The unhappy taking-off of Georgia Ames supplied Harding College with conversation for a good deal more than the proverbial nine days. Campus dinner-tables buzzed with anecdotes about her, a good many of which “The Merry Hearts” themselves had never heard before. People who knew the “English Essayists” chapter of her experiences had not heard the Yale chapter. Girls who had laughed over the discomfiture of the Westcott House senior, who had eventually paid a high price for her readiness in running off with Bob’s violets, listened eagerly to the story of Babe’s lace handkerchief. And some of them went forthwith to interview the janitor, thereby adding a new episode. For the janitor was a firm believer in ghosts and other apparitions and saw no reason why Madeline Ayres, whose interest in Irish fairy-tales had gained his worshipful admiration, should not possess a shadowy double if she chose to. He had a well-grounded distrust of the B’s and vehemently pooh-poohed their matter-of-fact explanations of Georgia’s movements.
“It’s all very well to talk, Miss Babe,” he declared, “but I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and if Miss Madeline says she has a double I’ll believe her. And if you’d be so kind as to return me that handkerchief, I’ll—I’ll take you up in the clock-tower to-night at nine, and tell you an’ your friends a few little yarns of old Erin.”
This was a great bribe, for the B’s had wanted to make an evening visit to the clock-tower ever since the first evening of their freshman year, when, wandering forlornly around the campus, they had noticed how tall and spectral it looked by night; and Babe sacrificed her precious handkerchief without a murmur.
The janitor’s stories were very creepy indeed, and Babe and Babbie went home shivering and clinging tight to Bob, who marched along bold as a lion. The two timid ones were sitting on the edge of Babbie’s couch, discussing a gruesome tale of a girl who, gagged and tied to the bedpost by ghostly bonds, had watched her lover walk unsuspectingly upon an open trap-door and fall shrieking to his fate, when to their horror the door-handle moved and the door slid slowly open. At sight of the towering white-robed figure which entered with a queer, gliding motion, the two on the bed shrieked wildly.
“Sh! It’s me—I,” announced Bob’s familiar voice. “I only wanted to test my make-up on you two. I’m going out to scare the night-watchman. I’m going to tell him that I’m Georgia Ames.”
Bob’s make-up was doubtless excellent, but much experience with Harding Hallowe’en parties had made the night-watchman extremely sceptical. He walked boldly up to the ghost, explained to her that Georgia Ames “wan’t nothin’ but them girls’ fool doin’s,” turned a deaf ear to her pleadings to be let into the Belden to see Madeline, and finally grasped her wrist so tightly that Bob abandoned her ghostly falsetto and howled for mercy.
“I knew it,” said the night-watchman wrathfully. “You’re Miss Parker, and this is the last time this term that I shall let you in and not report it.” And most ungallantly did he spread the story of Bob’s adventure among her friends, who teased her unmercifully until no one could say “ghost” in Bob’s hearing without paying dear for the liberty.
Dr. Eaton, when he received notice of his unanimous election to honorary membership in “The Merry Hearts,” responded with a note that even Madeline had to admit was creditable. In it he expressed the deepest appreciation of the honor done him. He had not, he said, been told all the aims and objects of the organization, but one seemed to be the booming of Georgia Ames. And so, unless the rest of the club disapproved, he would do his best for her by handing in her report to Miss Stuart.
Miss Stuart, being a rather unapproachable person, had not heard of Georgia. So she called upon Dr. Eaton for an explanation, which he furnished in full detail. He knew now that Georgia did not exist, he said; but was it not his duty to give somebody credit for those extremely real and very clever papers which he had had the pleasure of examining? And Miss Stuart, who looked more unapproachable than she really was, smiled genially on all “The Merry Hearts” and congratulated Mary and Betty, whom she knew best, on having added to the gaiety of life at Harding.
“We’re all too serious and too self-centred here,” she said. “I like the idea of your club, and I can see that it has a real influence in the college. There is more good feeling and less snobbishness this year. And I haven’t forgotten the way you put through the Japanese tea.”
Whereat “The Merry Hearts” promptly invited Miss Stuart to be an honorary member too, and she accepted with an eager gratitude that made the astute Madeline stop to think.
“Betty,” she said solemnly, “do you know I believe Miss Stuart was truly pleased. I believe she’d like to get down off her pedestal oftener. I’ve always thought that quiet, self-contained, self-sufficient people like her were perfectly happy, but now I wonder if they are. That Miss Case in our class, for instance,—the one that has a suite of rooms up where Dora Carlson is, and spends her time buying and reading all the new books that come out. Do you suppose she’s ever lonely in that gorgeous library of hers?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Betty. “You know her father and mother are both dead, and I can’t imagine how books and lovely things and all the money you want could make up to a girl for that.”
“Nor I,” said Madeline. “Next time I see her I’m going to ask her to come down and join us some Saturday evening—even if she is as rich as Crœsus and considered an awful snob.”
