as I am not very familiar with
+these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you mind—”
+Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression
+of surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this
+hour of the morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen
+to give you permission?” she asked in the positive fashion
+that Olive was to learn to know so well later on.</p>
+
+<p>The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept
+over the truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without
+asking permission she had broken a rule of her new school?
+The idea seemed ridiculous to Olive, and yet—were not all
+things different than in the old days? “I am so sorry, but
+no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
+to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose
+Hall yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before
+breakfast at home, riding over the plains!”</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain
+to the older girl that straightway she slipped her arm
+through hers and without delay hurried her along toward
+school, talking as she went.</p>
+
+<p>“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at
+Primrose Hall, and I have been spending the night with some
+friends.” Jessica gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in
+hers. “You must not be frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop
+seems rather terrifying on your return. I used to be a pupil
+at Primrose Hall before I started in with the teaching and
+I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so severe
+as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is
+after breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never
+allowed to go out alone and never without permission, why
+she may scold you a bit.”</p>
+
+<p>If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the
+path to weep like a naughty child about to be punished for a
+fault, Olive would have felt it a great relief, and only the
+thought of her age prevented her doing this. Could she ever
+live through the embarrassment of facing fifty strange
+girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
+while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on
+being introduced to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and
+Frieda with her for protection, had she not felt as
+tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now must
+she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
+displeasure?</p>
+
+<p>Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive
+Ralston’s life were always unusual and romantic) would she
+ever forget the next half hour’s experience at Primrose
+Hall, nor the appearance of the great hall as she entered
+it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and towering
+above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding
+presence of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.</p>
+
+<p>Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing
+in front of Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers,
+heard the teacher of mathematics say, “Here is your new
+runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and realized that this
+teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she wore
+round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much
+to get her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her
+disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only
+teacher at Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss
+Winthrop,” she now began coaxingly, “I have brought our new
+girl home. She was only taking a walk in the woods near by,
+but I am sure she would rather explain to you herself that
+in going out without permission she did not know she was
+breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the
+West and been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica
+was continuing her case for the defendant, realizing that
+Olive was still too frightened to speak for herself. But
+suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small, plump
+person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue
+eyes in the school, and without the least regard for either
+teachers or principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms
+about Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where
+you were going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened
+about you.”</p>
+
+<p>And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her
+other side, a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and
+demure brown eyes, whose nose had the faintest, most
+delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce said nothing,
+but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
+against all the world.</p>
+
+<p>Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three
+teachers were numbers of other students, most of whom were
+casting glances of sympathy at the new pupil who had so soon
+fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just over, they were
+supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
+Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until
+Miss Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.</p>
+
+<p>“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said
+quietly. “Miss Ralston will explain her absence to me in my
+private study.” As her words and look included Jean and
+Frieda, they also were compelled to follow the other
+students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to face
+her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a
+freckled nose actually had the courage to stop in passing
+and whisper to the offender:</p>
+
+<p>“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes
+unknown you go to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while
+Olive was trying to summon a smile in return, a beautiful
+girl with pale blonde hair joined both of them, and drawing
+the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen persons
+near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When
+will you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons
+whom no one knows anything about?” And so cool and
+indifferent did her expression appear as she made her unkind
+speech that it was hard to believe she understood that her
+words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and
+in spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or
+forgave them.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared,
+Olive found herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated
+in a comfortable leather chair facing a desk at which Miss
+Winthrop was writing.</p>
+
+<p>“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they
+entered the room, and at first the prisoner had felt that
+waiting to hear her sentence would be unendurable. Of course
+she would be expelled from Primrose Hall; Olive had no other
+idea. And of course Ruth and Jack would understand and
+forgive her, but there would be no going back on her part to
+be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
+to support herself in the future!</p>
+
+<p>But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her
+writing, by and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own
+sorrows and she busied herself in studying her judge’s face.
+Miss Winthrop’s expression was not so stern in repose, for
+though the lines about her mouth were severe and her nose
+aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
+full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt
+obliged to admit that though she was taller and larger than
+almost any woman she had known, her grace and dignity were
+most unusual and the severity of her simple black silk gown
+showed her to great advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next
+traveled idly to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting
+there for an eager moment, while in her interest she forgot
+everything else. For the first time in her life this young
+girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had her
+attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.</p>
+
+<p>On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic
+figure of a woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and
+wonderful flowing draperies. The figure was without head or
+arms and yet was so inspiring that, without realizing it,
+Olive gave a sigh of delight.</p>
+
+<p>Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?”
+she asked quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the
+statue of ‘The Winged Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue
+now stands at the top of the stairs in the Louvre in Paris
+and there you will probably see it some day. But I like to
+keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me and to
+my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than
+the statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of
+the superwoman, what all we women must hope to be some day.
+See the beauty and dignity of her, as though she had turned
+her back on all sin and injustice and was moving forward
+into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
+splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children
+in them.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above
+the head of her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to
+study the girl’s face. Now she saw by its sudden glow and
+softening that she had caught at least a measure of her
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the
+world held nothing else and that she knew all the varieties,
+and yet one could never be too sure, for here before her was
+a new type unlike all the others and for some reason at this
+moment she attracted her strongly.</p>
+
+<p>To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had
+thought it wise to confide as much as they knew of Olive’s
+extraordinary history, pledging her to secrecy. Now to
+herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly ridiculous to
+believe this child has Indian blood, for there is absolutely
+nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
+history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after
+her first speech her manner appeared to change entirely.
+Sitting very erect in her chair, she turned upon her pupil
+“You may go,” she said coldly, “for I understand that by
+your action this morning you did not deliberately intend to
+break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
+future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience,
+whatever its cause.”</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall,
+wondering if she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who
+could be so stern one moment and so interesting the next.
+For her own part Olive felt that she much preferred their
+former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less handsome
+and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human.
+If only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to
+scold and pet them for their misdoings all in the same
+breath.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER III<br/>“GERRY”</h2>
+
+<p>The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the
+front of the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so
+in order for Olive to reach her room it was necessary that
+she should pass along a long corridor into which various
+other apartments opened. She was not interested in anything
+but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean, and yet,
+hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
+conversation between two girls who were talking in rather
+loud tones.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,”
+one of the voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as
+nice to these new Western girls as I know how. They are
+strangers and I think it horrid to try to snub them just
+because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
+fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you
+will try to turn as many of the other Juniors against them
+as you can twist around your finger, but kindly don’t
+include me in your list. Perhaps you think I don’t know why
+you have had me for one of your chums for so long. Goodness,
+child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
+homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the
+stately beauty than ever in contrast with poor little me.
+But maybe you won’t always be thought the prettiest girl in
+the school, for this queer looking Olive, what’s her name,
+is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way, and
+the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second.
+If you are angry with me, why you need not have me for a
+roommate, for I am going this very second to call on the new
+ranch girls and welcome them to Primrose Hall.” And with a
+flounce the same short-haired girl who had stopped to tease
+Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall after
+her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of
+fashions. “Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she
+inquired, “for I have been several years at Primrose Hall
+and know the place like an old shoe. Besides, I think that
+you and the older one of your sisters or friends, I can’t
+guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior
+class, and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close
+together these days.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door,
+but hearing queer noises in another room, they followed the
+sounds, discovering Jean and Frieda in the adjoining
+chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’ sitting room. An
+immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean and
+Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the
+trunk of their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two
+sisters, Mollie and Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had
+come in to lend them hammer and nails and were now watching
+them with deep absorption.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she
+stopped in some confusion, remembering that she had not yet
+heard their new friend’s name.</p>
+
+<p>The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see
+their new visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows,
+at your service,” she explained, “but I’m better known to
+the world as Gerry. See I have brought your Olive safe back
+from the lion’s den and, as she is no more eaten up than was
+the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint to
+start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you
+about Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what
+not to do?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully,
+but Jean closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard
+the question. She was not accustomed to feeling out of
+things as she had this morning and was not sure she cared to
+have strangers making an effort to be kind. Suppose this
+Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to be
+one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well
+even that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!</p>
+
+<p>But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness
+and having already taken a fancy to her, as strangers
+usually did, now seated herself cross-legged on the floor,
+beckoning to the others to follow suit. “All Gaul, my
+children, is divided into three parts, as we learn in our
+Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to
+say, is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred
+Graham likes and the girls she docs not. I used to belong to
+the first class, but now I probably belong to the second. I
+was kind of in love with Winifred last year and let her boss
+me around, but during the summer I thought things over and
+decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
+morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a
+snap about my desertion, for she never cares for people
+unless they are rich and I’m not a bit, only my father is a
+famous surgeon in New York and I’m going to be a doctor
+myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind gentleman
+to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
+didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively
+tongue, pretending not to be able to say anything more,
+although Jean was gazing at her in a more encouraging
+fashion than she had worn at the beginning of her speech.</p>
+
+<p>All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York
+City the four ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend,
+Frank Kent, had discussed this question: Should the girls on
+arriving at boarding school speak of their new-found gold
+mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack advised
+against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and
+Frank thought they might as well mention it now and then,
+while Jean was determined to speak of their gold mine
+whenever the chance offered and to make the biggest
+impression she possibly could. So now it was surprising to
+hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
+her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose
+Hall to care for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,”
+she answered demurely; “so I am afraid Miss Graham and her
+friends will not like us any too well. You see, we are
+simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by that. I
+suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because
+our clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks
+apiece as most of the girls here have. Olive and I were
+laughing yesterday because on our arrival we were given
+United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels! why we
+haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes
+that belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head
+warningly at Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than
+ever and whose lips were about to form the name of the
+Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to divert her attention,
+Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics and diving
+down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
+baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to
+remind you that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall
+and we hope our first friends,” she said prettily, handing a
+basket to Gerry and then the others to the two sisters. But
+all the while Jean was talking and acting this little
+pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
+right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will
+find out who the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and
+then—” Well, it was comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last
+letter, written after they had left the ranch, he had said
+the pot of gold from the end of their Rainbow Mine had
+yielded five thousand dollars within the month just past and
+that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had
+come from.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls
+started with surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining
+perfectly calm. Getting up from the floor, however, she
+stuck her Indian basket on her head for a hat, using the
+handle as a strap.</p>
+
+<p>“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the
+recitation hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just
+sounded, only a gentle reminder that we are to assemble
+within the next ten minutes to meet our teachers and to get
+ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I can only
+hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
+Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the
+room to the tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after
+her: “You were awfully good to come in to see us and we are
+obliged to you, so please help us out whenever you can. I am
+afraid that the things we know, such as riding bareback and
+raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be considered
+accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
+unusually humble and particularly pretty.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned
+ourselves at Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of
+insects here, butterflies as well as bookworms. But I will
+say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is a fashionable
+school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as our
+P’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what
+does it mean ‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and
+how to enter a room and what to say when you get there and
+all the things that mean Society with a big S, Miss Frieda
+Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s, Q’s are dreadful things
+called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find out what
+quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
+mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the
+delicious name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda,
+if you want to know the truth about the meaning of the old
+expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’ the Century Dictionary
+tells us that the expression alluded to the difficulty in
+the early days of discerning the difference between the two
+letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of
+her curly head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’
+room.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER IV<br/>GETTING INTO HARNESS</h2>
+
+<p>Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch
+girls at boarding school and so many changes appeared to
+have taken place in their lives that already the weeks
+seemed as many months. One of the changes they themselves
+did not realize, but nevertheless it was a serious one, for
+Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as they
+had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was
+going her own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new
+friendships and apparently forgetting the importance of past
+ties.</p>
+
+<p>And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
+emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for
+Mollie Johnson, the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy
+Johnson was a good deal older than Frieda, but Mollie was a
+year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and looked up to
+her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
+that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made
+her appear like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of
+being treated like a baby by her family, and besides, as no
+one had ever told her before that she was in the least like
+a heroine, she found the idea distinctly pleasant. The two
+Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
+vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small
+and dark and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such
+a complete contrast to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements
+that it was small wonder the two girls were drawn together
+by their very unlikeness and that already their schoolmates
+were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
+everywhere together with their arms locked about one
+another, wore one another’s clothes when their different
+sizes permitted, and were never without true lover’s knots
+of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes, knots made from a
+sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair ribbons. Not
+that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
+the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and
+in spite of Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids
+had disappeared and in their place a Pysche knot of huge
+proportions could be seen at the back of her head. The
+Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did not
+have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest
+fashion and of course nothing else really matters. As
+Frieda’s school work was not the same as Jean’s and Olive’s,
+on account of her age and the fact that she never had cared
+much about books, the division of her time was different
+from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the
+excitement of her first independence and without Jack’s
+influence, she should be for the first time in her life
+“ganging her own gait.”</p>
+
+<p>But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
+unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed
+together over Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while
+they were laughing, though she had said nothing, Olive was
+wondering if Jean did not know that she saw almost as little
+of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without realizing it
+or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
+after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most
+popular girls in the school. As a proof of it she had
+already been invited to join both the two sororities and had
+not made up her mind which one she should choose. The fact
+that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
+certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,”
+for from the hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of
+Winifred’s character there had been open war between
+Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness to Olive
+was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was
+almost forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry.
+It was an open discussion that the choice for Junior class
+president, which must be made before the Christmas holidays,
+would lie between these two girls. For though Jean had
+continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls in the
+school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
+friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and
+wealthiest families in New York City, people who looked down
+upon the Four Hundred as belonging to the dreadful “new
+rich.”</p>
+
+<p>But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly
+for Jean and Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was
+making no friends. Though it was customary to invite the new
+girls at Primrose Hall into one or the other of the secret
+societies almost immediately upon their arrival at school,
+Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority. Too shy
+and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she
+did not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon
+her. Only in secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if
+her blood showed itself so plainly that her classmates
+disliked her for that reason or if she were more
+unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack,
+who was finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world,
+had cared for her and if only the doctors would say that
+Jack was strong enough to join them at Primrose Hall,
+nothing else would make any difference! Letters from Ruth
+Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured
+the girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected,
+but as yet there had been no definite report from the
+surgeon?</p>
+
+<p>However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among
+her classmates, there were other persons in the school
+interested in her, who were more important. Among them was
+Jessica Hunt, the young teacher whom Olive had met on the
+morning of her unfortunate walk. There was something in the
+strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a strong
+appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity
+to reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put
+upon Olive and was trying her best to discover their cause.
+Some secret story might possibly be in circulation about the
+newcomer, but so far Jessica had not been able to find it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting
+room for several hours. Always books had been her
+consolation for loneliness since the days when her only
+white friend had been the teacher in the Indian school in
+her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected knock
+at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to
+join her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on
+opening the door her eyes had widened with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I
+am a visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been
+looking for you everywhere in the garden and at the sorority
+houses and on the verandas. To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the
+world and under the world and back at the last to you,’ here
+in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the other girls?”
+Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
+may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might
+confide in her the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then
+they might talk the matter over sensibly together and she
+might be able to help. But alas for Olive! Though Ruth had
+warned her to try to overcome her reserve that day of the
+flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
+give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only
+answered Miss Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider
+than the other girls that I have to stay in my room to study
+more. But I am through with my work now and awfully glad to
+see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome revealed
+more of her real feeling than any number of words.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave
+a little cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you
+don’t wish to be outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the
+most charming girls’ room at Primrose Hall! It makes me
+think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I was misquoting
+a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some day
+when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself.
+And surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are
+one.’”</p>
+
+<p>Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had
+dreamed of making it in the last days at home, a bit of the
+Rainbow Lodge in miniature, their own beloved ranch house
+living room reproduced many miles across the continent. By
+Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted to the three ranch
+girls a large and almost empty room, containing only a
+divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was
+covered with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright
+shawls were thrown over the divan, piled with sofa cushions
+of leather and silk, and on the walls were prints of Indian
+heads, one of them a picture of a young girl looking
+singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of
+cowboys on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace,
+about one-fourth the size of the one at The Lodge, was the
+head of an elk shot by Jim Colter himself on the border of
+their own ranch, and on the mantel the very brass
+candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home,
+besides several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient
+ornaments discovered by Frieda in the Indian cave on the day
+when Olive had made her first appearance in the ranch girls’
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room
+she began at once to look more closely at the few
+photographs which the ranch girls had placed on top of their
+bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker way to learn
+to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
+taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must
+represent the persons nearest and dearest, their families
+and closest friends.</p>
+
+<p>The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures,
+only an absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell
+present to them, but as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and
+his Sunday clothes, it was not in the least like their big,
+splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was one of Ruth and
+alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost instinctively
+Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
+girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched
+Olive’s heart.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is
+just the type of girl I admire the most, so graceful and
+vigorous and with such a lot of character. Oh, I hope I
+haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended suddenly,
+seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t
+vigorous any more.” And then, to her own surprise and
+relief, Olive poured forth the whole story of Jack’s
+accident and their reasons for coming east.</p>
+
+<p>Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing
+that takes place every day, but just as Olive was on the
+point of telling Miss Hunt that she expected each day to
+hear more definite news of Jack, a message was sent upstairs
+to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception room
+desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once.
+Would Olive find the other girls and come to the reception
+room immediately?</p>
+
+<p>With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew
+who had come to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with
+a hurried apology to Jessica, begging her to wait until her
+return, fled out, of her room down through the lower part of
+the house and then out into the school grounds to search for
+Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at once to
+Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls
+hear the good news with her.</p>
+
+<p>And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the
+ranch girls’ room for a few minutes longer, for standing
+near the photograph of Jacqueline Ralston was another
+photograph whose presence in the room puzzled her greatly.
+She did not feel that she had the right to ask curious
+questions and yet she must look at this picture more
+closely, for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying
+in her own bureau drawer between folds of lavender-scented
+silk.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chV' class='d018'>CHAPTER V<br/>NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</h2>
+
+<p>Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two
+great side porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many
+recreation hours on these warm Indian summer afternoons, but
+just in front of the sorority house with “Theta” engraved
+above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded by a dozen
+girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had
+her back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started
+to run toward her and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl
+in the group was known to her by name, all of them were
+Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of them, except
+Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
+conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to
+thrust herself among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the
+thought that Ruth must be waiting for them with news of Jack
+braced her. “Jean,” Olive called softly and then in a louder
+tone, “Jean!”</p>
+
+<p>At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve
+other pairs of eyes stared poor Olive up and down.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her
+brown eyes shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been
+arranged that I am to join the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope
+that you will come in with me. Then we are going to form a
+dramatic club in our sorority and after a little while give
+a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
+to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than
+any one of us, or at least she used to when we had charades
+at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean paused, feeling a peculiar change in
+the atmosphere about her. Would no one echo her invitation
+to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in silence
+unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing
+right before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her
+lips to hide their trembling?</p>
+
+<p>Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you
+think for an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning
+to her best friend in the little company, a tall,
+distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that I will be in
+things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
+Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,”
+she whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had
+come to give her, without further thought of anything or
+anybody at Primrose Hall, the two friends hurried off
+together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying to find
+Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after
+them, in a few moments the two girls appeared at the
+reception room door.</p>
+
+<p>“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned
+white faces to stare at each other and at the tall figure
+that rose to greet them holding Frieda’s hand in one of his.
+“It is Peter Drummond, gooseys; don’t you know him?” Frieda
+cried happily. “Some one told me we had a caller and I came
+in here expecting to find some strange, horrid visitor, and
+when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
+and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him
+to come to see us,” she ended, rather crossly.</p>
+
+<p>“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied,
+coming to herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are
+terribly glad it is you; only—why—the truth is, we expected
+Ruth to be able to tell us that Jack was better or
+something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in weeks,
+ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
+friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to
+tell us about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly
+strained voice. “I am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we
+hoped she would be and Ruth couldn’t leave her. Won’t she
+ever be able to walk again like other people? Have the
+doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought you
+to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still
+for a second Peter Drummond did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely
+surprised at Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had
+unexpectedly burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s
+hand, “it isn’t so bad as all this. Olive did guess the
+truth and I have come to tell you about Jack. Perhaps she
+isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t join you at school
+just at present or get about very much. The fact is—” Mr.
+Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not
+quite sure of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while
+longer and keep her very quiet before they can decide. But I
+saw her a minute the other day and she and Ruth send you
+their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so dreadful
+as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
+something, for never before in my life have I been with
+three women and had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with
+a man’s embarrassment at being the bearer of ill news,
+looked at the ranch girls with pretended indignation.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?”
+Jean asked, and their visitor, not in the least offended by
+the question, emphatically bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p>Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda,
+I don’t think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly,
+“though of course we are terribly disappointed at not having
+Jack here at school with us, I have always felt she would be
+well some day. Even if the surgeons should say she won’t, my
+money is on old Jack!”</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous
+attitude, though Olive looked considerably depressed. But at
+this minute Mr. Drummond, to divert everybody’s attention,
+turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell me, please, what
+is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if two
+weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will
+a whole year do?”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot.
+“Don’t tell Jack and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing
+her blonde head: “Oh, tell away if you like, Peter Drummond.
+I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you mean; I am just
+not a baby any longer.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and
+amusement. “If it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,”
+he said pulling at his own heavy iron-gray hair, “then
+you’ve got about the worst disease in the world and the most
+incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to overtake
+one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he
+turned again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been
+awfully nice to Jack and Ruth and they are coming out here
+to see you pretty soon. There is a queer old house in this
+neighborhood where an old relative of theirs lives. The
+house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
+mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the
+place Peter is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he
+hasn’t told you the name of it or what it looks like or
+anything to identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a
+place called ‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of
+it and a balcony and queer little windows.” Quite
+unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because for some
+strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
+had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her
+eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is
+called ‘The Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder
+if because Olive is perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is
+going to be a fortune teller.” But because Olive’s face had
+crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My dear Olive,
+suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
+There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive
+noticed that Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.</p>
+
+<p>But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a
+large box and a small one. The large box he handed to Jean.
+“You are please to conceal this from the powers that be, if
+it’s against boarding school laws to eat candy,” he said and
+then stood turning the smaller box about in his hand,
+surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
+Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains
+a great surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is
+inside of it, may I be present at its opening?”</p>
+
+<p>The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering
+outside the parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed
+which opened with a spring. Instantly Frieda touched this
+spring there were three cries of “Oh,” followed by a
+moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the box were
+three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
+quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels
+shading from red to pale violet. Each girl took her gift
+from the box, regarding it with characteristic expressions.
+Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the dimple showing at
+the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer than
+ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were
+overclouded and her face quivered with pleasure.</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE'
+    src='images/illus-001.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the
+grandest, and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor
+any more,” Frieda announced.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor
+girls may have fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.</p>
+
+<p>“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our
+gifts to suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still
+resting on the glowing colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t
+you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins represent rainbows? I
+have been repeating the rainbow colors to myself—red,
+orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
+seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you
+are, and Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been
+collecting jewels all my life and never thought of so pretty
+an idea as this. Here is a garnet to start with for the red,
+then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond next, an
+emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
+indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of
+violet.”</p>
+
+<p>“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and
+the mine and all the good things that have come to us
+through a rainbow,” Jean said thoughtfully and then more
+huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.” Frieda made a
+dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a piece
+of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when
+I opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she
+announced. “Oh, goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has
+written us a poem!” And Frieda read:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Here are seven colors in nature and art,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day</div>
+        <div class='d021'>And orange and yellow to shine on your way.</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar</div>
+        <div class='d021'>To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.</div>
+        <div class='d021'>And yet to the end shall we ever forget</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes
+pretty well,” Frieda ended doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful,
+I think. And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever
+do go to Europe, as we sometimes have planned, we must never
+forget the Rainbow Ranch. You know, Frieda dear, that the
+alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and white like the
+clover in the east.”</p>
+
+<p>But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr.
+Drummond had now to tear himself away in order to catch his
+train back to New York. Hurrying out into the hall, with the
+three ranch girls close behind him, he suddenly came to an
+abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young woman, who also
+stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes and a
+haughtily held head.</p>
+
+<p>“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here
+when I told you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say
+with the least little nervous tremor in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica,
+Miss Hunt,” he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest
+idea of seeing you at Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but
+the ranch girls are my very dear friends and my visit was
+solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically away when a
+hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
+This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might
+have known you would never trouble to come to see me again.”</p>
+
+<p>That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner
+Jean poked her head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it
+ever occurred to you that Peter Drummond may have
+recommended Primrose Hall to us because a certain young
+woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
+child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see
+what we shall see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men
+can’t fall in love and get married without such a lot of
+fussing and misunderstanding. Think how Ruth is treating
+poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so silly
+and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too
+and let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very
+serious for the moment and also very bewitching.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean
+Bruce, you will have the hardest time of us all in making up
+your mind when you are in love.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER VI<br/>HER TEMPTATION</h2>
+
+<p>Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean
+Bruce. Always beyond anything else had she desired to be
+popular, even in the old days at the ranch when the only
+society in which she had a part was composed of the few
+neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
+Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her
+heart’s desire, and would she for the sake of another be
+compelled to give it up? For how could she accept the honor
+that might be bestowed upon her of being chosen for Junior
+class president without turning traitor to Olive. After her
+friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta” house on
+the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no
+longer shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the
+cause of it? Try as she might she could not find out, yet
+the prejudice was certainly deeper than any one could
+suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the bottom of
+the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she
+had circulated any story against Olive no one would confess
+it. “Miss Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so
+odd, I do not think she enjoys being with other girls,”
+these evasions of the truth were all Jean could get hold of.
+But in the meantime there was no doubt that Olive’s
+classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the
+two sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented
+in the history of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have
+appealed to Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers,
+asking that their influence be exerted in Olive’s behalf,
+but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do. For
+even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities,
+how would it change her classmates’ attitude toward her?
+Would it not make them more unkind than ever? No, there were
+only two courses open to Jean, either she must join the
+sorority she had chosen without any question of Olive’s
+being a member or else she must decline to be admitted
+herself until such time as the girls should come to their
+senses and voluntarily desire the election of them both.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two
+sororities had been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small
+excuse for her hesitation. But a larger issue was at stake.
+Unless she became a member of a sorority and as one of its
+leaders could influence new girls to her cause, she might
+lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the head of
+the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.</p>
+
+<p>Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very
+charming fashion, just by the power of her own personality,
+which is after all the greatest force in the world. She had
+no prominent family connections, as so many of the Primrose
+Hall girls had, and she continued to act as though she had
+no money except what was necessary for very simple
+requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done had
+the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the
+discovery of the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a
+hard fight and many times the young girl longed to break
+faith with herself.</p>
+
+<p>Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading
+of the Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the
+three ranch girls’ school outfits, but now these clothes
+seemed so simple and ordinary that at least two of the girls
+hated the wearing of them.</p>
+
+<p>Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light
+weight flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon
+entertainments and dinner use and a single party dress for
+the monthly dances which were a feature of Primrose Hall
+school life. Their underclothes were plentiful but plain.
+Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
+lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very
+wealthy ones at that, could have such possessions. Just
+think of a single item of a dozen hand-made nightgowns at
+fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s outfit; and yet
+these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly expressed
+her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a
+gift of two of them without hurting her new friend’s
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed
+atmosphere that Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a
+revelation. She seemed not to know the meaning of snobbery,
+not to care who people were so long as she liked what they
+were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
+another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already
+asked Jean to visit her in her home in New York during the
+Christmas holidays, as she longed to introduce her to her
+own family in order that they might lose their prejudice
+against western girls. But more especially Margaret desired
+to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean
+together so as to find out what they would think of one
+another. She was only awaiting the first opportunity. In the
+meantime, although Jean would not accept other gifts from
+her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the flowers
+Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about
+school so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in
+her hair that she soon became known as “the pink carnation
+girl.”</p>
+
+<p>One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to
+send flowers to Margaret in return, but in order to retain
+her masquerade of poverty, most of the time she had to
+refrain. Only now and then she did relieve her feelings by
+presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses regardless
+of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
+would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been
+especially kind to Olive, Frieda or her.</p>
+
+<p>With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to
+spread abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no
+pocket money, but with Frieda the case was very different.
+It is quite certain that Jean would never have had her way
+with Frieda except by appealing directly to Jack for advice
+and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging her
+little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to
+agree to Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not
+that she saw any sense in her sacrifice or was in the least
+reconciled to it, but simply because under the
+circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could refuse
+her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard
+on both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives
+had they had any money of their own to spend and now Jack
+was sending each one of them fifty dollars a month for pin
+money. Think of the fortune of it, if you have had only
+one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use before!</p>
+
+<p>And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded
+to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her
+first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big
+department store with half a dozen of the other school girls
+and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the
+time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant
+young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat
+encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering
+Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. A cry brought
+Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked too
+pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended
+to be ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to
+her, not even when a pale blue silk followed next morning by
+the early express and twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed
+from Olive and Jean to pay for it.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at
+Frieda’s extravagance, because, while saving money is a
+virtuous act, it certainly is a very dull one. And while
+Olive was storing her income away in a lock box, wondering
+if it were possible to return it some day in a gift for
+Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
+intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.</p>
+
+<p>While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty
+at Primrose Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom.
+That there could be so much talk and thought of money as she
+had lately heard among the set of girls of whom Winifred
+Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as Jean already
+had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief reasons
+for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in
+order to prove that this snobbish set was not really in
+control of Primrose Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim
+Colter, the overseer of their ranch, who had always said
+money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud of her
+if they could hear that she won out in her battle without
+its help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned
+her back on Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed
+and torn between the twin enemies, ambition and love, she
+would hardly have accused Olive of being the cause of her
+own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious an
+hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind
+one way or another was drawing close at hand and so far
+Olive had no idea of her friend’s struggle, naturally
+supposing that Jean had already entered the “Theta” society
+without mentioning it to her in order to spare her pride.</p>
+
+<p>Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it
+was now the evening of the first one of them. Of course,
+dances at girls’ boarding schools are not unusual, but the
+dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss Winthrop allowed
+young men to be present at them. Her guests were brothers
+and cousins of her students or else intimate friends,
+carefully introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop
+regarded Primrose Hall as a training school for the larger
+social world and desired her students to learn to accept an
+acquaintance with young men as simply and naturally as they
+did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls and
+boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of
+their school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they
+developed false notions in regard to one another and false
+attitudes. Therefore, although no one could be more severe
+than the principal of Primrose Hall toward any shadow of
+flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a simple
+friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected
+Miss Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly
+dances, at first much criticized, had since become a great
+success. Watching her students and their friends together,
+the older woman could often give her students the help and
+advice they needed in their first knowledge of young men. So
+when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
+excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss
+Winthrop had positively refused her request. No excuse save
+illness was ever accepted from either the Junior or Senior
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to
+begin at eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed,
+strolled slowly into Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending
+that she wished to assist them, but really longing for some
+word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in overcoming
+her shyness.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her
+new blue gown to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was
+alone. At the very instant of Olive’s entrance she was
+thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance and
+uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so
+charming in a pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than
+ever. When Olive was so pretty how could the school girls
+fail to like her?</p>
+
+<p>But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely
+unconscious of Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost
+in admiration of her friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night
+Jean was “a pink carnation girl,” for Margaret Belknap had
+sent her a great box of the deep rose-colored variety and
+she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by accident her
+frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
+particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark
+brown of her hair, while to-night the excitement of
+attending her first school dance made Jean’s brown eyes
+sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said
+wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you
+than even for Frieda or Jack.”</p>
+
+<p>“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered
+ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of
+depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other
+day that we generally got what we expected in this world and
+if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and
+proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive colored, but did not reply at once.</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would
+have some influence with you and not let you be so pokey and
+unfriendly. I am sure I have tried in vain to stir you up
+and now I think I’ll write Jack and Ruth how you are
+behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
+times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean,
+knowing that Olive did not yet understand how her failure to
+be invited into either sorority was influencing her chance
+for the class election, yet had the grace to turn her face
+away.</p>
+
+<p>For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or
+Ruth, Jean,” she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know
+I am not a success at school and if you tell them that no
+one here likes me they will then know that I am unhappy and
+will be worried, and Jack must not have any worry now. It
+isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
+mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter
+with me, Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was
+kissing her warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is
+nothing the matter with you and you are not unpopular
+really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake. Now promise
+me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
+friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her
+mind that in some unexplainable way Olive must be standing
+in her own light or else her classmates must see how
+charming she was.</p>
+
+<p>Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes
+would soon be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s,
+who would be noticing her unpopularity. And would she know a
+single guest at the dance?</p>
+
+<p>Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that
+Jean and Olive went down to the big reception rooms
+together, holding each other’s hands like little girls.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VII<br/>CINDERELLA</h2>
+
+<p>To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that
+she desired her students at Primrose Hall to grow into
+something more useful than mere society women. Her ambition
+was to have them fill many important positions in the modern
+world now offering such big opportunities to clever women.
+Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
+perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just
+always and interested in their welfare. But then none of her
+girls knew the story of her youth nor realized that the last
+life she had ever expected for herself in her rich and
+brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a fashionable
+boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
+the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York
+City and in the homes of the old Dutch and English families
+along the Hudson River, until she had let her pride spoil
+the one romance of her life. By and by, when her father died
+and her family fortune disappeared, she had then opened up
+her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
+aristocratic connections and old name immediately made
+Primrose Hall both fashionable and popular, until now its
+mere name lent its students an assured social prestige.
+Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her school to be
+something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
+been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her
+pupils from among a list of fifty or more applicants whom
+she had been obliged to refuse. There was little in the life
+of her school which she did not see and understand, and now
+her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda, with their
+freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
+looking at things, would bring the element most needed into
+their mere money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere.
+Though no one had mentioned it to her, she had already
+observed Jean’s great popularity with her classmates,
+Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and Olive’s
+failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this
+third ranch girl?</p>
+
+<p>Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the
+past month in getting her school into good working order,
+she had not forgotten the peculiar emotion that Olive had
+awakened in her at their first meeting. Because the child
+was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely a
+sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her,
+and to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss
+Winthrop had determined to watch Olive closely and find out
+for herself wherein lay the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was
+receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night and had also wondered
+how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first evening
+entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
+informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they
+should train her girls for social life in any part of the
+world where in later years circumstances might chance to
+take them.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in
+full evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening
+Miss Winthrop wore a plain black velvet gown with a small
+diamond star at her throat, a piece of jewelry for which she
+had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt, who was standing
+next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and the
+bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought)
+made a striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of
+the older woman. Though there were a dozen or more of the
+Primrose Hall girls grouped about the two women when Jean
+and Olive entered the reception room together, both of them
+immediately saw and watched them as they came slowly
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
+anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know,
+as she moved through the room with an expression of fine
+unconsciousness, that this was the first really formal party
+she had ever attended in her life. Neither her blush nor her
+dimple betrayed her, although she was perfectly aware that a
+number of youths in long-tailed coats and black trousers,
+wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped
+talking for several moments to their girl friends in order
+to glance at Olive and at her. She even saw, without
+appearing to lift her lids, that a tall, blonde fellow
+standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was deliberately
+staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
+Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite
+of his fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared
+to Ralph Merrit or other simple western fellows whom she had
+known in the past.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s
+passing observations in her forward progress toward Miss
+Winthrop, and yet in the same length of time Olive, who was
+close beside her, had seen nothing “but a sea of unknown
+faces.” Even her school companions to-night in their frocks
+of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet somehow, with
+Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
+Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to
+them. Then, still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne
+off for a short distance and there surrounded by a group of
+Jean’s girl friends.</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
+Belknap in the number, had come up with their cousins,
+brothers and friends to meet Jean Bruce and to fill up her
+dance card. They were, of course, also introduced to Olive,
+but as she did not speak, no one noticed her particularly
+and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
+desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began
+she forgot her and marched off with an enthusiastic partner,
+who had asked Gerry Ferrows to introduce him to the most
+fascinating girl in the room, and Gerry had unhesitatingly
+chosen Jean.</p>
+
+<p>There were two or three other girls and young men standing
+near Olive when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds
+later and she was entirely alone.</p>
+
+<p>Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to
+society to find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first
+Olive felt desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with
+shame and fearing that her eyes were filling with tears. Then
+looking about her she soon discovered a group of palms in a
+corner of the room not far away and guessed that she could find
+shelter behind them. Slipping across she came upon a small sofa
+hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little sigh of
+thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
+serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see
+what a good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen
+herself. Once she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her
+hiding place—Frieda, who had been a fat, little girl with long
+plaits down her back just a few weeks ago, now attired in a blue
+silk and lace, was whirling about on the arm of a long-legged
+boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous quantity of blonde
+curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin brother. Five
+minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
+evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
+apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance
+with her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom
+Olive recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard
+brother, could be seen dancing attendance on Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this
+fashion until Olive felt perfectly safe in her green
+retreat, when unexpectedly a hand was laid upon her shoulder
+and a voice said sternly, “What in the world, child, are you
+doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
+stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you
+to take part in the dancing; there really isn’t much
+difference between your being concealed up there or here.”</p>
+
+<p>And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her
+breath made her unable to answer at once.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as
+she had thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had
+seen first her embarrassment at being left alone and next
+her withdrawal. In much the same fashion that Jack would
+have followed, Jessica had wished to rush off at once to
+comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes
+her so unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out
+of hearing. “I wish you would tell me if you know any
+explanation for it.”</p>
+
+<p>But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering,
+“I can’t for the life of me understand. There are a good
+many little things that Olive does not seem to know, and
+yet, as she studies very hard, I believe she will soon be
+one of the honor girls in my class. I have a friend in New
+York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
+unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well.
+Perhaps I had best ask him if there is anything unusual
+about Olive.”</p>
+
+<p>But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you
+would ask no questions, at least not now please, Jessica,
+for I have heard at least a part of the girl’s history, and
+yet I believe the real truth is not known to any one and
+perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive if it
+never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be
+so sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss
+Winthrop had moved across the room to where Olive was in
+hiding. As the girl’s startled brown eyes were upturned to
+hers Miss Winthrop, who was not poetic, yet thought that her
+pupil in her pale green dress with her queer pointed chin
+and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from some
+old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls
+and young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s
+unusual beauty, forgetting that young people seldom admire
+what is out of the ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older
+woman quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender
+brown fingers in hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in
+a voice that was gentler than usual, “for I understand it is
+timidity that is making you hide yourself. Don’t you think
+though that you would enjoy dancing?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she
+returned, forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no
+one has invited me.” Then as her teacher suddenly rose to
+her feet, as though intending to find her a partner, with a
+sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness Olive drew her
+down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me, Miss
+Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little
+while I am sure it will be delightful just watching the
+others.”</p>
+
+<p>While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers,
+Miss Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross
+at the end of it, which Olive was wearing around her throat.
+Leaning over she took the cross in her hand. “This is an odd
+piece of jewelry, child, and must be very old; it is so
+heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed inside
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything
+about it, except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,”
+she replied. For some strange reason this shy girl was
+speaking of her mother to a comparative stranger, when she
+rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved friend,
+Jacqueline Ralston.</p>
+
+<p>But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice
+startled both of them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed,
+“what do you mean by hiding yourself away with Miss Winthrop
+when I have been searching the house over for you.”</p>
+
+<p>Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld
+Donald Harmon standing near them, the young fellow whose
+father had rented the Rainbow Ranch from the Ralston girls
+the summer before and whose sister had been responsible for
+Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one
+of your guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and
+that my aunt is your old friend and lives near Primrose
+Hall.”</p>
+
+<p>While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had
+no idea that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald
+was trying to persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for
+her first dance with him. By accident it happened to be a
+Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced it before, but she
+had been watching the other girls. Donald was an excellent
+partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it
+all her life.</p>
+
+<p>Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different
+art, although both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean
+was gay and vivacious, full of grace and activity, keeping
+excellent time to the music, but Olive seemed to move like a
+flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly conscious of what
+she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet yielding
+her body to every note of the music and movement of her
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many
+of the others stopped and at once the young men demanded to
+be told who Olive was and why she had been hidden away from
+their sight until now? Whatever replies the girls may have
+made to these questions, they did not apparently affect
+their questioners, for from the time of her first dance
+until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
+partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and
+her cheeks grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her
+low laugh rang out, and always she could dance. What did
+conversation at a ball amount to anyhow when movement was
+the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a fairy
+princess just awakened from a long enchantment?</p>
+
+<p>Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had
+ever brought Olive forth from her retreat, but just before
+midnight, when Primrose Hall parties must always come to an
+end, he did manage to get her away for a moment out on the
+veranda, where chairs were placed so that the young people
+could rest and talk.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VIII<br/>SHADOWS BEFORE</h2>
+
+<p>The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and
+shaded electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and
+himself in a corner where they could see the dancers and yet
+not be interrupted, for he wished to talk to her alone for a
+few moments, never having forgotten the impression she had
+made upon him at their first meeting, nor the peculiar
+likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.</p>
+
+<p>But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never
+really liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which
+Elizabeth had innocently brought upon her beloved Jack. And
+yet, as she knew that this attitude on her part was hardly
+fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your mother and
+Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
+coldness.</p>
+
+<p>Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they
+are both unusually well these days, and if Beth could only
+hear that your friend Miss Ralston was going to get quite
+well, why she would brace up a lot. But she worries about
+her a great deal, so she and my mother have just come out
+here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away
+from college for a few days to be with them and to see you
+ranch girls again,” he ended honestly.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by
+for a glimpse of Jean or Frieda.</p>
+
+<p>“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and
+have tea with them,” the young man urged, appearing not to
+notice his companion’s lack of interest. “My aunt’s place is
+very near Primrose Hall, so you can easily walk over.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would
+care to have us go about the neighborhood making visits,”
+she announced, glad of what seemed to her a reasonable
+excuse.</p>
+
+<p>Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by
+Olive’s manner. “Don’t try to get out of coming to see us
+for any such cause, Miss Olive,” he protested, “for Miss
+Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest friends and she and my
+mother have known one another since they were girls. Why, my
+aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is always
+offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and
+perhaps some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was
+going to ask Miss Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and
+Frieda over to us, as she always comes to see my aunt every
+week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown too old and too cranky
+to leave her place.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing
+that Donald had always been their friend in all family
+difficulties, she was sorry to have seemed unkind. “I’ll
+tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with more enthusiasm,
+“and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will be
+happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you,
+the white house at the end of the woods with a tower at the
+top of it and queer gabled windows and two absurd dogs on
+either side the front door?”</p>
+
+<p>The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you?
+We are dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to
+love them as children; I suppose a good many generations of
+the children in our family have had glorious rides on their
+backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of color sweeping over her
+face which even in the glow of the artificial lights Donald
+was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
+room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things
+around the walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in
+one corner?”</p>
+
+<p>Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I
+am sorry I made such a silly speech. Of course your tower
+room isn’t like that. I think I must just have read of some
+such a room at the top of a house somewhere that looks like
+yours. Only I want to ask you a few questions.”</p>
+
+<p>At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over
+Olive’s eyes and a voice asked:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Whose hands about thee are entwined?”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for
+Jean had come up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil
+Belknap and with Gerry Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean
+promptly began a conversation with Donald; Gerry and her
+friend, after being properly introduced to the others,
+continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor
+Olive to do but to try to talk to Cecil.</p>
+
+<p>Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his
+invitation than Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated
+his request to her, so that for five minutes or more they
+were deep in questions and answers, Jean laughingly
+reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
+evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to
+break through the wall of her admirers. When a truce was
+finally declared Jean smilingly accepted his invitation to
+tea and then turning stood for a moment with her eyes
+dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up a
+conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather
+had evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon
+even now peeping over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow
+hills, and still Olive was struggling bravely on without the
+least assistance from her superior companion, who merely
+stared at her without volunteering a single remark.</p>
+
+<p>Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon,
+Olive, for having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long.
+Just think,” she turned to look up at the young man with her
+most demure expression, “I used to think the sphinx a woman,
+but now I am entirely convinced that he or she is a Harvard
+student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
+and inscrutable.”</p>
+
+<p>Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that
+this small ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to
+all evening on account of his sister’s affection for her,
+was actually poking fun at him, a Harvard Senior and heir to
+half a million dollars? The thing was impossible! Had she
+not realized that his mere presence near her had added to
+her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
+also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary
+schoolboy? Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous
+ideas and Cecil now hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean
+to a proper state of humility.</p>
+
+<p>However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her
+rudeness, drew Olive aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her
+friend’s ear in rather anxious and annoyed tones, “have you
+seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past hour? I told
+that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
+every half hour all this evening and she has never been near
+me a single time. Has she spoken to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never
+spoken to me,” she replied, “but once in dancing by me she
+did deign to smile as though we had met somewhere before.
+Isn’t she funny?”</p>
+
+<p>But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with
+her grown-up airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her
+upstairs to bed. You know it is nearly twelve o’clock,
+Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly twelve and then
+Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
+personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that
+Johnson child should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie
+either. I wonder if they have gone off anywhere with that
+long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”</p>
+
+<p>“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she
+is sure to be in the parlor and will say good-night with the
+rest of us. You see, we are so used to thinking of her as a
+baby that we can’t get used to her independence.”</p>
+
+<p>But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to
+talk of family matters with strangers waiting near them.
+Anyhow, just at this moment the big clock in the hall, the
+same clock that Olive had listened to so long on that first
+night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to boom forth the
+hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began to
+play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that
+he desired her as a partner, but that he wished to punish
+Jean. A moment later Gerry and her friend entered the
+ballroom, so that naturally Donald and Jean were compelled
+to have this last dance together. Of course Donald would
+have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being
+second best. However, Donald need not have worried over
+Jean’s being forced upon him, for no sooner had they come
+into the parlor with the other dancers, than two young
+fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had promised the
+“Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
+forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.</p>
+
+<p>So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment
+watching Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a
+conspicuously sad time, for Cecil could not dance and so
+Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue, Donald bore his
+first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
+heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of
+the evening in the society of her rival, Winifred Graham.
+However, the young man would have been better satisfied
+could he have known whether or not the western girl noticed
+his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice to Jean
+in order that the mere influence of his presence near her
+might induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had
+not appeared particularly grateful. It is the old story with
+a girl or a woman. Strange, but she never seems to care for
+a man’s attention when he makes a martyr of himself for her
+sake!</p>
+
+<p>However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older
+ranch girls were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda.
+Nowhere about the great room could she be seen, not even
+after the young men guests had gone away and the girls had
+formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop and
+Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several
+students and yet the same questions traveled from one face
+to the other. “Suppose Miss Winthrop asks us what has become
+of Frieda, what must we say, and what will she do if, after
+trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten into some kind
+of mischief?”</p>
+
+<p>Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own
+good-nights had been said and no questions asked, rushed
+upstairs to their bedrooms. But outside Jean’s door Olive
+suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such a baby, she
+has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
+good-night long ago.”</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was
+burning inside the room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s
+bed, but that young lady was not in it, neither was there
+any sign of her presence about the place.</p>
+
+<p>Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room.
+“Lucy says Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported
+immediately, “so what on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has
+charge of our floor to-night and will be around in a few
+minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then if Frieda
+isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
+from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep
+Frieda a little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid
+any attention to her, she was both angry and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested
+faintly, knowing that she could never get downstairs and
+back again before Miss Sterne’s appearance and feeling that
+the vanishment of two girls might be even more conspicuous
+and draw greater wrath down upon their heads than the
+disappearance of one.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see
+you prowling around and would have to know the reason why,
+so that wouldn’t help the present situation,” Jean answered.
+“Surely Frieda will be here in a few minutes.” All up and
+down the hall the opening and shutting of bedroom doors
+could now be heard and the voices of the other girls bidding
+Miss Sterne and each other good-night.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER IX<br/>FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</h2>
+
+<p>Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair,
+but Olive, still fully dressed, kept darting from her own
+bedroom to Jean’s and Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a
+sign of the wanderer.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in
+the least what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds
+out how she has behaved, but you and I must go to look for
+her.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the
+lights were now being turned low, when a figure brushed by
+them. “Please let me get into my own room,” a voice said
+peevishly, and nothing loath, the three figures returned
+inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda Ralston,”
+Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
+excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is
+just barely possible that she may not have seen you sneaking
+along the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive
+gazed upon the youngest ranch girl with an expression of
+disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss
+Sterne inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about
+through her large horn spectacles that Olive had so promptly
+disliked, like a wise old owl.</p>
+
+<p>“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?”
+she continued, “you know you are not expected to enter
+another girl’s sleeping apartment after the hour for
+retiring.”</p>
+
+<p>Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own
+room and rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning
+to talk to Jean or to Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s
+retreating footsteps were far out of hearing.</p>
+
+<p>And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand
+what the other two ranch girls were saying and then it was
+Jean’s tones that were the more distinct.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and
+slipper, keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor,
+when Jean, now in her night gown, planted herself before her.
+“Where have you been all this time, Frieda Ralston, and why
+didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say good-night to Miss Winthrop
+when the rest of us did?”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue
+stockings, swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean,
+and I didn’t dream of its being so late. Do you think Miss
+Winthrop noticed?” the culprit faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in
+this school, Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she
+inquired. “I suppose you will be able to explain to her in
+the morning why you were in the back hall instead of in the
+parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to tell
+anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own
+heart was quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could
+not answer back in the cool fashion she desired. “Mollie
+Johnson was with me,” she managed to say, “and two boys.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or
+the present Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as
+she sat up in bed with her arms folded before her.</p>
+
+<p>“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly,
+“but will you please tell me why you went to the back hall
+when you knew perfectly well that Miss Winthrop was trusting
+you to behave like a lady and remain in the rooms where she
+was receiving her guests. I don’t know what Ruth and Jack
+will say.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she
+murmured, struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair.
+“You see, we had only ices and cake for the party, and about
+eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the boy I was with, said he
+wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as hungry for one,
+so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of the
+dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in
+the pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of
+good things.” And now Frieda’s courage returning in a small
+measure, she turned out the electric lights, hopping into
+bed. “I am not going to be treated like a criminal, though,
+Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she ended,
+burying herself under the cover.</p>
+
+<p>So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls
+were sound asleep, though in reality the three of them were
+still wide awake.</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet
+understanding the real facts of her escape, and Frieda was
+longing with all her might for some one to sympathize with
+her and help her in her scrape, some one who would let her
+cry herself out.</p>
+
+<p>By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s
+bedside. “Jean, has Frieda explained things to you?” she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and
+two boys, and that they went into the pantry and had
+something to eat, but she didn’t say why they stayed in the
+back hall afterwards. They couldn’t have kept on eating
+pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls giggled
+softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
+greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she
+was constantly doing on their long trip through the
+Yellowstone the summer before?</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted,
+“and I don’t think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she
+hears that the pantry was the difficulty, for she knows how
+good the housekeeper is to all the little girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.”
+Jean’s voice became low and impressive, “What do you suppose
+that Frieda Ralston could have to talk about to a—boy?”</p>
+
+<p>A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both
+older girls started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted
+the outside of the blanket.</p>
+
+<p>“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a
+sterner manner than was usual to her, “or were all four of
+you just sitting around having a jolly time together?” Now
+that Frieda’s sobs assured the other two girls that she was
+awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on with her
+cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
+unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other
+boy were sitting on a higher step and the servants were
+around, but no one told us how late it was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what were you talking about that you found so
+interesting that you could not hear the clock strike twelve,
+or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’ waltz, or the good-byes being
+said?” Jean demanded fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her
+sorrow, for the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were
+talking about worms!” she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that
+they could not have heard aright.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see,
+we got to talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved
+it better than most anything he ever did and some summers he
+goes way up into the Maine woods and fishes in the lakes for
+trout. He uses flies for bait always, but I told him that we
+fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes when it
+wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way
+down under the ground to find them. I told him too how once
+I started a fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I
+could dig up in a glass bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys
+whenever they wished to go fishing.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up
+conversation with her first admirer, feeling too angry and
+too puzzled to go on for the minute, for her former irate
+judges were now holding their sides and doing their level
+best to keep from shrieking with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of
+fishing worms,” Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the
+covers more closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and
+dream of Jack,” she comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop
+will never hear of your mistaking the time for saying
+good-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda
+returned sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive,
+better than most any of the girls. I have seen her looking
+at you so strangely every now and then.”</p>
+
+<p>In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling
+so penitent over her escapade as the two older ranch girls
+supposed. But Frieda had always been a good deal spoiled
+and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed her failure to say
+good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault upon her
+mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that
+both little girls and big receive their punishment for a
+fault so soon as the fault is committed, in order not to
+keep on growing naughtier and naughtier until Fate punishes
+us for many sins at once.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chX' class='d018'>CHAPTER X<br/>THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</h2>
+
+<p>After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be
+Saturday afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting
+room looking for Olive and Frieda. She had been playing
+basketball for the past two hours and in spite of having
+known nothing of the game on her arrival at school, was
+already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
+Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass
+above her face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in
+her hand she held a bundle of letters. One she tossed to
+Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa nursing a small cold due
+to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed
+to her in Jack’s handwriting and Frieda
+followed suit. When Jack had first been taken
+to the hospital and there compelled to lie
+always flat on her back, her handwriting had
+been difficult to read, but now that she had
+gotten used to this method of writing, her
+stroke was again as vigorous and characteristic as of old.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other
+girls. “Jack says she is getting on very well and we are to
+see her in a few weeks—perhaps,” she announced.</p>
+
+<p>Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of
+course, isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written
+you, for Jack never tells anything but the best news of
+herself.”</p>
+
+<p>“There may be an operation or something of the sort later
+on,” Jean conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it
+may not be for some months yet. Only if the operation does
+have to take place Jack has demanded that Jim come on from
+the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph Merrit to look after
+things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things are in a
+bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
+come?” And Jean sighed.</p>
+
+<p>An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should
+she behave in any special way?” she inquired, sitting
+straight up on the couch to gaze from Olive to Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed,
+for Frieda was the only one of the four ranch girls who knew
+nothing of what had happened at the ranch between Jim
+Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew, their chaperon. What
+had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
+understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware
+that Jim and Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one
+another and then some mysterious misunderstanding had
+suddenly parted them.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested,
+knowing this would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one
+theme. “Sometimes I wish for Jack’s sake that we were all
+back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she was able to be out in
+the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of Jack
+lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three
+girls, so that there was a moment of painful silence in the
+room. Then Jean said more cheerfully after re-reading the
+latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim says that Ralph Merrit is
+doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and that he is a
+trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
+Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he
+has turned out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does
+Frank Kent.”</p>
+
+<p>The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet
+forgiven Jean for last night’s scolding. Now she turned up
+her small nose a trifle more than usual. “Oh, you just say
+that because Ralph likes you best and Frank Kent is more
+fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean flushed.</p>
+
+<p>“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that
+Jim should like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has
+to make his own way in the world just as Jim has; and Frank
+Kent, though he is awfully simple and a thorough good
+fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a title
+himself some day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an
+English lady and own country estates and ride to hounds?”
+Frieda suggested more peacefully, gazing across the room at
+Frank Kent’s photograph, which ornamented the bookshelf. “I
+think I should love to be introduced into English society
+and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended lamely.</p>
+
+<p>A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled
+with mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about
+fishing worms, baby?” she queried with studied politeness.</p>
+
+<p>And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a
+sofa cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:</p>
+
+<p>“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at
+the Lodge. What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a
+second letter that Jean had brought to her, she began to
+read it.</p>
+
+<p>Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda,
+who resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get
+dressed, infant; no, your cold isn’t too bad for you to
+come. Olive is reading a note of invitation from Mrs. Harmon
+for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have tea and Miss
+Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”</p>
+
+<p>But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom
+enjoyed by the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested
+resolutely; “only if they have any candy or cake and happen to
+mention sending me some you might bring it along. And I do wish
+both you girls would go out for a while, for Mollie is coming to
+spend the afternoon with me after she finishes her music lesson
+and we would love to have the sitting room to ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without
+being actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean
+said, seeing that Olive was hesitating about what she should do.
+“Come along, it will do us both good to get away and not to sit
+here thinking about what we can’t help,” she ended.</p>
+
+<p>While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks
+preparatory to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of
+her own room Olive was trying to persuade herself that her
+hesitation in going for the call upon the Harmons was because
+she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of Elizabeth of the old
+tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than this in her
+mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
+which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment
+her eyes had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have
+ever had with an old place like “The Towers,” or any house
+resembling it? Her impression that she must have seen the house
+somewhere before was sheer madness, for was it not an old Dutch
+mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years ago, and certainly
+wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?</p>
+
+<p>Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed
+her out of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and
+Jean started gayly forth on their walk. It was about four
+o’clock in the late November afternoon and instead of following
+the path through the woods, the little party set out along the
+lane that led through an exquisite part of the Sleepy Hollow
+neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed a short hill
+and from the top of it could see at some distance off the spire
+of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
+River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its
+deep hidden lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As
+Olive was particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through
+hers. “This is a land of legends and of dreams about here, dear,
+and some day I must take you western girls about the country and
+show you the historic places nearby. Do you know anything about
+them?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her
+head. “I don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem
+somehow familiar, yet it did not at first. Don’t you believe
+that all the world, at least the world of outside things, of
+hills and trees and valleys and water, somehow belongs alike to
+all of us and once we have seen a landscape and moved about in
+it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in nature,
+there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
+are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”</p>
+
+<p>Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on
+their approach to the house. As he was holding a great St.
+Bernard dog by the collar and as it bounded away from him all of
+a sudden, nearly upsetting Olive and Jessica in the rapture of
+its welcome, the little party entered “The Towers” with too much
+laughter and excitement for Olive to feel any self-consciousness
+or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of her past foolishness
+in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so many
+eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
+easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both
+decided at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite
+of its magnificence, was one of the darkest and most
+unattractive rooms either of them had ever seen. For everything
+was very stiff and formal and without life or fragrance. Carved
+black furniture sat stiffly against the walls, which were hung
+with old portraits of men and women in high fluted ruffs, with
+gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces. Over in one
+corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen and
+having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And
+behind this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or
+twelve, who looked a little like Donald Harmon.</p>
+
+<p>“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon
+had said as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to
+wait tea for her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs.
+Harmon’s manner was a little constrained and that she kept
+looking at Olive as though she intended asking her some
+question, but as the question was never asked, the girls must
+have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the little
+company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
+seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a
+long stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow
+the butler flung open the drawing room door.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean
+could not forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her
+heart rise up in her throat. Why on earth was the old mistress
+of “The Towers” so formidable that the entire neighborhood felt
+an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry that she was competing for
+one of her prizes offered to the Junior students at Primrose
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at
+the name of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard
+for the first time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young
+girl caught at the sides of her chair, and drew in her breath
+sharply. Then when no one was looking at her, smiled at herself
+and turned her gaze curiously on their ancient hostess.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XI<br/>“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</h2>
+
+<p>For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom
+there is no English expression so good as the French, “a grande
+dame.”</p>
+
+<p>There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but
+she stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with
+brilliant, hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and
+slightly inclining her head. Then she walked over to the high,
+carved chair near the tea table and sat down under the picture
+of the little boy. Feeble from old age, she was yet of too
+determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for when Donald
+tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned it
+away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head
+by a careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of
+age, was yet as delicately powdered and rouged as if she had
+been an actress about to make her debut, and she was carefully
+dressed in a gown of deep purple silk with lace at her throat
+and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort could hide the
+ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the coldness of
+her air and expression suggested that she would have repelled
+grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful
+after its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed
+to be able to speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was
+plainly ill at ease and even Elizabeth had been taught to treat
+this wealthy old aunt, whose fortune she expected some day to
+share with her brother, with more respect than she showed to any
+one else in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had
+huddled close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having
+little to say to one another.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was
+barely able to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater
+said, “bring the girl, whom you tell me you met in the West and
+who bears so strange a resemblance to your mother, closer to me.