And Miss Case came once, and often after that, and confided to Madeline that she was always lonely and had longed to make friends with her class, but couldn’t seem to do it, because she was so shy and so afraid of intruding where she wasn’t wanted. And Madeline in her turn explained that the best way was to forget all about yourself and go ahead—a rule which in time Miss Case learned to put in practice.
Meanwhile the winter term was speeding to an end. Mid-years came and went, but they have few terrors for clear-headed juniors, who know by experience that the faculty are oftener kind than cruel, and who have become expert in arranging their work so as to get as many days of glorious freedom as possible at the end of the terrible mid-year week.
And then, just a month before the end of the term, came an eventful day, full of excitement for Betty Wales and the rest of “The Merry Hearts.” The morning was like all other mornings at Harding, made up of recitation hours and hurried intervals of study between. The afternoon began with a disappointment, for Betty and Madeline had planned to go skating, and soon after lunch word came that the ice on the river was not strong enough and the rink was closed for the day.
“Too bad,” said Madeline philosophically, “but I think it’s growing colder, and we’ll go to-morrow. Let’s look up our history topics for the day after to-morrow now, and then go for a long walk.”
Betty agreed to this, and the two were swinging home in the dusk, when Madeline proposed that, as it was not quite dinner time, they stop and call on Miss Hale.
“Oh, I’m so glad you spoke of it,” said Betty. “Nan said in her last letter that Ethel had written her the bluest notes lately. She told me to go and cheer her up, and I haven’t had a minute since then.”
Ethel’s sitting-room was in front on the first floor of the house where she boarded.
“She’s there,” said Betty, as they turned in. “Doesn’t it look cheerful, with the lamp lit and the curtains up? I think everybody ought to——” She stopped short. “Why, Madeline—she’s—I don’t believe we’d better go in now, do you?”
“No,” said Madeline shortly. “We’ll come again in a day or so.”
For full in the cheerful glow of her big student lamp, Ethel sat, her arms on her desk, and her face buried in her arms; and while the girls stood there, unwitting eavesdroppers of her unhappiness, she lifted her head and wiped away the tears with a handkerchief that was already too wet to be very useful.
“Oh, dear!” said Betty sorrowfully, as they turned away, “I ought to have gone sooner. I wonder what can be the trouble. Dear me! If I was bright enough to be on the faculty just after I’d graduated, seems to me I should be as proud and happy as a peacock all the time. Nan says that Ethel was the brightest and most popular girl in her class.”
“Perhaps she hates teaching,” suggested Madeline.
“No, it can’t be that,” objected Betty, “because she doesn’t have to do it. Her family is very well off, but she has several sisters at home and she doesn’t care one bit for society, for all she is such a favorite. Nan says it was always her ambition to teach here. At first her family didn’t like the idea, but now they’re awfully proud of her.”
“Well,” said Madeline, “whatever the matter is, ‘The Merry Hearts’ will have to take her in hand. We meet to-night, don’t we?”
“Yes,” said Betty, “in my room. But I don’t know—are you sure Ethel would like it?”
“She won’t know,” said Madeline, “but of course it’s just as you say. I only thought we might tell the B’s, who are in her classes, to jolly her up a little, or make Mary Brooks come with us when we call. Mary is such a cheerful person.”
To all this Betty heartily assented, but when evening came the B’s appeared in costume as Alice in Wonderland, the White Rabbit, and the Queen of Hearts. There was a wild scramble for more costumes, and the Wonderland party was so absorbing that nobody thought of anything else until a freshman admirer of Betty’s knocked on the door with a letter.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said, staring about her in blank amazement. “But I thought you’d like this letter. It was on the floor behind the table.”
“Thank you ever so much. Won’t you come in?” asked Betty, who represented the Mock Turtle, in a costume composed of a gray bathrobe and tissue paper paws and ears. “Would you please put the letter on the table? You see my hands are underneath.”
But when she caught sight of the English stamps and her father’s handwriting on the envelope, she speedily dispensed with the encumbering “flippers” that Rachel had adjusted so carefully, and retired to a quiet corner to read her letter.
“Nassau, B. I.,” was the heading. “Girls, where is ‘Nassau, B. I.’?” demanded Betty, reading on down the page as she spoke.
“I don’t know,” said Madeline frankly.
“Near Bermuda, isn’t it?” hazarded Mary.
“No, it’s near Cuba,” asserted Roberta. “My father went there once long ago. He brought me the loveliest shells. You go out in a boat, you know, and whatever you see that you want a man dives down——”
She was interrupted by an ecstatic shriek from Betty. “Girls, what do you think? Father says it’s perfectly lovely there, wherever it is, and it doesn’t take long from New York, and he wants me to make up a party of girls and come down for Easter. Did you ever hear anything so perfectly, perfectly grand?”
“Never,” said Mary, “only please read us all about it.”