+I think all resemblances are ridiculous and yet you have made me
+curious.”</p>
+
+<p>Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of
+all things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for
+her to do in this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead
+her across the room to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged
+forgiveness for the old woman’s peremptory manner, and yet he
+showed no sign of disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the
+dusk was creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing
+her hostess, Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.</p>
+
+<p>It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers
+even to raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared
+straight at Madame Van Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as
+hers and almost as searching and haughty. For Olive’s emotion
+was immediately one of the deepest antagonism toward this woman,
+however old she might be, who summoned her as a queen might
+summon a subject.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her
+slowly through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of
+course, resting longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she
+drew one of relief as she turned again to Donald and to Mrs.
+Harmon? “I do not see the least likeness in this girl to any
+member of my family,” she announced. “Whatever her name may be,
+her appearance is quite foreign and I should prefer never to
+have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.” And
+nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her
+drawing her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she
+murmured. “I had not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has
+seemed to me that I have seen some one a little like you
+somewhere, I fancied in some old picture.” Then smiling she
+shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I see any likeness to
+your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is enough of a
+suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”</p>
+
+<p>And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair,
+where she sat down pretending to look out of the window, though
+all the time she was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in
+which she had just been compelled to play an unwilling part.
+Why, because she was so uncertain of her ancestry, should she be
+forced to go through these moments that made the fact more
+bitterly painful to her?</p>
+
+<p>Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls
+had tried their best to keep her story from the ears of the
+Harmons during their stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald,
+his sister and mother had learned through Aunt Ellen, through
+the cowboys on the ranch and through one or two of their closest
+neighbors. And for this reason the young fellow was perhaps even
+more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he wished very
+much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into which
+his own idle talk had led her.</p>
+
+<p>Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and
+Miss Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with
+me?” he asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I
+am sure that Elizabeth will excuse us.”</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being
+left with only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was
+the only one of the ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she
+made no objection, particularly as no one waited for her to
+speak. For Jean fairly bounced from her chair with relief,
+Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon after, feeling that
+she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged to remain
+another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
+Towers.”</p>
+
+<p>Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared
+suddenly to have been released from prison. Jean danced a
+two-step, Jessica clapped her hands softly together and Olive
+laughed, while Donald straightway plunged head first up the dark
+mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he begged, “for there
+isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well enough to
+tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great view
+that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
+rather a long climb.”</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then
+Jessica. Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like
+those in any ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral
+resembling the steps in a lighthouse. About midway up these
+steps Jessica noticed that Olive paused, pressing her hands to
+her eyes as though to shut out some idea or some vision that
+assailed her, and that she wavered as though she felt faint.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired,
+knowing that climbing to unexpected heights often has this
+effect on sensitive persons. And though Olive now shook her
+head, moving on again, Jessica determined to watch her.</p>
+
+<p>To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a
+small, closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big,
+spacious apartment out of which the little gabled windows winked
+like so many friendly eyes. The room was fitted up as a boy’s
+room with a bed apparently just ready to be slept in, there was
+a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but the bookcases were
+filled with books of all kinds and for all ages, French, Spanish
+and German books and plays from the days of the miracle plays
+down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
+long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which
+seemed to be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols
+were hung on the walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete
+figure of a knight in armor stood in one corner. Curious why
+these masculine trophies should interest a girl, and yet for
+some reason they did interest Olive, for she waited there alone;
+Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one of the windows
+were gazing out over the countryside made famous the world over
+through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
+Dreams.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to
+see the view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in
+the next few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also
+looked out the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the
+bridge over which they had lately passed, with the stretch of
+woodlands to one side and the autumn-colored hills rising in the
+background. Very quietly she began to speak:</p>
+
+<p>“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a
+little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is
+one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook
+glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
+repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
+woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the
+uniform tranquillity.”</p>
+
+<p>These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape
+and her lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of
+poetry long ago forgotten and now brought back to mind by the
+objects that inspired it.</p>
+
+<p>It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to
+herself by reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement,
+but neither Donald Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least
+surprised and after a moment, as though again striking the
+strings of her memory, the young girl went on: “If ever I should
+wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its
+distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled
+life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
+And then her recitation abruptly ended.</p>
+
+<p>“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded;
+“or tell us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur
+of the moment to impress your English teacher?”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is
+repeating! I should have taught it you before now, but Olive
+seems to have gotten ahead of me and learned it first.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing
+a thing like that and then waiting for a critical minute to
+recite it so as to impress her audience. I never should have
+suspected her!”</p>
+
+<p>But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica
+said in explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington
+Irving’s description of this countryside, which he gives in his
+‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ and when you get back to school,
+Jean, I advise you to ask Olive to lend you her book.”</p>
+
+<p>Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to
+Primrose Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first
+both the woman and the girl were silent, but as they neared the
+school Olive spoke suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the
+feeling of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking
+that you have been there before, seen the same things or people
+and even heard the same words said?”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and
+yet not appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s
+expression was both puzzled and intent.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered.
+“No one can understand or explain it very well, but the
+impression is more apt to come to you when you are young. I can
+recall once having gone into a ballroom and there having had
+some one make a perfectly ordinary speech to me and yet I had a
+sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was I that at some
+past time I had been in the same place, under the same
+circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the
+time it was impossible.”</p>
+
+<p>“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in
+a certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into
+one’s mind without our remembering where we have learned it
+before,” Olive persisted.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said
+quietly, “I think there are many wonderful things in the world
+around us that we do not believe in because we do not yet
+understand them, just as long years ago men and women did not
+believe that our world was round because it had not then been
+revealed to them. And so I do not understand about these strange
+psychical experiences about which we have just been talking. But
+I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
+remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In
+this story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the
+hero’s mind from the time he is a little boy all through his
+life. He does not understand why he remembers this song, but by
+and by it is explained to the reader that this song had played
+an important part in the life of one of Peter Ibbetson’s
+ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color of our eyes, the
+shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some far-off
+ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
+impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing
+to understand, but the idea is interesting.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the
+book.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the
+darkness of the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you
+ever felt that you have been in a certain place before, where
+you know you could never really have been, or have you thought
+suddenly of something that you did not remember having in your
+mind before? But please do not answer me if you would rather
+not, for I know that these queer experiences most of us would
+rather keep to ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women
+started up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XII<br/>WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</h2>
+
+<p>While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda
+and Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch
+girls’ sitting room, school politics were playing an important
+part in the precincts of Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and
+Gerry Ferrows were devoting that same Saturday afternoon to
+canvassing their class in order to discover whether Jean or
+Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
+president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for
+Jean, while Winifred was conducting a personal investigation.
+Indeed, the situation between these two girls was a peculiar and
+a difficult one, for having once been intimate friends, they had
+now become violently estranged from one another and yet
+continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than because
+Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
+afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together
+and with their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively
+refused to work for herself, having turned over her cause to her
+two best friends, Gerry and Margaret Belknap.</p>
+
+<p>But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning
+Jean and Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances
+for her election and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the
+whole situation.</p>
+
+<p>Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s
+success. If even at this late date Jean would allow herself to
+be elected into one of the sororities and thus proclaim her
+independence of the girl whose presence in the school her
+classmates resented, she might yet win their complete
+allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case that
+Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
+her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart
+for the honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on
+this question of Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while
+she was too good a sport to be unkind to any one in adversity,
+yet she did not herself care to associate with Olive on terms of
+perfect equality, although she had never mentioned this fact to
+Jean. And lately she had felt her own decision waver, for since
+her father had written her that he had charge of Jack Ralston’s
+case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl he had
+ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
+protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.</p>
+
+<p>Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice
+grew deeper on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to
+the other of her classmates, asking them point-blank whether
+they intended to cast their votes for Winifred or for Jean at
+the coming election. Some of the girls were quite frank. They
+had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided that it would
+be wiser not to have as the representative of their class a girl
+who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
+the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean,
+not having entirely made up their minds between her and
+Winifred; a number of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and
+loyal supporters and yet it was with a feeling of discouragement
+that Gerry at the close of her canvass returned to her own room.
+She had taken a note book with her and written down each girl’s
+position in regard to the election, and yet she could not now
+decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it was
+peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room
+to find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde
+hair down her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the
+pages of a magazine, wearing a particularly cheerful and
+self-satisfied expression.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an
+agreeable one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a
+certain portion of American society. As long as Winifred could
+remember she had been taught these two things: By her brains and
+her beauty she must some day win for herself the wealth and the
+position that her family had always longed to have and yet never
+had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her mother and
+father had been spending more money than they could afford in
+trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more
+prominent than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at
+Primrose Hall was but another proof of their extravagance, for
+they could by no means afford the expense of such a school, yet
+their hope was that there Winifred would make so many wealthy
+and aristocratic friends that later on they might help her to a
+wealthy marriage.</p>
+
+<p>But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good
+mind and longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her
+friendships, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should
+cordially dislike the two older ranch girls, who, coming out of
+nowhere and pretending to nothing, seemed likely to prove her
+rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the way of her being
+chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior class, Olive
+was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which the
+old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior
+students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also
+competing for this prize, but as it represented a fairly large
+sum of money, sufficient to cover a year’s tuition at Primrose
+Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must be hers.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down
+on their couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a
+nap.</p>
+
+<p>“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend
+Gerry?” she asked in an irritating fashion.</p>
+
+<p>“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none
+too truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm
+assurance.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you
+know it, and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if
+it half killed you, being anxious to prove that women are as
+honest as men, as brave and as straight-forward and as clever,
+and therefore should be entitled to equal suffrage.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely
+face crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite
+truthful; I am afraid that your chance for the presidency is
+better than Jean’s. But you know that it is all because the
+girls here think that Olive isn’t a fit associate for the rest
+of us, or else Jean would have won in a walkover. I wonder if
+the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her parentage is
+true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me. Where did
+you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and
+heard the tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the
+younger girls she knew in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth
+meant any harm in telling, for she seemed to think that we would
+be pleased to have an Indian enliven us at Primrose Hall. You
+may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean and Frieda have
+been very quiet about the whole question of this objectionable
+Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why don’t you
+inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.</p>
+
+<p>Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss
+Winthrop treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is
+any mystery about Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private
+affair,’ she said. ‘But kindly remember that she is a student at
+Primrose Hall and if I thought her unfit for the companionship
+of my other girls, she would not be among you.’ You can imagine
+that I felt about the size of a small caterpillar when she got
+through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore from Miss
+Winthrop’s snubbing.</p>
+
+<p>“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind
+your own business,” Winifred interposed with secret
+satisfaction, knowing from Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had
+heard of Olive’s past and glad to have the truth of the story
+that she had been repeating confirmed.</p>
+
+<p>“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to
+a girl for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so
+anxious to have Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her
+own mind.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
+honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t
+think she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall,
+If Miss Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of
+the girls’ parents would have complained of Olive before this,
+but that lady is just as likely to fire us all out and to keep
+just this one girl, as she seems to have such an unaccountable
+fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you and I used to be good
+friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why don’t you give
+up working for her and come over to my side and not mix yourself
+up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
+and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so
+plague-taked sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a
+chance for the election! And not for anything would I go back on
+her now! Besides, I have a plan that, has just come into my mind
+this very second that may straighten things out for Jean most
+beau-ti-fully.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIII<br/>THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</h2>
+
+<p>And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
+personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for
+Jean by making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know
+that Olive was as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s
+refusal to join the Theta sorority because of the failure of the
+girls to include her in the invitation, but even with this
+knowledge Gerry would hardly have been deterred from her plan.
+For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck her own chances
+on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’ attitude
+toward her?</p>
+
+<p>The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook
+Olive, as both girls were leaving their class room, and coming
+up close behind her leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh,
+Olive, I wonder if you could have a little talk with me this
+afternoon on strictly private business; I wish to talk to you
+quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of
+her other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy,
+Olive appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be
+wishing to speak to her of the class election, for Jean had
+carefully excluded all mention of this subject from the
+conversation in their own rooms and no one else had seen fit to
+mention the subject to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,”
+Olive nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her
+alone. “Why not come up to our sitting room right now, as our
+lessons are over for the afternoon?”</p>
+
+<p>But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly
+head. “No, I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any
+minute,” she confided, “and I particularly don’t want her to
+know just at present what I wish to say to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without
+any one else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall,
+were walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not
+mentioned the subject of conversation they had come forth to
+discuss.</p>
+
+<p>Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure
+of having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to
+make, and yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s
+manner that made her companion a little fearful of approaching
+her with advice or entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as
+well to have laid this matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last
+resort, Miss Winthrop, before forging ahead. But Gerry was an
+ardent suffragette in the making and, as she had determined to
+follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father, she knew that
+indecision must never be a characteristic of the new woman.
+However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl
+recognize her entire friendliness before she made known her
+mission.</p>
+
+<p>Having talked of many things together, of their love of the
+outdoors, of Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at
+last opened up the way for her companion’s disclosure.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I
+have not yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me.
+What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened
+and she looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this
+moment it had not occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire
+for a private interview with her could have any serious import,
+but noticing Gerry’s hesitation and apparent embarrassment,
+Olive suddenly believed that she intended questioning her about
+her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack had advised her
+not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now asked her
+for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
+than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her
+false, her desire now might be to disprove it.</p>
+
+<p>With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she
+hoped for the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she
+asked again.</p>
+
+<p>Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean
+to be elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
+rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me.
+And I am awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving
+Jean, for she is awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim
+Colter and all of us would be so proud of her if she should win
+after being so short a time at school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do
+something to help her instead of standing in her way?” This
+question was even more blunt than the first. And it hurt,
+because Olive bit her lips.</p>
+
+<p>“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her
+walk and turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me,
+please, how I can help her and how I stand in the way of her
+election?”</p>
+
+<p>At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she
+was not of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a
+whole lot by making her join our Theta Sorority at once and not
+hold back any longer because you have not been invited to join
+also.”</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly
+genuine. “Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already
+with the girls tormenting her every minute for weeks to come
+into the society? Why, I thought that Jean had joined long ago
+and simply had not mentioned the matter to me because of not
+wishing to talk of a thing that might make me uncomfortable. I
+can see now that the girls may not want a class president who
+isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays out of
+the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
+sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is
+befriending.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too
+plainly for her either to add to it or to contradict.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and
+just what I should have expected,” she went on. “Please
+understand that I am very sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s
+sakes that I ever came with them as a student to Primrose Hall
+and I would have gone away before now only I could not worry
+Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth Drew,
+who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
+of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so
+much because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In
+the West these things do not count to so great an extent.”</p>
+
+<p>To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given
+to this proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of
+old, Olive seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a
+crime in which she had no part.</p>
+
+<p>But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
+attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her
+in times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed.
+Perhaps because Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as
+though she had no pride, but this is not true, for her pride was
+of a deeper kind than expresses itself in noise and protest: it
+was of that unconscious kind associated with high birth and
+breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with dignity and
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark
+eyes quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright
+spots of color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you
+how much I thank you for telling me this about Jean,” she said
+“and please believe I did not know of it. Of course you wish me
+to make Jean see the foolishness and the utter uselessness of
+her sacrifice of herself for me and I surely will. I suppose you
+must have wondered why I did not do this before.”</p>
+
+<p>And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly
+difficult, though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very
+things she had intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in
+school-girl fashion across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl
+drew herself away, not angrily in the least, but as if she
+wished neither sympathy nor an apology.</p>
+
+<p>“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for
+I must not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is
+to take place so soon. If her connection with me should make her
+lose it I simply don’t know what I should do!”</p>
+
+<p>And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started
+for home, walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which
+was so marked a characteristic of her training.</p>
+
+<p>Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic,
+tried to keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged,
+“and you are a brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if
+we girls at Primrose Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For
+somehow at this late hour in their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows
+had begun to realize that whatever unfortunate past Olive
+Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to breathe a
+higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first intimate
+talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
+for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to
+claim her allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No,
+she had only been too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the
+way straight for Jean. And at this moment quite humbly Gerry
+would have liked to have begged Olive to allow her to be her
+friend, only at this time she did not dare. And as they walked
+on together in silence some lines that she had learned that
+morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
+Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater than herself,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Too noble for this place.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h2 id='chXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIV<br/>“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</h2>
+
+<p>Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking
+for Jean, for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the
+school than she was seen talking with a group of friends.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had
+been out together for a walk and grateful for what she thought
+Gerry’s friendliness to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed
+by the presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room,
+Jean,” she begged, “for Gerry and I have something to talk to
+you about that must be decided at once.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought
+a little impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name
+in speaking to Jean and plainly wished her to be present at
+their coming interview, for there was, of course, a possibility
+that Jean might be a good deal vexed at her interference. But as
+Jean left her other friends immediately, slipping one arm
+through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and propelling them
+as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was there for
+Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston,
+that you wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as
+they reached their own door, “kindly remember that three heads
+are better than one, even if one is a dunce’s head, else I
+should never have allowed Geraldine Ferrows to be present at our
+council.” And giving each of the girls an added shove, the three
+of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before
+their open fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large
+open box of flowers on her lap, with her cheeks a good deal
+flushed, possibly from the heat of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of
+your apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to
+have a present for you sent through my care and it seemed to me
+that the surest way to find you was to wait at your own
+hearthstone until you chose to appear.” While Jessica was
+speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward Jean and
+Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me asking
+me to see that you get them.”</p>
+
+<p>With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great
+box, which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its
+fragrances.</p>
+
+<p>“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,”
+Jean exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t
+Frieda be homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even
+if she is so enraptured with boarding school that she hardly
+talks of home any more?”</p>
+
+<p>While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers
+from the box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate
+bouquet, wrapped in white paper and bearing a card with a name
+inscribed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive
+announced, trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and
+Jean both guessed at once that the gift of the large box of
+flowers to them had been made largely in order to include the
+smaller offering inside it.</p>
+
+<p>Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete
+indifference, took the flowers; they were lilies of the valley
+encircled with violets and it was difficult for any girl to
+conceal her delight in them.</p>
+
+<p>Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a
+dangerously demure look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I
+wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you have known our Mr. Drummond? You
+see, we are awfully fond of him and he has been very good to all
+of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have wondered if he could
+think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive and I think
+you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
+that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very
+kind. Can’t you tell us something more?”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can
+tell you about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any
+importance. Just that he is rich and good looking and kind. He
+is so rich that he has never done anything or been anything
+else, and I have known him a great many years, since I was a
+small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live near one
+another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
+some of our money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a
+good deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there
+are lots of people who are not one of those three things.”</p>
+
+<p>And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the
+moment, Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she
+returned, “but I am afraid that I want a man to be more and to
+mean more in this world than just that.” She was about to leave
+the room when Olive put her hand on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica,
+Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but I so often think of you
+as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to Jean about
+something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
+sensibly.”</p>
+
+<p>Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now
+that it was important, else she would not have called in so many
+persons to her assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming
+up to her friend placed one hand on each of her shoulders,
+looking closely with her own autumn-toned brown eyes into her
+friend’s darker ones.</p>
+
+<p>“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish
+me to do that requires so much persuasion?”</p>
+
+<p>And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
+shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
+illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we
+fall.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the
+first that you were going to ask me something I could not
+grant,” Jean returned plaintively. “Has any one in this world
+ever heard of a goose who chose to be one?”</p>
+
+<p>Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too
+intense for interruption. Without allowing Jean another
+opportunity for a moment’s speech she began her request,
+imploring her to join the Theta Society at once and not to put
+it off a day longer than necessary. “For how, dear, can you do
+me the least good by not belonging when the girls want you so
+much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
+Junior election,” she ended.</p>
+
+<p>“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a
+member of the Theta Society and that my chance for the
+presidency will be influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired
+angrily, although she did not glance toward any one for her
+answer save Olive.</p>
+
+<p>But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she
+feel in any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now
+she moved quietly forward.</p>
+
+<p>“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with
+me, but I have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of
+me I cannot see how it will hurt Olive for you to join the
+Thetas without her and it will hurt you very much in your
+election if you don’t. Olive is not going to be invited to
+become a member if you stay out and you may lose the class
+presidency if you are so obstinate.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that
+Gerry is perfectly right and that there is no other way of
+looking at this matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my
+heart if she does not, and I can’t see a bit of sense in her
+position.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say
+anything at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about
+this whole business.”</p>
+
+<p>A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward
+Gerry.</p>
+
+<p>“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because
+of course I know you are being good as gold to me and only
+acting for what you believe to be my good, but I don’t think
+either you or Olive in the least understand my position. I am
+not staying out of the Theta Society for Olive’s sake; I am
+staying out for my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.</p>
+
+<p>“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want
+you to think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would
+be (leaving me out of the case entirely) if that girl should win
+out in a big matter like a class election by turning her back on
+her best friend and more than her friend, her almost sister. And
+you, Olive, suppose you had no part in this business at all, or
+suppose you and I had changed places, what would you think of a
+girl who would say to another group of girls, ‘Yes, thank you, I
+am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to enjoy your
+superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
+and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with
+you?’ I, of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a
+traitor if you will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown
+eyes were flashing and her face was pale, yet she laughed a
+little at her own fierceness.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just
+this thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on,
+“and I argued it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt
+Olive by joining the Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself
+that such an action would not hurt me. See here, dear,” and
+Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling as she spoke again
+directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to forget our
+friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for wouldn’t
+you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
+me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day
+time and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was?
+No, sir-ee,” and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude,
+pretending to slip her fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the
+words of that famous gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick
+Henry, or Daniel Webster, I can’t remember, ‘I would rather be
+right than President!’”</p>
+
+<p>“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I
+take off my hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this
+question any further with Jean, for she has just said something
+that we all know to be a fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou
+canst not then be false to any man.’”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like
+an embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right,
+Jean,” she conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are
+if you feel as you say you do, so I shall not try to make you
+change your opinion.”</p>
+
+<p>But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in
+the center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good,
+but I don’t care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to
+sacrifice yourself in the way you are doing for me. I must find
+out how to prevent it and I warn you now that I shall write to
+Jack and have her ask you to change your mind.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow
+to be a poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t
+let us talk about this tedious subject any longer and do let us
+put the kettle on and all take tea, for I have talked so much I
+am nearly dying of thirst.”</p>
+
+<p>Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch
+girls getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for
+just such occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was
+said until they were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then
+Jean turned to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t
+hurt your feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us
+it seems to me the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have
+known for some time that there has been some gossip about Olive
+going the rounds of the school, but we have never known who
+started it nor just what the story is. Would you mind telling
+us?”</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face
+showing nervousness and discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are
+and that we ranch girls found her several years ago with an
+Indian woman and that she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean
+continued inexorably.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally
+through the Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her
+questioner continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her
+saucer, “Yes, that is all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they
+have heard is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was
+trying to speak calmly. “I can see now that we have made a
+mistake; it would have been better if we had been perfectly
+candid about Olive’s past from the first. There never has been a
+minute when we would have minded telling it, if any one of the
+girls had come and asked us, but lately I have thought that some
+extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive and
+joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any
+human beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose
+Hall girls have been to Olive, unless they had been told
+something perfectly dreadful about her. Well, I don’t think I
+care a snap about being class president of such a set of girls,”
+Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her guests. “Olive
+Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than I am,
+but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
+promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good
+red Indian blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood
+that must run in the veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry,
+dear, I do beg your pardon and of course I don’t mean you, but
+if I hadn’t been allowed to speak this out loud, I should
+certainly have exploded.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the
+snobs, too, Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will
+forgive me and make up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure,
+clothed in a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace,
+with yellow hair piled high on its head, entered the room. “What
+on earth is Jean preaching about?” the voice of no other person
+than the youngest Miss Ralston inquired. “I have just been
+across the hall with Mollie and Lucy Johnson and I declare she
+has been talking steadily for an hour.”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean
+could only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she
+gotten so marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage
+affair. But at this instant, beholding the violets, Frieda,
+forgetting her grown-up manner for a moment, jumped at them.
+“Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said like the small girl who
+once had taken care of her own violet beds at The Rainbow Lodge.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XV<br/>THE DANGER OF WEALTH</h2>
+
+<p>The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been
+somewhat happier and certainly a great deal better off in many
+respects could she now have turned back the pages of her
+existence for a few months and been again that same little
+yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of every man, woman and
+child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow Ranch, for Frieda
+had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that is of a
+serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
+much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.</p>
+
+<p>After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk
+gown and velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for
+beautiful clothes awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a
+Western ranch girl and had never dreamed of such splendors as
+the New York shops afforded, neither did she have any very clear
+idea of the real value of money. Because gold had been
+discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her fifty
+dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
+wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very
+dangerous habit of buying whatever she wished without
+considering the cost, and the way she managed to do this was by
+making bills!</p>
+
+<p>Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to
+go into town for every little purchase it became necessary for
+them to make, Ruth had opened a charge account for the three
+ranch girls at one of the best of the New York shops, but the
+bills were expected to be sent to the girls and to be paid out
+of their allowances. Jean and Olive had made only a few
+necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it, Frieda
+had lately been buying with utter recklessness.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other
+two ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had
+arrived that very afternoon and been delivered in the care of
+Mollie Johnson. Hanging up in Mollie’s closet at the same
+instant was an equally charming garment, almost of the same kind
+as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and but lately presented by
+Frieda to her best friend.</p>
+
+<p>So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the
+letter of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose
+Hall, she was certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she
+had broken her promise altogether on the afternoon when she and
+Mollie had been alone together, while Olive and Jean were
+drinking tea at “The Towers.”</p>
+
+<p>Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from
+it. The story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For
+Frieda naturally began the conversation with her friend by
+telling her that Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the
+Harmons, and then that they had learned to know the Harmons
+because they had rented their ranch to them the summer before.
+From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to the
+Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
+coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to
+buy the Rainbow Mine.</p>
+
+<p>When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly,
+but it was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s
+eyes had grown wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at
+her words. “Why, Frieda Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once,
+“you don’t mean to tell me that you are an heiress as well as
+everything else that is interesting! Why, you have let me think
+that you were poor before, though I have wondered sometimes
+about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell me
+whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”</p>
+
+<p>To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began
+her very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once
+both sorry and frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began;
+“that is, I don’t see any sense in its being, but I have
+promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew not to talk about our money
+at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have our friends just
+know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine. Do you
+see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”</p>
+
+<p>Earnestly Mollie shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,”
+Frieda conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning
+to, I am glad, for I do just want to talk about it with somebody
+and you are my dearest friend and I wish you to know everything
+about me.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the
+nice things about her, for it really is not our faults that we
+long to pour into the ears of our friends.</p>
+
+<p>The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold
+for the past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and
+rested her chin on her hands. “Want me to tell you every single
+thing about our mine?” she demanded. “It is quite like a fairy
+story.”</p>
+
+<p>And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not
+Mollie Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you
+wish you may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising
+everything and making all the mystic signs necessary to eternal
+secrecy, Mollie then had listened to the unfolding of the fairy
+tale.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale,
+but she had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine
+produced than a baby, and of course with the telling of her tale
+the size of the nuggets that Jim was getting out of the mine
+each week naturally grew.</p>
+
+<p>“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we
+simply don’t know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the
+ranch, who now looks after our mine, says you never can tell at
+first how much a mine may yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires
+some day.”</p>
+
+<p>The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s
+vocabulary, which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall,
+but certainly it had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.</p>
+
+<p>“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed,
+“and I do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than
+most anybody I should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my
+father is just a lawyer in Richmond and while we have a pretty
+house and all that, why we have some other brothers and sisters,
+and father says all he can afford to do is to let Lucy and me
+have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give us money
+for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
+make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your
+lovely things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into
+curls the ends of her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at
+her with an even increased admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on
+the youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the
+question with Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and
+rushing to her desk indited a letter to a New York firm asking
+that the two kimonos be sent her at once with slippers and
+stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie was just too sweet
+and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted sisters
+and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
+went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of
+writing her letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s
+feet, but all that she could do more was to invite her to come
+into town the next week to be her guest at the matinee and lunch
+and to help her make a few more purchases.</p>
+
+<p>For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check
+had, and so for the time being, like many another person, she
+felt fairly well off, although her allowance for the past two
+months had melted away like wax without her being able to pay
+back a single cent of the money to either Jean or Olive, which
+they had advanced to help with her first extravagance, the blue
+silk dress and velvet coat.</p>
+
+<p>One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a
+good deal more money at their disposal than Frieda had at
+present, is the way that five-dollar bills have of disappearing
+in New York City. So by the time Frieda had paid for three
+tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of course compelled to
+bring a chaperon into town with them, and three lunches at a
+fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money left
+out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
+charging on her account, in order to get the few more things
+that she and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the
+visit in Richmond toward the close of December.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train
+and feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent
+this extra money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts
+until January, and what with Christmas coming, there would be so
+many presents for others that she would wish to buy! So once
+Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving her a hug, demanded to
+know what worried her, she would not say. For how confess that
+money matters were worrying her but a few days after the time
+when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
+Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at
+Christmas time, if they should consent to let her make the trip
+south, and out of this amount she would certainly save enough to
+pay her bills, without having to confess her extravagances. For
+Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would both be angry and ashamed
+of her for breaking her promise and for buying things which she
+did not really need.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVI<br/>ELECTION DAY</h2>
+
+<p>The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class
+had arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three
+o’clock until six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne
+would remain in the library at Primrose Hall watching over the
+ballot box. Immediately after six the box would be opened, the
+ballots counted and the choice of the Juniors announced.</p>
+
+<p>For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant
+days and the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now
+and then in the past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the
+shore waters of the Hudson River would then be trimmed with a
+fine fringe of ice. Once the election was over the Primrose Hall
+students would be making plans for the Christmas holidays, but
+until then nothing else, not even home and family, appeared of
+so great importance.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had
+gone astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s
+cause. Indeed, like many another brave campaigner, she had only
+worked the harder, rallying Jean’s friends closer around her,
+exhorting her enemies and trying to persuade the girls on the
+fence that there was no real point in their antagonism toward
+Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made she had had an able
+lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted friend.</p>
+
+<p>For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that
+unless her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of
+the character she had already established among them, nothing
+she could do or say at this late day should influence them. And
+Jean had also never wavered from the attitude she had taken in
+regard to Olive on the afternoon of their final discussion of
+the subject. She had not needed that her resolution be
+strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and Jack
+Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
+her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that
+Jean be persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the
+reply she hoped for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically
+declared Jean’s position the only possible one.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had
+been conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever
+their presence in one of the class rooms made it possible. Her
+expression was so wistful and apologetic that Jean began to care
+more for her own success on Olive’s account than her own. So as
+soon as luncheon was over and three o’clock had come around,
+slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s, she drew her
+along the hall toward the library door.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let
+us go upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over.
+Then Gerry and Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a
+really high-minded person I suppose I should now vote for my
+rival, Miss Graham, but as I can’t bring myself up to that
+point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper for old Gerry.”</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their
+own sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign
+outside announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both
+ranch girls were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was
+plainly the more affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in
+a perfectly natural fashion, she was pale and silent and
+oftentimes on the verge of tears.</p>
+
+<p>The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the
+bare upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of
+the earth.</p>
+
+<p>“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the
+writing table before one of their windows, “why should you
+behave as though the question of my election was the only
+important thing in the world. On a day like this I only feel
+desperately homesick for Jack and the old ranch. What wouldn’t I
+give if we were all there to-day and just starting out on a
+long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about never seeing
+Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to Jim
+and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
+time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated
+Ralph rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have
+only written twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really
+coming east to see how Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will
+hate to see Ruth again or like it? One never can tell about a
+person in love.”</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the
+Rainbow Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no
+sooner had she put her pen to the paper than apparently all
+worry and suspense left her and she scratched away rapidly and
+clearly for several hours.</p>
+
+<p>But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she
+kept up such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room
+that at any other time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded.
+First she tried studying her Shakespeare, since she was making a
+special effort to succeed in the Shakespeare class, and before
+coming east to school had read only a few plays with Ruth and
+the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge. But not the
+most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy by
+William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea
+that engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to
+read, she flung her book down on the floor, saying petulantly:
+“Tiresome stuff! I wonder what ever made me think for an instant
+I could stand any chance of getting the Shakespeare prize?”</p>
+
+<p>Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us
+thought you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you
+dearly love to read and study at most times. But why don’t you
+go out for a walk, you can find Frieda somewhere around
+downstairs and make her go with you. I don’t want to.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a
+good deal more temper than usual with her, and flying into her
+own room, she banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for
+some occupation, she came across a piece of sewing which she had
+once started at the Lodge, some white silk cut in the shape of a
+round cap to be covered over with small white pearl beads.</p>
+
+<p>Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low
+stool by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would
+have a more soothing influence upon her than reading for the
+two more hours that had somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing
+on this occasion was more distracting than reading, for very
+soon Olive’s fingers worked automatically while her brain
+began to concern itself with interesting and puzzling ideas.
+The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose Hall had
+not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
+we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of
+and to ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led
+such eventful lives.</p>
+
+<p>After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation
+later with Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books
+in the school library that she could find, which might help her
+explain the curious experience—confided to no one—through which
+she had passed that afternoon. But it was not just this one
+experience that had puzzled and worried Olive, for many strange
+fancies, impressions, memories, she knew not what to call them,
+had been drifting into her mind since her first sight of that
+white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival at
+Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything
+that was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe
+that she could recall dim ideas and events having no connection
+with the years she had spent in the Indian tent with old Laska.
+But why had these far-off memories not assailed her in the two
+years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps then the recollection of
+Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her with such an odd
+mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people about her
+whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent in
+her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
+associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was
+impossible, for Olive felt sure that she had never been east
+before in her life.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last
+six.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly
+folding up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective
+envelopes. She looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but
+composed. At last she got up from her chair and crossing the
+floor knelt down in front of Olive, taking the piece of sewing
+from her cold fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively
+ill from thinking of something or other and worrying over me.
+For both our sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this
+afternoon just for the next hour. I know I have not been elected
+the Junior president. I never have really expected to be, but
+just as I sat there writing about half an hour ago I knew I had
+not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been thinking that I have
+been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet look at me!
+Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply disappointed?”
+And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion. “Promise
+me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
+have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and
+not think that you have had anything to do with my failure.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean,
+when I know perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly
+attempting to hide the fact that she was trembling with
+excitement and that her ears were strained forward to catch the
+first noise of footsteps coming toward their door.</p>
+
+<p>Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say
+or do with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me
+for president nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”</p>
+
+<p>The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly
+made Jean tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew
+positively you had not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really
+know absolutely nothing about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I
+thought I heard some one coming down the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
+appeared to interrupt them.</p>
+
+<p>“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said,
+“because it must now be some little time after six o’clock and
+Miss Sterne and Jessica could never have taken so long a time as
+this to count the few ballots of the Junior class.”</p>
+
+<p>However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the
+hall approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting
+room.</p>
+
+<p>It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open,
+while Jean waited calmly in the center of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and
+Mollie Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting
+girls the truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean
+and Gerry took a farm clasp of Olive’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVII<br/>CONGRATULATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping
+bitterly in Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on
+the back. Gerry looked utterly exhausted, her hair was in a
+perfect tumble and a smut ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda
+had turned toward the wall and Lucy and Mollie Johnson each had
+an arm about her.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but
+Olive simply would not accept what her eyes had already told
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
+entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.</p>
+
+<p>“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior
+class at Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced
+stoically, and then there was a sudden sound of weeping from all
+parts of the sitting room.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,”
+Jean insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene.
+“Margaret dear, you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of
+course, I am sorry not to have been elected, but I’m not
+disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately that I could be. And
+please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean kissed Margaret
+and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.</p>
+
+<p>“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease
+to be grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let
+us show the girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow.
+Please everybody stop crying at once and come on with me to
+shake hands and offer my congratulations to Winifred Graham.
+Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the next time she beheld us we
+should all appear to have been washed away in tears? The first
+person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a five-pound
+box of candy from me in the morning.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not
+learn the bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had
+an immediate effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and
+Margaret. Both girls stiffened up at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it
+will never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior
+class just because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of
+the girls did vote for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely,
+why Winifred Graham and her set can’t crow over us half so much
+as if we show our chagrin.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s
+crowing that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations
+to Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking
+point. For my part I would rather do my duty and remember my
+manners without delay.”</p>
+
+<p>And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would
+follow her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that
+Olive was missing and going back called out softly: “Come on,
+Olive, and help us congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us
+show an ugly spirit now, would you?”</p>
+
+<p>But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means
+sure how Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she
+forbore to insist on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be
+disagreeable under the present circumstances Jean was not
+perfectly sure of being able to keep cool; and of all things she
+must not show temper at the present moment. Besides, her few
+minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of the girls
+to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
+Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of
+the election. After a first moment of breaking down she had
+entirely regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at
+seeing her so sensible.</p>
+
+<p>One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure
+and an entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing
+perfectly still. Had Jean been pleased because she had accepted
+her failure so sensibly? Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken
+simply because she could not trust herself to speak. She had not
+cried, because in the first moments of humiliation and regret,
+there are but few people who can at once summon tears. Of
+course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
+view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated
+herself, she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and
+this last blow had come to her after months of coldness and
+neglect on the part of her classmates, which she had borne
+bravely and in silence. Now Olive was through with courage and
+with silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for
+the relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung
+herself face downward on the bed, giving herself up to the
+luxury of this weakness. When she arose her face wore a look of
+unusual determination. Whatever her fight, it was ended now.
+First she walked over to her bureau and there unlocking a small
+iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which all who have
+followed her history, know to be the single possession she had
+rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for
+the last time.</p>
+
+<p>The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before
+beginning the letter she plainly intended writing, she picked
+them up one by one, looking at them closely, the silver cross
+and chain worn on the evening of the dance, the small book only
+a few inches in size, and the watch with the picture of a
+woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the ranch girls
+had always believed to look like Olive.</p>
+
+<p>At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this
+also was laid aside for the work she had in mind.</p>
+
+<p>“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):</p>
+
+<p>“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a
+student at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this
+news and if Jack is too ill to be worried, please do not mention
+this to her. I have tried very hard to bear my difficulties here
+and truly I would have gone on without complaining, for I can
+live without the friendship of other girls so long as you and
+the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot bear is to be a
+drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as I do
+here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot
+go back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do
+now and am able to teach them. Can I not go to some little
+school where the girls will not care so much about my past? But
+if you are not willing for me to do this, and I know how little
+I am worthy of all you and the ranch girls have done for me, you
+must not mind if I find some work to do, so that I can make my
+living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no longer at
+Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p class='d022'>“With all love, OLIVE.”</p>
+
+<p>And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and
+aching, rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms.
+When she lifted it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine
+Winthrop was standing only a few feet away.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must
+have failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to
+talk to you.”</p>
+
+<p>The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion
+seemed always to know, almost before it happened, every event
+that transpired at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to
+it, was well recognized by her pupils. So of course she now knew
+not only that Winifred Graham had been elected to the Junior
+Class presidency, but the particular reason why Jean had been
+defeated.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss
+Winthrop,” Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying
+to disguise the truth. “I know you think it very foolish and
+stupid of me.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl
+to a stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually
+discourage tears,” she answered with a half smile; “at least, I
+know my girls think I am very unsympathetic about them. But I
+suppose now and then we women are just obliged to weep, being
+made that way. What I want to talk to you about is Jean’s defeat
+at the election this afternoon. You feel responsible for it,
+don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings,
+as apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just
+written asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall
+because of what has happened.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an
+instant toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she
+could not have seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared,
+almost gasped. “How could you know, Miss Winthrop?”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that
+it seemed to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t
+know about your letter, dear, I only guessed that after the
+experience you have passed through this afternoon, with what has
+gone before, you were almost sure to have written it. And I want
+to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my
+mind,” she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now
+I am quite determined.”</p>
+
+<p>A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as
+though she were not speaking directly to the girl before her,
+Miss Winthrop went on. “I believe there are but three types of
+people in this world, be they men or women, that I cannot
+endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob. Unfortunately I have
+discovered that there are among the girls here in my school a
+good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to me
+and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am
+very sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the
+weakness, the ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you
+help me, if though not a snob, you are one or both of the other
+two things I have mentioned?”</p>
+
+<p>“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at
+the older woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that
+no others could express her meaning so forcibly.</p>
+
+<p>“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the
+sake of Jean and Frieda,” she defended.</p>
+
+<p>“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if
+you think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You
+feel you have endured the slights and coldness of your
+classmates without flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like
+the hurt that comes to you with the feeling that your presence
+in the school is reflecting on Frieda and Jean. They do not wish
+you to go away, Olive, they will be deeply sorry if you do and
+whatever harm you may think you have done them has already been
+done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away from Primrose
+Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings, because
+your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
+at last!”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from
+her listener.</p>
+
+<p>For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed
+no further influence from the outside. By and by she put her
+small hand on Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she
+replied. “I believe I <i>have</i> been thinking all this time
+about myself without knowing it, You made me think of Jack when
+you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they are the kind of
+words she would have been apt to use.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too,
+Olive, and I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe
+I learned those two words and what they stood for from a boy
+friend of mine long years ago. Now I want to talk to you about
+yourself.” The woman leaned over, and putting her two fingers
+under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted her head back so
+that she could see in sharp outline every feature of the girl’s
+face.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to
+Primrose Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious
+story, of their finding you with an old Indian woman with whom
+you had apparently lived a great many years. I believe that the
+woman claimed you as her daughter, but though no one believed
+her, your Western friends have never made any investigation
+about your past, fearing that this Indian woman might again
+appear to claim you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very
+many people in it and since the idea that you are an Indian
+worries you so much, I want to assure you I do not believe for a
+moment you have a trace of Indian blood in you. Except that you
+have black hair and your skin is a little darker than
+Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to carry a
+remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
+are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is
+too absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about
+yourself and if you would like me to try to find out something
+of your history. Perhaps I might know better how to go about it
+than your Western friends.”</p>
+
+<p>For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with
+the sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all
+I have of my own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss
+Winthrop’s lap and then tearing up the letter just written to
+Ruth, before sitting down again on her stool near the older
+woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss Winthrop’s hand,
+saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can recall
+about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come
+to me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life,
+whom I must have known long before old Laska and the Indian
+days.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVIII<br/>FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</h2>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and
+keep back nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I
+will not understand. Whoever your father and mother may have
+been, you certainly have ancestors of whom you need not be
+ashamed.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her
+eyes on the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story
+of the Indian village and of Laska and how she could not recall
+a time when she had not spoken English as white people speak it,
+then of her years at the Government school for Indians taught by
+a white woman, who had always been her friend and assured her
+that she was not of the same race as the Indian children about
+her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the ornaments in
+the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story, Miss
+Winthrop had not yet examined.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the
+years she had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old
+Laska in the mail each month a certain sum of money, large
+enough to keep her and her son in greater wealth and idleness
+than any of the other Indians in the village enjoyed. But from
+what place this money had come nor who had sent it Olive did not
+know, and so to her this fact did not seem of great value,
+although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on hearing
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?”
+she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when
+puzzled, the girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she
+said slowly. “How strange and stupid of me never to have thought
+of this before! The postmark was New York! But New York meant
+nothing to me in those days, Miss Winthrop, except just a name
+on a map at school. You cannot guess how strange and ignorant I
+was until the ranch girls found me and began teaching me a few
+things that were not to be found in school books. But no one
+could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
+been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have
+always hoped. Laska must have received it for some other
+reason.” And then Olive, either from weariness or
+disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not as though she had
+told all that she knew, but because she could not quite make up
+her mind to go on.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke
+again:</p>
+
+<p>“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it.
+But this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have
+told to other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon,
+Miss Drew. What I most wish you to confide to me are the ideas
+and impressions of the years when you may not always have lived
+in the Indian village.”</p>
+
+<p>Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that
+I have had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can
+confide even to you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be
+possible that a human being can remember things at one time of
+their life and not have known them always? Why, since my arrival
+at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall impressions that I did not
+have at the Rainbow Ranch?”</p>
+
+<p>The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over
+the question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I
+believe I can in a measure understand this problem that troubles
+you. Half the memories that we have in the world come through
+association. It is the sight of an object that recalls something
+in our past which brings that past back to us. Now when you were
+living at the Rainbow Ranch the memory of your life with Laska,
+the fear that she might take you away from your friends, was so
+close to you that you thought of little else. But now you are in
+an entirely different place, the fear of the woman has gone from
+you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
+associations should bring to life new memories. What is there
+that you have been recalling in these past few months?”</p>
+
+<p>And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she
+murmured at last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I
+have seen the big, white house where Madame Van Mater lives at
+some time before. Of course, I know I have not seen it, for I
+have never been in this part of the world before. But the other
+day, standing at the window, I suddenly remembered a description
+of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have read and learned
+long years ago, though I never thought of it until that moment.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by
+reason of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted
+quietly. “Can you recall anything more about the house and do
+you think that you ever saw Madame Van Mater before the other
+day?” The strange note in her questioner’s voice was lost upon
+the girl at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like
+her,” Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house
+did not seem familiar, only the outside and the tower room and
+those ridiculous iron dogs guarding the front door. But I want
+to tell you something that seems to me important—of course, my
+impression about Madame Van Mater’s home is sheer madness. What
+I really can remember is this—” Olive stopped for a moment as
+though trying to be very careful of only telling the truth. “I
+remember that when I was a very little girl I must have traveled
+about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not think
+I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately
+I have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s
+eyes, turned toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope.
+“He must have been very tall, or at least he seemed so to me
+then, and I went about with him everywhere. Finally we came to a
+place where we stayed a much longer time and there Laska first
+must have come to take care of us. I think now that my father
+must have died in that place, for I can not remember anything
+more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
+Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I
+perfectly certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss
+Winthrop had not spoken and supposing therefore that she
+considered her idle fancies of little account.</p>
+
+<p>The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair,
+her hand shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the
+expression of her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the
+hearing of her pupil’s strange story, she did not now mean to
+reveal.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and
+surely very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting
+but little faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any
+possible connection between your travels in the West as a little
+child and your idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The
+Towers.’ But there is one person who can tell us something of
+your early history without doubt—and that person is this woman
+Laska! She kept you with her all those years for money and
+probably pretends that you are with her still, so that she
+continues to receive the same money each month, else she would
+have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love
+of money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an
+offer of more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of
+this, Olive dear, to any one in the world at present, but I will
+write to your old teacher at the Government school in the Indian
+village and perhaps through her aid we may reach this Laska.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in
+the face of so great interest and kindness would have been too
+inadequate. What could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now
+looking at her few treasures in the sandalwood box.</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it
+slip through her fingers as once more she examined its curious
+workmanship, “but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish
+and is a Spanish prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss
+Winthrop put her hand under Olive’s chin, studying the unusual
+outline of her face. “I wonder if you are a Spanish girl, child,
+for that would explain why you are darker than most Americans
+and why you have so foreign an appearance?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it
+to her friend’s gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began
+turning the watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so
+deeply interested in the photograph as in the watch itself.
+“This watch was sold here in New York, Olive, and I have seen
+one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice trembled a little and
+she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of this any more
+this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to ask you
+to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
+them more closely.”</p>
+
+<p>And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left
+the room.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIX<br/>NEW YEAR’S EVE</h2>
+
+<p>Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and
+Miss Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the
+Christmas holidays at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For
+twelve days, save for Olive and its owner, the great house had
+been empty of all its other pupils and teachers; now in another
+thirty-six hours they would be returning to take up their work
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean
+and gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
+Belknap and Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson
+sisters. The ranch girls had not wished to leave Olive alone and
+each one of them had offered to remain at school with her, but
+this sacrifice could hardly be accepted because Olive had made
+no friends who had wished her to be with them. Jessica Hunt
+would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she had no
+home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
+babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their
+common disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these
+Invitations Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared
+for in a trip to New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and
+this privilege was still denied the ranch girls.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left
+alone at Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion
+during the holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see
+what arrangements could be made for her pleasure. However, after
+a serious half hour’s talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter
+consultation with Olive, she had gone away again content to
+leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands than her own.</p>
+
+<p>And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for
+Olive, yet they had never been dull, for each moment she was
+hoping and praying to hear some news from old Laska and each
+hour being drawn into closer intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For
+now that the discipline of school life had been relaxed, the
+principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her favorite pupil
+in a light that would have surprised most of her students. She
+was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive with an
+affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
+private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl
+would sit close together under the shadow of “The Winged
+Victory,” reading aloud or talking of the great world of men and
+cities about which Miss Winthrop knew so much and Olive so
+little. But of the secret of the girl’s past her new friend did
+not encourage her to talk for the present.</p>
+
+<p>“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for
+us not to go into this subject again until we hear from the
+Indian woman, and then should she fail us, I must try to think
+of some other plan to help you.”</p>
+
+<p>And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under
+every human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska,
+though it was now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had
+been alone all morning and unusually depressed, for although she
+had not heard what she so eagerly waited to hear, she had
+learned that the surgeons had at last decided an operation must
+be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her that there was
+supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s spine
+that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
+operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had
+insisted that it should be tried.</p>
+
+<p>The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of
+Sleepy Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its
+Indian summer mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that
+she might brace up, for certainly she did not intend to let
+Frieda and Jean find her in the dumps on their return from their
+holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably go out with her, as she
+had been attending to school matters all morning, seeing that
+the house was made ready for the return of her students, and
+Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had eaten
+lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.</p>
+
+<p>While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend
+she herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to
+find her in the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in
+the library, nor in the drawing rooms, could she be found and by
+and by the maid came back to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had
+gone out and would probably not return till tea time. She had
+left word that Olive must not be lonely and that she must
+entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive knew of
+but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
+would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were
+no longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly
+familiar with the nearby neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s
+Christmas present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they
+might have their Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given
+Olive a brown fur coat and cap. Olive had not worn them before,
+but now, with the snow falling and the thought of Jack in her
+mind, she put them both on. For a minute she glanced at herself
+in her mirror before leaving the house and though her vanity was
+less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
+pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her
+new furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people.
+The soft brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness
+of her hair and in her olive cheeks there was a bright color
+which grew brighter the longer and faster she trudged through
+the lightly falling snow.</p>
+
+<p>Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken
+for her walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a
+visit to Madame Van Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on
+the old lady every few days and knew Olive’s dislike to
+accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been inside “The Towers”
+nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit there. But
+now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
+her friend returning toward home.</p>
+
+<p>The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity
+of Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because
+the trees had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and
+were covered only with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No
+man or woman who has lived a great deal out of doors in their
+youth fails to draw new strength and cheerfulness from the air
+and sunshine, and Olive, who had left school thinking only that
+Jack’s operation might not be successful and of the pain her
+friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the beautiful
+possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
+the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some
+day not too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she
+would never hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably
+dead or had disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now
+with her blood running quickly in her veins from the cold and
+the snow, she determined if Laska failed her to go west the next
+summer and try to trace out her ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop,
+Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew stood ready to help her
+in anything she might undertake.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare
+of relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the
+opening where she could catch the first glimpse of the big white
+house. “I wish Miss Winthrop would come along out of there,” she
+said aloud after waiting a minute and finding that standing
+still made her shiver in spite of her furs. “I wonder why I
+can’t get up the courage to march up to that front door past
+those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
+don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little
+late, Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back
+alone. Besides, I want to walk with her.”</p>
+
+<p>Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very
+true and deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss
+Winthrop, she cared for her with all her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and
+looking up toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to
+recall her own foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction
+to it. There was no one about in the front of the house, not a
+servant nor a caller. For a moment Olive stopped, smiling, by
+one of the big iron dogs that seemed to guard the entrance to
+the old place. She brushed off a little snow from the head of
+one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly of me to
+think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
+Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to
+be brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow
+from the statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have
+only heard about you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I
+have been told about it until I felt almost as if I had seen
+it,” she announced with greater conviction in her tones than she
+had ever used before, even to herself, in trying to recall the
+confused impressions of her childhood.</p>
+
+<p>But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house
+and ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the
+door was suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss
+Winthrop stepped with an expression on her face no one had ever
+seen it wear before—one of surprise and wonder, anger and
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find
+the girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to
+Madame Van Mater. We have something to tell you.”</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='“I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”'
+    src='images/illus-002.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 id='chXX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XX<br/>THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</h2>
+
+<p>In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon
+of Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat
+apparently waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were
+as artistically arranged and she was as carefully dressed as
+ever. At the stranger girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop
+she showed no marked surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close
+to me,” she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used
+on a former occasion, and now for the second time Olive found
+herself facing the old lady and being critically surveyed by
+her. Again, with almost unconscious antagonism, their glances
+met.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me,
+Katherine Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame
+Van Mater said coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her
+appearance is not what I feared it might be, considering my
+son’s marriage. However, I do not see the least trace of
+resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And possibly to
+hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now picked
+up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
+strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to
+Olive, “and Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary
+circumstance of your connection with me. Because I tried to keep
+you as far away from me as possible, fate has therefore brought
+you here under my very nose. It has ever been the way of
+circumstances to thwart me.”</p>
+
+<p>Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking
+about and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees,
+Olive dropped into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this
+instant placed near her.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop
+interposed. “Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to
+hear that you are the granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will
+not take long for me to explain the necessary facts to you.
+Years ago your grandmother had an only child, a son of whom she
+was very proud, and as her husband had died some time before,
+all her great wealth was to be given to this son. She hoped that
+some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and that he
+would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
+by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law
+or any of the interests that his mother wished and one day
+announced to her and to me that he had chosen the stage as his
+profession. It is not worth while for me to try to explain to
+you what this decision meant to his mother and to me then,” Miss
+Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the stage did not hold
+the position in the world that it does to-day, and even now
+there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
+their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats,
+but as your father was determined on his own course, he went
+away from this part of the country to the far west and there
+after several years we learned that he had married. I knew that
+your mother had died soon after her marriage and some years
+later your father, but I was never told that they had left a
+child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always known of
+your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
+paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact
+that Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s
+own hand makes it impossible for your relationship to be
+doubted.” Miss Winthrop now paused for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did
+not wish to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did
+not believe my mother a lady?” she asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.</p>
+
+<p>“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I
+remembered this house because my father had talked of it so much
+to me that I really believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom
+in the tower, the old dogs at the front door that he used to
+play with as a child and all the story of Sleepy Hollow. Well, I
+am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that Miss Winthrop has
+discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own I am very
+glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy on
+the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and
+asked you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of
+Laska?” she questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going
+back to school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would
+rather not stay here any longer at present.”</p>
+
+<hr class='d023' />
+
+<p>In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were
+walking home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a
+tight clutch of Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well
+away from “The Towers” and the cold woman who was its mistress,
+she felt frightened and confused, as though the story she had
+just heard was a ridiculous dream.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated
+over and over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot
+believe that the queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I
+believe that it has always been intended that you should some
+day know your own people and for that reason you were brought
+from your home in the West to this very neighborhood.”</p>
+
+<p>After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not
+like my grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will
+never like one another. But I am very glad, because if she had
+cared for me she might have wished me to leave the ranch girls,
+and not for all the world can I give up them.”</p>
+
+<p>There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke
+again: “I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I
+have cared in the same way for no one else since, but I also
+felt as your grandmother did about the work he chose to do and
+so here in the old garden at Primrose Hall we said good-bye one
+afternoon for all time. I suppose my pride was greater than my
+love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now I care very much
+for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me be her
+friend.”</p>
+
+<p>“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently;
+“no one save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women
+talked only of trivial matters until after dinner time that
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat
+with her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth
+Drew, disclosing to her the story of the afternoon and asking
+her to keep the discovery of the secret of her ancestry from
+Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it better that Jack be not
+informed at present. And at her desk during the same hour Miss
+Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she set
+forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher
+at the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money
+(which seemed very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been
+induced to surrender certain papers proving that the old
+mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry dale was undoubtedly Olive’s
+grandmother. Though the news had come as an entire surprise to
+Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared for the
+revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
+existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who
+was being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the
+state of Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the
+summer before and learning of her extraordinary history she had
+wondered if the girl could have any connection with her own
+family. Although she had not really believed this possible,
+knowing that Olive had come as a student to Primrose Hall, she
+had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s first
+visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
+However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her
+mind at rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his
+mother, was to her mind wholly unlike her; neither could she
+catch the faintest resemblance to her son, who had been supposed
+to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon. Then Olive’s quiet beauty
+and refined appearance had also satisfied Madame Van Mater that
+this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she believed that
+Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have had so
+lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to
+receive the allowance sent her each month for her
+granddaughter’s care?</p>
+
+<p>In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of
+explanation to Ruth she added the only apology that could ever
+be made for Madame Van Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had
+not understood how ignorant this Indian woman Laska was, nor had
+she dreamed that Olive was being brought up as an Indian. She
+had simply told the woman to continue as Olive’s servant until
+such time as the girl should reach the age of twenty-one, when
+she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her. She had
+not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
+she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize
+her as her heiress and the bearer of her name.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of
+their long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room,
+placed herself on a low stool near her companion, resting her
+chin on her hands in a fashion she had when interested. Both
+women talked of her father; they could recall his reading aloud
+to them hour after hour and Olive believed that she must have
+learned by rote Washington Irving’s description of Sleepy Hollow
+valley when she was only a tiny girl and that her first look out
+of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly brought the lines
+back to her recollection.</p>
+
+<p>Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked
+and answered between the two friends, but just as the old year
+was dying with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall,
+Olive said good night. She was half way out the door when she
+turned back again and Miss Winthrop could see by the color in
+her cheeks that there was still another question she wished to
+ask.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have
+been such a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a
+lovelier face than her picture in my father’s watch.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her
+strange and foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my
+dear, your mother could most certainly not have been dreadful,”
+she answered. “I think I heard that she was a Spanish girl and
+these curios you have and your own appearance make me feel
+assured of the fact. It was because your grandmother was
+informed that your mother was a singer or an actress, that she
+felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is that
+she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
+mentioned as long as she lived.”</p>
+
+<p>With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old
+woman’s at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to
+bed.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXI<br/>JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</h2>
+
+<p>In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last
+chapter Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and
+loneliness and gay with the returning of its students now that
+the holiday season was well past.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since
+trains at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the
+school carryall would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the
+steps, sitting in one another’s laps. And it happened that in
+one of these overloaded parties Jean and Frieda arrived at
+Primrose Hall together.</p>
+
+<p>There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such
+a number of students at one time and so much kissing and
+embracing among some of the girls tragically separated from
+their best chums for two weeks, that in the general hubbub Jean
+and Frieda noticed no special change in Olive. If Jean thought
+at first that she had looked a little tired she forgot about it
+in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell of their
+own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
+one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing
+of forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very
+little of each other without outside friends being present until
+almost bedtime that night.</p>
+
+<p>Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their
+lights were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire,
+wearing their kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at
+last for the confidential talk to which for different reasons
+they had all been looking forward for some time.</p>
+
+<p>A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their
+door and on the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat
+two large boxes of candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving
+Richmond, Va., and the other a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil
+Belknap in New York.</p>
+
+<p>For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three
+girls at being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once
+they began talking in chorus.</p>
+
+<p>“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I
+am the youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the
+first chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both
+of them turned their attention full upon her. It was strange,
+for of course Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a
+southern city fails to have—and yet in spite of all her accounts
+of dances and dinner parties and germans given for the school
+girls in Richmond during the holidays, both Jean and Olive
+noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual, but that, if
+it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of worry
+appeared to pucker her brow.</p>
+
+<p>“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing
+altogether too much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when
+Frieda had triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets
+received as favors at germans at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t
+either, Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt
+girls to have a good time in the holidays if they only study
+hard and behave themselves properly at school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.</p>
+
+<p>And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired.
+Why should you girls think there is anything the matter with
+me?” And she turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her
+audience that it became silenced. For five, ten minutes
+afterwards Frieda continued to hold the floor, and then in the
+midst of an account of a party given at the Johnson home she had
+suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on the floor,
+tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am tired
+to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
+don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you
+haven’t anything special to say, just having stayed here at
+school with Miss Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in
+New York.”</p>
+
+<p>Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly,
+both the older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had
+even ceased talking her eyes had filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New
+York City was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was
+several years older than her cousin, in New York school girls
+are never allowed the same privileges that they enjoy in the
+South. But Jean had been to the theatre many times and to
+luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken Margaret and Jean and
+Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap had been very
+nice and she had liked him a little better, though she still
+thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a
+leading question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded
+her story. “There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell
+everybody when the lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not
+willing to tell now.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping
+a large chocolate into her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away
+like selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have
+had a dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time;
+at least, not lately.”</p>
+
+<p>Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and
+you took long walks together and things like that. I believe
+Miss Winthrop is really fond of you, Olive, even more than she
+is of Jean and me. I wonder why?”</p>
+
+<p>At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she
+thinks Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of
+course you and I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I
+hope, Olive dear, that she was good to you.”</p>
+
+<p>And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly
+flushed scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better
+than any one else in the world except you ranch girls,” she
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression,
+Jean’s own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she
+have been so unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a
+sudden flash of illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something
+important on your mind that you want to tell us. I might have
+guessed that you have been keeping it a secret ever since we
+returned, letting us chat all this nonsense about our visits
+first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss Winthrop wants to
+adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented, or none
+of us will ever forgive you in this world!”</p>
+
+<p>Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you
+yet,” she murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen
+different ways of starting in the last two days.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda
+darkly. “I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us
+for having left you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas
+holidays. Of course Miss Winthrop decided that we really do not
+care much for you and for all her coldness to the other girls
+she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just crazy about you,
+Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But whether you
+like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have believed
+that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
+when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.</p>
+
+<p>“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want
+to tell you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with
+her if you should ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I
+don’t want to live with her if you ranch girls want me. I was
+only trying to explain——”</p>
+
+<p>“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as
+white and shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty
+in making her confession.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her
+accustomed voice and manner, “it is only that since you have
+been away Miss Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an
+Indian girl. I am not even a western girl, or at least my father
+was not a Westerner. You remember the day we went to see the
+Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old Madame Van Mater stared at me so
+strangely and scolded Donald for thinking I was like his mother.
+She did not wish me to look like Mrs. Harmon because Mrs. Harmon
+was my father’s first cousin and——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!”
+Frieda interposed.</p>
+
+<p>And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling
+the other girls the history of her father and of herself as far
+back as she had learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I
+have told you all at once, girls, for it does sound like a
+miracle or a fable and we never would have believed such a story
+had we read of it in a book. But Miss Winthrop says that every
+day in the real world just such wonderful things are happening
+as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very neighborhood
+where my father used to live and finding my grandmother alive.
+In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
+coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without
+interruption, of course she believed by this time that both Jean
+and Frieda understood the news she had been trying to make plain
+to them. Frieda had risen to a sitting posture and was staring
+at her with frightened eyes, Jean was frowning deeply.</p>
+
+<p>“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said
+Frieda at the same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of
+the situation the three girls giggled hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story
+over again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean
+had then commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole
+tale again.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime
+hour, until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was
+preceptress of their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop
+had already told her something of Olive’s history, she readily
+allowed the ranch girls a half hour’s extra talk. She could not
+help their lights going out at ten o’clock, however, but the
+ranch girls did not really care. A candle under an umbrella
+makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any the
+wiser!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was
+Olive’s strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more
+devoted to one another than they did to-night. They were sitting
+with their arms about one another when Olive jumped up. “Please
+lend me the candle a minute,” she begged unexpectedly, “I have
+been talking so much about myself that I forgot I had some
+letters for you. They may be important.”</p>
+
+<p>In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped
+several envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if
+they are Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she
+said carelessly, “but if they are letters you had best wait till
+morning.”</p>
+
+<p>With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and
+the paper enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my
+goodness gracious, what ever am I going to do?” she asked
+desperately, seeing three large black figures staring at her
+even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in all this world and I
+owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”</p>
+
+<p>The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed.
+Instead of having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas
+present during her Christmas visit she had spent every cent of
+it. Now, without waiting for her to find out what she could do
+to get the money for her dreadful bill, the wretched, unkind
+shop people had sent it her on the very first day of the New
+Year.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I
+haven’t paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight,
+uncomfortable moment of surprise on the part of the other ranch
+girls, “but what can I do? I suppose I have just got to write to
+Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it for me.”</p>
+
+<p>“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean
+demanded, looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of
+the candle light.</p>
+
+<p>“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.</p>
+
+<p>Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby.
+What I wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is
+that I became a backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent
+told Gerry and Margaret that we were not absolutely paupers. I
+just had to spend some of the money I had saved, the things in
+New York were so fascinating. So I haven’t much left to lend
+you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth says the mine is
+not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we must all be
+economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
+away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at
+Primrose Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we
+are not after all; gold mines are often uncertain.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda
+murmured. And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh.
+“Oh, no, it need not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured
+her, “for I have hardly spent a cent since coming to Primrose
+Hall, so I have nearly enough to help you out, so you need not
+worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that however much I may
+dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to allow her
+to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for the
+money that is now hers should <i>rightfully</i> have come to my
+father even though she did not wish him to have it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean
+repeated, just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a
+fortune untold, Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of
+gold.’ I used to think she meant our mine.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXII<br/>READJUSTMENTS</h2>
+
+<p>In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection
+with the wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of
+psychology would have had an interesting opportunity in the
+study of the changed attitude of her schoolmates toward her. In
+the first place, from being an Indian girl of uncertain origin,
+Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance and also there
+was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress, should
+her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
+the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some
+portion of the old estate. So you see that instead of being
+looked down upon as the most undesirable student at Primrose
+Hall, the fourth ranch girl had suddenly become exalted upon a
+pedestal, and perhaps it is just as deceptive in this world to
+look up to other people as it is to look down upon them, since a
+fair judgment can only be attained by standing face to face.</p>
+
+<p>Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position
+than she had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded
+as ill breeding, was called haughtiness and her classmates stood
+a little in awe of her. The position was indeed a trying one for
+everybody concerned in it, for scarcely could the girls who had
+been unkind to Olive, now throw themselves about her neck
+begging her forgiveness, simply because so unexpected a turn had
+come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the unwise girls did do
+this, but not those with better judgment and taste, for they
+understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
+greater tact.</p>
+
+<p>Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one
+could be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent
+snubbing of Olive from the first day of her entrance into
+Primrose Hall, not because she liked Olive any better than she
+had at first, but because Winifred only cared for persons who
+might be useful to her, and now this ridiculous Olive with her
+romantic history, might be very useful indeed. The point at
+issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
+hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the
+Junior students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made
+before that the three girls who stood closest in line for this
+prize were Winifred, Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that
+Olive would of course withdraw from the contest, since she could
+hardly take a prize presented by her own grandmother, but what
+Winifred feared was that Olive might throw the balance of her
+influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she now undertook to
+show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls without
+offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
+confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their
+friend, was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but
+there was little assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the
+first place Jessica declared immediately that Olive was not to
+give up her effort to win the Shakespeare prize. Jessica had
+talked the matter over both with Olive and Miss Winthrop and
+they had decided in council that Olive need not give up her
+cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
+Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
+reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have
+the best yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the
+close of the school year and give the best recitation from any
+one of the Shakespeare plays.</p>
+
+<p>Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred
+had then freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards
+to Olive, but though her manner was now entirely friendly, her
+protest had not the least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed,
+when things had settled down into routine again Olive continued
+to work harder than ever during the following winter and spring
+months. Of course, her position among her classmates had altered
+somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her friends as well as a
+number of other girls who had never been actively disagreeable,
+but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a faint
+pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like
+one another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real
+antagonism of temperament. They exchanged greetings in their
+class rooms and several times Winifred called on the ranch
+girls, but as her visits were never returned, she had to try
+other methods of softening the hostility her own unkindness had
+created, hoping that before the school year was over something
+would give her a chance to win their liking.</p>
+
+<p>One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from
+their Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and
+with distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their
+mystic order. When finally the invitation, so much discussed,
+had been extended to the two ranch girls they had not known what
+to do in the matter. Of course, they had not wished to show
+continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s advice, had joined the
+society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty club house and
+the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority gave
+during the rest of the school year.</p>
+
+<p>So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
+Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother
+were still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop
+had been in the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and
+Frieda, but there were times when pilgrimages had to be made
+alone. Why they had to be made at all Olive did not understand,
+for Madame Van Mater still showed but little liking for the
+granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop had surely
+thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch girls
+it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least
+fear of her and when they had made their first call it was with
+difficulty that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of
+her mind in regard to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van
+Mater’s age prevented her from receiving the scolding and
+perhaps her manner. For instead Jean told her the story of the
+ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how much she had
+previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well as
+the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly
+invited Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but
+of their life at the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls
+could be eloquent on the subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed
+the floor and three times in the course of the conversation
+Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud, a proceeding most
+unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her hardness
+and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
+treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her
+son had forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions.
+But whatever her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was
+forced to continue the weekly calls.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school
+matters and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of
+basketball, Olive found herself compelled to go alone to see her
+grandmother. And she was particularly vexed over this special
+visit, as she had wished to join the other girls in their game.</p>
+
+<p>Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame
+Van Mater with entire formality in the old drawing room, where
+they had had their two memorable meetings, but to-day she found
+the drawing room empty and while she waited a maid came to say
+that she was kindly to walk upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old
+drawing room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going
+upstairs found her grandmother before an open fire wrapped about
+with silk shawls and comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as
+high as usual and her costume as handsome, but it was plain to
+see that she was not so well.</p>
+
+<p>“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe
+cold,” she announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with
+her, never having at any time offered her any more intimate
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really
+feeling bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half
+hour. These calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston
+was still a prisoner in New York were the only worries she now
+seemed to have at Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her
+remark waved aside.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but
+if I were there are other more important matters than my health
+which I wish to discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I
+very glad to see you alone.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had
+never attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by
+pretending to feel any affection for her. She now simply sat
+perfectly still and respectful, waiting to hear what was to be
+said next. But rarely had she looked more attractive than on
+this afternoon. In the first place, her walk had given her a
+bright color and she was wearing a particularly becoming frock.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great
+care on these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock,
+which Ruth lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the
+first time. It was of some soft material of silk and wool made
+with a short waist and softly clinging skirt of a bright golden
+brown with a girdle of brown velvet. Olive was very slender
+always and of only medium height, but her dark coloring was rich
+and unusual and now her expression was gayer and in some
+unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
+manner than formerly.</p>
+
+<p>For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
+continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting
+opposite her, and then, without the least warning of her
+intention, said abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not
+understood why I have insisted on your coming to see me so
+regularly and constantly since my discovery of your connection
+with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you have not I
+am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying you
+and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a
+great injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his
+choice of an occupation and by his marriage to your mother
+instead of Katherine Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off
+from me all responsibility in regard to his child. You are not
+altogether what I would have you to be, you have less social
+ease of manner and less conversational ability than I desire in
+my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults in
+you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them.
+What I am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make
+reparation to you by having you come here to live with me when
+your year at Primrose Hall is passed, and if I find you as
+refined and as capable of being managed as I now suppose you to
+be, I am prepared to change my will, making you heir to the
+greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and nephew,
+Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
+for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I
+wish to do it. And also because it will please Katherine
+Winthrop, who is one of the few persons for whom I have always
+cared.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips,
+but seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no
+intention of thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly,
+“only of refusing your offer. It may be very kind of you to
+desire me to live with you, but I thought you understood that
+nothing and no one in the world could ever persuade me to stop
+living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me to be with
+them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or anything
+else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far
+more inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her.
+“Of course, I wish to say nothing against these friends of
+yours; under the circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful
+to them for their kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect
+to live forever on their bounty, and what can they offer you in
+the way of social opportunity? I believe they have no parents to
+introduce them into society, only this chaperon named Ruth Drew
+and some man or other who manages their ranch.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very
+anxious or very well fitted for social opportunity,” she
+answered, “but I don’t think you need worry about the ranch
+girls, for when the time comes for them to take any part in
+society I am sure they will find opportunities enough. I wrote
+Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation was
+over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she
+wanted me to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would
+travel or do whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any
+of us know yet whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean
+and Frieda and I have positively made up our minds that nothing
+will induce us to be separated from her after this year.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater
+returned coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this
+question with you. I shall have Katherine Winthrop put the
+matter before you. But you can rest assured, Olive, of these two
+things: In the first place, that if at any time you displease me
+I can leave my money to any one whom I may select, as my
+husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and in
+the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you
+are not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your
+natural guardian.”</p>
+
+<p>Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to
+be violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature
+anger must get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the
+girl now got up from her chair and crossing the room faced
+Madame Van Mater with an expression as determined as her own.
+“Please understand that I do not want to defraud either Donald
+or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have always promised them.
+They have been very kind since the discovery of my connection
+with them and of course you must be more fond of them than you
+can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I
+don’t want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother,
+nor do I feel that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect
+of me. Do you think it is quite fair for you now to speak of
+being my natural guardian when for so many years you desired
+nothing so much as that my name should never be mentioned to
+you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any more, but
+understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”</p>
+
+<p>Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger,
+for until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her
+rather too gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her
+shoulders indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of
+course, Olive, I shall decide later what course in regard to you
+I shall consider it advisable to take.”</p>
+
+<p>So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever
+before in her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for
+consolation to Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIII<br/>“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”</h2>
+
+<p>May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along
+the Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with
+sail boats dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky
+and toward the water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats
+chugged along, making more noise than automobiles; while the
+steam yachts, ever the aristocrats among all water craft,
+sailing into their own harbors up and down the Hudson shores,
+ever and anon put forth again as though intending to leave home
+behind for adventures on the open sea. All the hills beyond and
+near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like mammoth
+bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
+while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater
+variety of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places
+in this land.</p>
+
+<p>Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine
+Winthrop’s old home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before
+ever the school was thought of. For wild primroses blossomed
+everywhere, although the season was late, until the garden about
+the old place looked like the famous field of “The Cloth of
+Gold.”</p>
+
+<p>As much as possible on these bright May days the students at
+Primrose Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year
+drawing to a close it was not always easy to desert lessons and
+the thought of approaching examinations.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a
+corner of one of the big verandas with a table between them and
+a screen carefully set up to protect them from interruption. The
+girls were not talking, indeed an utter silence had reigned
+between them for the last ten minutes, broken only by the squeak
+of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the present term and
+by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an oration by
+Cicero.</p>
+
+<p>Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short
+time later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair
+of feet but of several, and yet not a single head appeared above
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work,
+determined not to be lured from the strict path of duty.</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself,
+“seeing our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’
+will go away and leave us in peace.”</p>
+
+<p>But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few
+inches from where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion
+to the study of literature and the classics will prevent one
+from jumping up with a scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at
+the same instant, and behold, there, with only the prostrate
+screen dividing them, were Gerry and Margaret, Lucy and Mollie
+Johnson, besides several other members of their Junior class!</p>
+
+<p>“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry
+announced, pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised
+dagger.</p>
+
+<p>Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want
+with us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come
+interrupting a fellow at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily.
+“Do you suppose that when school is nearly over that we care
+half so much for the views and wishes of our lady principal as
+we do earlier in the year, when we might have to live on under
+the shadow of her displeasure? However, on this one occasion the
+fear of that august personage need not darken our young lives,
+since she has given her consent to what I am now about to
+propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I had
+best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to
+accept it beforehand.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such
+moral hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything
+agreeable this afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t
+accept any invitation, and yet if you ask us we may.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what
+it is. You must get your coats and hats at once and come and
+drive with us for a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and
+there father and Cecil will be waiting for us in our yacht to
+take us for a sail.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically,
+gathering her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think
+that I have never been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole
+life!”</p>
+
+<p>Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies
+this afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the
+overturned screen in their efforts to get up to their room for
+hats and coats without delay.</p>
+
+<p>However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for
+Jean to have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen
+slowly returning toward her group of friends.</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please
+excuse us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please
+don’t think I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she
+said softly, “but really I don’t believe I had better go with
+you this afternoon after all. Frieda says she <i>will</i> go,”
+and unconsciously the speaker put an added emphasis on the verb
+will.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
+particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make
+you change your mind in the distance between the veranda and
+your bedroom door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you
+won’t go for a sail on the Hudson for the first time in your
+life because you love your Cicero so.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not
+exactly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have
+asked Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join
+us. Of course she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare
+essay of hers. And to think that once I believed I had a chance
+at that Shakespeare prize.”</p>
+
+<p>At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh,
+if Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us,
+she shall not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she
+could vanish for the second time Margaret and Gerry both
+clutched at her skirts.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really
+want her, and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.”
+Margaret explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson
+with anger and resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get
+over being so touchy about one another? You know that now we
+know Olive better, we like her as much as any girl in our class.
+To tell you the truth, it is just because we are trying to fix
+up some plan to show Olive how we feel toward her that we did
+not want her to come along with us now. It seemed to us this
+would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
+what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at
+first,” Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and
+perhaps put things pretty badly.”</p>
+
+<p>“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get
+my belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in
+mind.”</p>
+
+<p>An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and
+Mollie and Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private
+landing pier not far from their school, were assisted aboard the
+steam yacht “Marathon” by Cecil Belknap and his father.</p>
+
+<p>During the first half of the sail there was little real
+conversation among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at
+the beauty of the river scenery and the wonders of the yacht.
+But by and by on their return journey when Margaret and her
+guests were seated around the salon dining table drinking
+afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting off things,
+turned to her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the
+entire company to overhear, “if your father and brother will
+pardon us, I vote that we plunge right into the subject we have
+come together to discuss this afternoon. I suppose your father
+and Cecil must both have heard something of Olive’s story by
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have
+Olive’s difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap,
+whom she did not yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest
+she did not like to protest.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with
+her teaspoon poised in the air.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You
+know that when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most
+of us liked two of the three girls right from the first, after a
+few of their western peculiarities had rubbed up against our
+eastern ones. But with the third girl, with Olive—well, it was
+different. In the first place, Olive was shy and did not look
+exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier than I am, for
+example); in the second place, the story was circulated about
+among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
+dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and
+that now she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to
+her own mother. Of course, had any one of us ever looked at
+Olive very hard we must have known that this story was an
+untruth, or else only a half truth, which is the worst kind of a
+lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy to stand up
+for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this horrid
+part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
+end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little
+further than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as
+clever as Olive in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as
+refined and gentle in her manner, could hardly be what we had
+believed her, simply couldn’t. And now I want to say just one
+thing in excuse for myself. I did know that Olive was a lady and
+more than a lady, a trump, before I learned that she was not an
+Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused an instant to
+sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express her
+romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s
+respite.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did
+try to be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas
+holidays, intending on my return to ask her to overlook the past
+and be friends. I suppose there were other girls in our class
+who felt the same way and had this same intention?”</p>
+
+<p>As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There
+certainly were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we
+got back from our holidays it was then too late to make Olive
+believe in our good intentions, because in that short time
+things had so changed for her that she had become more
+interesting than any of the rest of us. You can see, Jean and
+Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The well-broughtup
+Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment and
+only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
+rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had
+learned of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that
+she would care very much for such a belated repentance. So for
+months now we have been trying to think of some pretty and
+tactful way to show our real feeling toward her and now we hope
+we have at last hit upon the right plan.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long
+time,” and though a laugh went all around the table at her
+expense, Gerry again burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we
+are to have our school finals now in a short time and see the
+Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who are trying for the
+Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the committee
+specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
+luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests
+at the commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps
+you two ranch girls don’t know and that is that we always choose
+one of the Primrose Hall girls as our Queen for commencement
+day. Of course she must be selected from among the entire
+school, not from any one class; but Margaret and some of the
+other Juniors and I have been talking things over with the
+Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and that
+they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
+and Frieda?”</p>
+
+<p>Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda
+still appeared mystified.</p>
+
+<p>“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if
+you really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although
+she was trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil
+Belknap, who had been watching her pretty closely all afternoon
+through his same hateful pair of eyeglasses.</p>
+
+<p>“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first
+toward Mollie and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation
+of this everlasting preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,”
+Gerry returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose
+you can call her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she
+does preside over our dances all afternoon, leads any special
+ones, and we pay her whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t
+you, Cecil, or any other human being at this table start
+reciting: ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early,
+mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not for that
+tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May Queen
+one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
+that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
+commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose
+because it is so ridiculously easy to remember.”</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the
+table, her guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all
+settled,” she exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup,
+“so let us drink to Olive as our next queen and to the other
+ranch girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,”
+Frieda suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And
+Gerry’s hearty “Of course,” ended the pretty scene.</p>
+
+<p>For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made
+their way again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group
+Jean was the last to leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My
+sister tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our
+cottage on the Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you
+are going to be jolly enough to come, for I should enjoy it most
+awfully.”</p>
+
+<p>“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?”
+Jean’s eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she
+ended prettily, extending her hand to the young man.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
+twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore.
+“No, it is not what I would call good of me,” he replied
+quietly. “I thought I told you at our house at Christmas that I
+liked you and that if there wasn’t any fellow out West, I would
+like to see more of you anyhow. Do say you will make us the
+visit?”</p>
+
+<p>With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped
+develop in her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied
+quietly, “I have already explained to Margaret that I shan’t be
+able to come to her this summer. You see, my cousin, Jack
+Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to leave the hospital
+in New York early in June and then we expect to go back to the
+Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
+knows where?”</p>
+
+<p>The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now
+running in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the
+soft, spring dusk the travelers could see the old school
+carryall and in another carriage Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting
+to drive the party back to Primrose Hall. But before anybody was
+allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had solemnly whispered to each
+one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not to hear a single,
+solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up to the
+very last minute.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIV<br/>SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</h2>
+
+<p>“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,”
+Gerry Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back
+view of herself in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly
+lovely, Winifred, and I would not be a bit surprised if you get
+the Shakespeare prize after all, even though Olive has the best
+class record for the year and I the highest mark for my essay.
+We are so close together in this contest that the least thing
+may change the balance. It is my private opinion that whoever
+gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
+prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to
+adjust her doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I
+have been born a stately blonde beauty like you so that I might
+have appeared as lovely Ophelia instead of having to represent
+Rosalind on account of my short hair?”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently,
+happening at that moment to catch sight of her own fair
+reflection. She was dressed in a long clinging robe of some soft
+white material and her pale blonde hair, bound with a fillet of
+silver, hung loose about her neck. In her hand she held a sheet
+of paper with her speech written upon it, which she glanced at a
+little nervously every now and then.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my
+recitation,” Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of
+stage fright already, and to think that I have to make the first
+speech!” She glanced up at the clock on their mantel. “It is
+only a half hour now before we must go downstairs and I believe
+that there have never been so many guests at one of our
+commencements before. I suppose it is because the day is so
+beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
+wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least
+a hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the
+ranch girls’ room we can see out into the yard and I can have a
+look at Olive. I am simply dying to find out what she looks
+like!”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to
+come near Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her
+herself and to slip around to the entrance to the stage in the
+pavilion, so that no one shall dare speak to her. So I suppose
+if the truth be known, Winifred, Olive is just about as badly
+scared as you are and a good deal more so, considering how
+dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not look
+pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never
+saw any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare
+costume. And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in
+‘The Winter’s Tale’ for her character because I asked her to.
+She had once made me think of a description of Perdita.”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the
+room. “See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too
+hateful for you to have kept on encouraging Olive to try for
+this prize. It will look awfully queer to people if she accepts
+a prize from her own grandmother anyhow, and I do need it most
+dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper Winifred was almost
+in tears, though not for worlds would she consciously have
+marred her lovely appearance.</p>
+
+<p>A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t
+leave me out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she
+begged. “I may not have so great beauty as you and Olive to
+commend me, but remember:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+    <div class='d021'>“‘From the east to western Ind,</div>
+    <div class='d021'>No jewel is like Rosalind.</div>
+    <div class='d021'>Her worth, being mounted on the wind,</div>
+    <div class='d021'>Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling
+stride toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more
+friendliness than she had shown her in many weeks. “Come,
+Winifred, what is the use of our worrying now? I believe I need
+this prize money quite as much as you do, since my father has
+just made some unfortunate investments and may not be able to
+let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year. And
+of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
+take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have
+an equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive
+wins we ought not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand
+how she wants the glory of winning and not the prize itself. She
+told me that she had been working for this prize ever since she
+first came to Primrose Hall in order to show her beloved Jack
+Ralston how much she had appreciated the opportunities she had
+given her.”</p>
+
+<p>In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but
+at the same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great
+clapping of hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her
+hand. “Good gracious, there is someone’s speech just ending!”
+she exclaimed, “so our turns will come soon.”</p>
+
+<p>And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
+Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are
+April when they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You
+Like It” and began once more to read over her part.</p>
+
+<p>So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s
+voice was heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare
+heroines?” she demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long
+coats around you and come on downstairs now. The coast is clear
+and it is almost time for your speeches. I will tell Olive.”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose
+Hall had ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had
+one called forth so many guests.</p>
+
+<p>Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a
+stage had been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many
+yards from the great house and a kind of covered arbor
+temporarily arranged so that the girls who took part in the
+commencement exercises might pass from the house to the stage
+without being seen by the audience. The stage had no curtain and
+only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
+clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either
+side were piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from
+the woods, delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and
+the floor of the stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups,
+violets and daisies.</p>
+
+<p>In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was
+seated, perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her
+first public appearance before it might reasonably be
+frightened. Perhaps it was the beauty of the day, perhaps the
+novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage arrangements, for surely no
+audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic than hers, and as
+each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently entering
+from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
+applause and interest had increased.</p>
+
+<p>The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
+programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were
+half a dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act
+as judges, and a few feet from them in a chair next Miss
+Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van Mater, the owner of “The Towers”
+and the donor of the Shakespeare prize. Her appearance at the
+commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but whether she
+came because of her interest in her newly-found granddaughter or
+whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no one had
+been told.</p>
+
+<p>When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur
+of admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to
+her, giving her just the confidence she had needed for the
+making of her speech. And truly her beauty justified the
+admiration, for she was wearing the costume that best suited her
+and was most effective against the natural background of
+evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the leaves
+of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
+gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her
+upstairs, nor a moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred
+recited Ophelia’s famous description of Hamlet, ending with the
+words, “O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I
+see.” Then for just a moment she paused with a pretty, pathetic
+gesture and her gaze swept the faces of her judges before she
+vanished from the stage amid much clapping of hands. Three times
+Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each call Gerry’s
+heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.</p>
+
+<p>“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred
+has already won.” When a friend standing near whispered
+something in her ear she laughed in her usual good-humored
+fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can recite better than Winifred,
+but what avails it me when I can’t look like the goddess of
+spring as she does at this moment there on the stage with her
+arms full of flowers.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed
+arbor in the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her
+recitation came next, and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded
+by Jean, was also waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean.
+Then she darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for
+the last time; are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely,
+but she did not speak distinctly enough. Remember it is
+difficult to hear out of doors.”</p>
+
+<p>Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses,
+she tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the
+stage in her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find
+her way through an unknown woods, had stumbled in the
+underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and
+yet in the character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly
+at her best. Perhaps the description that the heroine gives of
+herself in masquerade will best describe Gerry’s present
+appearance.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d024'>
+        <div class='d021'>“More than common tall,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That I did suit me all points like a man?</div>
+        <div class='d021'>A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—</div>
+        <div class='d021'>We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her
+recitation she did not in any way betray it, for at once the
+gayety of Rosalind, her wit and gallant courage, seemed to have
+fallen like a mantle upon Gerry. Twice her audience laughed
+aloud in the course of her recitation and once two of the judges
+nodded at each other, which had not happened during Winifred’s
+speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to the stage
+again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain that
+unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
+would be the winner of their contest.</p>
+
+<p>For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the
+third girl, who was to close the competition, made her
+appearance. And this was unfortunate for Olive. In the first
+place, the large audience was growing a little bit tired and
+hungry, and in the second place, it gave them the opportunity to
+begin talking of Olive’s curious history, retailing to one
+another as much or as little as each one of them knew.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New
+York and shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica
+Hunt and Miss Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure
+the planning of it had given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome
+days at the hospital. Not that she and Ruth were Shakespeare
+scholars, only it had happened that years before Ruth had seen a
+famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from the stage, in
+this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and had
+never forgotten the details of her dress.</p>
+
+<p>Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last
+skipped on to the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress
+that came down to her ankles, covered with an overdress of
+flowered tulle. Her long and curiously black hair was braided in
+the two familiar loose braids with a single pink flower at one
+side, and on her arm she carried a basket of spring flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from
+the first that Olive would be frightened to death before so many
+people? It was odd, therefore, that as she first came down
+toward the edge of the platform she smiled assurance at Miss
+Winthrop, who was trying her best not to appear too anxious or
+too interested in her favorite pupil.</p>
+
+<p>Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly
+to dance an old English folk dance such as the country people
+must have danced in rustic England long before even
+Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art with Olive, so that
+before she commenced her speech her audience was won.</p>
+
+<p>Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when
+her dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the
+center of the open-air stage:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d024'>
+        <div>“I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might</div>
+        <div>Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people
+watching her as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater
+stiffened and her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten
+her part and is going to make a spectacle of herself and me!”
+she whispered in her friend’s ear. “I wish I had never come.”</p>
+
+<p>And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown
+suddenly ill, for she continued standing perfectly still and
+speechless for a period of one, two minutes, though surely it
+seemed like ten, while waves of color swept over her face,
+turning it crimson and then leaving it pale. “Oh, I cannot
+believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking her
+eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
+exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to
+the girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught
+it, for she smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of
+wild-flowers appeared to present them to various characters, who
+in Shakespeare’s play stand grouped around the figure of Perdita
+as she makes this speech:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Daffodils,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That die unmarried—”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket,
+dropping them to the ground and moving gradually backwards
+toward the entrance to the stage. Then, when she had recited the
+last line of her speech, she made a quick bow and before her
+audience realized that her speech was actually over, had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s
+and Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For
+Jean was waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I
+didn’t see? It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me
+before?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered,
+trying to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack
+wishes you to come to her at once.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXV<br/>“JACK”</h2>
+
+<p>Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms
+about her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and
+fragile and leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep
+bronze, the color of copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes,
+were now unusually dark with emotion. She was evidently trying
+to appear less disturbed than she felt, for her head was tilted
+back the least bit and her lips were held close together;
+indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
+self-control.</p>
+
+<p>“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely
+unconscious of the number of persons about them, and the girl in
+the costume of an English shepherdess arrived at the desired
+goal first.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first
+meeting after a long separation from one we love. And so for
+several moments the two ranch girls clung together trying hard
+to keep back their tears, while Jean, standing a little apart
+from them, pretended to laugh at their emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did
+it happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I
+don’t care whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are
+here.” Olive said at last.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so
+much by surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But
+you see it was like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more
+heavily on her cane, although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it.
+“When my operation was over neither the surgeons nor anybody
+knew just at first whether or not I was to get well. So of
+course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until we were
+certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
+I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out
+here at Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I
+did not mean to put off coming until commencement day,” Jack
+continued apologetically, “but somehow I did not get well quite
+as fast as I expected, until it had to be now or never, so Ruth
+wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this morning but not to let
+you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would somehow affect
+your speech.”</p>
+
+<p>“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think
+how I felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I
+saw you standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you
+used to do.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only
+I got so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am
+perfectly well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not
+accustomed to standing so long.”</p>
+
+<p>Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried
+off, returning in another minute empty handed. But following
+close behind her was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked
+a little out of place at Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a
+freedom and power that did not speak of city streets, neither
+did the deep tan of his skin. He was carrying the big,
+comfortable chair for Jean.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so
+many surprises in one day!” Olive protested.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of
+the Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so
+that he could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another
+moment his big hands closed over hers.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied.
+“To think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books,
+and here I was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow
+Ranch, whose history makes most of the fiction tales look real
+pale! But ain’t it great to see the boss herself again. I
+couldn’t believe she was getting well when she wrote me; I was
+like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to show me’.” And here Jim
+put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.</p>
+
+<p>“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
+demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five
+minutes together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to
+let my sister get out of my sight again as long as I live!”
+Frieda had joined the little group under the linden tree just as
+Jim was finishing his speech and before Olive could answer him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything,
+my grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='“DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”'
+    src='images/illus-003.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am
+awfully glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you
+belong to us less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as
+she thought I was well enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I
+have even had a letter from your grandmother thanking me for
+rescuing you from a person by whom she had been deceived,
+meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who are all
+those persons coming towards us now?”</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
+Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end
+of the line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one
+another and apparently unconscious of every one else.</p>
+
+<p>With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
+immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have
+received the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges
+voted your speech the most effective, and as you already had the
+best record for the year in the Junior Shakespeare class, why of
+course the honors are yours and I want to congratulate you.”</p>
+
+<p>With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her
+victorious rival.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
+congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t
+deserve,” she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second
+choice?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely
+disagree with them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for
+Olive was almost forcibly trying to drag her over to where
+Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were standing together.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss
+Winthrop at once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying
+for it just to see what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does
+not wish the prize given her, and of course under the
+circumstances Olive does not wish it herself.”</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were
+peremptorily borne away by a number of their classmates. Later
+on from a kind of throne on one of the Primrose Hall verandas
+Jack and some of her friends witnessed the pretty ceremony of
+the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For several hours
+afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive raising
+a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
+royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during
+the afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once,
+when Jack had been watching them, she happened to turn to speak
+to Madame Van Mater, who sat next her. But whatever she may have
+intended to say she did not, but instead waited to study her
+companion’s expression.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly
+pleased at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was
+almost a smile of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack
+flushed, biting her lips, then she leaned over and spoke:</p>
+
+<p>“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have
+Olive go home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if
+afterwards you will do something that is kinder still?” she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there
+was an air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was
+very pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere
+with my granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but
+what more would you have me to do?”</p>
+
+<p>For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa
+cushions looking out over the garden and fields to where afar
+off she could see just a silver line marking the course of the
+Hudson River.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame
+Van Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t
+believe I had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my
+life. And all the time lately I have been thinking and longing
+for just two things. One to see our beloved ranch again, to get
+on horseback and ride for miles and miles over the prairie. And
+then—”</p>
+
+<p>“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest
+than you would believe she could show.</p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I
+can. You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used
+to think perhaps I should never see much more of the world than
+just four walls.” Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders
+in her old, determined way. “But I am well now and, as the
+doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I want you to promise to
+let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and me next fall?”</p>
+
+<p>“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent
+idea! I could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel
+and experience may give her just the ease and culture she needs.
+But who will look after you?”</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
+companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil
+of watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight
+hold of her hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She
+will not go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go
+abroad afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”</p>
+
+<p>Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss
+Winthrop arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying
+farewell to her guests.</p>
+
+<p>So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking
+about in the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left
+alone. Not far off they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching
+them with Jean and Frieda holding on to his hands like little
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at
+her side.</p>
+
+<p>“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I
+used to hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when
+you and Jim saw each other again you would forget what has
+separated you and only remember you care for one another.
+Somehow when one has been very ill, love seems the only thing
+that is really important.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last
+weeks at the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of
+his past fault to her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack
+dear,” she whispered, although no one was near enough to hear.
+“He has not spoken to me alone since he arrived in New York, so
+I suppose he has not forgiven my hardness and narrowness;
+besides, men forget love very easily.”</p>
+
+<p>Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than
+it had been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not
+forget,” she answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest,
+kindest person in the world.” And then the oldest ranch girl
+sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the horridest thing in the world to
+have to wait for the nice things to happen?” she asked. “Of
+course, we all know, Ruth, that some day everything will turn
+out for the best, but it is just that silly old indefinite word
+some that makes the waiting so difficult.”</p>
+
+<p>The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will
+appear under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this
+story the histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be
+more fully developed, for having put childhood and school life
+behind them, they will enter that broader world of young
+womanhood, where romance stands ever waiting round the corner.</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56097 ***</div>
+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
+Margaret Vandercook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+Author: Margaret Vandercook
+
+Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2017 [EBook #56097]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING
+ATTENDANCE ON JEAN]
+
+
+
+
+THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
+
+The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+By
+
+Margaret Vandercook
+
+Illustrated By
+
+Hugh A. Bodine
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1913, by
+
+THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”
+    II. IN DISGRACE
+    III. “GERRY”
+    IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS
+    V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
+    VI. HER TEMPTATION
+    VII. CINDERELLA
+    VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE
+    IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
+    X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
+    XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
+    XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
+    XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
+    XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
+    XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH
+    XVI. ELECTION DAY
+    XVII. CONGRATULATIONS
+    XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
+    XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE
+    XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
+    XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
+    XXII. READJUSTMENTS
+    XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”
+    XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
+    XXV. “JACK”
+
+
+
+
+The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+“STILL AS THE NIGHT”
+
+
+Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room
+stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as
+Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had
+struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn
+strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to
+announce the coming of morning.
+
+“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should
+flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and
+make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at
+them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a
+short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going
+to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted
+forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a
+door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in
+the other room was occupied by two persons.
+
+Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the
+“Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly
+from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that
+even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In
+the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against
+another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached
+forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.
+
+“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying to waken
+them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they sleep so soundly the
+first night at a strange boarding school when I am so homesick and
+lonely I know that I am going to die or cry or do something else
+desperate? If only Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
+Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch, sliding to the
+floor again, sat with her legs crossed under her and her head resting on
+her hands in a curious Indian posture of grief. And while she waited,
+watching beside the bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now
+quietly asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New York
+City, which held her beloved friend Jack.
+
+Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by their
+chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance at Primrose Hall
+to begin their first year of fashionable boarding school life. But once
+the girls had been introduced to the principal of the school, Miss
+Katherine Winthrop, and Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms
+assigned to the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
+train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles, for Jack had
+been left behind in a hospital and must not be long alone. There she lay
+awaiting the verdict of the New York surgeons to know whether after her
+accident at the Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect
+to walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow Lodge in
+Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the ranch girls an eastern
+education and to fit them for a more cosmopolitan life now that so great
+wealth was being brought forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out
+what could be done for Jack.
+
+Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend, a faint,
+chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings sounded along the
+outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting her head with a smothered cry of
+delight, the girl spied a thin streak of light shining across the floor.
+A moment later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her and
+her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning the unfamiliar
+scene before her. Dawn had come at last!
+
+The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her arrival at
+school the day before, in the first meeting with so many strangers,
+Olive had not spared time to see or think of the surroundings of
+Primrose Hall, but now she could examine the landscape thoroughly. Set
+in the midst of one of the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson
+River, this morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
+with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the immortelles; the
+low hills in the background were brown and red and gold with the October
+foliage of the trees. Beyond the fields the Hudson River ran broader and
+deeper than any stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across
+from it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now veiled
+in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine could be more
+wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson River; and yet, as Olive
+Ralston gazed out upon it, its beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the
+lump in her throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
+sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and nothing could be
+more unlike the low level sweep of their Wyoming prairie than this
+Hudson River country.
+
+“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we have named
+homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours, for surely this
+longing for home, for accustomed people and things in the midst of
+strange surroundings, may be a woe very deep and intense.
+
+From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come east to
+boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the change from the
+simple life of the ranch to the more conventional school atmosphere
+would be more difficult for her than for either Jean or Frieda. True,
+she had not spoken of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed
+Olive, had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl, with
+no name of her own and no people, and except for her friends’ generosity
+might still be living in the dirty hut in the Indian village with old
+Laska.
+
+After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all decided that it
+would be wiser not to mention Olive’s strange history to her new
+schoolmates. Now in the midst of her attack of homesickness, Olive
+wondered if the girls would not at once guess her mixed blood from her
+odd appearance, or else might she not some day betray her ignorance of
+the little manners and customs that reveal a good family and good
+breeding? In the two happy years spent at the Rainbow Ranch she had
+learned all she could from Ruth and the other three girls, but were
+there not fourteen other ignorant years back of those two years?
+
+A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window with her
+quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial casement. But now,
+finding both the autumn air and her own thoughts chilling, she turned
+away and began slowly to dress. She was still blue and yet at the same
+time ashamed of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
+foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here at Primrose
+Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of her big opportunity and
+have not big opportunities the world over the fashion of starting out
+with difficulties to be overcome? When Olive’s education was completed
+she had made up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
+she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the teaching of
+the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda Ralston, since the discovery
+of the gold mine near Rainbow Creek, were probably very wealthy and
+though it was but right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should
+share their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished to be
+always dependent even on the best of friends.
+
+Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the young girl’s
+mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and yet she could not make
+up her mind how best to amuse herself until the half-past seven o’clock
+bell should ring for breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but
+there was no news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
+hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken Jean and
+Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven famous sleepers. No
+other girl shared Olive’s room because Ruth and the four ranch girls
+hoped that after a few weeks’ treatment in the New York hospital Jack
+would then be able to join the others at school.
+
+Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to her open
+window and there stood listening to the “chug, chug, chug” of a big
+steamer out on the river and then to the shriek of an engine along its
+banks. Suddenly her face brightened.
+
+“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed aloud, “I think
+I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad temper and go and have a good
+walk to myself before breakfast.”
+
+Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out alone and
+without permission she would be breaking an iron law of Primrose Hall.
+Nothing was farther from her mind than disobedience, but no one had yet
+told her of the school rules and regulations and taking a walk alone
+seemed to her the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
+few hours longer she must have understood differently, for the students
+were expected to assemble that very morning to hear what was required of
+them at Primrose Hall.
+
+As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and hat, creeping
+along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb the other sleepers, and
+for the same reason she as quietly unlocked the big front door. But once
+out on the lawn, so innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that
+she paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house she was
+about to leave.
+
+Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new pupil felt a
+thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A red brick mansion of the
+old colonial period, it was set in a lovely garden with flowers and
+shrubs growing close about the house and an avenue of elm trees leading
+down to the gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
+of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This morning only a few
+late asters were in bloom in the garden and bushes of hardy hydrangeas
+with their great blossoms now turning rose and brown from the first
+early autumn frosts. The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged
+in the family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five generations
+and Olive smiled a little over her queer conceit, for the house somehow
+suggested its present owner to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared
+just as imposing and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with
+her the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any mere pile
+of brick and stone.
+
+Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the bedrooms and
+reception rooms necessary for its pupils and teachers, and the only
+other school buildings about the grounds were the recitation hall and
+two sorority houses devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had
+never heard of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
+“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.
+
+Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the ranch girls by
+Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they had learned to know at the
+Yellowstone Park, but apart from its excellent reputation as a finishing
+school, their choice had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty
+of its historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and Lafayette
+had been known to stay, and who can guess how many powdered belles and
+beaus may have flirted with one another in the garden by the old
+sun-dial?
+
+When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she determined
+to extend her walk over a portion of the estate, and coming to a low,
+stone wall, climbed over it without thinking or caring just where it led
+her. Being outdoors once more and free to wander as she choose after two
+weeks’ confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
+palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that Olive felt like
+singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that her own personality, which
+had somehow vanished since leaving the ranch, had come back to her this
+morning like a dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately
+been wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this hour
+had donned once again her own well-worn dress.
+
+Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early Indian days,
+soon the truant found herself in a woods thick with underbrush and trees
+never seen before by a Wyoming girl. The air was delicious, the leaves
+sparkled with the melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of
+youth and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot that
+she was in the midst of a highly civilized community and not in the
+heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not until she had come entirely
+out of the woods that her awakening took place. Then she found herself
+apparently in some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white
+house set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled
+windows on either side. At the entrance to its big front door stood two
+absurd iron dogs, and yet there was nothing in any of these ordinary
+details to make the onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she
+stared up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her seemed so
+utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she must be losing her
+senses.
+
+For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from the house,
+and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and walked back into the
+woods. At first she paid no particular attention to what direction she
+was taking until all at once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt
+reasonably sure they were following hers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN DISGRACE
+
+
+It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with so slight
+cause, yet the thought that some one might be in pursuit of her filled
+her with a nervous terror. To the people not afflicted with timidity,
+most fears are ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
+overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid one, but
+before one criticizes her, remember her childhood. Now with her heart
+pounding and her breath coming in short gasps, she quickened her pace
+into a run, recalling at the same time their chaperon’s forgotten
+instruction that she must no longer expect the happy freedom of their
+western lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
+traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive dared not
+hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour was growing late and
+that any added delay would make her late for breakfast.
+
+Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the woods save her
+in emergencies of this sort, so in another moment she remembered that an
+Indian never runs away from his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has
+passed. Behind a low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself,
+crouching low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
+gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of private
+property, savagely on the lookout for her.
+
+Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally arrived just
+opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was the girl in hiding who
+suddenly sprang to her feet, startling the newcomer. For the enemy she
+had so dreaded was only another girl like herself with a smile on her
+face and a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
+perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before her
+illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had the same bright
+bronze hair and firm line to her chin and the same proud way of holding
+up her head.
+
+“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living in this
+underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the same color that I did
+not see you at first.”
+
+Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a tam-o’-shanter
+of velvet of the same shade, shook her head. “I am one of the new girls
+from Primrose Hall and I have been out for a walk, but as I am not very
+familiar with these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you
+mind—” Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression of
+surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.
+
+“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this hour of the
+morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen to give you permission?”
+she asked in the positive fashion that Olive was to learn to know so
+well later on.
+
+The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept over the
+truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without asking permission she
+had broken a rule of her new school? The idea seemed ridiculous to
+Olive, and yet—were not all things different than in the old days? “I am
+so sorry, but no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
+to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose Hall
+yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before breakfast at
+home, riding over the plains!”
+
+Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain to the older
+girl that straightway she slipped her arm through hers and without delay
+hurried her along toward school, talking as she went.
+
+“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at Primrose
+Hall, and I have been spending the night with some friends.” Jessica
+gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in hers. “You must not be
+frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop seems rather terrifying on your
+return. I used to be a pupil at Primrose Hall before I started in with
+the teaching and I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so
+severe as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is after
+breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never allowed to go out
+alone and never without permission, why she may scold you a bit.”
+
+If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the path to weep
+like a naughty child about to be punished for a fault, Olive would have
+felt it a great relief, and only the thought of her age prevented her
+doing this. Could she ever live through the embarrassment of facing
+fifty strange girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
+while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on being introduced
+to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and Frieda with her for protection,
+had she not felt as tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now
+must she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
+displeasure?
+
+Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive Ralston’s
+life were always unusual and romantic) would she ever forget the next
+half hour’s experience at Primrose Hall, nor the appearance of the great
+hall as she entered it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and
+towering above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding presence
+of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.
+
+Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing in front of
+Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers, heard the teacher of
+mathematics say, “Here is your new runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and
+realized that this teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she
+wore round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much to get
+her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her disgrace.
+
+But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only teacher at
+Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss Winthrop,” she now began
+coaxingly, “I have brought our new girl home. She was only taking a walk
+in the woods near by, but I am sure she would rather explain to you
+herself that in going out without permission she did not know she was
+breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the West and
+been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica was continuing her
+case for the defendant, realizing that Olive was still too frightened to
+speak for herself. But suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small,
+plump person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue eyes
+in the school, and without the least regard for either teachers or
+principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms about Olive.
+
+“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where you were
+going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened about you.”
+
+And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her other side,
+a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and demure brown eyes, whose
+nose had the faintest, most delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce
+said nothing, but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
+against all the world.
+
+Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three teachers were
+numbers of other students, most of whom were casting glances of sympathy
+at the new pupil who had so soon fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just
+over, they were supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
+Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until Miss
+Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.
+
+“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said quietly. “Miss
+Ralston will explain her absence to me in my private study.” As her
+words and look included Jean and Frieda, they also were compelled to
+follow the other students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to
+face her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a freckled
+nose actually had the courage to stop in passing and whisper to the
+offender:
+
+“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes unknown you go
+to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while Olive was trying to summon a
+smile in return, a beautiful girl with pale blonde hair joined both of
+them, and drawing the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen
+persons near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When will
+you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons whom no one knows
+anything about?” And so cool and indifferent did her expression appear
+as she made her unkind speech that it was hard to believe she understood
+that her words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and in
+spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or forgave them.
+
+A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared, Olive found
+herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated in a comfortable leather
+chair facing a desk at which Miss Winthrop was writing.
+
+“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they entered the
+room, and at first the prisoner had felt that waiting to hear her
+sentence would be unendurable. Of course she would be expelled from
+Primrose Hall; Olive had no other idea. And of course Ruth and Jack
+would understand and forgive her, but there would be no going back on
+her part to be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
+to support herself in the future!
+
+But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her writing, by
+and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own sorrows and she busied
+herself in studying her judge’s face. Miss Winthrop’s expression was not
+so stern in repose, for though the lines about her mouth were severe and
+her nose aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
+full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt obliged to
+admit that though she was taller and larger than almost any woman she
+had known, her grace and dignity were most unusual and the severity of
+her simple black silk gown showed her to great advantage.
+
+Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next traveled idly
+to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting there for an eager moment,
+while in her interest she forgot everything else. For the first time in
+her life this young girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had
+her attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.
+
+On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic figure of a
+woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and wonderful flowing draperies.
+The figure was without head or arms and yet was so inspiring that,
+without realizing it, Olive gave a sigh of delight.
+
+Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked
+quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged
+Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the
+stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some
+day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me
+and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the
+statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman,
+what all we women must hope to be some day. See the beauty and dignity
+of her, as though she had turned her back on all sin and injustice and
+was moving forward into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
+splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children in them.”
+
+Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above the head of
+her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to study the girl’s face.
+Now she saw by its sudden glow and softening that she had caught at
+least a measure of her meaning.
+
+“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the world held
+nothing else and that she knew all the varieties, and yet one could
+never be too sure, for here before her was a new type unlike all the
+others and for some reason at this moment she attracted her strongly.
+
+To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had thought it wise to
+confide as much as they knew of Olive’s extraordinary history, pledging
+her to secrecy. Now to herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly
+ridiculous to believe this child has Indian blood, for there is
+absolutely nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
+history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”
+
+But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after her first
+speech her manner appeared to change entirely. Sitting very erect in her
+chair, she turned upon her pupil “You may go,” she said coldly, “for I
+understand that by your action this morning you did not deliberately
+intend to break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
+future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience, whatever
+its cause.”
+
+With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall, wondering if
+she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who could be so stern one moment
+and so interesting the next. For her own part Olive felt that she much
+preferred their former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less
+handsome and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human. If
+only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to scold and pet
+them for their misdoings all in the same breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+“GERRY”
+
+
+The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of
+the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to
+reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long
+corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not
+interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean,
+and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
+conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.
+
+“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,” one of the
+voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as nice to these new
+Western girls as I know how. They are strangers and I think it horrid to
+try to snub them just because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
+fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you will try to
+turn as many of the other Juniors against them as you can twist around
+your finger, but kindly don’t include me in your list. Perhaps you think
+I don’t know why you have had me for one of your chums for so long.
+Goodness, child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
+homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the stately beauty
+than ever in contrast with poor little me. But maybe you won’t always be
+thought the prettiest girl in the school, for this queer looking Olive,
+what’s her name, is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way,
+and the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second. If you
+are angry with me, why you need not have me for a roommate, for I am
+going this very second to call on the new ranch girls and welcome them
+to Primrose Hall.” And with a flounce the same short-haired girl who had
+stopped to tease Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall
+after her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of fashions.
+“Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she inquired, “for I have
+been several years at Primrose Hall and know the place like an old shoe.
+Besides, I think that you and the older one of your sisters or friends,
+I can’t guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior class,
+and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close together these days.”
+
+By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door, but hearing
+queer noises in another room, they followed the sounds, discovering Jean
+and Frieda in the adjoining chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’
+sitting room. An immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean
+and Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the trunk of
+their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two sisters, Mollie and
+Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had come in to lend them hammer and
+nails and were now watching them with deep absorption.
+
+“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she stopped in some
+confusion, remembering that she had not yet heard their new friend’s
+name.
+
+The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see their new
+visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows, at your service,” she
+explained, “but I’m better known to the world as Gerry. See I have
+brought your Olive safe back from the lion’s den and, as she is no more
+eaten up than was the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint
+to start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you about
+Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what not to do?”
+
+Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully, but Jean
+closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard the question. She was
+not accustomed to feeling out of things as she had this morning and was
+not sure she cared to have strangers making an effort to be kind.
+Suppose this Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to
+be one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well even
+that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!
+
+But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness and having
+already taken a fancy to her, as strangers usually did, now seated
+herself cross-legged on the floor, beckoning to the others to follow
+suit. “All Gaul, my children, is divided into three parts, as we learn
+in our Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to say,
+is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred Graham likes and the
+girls she docs not. I used to belong to the first class, but now I
+probably belong to the second. I was kind of in love with Winifred last
+year and let her boss me around, but during the summer I thought things
+over and decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
+morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a snap about
+my desertion, for she never cares for people unless they are rich and
+I’m not a bit, only my father is a famous surgeon in New York and I’m
+going to be a doctor myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind
+gentleman to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
+didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively tongue,
+pretending not to be able to say anything more, although Jean was gazing
+at her in a more encouraging fashion than she had worn at the beginning
+of her speech.
+
+All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York City the four
+ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend, Frank Kent, had discussed
+this question: Should the girls on arriving at boarding school speak of
+their new-found gold mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack
+advised against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and Frank
+thought they might as well mention it now and then, while Jean was
+determined to speak of their gold mine whenever the chance offered and
+to make the biggest impression she possibly could. So now it was
+surprising to hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
+her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose Hall to care
+for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,” she answered demurely; “so
+I am afraid Miss Graham and her friends will not like us any too well.
+You see, we are simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by
+that. I suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because our
+clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks apiece as most of
+the girls here have. Olive and I were laughing yesterday because on our
+arrival we were given United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels!
+why we haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes that
+belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head warningly at
+Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and whose lips were
+about to form the name of the Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to
+divert her attention, Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics
+and diving down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
+baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to remind you
+that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall and we hope our first
+friends,” she said prettily, handing a basket to Gerry and then the
+others to the two sisters. But all the while Jean was talking and acting
+this little pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
+right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will find out who
+the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and then—” Well, it was
+comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last letter, written after they had
+left the ranch, he had said the pot of gold from the end of their
+Rainbow Mine had yielded five thousand dollars within the month just
+past and that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had come
+from.
+
+Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls started with
+surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining perfectly calm. Getting up
+from the floor, however, she stuck her Indian basket on her head for a
+hat, using the handle as a strap.
+
+“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the recitation
+hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just sounded, only a gentle
+reminder that we are to assemble within the next ten minutes to meet our
+teachers and to get ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I
+can only hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
+Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the room to the
+tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after her: “You were awfully
+good to come in to see us and we are obliged to you, so please help us
+out whenever you can. I am afraid that the things we know, such as
+riding bareback and raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be
+considered accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
+unusually humble and particularly pretty.
+
+Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned ourselves at
+Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of insects here, butterflies as
+well as bookworms. But I will say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is
+a fashionable school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as
+our P’s.”
+
+Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what does it mean
+‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired solemnly.
+
+“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and how to enter
+a room and what to say when you get there and all the things that mean
+Society with a big S, Miss Frieda Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s,
+Q’s are dreadful things called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find
+out what quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
+mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the delicious
+name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda, if you want to know the
+truth about the meaning of the old expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’
+the Century Dictionary tells us that the expression alluded to the
+difficulty in the early days of discerning the difference between the
+two letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of her curly
+head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’ room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GETTING INTO HARNESS
+
+
+Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch girls at
+boarding school and so many changes appeared to have taken place in
+their lives that already the weeks seemed as many months. One of the
+changes they themselves did not realize, but nevertheless it was a
+serious one, for Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as
+they had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was going her
+own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new friendships and
+apparently forgetting the importance of past ties.
+
+And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
+emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for Mollie Johnson,
+the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy Johnson was a good deal older than
+Frieda, but Mollie was a year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and
+looked up to her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
+that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made her appear
+like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of being treated like a
+baby by her family, and besides, as no one had ever told her before that
+she was in the least like a heroine, she found the idea distinctly
+pleasant. The two Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
+vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small and dark
+and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such a complete contrast
+to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements that it was small wonder the two
+girls were drawn together by their very unlikeness and that already
+their schoolmates were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
+everywhere together with their arms locked about one another, wore one
+another’s clothes when their different sizes permitted, and were never
+without true lover’s knots of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes,
+knots made from a sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair
+ribbons. Not that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
+the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and in spite of
+Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids had disappeared and in
+their place a Pysche knot of huge proportions could be seen at the back
+of her head. The Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did
+not have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest fashion and of
+course nothing else really matters. As Frieda’s school work was not the
+same as Jean’s and Olive’s, on account of her age and the fact that she
+never had cared much about books, the division of her time was different
+from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the excitement of her
+first independence and without Jack’s influence, she should be for the
+first time in her life “ganging her own gait.”
+
+But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
+unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed together over
+Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while they were laughing, though
+she had said nothing, Olive was wondering if Jean did not know that she
+saw almost as little of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without
+realizing it or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
+after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most popular girls in
+the school. As a proof of it she had already been invited to join both
+the two sororities and had not made up her mind which one she should
+choose. The fact that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
+certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,” for from the
+hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of Winifred’s character there had
+been open war between Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness
+to Olive was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was almost
+forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry. It was an open
+discussion that the choice for Junior class president, which must be
+made before the Christmas holidays, would lie between these two girls.
+For though Jean had continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls
+in the school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
+friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest
+families in New York City, people who looked down upon the Four Hundred
+as belonging to the dreadful “new rich.”
+
+But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly for Jean and
+Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was making no friends.
+Though it was customary to invite the new girls at Primrose Hall into
+one or the other of the secret societies almost immediately upon their
+arrival at school, Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority.
+Too shy and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she did
+not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon her. Only in
+secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if her blood showed itself so
+plainly that her classmates disliked her for that reason or if she were
+more unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack, who was
+finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world, had cared for her
+and if only the doctors would say that Jack was strong enough to join
+them at Primrose Hall, nothing else would make any difference! Letters
+from Ruth Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured the
+girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected, but as yet there
+had been no definite report from the surgeon?
+
+However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her
+classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her,
+who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher
+whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was
+something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a
+strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to
+reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and
+was trying her best to discover their cause. Some secret story might
+possibly be in circulation about the newcomer, but so far Jessica had
+not been able to find it out.
+
+One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting room for
+several hours. Always books had been her consolation for loneliness
+since the days when her only white friend had been the teacher in the
+Indian school in her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected
+knock at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to join
+her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on opening the door her
+eyes had widened with surprise.
+
+“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a
+visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you
+everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas.
+To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at
+the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the
+other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
+may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her
+the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter
+over sensibly together and she might be able to help. But alas for
+Olive! Though Ruth had warned her to try to overcome her reserve that
+day of the flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
+give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only answered Miss
+Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider than the other girls that I
+have to stay in my room to study more. But I am through with my work now
+and awfully glad to see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome
+revealed more of her real feeling than any number of words.
+
+Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave a little
+cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you don’t wish to be
+outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the most charming girls’ room at
+Primrose Hall! It makes me think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I
+was misquoting a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some
+day when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself. And
+surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are one.’”
+
+Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had dreamed of
+making it in the last days at home, a bit of the Rainbow Lodge in
+miniature, their own beloved ranch house living room reproduced many
+miles across the continent. By Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted
+to the three ranch girls a large and almost empty room, containing only
+a divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was covered
+with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright shawls were thrown
+over the divan, piled with sofa cushions of leather and silk, and on the
+walls were prints of Indian heads, one of them a picture of a young girl
+looking singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of cowboys
+on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace, about one-fourth the
+size of the one at The Lodge, was the head of an elk shot by Jim Colter
+himself on the border of their own ranch, and on the mantel the very
+brass candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home, besides
+several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient ornaments discovered by
+Frieda in the Indian cave on the day when Olive had made her first
+appearance in the ranch girls’ lives.
+
+But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room she began at
+once to look more closely at the few photographs which the ranch girls
+had placed on top of their bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker
+way to learn to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
+taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must represent
+the persons nearest and dearest, their families and closest friends.
+
+The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures, only an
+absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell present to them, but
+as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and his Sunday clothes, it was not
+in the least like their big, splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was
+one of Ruth and alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost
+instinctively Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
+girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched Olive’s heart.
+
+“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is just the type
+of girl I admire the most, so graceful and vigorous and with such a lot
+of character. Oh, I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended
+suddenly, seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.
+
+Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t vigorous any
+more.” And then, to her own surprise and relief, Olive poured forth the
+whole story of Jack’s accident and their reasons for coming east.
+
+Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing that takes
+place every day, but just as Olive was on the point of telling Miss Hunt
+that she expected each day to hear more definite news of Jack, a message
+was sent upstairs to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception
+room desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once. Would
+Olive find the other girls and come to the reception room immediately?
+
+With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew who had come
+to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with a hurried apology to
+Jessica, begging her to wait until her return, fled out, of her room
+down through the lower part of the house and then out into the school
+grounds to search for Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at
+once to Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls hear
+the good news with her.
+
+And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the ranch girls’
+room for a few minutes longer, for standing near the photograph of
+Jacqueline Ralston was another photograph whose presence in the room
+puzzled her greatly. She did not feel that she had the right to ask
+curious questions and yet she must look at this picture more closely,
+for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying in her own bureau
+drawer between folds of lavender-scented silk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
+
+
+Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two great side
+porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many recreation hours on
+these warm Indian summer afternoons, but just in front of the sorority
+house with “Theta” engraved above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded
+by a dozen girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had her
+back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started to run toward her
+and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl in the group was known to her
+by name, all of them were Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of
+them, except Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
+conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to thrust herself
+among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the thought that Ruth must be
+waiting for them with news of Jack braced her. “Jean,” Olive called
+softly and then in a louder tone, “Jean!”
+
+At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve other pairs of
+eyes stared poor Olive up and down.
+
+“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her brown eyes
+shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been arranged that I am to join
+the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope that you will come in with me. Then we
+are going to form a dramatic club in our sorority and after a little
+while give a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
+to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than any one of us,
+or at least she used to when we had charades at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean
+paused, feeling a peculiar change in the atmosphere about her. Would no
+one echo her invitation to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in
+silence unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing right
+before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her lips to hide their
+trembling?
+
+Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you think for
+an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning to her best friend in
+the little company, a tall, distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that
+I will be in things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
+Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,” she
+whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had come to give her,
+without further thought of anything or anybody at Primrose Hall, the two
+friends hurried off together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying
+to find Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after them,
+in a few moments the two girls appeared at the reception room door.
+
+“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned white faces
+to stare at each other and at the tall figure that rose to greet them
+holding Frieda’s hand in one of his. “It is Peter Drummond, gooseys;
+don’t you know him?” Frieda cried happily. “Some one told me we had a
+caller and I came in here expecting to find some strange, horrid
+visitor, and when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
+and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him to come to
+see us,” she ended, rather crossly.
+
+“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied, coming to
+herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are terribly glad it is
+you; only—why—the truth is, we expected Ruth to be able to tell us that
+Jack was better or something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in
+weeks, ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
+friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to tell us
+about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly strained voice. “I
+am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we hoped she would be and Ruth
+couldn’t leave her. Won’t she ever be able to walk again like other
+people? Have the doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought
+you to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still for a
+second Peter Drummond did not reply.
+
+The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely surprised at
+Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had unexpectedly burst into tears.
+
+“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s hand, “it isn’t
+so bad as all this. Olive did guess the truth and I have come to tell
+you about Jack. Perhaps she isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t
+join you at school just at present or get about very much. The fact is—”
+Mr. Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not quite sure
+of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while longer and keep her very
+quiet before they can decide. But I saw her a minute the other day and
+she and Ruth send you their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so
+dreadful as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
+something, for never before in my life have I been with three women and
+had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with a man’s embarrassment at
+being the bearer of ill news, looked at the ranch girls with pretended
+indignation.
+
+“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?” Jean asked, and
+their visitor, not in the least offended by the question, emphatically
+bowed his head.
+
+Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda, I don’t
+think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly, “though of course we are
+terribly disappointed at not having Jack here at school with us, I have
+always felt she would be well some day. Even if the surgeons should say
+she won’t, my money is on old Jack!”
+
+Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous attitude, though
+Olive looked considerably depressed. But at this minute Mr. Drummond, to
+divert everybody’s attention, turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell
+me, please, what is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if
+two weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will a whole
+year do?”
+
+Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot. “Don’t tell Jack
+and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing her blonde head: “Oh, tell away
+if you like, Peter Drummond. I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you
+mean; I am just not a baby any longer.”
+
+Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and amusement. “If
+it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,” he said pulling at his own
+heavy iron-gray hair, “then you’ve got about the worst disease in the
+world and the most incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to
+overtake one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he turned
+again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been awfully nice to Jack and
+Ruth and they are coming out here to see you pretty soon. There is a
+queer old house in this neighborhood where an old relative of theirs
+lives. The house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
+mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”
+
+“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.
+
+“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the place Peter
+is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he hasn’t told you the name
+of it or what it looks like or anything to identify it.”
+
+Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a place called
+‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of it and a balcony and queer
+little windows.” Quite unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because
+for some strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
+had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her eyes closed.
+
+Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is called ‘The
+Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder if because Olive is
+perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is going to be a fortune teller.” But
+because Olive’s face had crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My
+dear Olive, suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
+There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive noticed that
+Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.
+
+But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a large box and
+a small one. The large box he handed to Jean. “You are please to conceal
+this from the powers that be, if it’s against boarding school laws to
+eat candy,” he said and then stood turning the smaller box about in his
+hand, surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
+Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains a great
+surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is inside of it, may I
+be present at its opening?”
+
+The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering outside the
+parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed which opened with a
+spring. Instantly Frieda touched this spring there were three cries of
+“Oh,” followed by a moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the
+box were three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
+quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels shading from red
+to pale violet. Each girl took her gift from the box, regarding it with
+characteristic expressions. Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the
+dimple showing at the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer
+than ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were overclouded and
+her face quivered with pleasure.
+
+[Illustration: THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S
+SILENCE]
+
+“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the grandest,
+and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor any more,” Frieda
+announced.
+
+“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor girls may have
+fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.
+
+“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our gifts to
+suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still resting on the glowing
+colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins
+represent rainbows? I have been repeating the rainbow colors to
+myself—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
+seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”
+
+Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you are, and
+Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been collecting jewels all
+my life and never thought of so pretty an idea as this. Here is a garnet
+to start with for the red, then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond
+next, an emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
+indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of violet.”
+
+“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and the mine and
+all the good things that have come to us through a rainbow,” Jean said
+thoughtfully and then more huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.”
+Frieda made a dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a
+piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when I
+opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she announced. “Oh,
+goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has written us a poem!” And
+Frieda read:
+
+    “Here are seven colors in nature and art,
+    What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;
+    Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day
+    And orange and yellow to shine on your way.
+    Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar
+    To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.
+    And yet to the end shall we ever forget
+    Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”
+
+“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes pretty well,”
+Frieda ended doubtfully.
+
+Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful, I think.
+And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever do go to Europe, as we
+sometimes have planned, we must never forget the Rainbow Ranch. You
+know, Frieda dear, that the alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and
+white like the clover in the east.”
+
+But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr. Drummond had now
+to tear himself away in order to catch his train back to New York.
+Hurrying out into the hall, with the three ranch girls close behind him,
+he suddenly came to an abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young
+woman, who also stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes
+and a haughtily held head.
+
+“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here when I told
+you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say with the least little
+nervous tremor in her voice.
+
+Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica, Miss Hunt,”
+he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest idea of seeing you at
+Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but the ranch girls are my very dear
+friends and my visit was solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically
+away when a hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
+This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might have known
+you would never trouble to come to see me again.”
+
+That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her
+head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that
+Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a
+certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
+child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall
+see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get
+married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how
+Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so
+silly and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too and
+let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very serious for the
+moment and also very bewitching.
+
+But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean Bruce, you will
+have the hardest time of us all in making up your mind when you are in
+love.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HER TEMPTATION
+
+
+Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean Bruce. Always
+beyond anything else had she desired to be popular, even in the old days
+at the ranch when the only society in which she had a part was composed
+of the few neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
+Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her heart’s
+desire, and would she for the sake of another be compelled to give it
+up? For how could she accept the honor that might be bestowed upon her
+of being chosen for Junior class president without turning traitor to
+Olive. After her friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta”
+house on the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no longer
+shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the cause of it? Try as
+she might she could not find out, yet the prejudice was certainly deeper
+than any one could suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the
+bottom of the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she had
+circulated any story against Olive no one would confess it. “Miss
+Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so odd, I do not think
+she enjoys being with other girls,” these evasions of the truth were all
+Jean could get hold of. But in the meantime there was no doubt that
+Olive’s classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the two
+sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented in the history
+of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have appealed to Miss Winthrop
+or one of the other teachers, asking that their influence be exerted in
+Olive’s behalf, but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do.
+For even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities, how would
+it change her classmates’ attitude toward her? Would it not make them
+more unkind than ever? No, there were only two courses open to Jean,
+either she must join the sorority she had chosen without any question of
+Olive’s being a member or else she must decline to be admitted herself
+until such time as the girls should come to their senses and voluntarily
+desire the election of them both.
+
+Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two sororities had
+been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small excuse for her hesitation.
+But a larger issue was at stake. Unless she became a member of a
+sorority and as one of its leaders could influence new girls to her
+cause, she might lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the
+head of the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.
+
+Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very charming
+fashion, just by the power of her own personality, which is after all
+the greatest force in the world. She had no prominent family
+connections, as so many of the Primrose Hall girls had, and she
+continued to act as though she had no money except what was necessary
+for very simple requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done
+had the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the discovery of
+the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a hard fight and many times
+the young girl longed to break faith with herself.
+
+Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading of the
+Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the three ranch girls’
+school outfits, but now these clothes seemed so simple and ordinary that
+at least two of the girls hated the wearing of them.
+
+Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light weight
+flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon entertainments and
+dinner use and a single party dress for the monthly dances which were a
+feature of Primrose Hall school life. Their underclothes were plentiful
+but plain. Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
+lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very wealthy ones at
+that, could have such possessions. Just think of a single item of a
+dozen hand-made nightgowns at fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s
+outfit; and yet these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly
+expressed her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a gift
+of two of them without hurting her new friend’s feelings.
+
+To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed atmosphere that
+Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a revelation. She seemed not to know
+the meaning of snobbery, not to care who people were so long as she
+liked what they were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
+another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already asked Jean to
+visit her in her home in New York during the Christmas holidays, as she
+longed to introduce her to her own family in order that they might lose
+their prejudice against western girls. But more especially Margaret
+desired to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean together
+so as to find out what they would think of one another. She was only
+awaiting the first opportunity. In the meantime, although Jean would not
+accept other gifts from her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the
+flowers Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about school
+so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in her hair that she
+soon became known as “the pink carnation girl.”
+
+One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to send flowers
+to Margaret in return, but in order to retain her masquerade of poverty,
+most of the time she had to refrain. Only now and then she did relieve
+her feelings by presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses
+regardless of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
+would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been especially
+kind to Olive, Frieda or her.
+
+With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to spread
+abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no pocket money, but
+with Frieda the case was very different. It is quite certain that Jean
+would never have had her way with Frieda except by appealing directly to
+Jack for advice and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging
+her little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to agree to
+Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not that she saw any sense
+in her sacrifice or was in the least reconciled to it, but simply
+because under the circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could
+refuse her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard on
+both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives had they had
+any money of their own to spend and now Jack was sending each one of
+them fifty dollars a month for pin money. Think of the fortune of it, if
+you have had only one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use
+before!
+
+And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to
+temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the
+grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a
+dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy
+herself a pair of gloves.
+
+Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be
+dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed
+in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large,
+lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the
+bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked
+too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be
+ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a
+pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and
+twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for
+it.
+
+Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s
+extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it
+certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income
+away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day
+in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
+intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.
+
+While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose
+Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so
+much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of
+girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as
+Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief
+reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order
+to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose
+Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch,
+who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud
+of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its
+help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on
+Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin
+enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being
+the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious
+an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way
+or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her
+friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the
+“Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her
+pride.
+
+Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the
+evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding
+schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss
+Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were
+brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully
+introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall
+as a training school for the larger social world and desired her
+students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and
+naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls
+and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their
+school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false
+notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore,
+although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall
+toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a
+simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss
+Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first
+much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students
+and their friends together, the older woman could often give her
+students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of
+young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
+excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had
+positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted
+from either the Junior or Senior girls.
+
+It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at
+eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into
+Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but
+really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in
+overcoming her shyness.
+
+Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown
+to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of
+Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance
+and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a
+pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so
+pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?
+
+But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of
+Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her
+friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation
+girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep
+rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by
+accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
+particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her
+hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance
+made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.
+
+“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I
+think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”
+
+“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously.
+“I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t
+Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected
+in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy
+and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”
+
+Olive colored, but did not reply at once.
+
+“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would have some
+influence with you and not let you be so pokey and unfriendly. I am sure
+I have tried in vain to stir you up and now I think I’ll write Jack and
+Ruth how you are behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
+times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean, knowing that
+Olive did not yet understand how her failure to be invited into either
+sorority was influencing her chance for the class election, yet had the
+grace to turn her face away.
+
+For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or Ruth, Jean,”
+she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know I am not a success at
+school and if you tell them that no one here likes me they will then
+know that I am unhappy and will be worried, and Jack must not have any
+worry now. It isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
+mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter with me,
+Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”
+
+In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her
+warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you
+and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake.
+Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
+friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in
+some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else
+her classmates must see how charming she was.
+
+Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes would soon
+be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s, who would be noticing
+her unpopularity. And would she know a single guest at the dance?
+
+Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that Jean and
+Olive went down to the big reception rooms together, holding each
+other’s hands like little girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CINDERELLA
+
+
+To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that she desired
+her students at Primrose Hall to grow into something more useful than
+mere society women. Her ambition was to have them fill many important
+positions in the modern world now offering such big opportunities to
+clever women. Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
+perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just always and
+interested in their welfare. But then none of her girls knew the story
+of her youth nor realized that the last life she had ever expected for
+herself in her rich and brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a
+fashionable boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
+the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York City and in
+the homes of the old Dutch and English families along the Hudson River,
+until she had let her pride spoil the one romance of her life. By and
+by, when her father died and her family fortune disappeared, she had
+then opened up her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
+aristocratic connections and old name immediately made Primrose Hall
+both fashionable and popular, until now its mere name lent its students
+an assured social prestige. Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her
+school to be something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
+been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her pupils from
+among a list of fifty or more applicants whom she had been obliged to
+refuse. There was little in the life of her school which she did not see
+and understand, and now her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda,
+with their freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
+looking at things, would bring the element most needed into their mere
+money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere. Though no one had
+mentioned it to her, she had already observed Jean’s great popularity
+with her classmates, Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and
+Olive’s failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this third
+ranch girl?
+
+Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the past month in
+getting her school into good working order, she had not forgotten the
+peculiar emotion that Olive had awakened in her at their first meeting.
+Because the child was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely
+a sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her, and
+to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss Winthrop had
+determined to watch Olive closely and find out for herself wherein lay
+the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night
+and had also wondered how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first
+evening entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
+informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they should train
+her girls for social life in any part of the world where in later years
+circumstances might chance to take them.
+
+Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in full
+evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening Miss Winthrop
+wore a plain black velvet gown with a small diamond star at her throat,
+a piece of jewelry for which she had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt,
+who was standing next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and
+the bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought) made a
+striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of the older woman.
+Though there were a dozen or more of the Primrose Hall girls grouped
+about the two women when Jean and Olive entered the reception room
+together, both of them immediately saw and watched them as they came
+slowly forward.
+
+The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
+anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know, as she moved
+through the room with an expression of fine unconsciousness, that this
+was the first really formal party she had ever attended in her life.
+Neither her blush nor her dimple betrayed her, although she was
+perfectly aware that a number of youths in long-tailed coats and black
+trousers, wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped talking
+for several moments to their girl friends in order to glance at Olive
+and at her. She even saw, without appearing to lift her lids, that a
+tall, blonde fellow standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was
+deliberately staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
+Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite of his
+fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared to Ralph Merrit or
+other simple western fellows whom she had known in the past.
+
+Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s passing
+observations in her forward progress toward Miss Winthrop, and yet in
+the same length of time Olive, who was close beside her, had seen
+nothing “but a sea of unknown faces.” Even her school companions
+to-night in their frocks of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet
+somehow, with Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
+Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to them. Then,
+still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne off for a short
+distance and there surrounded by a group of Jean’s girl friends.
+
+Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap in the
+number, had come up with their cousins, brothers and friends to meet
+Jean Bruce and to fill up her dance card. They were, of course, also
+introduced to Olive, but as she did not speak, no one noticed her
+particularly and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
+desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began she forgot her
+and marched off with an enthusiastic partner, who had asked Gerry
+Ferrows to introduce him to the most fascinating girl in the room, and
+Gerry had unhesitatingly chosen Jean.
+
+There were two or three other girls and young men standing near Olive
+when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds later and she was entirely
+alone.
+
+Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to society to
+find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first Olive felt
+desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with shame and fearing
+that her eyes were filling with tears. Then looking about her she soon
+discovered a group of palms in a corner of the room not far away and
+guessed that she could find shelter behind them. Slipping across she
+came upon a small sofa hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little
+sigh of thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
+serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see what a
+good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen herself. Once
+she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her hiding place—Frieda,
+who had been a fat, little girl with long plaits down her back just a
+few weeks ago, now attired in a blue silk and lace, was whirling about
+on the arm of a long-legged boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous
+quantity of blonde curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin
+brother. Five minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
+evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
+apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance with
+her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom Olive
+recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard brother, could
+be seen dancing attendance on Jean.
+
+Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this fashion until
+Olive felt perfectly safe in her green retreat, when unexpectedly a hand
+was laid upon her shoulder and a voice said sternly, “What in the world,
+child, are you doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
+stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you to take part
+in the dancing; there really isn’t much difference between your being
+concealed up there or here.”
+
+And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her breath made
+her unable to answer at once.
+
+Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as she had
+thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had seen first her
+embarrassment at being left alone and next her withdrawal. In much the
+same fashion that Jack would have followed, Jessica had wished to rush
+off at once to comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.
+
+“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes her so
+unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out of hearing. “I
+wish you would tell me if you know any explanation for it.”
+
+But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering, “I can’t
+for the life of me understand. There are a good many little things that
+Olive does not seem to know, and yet, as she studies very hard, I
+believe she will soon be one of the honor girls in my class. I have a
+friend in New York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
+unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well. Perhaps I
+had best ask him if there is anything unusual about Olive.”
+
+But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you would ask no
+questions, at least not now please, Jessica, for I have heard at least a
+part of the girl’s history, and yet I believe the real truth is not
+known to any one and perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive
+if it never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be so
+sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss Winthrop had
+moved across the room to where Olive was in hiding. As the girl’s
+startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not
+poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her
+queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from
+some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and
+young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty,
+forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary.
+
+Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older woman
+quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender brown fingers in
+hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in a voice that was gentler than
+usual, “for I understand it is timidity that is making you hide
+yourself. Don’t you think though that you would enjoy dancing?”
+
+Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she returned,
+forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no one has invited me.”
+Then as her teacher suddenly rose to her feet, as though intending to
+find her a partner, with a sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness
+Olive drew her down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me,
+Miss Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little while I
+am sure it will be delightful just watching the others.”
+
+While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers, Miss
+Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross at the end of
+it, which Olive was wearing around her throat. Leaning over she took the
+cross in her hand. “This is an odd piece of jewelry, child, and must be
+very old; it is so heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed
+inside it.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything about it,
+except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,” she replied. For some
+strange reason this shy girl was speaking of her mother to a comparative
+stranger, when she rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved
+friend, Jacqueline Ralston.
+
+But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice startled both of
+them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed, “what do you mean by hiding
+yourself away with Miss Winthrop when I have been searching the house
+over for you.”
+
+Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld Donald Harmon
+standing near them, the young fellow whose father had rented the Rainbow
+Ranch from the Ralston girls the summer before and whose sister had been
+responsible for Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.
+
+“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one of your
+guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and that my aunt is your
+old friend and lives near Primrose Hall.”
+
+While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had no idea
+that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald was trying to
+persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for her first dance with him.
+By accident it happened to be a Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced
+it before, but she had been watching the other girls. Donald was an
+excellent partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it all
+her life.
+
+Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different art, although
+both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean was gay and vivacious,
+full of grace and activity, keeping excellent time to the music, but
+Olive seemed to move like a flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly
+conscious of what she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet
+yielding her body to every note of the music and movement of her
+partner.
+
+By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many of the
+others stopped and at once the young men demanded to be told who Olive
+was and why she had been hidden away from their sight until now?
+Whatever replies the girls may have made to these questions, they did
+not apparently affect their questioners, for from the time of her first
+dance until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
+partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and her cheeks
+grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her low laugh rang out, and
+always she could dance. What did conversation at a ball amount to anyhow
+when movement was the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a
+fairy princess just awakened from a long enchantment?
+
+Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had ever brought
+Olive forth from her retreat, but just before midnight, when Primrose
+Hall parties must always come to an end, he did manage to get her away
+for a moment out on the veranda, where chairs were placed so that the
+young people could rest and talk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SHADOWS BEFORE
+
+
+The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded
+electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a
+corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for
+he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten
+the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the
+peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.
+
+But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really
+liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently
+brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude
+on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your
+mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
+coldness.
+
+Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both
+unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend
+Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot.
+But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just
+come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from
+college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls
+again,” he ended honestly.
+
+“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a
+glimpse of Jean or Frieda.
+
+“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with
+them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack
+of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can
+easily walk over.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have
+us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what
+seemed to her a reasonable excuse.
+
+Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner.
+“Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss
+Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest
+friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were
+girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is
+always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps
+some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss
+Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she
+always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown
+too old and too cranky to leave her place.”
+
+Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald
+had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry
+to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with
+more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will
+be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white
+house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer
+gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”
+
+The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are
+dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as
+children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our
+family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of
+color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial
+lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
+room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the
+walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”
+
+Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I
+made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I
+think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house
+somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few
+questions.”
+
+At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes
+and a voice asked:
+
+    “Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
+    Whose hands about thee are entwined?”
+
+The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come
+up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry
+Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with
+Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the
+others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive
+to do but to try to talk to Cecil.
+
+Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than
+Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that
+for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean
+laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
+evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through
+the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean
+smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a
+moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up
+a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had
+evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping
+over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was
+struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior
+companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single
+remark.
+
+Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for
+having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned
+to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to
+think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she
+is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
+and inscrutable.”
+
+Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small
+ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account
+of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a
+Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was
+impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had
+added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
+also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy?
+Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now
+hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.
+
+However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive
+aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and
+annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past
+hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
+every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single
+time. Has she spoken to you?”
+
+Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,”
+she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though
+we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”
+
+But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up
+airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it
+is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly
+twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
+personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child
+should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they
+have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”
+
+“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to
+be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see,
+we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to
+her independence.”
+
+But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of
+family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this
+moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened
+to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to
+boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began
+to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.
+
+Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired
+her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later
+Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and
+Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald
+would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second
+best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced
+upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other
+dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had
+promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
+forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.
+
+So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching
+Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for
+Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue,
+Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
+heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in
+the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would
+have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the
+western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice
+to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might
+induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared
+particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman.
+Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes
+a martyr of himself for her sake!
+
+However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls
+were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great
+room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone
+away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop
+and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and
+yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose
+Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and
+what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten
+into some kind of mischief?”
+
+Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been
+said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But
+outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such
+a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
+good-night long ago.”
+
+Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the
+room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was
+not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.
+
+Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says
+Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what
+on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and
+will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then
+if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
+from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a
+little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to
+her, she was both angry and frightened.
+
+“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly,
+knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss
+Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might
+be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads
+than the disappearance of one.
+
+“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you
+prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t
+help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here
+in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of
+bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls
+bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
+
+
+Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair, but Olive,
+still fully dressed, kept darting from her own bedroom to Jean’s and
+Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a sign of the wanderer.
+
+Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in the least
+what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds out how she has
+behaved, but you and I must go to look for her.”
+
+Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the lights were now
+being turned low, when a figure brushed by them. “Please let me get into
+my own room,” a voice said peevishly, and nothing loath, the three
+figures returned inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda
+Ralston,” Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
+excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is just barely
+possible that she may not have seen you sneaking along the hall.”
+
+Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive gazed upon the
+youngest ranch girl with an expression of disapproval.
+
+The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.
+
+“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss Sterne
+inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about through her large horn
+spectacles that Olive had so promptly disliked, like a wise old owl.
+
+“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?” she continued,
+“you know you are not expected to enter another girl’s sleeping
+apartment after the hour for retiring.”
+
+Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own room and
+rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning to talk to Jean or to
+Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s retreating footsteps were far out of
+hearing.
+
+And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand what the other
+two ranch girls were saying and then it was Jean’s tones that were the
+more distinct.
+
+Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and slipper,
+keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor, when Jean, now
+in her night gown, planted herself before her. “Where have you been all
+this time, Frieda Ralston, and why didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say
+good-night to Miss Winthrop when the rest of us did?”
+
+Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue stockings,
+swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean, and I didn’t dream of
+its being so late. Do you think Miss Winthrop noticed?” the culprit
+faltered.
+
+Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in this school,
+Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I suppose you will
+be able to explain to her in the morning why you were in the back hall
+instead of in the parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to
+tell anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”
+
+Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own heart was
+quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could not answer back in the
+cool fashion she desired. “Mollie Johnson was with me,” she managed to
+say, “and two boys.”
+
+Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or the present
+Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as she sat up in bed with
+her arms folded before her.
+
+“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly, “but will you
+please tell me why you went to the back hall when you knew perfectly
+well that Miss Winthrop was trusting you to behave like a lady and
+remain in the rooms where she was receiving her guests. I don’t know
+what Ruth and Jack will say.”
+
+Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she murmured,
+struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair. “You see, we had only
+ices and cake for the party, and about eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the
+boy I was with, said he wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as
+hungry for one, so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of
+the dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in the
+pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of good things.” And
+now Frieda’s courage returning in a small measure, she turned out the
+electric lights, hopping into bed. “I am not going to be treated like a
+criminal, though, Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she
+ended, burying herself under the cover.
+
+So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls were sound
+asleep, though in reality the three of them were still wide awake.
+
+Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet understanding the
+real facts of her escape, and Frieda was longing with all her might for
+some one to sympathize with her and help her in her scrape, some one who
+would let her cry herself out.
+
+By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s bedside. “Jean, has
+Frieda explained things to you?” she whispered.
+
+Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and two boys,
+and that they went into the pantry and had something to eat, but she
+didn’t say why they stayed in the back hall afterwards. They couldn’t
+have kept on eating pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls
+giggled softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
+greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she was
+constantly doing on their long trip through the Yellowstone the summer
+before?
+
+“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted, “and I don’t
+think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she hears that the pantry
+was the difficulty, for she knows how good the housekeeper is to all the
+little girls.”
+
+“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.” Jean’s voice
+became low and impressive, “What do you suppose that Frieda Ralston
+could have to talk about to a—boy?”
+
+A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both older girls
+started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted the outside of the
+blanket.
+
+“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a sterner manner
+than was usual to her, “or were all four of you just sitting around
+having a jolly time together?” Now that Frieda’s sobs assured the other
+two girls that she was awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on
+with her cross-examination.
+
+“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
+unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other boy were
+sitting on a higher step and the servants were around, but no one told
+us how late it was.”
+
+“Well, what were you talking about that you found so interesting that
+you could not hear the clock strike twelve, or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’
+waltz, or the good-byes being said?” Jean demanded fiercely.
+
+This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her sorrow, for
+the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were talking about worms!”
+she sobbed.
+
+“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that they could
+not have heard aright.
+
+“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see, we got to
+talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved it better than most
+anything he ever did and some summers he goes way up into the Maine
+woods and fishes in the lakes for trout. He uses flies for bait always,
+but I told him that we fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes
+when it wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way down
+under the ground to find them. I told him too how once I started a
+fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I could dig up in a glass
+bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys whenever they wished to go fishing.”
+
+Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up conversation
+with her first admirer, feeling too angry and too puzzled to go on for
+the minute, for her former irate judges were now holding their sides and
+doing their level best to keep from shrieking with laughter.
+
+“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of fishing worms,”
+Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.
+
+Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the covers more
+closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and dream of Jack,” she
+comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop will never hear of your mistaking
+the time for saying good-night.”
+
+“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda returned
+sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive, better than most any of
+the girls. I have seen her looking at you so strangely every now and
+then.”
+
+In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling so penitent
+over her escapade as the two older ranch girls supposed. But Frieda had
+always been a good deal spoiled and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed
+her failure to say good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault
+upon her mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that both
+little girls and big receive their punishment for a fault so soon as the
+fault is committed, in order not to keep on growing naughtier and
+naughtier until Fate punishes us for many sins at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
+
+
+After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be Saturday
+afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting room looking for
+Olive and Frieda. She had been playing basketball for the past two hours
+and in spite of having known nothing of the game on her arrival at
+school, was already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
+Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass above her
+face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in her hand she held a
+bundle of letters. One she tossed to Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa
+nursing a small cold due to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two
+for herself.
+
+Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed to her in Jack’s
+handwriting and Frieda followed suit. When Jack had first been taken to
+the hospital and there compelled to lie always flat on her back, her
+handwriting had been difficult to read, but now that she had gotten used
+to this method of writing, her stroke was again as vigorous and
+characteristic as of old.
+
+Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other girls. “Jack
+says she is getting on very well and we are to see her in a few
+weeks—perhaps,” she announced.
+
+Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of course,
+isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written you, for Jack never
+tells anything but the best news of herself.”
+
+“There may be an operation or something of the sort later on,” Jean
+conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it may not be for some
+months yet. Only if the operation does have to take place Jack has
+demanded that Jim come on from the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph
+Merrit to look after things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things
+are in a bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
+come?” And Jean sighed.
+
+An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should she behave
+in any special way?” she inquired, sitting straight up on the couch to
+gaze from Olive to Jean.
+
+Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed, for Frieda was
+the only one of the four ranch girls who knew nothing of what had
+happened at the ranch between Jim Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew,
+their chaperon. What had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
+understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware that Jim and
+Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one another and then some
+mysterious misunderstanding had suddenly parted them.
+
+“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested, knowing this
+would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one theme. “Sometimes I wish
+for Jack’s sake that we were all back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she
+was able to be out in the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of
+Jack lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three girls, so
+that there was a moment of painful silence in the room. Then Jean said
+more cheerfully after re-reading the latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim
+says that Ralph Merrit is doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and
+that he is a trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
+Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he has turned
+out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does Frank Kent.”
+
+The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet forgiven Jean for
+last night’s scolding. Now she turned up her small nose a trifle more
+than usual. “Oh, you just say that because Ralph likes you best and
+Frank Kent is more fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean
+flushed.
+
+“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that Jim should
+like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has to make his own way in
+the world just as Jim has; and Frank Kent, though he is awfully simple
+and a thorough good fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a
+title himself some day.”
+
+“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an English lady and
+own country estates and ride to hounds?” Frieda suggested more
+peacefully, gazing across the room at Frank Kent’s photograph, which
+ornamented the bookshelf. “I think I should love to be introduced into
+English society and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended
+lamely.
+
+A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled with
+mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about fishing worms,
+baby?” she queried with studied politeness.
+
+And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a sofa
+cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:
+
+“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at the Lodge.
+What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a second letter that Jean
+had brought to her, she began to read it.
+
+Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda, who
+resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get dressed, infant; no,
+your cold isn’t too bad for you to come. Olive is reading a note of
+invitation from Mrs. Harmon for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have
+tea and Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”
+
+But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom enjoyed by
+the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it easily.
+
+“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested resolutely;
+“only if they have any candy or cake and happen to mention sending me
+some you might bring it along. And I do wish both you girls would go out
+for a while, for Mollie is coming to spend the afternoon with me after
+she finishes her music lesson and we would love to have the sitting room
+to ourselves.”
+
+“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without being
+actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean said, seeing
+that Olive was hesitating about what she should do. “Come along, it will
+do us both good to get away and not to sit here thinking about what we
+can’t help,” she ended.
+
+While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks preparatory
+to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of her own room Olive
+was trying to persuade herself that her hesitation in going for the call
+upon the Harmons was because she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of
+Elizabeth of the old tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than
+this in her mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
+which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment her eyes
+had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have ever had with an
+old place like “The Towers,” or any house resembling it? Her impression
+that she must have seen the house somewhere before was sheer madness,
+for was it not an old Dutch mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years
+ago, and certainly wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?
+
+Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed her out
+of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and Jean started gayly
+forth on their walk. It was about four o’clock in the late November
+afternoon and instead of following the path through the woods, the
+little party set out along the lane that led through an exquisite part
+of the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed
+a short hill and from the top of it could see at some distance off the
+spire of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
+River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its deep
+hidden lungs.
+
+Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As Olive was
+particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through hers. “This is a land
+of legends and of dreams about here, dear, and some day I must take you
+western girls about the country and show you the historic places nearby.
+Do you know anything about them?” she asked.
+
+But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her head. “I
+don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem somehow familiar, yet
+it did not at first. Don’t you believe that all the world, at least the
+world of outside things, of hills and trees and valleys and water,
+somehow belongs alike to all of us and once we have seen a landscape and
+moved about in it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in
+nature, there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
+are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”
+
+Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on their
+approach to the house. As he was holding a great St. Bernard dog by the
+collar and as it bounded away from him all of a sudden, nearly upsetting
+Olive and Jessica in the rapture of its welcome, the little party
+entered “The Towers” with too much laughter and excitement for Olive to
+feel any self-consciousness or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of
+her past foolishness in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so
+many eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
+easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.
+
+Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both decided
+at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite of its
+magnificence, was one of the darkest and most unattractive rooms either
+of them had ever seen. For everything was very stiff and formal and
+without life or fragrance. Carved black furniture sat stiffly against
+the walls, which were hung with old portraits of men and women in high
+fluted ruffs, with gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces.
+Over in one corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen
+and having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And behind
+this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or twelve, who
+looked a little like Donald Harmon.
+
+“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon had said
+as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to wait tea for
+her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs. Harmon’s manner was a
+little constrained and that she kept looking at Olive as though she
+intended asking her some question, but as the question was never asked,
+the girls must have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the
+little company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
+seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a long
+stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow the butler
+flung open the drawing room door.
+
+Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean could not
+forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her heart rise up in her
+throat. Why on earth was the old mistress of “The Towers” so formidable
+that the entire neighborhood felt an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry
+that she was competing for one of her prizes offered to the Junior
+students at Primrose Hall.
+
+“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at the name
+of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard for the first
+time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young girl caught at the
+sides of her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. Then when no one was
+looking at her, smiled at herself and turned her gaze curiously on their
+ancient hostess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
+
+
+For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom there is
+no English expression so good as the French, “a grande dame.”
+
+There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but she
+stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with brilliant,
+hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and slightly inclining her
+head. Then she walked over to the high, carved chair near the tea table
+and sat down under the picture of the little boy. Feeble from old age,
+she was yet of too determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for
+when Donald tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned
+it away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head by a
+careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of age, was yet as
+delicately powdered and rouged as if she had been an actress about to
+make her debut, and she was carefully dressed in a gown of deep purple
+silk with lace at her throat and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort
+could hide the ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the
+coldness of her air and expression suggested that she would have
+repelled grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.
+
+The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful after
+its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed to be able to
+speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was plainly ill at ease and
+even Elizabeth had been taught to treat this wealthy old aunt, whose
+fortune she expected some day to share with her brother, with more
+respect than she showed to any one else in the world.
+
+Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had huddled
+close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having little to say to
+one another.
+
+Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was barely able
+to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater said, “bring the girl,
+whom you tell me you met in the West and who bears so strange a
+resemblance to your mother, closer to me. I think all resemblances are
+ridiculous and yet you have made me curious.”
+
+Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of all
+things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for her to do in
+this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead her across the room
+to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged forgiveness for the old woman’s
+peremptory manner, and yet he showed no sign of disobedience.
+
+“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the dusk was
+creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing her hostess,
+Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.
+
+It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers even to
+raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared straight at Madame Van
+Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as hers and almost as searching
+and haughty. For Olive’s emotion was immediately one of the deepest
+antagonism toward this woman, however old she might be, who summoned her
+as a queen might summon a subject.
+
+Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her slowly
+through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of course, resting
+longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she drew one of relief as she
+turned again to Donald and to Mrs. Harmon? “I do not see the least
+likeness in this girl to any member of my family,” she announced.
+“Whatever her name may be, her appearance is quite foreign and I should
+prefer never to have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.”
+And nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
+seat.
+
+But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her drawing
+her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she murmured. “I had
+not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has seemed to me that I have
+seen some one a little like you somewhere, I fancied in some old
+picture.” Then smiling she shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I
+see any likeness to your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is
+enough of a suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”
+
+And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair, where she
+sat down pretending to look out of the window, though all the time she
+was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in which she had just been
+compelled to play an unwilling part. Why, because she was so uncertain
+of her ancestry, should she be forced to go through these moments that
+made the fact more bitterly painful to her?
+
+Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls had tried
+their best to keep her story from the ears of the Harmons during their
+stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald, his sister and mother had
+learned through Aunt Ellen, through the cowboys on the ranch and through
+one or two of their closest neighbors. And for this reason the young
+fellow was perhaps even more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he
+wished very much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into
+which his own idle talk had led her.
+
+Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and Miss
+Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with me?” he
+asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I am sure that
+Elizabeth will excuse us.”
+
+Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being left with
+only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was the only one of the
+ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she made no objection,
+particularly as no one waited for her to speak. For Jean fairly bounced
+from her chair with relief, Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon
+after, feeling that she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged
+to remain another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
+Towers.”
+
+Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared suddenly to
+have been released from prison. Jean danced a two-step, Jessica clapped
+her hands softly together and Olive laughed, while Donald straightway
+plunged head first up the dark mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he
+begged, “for there isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well
+enough to tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great
+view that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
+rather a long climb.”
+
+Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then Jessica.
+Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like those in any
+ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral resembling the steps in
+a lighthouse. About midway up these steps Jessica noticed that Olive
+paused, pressing her hands to her eyes as though to shut out some idea
+or some vision that assailed her, and that she wavered as though she
+felt faint.
+
+“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired, knowing that
+climbing to unexpected heights often has this effect on sensitive
+persons. And though Olive now shook her head, moving on again, Jessica
+determined to watch her.
+
+To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a small,
+closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big, spacious apartment out
+of which the little gabled windows winked like so many friendly eyes.
+The room was fitted up as a boy’s room with a bed apparently just ready
+to be slept in, there was a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but
+the bookcases were filled with books of all kinds and for all ages,
+French, Spanish and German books and plays from the days of the miracle
+plays down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
+long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which seemed to
+be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols were hung on the
+walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete figure of a knight in
+armor stood in one corner. Curious why these masculine trophies should
+interest a girl, and yet for some reason they did interest Olive, for
+she waited there alone; Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one
+of the windows were gazing out over the countryside made famous the
+world over through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
+Dreams.”
+
+Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to see the
+view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in the next few
+minutes.”
+
+And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also looked out
+the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the bridge over which
+they had lately passed, with the stretch of woodlands to one side and
+the autumn-colored hills rising in the background. Very quietly she
+began to speak:
+
+“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
+valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the
+quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it,
+with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional
+whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound
+that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.”
+
+These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape and her
+lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of poetry long ago
+forgotten and now brought back to mind by the objects that inspired it.
+
+It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to herself by
+reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement, but neither Donald
+Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least surprised and after a moment,
+as though again striking the strings of her memory, the young girl went
+on: “If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the
+world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
+troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
+And then her recitation abruptly ended.
+
+“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded; “or tell
+us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur of the moment to
+impress your English teacher?”
+
+Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is repeating! I
+should have taught it you before now, but Olive seems to have gotten
+ahead of me and learned it first.”
+
+“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing a thing
+like that and then waiting for a critical minute to recite it so as to
+impress her audience. I never should have suspected her!”
+
+But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica said in
+explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington Irving’s
+description of this countryside, which he gives in his ‘Legend of Sleepy
+Hollow,’ and when you get back to school, Jean, I advise you to ask
+Olive to lend you her book.”
+
+Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to Primrose
+Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first both the woman
+and the girl were silent, but as they neared the school Olive spoke
+suddenly:
+
+“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the feeling
+of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking that you have been
+there before, seen the same things or people and even heard the same
+words said?”
+
+Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and yet not
+appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s expression was both
+puzzled and intent.
+
+“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered. “No one
+can understand or explain it very well, but the impression is more apt
+to come to you when you are young. I can recall once having gone into a
+ballroom and there having had some one make a perfectly ordinary speech
+to me and yet I had a sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was
+I that at some past time I had been in the same place, under the same
+circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the time it
+was impossible.”
+
+“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in a
+certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into one’s mind
+without our remembering where we have learned it before,” Olive
+persisted.
+
+Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said quietly,
+“I think there are many wonderful things in the world around us that we
+do not believe in because we do not yet understand them, just as long
+years ago men and women did not believe that our world was round because
+it had not then been revealed to them. And so I do not understand about
+these strange psychical experiences about which we have just been
+talking. But I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
+remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In this
+story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the hero’s mind
+from the time he is a little boy all through his life. He does not
+understand why he remembers this song, but by and by it is explained to
+the reader that this song had played an important part in the life of
+one of Peter Ibbetson’s ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color
+of our eyes, the shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some
+far-off ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
+impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing to
+understand, but the idea is interesting.”
+
+“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the book.”
+
+Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the darkness of
+the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.
+
+“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you ever
+felt that you have been in a certain place before, where you know you
+could never really have been, or have you thought suddenly of something
+that you did not remember having in your mind before? But please do not
+answer me if you would rather not, for I know that these queer
+experiences most of us would rather keep to ourselves.”
+
+“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women started
+up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
+
+
+While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda and
+Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch girls’ sitting
+room, school politics were playing an important part in the precincts of
+Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and Gerry Ferrows were devoting that
+same Saturday afternoon to canvassing their class in order to discover
+whether Jean or Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
+president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for Jean, while
+Winifred was conducting a personal investigation. Indeed, the situation
+between these two girls was a peculiar and a difficult one, for having
+once been intimate friends, they had now become violently estranged from
+one another and yet continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than
+because Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
+afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together and with
+their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively refused to work for
+herself, having turned over her cause to her two best friends, Gerry and
+Margaret Belknap.
+
+But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning Jean and
+Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances for her election
+and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the whole situation.
+
+Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s success. If
+even at this late date Jean would allow herself to be elected into one
+of the sororities and thus proclaim her independence of the girl whose
+presence in the school her classmates resented, she might yet win their
+complete allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case
+that Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
+her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart for the
+honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on this question of
+Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while she was too good a sport
+to be unkind to any one in adversity, yet she did not herself care to
+associate with Olive on terms of perfect equality, although she had
+never mentioned this fact to Jean. And lately she had felt her own
+decision waver, for since her father had written her that he had charge
+of Jack Ralston’s case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl
+he had ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
+protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.
+
+Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice grew deeper
+on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to the other of her
+classmates, asking them point-blank whether they intended to cast their
+votes for Winifred or for Jean at the coming election. Some of the girls
+were quite frank. They had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided
+that it would be wiser not to have as the representative of their class
+a girl who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
+the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean, not
+having entirely made up their minds between her and Winifred; a number
+of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and loyal supporters and yet it
+was with a feeling of discouragement that Gerry at the close of her
+canvass returned to her own room. She had taken a note book with her and
+written down each girl’s position in regard to the election, and yet she
+could not now decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it
+was peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room to
+find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde hair down
+her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the pages of a magazine,
+wearing a particularly cheerful and self-satisfied expression.
+
+Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an agreeable
+one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a certain portion of
+American society. As long as Winifred could remember she had been taught
+these two things: By her brains and her beauty she must some day win for
+herself the wealth and the position that her family had always longed to
+have and yet never had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her
+mother and father had been spending more money than they could afford in
+trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more prominent
+than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at Primrose Hall was but
+another proof of their extravagance, for they could by no means afford
+the expense of such a school, yet their hope was that there Winifred
+would make so many wealthy and aristocratic friends that later on they
+might help her to a wealthy marriage.
+
+But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good mind and
+longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her friendships, so it
+was hardly to be wondered at that she should cordially dislike the two
+older ranch girls, who, coming out of nowhere and pretending to nothing,
+seemed likely to prove her rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the
+way of her being chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior
+class, Olive was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which
+the old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior students in
+Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also competing for this prize,
+but as it represented a fairly large sum of money, sufficient to cover a
+year’s tuition at Primrose Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must
+be hers.
+
+She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down on their
+couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a nap.
+
+“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend Gerry?” she
+asked in an irritating fashion.
+
+“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none too
+truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm assurance.
+
+Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you know it,
+and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if it half killed
+you, being anxious to prove that women are as honest as men, as brave
+and as straight-forward and as clever, and therefore should be entitled
+to equal suffrage.”
+
+Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely face
+crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite truthful; I am
+afraid that your chance for the presidency is better than Jean’s. But
+you know that it is all because the girls here think that Olive isn’t a
+fit associate for the rest of us, or else Jean would have won in a
+walkover. I wonder if the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her
+parentage is true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me.
+Where did you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”
+
+“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and heard the
+tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the younger girls she knew
+in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth meant any harm in telling, for
+she seemed to think that we would be pleased to have an Indian enliven
+us at Primrose Hall. You may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean
+and Frieda have been very quiet about the whole question of this
+objectionable Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why
+don’t you inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.
+
+Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss Winthrop
+treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is any mystery about
+Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private affair,’ she said. ‘But
+kindly remember that she is a student at Primrose Hall and if I thought
+her unfit for the companionship of my other girls, she would not be
+among you.’ You can imagine that I felt about the size of a small
+caterpillar when she got through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore
+from Miss Winthrop’s snubbing.
+
+“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind your own
+business,” Winifred interposed with secret satisfaction, knowing from
+Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had heard of Olive’s past and glad to
+have the truth of the story that she had been repeating confirmed.
+
+“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to a girl
+for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so anxious to have
+Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her own mind.
+
+Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
+honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think
+she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss
+Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’
+parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is
+just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she
+seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you
+and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why
+don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix
+yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
+and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”
+
+Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked
+sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election!
+And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan
+that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten
+things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
+
+
+And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
+personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by
+making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was
+as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta
+sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the
+invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been
+deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck
+her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’
+attitude toward her?
+
+The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as
+both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her
+leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could
+have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business;
+I wish to talk to you quite alone.”
+
+Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her
+other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive
+appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak
+to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all
+mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no
+one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.
+
+“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive
+nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not
+come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the
+afternoon?”
+
+But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No,
+I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided,
+“and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish
+to say to you.”
+
+“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one
+else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”
+
+Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were
+walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the
+subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.
+
+Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure of
+having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to make, and
+yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s manner that made
+her companion a little fearful of approaching her with advice or
+entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as well to have laid this
+matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last resort, Miss Winthrop, before
+forging ahead. But Gerry was an ardent suffragette in the making and, as
+she had determined to follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father,
+she knew that indecision must never be a characteristic of the new
+woman. However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl recognize
+her entire friendliness before she made known her mission.
+
+Having talked of many things together, of their love of the outdoors, of
+Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at last opened up the way
+for her companion’s disclosure.
+
+“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I have not
+yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me. What is it?”
+
+And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened and she
+looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this moment it had not
+occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire for a private interview
+with her could have any serious import, but noticing Gerry’s hesitation
+and apparent embarrassment, Olive suddenly believed that she intended
+questioning her about her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack
+had advised her not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now
+asked her for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
+than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her false,
+her desire now might be to disprove it.
+
+With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she hoped for
+the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she asked again.
+
+Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean to be
+elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.
+
+Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
+rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me. And I am
+awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving Jean, for she is
+awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter and all of us would
+be so proud of her if she should win after being so short a time at
+school.”
+
+“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do something
+to help her instead of standing in her way?” This question was even more
+blunt than the first. And it hurt, because Olive bit her lips.
+
+“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her walk and
+turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me, please, how I can
+help her and how I stand in the way of her election?”
+
+At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she was not
+of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a whole lot by making
+her join our Theta Sorority at once and not hold back any longer because
+you have not been invited to join also.”
+
+There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine.
+“Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls
+tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I
+thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the
+matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make
+me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class
+president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays
+out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
+sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”
+
+Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly
+for her either to add to it or to contradict.
+
+“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what
+I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very
+sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a
+student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I
+could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth
+Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
+of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much
+because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West
+these things do not count to so great an extent.”
+
+To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this
+proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive
+seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she
+had no part.
+
+But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
+attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in
+times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because
+Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride,
+but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses
+itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated
+with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with
+dignity and in silence.
+
+Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes
+quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of
+color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank
+you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did
+not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness
+and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I
+surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this
+before.”
+
+And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult,
+though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had
+intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion
+across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not
+angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an
+apology.
+
+“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must
+not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place
+so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply
+don’t know what I should do!”
+
+And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home,
+walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a
+characteristic of her training.
+
+Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to
+keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a
+brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose
+Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in
+their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever
+unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to
+breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first
+intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
+for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her
+allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been
+too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And
+at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive
+to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And
+as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned
+that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
+Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.
+
+    “Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater
+      than herself,
+    Too noble for this place.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
+
+
+Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking for Jean,
+for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the school than she was
+seen talking with a group of friends.
+
+“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had been out
+together for a walk and grateful for what she thought Gerry’s
+friendliness to Olive.
+
+Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed by the
+presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room, Jean,” she begged,
+“for Gerry and I have something to talk to you about that must be
+decided at once.”
+
+It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought a little
+impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name in speaking to
+Jean and plainly wished her to be present at their coming interview, for
+there was, of course, a possibility that Jean might be a good deal vexed
+at her interference. But as Jean left her other friends immediately,
+slipping one arm through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and
+propelling them as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was
+there for Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?
+
+“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston, that you
+wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as they reached their
+own door, “kindly remember that three heads are better than one, even if
+one is a dunce’s head, else I should never have allowed Geraldine
+Ferrows to be present at our council.” And giving each of the girls an
+added shove, the three of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.
+
+Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before their open
+fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large open box of flowers on
+her lap, with her cheeks a good deal flushed, possibly from the heat of
+the fire.
+
+“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of your
+apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to have a present
+for you sent through my care and it seemed to me that the surest way to
+find you was to wait at your own hearthstone until you chose to appear.”
+While Jessica was speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward
+Jean and Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me
+asking me to see that you get them.”
+
+With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great box,
+which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its fragrances.
+
+“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,” Jean
+exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t Frieda be
+homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even if she is so
+enraptured with boarding school that she hardly talks of home any more?”
+
+While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers from the
+box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate bouquet, wrapped in
+white paper and bearing a card with a name inscribed upon it.
+
+“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive announced,
+trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and Jean both guessed
+at once that the gift of the large box of flowers to them had been made
+largely in order to include the smaller offering inside it.
+
+Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete indifference, took
+the flowers; they were lilies of the valley encircled with violets and
+it was difficult for any girl to conceal her delight in them.
+
+Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a dangerously demure
+look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you
+have known our Mr. Drummond? You see, we are awfully fond of him and he
+has been very good to all of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have
+wondered if he could think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive
+and I think you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
+that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very kind. Can’t
+you tell us something more?”
+
+Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can tell you
+about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any importance. Just that
+he is rich and good looking and kind. He is so rich that he has never
+done anything or been anything else, and I have known him a great many
+years, since I was a small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live
+near one another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
+some of our money.”
+
+“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a good
+deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there are lots of
+people who are not one of those three things.”
+
+And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the moment,
+Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she returned, “but I
+am afraid that I want a man to be more and to mean more in this world
+than just that.” She was about to leave the room when Olive put her hand
+on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica, Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but
+I so often think of you as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to
+Jean about something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
+sensibly.”
+
+Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now that it
+was important, else she would not have called in so many persons to her
+assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming up to her friend placed
+one hand on each of her shoulders, looking closely with her own
+autumn-toned brown eyes into her friend’s darker ones.
+
+“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish me to do
+that requires so much persuasion?”
+
+And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
+shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
+illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we fall.”
+
+“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.
+
+Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the first that
+you were going to ask me something I could not grant,” Jean returned
+plaintively. “Has any one in this world ever heard of a goose who chose
+to be one?”
+
+Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too intense
+for interruption. Without allowing Jean another opportunity for a
+moment’s speech she began her request, imploring her to join the Theta
+Society at once and not to put it off a day longer than necessary. “For
+how, dear, can you do me the least good by not belonging when the girls
+want you so much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
+Junior election,” she ended.
+
+“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a member of
+the Theta Society and that my chance for the presidency will be
+influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired angrily, although she did not
+glance toward any one for her answer save Olive.
+
+But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she feel in
+any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now she moved quietly
+forward.
+
+“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with me, but I
+have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of me I cannot see
+how it will hurt Olive for you to join the Thetas without her and it
+will hurt you very much in your election if you don’t. Olive is not
+going to be invited to become a member if you stay out and you may lose
+the class presidency if you are so obstinate.”
+
+Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that Gerry is
+perfectly right and that there is no other way of looking at this
+matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my heart if she does not,
+and I can’t see a bit of sense in her position.”
+
+“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say anything
+at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about this whole
+business.”
+
+A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward Gerry.
+
+“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because of
+course I know you are being good as gold to me and only acting for what
+you believe to be my good, but I don’t think either you or Olive in the
+least understand my position. I am not staying out of the Theta Society
+for Olive’s sake; I am staying out for my own.”
+
+“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.
+
+“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to
+think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would be (leaving me
+out of the case entirely) if that girl should win out in a big matter
+like a class election by turning her back on her best friend and more
+than her friend, her almost sister. And you, Olive, suppose you had no
+part in this business at all, or suppose you and I had changed places,
+what would you think of a girl who would say to another group of girls,
+‘Yes, thank you, I am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to
+enjoy your superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
+and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with you?’ I,
+of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a traitor if you
+will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown eyes were flashing and
+her face was pale, yet she laughed a little at her own fierceness.
+
+“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just this
+thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on, “and I argued
+it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt Olive by joining the
+Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself that such an action would not
+hurt me. See here, dear,” and Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling
+as she spoke again directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to
+forget our friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for
+wouldn’t you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
+me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day time
+and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was? No, sir-ee,”
+and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude, pretending to slip her
+fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the words of that famous
+gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick Henry, or Daniel Webster, I
+can’t remember, ‘I would rather be right than President!’”
+
+“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I take off my
+hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this question any further
+with Jean, for she has just said something that we all know to be a
+fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any
+man.’”
+
+Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like an
+embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right, Jean,” she
+conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are if you feel as you
+say you do, so I shall not try to make you change your opinion.”
+
+But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in the
+center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good, but I don’t
+care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself in the
+way you are doing for me. I must find out how to prevent it and I warn
+you now that I shall write to Jack and have her ask you to change your
+mind.”
+
+Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow to be a
+poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t let us talk about
+this tedious subject any longer and do let us put the kettle on and all
+take tea, for I have talked so much I am nearly dying of thirst.”
+
+Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch girls
+getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for just such
+occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was said until they
+were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then Jean turned to Olive.
+
+“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t hurt your
+feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us it seems to me
+the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have known for some time
+that there has been some gossip about Olive going the rounds of the
+school, but we have never known who started it nor just what the story
+is. Would you mind telling us?”
+
+Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face showing
+nervousness and discomfort.
+
+“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are and that
+we ranch girls found her several years ago with an Indian woman and that
+she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean continued inexorably.
+
+Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally through the
+Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”
+
+“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her questioner
+continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her saucer, “Yes, that is
+all.”
+
+“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they have heard
+is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was trying to speak
+calmly. “I can see now that we have made a mistake; it would have been
+better if we had been perfectly candid about Olive’s past from the
+first. There never has been a minute when we would have minded telling
+it, if any one of the girls had come and asked us, but lately I have
+thought that some extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive
+and joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any human
+beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose Hall girls have
+been to Olive, unless they had been told something perfectly dreadful
+about her. Well, I don’t think I care a snap about being class president
+of such a set of girls,” Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her
+guests. “Olive Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than
+I am, but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
+promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good red Indian
+blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood that must run in the
+veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry, dear, I do beg your pardon
+and of course I don’t mean you, but if I hadn’t been allowed to speak
+this out loud, I should certainly have exploded.”
+
+Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the snobs, too,
+Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will forgive me and make
+up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”
+
+Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure, clothed in
+a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace, with yellow hair
+piled high on its head, entered the room. “What on earth is Jean
+preaching about?” the voice of no other person than the youngest Miss
+Ralston inquired. “I have just been across the hall with Mollie and Lucy
+Johnson and I declare she has been talking steadily for an hour.”
+
+Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean could
+only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she gotten so
+marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage affair. But at this
+instant, beholding the violets, Frieda, forgetting her grown-up manner
+for a moment, jumped at them. “Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said
+like the small girl who once had taken care of her own violet beds at
+The Rainbow Lodge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE DANGER OF WEALTH
+
+
+The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been somewhat
+happier and certainly a great deal better off in many respects could she
+now have turned back the pages of her existence for a few months and
+been again that same little yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of
+every man, woman and child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow
+Ranch, for Frieda had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that
+is of a serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
+much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.
+
+After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk gown and
+velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for beautiful clothes
+awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a Western ranch girl and had
+never dreamed of such splendors as the New York shops afforded, neither
+did she have any very clear idea of the real value of money. Because
+gold had been discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her
+fifty dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
+wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very dangerous
+habit of buying whatever she wished without considering the cost, and
+the way she managed to do this was by making bills!
+
+Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to go into
+town for every little purchase it became necessary for them to make,
+Ruth had opened a charge account for the three ranch girls at one of the
+best of the New York shops, but the bills were expected to be sent to
+the girls and to be paid out of their allowances. Jean and Olive had
+made only a few necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it,
+Frieda had lately been buying with utter recklessness.
+
+Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other two
+ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had arrived that
+very afternoon and been delivered in the care of Mollie Johnson. Hanging
+up in Mollie’s closet at the same instant was an equally charming
+garment, almost of the same kind as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and
+but lately presented by Frieda to her best friend.
+
+So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the letter
+of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose Hall, she was
+certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she had broken her
+promise altogether on the afternoon when she and Mollie had been alone
+together, while Olive and Jean were drinking tea at “The Towers.”
+
+Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from it. The
+story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For Frieda
+naturally began the conversation with her friend by telling her that
+Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the Harmons, and then that they had
+learned to know the Harmons because they had rented their ranch to them
+the summer before. From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to
+the Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
+coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to buy the
+Rainbow Mine.
+
+When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly, but it
+was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s eyes had grown
+wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at her words. “Why, Frieda
+Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once, “you don’t mean to tell me that
+you are an heiress as well as everything else that is interesting! Why,
+you have let me think that you were poor before, though I have wondered
+sometimes about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell
+me whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”
+
+To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began her
+very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once both sorry and
+frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began; “that is, I don’t see
+any sense in its being, but I have promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew
+not to talk about our money at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have
+our friends just know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine.
+Do you see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”
+
+Earnestly Mollie shook her head.
+
+“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,” Frieda
+conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning to, I am glad,
+for I do just want to talk about it with somebody and you are my dearest
+friend and I wish you to know everything about me.”
+
+Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the nice
+things about her, for it really is not our faults that we long to pour
+into the ears of our friends.
+
+The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold for the
+past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and rested her chin on
+her hands. “Want me to tell you every single thing about our mine?” she
+demanded. “It is quite like a fairy story.”
+
+And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not Mollie
+Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a mine.
+
+“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you wish you
+may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising everything and making
+all the mystic signs necessary to eternal secrecy, Mollie then had
+listened to the unfolding of the fairy tale.
+
+Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale, but she
+had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine produced than a
+baby, and of course with the telling of her tale the size of the nuggets
+that Jim was getting out of the mine each week naturally grew.
+
+“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we simply don’t
+know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the ranch, who now looks
+after our mine, says you never can tell at first how much a mine may
+yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires some day.”
+
+The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s vocabulary,
+which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall, but certainly it
+had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.
+
+“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed, “and I
+do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than most anybody I
+should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my father is just a lawyer in
+Richmond and while we have a pretty house and all that, why we have some
+other brothers and sisters, and father says all he can afford to do is
+to let Lucy and me have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give
+us money for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
+make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your lovely
+things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into curls the ends of
+her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at her with an even increased
+admiration.
+
+Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on the
+youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the question with
+Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and rushing to her desk
+indited a letter to a New York firm asking that the two kimonos be sent
+her at once with slippers and stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie
+was just too sweet and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted
+sisters and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
+went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of writing her
+letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s feet, but all that
+she could do more was to invite her to come into town the next week to
+be her guest at the matinee and lunch and to help her make a few more
+purchases.
+
+For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check had, and so
+for the time being, like many another person, she felt fairly well off,
+although her allowance for the past two months had melted away like wax
+without her being able to pay back a single cent of the money to either
+Jean or Olive, which they had advanced to help with her first
+extravagance, the blue silk dress and velvet coat.
+
+One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a good deal
+more money at their disposal than Frieda had at present, is the way that
+five-dollar bills have of disappearing in New York City. So by the time
+Frieda had paid for three tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of
+course compelled to bring a chaperon into town with them, and three
+lunches at a fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money
+left out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
+charging on her account, in order to get the few more things that she
+and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the visit in
+Richmond toward the close of December.
+
+On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train and
+feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent this extra
+money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts until January, and what
+with Christmas coming, there would be so many presents for others that
+she would wish to buy! So once Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving
+her a hug, demanded to know what worried her, she would not say. For how
+confess that money matters were worrying her but a few days after the
+time when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
+Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at Christmas time,
+if they should consent to let her make the trip south, and out of this
+amount she would certainly save enough to pay her bills, without having
+to confess her extravagances. For Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would
+both be angry and ashamed of her for breaking her promise and for buying
+things which she did not really need.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ELECTION DAY
+
+
+The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class had
+arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three o’clock until
+six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne would remain in the
+library at Primrose Hall watching over the ballot box. Immediately after
+six the box would be opened, the ballots counted and the choice of the
+Juniors announced.
+
+For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant days and
+the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now and then in the
+past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the shore waters of the
+Hudson River would then be trimmed with a fine fringe of ice. Once the
+election was over the Primrose Hall students would be making plans for
+the Christmas holidays, but until then nothing else, not even home and
+family, appeared of so great importance.
+
+Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had gone
+astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s cause. Indeed,
+like many another brave campaigner, she had only worked the harder,
+rallying Jean’s friends closer around her, exhorting her enemies and
+trying to persuade the girls on the fence that there was no real point
+in their antagonism toward Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made
+she had had an able lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted
+friend.
+
+For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that unless
+her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of the character
+she had already established among them, nothing she could do or say at
+this late day should influence them. And Jean had also never wavered
+from the attitude she had taken in regard to Olive on the afternoon of
+their final discussion of the subject. She had not needed that her
+resolution be strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and
+Jack Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
+her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that Jean be
+persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the reply she hoped
+for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically declared Jean’s position the
+only possible one.
+
+All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had been
+conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever their presence in
+one of the class rooms made it possible. Her expression was so wistful
+and apologetic that Jean began to care more for her own success on
+Olive’s account than her own. So as soon as luncheon was over and three
+o’clock had come around, slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s,
+she drew her along the hall toward the library door.
+
+“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let us go
+upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over. Then Gerry and
+Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a really high-minded
+person I suppose I should now vote for my rival, Miss Graham, but as I
+can’t bring myself up to that point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper
+for old Gerry.”
+
+Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their own
+sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign outside
+announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both ranch girls
+were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was plainly the more
+affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in a perfectly natural
+fashion, she was pale and silent and oftentimes on the verge of tears.
+
+The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the bare
+upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of the earth.
+
+“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the writing
+table before one of their windows, “why should you behave as though the
+question of my election was the only important thing in the world. On a
+day like this I only feel desperately homesick for Jack and the old
+ranch. What wouldn’t I give if we were all there to-day and just
+starting out on a long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about
+never seeing Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to
+Jim and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
+time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated Ralph
+rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have only written
+twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really coming east to see how
+Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will hate to see Ruth again or like
+it? One never can tell about a person in love.”
+
+Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the Rainbow
+Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no sooner had she
+put her pen to the paper than apparently all worry and suspense left her
+and she scratched away rapidly and clearly for several hours.
+
+But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she kept up
+such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room that at any other
+time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded. First she tried studying
+her Shakespeare, since she was making a special effort to succeed in the
+Shakespeare class, and before coming east to school had read only a few
+plays with Ruth and the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge.
+But not the most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy
+by William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea that
+engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to read, she flung
+her book down on the floor, saying petulantly: “Tiresome stuff! I wonder
+what ever made me think for an instant I could stand any chance of
+getting the Shakespeare prize?”
+
+Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us thought
+you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you dearly love to
+read and study at most times. But why don’t you go out for a walk, you
+can find Frieda somewhere around downstairs and make her go with you. I
+don’t want to.”
+
+“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a good deal
+more temper than usual with her, and flying into her own room, she
+banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for some occupation, she
+came across a piece of sewing which she had once started at the Lodge,
+some white silk cut in the shape of a round cap to be covered over with
+small white pearl beads.
+
+Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low stool
+by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would have a more
+soothing influence upon her than reading for the two more hours that had
+somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing on this occasion was more
+distracting than reading, for very soon Olive’s fingers worked
+automatically while her brain began to concern itself with interesting
+and puzzling ideas. The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose
+Hall had not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
+we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of and to
+ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led such eventful
+lives.
+
+After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation later with
+Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books in the school
+library that she could find, which might help her explain the curious
+experience—confided to no one—through which she had passed that
+afternoon. But it was not just this one experience that had puzzled and
+worried Olive, for many strange fancies, impressions, memories, she knew
+not what to call them, had been drifting into her mind since her first
+sight of that white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival
+at Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything that
+was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe that she could
+recall dim ideas and events having no connection with the years she had
+spent in the Indian tent with old Laska. But why had these far-off
+memories not assailed her in the two years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps
+then the recollection of Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her
+with such an odd mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people
+about her whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent
+in her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
+associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was impossible, for
+Olive felt sure that she had never been east before in her life.
+
+Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last six.
+
+Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly folding
+up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective envelopes. She
+looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but composed. At last she got up
+from her chair and crossing the floor knelt down in front of Olive,
+taking the piece of sewing from her cold fingers.
+
+“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill
+from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our
+sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next
+hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have
+really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an
+hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been
+thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet
+look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply
+disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion.
+“Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
+have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think
+that you have had anything to do with my failure.”
+
+Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know
+perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide
+the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were
+strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward
+their door.
+
+Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do
+with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president
+nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”
+
+The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean
+tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had
+not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing
+about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming
+down the hall.”
+
+As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
+appeared to interrupt them.
+
+“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because
+it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and
+Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few
+ballots of the Junior class.”
+
+However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall
+approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.
+
+It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean
+waited calmly in the center of the room.
+
+Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie
+Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the
+truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a
+farm clasp of Olive’s hand.
+
+“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CONGRATULATIONS
+
+
+By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping bitterly in
+Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on the back. Gerry looked
+utterly exhausted, her hair was in a perfect tumble and a smut
+ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda had turned toward the wall and Lucy
+and Mollie Johnson each had an arm about her.
+
+“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but Olive
+simply would not accept what her eyes had already told her.
+
+“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
+entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.
+
+“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior class at
+Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced stoically, and then
+there was a sudden sound of weeping from all parts of the sitting room.
+
+“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,” Jean
+insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene. “Margaret dear,
+you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of course, I am sorry not to
+have been elected, but I’m not disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately
+that I could be. And please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean
+kissed Margaret and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.
+
+“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease to be
+grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let us show the
+girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow. Please everybody stop
+crying at once and come on with me to shake hands and offer my
+congratulations to Winifred Graham. Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the
+next time she beheld us we should all appear to have been washed away in
+tears? The first person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a
+five-pound box of candy from me in the morning.”
+
+Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not learn the
+bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had an immediate
+effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and Margaret. Both girls
+stiffened up at once.
+
+“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it will
+never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior class just
+because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of the girls did vote
+for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely, why Winifred Graham and her
+set can’t crow over us half so much as if we show our chagrin.”
+
+Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s crowing
+that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.
+
+“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations to
+Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking point. For my
+part I would rather do my duty and remember my manners without delay.”
+
+And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would follow
+her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that Olive was
+missing and going back called out softly: “Come on, Olive, and help us
+congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us show an ugly spirit now,
+would you?”
+
+But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means sure how
+Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she forbore to insist
+on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be disagreeable under the
+present circumstances Jean was not perfectly sure of being able to keep
+cool; and of all things she must not show temper at the present moment.
+Besides, her few minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of
+the girls to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
+Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of the
+election. After a first moment of breaking down she had entirely
+regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at seeing her so
+sensible.
+
+One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure and an
+entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing perfectly still. Had
+Jean been pleased because she had accepted her failure so sensibly?
+Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken simply because she could not trust
+herself to speak. She had not cried, because in the first moments of
+humiliation and regret, there are but few people who can at once summon
+tears. Of course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
+view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated herself,
+she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and this last blow had
+come to her after months of coldness and neglect on the part of her
+classmates, which she had borne bravely and in silence. Now Olive was
+through with courage and with silence.
+
+At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for the
+relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung herself face
+downward on the bed, giving herself up to the luxury of this weakness.
+When she arose her face wore a look of unusual determination. Whatever
+her fight, it was ended now. First she walked over to her bureau and
+there unlocking a small iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which
+all who have followed her history, know to be the single possession she
+had rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for the
+last time.
+
+The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before beginning the
+letter she plainly intended writing, she picked them up one by one,
+looking at them closely, the silver cross and chain worn on the evening
+of the dance, the small book only a few inches in size, and the watch
+with the picture of a woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the
+ranch girls had always believed to look like Olive.
+
+At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this also was
+laid aside for the work she had in mind.
+
+“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):
+
+“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a student
+at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this news and if Jack
+is too ill to be worried, please do not mention this to her. I have
+tried very hard to bear my difficulties here and truly I would have gone
+on without complaining, for I can live without the friendship of other
+girls so long as you and the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot
+bear is to be a drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as
+I do here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot go
+back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do now and am
+able to teach them. Can I not go to some little school where the girls
+will not care so much about my past? But if you are not willing for me
+to do this, and I know how little I am worthy of all you and the ranch
+girls have done for me, you must not mind if I find some work to do, so
+that I can make my living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no
+longer at Primrose Hall.
+
+“With all love, OLIVE.”
+
+And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and aching,
+rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms. When she lifted
+it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine Winthrop was standing only
+a few feet away.
+
+“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must have
+failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to talk to you.”
+
+The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion seemed
+always to know, almost before it happened, every event that transpired
+at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to it, was well recognized by
+her pupils. So of course she now knew not only that Winifred Graham had
+been elected to the Junior Class presidency, but the particular reason
+why Jean had been defeated.
+
+“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss Winthrop,”
+Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying to disguise the
+truth. “I know you think it very foolish and stupid of me.”
+
+Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl to a
+stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually discourage tears,”
+she answered with a half smile; “at least, I know my girls think I am
+very unsympathetic about them. But I suppose now and then we women are
+just obliged to weep, being made that way. What I want to talk to you
+about is Jean’s defeat at the election this afternoon. You feel
+responsible for it, don’t you?”
+
+Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings, as
+apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her head.
+
+“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just written
+asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall because of what has
+happened.”
+
+Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an instant
+toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she could not have
+seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared, almost gasped. “How could
+you know, Miss Winthrop?”
+
+Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that it seemed
+to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t know about your
+letter, dear, I only guessed that after the experience you have passed
+through this afternoon, with what has gone before, you were almost sure
+to have written it. And I want to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”
+
+Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my mind,”
+she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now I am quite
+determined.”
+
+A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as though she
+were not speaking directly to the girl before her, Miss Winthrop went
+on. “I believe there are but three types of people in this world, be
+they men or women, that I cannot endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob.
+Unfortunately I have discovered that there are among the girls here in
+my school a good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to
+me and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am very
+sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the weakness, the
+ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you help me, if though
+not a snob, you are one or both of the other two things I have
+mentioned?”
+
+“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at the older
+woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that no others could
+express her meaning so forcibly.
+
+“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the sake of
+Jean and Frieda,” she defended.
+
+“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if you
+think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You feel you
+have endured the slights and coldness of your classmates without
+flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like the hurt that comes to you
+with the feeling that your presence in the school is reflecting on
+Frieda and Jean. They do not wish you to go away, Olive, they will be
+deeply sorry if you do and whatever harm you may think you have done
+them has already been done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away
+from Primrose Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings,
+because your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
+at last!”
+
+Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from her
+listener.
+
+For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed no
+further influence from the outside. By and by she put her small hand on
+Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she replied. “I believe I
+_have_ been thinking all this time about myself without knowing it, You
+made me think of Jack when you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they
+are the kind of words she would have been apt to use.”
+
+Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too, Olive, and
+I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe I learned those two
+words and what they stood for from a boy friend of mine long years ago.
+Now I want to talk to you about yourself.” The woman leaned over, and
+putting her two fingers under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted
+her head back so that she could see in sharp outline every feature of
+the girl’s face.
+
+“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to Primrose
+Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious story, of their
+finding you with an old Indian woman with whom you had apparently lived
+a great many years. I believe that the woman claimed you as her
+daughter, but though no one believed her, your Western friends have
+never made any investigation about your past, fearing that this Indian
+woman might again appear to claim you.”
+
+“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.
+
+“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very many people
+in it and since the idea that you are an Indian worries you so much, I
+want to assure you I do not believe for a moment you have a trace of
+Indian blood in you. Except that you have black hair and your skin is a
+little darker than Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to
+carry a remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
+are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is too
+absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about yourself and if you
+would like me to try to find out something of your history. Perhaps I
+might know better how to go about it than your Western friends.”
+
+For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with the
+sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all I have of my
+own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss Winthrop’s lap and then
+tearing up the letter just written to Ruth, before sitting down again on
+her stool near the older woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss
+Winthrop’s hand, saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can
+recall about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come to
+me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life, whom I
+must have known long before old Laska and the Indian days.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
+
+
+Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and keep back
+nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I will not
+understand. Whoever your father and mother may have been, you certainly
+have ancestors of whom you need not be ashamed.”
+
+Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her eyes on
+the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story of the Indian
+village and of Laska and how she could not recall a time when she had
+not spoken English as white people speak it, then of her years at the
+Government school for Indians taught by a white woman, who had always
+been her friend and assured her that she was not of the same race as the
+Indian children about her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the
+ornaments in the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story,
+Miss Winthrop had not yet examined.
+
+Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the years she
+had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old Laska in the mail
+each month a certain sum of money, large enough to keep her and her son
+in greater wealth and idleness than any of the other Indians in the
+village enjoyed. But from what place this money had come nor who had
+sent it Olive did not know, and so to her this fact did not seem of
+great value, although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on
+hearing it.
+
+“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?” she
+demanded.
+
+Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when puzzled, the
+girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she said slowly. “How
+strange and stupid of me never to have thought of this before! The
+postmark was New York! But New York meant nothing to me in those days,
+Miss Winthrop, except just a name on a map at school. You cannot guess
+how strange and ignorant I was until the ranch girls found me and began
+teaching me a few things that were not to be found in school books. But
+no one could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
+been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have always hoped.
+Laska must have received it for some other reason.” And then Olive,
+either from weariness or disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not
+as though she had told all that she knew, but because she could not
+quite make up her mind to go on.
+
+A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
+
+“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it. But
+this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have told to
+other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon, Miss Drew. What I
+most wish you to confide to me are the ideas and impressions of the
+years when you may not always have lived in the Indian village.”
+
+Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that I have
+had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can confide even to
+you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be possible that a human
+being can remember things at one time of their life and not have known
+them always? Why, since my arrival at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall
+impressions that I did not have at the Rainbow Ranch?”
+
+The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over the
+question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I believe I can
+in a measure understand this problem that troubles you. Half the
+memories that we have in the world come through association. It is the
+sight of an object that recalls something in our past which brings that
+past back to us. Now when you were living at the Rainbow Ranch the
+memory of your life with Laska, the fear that she might take you away
+from your friends, was so close to you that you thought of little else.
+But now you are in an entirely different place, the fear of the woman
+has gone from you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
+associations should bring to life new memories. What is there that you
+have been recalling in these past few months?”
+
+And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she murmured at
+last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I have seen the big,
+white house where Madame Van Mater lives at some time before. Of course,
+I know I have not seen it, for I have never been in this part of the
+world before. But the other day, standing at the window, I suddenly
+remembered a description of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have
+read and learned long years ago, though I never thought of it until that
+moment.”
+
+Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by reason
+of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted quietly. “Can you
+recall anything more about the house and do you think that you ever saw
+Madame Van Mater before the other day?” The strange note in her
+questioner’s voice was lost upon the girl at her feet.
+
+“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like her,”
+Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house did not seem
+familiar, only the outside and the tower room and those ridiculous iron
+dogs guarding the front door. But I want to tell you something that
+seems to me important—of course, my impression about Madame Van Mater’s
+home is sheer madness. What I really can remember is this—” Olive
+stopped for a moment as though trying to be very careful of only telling
+the truth. “I remember that when I was a very little girl I must have
+traveled about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not
+think I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately I
+have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s eyes, turned
+toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope. “He must have been
+very tall, or at least he seemed so to me then, and I went about with
+him everywhere. Finally we came to a place where we stayed a much longer
+time and there Laska first must have come to take care of us. I think
+now that my father must have died in that place, for I can not remember
+anything more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
+Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I perfectly
+certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss Winthrop had not
+spoken and supposing therefore that she considered her idle fancies of
+little account.
+
+The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair, her hand
+shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the expression of
+her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the hearing of her pupil’s
+strange story, she did not now mean to reveal.
+
+“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and surely
+very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting but little
+faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any possible
+connection between your travels in the West as a little child and your
+idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The Towers.’ But there is
+one person who can tell us something of your early history without
+doubt—and that person is this woman Laska! She kept you with her all
+those years for money and probably pretends that you are with her still,
+so that she continues to receive the same money each month, else she
+would have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love of
+money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an offer of
+more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of this, Olive dear,
+to any one in the world at present, but I will write to your old teacher
+at the Government school in the Indian village and perhaps through her
+aid we may reach this Laska.”
+
+Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in the face
+of so great interest and kindness would have been too inadequate. What
+could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now looking at her few
+treasures in the sandalwood box.
+
+“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it slip
+through her fingers as once more she examined its curious workmanship,
+“but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish and is a Spanish
+prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss Winthrop put her hand under
+Olive’s chin, studying the unusual outline of her face. “I wonder if you
+are a Spanish girl, child, for that would explain why you are darker
+than most Americans and why you have so foreign an appearance?”
+
+Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it to her
+friend’s gaze.
+
+Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began turning the
+watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so deeply interested in
+the photograph as in the watch itself. “This watch was sold here in New
+York, Olive, and I have seen one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice
+trembled a little and she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of
+this any more this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to
+ask you to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
+them more closely.”
+
+And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+NEW YEAR’S EVE
+
+
+Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and Miss
+Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the Christmas holidays
+at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For twelve days, save for Olive
+and its owner, the great house had been empty of all its other pupils
+and teachers; now in another thirty-six hours they would be returning to
+take up their work again.
+
+The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean and
+gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap and
+Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson sisters. The ranch girls
+had not wished to leave Olive alone and each one of them had offered to
+remain at school with her, but this sacrifice could hardly be accepted
+because Olive had made no friends who had wished her to be with them.
+Jessica Hunt would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she
+had no home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
+babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their common
+disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these Invitations
+Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared for in a trip to
+New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and this privilege was still
+denied the ranch girls.
+
+Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left alone at
+Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion during the
+holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see what arrangements
+could be made for her pleasure. However, after a serious half hour’s
+talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter consultation with Olive, she had
+gone away again content to leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands
+than her own.
+
+And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for Olive, yet
+they had never been dull, for each moment she was hoping and praying to
+hear some news from old Laska and each hour being drawn into closer
+intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For now that the discipline of school life
+had been relaxed, the principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her
+favorite pupil in a light that would have surprised most of her
+students. She was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive
+with an affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
+private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl would sit
+close together under the shadow of “The Winged Victory,” reading aloud
+or talking of the great world of men and cities about which Miss
+Winthrop knew so much and Olive so little. But of the secret of the
+girl’s past her new friend did not encourage her to talk for the
+present.
+
+“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for us not
+to go into this subject again until we hear from the Indian woman, and
+then should she fail us, I must try to think of some other plan to help
+you.”
+
+And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under every
+human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska, though it was
+now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had been alone all morning
+and unusually depressed, for although she had not heard what she so
+eagerly waited to hear, she had learned that the surgeons had at last
+decided an operation must be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her
+that there was supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s
+spine that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
+operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had insisted
+that it should be tried.
+
+The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of Sleepy
+Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its Indian summer
+mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that she might brace up,
+for certainly she did not intend to let Frieda and Jean find her in the
+dumps on their return from their holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably
+go out with her, as she had been attending to school matters all
+morning, seeing that the house was made ready for the return of her
+students, and Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had
+eaten lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.
+
+While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend she
+herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to find her in
+the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in the library, nor in
+the drawing rooms, could she be found and by and by the maid came back
+to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had gone out and would probably not
+return till tea time. She had left word that Olive must not be lonely
+and that she must entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive
+knew of but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
+would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were no
+longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly familiar
+with the nearby neighborhood.
+
+Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s Christmas
+present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they might have their
+Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given Olive a brown fur coat and
+cap. Olive had not worn them before, but now, with the snow falling and
+the thought of Jack in her mind, she put them both on. For a minute she
+glanced at herself in her mirror before leaving the house and though her
+vanity was less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
+pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her new
+furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people. The soft
+brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness of her hair and
+in her olive cheeks there was a bright color which grew brighter the
+longer and faster she trudged through the lightly falling snow.
+
+Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken for her
+walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a visit to Madame Van
+Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on the old lady every few days
+and knew Olive’s dislike to accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been
+inside “The Towers” nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit
+there. But now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
+her friend returning toward home.
+
+The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity of
+Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because the trees
+had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and were covered only
+with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No man or woman who has
+lived a great deal out of doors in their youth fails to draw new
+strength and cheerfulness from the air and sunshine, and Olive, who had
+left school thinking only that Jack’s operation might not be successful
+and of the pain her friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the
+beautiful possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
+the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some day not
+too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she would never
+hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably dead or had
+disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now with her blood
+running quickly in her veins from the cold and the snow, she determined
+if Laska failed her to go west the next summer and try to trace out her
+ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop, Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew
+stood ready to help her in anything she might undertake.
+
+“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare of
+relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the opening where
+she could catch the first glimpse of the big white house. “I wish Miss
+Winthrop would come along out of there,” she said aloud after waiting a
+minute and finding that standing still made her shiver in spite of her
+furs. “I wonder why I can’t get up the courage to march up to that front
+door past those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
+don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little late,
+Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back alone. Besides,
+I want to walk with her.”
+
+Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very true and
+deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss Winthrop, she cared
+for her with all her heart.
+
+Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and looking up
+toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to recall her own
+foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction to it. There was no one
+about in the front of the house, not a servant nor a caller. For a
+moment Olive stopped, smiling, by one of the big iron dogs that seemed
+to guard the entrance to the old place. She brushed off a little snow
+from the head of one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly
+of me to think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
+Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to be
+brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow from the
+statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have only heard about
+you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I have been told about it
+until I felt almost as if I had seen it,” she announced with greater
+conviction in her tones than she had ever used before, even to herself,
+in trying to recall the confused impressions of her childhood.
+
+But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house and
+ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the door was
+suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss Winthrop stepped
+with an expression on her face no one had ever seen it wear before—one
+of surprise and wonder, anger and pleasure.
+
+“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find the
+girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to Madame Van
+Mater. We have something to tell you.”
+
+[Illustration: “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO
+ME.”]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
+
+
+In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of
+Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently
+waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically
+arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger
+girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.
+
+“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,”
+she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former
+occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old
+lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost
+unconscious antagonism, their glances met.
+
+“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine
+Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said
+coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I
+feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see
+the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And
+possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now
+picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
+strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and
+Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your
+connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as
+possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has
+ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”
+
+Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about
+and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped
+into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.
+
+“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed.
+“Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the
+granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to
+explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an
+only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had
+died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son.
+She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and
+that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
+by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of
+the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to
+me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while
+for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother
+and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the
+stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and
+even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
+their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as
+your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this
+part of the country to the far west and there after several years we
+learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after
+her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that
+they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always
+known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
+paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that
+Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes
+it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now
+paused for a moment.
+
+Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish
+to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my
+mother a lady?” she asked quietly.
+
+“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.
+
+“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this
+house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really
+believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at
+the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of
+Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that
+Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own
+I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy
+on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked
+you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she
+questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.
+
+Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to
+school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay
+here any longer at present.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking
+home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of
+Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers”
+and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and
+confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.
+
+“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and
+over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the
+queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has
+always been intended that you should some day know your own people and
+for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very
+neighborhood.”
+
+After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my
+grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one
+another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might
+have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I
+give up them.”
+
+There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
+“I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in
+the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother
+did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at
+Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my
+pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now
+I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me
+be her friend.”
+
+“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one
+save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of
+trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.
+
+In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with
+her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing
+to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery
+of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it
+better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the
+same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she
+set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at
+the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed
+very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender
+certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry
+dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an
+entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared
+for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
+existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was
+being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of
+Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and
+learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could
+have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really
+believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to
+Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s
+first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
+However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at
+rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her
+mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance
+to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon.
+Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied
+Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she
+believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have
+had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive
+the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?
+
+In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to
+Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van
+Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant
+this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being
+brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as
+Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of
+twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her.
+She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
+she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as
+her heiress and the bearer of her name.
+
+By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their
+long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on
+a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a
+fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they
+could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive
+believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s
+description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and
+that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly
+brought the lines back to her recollection.
+
+Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and
+answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying
+with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night.
+She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss
+Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still
+another question she wished to ask.
+
+“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such
+a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her
+picture in my father’s watch.”
+
+Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and
+foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother
+could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I
+heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own
+appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your
+grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress,
+that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is
+that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
+mentioned as long as she lived.”
+
+With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s
+at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
+
+
+In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last chapter
+Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and loneliness and
+gay with the returning of its students now that the holiday season was
+well past.
+
+Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since trains
+at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the school carryall
+would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the steps, sitting in one
+another’s laps. And it happened that in one of these overloaded parties
+Jean and Frieda arrived at Primrose Hall together.
+
+There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such a number
+of students at one time and so much kissing and embracing among some of
+the girls tragically separated from their best chums for two weeks, that
+in the general hubbub Jean and Frieda noticed no special change in
+Olive. If Jean thought at first that she had looked a little tired she
+forgot about it in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell
+of their own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
+one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing of
+forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very little of
+each other without outside friends being present until almost bedtime
+that night.
+
+Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their lights
+were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire, wearing their
+kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at last for the
+confidential talk to which for different reasons they had all been
+looking forward for some time.
+
+A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their door and on
+the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat two large boxes of
+candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving Richmond, Va., and the other
+a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil Belknap in New York.
+
+For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three girls at
+being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once they began
+talking in chorus.
+
+“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I am the
+youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda protested.
+
+Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the first
+chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both of them
+turned their attention full upon her. It was strange, for of course
+Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a southern city fails to
+have—and yet in spite of all her accounts of dances and dinner parties
+and germans given for the school girls in Richmond during the holidays,
+both Jean and Olive noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual,
+but that, if it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of
+worry appeared to pucker her brow.
+
+“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing altogether too
+much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when Frieda had
+triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets received as favors at
+germans at their feet.
+
+But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t either,
+Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt girls to have a
+good time in the holidays if they only study hard and behave themselves
+properly at school.”
+
+“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.
+
+And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired. Why
+should you girls think there is anything the matter with me?” And she
+turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her audience that it became
+silenced. For five, ten minutes afterwards Frieda continued to hold the
+floor, and then in the midst of an account of a party given at the
+Johnson home she had suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on
+the floor, tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am
+tired to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
+don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you haven’t
+anything special to say, just having stayed here at school with Miss
+Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in New York.”
+
+Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly, both the
+older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had even ceased talking
+her eyes had filled with tears.
+
+The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New York City
+was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was several years older
+than her cousin, in New York school girls are never allowed the same
+privileges that they enjoy in the South. But Jean had been to the
+theatre many times and to luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken
+Margaret and Jean and Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap
+had been very nice and she had liked him a little better, though she
+still thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a leading
+question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded her story.
+“There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell everybody when the
+lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not willing to tell now.”
+
+Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping a large
+chocolate into her mouth.
+
+“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away like
+selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have had a
+dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.
+
+Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time; at
+least, not lately.”
+
+Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s lips.
+
+“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and you took
+long walks together and things like that. I believe Miss Winthrop is
+really fond of you, Olive, even more than she is of Jean and me. I
+wonder why?”
+
+At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she thinks
+Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of course you and
+I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I hope, Olive dear, that
+she was good to you.”
+
+And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly flushed
+scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better than any one
+else in the world except you ranch girls,” she replied.
+
+Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression, Jean’s
+own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she have been so
+unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a sudden flash of
+illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something important on your mind
+that you want to tell us. I might have guessed that you have been
+keeping it a secret ever since we returned, letting us chat all this
+nonsense about our visits first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss
+Winthrop wants to adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented,
+or none of us will ever forgive you in this world!”
+
+Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you yet,” she
+murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen different ways of
+starting in the last two days.”
+
+“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda darkly.
+“I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us for having left
+you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas holidays. Of course Miss
+Winthrop decided that we really do not care much for you and for all her
+coldness to the other girls she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just
+crazy about you, Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But
+whether you like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have
+believed that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
+when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.
+
+“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want to tell
+you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with her if you should
+ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I don’t want to live with her
+if you ranch girls want me. I was only trying to explain——”
+
+“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as white and
+shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty in making her
+confession.
+
+“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her accustomed
+voice and manner, “it is only that since you have been away Miss
+Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an Indian girl. I am not
+even a western girl, or at least my father was not a Westerner. You
+remember the day we went to see the Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old
+Madame Van Mater stared at me so strangely and scolded Donald for
+thinking I was like his mother. She did not wish me to look like Mrs.
+Harmon because Mrs. Harmon was my father’s first cousin and——”
+
+“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!” Frieda
+interposed.
+
+And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling the other
+girls the history of her father and of herself as far back as she had
+learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I have told you all at
+once, girls, for it does sound like a miracle or a fable and we never
+would have believed such a story had we read of it in a book. But Miss
+Winthrop says that every day in the real world just such wonderful
+things are happening as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very
+neighborhood where my father used to live and finding my grandmother
+alive. In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
+coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without interruption,
+of course she believed by this time that both Jean and Frieda understood
+the news she had been trying to make plain to them. Frieda had risen to
+a sitting posture and was staring at her with frightened eyes, Jean was
+frowning deeply.
+
+“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said Frieda at the
+same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of the situation the three
+girls giggled hysterically.
+
+“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story over
+again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean had then
+commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole tale again.
+
+Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime hour,
+until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was preceptress of
+their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop had already told her
+something of Olive’s history, she readily allowed the ranch girls a half
+hour’s extra talk. She could not help their lights going out at ten
+o’clock, however, but the ranch girls did not really care. A candle
+under an umbrella makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any
+the wiser!
+
+Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was Olive’s
+strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more devoted to one
+another than they did to-night. They were sitting with their arms about
+one another when Olive jumped up. “Please lend me the candle a minute,”
+she begged unexpectedly, “I have been talking so much about myself that
+I forgot I had some letters for you. They may be important.”
+
+In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped several
+envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if they are
+Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she said carelessly,
+“but if they are letters you had best wait till morning.”
+
+With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and the paper
+enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my goodness gracious,
+what ever am I going to do?” she asked desperately, seeing three large
+black figures staring at her even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in
+all this world and I owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”
+
+The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed. Instead of
+having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas present during her
+Christmas visit she had spent every cent of it. Now, without waiting for
+her to find out what she could do to get the money for her dreadful
+bill, the wretched, unkind shop people had sent it her on the very first
+day of the New Year.
+
+“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I haven’t
+paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight, uncomfortable moment
+of surprise on the part of the other ranch girls, “but what can I do? I
+suppose I have just got to write to Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it
+for me.”
+
+“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean demanded,
+looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of the candle light.
+
+“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.
+
+Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby. What I
+wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is that I became a
+backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent told Gerry and Margaret
+that we were not absolutely paupers. I just had to spend some of the
+money I had saved, the things in New York were so fascinating. So I
+haven’t much left to lend you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth
+says the mine is not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we
+must all be economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
+away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at Primrose
+Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we are not after
+all; gold mines are often uncertain.”
+
+“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda murmured.
+And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh. “Oh, no, it need
+not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured her, “for I have hardly
+spent a cent since coming to Primrose Hall, so I have nearly enough to
+help you out, so you need not worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that
+however much I may dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to
+allow her to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for
+the money that is now hers should _rightfully_ have come to my father
+even though she did not wish him to have it.”
+
+“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean repeated,
+just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a fortune untold,
+Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of gold.’ I used to think she
+meant our mine.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+READJUSTMENTS
+
+
+In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection with the
+wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of psychology would
+have had an interesting opportunity in the study of the changed attitude
+of her schoolmates toward her. In the first place, from being an Indian
+girl of uncertain origin, Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance
+and also there was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress,
+should her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
+the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some portion
+of the old estate. So you see that instead of being looked down upon as
+the most undesirable student at Primrose Hall, the fourth ranch girl had
+suddenly become exalted upon a pedestal, and perhaps it is just as
+deceptive in this world to look up to other people as it is to look down
+upon them, since a fair judgment can only be attained by standing face
+to face.
+
+Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position than she
+had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded as ill breeding,
+was called haughtiness and her classmates stood a little in awe of her.
+The position was indeed a trying one for everybody concerned in it, for
+scarcely could the girls who had been unkind to Olive, now throw
+themselves about her neck begging her forgiveness, simply because so
+unexpected a turn had come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the
+unwise girls did do this, but not those with better judgment and taste,
+for they understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
+greater tact.
+
+Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one could
+be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent snubbing of
+Olive from the first day of her entrance into Primrose Hall, not because
+she liked Olive any better than she had at first, but because Winifred
+only cared for persons who might be useful to her, and now this
+ridiculous Olive with her romantic history, might be very useful indeed.
+The point at issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
+hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the Junior
+students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made before that the
+three girls who stood closest in line for this prize were Winifred,
+Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that Olive would of course
+withdraw from the contest, since she could hardly take a prize presented
+by her own grandmother, but what Winifred feared was that Olive might
+throw the balance of her influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she
+now undertook to show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls
+without offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
+confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their friend,
+was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but there was little
+assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the first place Jessica
+declared immediately that Olive was not to give up her effort to win the
+Shakespeare prize. Jessica had talked the matter over both with Olive
+and Miss Winthrop and they had decided in council that Olive need not
+give up her cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
+Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
+reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have the best
+yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the close of the
+school year and give the best recitation from any one of the Shakespeare
+plays.
+
+Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred had then
+freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards to Olive, but
+though her manner was now entirely friendly, her protest had not the
+least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed, when things had settled down
+into routine again Olive continued to work harder than ever during the
+following winter and spring months. Of course, her position among her
+classmates had altered somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her
+friends as well as a number of other girls who had never been actively
+disagreeable, but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a
+faint pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like one
+another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real antagonism of
+temperament. They exchanged greetings in their class rooms and several
+times Winifred called on the ranch girls, but as her visits were never
+returned, she had to try other methods of softening the hostility her
+own unkindness had created, hoping that before the school year was over
+something would give her a chance to win their liking.
+
+One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from their
+Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and with
+distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their mystic order.
+When finally the invitation, so much discussed, had been extended to the
+two ranch girls they had not known what to do in the matter. Of course,
+they had not wished to show continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s
+advice, had joined the society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty
+club house and the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority
+gave during the rest of the school year.
+
+So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
+Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother were
+still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop had been in
+the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and Frieda, but there were
+times when pilgrimages had to be made alone. Why they had to be made at
+all Olive did not understand, for Madame Van Mater still showed but
+little liking for the granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop
+had surely thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch
+girls it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least fear
+of her and when they had made their first call it was with difficulty
+that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of her mind in regard
+to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van Mater’s age prevented her
+from receiving the scolding and perhaps her manner. For instead Jean
+told her the story of the ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how
+much she had previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well
+as the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly invited
+Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but of their life at
+the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls could be eloquent on the
+subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed the floor and three times in the
+course of the conversation Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud,
+a proceeding most unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her
+hardness and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
+treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her son had
+forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions. But whatever
+her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was forced to continue the
+weekly calls.
+
+One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school matters
+and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of basketball, Olive found
+herself compelled to go alone to see her grandmother. And she was
+particularly vexed over this special visit, as she had wished to join
+the other girls in their game.
+
+Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame Van Mater
+with entire formality in the old drawing room, where they had had their
+two memorable meetings, but to-day she found the drawing room empty and
+while she waited a maid came to say that she was kindly to walk
+upstairs.
+
+Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old drawing
+room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going upstairs found her
+grandmother before an open fire wrapped about with silk shawls and
+comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as high as usual and her
+costume as handsome, but it was plain to see that she was not so well.
+
+“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe cold,” she
+announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with her, never having at
+any time offered her any more intimate greeting.
+
+Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really feeling
+bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half hour. These
+calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston was still a prisoner
+in New York were the only worries she now seemed to have at Primrose
+Hall.
+
+“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her remark
+waved aside.
+
+“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but if I were
+there are other more important matters than my health which I wish to
+discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I very glad to see you
+alone.”
+
+There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had never
+attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by pretending to feel
+any affection for her. She now simply sat perfectly still and
+respectful, waiting to hear what was to be said next. But rarely had she
+looked more attractive than on this afternoon. In the first place, her
+walk had given her a bright color and she was wearing a particularly
+becoming frock.
+
+Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great care on
+these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock, which Ruth
+lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the first time. It was
+of some soft material of silk and wool made with a short waist and
+softly clinging skirt of a bright golden brown with a girdle of brown
+velvet. Olive was very slender always and of only medium height, but her
+dark coloring was rich and unusual and now her expression was gayer and
+in some unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
+manner than formerly.
+
+For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
+continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting opposite
+her, and then, without the least warning of her intention, said
+abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not understood why I have insisted
+on your coming to see me so regularly and constantly since my discovery
+of your connection with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you
+have not I am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying
+you and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a great
+injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his choice of an
+occupation and by his marriage to your mother instead of Katherine
+Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off from me all responsibility in
+regard to his child. You are not altogether what I would have you to be,
+you have less social ease of manner and less conversational ability than
+I desire in my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults
+in you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them. What I
+am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make reparation to you
+by having you come here to live with me when your year at Primrose Hall
+is passed, and if I find you as refined and as capable of being managed
+as I now suppose you to be, I am prepared to change my will, making you
+heir to the greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and
+nephew, Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
+for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I wish to
+do it. And also because it will please Katherine Winthrop, who is one of
+the few persons for whom I have always cared.”
+
+Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips, but
+seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no intention of
+thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly, “only of refusing your
+offer. It may be very kind of you to desire me to live with you, but I
+thought you understood that nothing and no one in the world could ever
+persuade me to stop living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me
+to be with them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or
+anything else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”
+
+“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far more
+inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her. “Of course, I
+wish to say nothing against these friends of yours; under the
+circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful to them for their
+kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect to live forever on their
+bounty, and what can they offer you in the way of social opportunity? I
+believe they have no parents to introduce them into society, only this
+chaperon named Ruth Drew and some man or other who manages their ranch.”
+
+Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very anxious or
+very well fitted for social opportunity,” she answered, “but I don’t
+think you need worry about the ranch girls, for when the time comes for
+them to take any part in society I am sure they will find opportunities
+enough. I wrote Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation
+was over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she wanted me
+to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would travel or do
+whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any of us know yet
+whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean and Frieda and I have
+positively made up our minds that nothing will induce us to be separated
+from her after this year.”
+
+“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater returned
+coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this question with you. I
+shall have Katherine Winthrop put the matter before you. But you can
+rest assured, Olive, of these two things: In the first place, that if at
+any time you displease me I can leave my money to any one whom I may
+select, as my husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and
+in the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you are
+not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your natural
+guardian.”
+
+Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to be
+violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature anger must
+get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the girl now got up from
+her chair and crossing the room faced Madame Van Mater with an
+expression as determined as her own. “Please understand that I do not
+want to defraud either Donald or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have
+always promised them. They have been very kind since the discovery of my
+connection with them and of course you must be more fond of them than
+you can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I don’t
+want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother, nor do I feel
+that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect of me. Do you think it
+is quite fair for you now to speak of being my natural guardian when for
+so many years you desired nothing so much as that my name should never
+be mentioned to you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any
+more, but understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”
+
+Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger, for
+until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her rather too
+gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her shoulders
+indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of course, Olive, I shall
+decide later what course in regard to you I shall consider it advisable
+to take.”
+
+So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever before in
+her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for consolation to
+Primrose Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”
+
+
+May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along the
+Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with sail boats
+dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky and toward the
+water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats chugged along, making
+more noise than automobiles; while the steam yachts, ever the
+aristocrats among all water craft, sailing into their own harbors up and
+down the Hudson shores, ever and anon put forth again as though
+intending to leave home behind for adventures on the open sea. All the
+hills beyond and near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like
+mammoth bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
+while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater variety
+of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places in this land.
+
+Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine Winthrop’s old
+home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before ever the school was
+thought of. For wild primroses blossomed everywhere, although the season
+was late, until the garden about the old place looked like the famous
+field of “The Cloth of Gold.”
+
+As much as possible on these bright May days the students at Primrose
+Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year drawing to a close it
+was not always easy to desert lessons and the thought of approaching
+examinations.
+
+One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a corner of one
+of the big verandas with a table between them and a screen carefully set
+up to protect them from interruption. The girls were not talking, indeed
+an utter silence had reigned between them for the last ten minutes,
+broken only by the squeak of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the
+present term and by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an
+oration by Cicero.
+
+Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short time
+later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair of feet but
+of several, and yet not a single head appeared above it.
+
+Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work, determined not
+to be lured from the strict path of duty.
+
+“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself, “seeing
+our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’ will go away and
+leave us in peace.”
+
+But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few inches from
+where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion to the study of
+literature and the classics will prevent one from jumping up with a
+scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at the same instant, and behold,
+there, with only the prostrate screen dividing them, were Gerry and
+Margaret, Lucy and Mollie Johnson, besides several other members of
+their Junior class!
+
+“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry announced,
+pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised dagger.
+
+Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want with
+us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come interrupting a fellow
+at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”
+
+“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily. “Do you
+suppose that when school is nearly over that we care half so much for
+the views and wishes of our lady principal as we do earlier in the year,
+when we might have to live on under the shadow of her displeasure?
+However, on this one occasion the fear of that august personage need not
+darken our young lives, since she has given her consent to what I am now
+about to propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I
+had best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to accept
+it beforehand.”
+
+Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such moral
+hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything agreeable this
+afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t accept any invitation,
+and yet if you ask us we may.”
+
+Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what it is.
+You must get your coats and hats at once and come and drive with us for
+a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and there father and Cecil will
+be waiting for us in our yacht to take us for a sail.”
+
+“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically, gathering
+her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think that I have never
+been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole life!”
+
+Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies this
+afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the overturned
+screen in their efforts to get up to their room for hats and coats
+without delay.
+
+However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for Jean to
+have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen slowly returning
+toward her group of friends.
+
+“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please excuse
+us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”
+
+Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please don’t think
+I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she said softly, “but
+really I don’t believe I had better go with you this afternoon after
+all. Frieda says she _will_ go,” and unconsciously the speaker put an
+added emphasis on the verb will.
+
+Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
+particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.
+
+“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make you
+change your mind in the distance between the veranda and your bedroom
+door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you won’t go for a sail
+on the Hudson for the first time in your life because you love your
+Cicero so.”
+
+Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not exactly.”
+
+“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have asked
+Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join us. Of course
+she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare essay of hers. And to
+think that once I believed I had a chance at that Shakespeare prize.”
+
+At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh, if
+Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us, she shall
+not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she could vanish for the
+second time Margaret and Gerry both clutched at her skirts.
+
+“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really want her,
+and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.” Margaret
+explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson with anger and
+resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.
+
+“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get over being
+so touchy about one another? You know that now we know Olive better, we
+like her as much as any girl in our class. To tell you the truth, it is
+just because we are trying to fix up some plan to show Olive how we feel
+toward her that we did not want her to come along with us now. It seemed
+to us this would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
+what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at first,”
+Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and perhaps put things
+pretty badly.”
+
+“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get my
+belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in mind.”
+
+An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and Mollie and
+Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private landing pier not far
+from their school, were assisted aboard the steam yacht “Marathon” by
+Cecil Belknap and his father.
+
+During the first half of the sail there was little real conversation
+among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at the beauty of the
+river scenery and the wonders of the yacht. But by and by on their
+return journey when Margaret and her guests were seated around the salon
+dining table drinking afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting
+off things, turned to her hostess.
+
+“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the entire
+company to overhear, “if your father and brother will pardon us, I vote
+that we plunge right into the subject we have come together to discuss
+this afternoon. I suppose your father and Cecil must both have heard
+something of Olive’s story by now.”
+
+Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have Olive’s
+difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap, whom she did not
+yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest she did not like to
+protest.
+
+Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with her
+teaspoon poised in the air.
+
+“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You know that
+when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most of us liked two of
+the three girls right from the first, after a few of their western
+peculiarities had rubbed up against our eastern ones. But with the third
+girl, with Olive—well, it was different. In the first place, Olive was
+shy and did not look exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier
+than I am, for example); in the second place, the story was circulated
+about among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
+dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and that now
+she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to her own mother. Of
+course, had any one of us ever looked at Olive very hard we must have
+known that this story was an untruth, or else only a half truth, which
+is the worst kind of a lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy
+to stand up for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this
+horrid part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
+end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little further
+than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as clever as Olive
+in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as refined and gentle in
+her manner, could hardly be what we had believed her, simply couldn’t.
+And now I want to say just one thing in excuse for myself. I did know
+that Olive was a lady and more than a lady, a trump, before I learned
+that she was not an Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused
+an instant to sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express
+her romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.
+
+Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s respite.
+
+“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did try to
+be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas holidays, intending
+on my return to ask her to overlook the past and be friends. I suppose
+there were other girls in our class who felt the same way and had this
+same intention?”
+
+As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There certainly
+were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we got back from our
+holidays it was then too late to make Olive believe in our good
+intentions, because in that short time things had so changed for her
+that she had become more interesting than any of the rest of us. You can
+see, Jean and Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The
+well-broughtup Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment
+and only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
+rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had learned
+of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that she would care
+very much for such a belated repentance. So for months now we have been
+trying to think of some pretty and tactful way to show our real feeling
+toward her and now we hope we have at last hit upon the right plan.”
+
+“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long time,”
+and though a laugh went all around the table at her expense, Gerry again
+burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we are to have our school finals
+now in a short time and see the Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who
+are trying for the Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the
+committee specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
+luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests at the
+commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps you two ranch
+girls don’t know and that is that we always choose one of the Primrose
+Hall girls as our Queen for commencement day. Of course she must be
+selected from among the entire school, not from any one class; but
+Margaret and some of the other Juniors and I have been talking things
+over with the Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and
+that they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
+and Frieda?”
+
+Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda still
+appeared mystified.
+
+“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if you
+really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although she was
+trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil Belknap, who had
+been watching her pretty closely all afternoon through his same hateful
+pair of eyeglasses.
+
+“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first toward Mollie
+and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation of this everlasting
+preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.
+
+“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,” Gerry
+returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose you can call
+her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she does preside over
+our dances all afternoon, leads any special ones, and we pay her
+whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t you, Cecil, or any other
+human being at this table start reciting: ‘You must wake and call me
+early, call me early, mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not
+for that tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May
+Queen one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
+that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
+commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose because it
+is so ridiculously easy to remember.”
+
+As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the table, her
+guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all settled,” she
+exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup, “so let us drink to
+Olive as our next queen and to the other ranch girls.”
+
+“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,” Frieda
+suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And Gerry’s hearty “Of
+course,” ended the pretty scene.
+
+For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made their way
+again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group Jean was the last to
+leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.
+
+“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My sister
+tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our cottage on the
+Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you are going to be jolly
+enough to come, for I should enjoy it most awfully.”
+
+“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?” Jean’s
+eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she ended prettily,
+extending her hand to the young man.
+
+Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
+twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore. “No, it
+is not what I would call good of me,” he replied quietly. “I thought I
+told you at our house at Christmas that I liked you and that if there
+wasn’t any fellow out West, I would like to see more of you anyhow. Do
+say you will make us the visit?”
+
+With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped develop in
+her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “I have already
+explained to Margaret that I shan’t be able to come to her this summer.
+You see, my cousin, Jack Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to
+leave the hospital in New York early in June and then we expect to go
+back to the Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
+knows where?”
+
+The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now running
+in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the soft, spring dusk
+the travelers could see the old school carryall and in another carriage
+Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting to drive the party back to Primrose
+Hall. But before anybody was allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had
+solemnly whispered to each one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not
+to hear a single, solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up
+to the very last minute.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
+
+
+“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,” Gerry
+Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back view of herself
+in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly lovely, Winifred, and I would
+not be a bit surprised if you get the Shakespeare prize after all, even
+though Olive has the best class record for the year and I the highest
+mark for my essay. We are so close together in this contest that the
+least thing may change the balance. It is my private opinion that
+whoever gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
+prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to adjust her
+doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I have been born a
+stately blonde beauty like you so that I might have appeared as lovely
+Ophelia instead of having to represent Rosalind on account of my short
+hair?”
+
+Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently, happening at
+that moment to catch sight of her own fair reflection. She was dressed
+in a long clinging robe of some soft white material and her pale blonde
+hair, bound with a fillet of silver, hung loose about her neck. In her
+hand she held a sheet of paper with her speech written upon it, which
+she glanced at a little nervously every now and then.
+
+    “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
+    The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
+    The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”
+
+“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my recitation,”
+Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of stage fright
+already, and to think that I have to make the first speech!” She glanced
+up at the clock on their mantel. “It is only a half hour now before we
+must go downstairs and I believe that there have never been so many
+guests at one of our commencements before. I suppose it is because the
+day is so beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
+wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least a
+hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the ranch girls’
+room we can see out into the yard and I can have a look at Olive. I am
+simply dying to find out what she looks like!”
+
+Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to come near
+Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her herself and to slip
+around to the entrance to the stage in the pavilion, so that no one
+shall dare speak to her. So I suppose if the truth be known, Winifred,
+Olive is just about as badly scared as you are and a good deal more so,
+considering how dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not
+look pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never saw
+any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare costume.
+And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in ‘The Winter’s
+Tale’ for her character because I asked her to. She had once made me
+think of a description of Perdita.”
+
+Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the room.
+“See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too hateful for you to
+have kept on encouraging Olive to try for this prize. It will look
+awfully queer to people if she accepts a prize from her own grandmother
+anyhow, and I do need it most dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper
+Winifred was almost in tears, though not for worlds would she
+consciously have marred her lovely appearance.
+
+A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t leave me
+out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she begged. “I may not have
+so great beauty as you and Olive to commend me, but remember:
+
+    “‘From the east to western Ind,
+    No jewel is like Rosalind.
+    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
+    Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”
+
+Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling stride
+toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more friendliness than
+she had shown her in many weeks. “Come, Winifred, what is the use of our
+worrying now? I believe I need this prize money quite as much as you do,
+since my father has just made some unfortunate investments and may not
+be able to let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year.
+And of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
+take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have an
+equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive wins we ought
+not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand how she wants the glory
+of winning and not the prize itself. She told me that she had been
+working for this prize ever since she first came to Primrose Hall in
+order to show her beloved Jack Ralston how much she had appreciated the
+opportunities she had given her.”
+
+In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but at the
+same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great clapping of
+hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her hand. “Good gracious,
+there is someone’s speech just ending!” she exclaimed, “so our turns
+will come soon.”
+
+And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
+Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are April when
+they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You Like It” and began
+once more to read over her part.
+
+So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s voice was
+heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare heroines?” she
+demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long coats around you and
+come on downstairs now. The coast is clear and it is almost time for
+your speeches. I will tell Olive.”
+
+Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose Hall had
+ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had one called forth
+so many guests.
+
+Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a stage had
+been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many yards from the
+great house and a kind of covered arbor temporarily arranged so that the
+girls who took part in the commencement exercises might pass from the
+house to the stage without being seen by the audience. The stage had no
+curtain and only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
+clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either side were
+piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from the woods,
+delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and the floor of the
+stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups, violets and daisies.
+
+In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was seated,
+perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her first public
+appearance before it might reasonably be frightened. Perhaps it was the
+beauty of the day, perhaps the novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage
+arrangements, for surely no audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic
+than hers, and as each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently
+entering from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
+applause and interest had increased.
+
+The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
+programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were half a
+dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act as judges, and
+a few feet from them in a chair next Miss Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van
+Mater, the owner of “The Towers” and the donor of the Shakespeare prize.
+Her appearance at the commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but
+whether she came because of her interest in her newly-found
+granddaughter or whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no
+one had been told.
+
+When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur of
+admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to her, giving
+her just the confidence she had needed for the making of her speech. And
+truly her beauty justified the admiration, for she was wearing the
+costume that best suited her and was most effective against the natural
+background of evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the
+leaves of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
+gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her dress.
+
+Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her upstairs, nor a
+moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred recited Ophelia’s famous
+description of Hamlet, ending with the words, “O, woe is me, To have
+seen what I have seen, see what I see.” Then for just a moment she
+paused with a pretty, pathetic gesture and her gaze swept the faces of
+her judges before she vanished from the stage amid much clapping of
+hands. Three times Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each
+call Gerry’s heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.
+
+“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred has
+already won.” When a friend standing near whispered something in her ear
+she laughed in her usual good-humored fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can
+recite better than Winifred, but what avails it me when I can’t look
+like the goddess of spring as she does at this moment there on the stage
+with her arms full of flowers.”
+
+Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed arbor in
+the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her recitation came next,
+and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded by Jean, was also waiting.
+
+Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean. Then she
+darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for the last time;
+are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely, but she did not speak
+distinctly enough. Remember it is difficult to hear out of doors.”
+
+Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses, she
+tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the stage in
+her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find her way through
+an unknown woods, had stumbled in the underbrush.
+
+No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and yet in the
+character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly at her best. Perhaps
+the description that the heroine gives of herself in masquerade will
+best describe Gerry’s present appearance.
+
+    “More than common tall,
+    That I did suit me all points like a man?
+    A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,
+    A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart
+    Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—
+    We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”
+
+And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her recitation she
+did not in any way betray it, for at once the gayety of Rosalind, her
+wit and gallant courage, seemed to have fallen like a mantle upon Gerry.
+Twice her audience laughed aloud in the course of her recitation and
+once two of the judges nodded at each other, which had not happened
+during Winifred’s speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to
+the stage again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain
+that unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
+would be the winner of their contest.
+
+For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the third
+girl, who was to close the competition, made her appearance. And this
+was unfortunate for Olive. In the first place, the large audience was
+growing a little bit tired and hungry, and in the second place, it gave
+them the opportunity to begin talking of Olive’s curious history,
+retailing to one another as much or as little as each one of them knew.
+
+Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New York and
+shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica Hunt and Miss
+Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure the planning of it had
+given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome days at the hospital. Not that she
+and Ruth were Shakespeare scholars, only it had happened that years
+before Ruth had seen a famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from
+the stage, in this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and
+had never forgotten the details of her dress.
+
+Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last skipped on to
+the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress that came down to her
+ankles, covered with an overdress of flowered tulle. Her long and
+curiously black hair was braided in the two familiar loose braids with a
+single pink flower at one side, and on her arm she carried a basket of
+spring flowers.
+
+Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from the first
+that Olive would be frightened to death before so many people? It was
+odd, therefore, that as she first came down toward the edge of the
+platform she smiled assurance at Miss Winthrop, who was trying her best
+not to appear too anxious or too interested in her favorite pupil.
+
+Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly to dance
+an old English folk dance such as the country people must have danced in
+rustic England long before even Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art
+with Olive, so that before she commenced her speech her audience was
+won.
+
+Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when her
+dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the center of the
+open-air stage:
+
+    “I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might
+    Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”
+
+She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people watching her
+as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to them.
+
+Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater stiffened and
+her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten her part and is going
+to make a spectacle of herself and me!” she whispered in her friend’s
+ear. “I wish I had never come.”
+
+And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown suddenly ill,
+for she continued standing perfectly still and speechless for a period
+of one, two minutes, though surely it seemed like ten, while waves of
+color swept over her face, turning it crimson and then leaving it pale.
+“Oh, I cannot believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking
+her eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
+exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.
+
+What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to the
+girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught it, for she
+smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of wild-flowers appeared
+to present them to various characters, who in Shakespeare’s play stand
+grouped around the figure of Perdita as she makes this speech:
+
+    “Daffodils,
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
+    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
+    Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
+    That die unmarried—”
+
+As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket, dropping
+them to the ground and moving gradually backwards toward the entrance to
+the stage. Then, when she had recited the last line of her speech, she
+made a quick bow and before her audience realized that her speech was
+actually over, had disappeared.
+
+Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s and
+Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For Jean was
+waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her at once.
+
+“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I didn’t see?
+It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me before?”
+
+“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered, trying
+to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack wishes you to
+come to her at once.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+“JACK”
+
+
+Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms about
+her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and fragile and
+leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep bronze, the color of
+copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes, were now unusually dark with
+emotion. She was evidently trying to appear less disturbed than she
+felt, for her head was tilted back the least bit and her lips were held
+close together; indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
+self-control.
+
+“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely unconscious of
+the number of persons about them, and the girl in the costume of an
+English shepherdess arrived at the desired goal first.
+
+“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first meeting
+after a long separation from one we love. And so for several moments the
+two ranch girls clung together trying hard to keep back their tears,
+while Jean, standing a little apart from them, pretended to laugh at
+their emotion.
+
+“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did it
+happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I don’t care
+whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are here.” Olive said at
+last.
+
+“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so much by
+surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But you see it was
+like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more heavily on her cane,
+although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it. “When my operation was over
+neither the surgeons nor anybody knew just at first whether or not I was
+to get well. So of course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until
+we were certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
+I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out here at
+Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I did not mean to
+put off coming until commencement day,” Jack continued apologetically,
+“but somehow I did not get well quite as fast as I expected, until it
+had to be now or never, so Ruth wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this
+morning but not to let you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would
+somehow affect your speech.”
+
+“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think how I
+felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I saw you
+standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you used to do.”
+
+“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only I got
+so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am perfectly
+well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not accustomed to
+standing so long.”
+
+Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried off,
+returning in another minute empty handed. But following close behind her
+was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked a little out of place at
+Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a freedom and power that did not
+speak of city streets, neither did the deep tan of his skin. He was
+carrying the big, comfortable chair for Jean.
+
+“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so many
+surprises in one day!” Olive protested.
+
+Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of the
+Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so that he
+could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another moment his big
+hands closed over hers.
+
+“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied. “To
+think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books, and here I
+was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow Ranch, whose
+history makes most of the fiction tales look real pale! But ain’t it
+great to see the boss herself again. I couldn’t believe she was getting
+well when she wrote me; I was like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to
+show me’.” And here Jim put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.
+
+“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
+demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five minutes
+together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to let my sister get
+out of my sight again as long as I live!” Frieda had joined the little
+group under the linden tree just as Jim was finishing his speech and
+before Olive could answer him.
+
+Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my
+grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.
+
+[Illustration: “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”]
+
+Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully
+glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us
+less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well
+enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your
+grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had
+been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who
+are all those persons coming towards us now?”
+
+Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
+Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the
+line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and
+apparently unconscious of every one else.
+
+With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
+immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.
+
+“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received
+the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the
+most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in
+the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I
+want to congratulate you.”
+
+With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious
+rival.
+
+But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
+congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,”
+she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”
+
+“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with
+them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly
+trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were
+standing together.
+
+“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss Winthrop at
+once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying for it just to see
+what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does not wish the prize given
+her, and of course under the circumstances Olive does not wish it
+herself.”
+
+Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were peremptorily borne
+away by a number of their classmates. Later on from a kind of throne on
+one of the Primrose Hall verandas Jack and some of her friends witnessed
+the pretty ceremony of the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For
+several hours afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive
+raising a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
+royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during the
+afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once, when Jack had
+been watching them, she happened to turn to speak to Madame Van Mater,
+who sat next her. But whatever she may have intended to say she did not,
+but instead waited to study her companion’s expression.
+
+There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly pleased
+at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was almost a smile
+of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack flushed, biting her
+lips, then she leaned over and spoke:
+
+“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have Olive go
+home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if afterwards you will
+do something that is kinder still?” she asked.
+
+With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there was an
+air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was very pleasing.
+
+“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere with my
+granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but what more would
+you have me to do?”
+
+For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa cushions
+looking out over the garden and fields to where afar off she could see
+just a silver line marking the course of the Hudson River.
+
+“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame Van
+Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t believe I
+had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my life. And all the
+time lately I have been thinking and longing for just two things. One to
+see our beloved ranch again, to get on horseback and ride for miles and
+miles over the prairie. And then—”
+
+“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest than you
+would believe she could show.
+
+Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I can.
+You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used to think
+perhaps I should never see much more of the world than just four walls.”
+Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders in her old, determined way.
+“But I am well now and, as the doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I
+want you to promise to let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and
+me next fall?”
+
+“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent idea! I
+could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel and experience
+may give her just the ease and culture she needs. But who will look
+after you?”
+
+At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
+companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil of
+watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight hold of her
+hand.
+
+“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She will not
+go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go abroad
+afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”
+
+Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss Winthrop
+arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying farewell to her
+guests.
+
+So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking about in
+the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left alone. Not far off
+they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda
+holding on to his hands like little girls.
+
+Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.
+
+“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to
+hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw
+each other again you would forget what has separated you and only
+remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill,
+love seems the only thing that is really important.”
+
+Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at
+the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to
+her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered,
+although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone
+since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my
+hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.”
+
+Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than it had
+been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not forget,” she
+answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest, kindest person in the
+world.” And then the oldest ranch girl sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the
+horridest thing in the world to have to wait for the nice things to
+happen?” she asked. “Of course, we all know, Ruth, that some day
+everything will turn out for the best, but it is just that silly old
+indefinite word some that makes the waiting so difficult.”
+
+The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will appear
+under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this story the
+histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be more fully
+developed, for having put childhood and school life behind them, they
+will enter that broader world of young womanhood, where romance stands
+ever waiting round the corner.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
+Margaret Vandercook
+
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+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+  <title>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by Margaret Vandercook</title>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
+Margaret Vandercook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School
+
+Author: Margaret Vandercook
+
+Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2017 [EBook #56097]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class='d000'>
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN'
+    src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING ATTENDANCE ON JEAN
+  </p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d005'>
+<p class='d006'>THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES</p>
+<p class='d007'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</p>
+<p class='d008'>By</p>
+<p class='d006'>Margaret Vandercook</p>
+<p class='d008'>Illustrated By</p>
+<p class='d006'>Hugh A. Bodine</p>
+<p class='d009'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
+<p class='d010'>PHILADELPHIA</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d005'>
+<p class='d006'>Copyright, 1913, by</p>
+<p class='d006'>THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='d011'>
+  <p class='d012'>CONTENTS</p>
+  <div class='d013'>
+      <div class='d014'>
+          <p class='d015'>
+              <a href='#chI'>I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chII'>II. IN DISGRACE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIII'>III. “GERRY”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIV'>IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chV'>V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVI'>VI. HER TEMPTATION</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVII'>VII. CINDERELLA</a><br />
+              <a href='#chVIII'>VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chIX'>IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chX'>X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXI'>XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXII'>XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIII'>XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIV'>XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXV'>XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVI'>XVI. ELECTION DAY</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVII'>XVII. CONGRATULATIONS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXVIII'>XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXIX'>XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXX'>XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXI'>XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXII'>XXII. READJUSTMENTS</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXIII'>XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXIV'>XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</a><br />
+              <a href='#chXXV'>XXV. “JACK”</a>
+          </p>
+      </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h1 class='d016'>The Ranch Girls at Boarding School</h1>
+
+<h2 id='chI' class='d017'>CHAPTER I<br/>“STILL AS THE NIGHT”</h2>
+
+<p>Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big
+bare room stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the
+great house known as Primrose Hall, not far from the famous
+region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had struck three, then four, and
+now one, two, three, four, five solemn strokes boomed forth
+and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to announce the
+coming of morning.</p>
+
+<p>“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul,
+that she should flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the
+ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrow within the
+quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true
+of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a short
+pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever
+going to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to
+have lasted forever and ever!” For no answer had followed
+the question, although a door stood wide open between this
+and an adjoining room and the bed in the other room was
+occupied by two persons.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of
+reciting the “Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful
+figure slipped suddenly from its own bed and a slim ghost
+stole across the floor—a ghost that even in the darkness
+revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In the
+farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek
+against another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful,
+while its hand reached forth to find another hand that lay
+outside the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying
+to waken them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they
+sleep so soundly the first night at a strange boarding
+school when I am so homesick and lonely I know that I am
+going to die or cry or do something else desperate? If only
+Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
+Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch,
+sliding to the floor again, sat with her legs crossed under
+her and her head resting on her hands in a curious Indian
+posture of grief. And while she waited, watching beside the
+bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now quietly
+asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New
+York City, which held her beloved friend Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by
+their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance
+at Primrose Hall to begin their first year of fashionable
+boarding school life. But once the girls had been introduced
+to the principal of the school, Miss Katherine Winthrop, and
+Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms assigned to
+the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
+train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles,
+for Jack had been left behind in a hospital and must not be
+long alone. There she lay awaiting the verdict of the New
+York surgeons to know whether after her accident at the
+Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect to
+walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow
+Lodge in Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the
+ranch girls an eastern education and to fit them for a more
+cosmopolitan life now that so great wealth was being brought
+forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out what could be
+done for Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend,
+a faint, chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings
+sounded along the outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting
+her head with a smothered cry of delight, the girl spied a
+thin streak of light shining across the floor. A moment
+later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her
+and her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning
+the unfamiliar scene before her. Dawn had come at last!</p>
+
+<p>The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her
+arrival at school the day before, in the first meeting with
+so many strangers, Olive had not spared time to see or think
+of the surroundings of Primrose Hall, but now she could
+examine the landscape thoroughly. Set in the midst of one of
+the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson River, this
+morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
+with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the
+immortelles; the low hills in the background were brown and
+red and gold with the October foliage of the trees. Beyond
+the fields the Hudson River ran broader and deeper than any
+stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across from
+it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now
+veiled in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine
+could be more wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson
+River; and yet, as Olive Ralston gazed out upon it, its
+beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the lump in her
+throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
+sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and
+nothing could be more unlike the low level sweep of their
+Wyoming prairie than this Hudson River country.</p>
+
+<p>“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we
+have named homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours,
+for surely this longing for home, for accustomed people and
+things in the midst of strange surroundings, may be a woe
+very deep and intense.</p>
+
+<p>From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come
+east to boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the
+change from the simple life of the ranch to the more
+conventional school atmosphere would be more difficult for
+her than for either Jean or Frieda. True, she had not spoken
+of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed Olive,
+had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl,
+with no name of her own and no people, and except for her
+friends’ generosity might still be living in the dirty hut
+in the Indian village with old Laska.</p>
+
+<p>After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all
+decided that it would be wiser not to mention Olive’s
+strange history to her new schoolmates. Now in the midst of
+her attack of homesickness, Olive wondered if the girls
+would not at once guess her mixed blood from her odd
+appearance, or else might she not some day betray her
+ignorance of the little manners and customs that reveal a
+good family and good breeding? In the two happy years spent
+at the Rainbow Ranch she had learned all she could from Ruth
+and the other three girls, but were there not fourteen other
+ignorant years back of those two years?</p>
+
+<p>A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window
+with her quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial
+casement. But now, finding both the autumn air and her own
+thoughts chilling, she turned away and began slowly to
+dress. She was still blue and yet at the same time ashamed
+of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
+foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here
+at Primrose Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of
+her big opportunity and have not big opportunities the world
+over the fashion of starting out with difficulties to be
+overcome? When Olive’s education was completed she had made
+up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
+she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the
+teaching of the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda
+Ralston, since the discovery of the gold mine near Rainbow
+Creek, were probably very wealthy and though it was but
+right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should share
+their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished
+to be always dependent even on the best of friends.</p>
+
+<p>Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the
+young girl’s mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and
+yet she could not make up her mind how best to amuse herself
+until the half-past seven o’clock bell should ring for
+breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but there was no
+news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
+hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken
+Jean and Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven
+famous sleepers. No other girl shared Olive’s room because
+Ruth and the four ranch girls hoped that after a few weeks’
+treatment in the New York hospital Jack would then be able
+to join the others at school.</p>
+
+<p>Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to
+her open window and there stood listening to the “chug,
+chug, chug” of a big steamer out on the river and then to
+the shriek of an engine along its banks. Suddenly her face
+brightened.</p>
+
+<p>“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed
+aloud, “I think I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad
+temper and go and have a good walk to myself before
+breakfast.”</p>
+
+<p>Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out
+alone and without permission she would be breaking an iron
+law of Primrose Hall. Nothing was farther from her mind than
+disobedience, but no one had yet told her of the school
+rules and regulations and taking a walk alone seemed to her
+the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
+few hours longer she must have understood differently, for
+the students were expected to assemble that very morning to
+hear what was required of them at Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p>As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and
+hat, creeping along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb
+the other sleepers, and for the same reason she as quietly
+unlocked the big front door. But once out on the lawn, so
+innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that she
+paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house
+she was about to leave.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new
+pupil felt a thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A
+red brick mansion of the old colonial period, it was set in
+a lovely garden with flowers and shrubs growing close about
+the house and an avenue of elm trees leading down to the
+gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
+of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This
+morning only a few late asters were in bloom in the garden
+and bushes of hardy hydrangeas with their great blossoms now
+turning rose and brown from the first early autumn frosts.
+The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged in the
+family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five
+generations and Olive smiled a little over her queer
+conceit, for the house somehow suggested its present owner
+to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared just as imposing
+and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with her
+the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any
+mere pile of brick and stone.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the
+bedrooms and reception rooms necessary for its pupils and
+teachers, and the only other school buildings about the
+grounds were the recitation hall and two sorority houses
+devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had never heard
+of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
+“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.</p>
+
+<p>Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the
+ranch girls by Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they
+had learned to know at the Yellowstone Park, but apart from
+its excellent reputation as a finishing school, their choice
+had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty of its
+historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and
+Lafayette had been known to stay, and who can guess how many
+powdered belles and beaus may have flirted with one another
+in the garden by the old sun-dial?</p>
+
+<p>When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she
+determined to extend her walk over a portion of the estate,
+and coming to a low, stone wall, climbed over it without
+thinking or caring just where it led her. Being outdoors
+once more and free to wander as she choose after two weeks’
+confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
+palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that
+Olive felt like singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that
+her own personality, which had somehow vanished since
+leaving the ranch, had come back to her this morning like a
+dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately been
+wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this
+hour had donned once again her own well-worn dress.</p>
+
+<p>Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early
+Indian days, soon the truant found herself in a woods thick
+with underbrush and trees never seen before by a Wyoming
+girl. The air was delicious, the leaves sparkled with the
+melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of youth
+and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot
+that she was in the midst of a highly civilized community
+and not in the heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not
+until she had come entirely out of the woods that her
+awakening took place. Then she found herself apparently in
+some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white house
+set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer
+gabled windows on either side. At the entrance to its big
+front door stood two absurd iron dogs, and yet there was
+nothing in any of these ordinary details to make the
+onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she stared
+up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her
+seemed so utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she
+must be losing her senses.</p>
+
+<p>For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from
+the house, and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and
+walked back into the woods. At first she paid no particular
+attention to what direction she was taking until all at
+once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt reasonably
+sure they were following hers.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chII' class='d018'>CHAPTER II<br/>IN DISGRACE</h2>
+
+<p>It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with
+so slight cause, yet the thought that some one might be in
+pursuit of her filled her with a nervous terror. To the
+people not afflicted with timidity, most fears are
+ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
+overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid
+one, but before one criticizes her, remember her childhood.
+Now with her heart pounding and her breath coming in short
+gasps, she quickened her pace into a run, recalling at the
+same time their chaperon’s forgotten instruction that she
+must no longer expect the happy freedom of their western
+lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
+traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive
+dared not hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour
+was growing late and that any added delay would make her
+late for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the
+woods save her in emergencies of this sort, so in another
+moment she remembered that an Indian never runs away from
+his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has passed. Behind a
+low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself, crouching
+low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
+gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of
+private property, savagely on the lookout for her.</p>
+
+<p>Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally
+arrived just opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was
+the girl in hiding who suddenly sprang to her feet,
+startling the newcomer. For the enemy she had so dreaded was
+only another girl like herself with a smile on her face and
+a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
+perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before
+her illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had
+the same bright bronze hair and firm line to her chin and
+the same proud way of holding up her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living
+in this underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the
+same color that I did not see you at first.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a
+tam-o’-shanter of velvet of the same shade, shook her head.
+“I am one of the new girls from Primrose Hall and I have
+been out for a walk, but as I am not very familiar with
+these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you mind—”
+Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression
+of surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this
+hour of the morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen
+to give you permission?” she asked in the positive fashion
+that Olive was to learn to know so well later on.</p>
+
+<p>The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept
+over the truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without
+asking permission she had broken a rule of her new school?
+The idea seemed ridiculous to Olive, and yet—were not all
+things different than in the old days? “I am so sorry, but
+no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
+to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose
+Hall yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before
+breakfast at home, riding over the plains!”</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain
+to the older girl that straightway she slipped her arm
+through hers and without delay hurried her along toward
+school, talking as she went.</p>
+
+<p>“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at
+Primrose Hall, and I have been spending the night with some
+friends.” Jessica gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in
+hers. “You must not be frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop
+seems rather terrifying on your return. I used to be a pupil
+at Primrose Hall before I started in with the teaching and
+I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so severe
+as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is
+after breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never
+allowed to go out alone and never without permission, why
+she may scold you a bit.”</p>
+
+<p>If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the
+path to weep like a naughty child about to be punished for a
+fault, Olive would have felt it a great relief, and only the
+thought of her age prevented her doing this. Could she ever
+live through the embarrassment of facing fifty strange
+girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
+while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on
+being introduced to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and
+Frieda with her for protection, had she not felt as
+tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now must
+she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
+displeasure?</p>
+
+<p>Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive
+Ralston’s life were always unusual and romantic) would she
+ever forget the next half hour’s experience at Primrose
+Hall, nor the appearance of the great hall as she entered
+it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and towering
+above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding
+presence of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.</p>
+
+<p>Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing
+in front of Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers,
+heard the teacher of mathematics say, “Here is your new
+runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and realized that this
+teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she wore
+round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much
+to get her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her
+disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only
+teacher at Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss
+Winthrop,” she now began coaxingly, “I have brought our new
+girl home. She was only taking a walk in the woods near by,
+but I am sure she would rather explain to you herself that
+in going out without permission she did not know she was
+breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the
+West and been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica
+was continuing her case for the defendant, realizing that
+Olive was still too frightened to speak for herself. But
+suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small, plump
+person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue
+eyes in the school, and without the least regard for either
+teachers or principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms
+about Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where
+you were going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened
+about you.”</p>
+
+<p>And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her
+other side, a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and
+demure brown eyes, whose nose had the faintest, most
+delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce said nothing,
+but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
+against all the world.</p>
+
+<p>Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three
+teachers were numbers of other students, most of whom were
+casting glances of sympathy at the new pupil who had so soon
+fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just over, they were
+supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
+Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until
+Miss Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.</p>
+
+<p>“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said
+quietly. “Miss Ralston will explain her absence to me in my
+private study.” As her words and look included Jean and
+Frieda, they also were compelled to follow the other
+students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to face
+her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a
+freckled nose actually had the courage to stop in passing
+and whisper to the offender:</p>
+
+<p>“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes
+unknown you go to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while
+Olive was trying to summon a smile in return, a beautiful
+girl with pale blonde hair joined both of them, and drawing
+the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen persons
+near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When
+will you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons
+whom no one knows anything about?” And so cool and
+indifferent did her expression appear as she made her unkind
+speech that it was hard to believe she understood that her
+words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and
+in spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or
+forgave them.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared,
+Olive found herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated
+in a comfortable leather chair facing a desk at which Miss
+Winthrop was writing.</p>
+
+<p>“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they
+entered the room, and at first the prisoner had felt that
+waiting to hear her sentence would be unendurable. Of course
+she would be expelled from Primrose Hall; Olive had no other
+idea. And of course Ruth and Jack would understand and
+forgive her, but there would be no going back on her part to
+be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
+to support herself in the future!</p>
+
+<p>But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her
+writing, by and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own
+sorrows and she busied herself in studying her judge’s face.
+Miss Winthrop’s expression was not so stern in repose, for
+though the lines about her mouth were severe and her nose
+aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
+full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt
+obliged to admit that though she was taller and larger than
+almost any woman she had known, her grace and dignity were
+most unusual and the severity of her simple black silk gown
+showed her to great advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next
+traveled idly to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting
+there for an eager moment, while in her interest she forgot
+everything else. For the first time in her life this young
+girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had her
+attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.</p>
+
+<p>On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic
+figure of a woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and
+wonderful flowing draperies. The figure was without head or
+arms and yet was so inspiring that, without realizing it,
+Olive gave a sigh of delight.</p>
+
+<p>Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?”
+she asked quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the
+statue of ‘The Winged Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue
+now stands at the top of the stairs in the Louvre in Paris
+and there you will probably see it some day. But I like to
+keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me and to
+my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than
+the statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of
+the superwoman, what all we women must hope to be some day.
+See the beauty and dignity of her, as though she had turned
+her back on all sin and injustice and was moving forward
+into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
+splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children
+in them.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above
+the head of her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to
+study the girl’s face. Now she saw by its sudden glow and
+softening that she had caught at least a measure of her
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the
+world held nothing else and that she knew all the varieties,
+and yet one could never be too sure, for here before her was
+a new type unlike all the others and for some reason at this
+moment she attracted her strongly.</p>
+
+<p>To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had
+thought it wise to confide as much as they knew of Olive’s
+extraordinary history, pledging her to secrecy. Now to
+herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly ridiculous to
+believe this child has Indian blood, for there is absolutely
+nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
+history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after
+her first speech her manner appeared to change entirely.
+Sitting very erect in her chair, she turned upon her pupil
+“You may go,” she said coldly, “for I understand that by
+your action this morning you did not deliberately intend to
+break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
+future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience,
+whatever its cause.”</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall,
+wondering if she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who
+could be so stern one moment and so interesting the next.
+For her own part Olive felt that she much preferred their
+former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less handsome
+and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human.
+If only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to
+scold and pet them for their misdoings all in the same
+breath.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER III<br/>“GERRY”</h2>
+
+<p>The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the
+front of the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so
+in order for Olive to reach her room it was necessary that
+she should pass along a long corridor into which various
+other apartments opened. She was not interested in anything
+but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean, and yet,
+hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
+conversation between two girls who were talking in rather
+loud tones.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,”
+one of the voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as
+nice to these new Western girls as I know how. They are
+strangers and I think it horrid to try to snub them just
+because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
+fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you
+will try to turn as many of the other Juniors against them
+as you can twist around your finger, but kindly don’t
+include me in your list. Perhaps you think I don’t know why
+you have had me for one of your chums for so long. Goodness,
+child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
+homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the
+stately beauty than ever in contrast with poor little me.
+But maybe you won’t always be thought the prettiest girl in
+the school, for this queer looking Olive, what’s her name,
+is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way, and
+the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second.
+If you are angry with me, why you need not have me for a
+roommate, for I am going this very second to call on the new
+ranch girls and welcome them to Primrose Hall.” And with a
+flounce the same short-haired girl who had stopped to tease
+Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall after
+her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of
+fashions. “Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she
+inquired, “for I have been several years at Primrose Hall
+and know the place like an old shoe. Besides, I think that
+you and the older one of your sisters or friends, I can’t
+guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior
+class, and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close
+together these days.”</p>
+
+<p>By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door,
+but hearing queer noises in another room, they followed the
+sounds, discovering Jean and Frieda in the adjoining
+chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’ sitting room. An
+immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean and
+Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the
+trunk of their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two
+sisters, Mollie and Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had
+come in to lend them hammer and nails and were now watching
+them with deep absorption.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she
+stopped in some confusion, remembering that she had not yet
+heard their new friend’s name.</p>
+
+<p>The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see
+their new visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows,
+at your service,” she explained, “but I’m better known to
+the world as Gerry. See I have brought your Olive safe back
+from the lion’s den and, as she is no more eaten up than was
+the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint to
+start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you
+about Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what
+not to do?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully,
+but Jean closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard
+the question. She was not accustomed to feeling out of
+things as she had this morning and was not sure she cared to
+have strangers making an effort to be kind. Suppose this
+Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to be
+one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well
+even that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!</p>
+
+<p>But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness
+and having already taken a fancy to her, as strangers
+usually did, now seated herself cross-legged on the floor,
+beckoning to the others to follow suit. “All Gaul, my
+children, is divided into three parts, as we learn in our
+Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to
+say, is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred
+Graham likes and the girls she docs not. I used to belong to
+the first class, but now I probably belong to the second. I
+was kind of in love with Winifred last year and let her boss
+me around, but during the summer I thought things over and
+decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
+morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a
+snap about my desertion, for she never cares for people
+unless they are rich and I’m not a bit, only my father is a
+famous surgeon in New York and I’m going to be a doctor
+myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind gentleman
+to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
+didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively
+tongue, pretending not to be able to say anything more,
+although Jean was gazing at her in a more encouraging
+fashion than she had worn at the beginning of her speech.</p>
+
+<p>All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York
+City the four ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend,
+Frank Kent, had discussed this question: Should the girls on
+arriving at boarding school speak of their new-found gold
+mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack advised
+against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and
+Frank thought they might as well mention it now and then,
+while Jean was determined to speak of their gold mine
+whenever the chance offered and to make the biggest
+impression she possibly could. So now it was surprising to
+hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
+her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose
+Hall to care for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,”
+she answered demurely; “so I am afraid Miss Graham and her
+friends will not like us any too well. You see, we are
+simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by that. I
+suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because
+our clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks
+apiece as most of the girls here have. Olive and I were
+laughing yesterday because on our arrival we were given
+United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels! why we
+haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes
+that belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head
+warningly at Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than
+ever and whose lips were about to form the name of the
+Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to divert her attention,
+Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics and diving
+down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
+baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to
+remind you that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall
+and we hope our first friends,” she said prettily, handing a
+basket to Gerry and then the others to the two sisters. But
+all the while Jean was talking and acting this little
+pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
+right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will
+find out who the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and
+then—” Well, it was comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last
+letter, written after they had left the ranch, he had said
+the pot of gold from the end of their Rainbow Mine had
+yielded five thousand dollars within the month just past and
+that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had
+come from.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls
+started with surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining
+perfectly calm. Getting up from the floor, however, she
+stuck her Indian basket on her head for a hat, using the
+handle as a strap.</p>
+
+<p>“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the
+recitation hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just
+sounded, only a gentle reminder that we are to assemble
+within the next ten minutes to meet our teachers and to get
+ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I can only
+hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
+Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the
+room to the tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after
+her: “You were awfully good to come in to see us and we are
+obliged to you, so please help us out whenever you can. I am
+afraid that the things we know, such as riding bareback and
+raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be considered
+accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
+unusually humble and particularly pretty.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned
+ourselves at Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of
+insects here, butterflies as well as bookworms. But I will
+say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is a fashionable
+school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as our
+P’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what
+does it mean ‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and
+how to enter a room and what to say when you get there and
+all the things that mean Society with a big S, Miss Frieda
+Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s, Q’s are dreadful things
+called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find out what
+quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
+mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the
+delicious name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda,
+if you want to know the truth about the meaning of the old
+expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’ the Century Dictionary
+tells us that the expression alluded to the difficulty in
+the early days of discerning the difference between the two
+letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of
+her curly head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’
+room.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER IV<br/>GETTING INTO HARNESS</h2>
+
+<p>Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch
+girls at boarding school and so many changes appeared to
+have taken place in their lives that already the weeks
+seemed as many months. One of the changes they themselves
+did not realize, but nevertheless it was a serious one, for
+Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as they
+had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was
+going her own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new
+friendships and apparently forgetting the importance of past
+ties.</p>
+
+<p>And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
+emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for
+Mollie Johnson, the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy
+Johnson was a good deal older than Frieda, but Mollie was a
+year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and looked up to
+her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
+that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made
+her appear like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of
+being treated like a baby by her family, and besides, as no
+one had ever told her before that she was in the least like
+a heroine, she found the idea distinctly pleasant. The two
+Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
+vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small
+and dark and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such
+a complete contrast to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements
+that it was small wonder the two girls were drawn together
+by their very unlikeness and that already their schoolmates
+were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
+everywhere together with their arms locked about one
+another, wore one another’s clothes when their different
+sizes permitted, and were never without true lover’s knots
+of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes, knots made from a
+sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair ribbons. Not
+that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
+the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and
+in spite of Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids
+had disappeared and in their place a Pysche knot of huge
+proportions could be seen at the back of her head. The
+Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did not
+have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest
+fashion and of course nothing else really matters. As
+Frieda’s school work was not the same as Jean’s and Olive’s,
+on account of her age and the fact that she never had cared
+much about books, the division of her time was different
+from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the
+excitement of her first independence and without Jack’s
+influence, she should be for the first time in her life
+“ganging her own gait.”</p>
+
+<p>But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
+unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed
+together over Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while
+they were laughing, though she had said nothing, Olive was
+wondering if Jean did not know that she saw almost as little
+of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without realizing it
+or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
+after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most
+popular girls in the school. As a proof of it she had
+already been invited to join both the two sororities and had
+not made up her mind which one she should choose. The fact
+that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
+certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,”
+for from the hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of
+Winifred’s character there had been open war between
+Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness to Olive
+was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was
+almost forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry.
+It was an open discussion that the choice for Junior class
+president, which must be made before the Christmas holidays,
+would lie between these two girls. For though Jean had
+continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls in the
+school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
+friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and
+wealthiest families in New York City, people who looked down
+upon the Four Hundred as belonging to the dreadful “new
+rich.”</p>
+
+<p>But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly
+for Jean and Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was
+making no friends. Though it was customary to invite the new
+girls at Primrose Hall into one or the other of the secret
+societies almost immediately upon their arrival at school,
+Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority. Too shy
+and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she
+did not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon
+her. Only in secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if
+her blood showed itself so plainly that her classmates
+disliked her for that reason or if she were more
+unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack,
+who was finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world,
+had cared for her and if only the doctors would say that
+Jack was strong enough to join them at Primrose Hall,
+nothing else would make any difference! Letters from Ruth
+Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured
+the girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected,
+but as yet there had been no definite report from the
+surgeon?</p>
+
+<p>However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among
+her classmates, there were other persons in the school
+interested in her, who were more important. Among them was
+Jessica Hunt, the young teacher whom Olive had met on the
+morning of her unfortunate walk. There was something in the
+strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a strong
+appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity
+to reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put
+upon Olive and was trying her best to discover their cause.
+Some secret story might possibly be in circulation about the
+newcomer, but so far Jessica had not been able to find it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting
+room for several hours. Always books had been her
+consolation for loneliness since the days when her only
+white friend had been the teacher in the Indian school in
+her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected knock
+at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to
+join her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on
+opening the door her eyes had widened with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I
+am a visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been
+looking for you everywhere in the garden and at the sorority
+houses and on the verandas. To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the
+world and under the world and back at the last to you,’ here
+in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the other girls?”
+Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
+may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might
+confide in her the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then
+they might talk the matter over sensibly together and she
+might be able to help. But alas for Olive! Though Ruth had
+warned her to try to overcome her reserve that day of the
+flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
+give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only
+answered Miss Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider
+than the other girls that I have to stay in my room to study
+more. But I am through with my work now and awfully glad to
+see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome revealed
+more of her real feeling than any number of words.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave
+a little cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you
+don’t wish to be outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the
+most charming girls’ room at Primrose Hall! It makes me
+think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I was misquoting
+a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some day
+when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself.
+And surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are
+one.’”</p>
+
+<p>Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had
+dreamed of making it in the last days at home, a bit of the
+Rainbow Lodge in miniature, their own beloved ranch house
+living room reproduced many miles across the continent. By
+Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted to the three ranch
+girls a large and almost empty room, containing only a
+divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was
+covered with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright
+shawls were thrown over the divan, piled with sofa cushions
+of leather and silk, and on the walls were prints of Indian
+heads, one of them a picture of a young girl looking
+singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of
+cowboys on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace,
+about one-fourth the size of the one at The Lodge, was the
+head of an elk shot by Jim Colter himself on the border of
+their own ranch, and on the mantel the very brass
+candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home,
+besides several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient
+ornaments discovered by Frieda in the Indian cave on the day
+when Olive had made her first appearance in the ranch girls’
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room
+she began at once to look more closely at the few
+photographs which the ranch girls had placed on top of their
+bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker way to learn
+to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
+taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must
+represent the persons nearest and dearest, their families
+and closest friends.</p>
+
+<p>The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures,
+only an absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell
+present to them, but as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and
+his Sunday clothes, it was not in the least like their big,
+splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was one of Ruth and
+alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost instinctively
+Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
+girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched
+Olive’s heart.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is
+just the type of girl I admire the most, so graceful and
+vigorous and with such a lot of character. Oh, I hope I
+haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended suddenly,
+seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t
+vigorous any more.” And then, to her own surprise and
+relief, Olive poured forth the whole story of Jack’s
+accident and their reasons for coming east.</p>
+
+<p>Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing
+that takes place every day, but just as Olive was on the
+point of telling Miss Hunt that she expected each day to
+hear more definite news of Jack, a message was sent upstairs
+to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception room
+desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once.
+Would Olive find the other girls and come to the reception
+room immediately?</p>
+
+<p>With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew
+who had come to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with
+a hurried apology to Jessica, begging her to wait until her
+return, fled out, of her room down through the lower part of
+the house and then out into the school grounds to search for
+Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at once to
+Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls
+hear the good news with her.</p>
+
+<p>And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the
+ranch girls’ room for a few minutes longer, for standing
+near the photograph of Jacqueline Ralston was another
+photograph whose presence in the room puzzled her greatly.
+She did not feel that she had the right to ask curious
+questions and yet she must look at this picture more
+closely, for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying
+in her own bureau drawer between folds of lavender-scented
+silk.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chV' class='d018'>CHAPTER V<br/>NEWS AND A DISCOVERY</h2>
+
+<p>Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two
+great side porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many
+recreation hours on these warm Indian summer afternoons, but
+just in front of the sorority house with “Theta” engraved
+above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded by a dozen
+girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had
+her back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started
+to run toward her and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl
+in the group was known to her by name, all of them were
+Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of them, except
+Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
+conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to
+thrust herself among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the
+thought that Ruth must be waiting for them with news of Jack
+braced her. “Jean,” Olive called softly and then in a louder
+tone, “Jean!”</p>
+
+<p>At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve
+other pairs of eyes stared poor Olive up and down.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her
+brown eyes shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been
+arranged that I am to join the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope
+that you will come in with me. Then we are going to form a
+dramatic club in our sorority and after a little while give
+a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
+to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than
+any one of us, or at least she used to when we had charades
+at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean paused, feeling a peculiar change in
+the atmosphere about her. Would no one echo her invitation
+to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in silence
+unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing
+right before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her
+lips to hide their trembling?</p>
+
+<p>Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you
+think for an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning
+to her best friend in the little company, a tall,
+distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that I will be in
+things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
+Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,”
+she whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had
+come to give her, without further thought of anything or
+anybody at Primrose Hall, the two friends hurried off
+together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying to find
+Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after
+them, in a few moments the two girls appeared at the
+reception room door.</p>
+
+<p>“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned
+white faces to stare at each other and at the tall figure
+that rose to greet them holding Frieda’s hand in one of his.
+“It is Peter Drummond, gooseys; don’t you know him?” Frieda
+cried happily. “Some one told me we had a caller and I came
+in here expecting to find some strange, horrid visitor, and
+when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
+and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him
+to come to see us,” she ended, rather crossly.</p>
+
+<p>“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied,
+coming to herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are
+terribly glad it is you; only—why—the truth is, we expected
+Ruth to be able to tell us that Jack was better or
+something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in weeks,
+ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
+friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to
+tell us about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly
+strained voice. “I am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we
+hoped she would be and Ruth couldn’t leave her. Won’t she
+ever be able to walk again like other people? Have the
+doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought you
+to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still
+for a second Peter Drummond did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely
+surprised at Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had
+unexpectedly burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s
+hand, “it isn’t so bad as all this. Olive did guess the
+truth and I have come to tell you about Jack. Perhaps she
+isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t join you at school
+just at present or get about very much. The fact is—” Mr.
+Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not
+quite sure of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while
+longer and keep her very quiet before they can decide. But I
+saw her a minute the other day and she and Ruth send you
+their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so dreadful
+as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
+something, for never before in my life have I been with
+three women and had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with
+a man’s embarrassment at being the bearer of ill news,
+looked at the ranch girls with pretended indignation.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?”
+Jean asked, and their visitor, not in the least offended by
+the question, emphatically bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p>Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda,
+I don’t think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly,
+“though of course we are terribly disappointed at not having
+Jack here at school with us, I have always felt she would be
+well some day. Even if the surgeons should say she won’t, my
+money is on old Jack!”</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous
+attitude, though Olive looked considerably depressed. But at
+this minute Mr. Drummond, to divert everybody’s attention,
+turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell me, please, what
+is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if two
+weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will
+a whole year do?”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot.
+“Don’t tell Jack and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing
+her blonde head: “Oh, tell away if you like, Peter Drummond.
+I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you mean; I am just
+not a baby any longer.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and
+amusement. “If it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,”
+he said pulling at his own heavy iron-gray hair, “then
+you’ve got about the worst disease in the world and the most
+incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to overtake
+one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he
+turned again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been
+awfully nice to Jack and Ruth and they are coming out here
+to see you pretty soon. There is a queer old house in this
+neighborhood where an old relative of theirs lives. The
+house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
+mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the
+place Peter is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he
+hasn’t told you the name of it or what it looks like or
+anything to identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a
+place called ‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of
+it and a balcony and queer little windows.” Quite
+unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because for some
+strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
+had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her
+eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is
+called ‘The Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder
+if because Olive is perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is
+going to be a fortune teller.” But because Olive’s face had
+crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My dear Olive,
+suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
+There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive
+noticed that Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.</p>
+
+<p>But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a
+large box and a small one. The large box he handed to Jean.
+“You are please to conceal this from the powers that be, if
+it’s against boarding school laws to eat candy,” he said and
+then stood turning the smaller box about in his hand,
+surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
+Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains
+a great surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is
+inside of it, may I be present at its opening?”</p>
+
+<p>The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering
+outside the parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed
+which opened with a spring. Instantly Frieda touched this
+spring there were three cries of “Oh,” followed by a
+moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the box were
+three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
+quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels
+shading from red to pale violet. Each girl took her gift
+from the box, regarding it with characteristic expressions.
+Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the dimple showing at
+the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer than
+ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were
+overclouded and her face quivered with pleasure.</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE'
+    src='images/illus-001.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the
+grandest, and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor
+any more,” Frieda announced.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor
+girls may have fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.</p>
+
+<p>“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our
+gifts to suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still
+resting on the glowing colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t
+you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins represent rainbows? I
+have been repeating the rainbow colors to myself—red,
+orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
+seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you
+are, and Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been
+collecting jewels all my life and never thought of so pretty
+an idea as this. Here is a garnet to start with for the red,
+then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond next, an
+emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
+indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of
+violet.”</p>
+
+<p>“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and
+the mine and all the good things that have come to us
+through a rainbow,” Jean said thoughtfully and then more
+huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.” Frieda made a
+dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a piece
+of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when
+I opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she
+announced. “Oh, goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has
+written us a poem!” And Frieda read:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Here are seven colors in nature and art,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day</div>
+        <div class='d021'>And orange and yellow to shine on your way.</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar</div>
+        <div class='d021'>To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.</div>
+        <div class='d021'>And yet to the end shall we ever forget</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes
+pretty well,” Frieda ended doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful,
+I think. And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever
+do go to Europe, as we sometimes have planned, we must never
+forget the Rainbow Ranch. You know, Frieda dear, that the
+alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and white like the
+clover in the east.”</p>
+
+<p>But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr.
+Drummond had now to tear himself away in order to catch his
+train back to New York. Hurrying out into the hall, with the
+three ranch girls close behind him, he suddenly came to an
+abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young woman, who also
+stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes and a
+haughtily held head.</p>
+
+<p>“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here
+when I told you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say
+with the least little nervous tremor in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica,
+Miss Hunt,” he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest
+idea of seeing you at Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but
+the ranch girls are my very dear friends and my visit was
+solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically away when a
+hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
+This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might
+have known you would never trouble to come to see me again.”</p>
+
+<p>That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner
+Jean poked her head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it
+ever occurred to you that Peter Drummond may have
+recommended Primrose Hall to us because a certain young
+woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
+child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see
+what we shall see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men
+can’t fall in love and get married without such a lot of
+fussing and misunderstanding. Think how Ruth is treating
+poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so silly
+and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too
+and let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very
+serious for the moment and also very bewitching.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean
+Bruce, you will have the hardest time of us all in making up
+your mind when you are in love.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER VI<br/>HER TEMPTATION</h2>
+
+<p>Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean
+Bruce. Always beyond anything else had she desired to be
+popular, even in the old days at the ranch when the only
+society in which she had a part was composed of the few
+neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
+Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her
+heart’s desire, and would she for the sake of another be
+compelled to give it up? For how could she accept the honor
+that might be bestowed upon her of being chosen for Junior
+class president without turning traitor to Olive. After her
+friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta” house on
+the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no
+longer shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the
+cause of it? Try as she might she could not find out, yet
+the prejudice was certainly deeper than any one could
+suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the bottom of
+the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she
+had circulated any story against Olive no one would confess
+it. “Miss Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so
+odd, I do not think she enjoys being with other girls,”
+these evasions of the truth were all Jean could get hold of.
+But in the meantime there was no doubt that Olive’s
+classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the
+two sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented
+in the history of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have
+appealed to Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers,
+asking that their influence be exerted in Olive’s behalf,
+but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do. For
+even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities,
+how would it change her classmates’ attitude toward her?
+Would it not make them more unkind than ever? No, there were
+only two courses open to Jean, either she must join the
+sorority she had chosen without any question of Olive’s
+being a member or else she must decline to be admitted
+herself until such time as the girls should come to their
+senses and voluntarily desire the election of them both.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two
+sororities had been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small
+excuse for her hesitation. But a larger issue was at stake.
+Unless she became a member of a sorority and as one of its
+leaders could influence new girls to her cause, she might
+lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the head of
+the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.</p>
+
+<p>Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very
+charming fashion, just by the power of her own personality,
+which is after all the greatest force in the world. She had
+no prominent family connections, as so many of the Primrose
+Hall girls had, and she continued to act as though she had
+no money except what was necessary for very simple
+requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done had
+the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the
+discovery of the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a
+hard fight and many times the young girl longed to break
+faith with herself.</p>
+
+<p>Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading
+of the Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the
+three ranch girls’ school outfits, but now these clothes
+seemed so simple and ordinary that at least two of the girls
+hated the wearing of them.</p>
+
+<p>Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light
+weight flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon
+entertainments and dinner use and a single party dress for
+the monthly dances which were a feature of Primrose Hall
+school life. Their underclothes were plentiful but plain.
+Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
+lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very
+wealthy ones at that, could have such possessions. Just
+think of a single item of a dozen hand-made nightgowns at
+fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s outfit; and yet
+these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly expressed
+her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a
+gift of two of them without hurting her new friend’s
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed
+atmosphere that Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a
+revelation. She seemed not to know the meaning of snobbery,
+not to care who people were so long as she liked what they
+were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
+another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already
+asked Jean to visit her in her home in New York during the
+Christmas holidays, as she longed to introduce her to her
+own family in order that they might lose their prejudice
+against western girls. But more especially Margaret desired
+to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean
+together so as to find out what they would think of one
+another. She was only awaiting the first opportunity. In the
+meantime, although Jean would not accept other gifts from
+her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the flowers
+Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about
+school so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in
+her hair that she soon became known as “the pink carnation
+girl.”</p>
+
+<p>One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to
+send flowers to Margaret in return, but in order to retain
+her masquerade of poverty, most of the time she had to
+refrain. Only now and then she did relieve her feelings by
+presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses regardless
+of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
+would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been
+especially kind to Olive, Frieda or her.</p>
+
+<p>With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to
+spread abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no
+pocket money, but with Frieda the case was very different.
+It is quite certain that Jean would never have had her way
+with Frieda except by appealing directly to Jack for advice
+and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging her
+little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to
+agree to Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not
+that she saw any sense in her sacrifice or was in the least
+reconciled to it, but simply because under the
+circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could refuse
+her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard
+on both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives
+had they had any money of their own to spend and now Jack
+was sending each one of them fifty dollars a month for pin
+money. Think of the fortune of it, if you have had only
+one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use before!</p>
+
+<p>And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded
+to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her
+first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big
+department store with half a dozen of the other school girls
+and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the
+time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant
+young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat
+encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering
+Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. A cry brought
+Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked too
+pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended
+to be ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to
+her, not even when a pale blue silk followed next morning by
+the early express and twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed
+from Olive and Jean to pay for it.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at
+Frieda’s extravagance, because, while saving money is a
+virtuous act, it certainly is a very dull one. And while
+Olive was storing her income away in a lock box, wondering
+if it were possible to return it some day in a gift for
+Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
+intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.</p>
+
+<p>While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty
+at Primrose Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom.
+That there could be so much talk and thought of money as she
+had lately heard among the set of girls of whom Winifred
+Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as Jean already
+had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief reasons
+for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in
+order to prove that this snobbish set was not really in
+control of Primrose Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim
+Colter, the overseer of their ranch, who had always said
+money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud of her
+if they could hear that she won out in her battle without
+its help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned
+her back on Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed
+and torn between the twin enemies, ambition and love, she
+would hardly have accused Olive of being the cause of her
+own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious an
+hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind
+one way or another was drawing close at hand and so far
+Olive had no idea of her friend’s struggle, naturally
+supposing that Jean had already entered the “Theta” society
+without mentioning it to her in order to spare her pride.</p>
+
+<p>Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it
+was now the evening of the first one of them. Of course,
+dances at girls’ boarding schools are not unusual, but the
+dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss Winthrop allowed
+young men to be present at them. Her guests were brothers
+and cousins of her students or else intimate friends,
+carefully introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop
+regarded Primrose Hall as a training school for the larger
+social world and desired her students to learn to accept an
+acquaintance with young men as simply and naturally as they
+did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls and
+boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of
+their school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they
+developed false notions in regard to one another and false
+attitudes. Therefore, although no one could be more severe
+than the principal of Primrose Hall toward any shadow of
+flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a simple
+friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected
+Miss Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly
+dances, at first much criticized, had since become a great
+success. Watching her students and their friends together,
+the older woman could often give her students the help and
+advice they needed in their first knowledge of young men. So
+when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
+excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss
+Winthrop had positively refused her request. No excuse save
+illness was ever accepted from either the Junior or Senior
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to
+begin at eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed,
+strolled slowly into Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending
+that she wished to assist them, but really longing for some
+word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in overcoming
+her shyness.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her
+new blue gown to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was
+alone. At the very instant of Olive’s entrance she was
+thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance and
+uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so
+charming in a pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than
+ever. When Olive was so pretty how could the school girls
+fail to like her?</p>
+
+<p>But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely
+unconscious of Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost
+in admiration of her friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night
+Jean was “a pink carnation girl,” for Margaret Belknap had
+sent her a great box of the deep rose-colored variety and
+she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by accident her
+frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
+particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark
+brown of her hair, while to-night the excitement of
+attending her first school dance made Jean’s brown eyes
+sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said
+wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you
+than even for Frieda or Jack.”</p>
+
+<p>“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered
+ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of
+depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other
+day that we generally got what we expected in this world and
+if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and
+proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive colored, but did not reply at once.</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would
+have some influence with you and not let you be so pokey and
+unfriendly. I am sure I have tried in vain to stir you up
+and now I think I’ll write Jack and Ruth how you are
+behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
+times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean,
+knowing that Olive did not yet understand how her failure to
+be invited into either sorority was influencing her chance
+for the class election, yet had the grace to turn her face
+away.</p>
+
+<p>For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or
+Ruth, Jean,” she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know
+I am not a success at school and if you tell them that no
+one here likes me they will then know that I am unhappy and
+will be worried, and Jack must not have any worry now. It
+isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
+mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter
+with me, Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was
+kissing her warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is
+nothing the matter with you and you are not unpopular
+really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake. Now promise
+me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
+friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her
+mind that in some unexplainable way Olive must be standing
+in her own light or else her classmates must see how
+charming she was.</p>
+
+<p>Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes
+would soon be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s,
+who would be noticing her unpopularity. And would she know a
+single guest at the dance?</p>
+
+<p>Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that
+Jean and Olive went down to the big reception rooms
+together, holding each other’s hands like little girls.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VII<br/>CINDERELLA</h2>
+
+<p>To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that
+she desired her students at Primrose Hall to grow into
+something more useful than mere society women. Her ambition
+was to have them fill many important positions in the modern
+world now offering such big opportunities to clever women.
+Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
+perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just
+always and interested in their welfare. But then none of her
+girls knew the story of her youth nor realized that the last
+life she had ever expected for herself in her rich and
+brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a fashionable
+boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
+the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York
+City and in the homes of the old Dutch and English families
+along the Hudson River, until she had let her pride spoil
+the one romance of her life. By and by, when her father died
+and her family fortune disappeared, she had then opened up
+her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
+aristocratic connections and old name immediately made
+Primrose Hall both fashionable and popular, until now its
+mere name lent its students an assured social prestige.
+Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her school to be
+something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
+been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her
+pupils from among a list of fifty or more applicants whom
+she had been obliged to refuse. There was little in the life
+of her school which she did not see and understand, and now
+her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda, with their
+freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
+looking at things, would bring the element most needed into
+their mere money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere.
+Though no one had mentioned it to her, she had already
+observed Jean’s great popularity with her classmates,
+Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and Olive’s
+failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this
+third ranch girl?</p>
+
+<p>Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the
+past month in getting her school into good working order,
+she had not forgotten the peculiar emotion that Olive had
+awakened in her at their first meeting. Because the child
+was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely a
+sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her,
+and to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss
+Winthrop had determined to watch Olive closely and find out
+for herself wherein lay the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was
+receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night and had also wondered
+how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first evening
+entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
+informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they
+should train her girls for social life in any part of the
+world where in later years circumstances might chance to
+take them.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in
+full evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening
+Miss Winthrop wore a plain black velvet gown with a small
+diamond star at her throat, a piece of jewelry for which she
+had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt, who was standing
+next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and the
+bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought)
+made a striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of
+the older woman. Though there were a dozen or more of the
+Primrose Hall girls grouped about the two women when Jean
+and Olive entered the reception room together, both of them
+immediately saw and watched them as they came slowly
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
+anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know,
+as she moved through the room with an expression of fine
+unconsciousness, that this was the first really formal party
+she had ever attended in her life. Neither her blush nor her
+dimple betrayed her, although she was perfectly aware that a
+number of youths in long-tailed coats and black trousers,
+wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped
+talking for several moments to their girl friends in order
+to glance at Olive and at her. She even saw, without
+appearing to lift her lids, that a tall, blonde fellow
+standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was deliberately
+staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
+Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite
+of his fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared
+to Ralph Merrit or other simple western fellows whom she had
+known in the past.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s
+passing observations in her forward progress toward Miss
+Winthrop, and yet in the same length of time Olive, who was
+close beside her, had seen nothing “but a sea of unknown
+faces.” Even her school companions to-night in their frocks
+of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet somehow, with
+Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
+Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to
+them. Then, still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne
+off for a short distance and there surrounded by a group of
+Jean’s girl friends.</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
+Belknap in the number, had come up with their cousins,
+brothers and friends to meet Jean Bruce and to fill up her
+dance card. They were, of course, also introduced to Olive,
+but as she did not speak, no one noticed her particularly
+and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
+desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began
+she forgot her and marched off with an enthusiastic partner,
+who had asked Gerry Ferrows to introduce him to the most
+fascinating girl in the room, and Gerry had unhesitatingly
+chosen Jean.</p>
+
+<p>There were two or three other girls and young men standing
+near Olive when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds
+later and she was entirely alone.</p>
+
+<p>Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to
+society to find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first
+Olive felt desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with
+shame and fearing that her eyes were filling with tears. Then
+looking about her she soon discovered a group of palms in a
+corner of the room not far away and guessed that she could find
+shelter behind them. Slipping across she came upon a small sofa
+hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little sigh of
+thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
+serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see
+what a good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen
+herself. Once she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her
+hiding place—Frieda, who had been a fat, little girl with long
+plaits down her back just a few weeks ago, now attired in a blue
+silk and lace, was whirling about on the arm of a long-legged
+boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous quantity of blonde
+curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin brother. Five
+minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
+evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
+apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance
+with her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom
+Olive recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard
+brother, could be seen dancing attendance on Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this
+fashion until Olive felt perfectly safe in her green
+retreat, when unexpectedly a hand was laid upon her shoulder
+and a voice said sternly, “What in the world, child, are you
+doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
+stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you
+to take part in the dancing; there really isn’t much
+difference between your being concealed up there or here.”</p>
+
+<p>And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her
+breath made her unable to answer at once.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as
+she had thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had
+seen first her embarrassment at being left alone and next
+her withdrawal. In much the same fashion that Jack would
+have followed, Jessica had wished to rush off at once to
+comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes
+her so unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out
+of hearing. “I wish you would tell me if you know any
+explanation for it.”</p>
+
+<p>But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering,
+“I can’t for the life of me understand. There are a good
+many little things that Olive does not seem to know, and
+yet, as she studies very hard, I believe she will soon be
+one of the honor girls in my class. I have a friend in New
+York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
+unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well.
+Perhaps I had best ask him if there is anything unusual
+about Olive.”</p>
+
+<p>But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you
+would ask no questions, at least not now please, Jessica,
+for I have heard at least a part of the girl’s history, and
+yet I believe the real truth is not known to any one and
+perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive if it
+never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be
+so sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss
+Winthrop had moved across the room to where Olive was in
+hiding. As the girl’s startled brown eyes were upturned to
+hers Miss Winthrop, who was not poetic, yet thought that her
+pupil in her pale green dress with her queer pointed chin
+and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from some
+old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls
+and young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s
+unusual beauty, forgetting that young people seldom admire
+what is out of the ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older
+woman quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender
+brown fingers in hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in
+a voice that was gentler than usual, “for I understand it is
+timidity that is making you hide yourself. Don’t you think
+though that you would enjoy dancing?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she
+returned, forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no
+one has invited me.” Then as her teacher suddenly rose to
+her feet, as though intending to find her a partner, with a
+sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness Olive drew her
+down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me, Miss
+Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little
+while I am sure it will be delightful just watching the
+others.”</p>
+
+<p>While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers,
+Miss Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross
+at the end of it, which Olive was wearing around her throat.
+Leaning over she took the cross in her hand. “This is an odd
+piece of jewelry, child, and must be very old; it is so
+heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed inside
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything
+about it, except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,”
+she replied. For some strange reason this shy girl was
+speaking of her mother to a comparative stranger, when she
+rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved friend,
+Jacqueline Ralston.</p>
+
+<p>But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice
+startled both of them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed,
+“what do you mean by hiding yourself away with Miss Winthrop
+when I have been searching the house over for you.”</p>
+
+<p>Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld
+Donald Harmon standing near them, the young fellow whose
+father had rented the Rainbow Ranch from the Ralston girls
+the summer before and whose sister had been responsible for
+Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one
+of your guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and
+that my aunt is your old friend and lives near Primrose
+Hall.”</p>
+
+<p>While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had
+no idea that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald
+was trying to persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for
+her first dance with him. By accident it happened to be a
+Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced it before, but she
+had been watching the other girls. Donald was an excellent
+partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it
+all her life.</p>
+
+<p>Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different
+art, although both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean
+was gay and vivacious, full of grace and activity, keeping
+excellent time to the music, but Olive seemed to move like a
+flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly conscious of what
+she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet yielding
+her body to every note of the music and movement of her
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many
+of the others stopped and at once the young men demanded to
+be told who Olive was and why she had been hidden away from
+their sight until now? Whatever replies the girls may have
+made to these questions, they did not apparently affect
+their questioners, for from the time of her first dance
+until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
+partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and
+her cheeks grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her
+low laugh rang out, and always she could dance. What did
+conversation at a ball amount to anyhow when movement was
+the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a fairy
+princess just awakened from a long enchantment?</p>
+
+<p>Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had
+ever brought Olive forth from her retreat, but just before
+midnight, when Primrose Hall parties must always come to an
+end, he did manage to get her away for a moment out on the
+veranda, where chairs were placed so that the young people
+could rest and talk.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER VIII<br/>SHADOWS BEFORE</h2>
+
+<p>The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and
+shaded electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and
+himself in a corner where they could see the dancers and yet
+not be interrupted, for he wished to talk to her alone for a
+few moments, never having forgotten the impression she had
+made upon him at their first meeting, nor the peculiar
+likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.</p>
+
+<p>But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never
+really liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which
+Elizabeth had innocently brought upon her beloved Jack. And
+yet, as she knew that this attitude on her part was hardly
+fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your mother and
+Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
+coldness.</p>
+
+<p>Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they
+are both unusually well these days, and if Beth could only
+hear that your friend Miss Ralston was going to get quite
+well, why she would brace up a lot. But she worries about
+her a great deal, so she and my mother have just come out
+here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away
+from college for a few days to be with them and to see you
+ranch girls again,” he ended honestly.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by
+for a glimpse of Jean or Frieda.</p>
+
+<p>“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and
+have tea with them,” the young man urged, appearing not to
+notice his companion’s lack of interest. “My aunt’s place is
+very near Primrose Hall, so you can easily walk over.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would
+care to have us go about the neighborhood making visits,”
+she announced, glad of what seemed to her a reasonable
+excuse.</p>
+
+<p>Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by
+Olive’s manner. “Don’t try to get out of coming to see us
+for any such cause, Miss Olive,” he protested, “for Miss
+Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest friends and she and my
+mother have known one another since they were girls. Why, my
+aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is always
+offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and
+perhaps some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was
+going to ask Miss Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and
+Frieda over to us, as she always comes to see my aunt every
+week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown too old and too cranky
+to leave her place.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing
+that Donald had always been their friend in all family
+difficulties, she was sorry to have seemed unkind. “I’ll
+tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with more enthusiasm,
+“and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will be
+happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you,
+the white house at the end of the woods with a tower at the
+top of it and queer gabled windows and two absurd dogs on
+either side the front door?”</p>
+
+<p>The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you?
+We are dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to
+love them as children; I suppose a good many generations of
+the children in our family have had glorious rides on their
+backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of color sweeping over her
+face which even in the glow of the artificial lights Donald
+was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
+room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things
+around the walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in
+one corner?”</p>
+
+<p>Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I
+am sorry I made such a silly speech. Of course your tower
+room isn’t like that. I think I must just have read of some
+such a room at the top of a house somewhere that looks like
+yours. Only I want to ask you a few questions.”</p>
+
+<p>At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over
+Olive’s eyes and a voice asked:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Whose hands about thee are entwined?”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for
+Jean had come up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil
+Belknap and with Gerry Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean
+promptly began a conversation with Donald; Gerry and her
+friend, after being properly introduced to the others,
+continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor
+Olive to do but to try to talk to Cecil.</p>
+
+<p>Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his
+invitation than Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated
+his request to her, so that for five minutes or more they
+were deep in questions and answers, Jean laughingly
+reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
+evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to
+break through the wall of her admirers. When a truce was
+finally declared Jean smilingly accepted his invitation to
+tea and then turning stood for a moment with her eyes
+dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up a
+conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather
+had evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon
+even now peeping over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow
+hills, and still Olive was struggling bravely on without the
+least assistance from her superior companion, who merely
+stared at her without volunteering a single remark.</p>
+
+<p>Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon,
+Olive, for having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long.
+Just think,” she turned to look up at the young man with her
+most demure expression, “I used to think the sphinx a woman,
+but now I am entirely convinced that he or she is a Harvard
+student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
+and inscrutable.”</p>
+
+<p>Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that
+this small ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to
+all evening on account of his sister’s affection for her,
+was actually poking fun at him, a Harvard Senior and heir to
+half a million dollars? The thing was impossible! Had she
+not realized that his mere presence near her had added to
+her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
+also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary
+schoolboy? Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous
+ideas and Cecil now hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean
+to a proper state of humility.</p>
+
+<p>However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her
+rudeness, drew Olive aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her
+friend’s ear in rather anxious and annoyed tones, “have you
+seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past hour? I told
+that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
+every half hour all this evening and she has never been near
+me a single time. Has she spoken to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never
+spoken to me,” she replied, “but once in dancing by me she
+did deign to smile as though we had met somewhere before.
+Isn’t she funny?”</p>
+
+<p>But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with
+her grown-up airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her
+upstairs to bed. You know it is nearly twelve o’clock,
+Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly twelve and then
+Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
+personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that
+Johnson child should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie
+either. I wonder if they have gone off anywhere with that
+long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”</p>
+
+<p>“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she
+is sure to be in the parlor and will say good-night with the
+rest of us. You see, we are so used to thinking of her as a
+baby that we can’t get used to her independence.”</p>
+
+<p>But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to
+talk of family matters with strangers waiting near them.
+Anyhow, just at this moment the big clock in the hall, the
+same clock that Olive had listened to so long on that first
+night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to boom forth the
+hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began to
+play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that
+he desired her as a partner, but that he wished to punish
+Jean. A moment later Gerry and her friend entered the
+ballroom, so that naturally Donald and Jean were compelled
+to have this last dance together. Of course Donald would
+have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being
+second best. However, Donald need not have worried over
+Jean’s being forced upon him, for no sooner had they come
+into the parlor with the other dancers, than two young
+fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had promised the
+“Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
+forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.</p>
+
+<p>So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment
+watching Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a
+conspicuously sad time, for Cecil could not dance and so
+Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue, Donald bore his
+first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
+heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of
+the evening in the society of her rival, Winifred Graham.
+However, the young man would have been better satisfied
+could he have known whether or not the western girl noticed
+his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice to Jean
+in order that the mere influence of his presence near her
+might induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had
+not appeared particularly grateful. It is the old story with
+a girl or a woman. Strange, but she never seems to care for
+a man’s attention when he makes a martyr of himself for her
+sake!</p>
+
+<p>However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older
+ranch girls were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda.
+Nowhere about the great room could she be seen, not even
+after the young men guests had gone away and the girls had
+formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop and
+Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several
+students and yet the same questions traveled from one face
+to the other. “Suppose Miss Winthrop asks us what has become
+of Frieda, what must we say, and what will she do if, after
+trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten into some kind
+of mischief?”</p>
+
+<p>Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own
+good-nights had been said and no questions asked, rushed
+upstairs to their bedrooms. But outside Jean’s door Olive
+suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such a baby, she
+has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
+good-night long ago.”</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was
+burning inside the room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s
+bed, but that young lady was not in it, neither was there
+any sign of her presence about the place.</p>
+
+<p>Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room.
+“Lucy says Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported
+immediately, “so what on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has
+charge of our floor to-night and will be around in a few
+minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then if Frieda
+isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
+from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep
+Frieda a little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid
+any attention to her, she was both angry and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested
+faintly, knowing that she could never get downstairs and
+back again before Miss Sterne’s appearance and feeling that
+the vanishment of two girls might be even more conspicuous
+and draw greater wrath down upon their heads than the
+disappearance of one.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see
+you prowling around and would have to know the reason why,
+so that wouldn’t help the present situation,” Jean answered.
+“Surely Frieda will be here in a few minutes.” All up and
+down the hall the opening and shutting of bedroom doors
+could now be heard and the voices of the other girls bidding
+Miss Sterne and each other good-night.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER IX<br/>FRIEDA’S MISTAKE</h2>
+
+<p>Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair,
+but Olive, still fully dressed, kept darting from her own
+bedroom to Jean’s and Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a
+sign of the wanderer.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in
+the least what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds
+out how she has behaved, but you and I must go to look for
+her.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the
+lights were now being turned low, when a figure brushed by
+them. “Please let me get into my own room,” a voice said
+peevishly, and nothing loath, the three figures returned
+inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda Ralston,”
+Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
+excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is
+just barely possible that she may not have seen you sneaking
+along the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive
+gazed upon the youngest ranch girl with an expression of
+disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss
+Sterne inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about
+through her large horn spectacles that Olive had so promptly
+disliked, like a wise old owl.</p>
+
+<p>“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?”
+she continued, “you know you are not expected to enter
+another girl’s sleeping apartment after the hour for
+retiring.”</p>
+
+<p>Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own
+room and rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning
+to talk to Jean or to Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s
+retreating footsteps were far out of hearing.</p>
+
+<p>And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand
+what the other two ranch girls were saying and then it was
+Jean’s tones that were the more distinct.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and
+slipper, keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor,
+when Jean, now in her night gown, planted herself before her.
+“Where have you been all this time, Frieda Ralston, and why
+didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say good-night to Miss Winthrop
+when the rest of us did?”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue
+stockings, swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean,
+and I didn’t dream of its being so late. Do you think Miss
+Winthrop noticed?” the culprit faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in
+this school, Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she
+inquired. “I suppose you will be able to explain to her in
+the morning why you were in the back hall instead of in the
+parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to tell
+anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own
+heart was quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could
+not answer back in the cool fashion she desired. “Mollie
+Johnson was with me,” she managed to say, “and two boys.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or
+the present Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as
+she sat up in bed with her arms folded before her.</p>
+
+<p>“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly,
+“but will you please tell me why you went to the back hall
+when you knew perfectly well that Miss Winthrop was trusting
+you to behave like a lady and remain in the rooms where she
+was receiving her guests. I don’t know what Ruth and Jack
+will say.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she
+murmured, struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair.
+“You see, we had only ices and cake for the party, and about
+eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the boy I was with, said he
+wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as hungry for one,
+so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of the
+dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in
+the pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of
+good things.” And now Frieda’s courage returning in a small
+measure, she turned out the electric lights, hopping into
+bed. “I am not going to be treated like a criminal, though,
+Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she ended,
+burying herself under the cover.</p>
+
+<p>So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls
+were sound asleep, though in reality the three of them were
+still wide awake.</p>
+
+<p>Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet
+understanding the real facts of her escape, and Frieda was
+longing with all her might for some one to sympathize with
+her and help her in her scrape, some one who would let her
+cry herself out.</p>
+
+<p>By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s
+bedside. “Jean, has Frieda explained things to you?” she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and
+two boys, and that they went into the pantry and had
+something to eat, but she didn’t say why they stayed in the
+back hall afterwards. They couldn’t have kept on eating
+pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls giggled
+softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
+greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she
+was constantly doing on their long trip through the
+Yellowstone the summer before?</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted,
+“and I don’t think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she
+hears that the pantry was the difficulty, for she knows how
+good the housekeeper is to all the little girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.”
+Jean’s voice became low and impressive, “What do you suppose
+that Frieda Ralston could have to talk about to a—boy?”</p>
+
+<p>A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both
+older girls started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted
+the outside of the blanket.</p>
+
+<p>“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a
+sterner manner than was usual to her, “or were all four of
+you just sitting around having a jolly time together?” Now
+that Frieda’s sobs assured the other two girls that she was
+awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on with her
+cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
+unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other
+boy were sitting on a higher step and the servants were
+around, but no one told us how late it was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what were you talking about that you found so
+interesting that you could not hear the clock strike twelve,
+or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’ waltz, or the good-byes being
+said?” Jean demanded fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her
+sorrow, for the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were
+talking about worms!” she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that
+they could not have heard aright.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see,
+we got to talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved
+it better than most anything he ever did and some summers he
+goes way up into the Maine woods and fishes in the lakes for
+trout. He uses flies for bait always, but I told him that we
+fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes when it
+wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way
+down under the ground to find them. I told him too how once
+I started a fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I
+could dig up in a glass bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys
+whenever they wished to go fishing.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up
+conversation with her first admirer, feeling too angry and
+too puzzled to go on for the minute, for her former irate
+judges were now holding their sides and doing their level
+best to keep from shrieking with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of
+fishing worms,” Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the
+covers more closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and
+dream of Jack,” she comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop
+will never hear of your mistaking the time for saying
+good-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda
+returned sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive,
+better than most any of the girls. I have seen her looking
+at you so strangely every now and then.”</p>
+
+<p>In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling
+so penitent over her escapade as the two older ranch girls
+supposed. But Frieda had always been a good deal spoiled
+and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed her failure to say
+good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault upon her
+mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that
+both little girls and big receive their punishment for a
+fault so soon as the fault is committed, in order not to
+keep on growing naughtier and naughtier until Fate punishes
+us for many sins at once.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chX' class='d018'>CHAPTER X<br/>THE HOUSE OF MEMORY</h2>
+
+<p>After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be
+Saturday afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting
+room looking for Olive and Frieda. She had been playing
+basketball for the past two hours and in spite of having
+known nothing of the game on her arrival at school, was
+already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
+Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass
+above her face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in
+her hand she held a bundle of letters. One she tossed to
+Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa nursing a small cold due
+to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed
+to her in Jack’s handwriting and Frieda
+followed suit. When Jack had first been taken
+to the hospital and there compelled to lie
+always flat on her back, her handwriting had
+been difficult to read, but now that she had
+gotten used to this method of writing, her
+stroke was again as vigorous and characteristic as of old.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other
+girls. “Jack says she is getting on very well and we are to
+see her in a few weeks—perhaps,” she announced.</p>
+
+<p>Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of
+course, isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written
+you, for Jack never tells anything but the best news of
+herself.”</p>
+
+<p>“There may be an operation or something of the sort later
+on,” Jean conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it
+may not be for some months yet. Only if the operation does
+have to take place Jack has demanded that Jim come on from
+the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph Merrit to look after
+things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things are in a
+bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
+come?” And Jean sighed.</p>
+
+<p>An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should
+she behave in any special way?” she inquired, sitting
+straight up on the couch to gaze from Olive to Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed,
+for Frieda was the only one of the four ranch girls who knew
+nothing of what had happened at the ranch between Jim
+Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew, their chaperon. What
+had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
+understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware
+that Jim and Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one
+another and then some mysterious misunderstanding had
+suddenly parted them.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested,
+knowing this would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one
+theme. “Sometimes I wish for Jack’s sake that we were all
+back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she was able to be out in
+the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of Jack
+lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three
+girls, so that there was a moment of painful silence in the
+room. Then Jean said more cheerfully after re-reading the
+latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim says that Ralph Merrit is
+doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and that he is a
+trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
+Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he
+has turned out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does
+Frank Kent.”</p>
+
+<p>The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet
+forgiven Jean for last night’s scolding. Now she turned up
+her small nose a trifle more than usual. “Oh, you just say
+that because Ralph likes you best and Frank Kent is more
+fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean flushed.</p>
+
+<p>“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that
+Jim should like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has
+to make his own way in the world just as Jim has; and Frank
+Kent, though he is awfully simple and a thorough good
+fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a title
+himself some day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an
+English lady and own country estates and ride to hounds?”
+Frieda suggested more peacefully, gazing across the room at
+Frank Kent’s photograph, which ornamented the bookshelf. “I
+think I should love to be introduced into English society
+and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended lamely.</p>
+
+<p>A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled
+with mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about
+fishing worms, baby?” she queried with studied politeness.</p>
+
+<p>And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a
+sofa cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:</p>
+
+<p>“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at
+the Lodge. What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a
+second letter that Jean had brought to her, she began to
+read it.</p>
+
+<p>Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda,
+who resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get
+dressed, infant; no, your cold isn’t too bad for you to
+come. Olive is reading a note of invitation from Mrs. Harmon
+for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have tea and Miss
+Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”</p>
+
+<p>But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom
+enjoyed by the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested
+resolutely; “only if they have any candy or cake and happen to
+mention sending me some you might bring it along. And I do wish
+both you girls would go out for a while, for Mollie is coming to
+spend the afternoon with me after she finishes her music lesson
+and we would love to have the sitting room to ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without
+being actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean
+said, seeing that Olive was hesitating about what she should do.
+“Come along, it will do us both good to get away and not to sit
+here thinking about what we can’t help,” she ended.</p>
+
+<p>While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks
+preparatory to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of
+her own room Olive was trying to persuade herself that her
+hesitation in going for the call upon the Harmons was because
+she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of Elizabeth of the old
+tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than this in her
+mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
+which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment
+her eyes had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have
+ever had with an old place like “The Towers,” or any house
+resembling it? Her impression that she must have seen the house
+somewhere before was sheer madness, for was it not an old Dutch
+mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years ago, and certainly
+wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?</p>
+
+<p>Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed
+her out of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and
+Jean started gayly forth on their walk. It was about four
+o’clock in the late November afternoon and instead of following
+the path through the woods, the little party set out along the
+lane that led through an exquisite part of the Sleepy Hollow
+neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed a short hill
+and from the top of it could see at some distance off the spire
+of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
+River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its
+deep hidden lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As
+Olive was particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through
+hers. “This is a land of legends and of dreams about here, dear,
+and some day I must take you western girls about the country and
+show you the historic places nearby. Do you know anything about
+them?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her
+head. “I don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem
+somehow familiar, yet it did not at first. Don’t you believe
+that all the world, at least the world of outside things, of
+hills and trees and valleys and water, somehow belongs alike to
+all of us and once we have seen a landscape and moved about in
+it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in nature,
+there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
+are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”</p>
+
+<p>Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on
+their approach to the house. As he was holding a great St.
+Bernard dog by the collar and as it bounded away from him all of
+a sudden, nearly upsetting Olive and Jessica in the rapture of
+its welcome, the little party entered “The Towers” with too much
+laughter and excitement for Olive to feel any self-consciousness
+or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of her past foolishness
+in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so many
+eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
+easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both
+decided at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite
+of its magnificence, was one of the darkest and most
+unattractive rooms either of them had ever seen. For everything
+was very stiff and formal and without life or fragrance. Carved
+black furniture sat stiffly against the walls, which were hung
+with old portraits of men and women in high fluted ruffs, with
+gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces. Over in one
+corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen and
+having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And
+behind this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or
+twelve, who looked a little like Donald Harmon.</p>
+
+<p>“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon
+had said as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to
+wait tea for her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs.
+Harmon’s manner was a little constrained and that she kept
+looking at Olive as though she intended asking her some
+question, but as the question was never asked, the girls must
+have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the little
+company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
+seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a
+long stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow
+the butler flung open the drawing room door.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean
+could not forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her
+heart rise up in her throat. Why on earth was the old mistress
+of “The Towers” so formidable that the entire neighborhood felt
+an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry that she was competing for
+one of her prizes offered to the Junior students at Primrose
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at
+the name of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard
+for the first time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young
+girl caught at the sides of her chair, and drew in her breath
+sharply. Then when no one was looking at her, smiled at herself
+and turned her gaze curiously on their ancient hostess.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XI<br/>“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”</h2>
+
+<p>For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom
+there is no English expression so good as the French, “a grande
+dame.”</p>
+
+<p>There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but
+she stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with
+brilliant, hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and
+slightly inclining her head. Then she walked over to the high,
+carved chair near the tea table and sat down under the picture
+of the little boy. Feeble from old age, she was yet of too
+determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for when Donald
+tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned it
+away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head
+by a careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of
+age, was yet as delicately powdered and rouged as if she had
+been an actress about to make her debut, and she was carefully
+dressed in a gown of deep purple silk with lace at her throat
+and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort could hide the
+ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the coldness of
+her air and expression suggested that she would have repelled
+grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful
+after its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed
+to be able to speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was
+plainly ill at ease and even Elizabeth had been taught to treat
+this wealthy old aunt, whose fortune she expected some day to
+share with her brother, with more respect than she showed to any
+one else in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had
+huddled close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having
+little to say to one another.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was
+barely able to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater
+said, “bring the girl, whom you tell me you met in the West and
+who bears so strange a resemblance to your mother, closer to me.
+I think all resemblances are ridiculous and yet you have made me
+curious.”</p>
+
+<p>Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of
+all things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for
+her to do in this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead
+her across the room to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged
+forgiveness for the old woman’s peremptory manner, and yet he
+showed no sign of disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the
+dusk was creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing
+her hostess, Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.</p>
+
+<p>It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers
+even to raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared
+straight at Madame Van Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as
+hers and almost as searching and haughty. For Olive’s emotion
+was immediately one of the deepest antagonism toward this woman,
+however old she might be, who summoned her as a queen might
+summon a subject.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her
+slowly through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of
+course, resting longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she
+drew one of relief as she turned again to Donald and to Mrs.
+Harmon? “I do not see the least likeness in this girl to any
+member of my family,” she announced. “Whatever her name may be,
+her appearance is quite foreign and I should prefer never to
+have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.” And
+nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her
+drawing her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she
+murmured. “I had not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has
+seemed to me that I have seen some one a little like you
+somewhere, I fancied in some old picture.” Then smiling she
+shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I see any likeness to
+your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is enough of a
+suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”</p>
+
+<p>And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair,
+where she sat down pretending to look out of the window, though
+all the time she was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in
+which she had just been compelled to play an unwilling part.
+Why, because she was so uncertain of her ancestry, should she be
+forced to go through these moments that made the fact more
+bitterly painful to her?</p>
+
+<p>Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls
+had tried their best to keep her story from the ears of the
+Harmons during their stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald,
+his sister and mother had learned through Aunt Ellen, through
+the cowboys on the ranch and through one or two of their closest
+neighbors. And for this reason the young fellow was perhaps even
+more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he wished very
+much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into which
+his own idle talk had led her.</p>
+
+<p>Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and
+Miss Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with
+me?” he asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I
+am sure that Elizabeth will excuse us.”</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being
+left with only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was
+the only one of the ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she
+made no objection, particularly as no one waited for her to
+speak. For Jean fairly bounced from her chair with relief,
+Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon after, feeling that
+she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged to remain
+another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
+Towers.”</p>
+
+<p>Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared
+suddenly to have been released from prison. Jean danced a
+two-step, Jessica clapped her hands softly together and Olive
+laughed, while Donald straightway plunged head first up the dark
+mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he begged, “for there
+isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well enough to
+tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great view
+that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
+rather a long climb.”</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then
+Jessica. Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like
+those in any ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral
+resembling the steps in a lighthouse. About midway up these
+steps Jessica noticed that Olive paused, pressing her hands to
+her eyes as though to shut out some idea or some vision that
+assailed her, and that she wavered as though she felt faint.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired,
+knowing that climbing to unexpected heights often has this
+effect on sensitive persons. And though Olive now shook her
+head, moving on again, Jessica determined to watch her.</p>
+
+<p>To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a
+small, closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big,
+spacious apartment out of which the little gabled windows winked
+like so many friendly eyes. The room was fitted up as a boy’s
+room with a bed apparently just ready to be slept in, there was
+a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but the bookcases were
+filled with books of all kinds and for all ages, French, Spanish
+and German books and plays from the days of the miracle plays
+down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
+long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which
+seemed to be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols
+were hung on the walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete
+figure of a knight in armor stood in one corner. Curious why
+these masculine trophies should interest a girl, and yet for
+some reason they did interest Olive, for she waited there alone;
+Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one of the windows
+were gazing out over the countryside made famous the world over
+through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
+Dreams.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to
+see the view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in
+the next few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also
+looked out the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the
+bridge over which they had lately passed, with the stretch of
+woodlands to one side and the autumn-colored hills rising in the
+background. Very quietly she began to speak:</p>
+
+<p>“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a
+little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is
+one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook
+glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
+repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
+woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the
+uniform tranquillity.”</p>
+
+<p>These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape
+and her lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of
+poetry long ago forgotten and now brought back to mind by the
+objects that inspired it.</p>
+
+<p>It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to
+herself by reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement,
+but neither Donald Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least
+surprised and after a moment, as though again striking the
+strings of her memory, the young girl went on: “If ever I should
+wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its
+distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled
+life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
+And then her recitation abruptly ended.</p>
+
+<p>“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded;
+“or tell us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur
+of the moment to impress your English teacher?”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is
+repeating! I should have taught it you before now, but Olive
+seems to have gotten ahead of me and learned it first.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing
+a thing like that and then waiting for a critical minute to
+recite it so as to impress her audience. I never should have
+suspected her!”</p>
+
+<p>But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica
+said in explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington
+Irving’s description of this countryside, which he gives in his
+‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ and when you get back to school,
+Jean, I advise you to ask Olive to lend you her book.”</p>
+
+<p>Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to
+Primrose Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first
+both the woman and the girl were silent, but as they neared the
+school Olive spoke suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the
+feeling of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking
+that you have been there before, seen the same things or people
+and even heard the same words said?”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and
+yet not appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s
+expression was both puzzled and intent.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered.
+“No one can understand or explain it very well, but the
+impression is more apt to come to you when you are young. I can
+recall once having gone into a ballroom and there having had
+some one make a perfectly ordinary speech to me and yet I had a
+sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was I that at some
+past time I had been in the same place, under the same
+circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the
+time it was impossible.”</p>
+
+<p>“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in
+a certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into
+one’s mind without our remembering where we have learned it
+before,” Olive persisted.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said
+quietly, “I think there are many wonderful things in the world
+around us that we do not believe in because we do not yet
+understand them, just as long years ago men and women did not
+believe that our world was round because it had not then been
+revealed to them. And so I do not understand about these strange
+psychical experiences about which we have just been talking. But
+I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
+remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In
+this story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the
+hero’s mind from the time he is a little boy all through his
+life. He does not understand why he remembers this song, but by
+and by it is explained to the reader that this song had played
+an important part in the life of one of Peter Ibbetson’s
+ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color of our eyes, the
+shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some far-off
+ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
+impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing
+to understand, but the idea is interesting.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the
+book.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the
+darkness of the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you
+ever felt that you have been in a certain place before, where
+you know you could never really have been, or have you thought
+suddenly of something that you did not remember having in your
+mind before? But please do not answer me if you would rather
+not, for I know that these queer experiences most of us would
+rather keep to ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women
+started up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XII<br/>WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY</h2>
+
+<p>While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda
+and Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch
+girls’ sitting room, school politics were playing an important
+part in the precincts of Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and
+Gerry Ferrows were devoting that same Saturday afternoon to
+canvassing their class in order to discover whether Jean or
+Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
+president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for
+Jean, while Winifred was conducting a personal investigation.
+Indeed, the situation between these two girls was a peculiar and
+a difficult one, for having once been intimate friends, they had
+now become violently estranged from one another and yet
+continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than because
+Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
+afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together
+and with their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively
+refused to work for herself, having turned over her cause to her
+two best friends, Gerry and Margaret Belknap.</p>
+
+<p>But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning
+Jean and Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances
+for her election and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the
+whole situation.</p>
+
+<p>Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s
+success. If even at this late date Jean would allow herself to
+be elected into one of the sororities and thus proclaim her
+independence of the girl whose presence in the school her
+classmates resented, she might yet win their complete
+allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case that
+Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
+her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart
+for the honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on
+this question of Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while
+she was too good a sport to be unkind to any one in adversity,
+yet she did not herself care to associate with Olive on terms of
+perfect equality, although she had never mentioned this fact to
+Jean. And lately she had felt her own decision waver, for since
+her father had written her that he had charge of Jack Ralston’s
+case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl he had
+ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
+protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.</p>
+
+<p>Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice
+grew deeper on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to
+the other of her classmates, asking them point-blank whether
+they intended to cast their votes for Winifred or for Jean at
+the coming election. Some of the girls were quite frank. They
+had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided that it would
+be wiser not to have as the representative of their class a girl
+who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
+the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean,
+not having entirely made up their minds between her and
+Winifred; a number of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and
+loyal supporters and yet it was with a feeling of discouragement
+that Gerry at the close of her canvass returned to her own room.
+She had taken a note book with her and written down each girl’s
+position in regard to the election, and yet she could not now
+decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it was
+peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room
+to find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde
+hair down her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the
+pages of a magazine, wearing a particularly cheerful and
+self-satisfied expression.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an
+agreeable one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a
+certain portion of American society. As long as Winifred could
+remember she had been taught these two things: By her brains and
+her beauty she must some day win for herself the wealth and the
+position that her family had always longed to have and yet never
+had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her mother and
+father had been spending more money than they could afford in
+trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more
+prominent than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at
+Primrose Hall was but another proof of their extravagance, for
+they could by no means afford the expense of such a school, yet
+their hope was that there Winifred would make so many wealthy
+and aristocratic friends that later on they might help her to a
+wealthy marriage.</p>
+
+<p>But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good
+mind and longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her
+friendships, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should
+cordially dislike the two older ranch girls, who, coming out of
+nowhere and pretending to nothing, seemed likely to prove her
+rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the way of her being
+chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior class, Olive
+was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which the
+old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior
+students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also
+competing for this prize, but as it represented a fairly large
+sum of money, sufficient to cover a year’s tuition at Primrose
+Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must be hers.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down
+on their couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a
+nap.</p>
+
+<p>“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend
+Gerry?” she asked in an irritating fashion.</p>
+
+<p>“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none
+too truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm
+assurance.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you
+know it, and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if
+it half killed you, being anxious to prove that women are as
+honest as men, as brave and as straight-forward and as clever,
+and therefore should be entitled to equal suffrage.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely
+face crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite
+truthful; I am afraid that your chance for the presidency is
+better than Jean’s. But you know that it is all because the
+girls here think that Olive isn’t a fit associate for the rest
+of us, or else Jean would have won in a walkover. I wonder if
+the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her parentage is
+true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me. Where did
+you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and
+heard the tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the
+younger girls she knew in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth
+meant any harm in telling, for she seemed to think that we would
+be pleased to have an Indian enliven us at Primrose Hall. You
+may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean and Frieda have
+been very quiet about the whole question of this objectionable
+Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why don’t you
+inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.</p>
+
+<p>Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss
+Winthrop treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is
+any mystery about Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private
+affair,’ she said. ‘But kindly remember that she is a student at
+Primrose Hall and if I thought her unfit for the companionship
+of my other girls, she would not be among you.’ You can imagine
+that I felt about the size of a small caterpillar when she got
+through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore from Miss
+Winthrop’s snubbing.</p>
+
+<p>“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind
+your own business,” Winifred interposed with secret
+satisfaction, knowing from Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had
+heard of Olive’s past and glad to have the truth of the story
+that she had been repeating confirmed.</p>
+
+<p>“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to
+a girl for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so
+anxious to have Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her
+own mind.</p>
+
+<p>Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
+honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t
+think she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall,
+If Miss Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of
+the girls’ parents would have complained of Olive before this,
+but that lady is just as likely to fire us all out and to keep
+just this one girl, as she seems to have such an unaccountable
+fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you and I used to be good
+friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why don’t you give
+up working for her and come over to my side and not mix yourself
+up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
+and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so
+plague-taked sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a
+chance for the election! And not for anything would I go back on
+her now! Besides, I have a plan that, has just come into my mind
+this very second that may straighten things out for Jean most
+beau-ti-fully.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIII<br/>THE APPEAL TO OLIVE</h2>
+
+<p>And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
+personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for
+Jean by making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know
+that Olive was as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s
+refusal to join the Theta sorority because of the failure of the
+girls to include her in the invitation, but even with this
+knowledge Gerry would hardly have been deterred from her plan.
+For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck her own chances
+on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’ attitude
+toward her?</p>
+
+<p>The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook
+Olive, as both girls were leaving their class room, and coming
+up close behind her leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh,
+Olive, I wonder if you could have a little talk with me this
+afternoon on strictly private business; I wish to talk to you
+quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of
+her other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy,
+Olive appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be
+wishing to speak to her of the class election, for Jean had
+carefully excluded all mention of this subject from the
+conversation in their own rooms and no one else had seen fit to
+mention the subject to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,”
+Olive nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her
+alone. “Why not come up to our sitting room right now, as our
+lessons are over for the afternoon?”</p>
+
+<p>But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly
+head. “No, I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any
+minute,” she confided, “and I particularly don’t want her to
+know just at present what I wish to say to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without
+any one else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall,
+were walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not
+mentioned the subject of conversation they had come forth to
+discuss.</p>
+
+<p>Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure
+of having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to
+make, and yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s
+manner that made her companion a little fearful of approaching
+her with advice or entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as
+well to have laid this matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last
+resort, Miss Winthrop, before forging ahead. But Gerry was an
+ardent suffragette in the making and, as she had determined to
+follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father, she knew that
+indecision must never be a characteristic of the new woman.
+However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl
+recognize her entire friendliness before she made known her
+mission.</p>
+
+<p>Having talked of many things together, of their love of the
+outdoors, of Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at
+last opened up the way for her companion’s disclosure.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I
+have not yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me.
+What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened
+and she looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this
+moment it had not occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire
+for a private interview with her could have any serious import,
+but noticing Gerry’s hesitation and apparent embarrassment,
+Olive suddenly believed that she intended questioning her about
+her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack had advised her
+not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now asked her
+for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
+than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her
+false, her desire now might be to disprove it.</p>
+
+<p>With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she
+hoped for the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she
+asked again.</p>
+
+<p>Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean
+to be elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
+rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me.
+And I am awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving
+Jean, for she is awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim
+Colter and all of us would be so proud of her if she should win
+after being so short a time at school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do
+something to help her instead of standing in her way?” This
+question was even more blunt than the first. And it hurt,
+because Olive bit her lips.</p>
+
+<p>“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her
+walk and turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me,
+please, how I can help her and how I stand in the way of her
+election?”</p>
+
+<p>At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she
+was not of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a
+whole lot by making her join our Theta Sorority at once and not
+hold back any longer because you have not been invited to join
+also.”</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly
+genuine. “Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already
+with the girls tormenting her every minute for weeks to come
+into the society? Why, I thought that Jean had joined long ago
+and simply had not mentioned the matter to me because of not
+wishing to talk of a thing that might make me uncomfortable. I
+can see now that the girls may not want a class president who
+isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays out of
+the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
+sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is
+befriending.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too
+plainly for her either to add to it or to contradict.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and
+just what I should have expected,” she went on. “Please
+understand that I am very sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s
+sakes that I ever came with them as a student to Primrose Hall
+and I would have gone away before now only I could not worry
+Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth Drew,
+who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
+of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so
+much because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In
+the West these things do not count to so great an extent.”</p>
+
+<p>To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given
+to this proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of
+old, Olive seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a
+crime in which she had no part.</p>
+
+<p>But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
+attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her
+in times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed.
+Perhaps because Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as
+though she had no pride, but this is not true, for her pride was
+of a deeper kind than expresses itself in noise and protest: it
+was of that unconscious kind associated with high birth and
+breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with dignity and
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark
+eyes quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright
+spots of color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you
+how much I thank you for telling me this about Jean,” she said
+“and please believe I did not know of it. Of course you wish me
+to make Jean see the foolishness and the utter uselessness of
+her sacrifice of herself for me and I surely will. I suppose you
+must have wondered why I did not do this before.”</p>
+
+<p>And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly
+difficult, though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very
+things she had intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in
+school-girl fashion across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl
+drew herself away, not angrily in the least, but as if she
+wished neither sympathy nor an apology.</p>
+
+<p>“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for
+I must not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is
+to take place so soon. If her connection with me should make her
+lose it I simply don’t know what I should do!”</p>
+
+<p>And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started
+for home, walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which
+was so marked a characteristic of her training.</p>
+
+<p>Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic,
+tried to keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged,
+“and you are a brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if
+we girls at Primrose Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For
+somehow at this late hour in their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows
+had begun to realize that whatever unfortunate past Olive
+Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to breathe a
+higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first intimate
+talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
+for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to
+claim her allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No,
+she had only been too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the
+way straight for Jean. And at this moment quite humbly Gerry
+would have liked to have begged Olive to allow her to be her
+friend, only at this time she did not dare. And as they walked
+on together in silence some lines that she had learned that
+morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
+Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater than herself,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Too noble for this place.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h2 id='chXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIV<br/>“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”</h2>
+
+<p>Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking
+for Jean, for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the
+school than she was seen talking with a group of friends.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had
+been out together for a walk and grateful for what she thought
+Gerry’s friendliness to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed
+by the presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room,
+Jean,” she begged, “for Gerry and I have something to talk to
+you about that must be decided at once.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought
+a little impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name
+in speaking to Jean and plainly wished her to be present at
+their coming interview, for there was, of course, a possibility
+that Jean might be a good deal vexed at her interference. But as
+Jean left her other friends immediately, slipping one arm
+through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and propelling them
+as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was there for
+Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston,
+that you wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as
+they reached their own door, “kindly remember that three heads
+are better than one, even if one is a dunce’s head, else I
+should never have allowed Geraldine Ferrows to be present at our
+council.” And giving each of the girls an added shove, the three
+of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before
+their open fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large
+open box of flowers on her lap, with her cheeks a good deal
+flushed, possibly from the heat of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of
+your apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to
+have a present for you sent through my care and it seemed to me
+that the surest way to find you was to wait at your own
+hearthstone until you chose to appear.” While Jessica was
+speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward Jean and
+Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me asking
+me to see that you get them.”</p>
+
+<p>With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great
+box, which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its
+fragrances.</p>
+
+<p>“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,”
+Jean exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t
+Frieda be homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even
+if she is so enraptured with boarding school that she hardly
+talks of home any more?”</p>
+
+<p>While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers
+from the box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate
+bouquet, wrapped in white paper and bearing a card with a name
+inscribed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive
+announced, trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and
+Jean both guessed at once that the gift of the large box of
+flowers to them had been made largely in order to include the
+smaller offering inside it.</p>
+
+<p>Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete
+indifference, took the flowers; they were lilies of the valley
+encircled with violets and it was difficult for any girl to
+conceal her delight in them.</p>
+
+<p>Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a
+dangerously demure look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I
+wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you have known our Mr. Drummond? You
+see, we are awfully fond of him and he has been very good to all
+of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have wondered if he could
+think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive and I think
+you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
+that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very
+kind. Can’t you tell us something more?”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can
+tell you about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any
+importance. Just that he is rich and good looking and kind. He
+is so rich that he has never done anything or been anything
+else, and I have known him a great many years, since I was a
+small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live near one
+another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
+some of our money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a
+good deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there
+are lots of people who are not one of those three things.”</p>
+
+<p>And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the
+moment, Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she
+returned, “but I am afraid that I want a man to be more and to
+mean more in this world than just that.” She was about to leave
+the room when Olive put her hand on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica,
+Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but I so often think of you
+as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to Jean about
+something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
+sensibly.”</p>
+
+<p>Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now
+that it was important, else she would not have called in so many
+persons to her assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming
+up to her friend placed one hand on each of her shoulders,
+looking closely with her own autumn-toned brown eyes into her
+friend’s darker ones.</p>
+
+<p>“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish
+me to do that requires so much persuasion?”</p>
+
+<p>And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
+shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
+illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we
+fall.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the
+first that you were going to ask me something I could not
+grant,” Jean returned plaintively. “Has any one in this world
+ever heard of a goose who chose to be one?”</p>
+
+<p>Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too
+intense for interruption. Without allowing Jean another
+opportunity for a moment’s speech she began her request,
+imploring her to join the Theta Society at once and not to put
+it off a day longer than necessary. “For how, dear, can you do
+me the least good by not belonging when the girls want you so
+much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
+Junior election,” she ended.</p>
+
+<p>“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a
+member of the Theta Society and that my chance for the
+presidency will be influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired
+angrily, although she did not glance toward any one for her
+answer save Olive.</p>
+
+<p>But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she
+feel in any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now
+she moved quietly forward.</p>
+
+<p>“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with
+me, but I have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of
+me I cannot see how it will hurt Olive for you to join the
+Thetas without her and it will hurt you very much in your
+election if you don’t. Olive is not going to be invited to
+become a member if you stay out and you may lose the class
+presidency if you are so obstinate.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that
+Gerry is perfectly right and that there is no other way of
+looking at this matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my
+heart if she does not, and I can’t see a bit of sense in her
+position.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say
+anything at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about
+this whole business.”</p>
+
+<p>A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward
+Gerry.</p>
+
+<p>“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because
+of course I know you are being good as gold to me and only
+acting for what you believe to be my good, but I don’t think
+either you or Olive in the least understand my position. I am
+not staying out of the Theta Society for Olive’s sake; I am
+staying out for my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.</p>
+
+<p>“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want
+you to think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would
+be (leaving me out of the case entirely) if that girl should win
+out in a big matter like a class election by turning her back on
+her best friend and more than her friend, her almost sister. And
+you, Olive, suppose you had no part in this business at all, or
+suppose you and I had changed places, what would you think of a
+girl who would say to another group of girls, ‘Yes, thank you, I
+am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to enjoy your
+superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
+and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with
+you?’ I, of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a
+traitor if you will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown
+eyes were flashing and her face was pale, yet she laughed a
+little at her own fierceness.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just
+this thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on,
+“and I argued it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt
+Olive by joining the Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself
+that such an action would not hurt me. See here, dear,” and
+Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling as she spoke again
+directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to forget our
+friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for wouldn’t
+you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
+me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day
+time and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was?
+No, sir-ee,” and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude,
+pretending to slip her fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the
+words of that famous gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick
+Henry, or Daniel Webster, I can’t remember, ‘I would rather be
+right than President!’”</p>
+
+<p>“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I
+take off my hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this
+question any further with Jean, for she has just said something
+that we all know to be a fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou
+canst not then be false to any man.’”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like
+an embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right,
+Jean,” she conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are
+if you feel as you say you do, so I shall not try to make you
+change your opinion.”</p>
+
+<p>But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in
+the center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good,
+but I don’t care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to
+sacrifice yourself in the way you are doing for me. I must find
+out how to prevent it and I warn you now that I shall write to
+Jack and have her ask you to change your mind.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow
+to be a poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t
+let us talk about this tedious subject any longer and do let us
+put the kettle on and all take tea, for I have talked so much I
+am nearly dying of thirst.”</p>
+
+<p>Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch
+girls getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for
+just such occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was
+said until they were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then
+Jean turned to Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t
+hurt your feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us
+it seems to me the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have
+known for some time that there has been some gossip about Olive
+going the rounds of the school, but we have never known who
+started it nor just what the story is. Would you mind telling
+us?”</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face
+showing nervousness and discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are
+and that we ranch girls found her several years ago with an
+Indian woman and that she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean
+continued inexorably.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally
+through the Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her
+questioner continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her
+saucer, “Yes, that is all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they
+have heard is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was
+trying to speak calmly. “I can see now that we have made a
+mistake; it would have been better if we had been perfectly
+candid about Olive’s past from the first. There never has been a
+minute when we would have minded telling it, if any one of the
+girls had come and asked us, but lately I have thought that some
+extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive and
+joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any
+human beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose
+Hall girls have been to Olive, unless they had been told
+something perfectly dreadful about her. Well, I don’t think I
+care a snap about being class president of such a set of girls,”
+Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her guests. “Olive
+Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than I am,
+but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
+promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good
+red Indian blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood
+that must run in the veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry,
+dear, I do beg your pardon and of course I don’t mean you, but
+if I hadn’t been allowed to speak this out loud, I should
+certainly have exploded.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the
+snobs, too, Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will
+forgive me and make up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure,
+clothed in a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace,
+with yellow hair piled high on its head, entered the room. “What
+on earth is Jean preaching about?” the voice of no other person
+than the youngest Miss Ralston inquired. “I have just been
+across the hall with Mollie and Lucy Johnson and I declare she
+has been talking steadily for an hour.”</p>
+
+<p>Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean
+could only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she
+gotten so marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage
+affair. But at this instant, beholding the violets, Frieda,
+forgetting her grown-up manner for a moment, jumped at them.
+“Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said like the small girl who
+once had taken care of her own violet beds at The Rainbow Lodge.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XV<br/>THE DANGER OF WEALTH</h2>
+
+<p>The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been
+somewhat happier and certainly a great deal better off in many
+respects could she now have turned back the pages of her
+existence for a few months and been again that same little
+yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of every man, woman and
+child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow Ranch, for Frieda
+had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that is of a
+serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
+much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.</p>
+
+<p>After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk
+gown and velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for
+beautiful clothes awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a
+Western ranch girl and had never dreamed of such splendors as
+the New York shops afforded, neither did she have any very clear
+idea of the real value of money. Because gold had been
+discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her fifty
+dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
+wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very
+dangerous habit of buying whatever she wished without
+considering the cost, and the way she managed to do this was by
+making bills!</p>
+
+<p>Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to
+go into town for every little purchase it became necessary for
+them to make, Ruth had opened a charge account for the three
+ranch girls at one of the best of the New York shops, but the
+bills were expected to be sent to the girls and to be paid out
+of their allowances. Jean and Olive had made only a few
+necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it, Frieda
+had lately been buying with utter recklessness.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other
+two ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had
+arrived that very afternoon and been delivered in the care of
+Mollie Johnson. Hanging up in Mollie’s closet at the same
+instant was an equally charming garment, almost of the same kind
+as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and but lately presented by
+Frieda to her best friend.</p>
+
+<p>So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the
+letter of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose
+Hall, she was certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she
+had broken her promise altogether on the afternoon when she and
+Mollie had been alone together, while Olive and Jean were
+drinking tea at “The Towers.”</p>
+
+<p>Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from
+it. The story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For
+Frieda naturally began the conversation with her friend by
+telling her that Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the
+Harmons, and then that they had learned to know the Harmons
+because they had rented their ranch to them the summer before.
+From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to the
+Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
+coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to
+buy the Rainbow Mine.</p>
+
+<p>When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly,
+but it was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s
+eyes had grown wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at
+her words. “Why, Frieda Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once,
+“you don’t mean to tell me that you are an heiress as well as
+everything else that is interesting! Why, you have let me think
+that you were poor before, though I have wondered sometimes
+about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell me
+whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”</p>
+
+<p>To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began
+her very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once
+both sorry and frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began;
+“that is, I don’t see any sense in its being, but I have
+promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew not to talk about our money
+at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have our friends just
+know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine. Do you
+see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”</p>
+
+<p>Earnestly Mollie shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,”
+Frieda conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning
+to, I am glad, for I do just want to talk about it with somebody
+and you are my dearest friend and I wish you to know everything
+about me.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the
+nice things about her, for it really is not our faults that we
+long to pour into the ears of our friends.</p>
+
+<p>The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold
+for the past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and
+rested her chin on her hands. “Want me to tell you every single
+thing about our mine?” she demanded. “It is quite like a fairy
+story.”</p>
+
+<p>And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not
+Mollie Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you
+wish you may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising
+everything and making all the mystic signs necessary to eternal
+secrecy, Mollie then had listened to the unfolding of the fairy
+tale.</p>
+
+<p>Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale,
+but she had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine
+produced than a baby, and of course with the telling of her tale
+the size of the nuggets that Jim was getting out of the mine
+each week naturally grew.</p>
+
+<p>“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we
+simply don’t know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the
+ranch, who now looks after our mine, says you never can tell at
+first how much a mine may yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires
+some day.”</p>
+
+<p>The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s
+vocabulary, which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall,
+but certainly it had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.</p>
+
+<p>“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed,
+“and I do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than
+most anybody I should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my
+father is just a lawyer in Richmond and while we have a pretty
+house and all that, why we have some other brothers and sisters,
+and father says all he can afford to do is to let Lucy and me
+have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give us money
+for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
+make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your
+lovely things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into
+curls the ends of her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at
+her with an even increased admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on
+the youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the
+question with Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and
+rushing to her desk indited a letter to a New York firm asking
+that the two kimonos be sent her at once with slippers and
+stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie was just too sweet
+and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted sisters
+and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
+went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of
+writing her letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s
+feet, but all that she could do more was to invite her to come
+into town the next week to be her guest at the matinee and lunch
+and to help her make a few more purchases.</p>
+
+<p>For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check
+had, and so for the time being, like many another person, she
+felt fairly well off, although her allowance for the past two
+months had melted away like wax without her being able to pay
+back a single cent of the money to either Jean or Olive, which
+they had advanced to help with her first extravagance, the blue
+silk dress and velvet coat.</p>
+
+<p>One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a
+good deal more money at their disposal than Frieda had at
+present, is the way that five-dollar bills have of disappearing
+in New York City. So by the time Frieda had paid for three
+tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of course compelled to
+bring a chaperon into town with them, and three lunches at a
+fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money left
+out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
+charging on her account, in order to get the few more things
+that she and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the
+visit in Richmond toward the close of December.</p>
+
+<p>On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train
+and feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent
+this extra money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts
+until January, and what with Christmas coming, there would be so
+many presents for others that she would wish to buy! So once
+Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving her a hug, demanded to
+know what worried her, she would not say. For how confess that
+money matters were worrying her but a few days after the time
+when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
+Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at
+Christmas time, if they should consent to let her make the trip
+south, and out of this amount she would certainly save enough to
+pay her bills, without having to confess her extravagances. For
+Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would both be angry and ashamed
+of her for breaking her promise and for buying things which she
+did not really need.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVI<br/>ELECTION DAY</h2>
+
+<p>The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class
+had arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three
+o’clock until six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne
+would remain in the library at Primrose Hall watching over the
+ballot box. Immediately after six the box would be opened, the
+ballots counted and the choice of the Juniors announced.</p>
+
+<p>For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant
+days and the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now
+and then in the past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the
+shore waters of the Hudson River would then be trimmed with a
+fine fringe of ice. Once the election was over the Primrose Hall
+students would be making plans for the Christmas holidays, but
+until then nothing else, not even home and family, appeared of
+so great importance.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had
+gone astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s
+cause. Indeed, like many another brave campaigner, she had only
+worked the harder, rallying Jean’s friends closer around her,
+exhorting her enemies and trying to persuade the girls on the
+fence that there was no real point in their antagonism toward
+Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made she had had an able
+lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted friend.</p>
+
+<p>For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that
+unless her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of
+the character she had already established among them, nothing
+she could do or say at this late day should influence them. And
+Jean had also never wavered from the attitude she had taken in
+regard to Olive on the afternoon of their final discussion of
+the subject. She had not needed that her resolution be
+strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and Jack
+Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
+her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that
+Jean be persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the
+reply she hoped for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically
+declared Jean’s position the only possible one.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had
+been conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever
+their presence in one of the class rooms made it possible. Her
+expression was so wistful and apologetic that Jean began to care
+more for her own success on Olive’s account than her own. So as
+soon as luncheon was over and three o’clock had come around,
+slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s, she drew her
+along the hall toward the library door.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let
+us go upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over.
+Then Gerry and Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a
+really high-minded person I suppose I should now vote for my
+rival, Miss Graham, but as I can’t bring myself up to that
+point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper for old Gerry.”</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their
+own sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign
+outside announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both
+ranch girls were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was
+plainly the more affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in
+a perfectly natural fashion, she was pale and silent and
+oftentimes on the verge of tears.</p>
+
+<p>The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the
+bare upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of
+the earth.</p>
+
+<p>“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the
+writing table before one of their windows, “why should you
+behave as though the question of my election was the only
+important thing in the world. On a day like this I only feel
+desperately homesick for Jack and the old ranch. What wouldn’t I
+give if we were all there to-day and just starting out on a
+long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about never seeing
+Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to Jim
+and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
+time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated
+Ralph rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have
+only written twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really
+coming east to see how Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will
+hate to see Ruth again or like it? One never can tell about a
+person in love.”</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the
+Rainbow Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no
+sooner had she put her pen to the paper than apparently all
+worry and suspense left her and she scratched away rapidly and
+clearly for several hours.</p>
+
+<p>But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she
+kept up such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room
+that at any other time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded.
+First she tried studying her Shakespeare, since she was making a
+special effort to succeed in the Shakespeare class, and before
+coming east to school had read only a few plays with Ruth and
+the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge. But not the
+most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy by
+William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea
+that engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to
+read, she flung her book down on the floor, saying petulantly:
+“Tiresome stuff! I wonder what ever made me think for an instant
+I could stand any chance of getting the Shakespeare prize?”</p>
+
+<p>Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us
+thought you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you
+dearly love to read and study at most times. But why don’t you
+go out for a walk, you can find Frieda somewhere around
+downstairs and make her go with you. I don’t want to.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a
+good deal more temper than usual with her, and flying into her
+own room, she banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for
+some occupation, she came across a piece of sewing which she had
+once started at the Lodge, some white silk cut in the shape of a
+round cap to be covered over with small white pearl beads.</p>
+
+<p>Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low
+stool by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would
+have a more soothing influence upon her than reading for the
+two more hours that had somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing
+on this occasion was more distracting than reading, for very
+soon Olive’s fingers worked automatically while her brain
+began to concern itself with interesting and puzzling ideas.
+The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose Hall had
+not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
+we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of
+and to ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led
+such eventful lives.</p>
+
+<p>After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation
+later with Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books
+in the school library that she could find, which might help her
+explain the curious experience—confided to no one—through which
+she had passed that afternoon. But it was not just this one
+experience that had puzzled and worried Olive, for many strange
+fancies, impressions, memories, she knew not what to call them,
+had been drifting into her mind since her first sight of that
+white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival at
+Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything
+that was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe
+that she could recall dim ideas and events having no connection
+with the years she had spent in the Indian tent with old Laska.
+But why had these far-off memories not assailed her in the two
+years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps then the recollection of
+Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her with such an odd
+mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people about her
+whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent in
+her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
+associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was
+impossible, for Olive felt sure that she had never been east
+before in her life.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last
+six.</p>
+
+<p>Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly
+folding up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective
+envelopes. She looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but
+composed. At last she got up from her chair and crossing the
+floor knelt down in front of Olive, taking the piece of sewing
+from her cold fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively
+ill from thinking of something or other and worrying over me.
+For both our sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this
+afternoon just for the next hour. I know I have not been elected
+the Junior president. I never have really expected to be, but
+just as I sat there writing about half an hour ago I knew I had
+not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been thinking that I have
+been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet look at me!
+Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply disappointed?”
+And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion. “Promise
+me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
+have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and
+not think that you have had anything to do with my failure.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean,
+when I know perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly
+attempting to hide the fact that she was trembling with
+excitement and that her ears were strained forward to catch the
+first noise of footsteps coming toward their door.</p>
+
+<p>Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say
+or do with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me
+for president nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”</p>
+
+<p>The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly
+made Jean tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew
+positively you had not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really
+know absolutely nothing about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I
+thought I heard some one coming down the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
+appeared to interrupt them.</p>
+
+<p>“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said,
+“because it must now be some little time after six o’clock and
+Miss Sterne and Jessica could never have taken so long a time as
+this to count the few ballots of the Junior class.”</p>
+
+<p>However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the
+hall approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting
+room.</p>
+
+<p>It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open,
+while Jean waited calmly in the center of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and
+Mollie Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting
+girls the truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean
+and Gerry took a farm clasp of Olive’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVII<br/>CONGRATULATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping
+bitterly in Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on
+the back. Gerry looked utterly exhausted, her hair was in a
+perfect tumble and a smut ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda
+had turned toward the wall and Lucy and Mollie Johnson each had
+an arm about her.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but
+Olive simply would not accept what her eyes had already told
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
+entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.</p>
+
+<p>“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior
+class at Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced
+stoically, and then there was a sudden sound of weeping from all
+parts of the sitting room.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,”
+Jean insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene.
+“Margaret dear, you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of
+course, I am sorry not to have been elected, but I’m not
+disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately that I could be. And
+please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean kissed Margaret
+and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.</p>
+
+<p>“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease
+to be grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let
+us show the girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow.
+Please everybody stop crying at once and come on with me to
+shake hands and offer my congratulations to Winifred Graham.
+Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the next time she beheld us we
+should all appear to have been washed away in tears? The first
+person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a five-pound
+box of candy from me in the morning.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not
+learn the bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had
+an immediate effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and
+Margaret. Both girls stiffened up at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it
+will never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior
+class just because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of
+the girls did vote for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely,
+why Winifred Graham and her set can’t crow over us half so much
+as if we show our chagrin.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s
+crowing that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations
+to Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking
+point. For my part I would rather do my duty and remember my
+manners without delay.”</p>
+
+<p>And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would
+follow her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that
+Olive was missing and going back called out softly: “Come on,
+Olive, and help us congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us
+show an ugly spirit now, would you?”</p>
+
+<p>But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means
+sure how Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she
+forbore to insist on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be
+disagreeable under the present circumstances Jean was not
+perfectly sure of being able to keep cool; and of all things she
+must not show temper at the present moment. Besides, her few
+minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of the girls
+to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
+Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of
+the election. After a first moment of breaking down she had
+entirely regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at
+seeing her so sensible.</p>
+
+<p>One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure
+and an entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing
+perfectly still. Had Jean been pleased because she had accepted
+her failure so sensibly? Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken
+simply because she could not trust herself to speak. She had not
+cried, because in the first moments of humiliation and regret,
+there are but few people who can at once summon tears. Of
+course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
+view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated
+herself, she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and
+this last blow had come to her after months of coldness and
+neglect on the part of her classmates, which she had borne
+bravely and in silence. Now Olive was through with courage and
+with silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for
+the relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung
+herself face downward on the bed, giving herself up to the
+luxury of this weakness. When she arose her face wore a look of
+unusual determination. Whatever her fight, it was ended now.
+First she walked over to her bureau and there unlocking a small
+iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which all who have
+followed her history, know to be the single possession she had
+rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for
+the last time.</p>
+
+<p>The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before
+beginning the letter she plainly intended writing, she picked
+them up one by one, looking at them closely, the silver cross
+and chain worn on the evening of the dance, the small book only
+a few inches in size, and the watch with the picture of a
+woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the ranch girls
+had always believed to look like Olive.</p>
+
+<p>At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this
+also was laid aside for the work she had in mind.</p>
+
+<p>“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):</p>
+
+<p>“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a
+student at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this
+news and if Jack is too ill to be worried, please do not mention
+this to her. I have tried very hard to bear my difficulties here
+and truly I would have gone on without complaining, for I can
+live without the friendship of other girls so long as you and
+the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot bear is to be a
+drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as I do
+here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot
+go back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do
+now and am able to teach them. Can I not go to some little
+school where the girls will not care so much about my past? But
+if you are not willing for me to do this, and I know how little
+I am worthy of all you and the ranch girls have done for me, you
+must not mind if I find some work to do, so that I can make my
+living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no longer at
+Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p class='d022'>“With all love, OLIVE.”</p>
+
+<p>And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and
+aching, rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms.
+When she lifted it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine
+Winthrop was standing only a few feet away.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must
+have failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to
+talk to you.”</p>
+
+<p>The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion
+seemed always to know, almost before it happened, every event
+that transpired at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to
+it, was well recognized by her pupils. So of course she now knew
+not only that Winifred Graham had been elected to the Junior
+Class presidency, but the particular reason why Jean had been
+defeated.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss
+Winthrop,” Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying
+to disguise the truth. “I know you think it very foolish and
+stupid of me.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl
+to a stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually
+discourage tears,” she answered with a half smile; “at least, I
+know my girls think I am very unsympathetic about them. But I
+suppose now and then we women are just obliged to weep, being
+made that way. What I want to talk to you about is Jean’s defeat
+at the election this afternoon. You feel responsible for it,
+don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings,
+as apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just
+written asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall
+because of what has happened.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an
+instant toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she
+could not have seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared,
+almost gasped. “How could you know, Miss Winthrop?”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that
+it seemed to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t
+know about your letter, dear, I only guessed that after the
+experience you have passed through this afternoon, with what has
+gone before, you were almost sure to have written it. And I want
+to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my
+mind,” she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now
+I am quite determined.”</p>
+
+<p>A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as
+though she were not speaking directly to the girl before her,
+Miss Winthrop went on. “I believe there are but three types of
+people in this world, be they men or women, that I cannot
+endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob. Unfortunately I have
+discovered that there are among the girls here in my school a
+good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to me
+and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am
+very sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the
+weakness, the ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you
+help me, if though not a snob, you are one or both of the other
+two things I have mentioned?”</p>
+
+<p>“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at
+the older woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that
+no others could express her meaning so forcibly.</p>
+
+<p>“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the
+sake of Jean and Frieda,” she defended.</p>
+
+<p>“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if
+you think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You
+feel you have endured the slights and coldness of your
+classmates without flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like
+the hurt that comes to you with the feeling that your presence
+in the school is reflecting on Frieda and Jean. They do not wish
+you to go away, Olive, they will be deeply sorry if you do and
+whatever harm you may think you have done them has already been
+done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away from Primrose
+Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings, because
+your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
+at last!”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from
+her listener.</p>
+
+<p>For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed
+no further influence from the outside. By and by she put her
+small hand on Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she
+replied. “I believe I <i>have</i> been thinking all this time
+about myself without knowing it, You made me think of Jack when
+you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they are the kind of
+words she would have been apt to use.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too,
+Olive, and I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe
+I learned those two words and what they stood for from a boy
+friend of mine long years ago. Now I want to talk to you about
+yourself.” The woman leaned over, and putting her two fingers
+under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted her head back so
+that she could see in sharp outline every feature of the girl’s
+face.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to
+Primrose Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious
+story, of their finding you with an old Indian woman with whom
+you had apparently lived a great many years. I believe that the
+woman claimed you as her daughter, but though no one believed
+her, your Western friends have never made any investigation
+about your past, fearing that this Indian woman might again
+appear to claim you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very
+many people in it and since the idea that you are an Indian
+worries you so much, I want to assure you I do not believe for a
+moment you have a trace of Indian blood in you. Except that you
+have black hair and your skin is a little darker than
+Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to carry a
+remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
+are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is
+too absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about
+yourself and if you would like me to try to find out something
+of your history. Perhaps I might know better how to go about it
+than your Western friends.”</p>
+
+<p>For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with
+the sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all
+I have of my own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss
+Winthrop’s lap and then tearing up the letter just written to
+Ruth, before sitting down again on her stool near the older
+woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss Winthrop’s hand,
+saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can recall
+about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come
+to me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life,
+whom I must have known long before old Laska and the Indian
+days.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXVIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XVIII<br/>FANCIES OR MEMORIES?</h2>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and
+keep back nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I
+will not understand. Whoever your father and mother may have
+been, you certainly have ancestors of whom you need not be
+ashamed.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her
+eyes on the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story
+of the Indian village and of Laska and how she could not recall
+a time when she had not spoken English as white people speak it,
+then of her years at the Government school for Indians taught by
+a white woman, who had always been her friend and assured her
+that she was not of the same race as the Indian children about
+her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the ornaments in
+the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story, Miss
+Winthrop had not yet examined.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the
+years she had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old
+Laska in the mail each month a certain sum of money, large
+enough to keep her and her son in greater wealth and idleness
+than any of the other Indians in the village enjoyed. But from
+what place this money had come nor who had sent it Olive did not
+know, and so to her this fact did not seem of great value,
+although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on hearing
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?”
+she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when
+puzzled, the girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she
+said slowly. “How strange and stupid of me never to have thought
+of this before! The postmark was New York! But New York meant
+nothing to me in those days, Miss Winthrop, except just a name
+on a map at school. You cannot guess how strange and ignorant I
+was until the ranch girls found me and began teaching me a few
+things that were not to be found in school books. But no one
+could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
+been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have
+always hoped. Laska must have received it for some other
+reason.” And then Olive, either from weariness or
+disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not as though she had
+told all that she knew, but because she could not quite make up
+her mind to go on.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke
+again:</p>
+
+<p>“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it.
+But this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have
+told to other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon,
+Miss Drew. What I most wish you to confide to me are the ideas
+and impressions of the years when you may not always have lived
+in the Indian village.”</p>
+
+<p>Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that
+I have had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can
+confide even to you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be
+possible that a human being can remember things at one time of
+their life and not have known them always? Why, since my arrival
+at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall impressions that I did not
+have at the Rainbow Ranch?”</p>
+
+<p>The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over
+the question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I
+believe I can in a measure understand this problem that troubles
+you. Half the memories that we have in the world come through
+association. It is the sight of an object that recalls something
+in our past which brings that past back to us. Now when you were
+living at the Rainbow Ranch the memory of your life with Laska,
+the fear that she might take you away from your friends, was so
+close to you that you thought of little else. But now you are in
+an entirely different place, the fear of the woman has gone from
+you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
+associations should bring to life new memories. What is there
+that you have been recalling in these past few months?”</p>
+
+<p>And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she
+murmured at last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I
+have seen the big, white house where Madame Van Mater lives at
+some time before. Of course, I know I have not seen it, for I
+have never been in this part of the world before. But the other
+day, standing at the window, I suddenly remembered a description
+of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have read and learned
+long years ago, though I never thought of it until that moment.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by
+reason of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted
+quietly. “Can you recall anything more about the house and do
+you think that you ever saw Madame Van Mater before the other
+day?” The strange note in her questioner’s voice was lost upon
+the girl at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like
+her,” Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house
+did not seem familiar, only the outside and the tower room and
+those ridiculous iron dogs guarding the front door. But I want
+to tell you something that seems to me important—of course, my
+impression about Madame Van Mater’s home is sheer madness. What
+I really can remember is this—” Olive stopped for a moment as
+though trying to be very careful of only telling the truth. “I
+remember that when I was a very little girl I must have traveled
+about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not think
+I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately
+I have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s
+eyes, turned toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope.
+“He must have been very tall, or at least he seemed so to me
+then, and I went about with him everywhere. Finally we came to a
+place where we stayed a much longer time and there Laska first
+must have come to take care of us. I think now that my father
+must have died in that place, for I can not remember anything
+more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
+Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I
+perfectly certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss
+Winthrop had not spoken and supposing therefore that she
+considered her idle fancies of little account.</p>
+
+<p>The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair,
+her hand shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the
+expression of her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the
+hearing of her pupil’s strange story, she did not now mean to
+reveal.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and
+surely very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting
+but little faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any
+possible connection between your travels in the West as a little
+child and your idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The
+Towers.’ But there is one person who can tell us something of
+your early history without doubt—and that person is this woman
+Laska! She kept you with her all those years for money and
+probably pretends that you are with her still, so that she
+continues to receive the same money each month, else she would
+have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love
+of money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an
+offer of more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of
+this, Olive dear, to any one in the world at present, but I will
+write to your old teacher at the Government school in the Indian
+village and perhaps through her aid we may reach this Laska.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in
+the face of so great interest and kindness would have been too
+inadequate. What could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now
+looking at her few treasures in the sandalwood box.</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it
+slip through her fingers as once more she examined its curious
+workmanship, “but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish
+and is a Spanish prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss
+Winthrop put her hand under Olive’s chin, studying the unusual
+outline of her face. “I wonder if you are a Spanish girl, child,
+for that would explain why you are darker than most Americans
+and why you have so foreign an appearance?”</p>
+
+<p>Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it
+to her friend’s gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began
+turning the watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so
+deeply interested in the photograph as in the watch itself.
+“This watch was sold here in New York, Olive, and I have seen
+one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice trembled a little and
+she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of this any more
+this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to ask you
+to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
+them more closely.”</p>
+
+<p>And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left
+the room.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXIX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XIX<br/>NEW YEAR’S EVE</h2>
+
+<p>Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and
+Miss Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the
+Christmas holidays at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For
+twelve days, save for Olive and its owner, the great house had
+been empty of all its other pupils and teachers; now in another
+thirty-six hours they would be returning to take up their work
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean
+and gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret
+Belknap and Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson
+sisters. The ranch girls had not wished to leave Olive alone and
+each one of them had offered to remain at school with her, but
+this sacrifice could hardly be accepted because Olive had made
+no friends who had wished her to be with them. Jessica Hunt
+would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she had no
+home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
+babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their
+common disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these
+Invitations Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared
+for in a trip to New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and
+this privilege was still denied the ranch girls.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left
+alone at Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion
+during the holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see
+what arrangements could be made for her pleasure. However, after
+a serious half hour’s talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter
+consultation with Olive, she had gone away again content to
+leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands than her own.</p>
+
+<p>And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for
+Olive, yet they had never been dull, for each moment she was
+hoping and praying to hear some news from old Laska and each
+hour being drawn into closer intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For
+now that the discipline of school life had been relaxed, the
+principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her favorite pupil
+in a light that would have surprised most of her students. She
+was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive with an
+affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
+private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl
+would sit close together under the shadow of “The Winged
+Victory,” reading aloud or talking of the great world of men and
+cities about which Miss Winthrop knew so much and Olive so
+little. But of the secret of the girl’s past her new friend did
+not encourage her to talk for the present.</p>
+
+<p>“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for
+us not to go into this subject again until we hear from the
+Indian woman, and then should she fail us, I must try to think
+of some other plan to help you.”</p>
+
+<p>And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under
+every human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska,
+though it was now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had
+been alone all morning and unusually depressed, for although she
+had not heard what she so eagerly waited to hear, she had
+learned that the surgeons had at last decided an operation must
+be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her that there was
+supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s spine
+that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
+operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had
+insisted that it should be tried.</p>
+
+<p>The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of
+Sleepy Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its
+Indian summer mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that
+she might brace up, for certainly she did not intend to let
+Frieda and Jean find her in the dumps on their return from their
+holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably go out with her, as she
+had been attending to school matters all morning, seeing that
+the house was made ready for the return of her students, and
+Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had eaten
+lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.</p>
+
+<p>While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend
+she herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to
+find her in the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in
+the library, nor in the drawing rooms, could she be found and by
+and by the maid came back to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had
+gone out and would probably not return till tea time. She had
+left word that Olive must not be lonely and that she must
+entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive knew of
+but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
+would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were
+no longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly
+familiar with the nearby neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s
+Christmas present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they
+might have their Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given
+Olive a brown fur coat and cap. Olive had not worn them before,
+but now, with the snow falling and the thought of Jack in her
+mind, she put them both on. For a minute she glanced at herself
+in her mirror before leaving the house and though her vanity was
+less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
+pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her
+new furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people.
+The soft brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness
+of her hair and in her olive cheeks there was a bright color
+which grew brighter the longer and faster she trudged through
+the lightly falling snow.</p>
+
+<p>Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken
+for her walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a
+visit to Madame Van Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on
+the old lady every few days and knew Olive’s dislike to
+accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been inside “The Towers”
+nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit there. But
+now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
+her friend returning toward home.</p>
+
+<p>The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity
+of Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because
+the trees had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and
+were covered only with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No
+man or woman who has lived a great deal out of doors in their
+youth fails to draw new strength and cheerfulness from the air
+and sunshine, and Olive, who had left school thinking only that
+Jack’s operation might not be successful and of the pain her
+friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the beautiful
+possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
+the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some
+day not too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she
+would never hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably
+dead or had disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now
+with her blood running quickly in her veins from the cold and
+the snow, she determined if Laska failed her to go west the next
+summer and try to trace out her ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop,
+Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew stood ready to help her
+in anything she might undertake.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare
+of relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the
+opening where she could catch the first glimpse of the big white
+house. “I wish Miss Winthrop would come along out of there,” she
+said aloud after waiting a minute and finding that standing
+still made her shiver in spite of her furs. “I wonder why I
+can’t get up the courage to march up to that front door past
+those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
+don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little
+late, Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back
+alone. Besides, I want to walk with her.”</p>
+
+<p>Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very
+true and deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss
+Winthrop, she cared for her with all her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and
+looking up toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to
+recall her own foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction
+to it. There was no one about in the front of the house, not a
+servant nor a caller. For a moment Olive stopped, smiling, by
+one of the big iron dogs that seemed to guard the entrance to
+the old place. She brushed off a little snow from the head of
+one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly of me to
+think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
+Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to
+be brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow
+from the statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have
+only heard about you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I
+have been told about it until I felt almost as if I had seen
+it,” she announced with greater conviction in her tones than she
+had ever used before, even to herself, in trying to recall the
+confused impressions of her childhood.</p>
+
+<p>But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house
+and ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the
+door was suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss
+Winthrop stepped with an expression on her face no one had ever
+seen it wear before—one of surprise and wonder, anger and
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find
+the girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to
+Madame Van Mater. We have something to tell you.”</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='“I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”'
+    src='images/illus-002.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO ME.”
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 id='chXX' class='d018'>CHAPTER XX<br/>THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE</h2>
+
+<p>In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon
+of Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat
+apparently waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were
+as artistically arranged and she was as carefully dressed as
+ever. At the stranger girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop
+she showed no marked surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close
+to me,” she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used
+on a former occasion, and now for the second time Olive found
+herself facing the old lady and being critically surveyed by
+her. Again, with almost unconscious antagonism, their glances
+met.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me,
+Katherine Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame
+Van Mater said coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her
+appearance is not what I feared it might be, considering my
+son’s marriage. However, I do not see the least trace of
+resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And possibly to
+hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now picked
+up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
+strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to
+Olive, “and Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary
+circumstance of your connection with me. Because I tried to keep
+you as far away from me as possible, fate has therefore brought
+you here under my very nose. It has ever been the way of
+circumstances to thwart me.”</p>
+
+<p>Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking
+about and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees,
+Olive dropped into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this
+instant placed near her.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop
+interposed. “Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to
+hear that you are the granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will
+not take long for me to explain the necessary facts to you.
+Years ago your grandmother had an only child, a son of whom she
+was very proud, and as her husband had died some time before,
+all her great wealth was to be given to this son. She hoped that
+some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and that he
+would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
+by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law
+or any of the interests that his mother wished and one day
+announced to her and to me that he had chosen the stage as his
+profession. It is not worth while for me to try to explain to
+you what this decision meant to his mother and to me then,” Miss
+Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the stage did not hold
+the position in the world that it does to-day, and even now
+there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
+their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats,
+but as your father was determined on his own course, he went
+away from this part of the country to the far west and there
+after several years we learned that he had married. I knew that
+your mother had died soon after her marriage and some years
+later your father, but I was never told that they had left a
+child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always known of
+your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
+paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact
+that Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s
+own hand makes it impossible for your relationship to be
+doubted.” Miss Winthrop now paused for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did
+not wish to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did
+not believe my mother a lady?” she asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.</p>
+
+<p>“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I
+remembered this house because my father had talked of it so much
+to me that I really believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom
+in the tower, the old dogs at the front door that he used to
+play with as a child and all the story of Sleepy Hollow. Well, I
+am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that Miss Winthrop has
+discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own I am very
+glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy on
+the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and
+asked you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of
+Laska?” she questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going
+back to school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would
+rather not stay here any longer at present.”</p>
+
+<hr class='d023' />
+
+<p>In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were
+walking home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a
+tight clutch of Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well
+away from “The Towers” and the cold woman who was its mistress,
+she felt frightened and confused, as though the story she had
+just heard was a ridiculous dream.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated
+over and over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot
+believe that the queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I
+believe that it has always been intended that you should some
+day know your own people and for that reason you were brought
+from your home in the West to this very neighborhood.”</p>
+
+<p>After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not
+like my grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will
+never like one another. But I am very glad, because if she had
+cared for me she might have wished me to leave the ranch girls,
+and not for all the world can I give up them.”</p>
+
+<p>There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke
+again: “I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I
+have cared in the same way for no one else since, but I also
+felt as your grandmother did about the work he chose to do and
+so here in the old garden at Primrose Hall we said good-bye one
+afternoon for all time. I suppose my pride was greater than my
+love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now I care very much
+for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me be her
+friend.”</p>
+
+<p>“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently;
+“no one save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women
+talked only of trivial matters until after dinner time that
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat
+with her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth
+Drew, disclosing to her the story of the afternoon and asking
+her to keep the discovery of the secret of her ancestry from
+Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it better that Jack be not
+informed at present. And at her desk during the same hour Miss
+Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she set
+forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher
+at the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money
+(which seemed very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been
+induced to surrender certain papers proving that the old
+mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry dale was undoubtedly Olive’s
+grandmother. Though the news had come as an entire surprise to
+Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared for the
+revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
+existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who
+was being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the
+state of Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the
+summer before and learning of her extraordinary history she had
+wondered if the girl could have any connection with her own
+family. Although she had not really believed this possible,
+knowing that Olive had come as a student to Primrose Hall, she
+had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s first
+visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
+However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her
+mind at rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his
+mother, was to her mind wholly unlike her; neither could she
+catch the faintest resemblance to her son, who had been supposed
+to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon. Then Olive’s quiet beauty
+and refined appearance had also satisfied Madame Van Mater that
+this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she believed that
+Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have had so
+lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to
+receive the allowance sent her each month for her
+granddaughter’s care?</p>
+
+<p>In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of
+explanation to Ruth she added the only apology that could ever
+be made for Madame Van Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had
+not understood how ignorant this Indian woman Laska was, nor had
+she dreamed that Olive was being brought up as an Indian. She
+had simply told the woman to continue as Olive’s servant until
+such time as the girl should reach the age of twenty-one, when
+she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her. She had
+not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
+she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize
+her as her heiress and the bearer of her name.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of
+their long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room,
+placed herself on a low stool near her companion, resting her
+chin on her hands in a fashion she had when interested. Both
+women talked of her father; they could recall his reading aloud
+to them hour after hour and Olive believed that she must have
+learned by rote Washington Irving’s description of Sleepy Hollow
+valley when she was only a tiny girl and that her first look out
+of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly brought the lines
+back to her recollection.</p>
+
+<p>Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked
+and answered between the two friends, but just as the old year
+was dying with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall,
+Olive said good night. She was half way out the door when she
+turned back again and Miss Winthrop could see by the color in
+her cheeks that there was still another question she wished to
+ask.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have
+been such a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a
+lovelier face than her picture in my father’s watch.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her
+strange and foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my
+dear, your mother could most certainly not have been dreadful,”
+she answered. “I think I heard that she was a Spanish girl and
+these curios you have and your own appearance make me feel
+assured of the fact. It was because your grandmother was
+informed that your mother was a singer or an actress, that she
+felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is that
+she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
+mentioned as long as she lived.”</p>
+
+<p>With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old
+woman’s at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to
+bed.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXI' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXI<br/>JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL</h2>
+
+<p>In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last
+chapter Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and
+loneliness and gay with the returning of its students now that
+the holiday season was well past.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since
+trains at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the
+school carryall would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the
+steps, sitting in one another’s laps. And it happened that in
+one of these overloaded parties Jean and Frieda arrived at
+Primrose Hall together.</p>
+
+<p>There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such
+a number of students at one time and so much kissing and
+embracing among some of the girls tragically separated from
+their best chums for two weeks, that in the general hubbub Jean
+and Frieda noticed no special change in Olive. If Jean thought
+at first that she had looked a little tired she forgot about it
+in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell of their
+own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
+one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing
+of forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very
+little of each other without outside friends being present until
+almost bedtime that night.</p>
+
+<p>Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their
+lights were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire,
+wearing their kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at
+last for the confidential talk to which for different reasons
+they had all been looking forward for some time.</p>
+
+<p>A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their
+door and on the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat
+two large boxes of candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving
+Richmond, Va., and the other a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil
+Belknap in New York.</p>
+
+<p>For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three
+girls at being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once
+they began talking in chorus.</p>
+
+<p>“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I
+am the youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the
+first chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both
+of them turned their attention full upon her. It was strange,
+for of course Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a
+southern city fails to have—and yet in spite of all her accounts
+of dances and dinner parties and germans given for the school
+girls in Richmond during the holidays, both Jean and Olive
+noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual, but that, if
+it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of worry
+appeared to pucker her brow.</p>
+
+<p>“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing
+altogether too much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when
+Frieda had triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets
+received as favors at germans at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t
+either, Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt
+girls to have a good time in the holidays if they only study
+hard and behave themselves properly at school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.</p>
+
+<p>And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired.
+Why should you girls think there is anything the matter with
+me?” And she turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her
+audience that it became silenced. For five, ten minutes
+afterwards Frieda continued to hold the floor, and then in the
+midst of an account of a party given at the Johnson home she had
+suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on the floor,
+tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am tired
+to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
+don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you
+haven’t anything special to say, just having stayed here at
+school with Miss Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in
+New York.”</p>
+
+<p>Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly,
+both the older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had
+even ceased talking her eyes had filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New
+York City was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was
+several years older than her cousin, in New York school girls
+are never allowed the same privileges that they enjoy in the
+South. But Jean had been to the theatre many times and to
+luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken Margaret and Jean and
+Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap had been very
+nice and she had liked him a little better, though she still
+thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a
+leading question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded
+her story. “There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell
+everybody when the lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not
+willing to tell now.”</p>
+
+<p>Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping
+a large chocolate into her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away
+like selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have
+had a dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time;
+at least, not lately.”</p>
+
+<p>Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and
+you took long walks together and things like that. I believe
+Miss Winthrop is really fond of you, Olive, even more than she
+is of Jean and me. I wonder why?”</p>
+
+<p>At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she
+thinks Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of
+course you and I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I
+hope, Olive dear, that she was good to you.”</p>
+
+<p>And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly
+flushed scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better
+than any one else in the world except you ranch girls,” she
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression,
+Jean’s own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she
+have been so unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a
+sudden flash of illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something
+important on your mind that you want to tell us. I might have
+guessed that you have been keeping it a secret ever since we
+returned, letting us chat all this nonsense about our visits
+first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss Winthrop wants to
+adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented, or none
+of us will ever forgive you in this world!”</p>
+
+<p>Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you
+yet,” she murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen
+different ways of starting in the last two days.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda
+darkly. “I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us
+for having left you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas
+holidays. Of course Miss Winthrop decided that we really do not
+care much for you and for all her coldness to the other girls
+she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just crazy about you,
+Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But whether you
+like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have believed
+that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
+when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.</p>
+
+<p>“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want
+to tell you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with
+her if you should ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I
+don’t want to live with her if you ranch girls want me. I was
+only trying to explain——”</p>
+
+<p>“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as
+white and shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty
+in making her confession.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her
+accustomed voice and manner, “it is only that since you have
+been away Miss Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an
+Indian girl. I am not even a western girl, or at least my father
+was not a Westerner. You remember the day we went to see the
+Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old Madame Van Mater stared at me so
+strangely and scolded Donald for thinking I was like his mother.
+She did not wish me to look like Mrs. Harmon because Mrs. Harmon
+was my father’s first cousin and——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!”
+Frieda interposed.</p>
+
+<p>And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling
+the other girls the history of her father and of herself as far
+back as she had learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I
+have told you all at once, girls, for it does sound like a
+miracle or a fable and we never would have believed such a story
+had we read of it in a book. But Miss Winthrop says that every
+day in the real world just such wonderful things are happening
+as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very neighborhood
+where my father used to live and finding my grandmother alive.
+In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
+coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without
+interruption, of course she believed by this time that both Jean
+and Frieda understood the news she had been trying to make plain
+to them. Frieda had risen to a sitting posture and was staring
+at her with frightened eyes, Jean was frowning deeply.</p>
+
+<p>“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said
+Frieda at the same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of
+the situation the three girls giggled hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story
+over again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean
+had then commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole
+tale again.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime
+hour, until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was
+preceptress of their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop
+had already told her something of Olive’s history, she readily
+allowed the ranch girls a half hour’s extra talk. She could not
+help their lights going out at ten o’clock, however, but the
+ranch girls did not really care. A candle under an umbrella
+makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any the
+wiser!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was
+Olive’s strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more
+devoted to one another than they did to-night. They were sitting
+with their arms about one another when Olive jumped up. “Please
+lend me the candle a minute,” she begged unexpectedly, “I have
+been talking so much about myself that I forgot I had some
+letters for you. They may be important.”</p>
+
+<p>In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped
+several envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if
+they are Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she
+said carelessly, “but if they are letters you had best wait till
+morning.”</p>
+
+<p>With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and
+the paper enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my
+goodness gracious, what ever am I going to do?” she asked
+desperately, seeing three large black figures staring at her
+even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in all this world and I
+owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”</p>
+
+<p>The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed.
+Instead of having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas
+present during her Christmas visit she had spent every cent of
+it. Now, without waiting for her to find out what she could do
+to get the money for her dreadful bill, the wretched, unkind
+shop people had sent it her on the very first day of the New
+Year.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I
+haven’t paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight,
+uncomfortable moment of surprise on the part of the other ranch
+girls, “but what can I do? I suppose I have just got to write to
+Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it for me.”</p>
+
+<p>“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean
+demanded, looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of
+the candle light.</p>
+
+<p>“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.</p>
+
+<p>Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby.
+What I wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is
+that I became a backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent
+told Gerry and Margaret that we were not absolutely paupers. I
+just had to spend some of the money I had saved, the things in
+New York were so fascinating. So I haven’t much left to lend
+you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth says the mine is
+not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we must all be
+economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
+away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at
+Primrose Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we
+are not after all; gold mines are often uncertain.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda
+murmured. And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh.
+“Oh, no, it need not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured
+her, “for I have hardly spent a cent since coming to Primrose
+Hall, so I have nearly enough to help you out, so you need not
+worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that however much I may
+dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to allow her
+to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for the
+money that is now hers should <i>rightfully</i> have come to my
+father even though she did not wish him to have it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean
+repeated, just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a
+fortune untold, Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of
+gold.’ I used to think she meant our mine.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXII<br/>READJUSTMENTS</h2>
+
+<p>In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection
+with the wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of
+psychology would have had an interesting opportunity in the
+study of the changed attitude of her schoolmates toward her. In
+the first place, from being an Indian girl of uncertain origin,
+Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance and also there
+was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress, should
+her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
+the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some
+portion of the old estate. So you see that instead of being
+looked down upon as the most undesirable student at Primrose
+Hall, the fourth ranch girl had suddenly become exalted upon a
+pedestal, and perhaps it is just as deceptive in this world to
+look up to other people as it is to look down upon them, since a
+fair judgment can only be attained by standing face to face.</p>
+
+<p>Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position
+than she had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded
+as ill breeding, was called haughtiness and her classmates stood
+a little in awe of her. The position was indeed a trying one for
+everybody concerned in it, for scarcely could the girls who had
+been unkind to Olive, now throw themselves about her neck
+begging her forgiveness, simply because so unexpected a turn had
+come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the unwise girls did do
+this, but not those with better judgment and taste, for they
+understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
+greater tact.</p>
+
+<p>Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one
+could be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent
+snubbing of Olive from the first day of her entrance into
+Primrose Hall, not because she liked Olive any better than she
+had at first, but because Winifred only cared for persons who
+might be useful to her, and now this ridiculous Olive with her
+romantic history, might be very useful indeed. The point at
+issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
+hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the
+Junior students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made
+before that the three girls who stood closest in line for this
+prize were Winifred, Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that
+Olive would of course withdraw from the contest, since she could
+hardly take a prize presented by her own grandmother, but what
+Winifred feared was that Olive might throw the balance of her
+influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she now undertook to
+show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls without
+offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
+confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their
+friend, was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but
+there was little assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the
+first place Jessica declared immediately that Olive was not to
+give up her effort to win the Shakespeare prize. Jessica had
+talked the matter over both with Olive and Miss Winthrop and
+they had decided in council that Olive need not give up her
+cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
+Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
+reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have
+the best yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the
+close of the school year and give the best recitation from any
+one of the Shakespeare plays.</p>
+
+<p>Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred
+had then freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards
+to Olive, but though her manner was now entirely friendly, her
+protest had not the least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed,
+when things had settled down into routine again Olive continued
+to work harder than ever during the following winter and spring
+months. Of course, her position among her classmates had altered
+somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her friends as well as a
+number of other girls who had never been actively disagreeable,
+but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a faint
+pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like
+one another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real
+antagonism of temperament. They exchanged greetings in their
+class rooms and several times Winifred called on the ranch
+girls, but as her visits were never returned, she had to try
+other methods of softening the hostility her own unkindness had
+created, hoping that before the school year was over something
+would give her a chance to win their liking.</p>
+
+<p>One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from
+their Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and
+with distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their
+mystic order. When finally the invitation, so much discussed,
+had been extended to the two ranch girls they had not known what
+to do in the matter. Of course, they had not wished to show
+continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s advice, had joined the
+society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty club house and
+the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority gave
+during the rest of the school year.</p>
+
+<p>So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
+Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother
+were still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop
+had been in the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and
+Frieda, but there were times when pilgrimages had to be made
+alone. Why they had to be made at all Olive did not understand,
+for Madame Van Mater still showed but little liking for the
+granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop had surely
+thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch girls
+it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least
+fear of her and when they had made their first call it was with
+difficulty that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of
+her mind in regard to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van
+Mater’s age prevented her from receiving the scolding and
+perhaps her manner. For instead Jean told her the story of the
+ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how much she had
+previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well as
+the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly
+invited Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but
+of their life at the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls
+could be eloquent on the subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed
+the floor and three times in the course of the conversation
+Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud, a proceeding most
+unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her hardness
+and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
+treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her
+son had forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions.
+But whatever her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was
+forced to continue the weekly calls.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school
+matters and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of
+basketball, Olive found herself compelled to go alone to see her
+grandmother. And she was particularly vexed over this special
+visit, as she had wished to join the other girls in their game.</p>
+
+<p>Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame
+Van Mater with entire formality in the old drawing room, where
+they had had their two memorable meetings, but to-day she found
+the drawing room empty and while she waited a maid came to say
+that she was kindly to walk upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old
+drawing room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going
+upstairs found her grandmother before an open fire wrapped about
+with silk shawls and comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as
+high as usual and her costume as handsome, but it was plain to
+see that she was not so well.</p>
+
+<p>“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe
+cold,” she announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with
+her, never having at any time offered her any more intimate
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really
+feeling bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half
+hour. These calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston
+was still a prisoner in New York were the only worries she now
+seemed to have at Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her
+remark waved aside.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but
+if I were there are other more important matters than my health
+which I wish to discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I
+very glad to see you alone.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had
+never attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by
+pretending to feel any affection for her. She now simply sat
+perfectly still and respectful, waiting to hear what was to be
+said next. But rarely had she looked more attractive than on
+this afternoon. In the first place, her walk had given her a
+bright color and she was wearing a particularly becoming frock.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great
+care on these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock,
+which Ruth lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the
+first time. It was of some soft material of silk and wool made
+with a short waist and softly clinging skirt of a bright golden
+brown with a girdle of brown velvet. Olive was very slender
+always and of only medium height, but her dark coloring was rich
+and unusual and now her expression was gayer and in some
+unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
+manner than formerly.</p>
+
+<p>For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
+continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting
+opposite her, and then, without the least warning of her
+intention, said abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not
+understood why I have insisted on your coming to see me so
+regularly and constantly since my discovery of your connection
+with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you have not I
+am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying you
+and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a
+great injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his
+choice of an occupation and by his marriage to your mother
+instead of Katherine Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off
+from me all responsibility in regard to his child. You are not
+altogether what I would have you to be, you have less social
+ease of manner and less conversational ability than I desire in
+my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults in
+you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them.
+What I am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make
+reparation to you by having you come here to live with me when
+your year at Primrose Hall is passed, and if I find you as
+refined and as capable of being managed as I now suppose you to
+be, I am prepared to change my will, making you heir to the
+greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and nephew,
+Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
+for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I
+wish to do it. And also because it will please Katherine
+Winthrop, who is one of the few persons for whom I have always
+cared.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips,
+but seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no
+intention of thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly,
+“only of refusing your offer. It may be very kind of you to
+desire me to live with you, but I thought you understood that
+nothing and no one in the world could ever persuade me to stop
+living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me to be with
+them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or anything
+else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far
+more inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her.
+“Of course, I wish to say nothing against these friends of
+yours; under the circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful
+to them for their kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect
+to live forever on their bounty, and what can they offer you in
+the way of social opportunity? I believe they have no parents to
+introduce them into society, only this chaperon named Ruth Drew
+and some man or other who manages their ranch.”</p>
+
+<p>Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very
+anxious or very well fitted for social opportunity,” she
+answered, “but I don’t think you need worry about the ranch
+girls, for when the time comes for them to take any part in
+society I am sure they will find opportunities enough. I wrote
+Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation was
+over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she
+wanted me to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would
+travel or do whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any
+of us know yet whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean
+and Frieda and I have positively made up our minds that nothing
+will induce us to be separated from her after this year.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater
+returned coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this
+question with you. I shall have Katherine Winthrop put the
+matter before you. But you can rest assured, Olive, of these two
+things: In the first place, that if at any time you displease me
+I can leave my money to any one whom I may select, as my
+husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and in
+the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you
+are not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your
+natural guardian.”</p>
+
+<p>Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to
+be violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature
+anger must get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the
+girl now got up from her chair and crossing the room faced
+Madame Van Mater with an expression as determined as her own.
+“Please understand that I do not want to defraud either Donald
+or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have always promised them.
+They have been very kind since the discovery of my connection
+with them and of course you must be more fond of them than you
+can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I
+don’t want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother,
+nor do I feel that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect
+of me. Do you think it is quite fair for you now to speak of
+being my natural guardian when for so many years you desired
+nothing so much as that my name should never be mentioned to
+you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any more, but
+understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”</p>
+
+<p>Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger,
+for until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her
+rather too gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her
+shoulders indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of
+course, Olive, I shall decide later what course in regard to you
+I shall consider it advisable to take.”</p>
+
+<p>So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever
+before in her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for
+consolation to Primrose Hall.</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXIII' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIII<br/>“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”</h2>
+
+<p>May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along
+the Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with
+sail boats dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky
+and toward the water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats
+chugged along, making more noise than automobiles; while the
+steam yachts, ever the aristocrats among all water craft,
+sailing into their own harbors up and down the Hudson shores,
+ever and anon put forth again as though intending to leave home
+behind for adventures on the open sea. All the hills beyond and
+near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like mammoth
+bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
+while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater
+variety of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places
+in this land.</p>
+
+<p>Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine
+Winthrop’s old home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before
+ever the school was thought of. For wild primroses blossomed
+everywhere, although the season was late, until the garden about
+the old place looked like the famous field of “The Cloth of
+Gold.”</p>
+
+<p>As much as possible on these bright May days the students at
+Primrose Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year
+drawing to a close it was not always easy to desert lessons and
+the thought of approaching examinations.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a
+corner of one of the big verandas with a table between them and
+a screen carefully set up to protect them from interruption. The
+girls were not talking, indeed an utter silence had reigned
+between them for the last ten minutes, broken only by the squeak
+of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the present term and
+by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an oration by
+Cicero.</p>
+
+<p>Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short
+time later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair
+of feet but of several, and yet not a single head appeared above
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work,
+determined not to be lured from the strict path of duty.</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself,
+“seeing our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’
+will go away and leave us in peace.”</p>
+
+<p>But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few
+inches from where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion
+to the study of literature and the classics will prevent one
+from jumping up with a scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at
+the same instant, and behold, there, with only the prostrate
+screen dividing them, were Gerry and Margaret, Lucy and Mollie
+Johnson, besides several other members of their Junior class!</p>
+
+<p>“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry
+announced, pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised
+dagger.</p>
+
+<p>Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want
+with us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come
+interrupting a fellow at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily.
+“Do you suppose that when school is nearly over that we care
+half so much for the views and wishes of our lady principal as
+we do earlier in the year, when we might have to live on under
+the shadow of her displeasure? However, on this one occasion the
+fear of that august personage need not darken our young lives,
+since she has given her consent to what I am now about to
+propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I had
+best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to
+accept it beforehand.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such
+moral hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything
+agreeable this afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t
+accept any invitation, and yet if you ask us we may.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what
+it is. You must get your coats and hats at once and come and
+drive with us for a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and
+there father and Cecil will be waiting for us in our yacht to
+take us for a sail.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically,
+gathering her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think
+that I have never been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole
+life!”</p>
+
+<p>Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies
+this afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the
+overturned screen in their efforts to get up to their room for
+hats and coats without delay.</p>
+
+<p>However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for
+Jean to have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen
+slowly returning toward her group of friends.</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please
+excuse us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please
+don’t think I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she
+said softly, “but really I don’t believe I had better go with
+you this afternoon after all. Frieda says she <i>will</i> go,”
+and unconsciously the speaker put an added emphasis on the verb
+will.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
+particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make
+you change your mind in the distance between the veranda and
+your bedroom door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you
+won’t go for a sail on the Hudson for the first time in your
+life because you love your Cicero so.”</p>
+
+<p>Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not
+exactly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have
+asked Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join
+us. Of course she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare
+essay of hers. And to think that once I believed I had a chance
+at that Shakespeare prize.”</p>
+
+<p>At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh,
+if Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us,
+she shall not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she
+could vanish for the second time Margaret and Gerry both
+clutched at her skirts.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really
+want her, and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.”
+Margaret explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson
+with anger and resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get
+over being so touchy about one another? You know that now we
+know Olive better, we like her as much as any girl in our class.
+To tell you the truth, it is just because we are trying to fix
+up some plan to show Olive how we feel toward her that we did
+not want her to come along with us now. It seemed to us this
+would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
+what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at
+first,” Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and
+perhaps put things pretty badly.”</p>
+
+<p>“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get
+my belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in
+mind.”</p>
+
+<p>An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and
+Mollie and Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private
+landing pier not far from their school, were assisted aboard the
+steam yacht “Marathon” by Cecil Belknap and his father.</p>
+
+<p>During the first half of the sail there was little real
+conversation among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at
+the beauty of the river scenery and the wonders of the yacht.
+But by and by on their return journey when Margaret and her
+guests were seated around the salon dining table drinking
+afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting off things,
+turned to her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the
+entire company to overhear, “if your father and brother will
+pardon us, I vote that we plunge right into the subject we have
+come together to discuss this afternoon. I suppose your father
+and Cecil must both have heard something of Olive’s story by
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have
+Olive’s difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap,
+whom she did not yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest
+she did not like to protest.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with
+her teaspoon poised in the air.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You
+know that when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most
+of us liked two of the three girls right from the first, after a
+few of their western peculiarities had rubbed up against our
+eastern ones. But with the third girl, with Olive—well, it was
+different. In the first place, Olive was shy and did not look
+exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier than I am, for
+example); in the second place, the story was circulated about
+among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
+dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and
+that now she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to
+her own mother. Of course, had any one of us ever looked at
+Olive very hard we must have known that this story was an
+untruth, or else only a half truth, which is the worst kind of a
+lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy to stand up
+for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this horrid
+part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
+end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little
+further than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as
+clever as Olive in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as
+refined and gentle in her manner, could hardly be what we had
+believed her, simply couldn’t. And now I want to say just one
+thing in excuse for myself. I did know that Olive was a lady and
+more than a lady, a trump, before I learned that she was not an
+Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused an instant to
+sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express her
+romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s
+respite.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did
+try to be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas
+holidays, intending on my return to ask her to overlook the past
+and be friends. I suppose there were other girls in our class
+who felt the same way and had this same intention?”</p>
+
+<p>As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There
+certainly were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we
+got back from our holidays it was then too late to make Olive
+believe in our good intentions, because in that short time
+things had so changed for her that she had become more
+interesting than any of the rest of us. You can see, Jean and
+Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The well-broughtup
+Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment and
+only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
+rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had
+learned of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that
+she would care very much for such a belated repentance. So for
+months now we have been trying to think of some pretty and
+tactful way to show our real feeling toward her and now we hope
+we have at last hit upon the right plan.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long
+time,” and though a laugh went all around the table at her
+expense, Gerry again burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we
+are to have our school finals now in a short time and see the
+Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who are trying for the
+Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the committee
+specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
+luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests
+at the commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps
+you two ranch girls don’t know and that is that we always choose
+one of the Primrose Hall girls as our Queen for commencement
+day. Of course she must be selected from among the entire
+school, not from any one class; but Margaret and some of the
+other Juniors and I have been talking things over with the
+Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and that
+they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
+and Frieda?”</p>
+
+<p>Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda
+still appeared mystified.</p>
+
+<p>“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if
+you really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although
+she was trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil
+Belknap, who had been watching her pretty closely all afternoon
+through his same hateful pair of eyeglasses.</p>
+
+<p>“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first
+toward Mollie and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation
+of this everlasting preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,”
+Gerry returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose
+you can call her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she
+does preside over our dances all afternoon, leads any special
+ones, and we pay her whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t
+you, Cecil, or any other human being at this table start
+reciting: ‘You must wake and call me early, call me early,
+mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not for that
+tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May Queen
+one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
+that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
+commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose
+because it is so ridiculously easy to remember.”</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the
+table, her guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all
+settled,” she exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup,
+“so let us drink to Olive as our next queen and to the other
+ranch girls.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,”
+Frieda suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And
+Gerry’s hearty “Of course,” ended the pretty scene.</p>
+
+<p>For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made
+their way again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group
+Jean was the last to leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My
+sister tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our
+cottage on the Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you
+are going to be jolly enough to come, for I should enjoy it most
+awfully.”</p>
+
+<p>“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?”
+Jean’s eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she
+ended prettily, extending her hand to the young man.</p>
+
+<p>Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
+twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore.
+“No, it is not what I would call good of me,” he replied
+quietly. “I thought I told you at our house at Christmas that I
+liked you and that if there wasn’t any fellow out West, I would
+like to see more of you anyhow. Do say you will make us the
+visit?”</p>
+
+<p>With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped
+develop in her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied
+quietly, “I have already explained to Margaret that I shan’t be
+able to come to her this summer. You see, my cousin, Jack
+Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to leave the hospital
+in New York early in June and then we expect to go back to the
+Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
+knows where?”</p>
+
+<p>The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now
+running in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the
+soft, spring dusk the travelers could see the old school
+carryall and in another carriage Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting
+to drive the party back to Primrose Hall. But before anybody was
+allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had solemnly whispered to each
+one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not to hear a single,
+solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up to the
+very last minute.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXIV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXIV<br/>SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES</h2>
+
+<p>“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,”
+Gerry Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back
+view of herself in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly
+lovely, Winifred, and I would not be a bit surprised if you get
+the Shakespeare prize after all, even though Olive has the best
+class record for the year and I the highest mark for my essay.
+We are so close together in this contest that the least thing
+may change the balance. It is my private opinion that whoever
+gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
+prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to
+adjust her doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I
+have been born a stately blonde beauty like you so that I might
+have appeared as lovely Ophelia instead of having to represent
+Rosalind on account of my short hair?”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently,
+happening at that moment to catch sight of her own fair
+reflection. She was dressed in a long clinging robe of some soft
+white material and her pale blonde hair, bound with a fillet of
+silver, hung loose about her neck. In her hand she held a sheet
+of paper with her speech written upon it, which she glanced at a
+little nervously every now and then.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my
+recitation,” Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of
+stage fright already, and to think that I have to make the first
+speech!” She glanced up at the clock on their mantel. “It is
+only a half hour now before we must go downstairs and I believe
+that there have never been so many guests at one of our
+commencements before. I suppose it is because the day is so
+beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
+wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least
+a hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the
+ranch girls’ room we can see out into the yard and I can have a
+look at Olive. I am simply dying to find out what she looks
+like!”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to
+come near Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her
+herself and to slip around to the entrance to the stage in the
+pavilion, so that no one shall dare speak to her. So I suppose
+if the truth be known, Winifred, Olive is just about as badly
+scared as you are and a good deal more so, considering how
+dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not look
+pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never
+saw any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare
+costume. And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in
+‘The Winter’s Tale’ for her character because I asked her to.
+She had once made me think of a description of Perdita.”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the
+room. “See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too
+hateful for you to have kept on encouraging Olive to try for
+this prize. It will look awfully queer to people if she accepts
+a prize from her own grandmother anyhow, and I do need it most
+dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper Winifred was almost
+in tears, though not for worlds would she consciously have
+marred her lovely appearance.</p>
+
+<p>A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t
+leave me out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she
+begged. “I may not have so great beauty as you and Olive to
+commend me, but remember:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+    <div class='d021'>“‘From the east to western Ind,</div>
+    <div class='d021'>No jewel is like Rosalind.</div>
+    <div class='d021'>Her worth, being mounted on the wind,</div>
+    <div class='d021'>Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling
+stride toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more
+friendliness than she had shown her in many weeks. “Come,
+Winifred, what is the use of our worrying now? I believe I need
+this prize money quite as much as you do, since my father has
+just made some unfortunate investments and may not be able to
+let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year. And
+of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
+take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have
+an equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive
+wins we ought not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand
+how she wants the glory of winning and not the prize itself. She
+told me that she had been working for this prize ever since she
+first came to Primrose Hall in order to show her beloved Jack
+Ralston how much she had appreciated the opportunities she had
+given her.”</p>
+
+<p>In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but
+at the same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great
+clapping of hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her
+hand. “Good gracious, there is someone’s speech just ending!”
+she exclaimed, “so our turns will come soon.”</p>
+
+<p>And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
+Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are
+April when they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You
+Like It” and began once more to read over her part.</p>
+
+<p>So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s
+voice was heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare
+heroines?” she demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long
+coats around you and come on downstairs now. The coast is clear
+and it is almost time for your speeches. I will tell Olive.”</p>
+
+<p>Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose
+Hall had ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had
+one called forth so many guests.</p>
+
+<p>Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a
+stage had been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many
+yards from the great house and a kind of covered arbor
+temporarily arranged so that the girls who took part in the
+commencement exercises might pass from the house to the stage
+without being seen by the audience. The stage had no curtain and
+only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
+clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either
+side were piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from
+the woods, delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and
+the floor of the stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups,
+violets and daisies.</p>
+
+<p>In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was
+seated, perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her
+first public appearance before it might reasonably be
+frightened. Perhaps it was the beauty of the day, perhaps the
+novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage arrangements, for surely no
+audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic than hers, and as
+each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently entering
+from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
+applause and interest had increased.</p>
+
+<p>The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
+programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were
+half a dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act
+as judges, and a few feet from them in a chair next Miss
+Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van Mater, the owner of “The Towers”
+and the donor of the Shakespeare prize. Her appearance at the
+commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but whether she
+came because of her interest in her newly-found granddaughter or
+whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no one had
+been told.</p>
+
+<p>When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur
+of admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to
+her, giving her just the confidence she had needed for the
+making of her speech. And truly her beauty justified the
+admiration, for she was wearing the costume that best suited her
+and was most effective against the natural background of
+evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the leaves
+of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
+gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her
+upstairs, nor a moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred
+recited Ophelia’s famous description of Hamlet, ending with the
+words, “O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I
+see.” Then for just a moment she paused with a pretty, pathetic
+gesture and her gaze swept the faces of her judges before she
+vanished from the stage amid much clapping of hands. Three times
+Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each call Gerry’s
+heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.</p>
+
+<p>“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred
+has already won.” When a friend standing near whispered
+something in her ear she laughed in her usual good-humored
+fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can recite better than Winifred,
+but what avails it me when I can’t look like the goddess of
+spring as she does at this moment there on the stage with her
+arms full of flowers.”</p>
+
+<p>Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed
+arbor in the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her
+recitation came next, and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded
+by Jean, was also waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean.
+Then she darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for
+the last time; are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely,
+but she did not speak distinctly enough. Remember it is
+difficult to hear out of doors.”</p>
+
+<p>Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses,
+she tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the
+stage in her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find
+her way through an unknown woods, had stumbled in the
+underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and
+yet in the character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly
+at her best. Perhaps the description that the heroine gives of
+herself in masquerade will best describe Gerry’s present
+appearance.</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d024'>
+        <div class='d021'>“More than common tall,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That I did suit me all points like a man?</div>
+        <div class='d021'>A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—</div>
+        <div class='d021'>We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her
+recitation she did not in any way betray it, for at once the
+gayety of Rosalind, her wit and gallant courage, seemed to have
+fallen like a mantle upon Gerry. Twice her audience laughed
+aloud in the course of her recitation and once two of the judges
+nodded at each other, which had not happened during Winifred’s
+speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to the stage
+again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain that
+unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
+would be the winner of their contest.</p>
+
+<p>For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the
+third girl, who was to close the competition, made her
+appearance. And this was unfortunate for Olive. In the first
+place, the large audience was growing a little bit tired and
+hungry, and in the second place, it gave them the opportunity to
+begin talking of Olive’s curious history, retailing to one
+another as much or as little as each one of them knew.</p>
+
+<p>Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New
+York and shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica
+Hunt and Miss Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure
+the planning of it had given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome
+days at the hospital. Not that she and Ruth were Shakespeare
+scholars, only it had happened that years before Ruth had seen a
+famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from the stage, in
+this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and had
+never forgotten the details of her dress.</p>
+
+<p>Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last
+skipped on to the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress
+that came down to her ankles, covered with an overdress of
+flowered tulle. Her long and curiously black hair was braided in
+the two familiar loose braids with a single pink flower at one
+side, and on her arm she carried a basket of spring flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from
+the first that Olive would be frightened to death before so many
+people? It was odd, therefore, that as she first came down
+toward the edge of the platform she smiled assurance at Miss
+Winthrop, who was trying her best not to appear too anxious or
+too interested in her favorite pupil.</p>
+
+<p>Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly
+to dance an old English folk dance such as the country people
+must have danced in rustic England long before even
+Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art with Olive, so that
+before she commenced her speech her audience was won.</p>
+
+<p>Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when
+her dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the
+center of the open-air stage:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d024'>
+        <div>“I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might</div>
+        <div>Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people
+watching her as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater
+stiffened and her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten
+her part and is going to make a spectacle of herself and me!”
+she whispered in her friend’s ear. “I wish I had never come.”</p>
+
+<p>And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown
+suddenly ill, for she continued standing perfectly still and
+speechless for a period of one, two minutes, though surely it
+seemed like ten, while waves of color swept over her face,
+turning it crimson and then leaving it pale. “Oh, I cannot
+believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking her
+eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
+exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to
+the girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught
+it, for she smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of
+wild-flowers appeared to present them to various characters, who
+in Shakespeare’s play stand grouped around the figure of Perdita
+as she makes this speech:</p>
+
+<div class='d019'>
+  <div class='d014'>
+    <div class='d020'>
+        <div class='d021'>“Daffodils,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>
+        <div class='d021'>The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes</div>
+        <div class='d021'>Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,</div>
+        <div class='d021'>That die unmarried—”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket,
+dropping them to the ground and moving gradually backwards
+toward the entrance to the stage. Then, when she had recited the
+last line of her speech, she made a quick bow and before her
+audience realized that her speech was actually over, had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s
+and Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For
+Jean was waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I
+didn’t see? It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me
+before?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered,
+trying to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack
+wishes you to come to her at once.”</p>
+
+<h2 id='chXXV' class='d018'>CHAPTER XXV<br/>“JACK”</h2>
+
+<p>Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms
+about her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and
+fragile and leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep
+bronze, the color of copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes,
+were now unusually dark with emotion. She was evidently trying
+to appear less disturbed than she felt, for her head was tilted
+back the least bit and her lips were held close together;
+indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
+self-control.</p>
+
+<p>“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely
+unconscious of the number of persons about them, and the girl in
+the costume of an English shepherdess arrived at the desired
+goal first.</p>
+
+<p>“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first
+meeting after a long separation from one we love. And so for
+several moments the two ranch girls clung together trying hard
+to keep back their tears, while Jean, standing a little apart
+from them, pretended to laugh at their emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did
+it happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I
+don’t care whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are
+here.” Olive said at last.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so
+much by surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But
+you see it was like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more
+heavily on her cane, although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it.
+“When my operation was over neither the surgeons nor anybody
+knew just at first whether or not I was to get well. So of
+course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until we were
+certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
+I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out
+here at Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I
+did not mean to put off coming until commencement day,” Jack
+continued apologetically, “but somehow I did not get well quite
+as fast as I expected, until it had to be now or never, so Ruth
+wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this morning but not to let
+you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would somehow affect
+your speech.”</p>
+
+<p>“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think
+how I felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I
+saw you standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you
+used to do.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only
+I got so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am
+perfectly well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not
+accustomed to standing so long.”</p>
+
+<p>Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried
+off, returning in another minute empty handed. But following
+close behind her was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked
+a little out of place at Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a
+freedom and power that did not speak of city streets, neither
+did the deep tan of his skin. He was carrying the big,
+comfortable chair for Jean.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so
+many surprises in one day!” Olive protested.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of
+the Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so
+that he could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another
+moment his big hands closed over hers.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied.
+“To think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books,
+and here I was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow
+Ranch, whose history makes most of the fiction tales look real
+pale! But ain’t it great to see the boss herself again. I
+couldn’t believe she was getting well when she wrote me; I was
+like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to show me’.” And here Jim
+put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.</p>
+
+<p>“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
+demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five
+minutes together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to
+let my sister get out of my sight again as long as I live!”
+Frieda had joined the little group under the linden tree just as
+Jim was finishing his speech and before Olive could answer him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything,
+my grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.</p>
+
+<div class='d001'>
+  <div class='d002'>
+    <img class='d003'
+    alt='“DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”'
+    src='images/illus-003.jpg' />
+  </div>
+  <p class='d004'>
+  “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am
+awfully glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you
+belong to us less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as
+she thought I was well enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I
+have even had a letter from your grandmother thanking me for
+rescuing you from a person by whom she had been deceived,
+meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who are all
+those persons coming towards us now?”</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
+Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end
+of the line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one
+another and apparently unconscious of every one else.</p>
+
+<p>With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
+immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have
+received the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges
+voted your speech the most effective, and as you already had the
+best record for the year in the Junior Shakespeare class, why of
+course the honors are yours and I want to congratulate you.”</p>
+
+<p>With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her
+victorious rival.</p>
+
+<p>But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
+congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t
+deserve,” she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second
+choice?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely
+disagree with them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for
+Olive was almost forcibly trying to drag her over to where
+Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were standing together.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss
+Winthrop at once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying
+for it just to see what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does
+not wish the prize given her, and of course under the
+circumstances Olive does not wish it herself.”</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were
+peremptorily borne away by a number of their classmates. Later
+on from a kind of throne on one of the Primrose Hall verandas
+Jack and some of her friends witnessed the pretty ceremony of
+the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For several hours
+afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive raising
+a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
+royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during
+the afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once,
+when Jack had been watching them, she happened to turn to speak
+to Madame Van Mater, who sat next her. But whatever she may have
+intended to say she did not, but instead waited to study her
+companion’s expression.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly
+pleased at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was
+almost a smile of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack
+flushed, biting her lips, then she leaned over and spoke:</p>
+
+<p>“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have
+Olive go home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if
+afterwards you will do something that is kinder still?” she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there
+was an air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was
+very pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere
+with my granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but
+what more would you have me to do?”</p>
+
+<p>For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa
+cushions looking out over the garden and fields to where afar
+off she could see just a silver line marking the course of the
+Hudson River.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame
+Van Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t
+believe I had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my
+life. And all the time lately I have been thinking and longing
+for just two things. One to see our beloved ranch again, to get
+on horseback and ride for miles and miles over the prairie. And
+then—”</p>
+
+<p>“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest
+than you would believe she could show.</p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I
+can. You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used
+to think perhaps I should never see much more of the world than
+just four walls.” Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders
+in her old, determined way. “But I am well now and, as the
+doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I want you to promise to
+let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and me next fall?”</p>
+
+<p>“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent
+idea! I could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel
+and experience may give her just the ease and culture she needs.
+But who will look after you?”</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
+companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil
+of watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight
+hold of her hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She
+will not go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go
+abroad afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”</p>
+
+<p>Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss
+Winthrop arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying
+farewell to her guests.</p>
+
+<p>So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking
+about in the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left
+alone. Not far off they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching
+them with Jean and Frieda holding on to his hands like little
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at
+her side.</p>
+
+<p>“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I
+used to hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when
+you and Jim saw each other again you would forget what has
+separated you and only remember you care for one another.
+Somehow when one has been very ill, love seems the only thing
+that is really important.”</p>
+
+<p>Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last
+weeks at the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of
+his past fault to her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack
+dear,” she whispered, although no one was near enough to hear.
+“He has not spoken to me alone since he arrived in New York, so
+I suppose he has not forgiven my hardness and narrowness;
+besides, men forget love very easily.”</p>
+
+<p>Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than
+it had been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not
+forget,” she answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest,
+kindest person in the world.” And then the oldest ranch girl
+sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the horridest thing in the world to
+have to wait for the nice things to happen?” she asked. “Of
+course, we all know, Ruth, that some day everything will turn
+out for the best, but it is just that silly old indefinite word
+some that makes the waiting so difficult.”</p>
+
+<p>The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will
+appear under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this
+story the histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be
+more fully developed, for having put childhood and school life
+behind them, they will enter that broader world of young
+womanhood, where romance stands ever waiting round the corner.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls at Boarding School, by 
+Margaret Vandercook
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-07 19:56:16 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-07 19:56:16 -0800
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