“Yes,” assented Betty, dancing off the rest of the mock turtle’s costume, “I will. He says that it’s lovely at Nassau, B. I., and that the weather is just right—it was too hot at Barbadoes, whatever that is—and that while it’s not so tropical as the more southerly West Indies——”
“What did I tell you?” interrupted Roberta triumphantly. “You see it is near Cuba.”
“It’s very beautiful just the same,” continued Betty. “And there’s splendid sailing and fishing and bathing. But he says that he and mother are tired of being alone and want me to join them for their last two weeks, only of course I can’t come down alone, so he suggests—let me see. Here it is. ‘When Nan was in college I remember that she was invited to join a party of college girls who went to the Bahamas for their Easter vacation. One of the faculty who wanted to take the trip acted as chaperon, and I think made the business arrangements; but I enclose a list of steamer sailings and an estimate of expenses, and will engage hotel accommodations as soon as I hear from you. So your chaperon’s duties will be merely nominal. I am sure six or eight of you would enjoy the four days’ sea voyage and a week or two here immensely, and both your mother and I hope you can arrange to bring down a congenial party.’ Oh, girls, can’t you all come?”
“I think I can,” said Mary. “I’ll tell father to give me the trip as a commencement present.”
“I’m sure I can,” declared Madeline. “Father and mother are in Italy, so I may as well do one thing as another at Easter. They gave me a check for Christmas, and if that isn’t enough, I’ll take the rest of my allowance money and trust to providence for the future.”
“We can go,” announced Babbie, speaking as usual for all the B’s. “That is—if our fond parents are willing. We’ll go and write them this minute.”
“Send it special delivery,” advised Mary. “How about you, K.?”
Katherine made a wry face. “I’m afraid you can’t count on me,” she said. “I can’t even afford to go as far as Kankakee this spring. I’m going to stay here and be company for Rachel.”
“Yes,” said Rachel, “and you must send us lots of letters and post-cards, and bring us some shells, and an orange apiece that you really saw growing.”
“Indeed we will,” said Mary heartily. “You won’t have time that week for anything but reading our letters.”
“And we shall miss you both dreadfully,” added Betty. “How about you, Nita?”
“I must go home. I went away at Christmas, you know. Besides, I have to get my spring sewing done. What will you girls do about that?”
“Do without,” laughed Madeline. “Don’t raise doubts in our minds, Nita.”
“I’m so envious,” murmured Nita, sadly, “that I have to think of any small compensations that may be coming my way, or I couldn’t stand it. Will you go too, Helen Chase?”
Helen shook her head doubtfully. “I’m not sure that I can. I have some money in the savings bank. I don’t know how much, and anyway probably mother wouldn’t want me to take it. But I’ve never been anywhere, and I can see that traveling is a great education. Don’t you think it would be improving to go?”
“As if it wouldn’t be improving to do anything in our company!” laughed Madeline. “Let me see—that makes—three B’s, Betty, Mary, Helen perhaps, myself—— Why, Roberta, you haven’t announced your intentions.”
“I shall go of course, if you and Mary do,” said Roberta, calmly. “My father always says ‘yes’ to me. Sometimes I wish he’d say ‘no’ to something, so I could be sure he was really listening.”
“Don’t try the experiment this time,” said Mary. “How about a chaperon, Betty?”
“Oh, we can find somebody, I guess,” said Betty, joyously. Then she looked at Madeline. “I know the very person,” she cried. “Ethel Hale! Let’s go this minute and ask her.”
“All of us? In these things?” asked Roberta, who was afraid of all the faculty, on general principles.
“Of course,” said Madeline. “Betty can be show man and stage manager, since she’s torn her flippers and lost one ear.”
So it happened that Miss Hale, who was again in her sitting-room reading a wise German book about the Thirty Years’ War, heard a confused rustling in the hall and opened her door upon a troop of the strangest creatures she had seen since the Hallowe’en party of her senior year.
Besides the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts and Alice, there was the Cheshire cat, personated by Mary, wearing her “beamish” smile, the mad Hatter,—Helen, lost in an antiquated beaver that was one of Madeline’s most valued stage properties,—and the King of Hearts and four suit cards wearing placards like sandwich men, to show their identity.
After Betty had introduced all the Wonderland people and Miss Hale had admired their impromptu costumes, Betty explained why they had come.
To the joy of “The Merry Hearts,” Miss Hale consented at once. “I should like nothing better,” she said, heartily. “I’m tired of snow and cold and hard work, and the sea voyage and a week on that dear little green island is just what I need.”
“We’ll try not to be the least trouble,” said Babbie, sweetly.
“And we’ll bring up your breakfast every morning, if you like,” said Babe.
“And we think you are too nice for anything, to say yes without being teased,” declared Bob.
Whereat everybody laughed, thanked Miss Hale, and sped home just in time to escape the dire calamity of being locked out at the mercy of the night-watchman or one’s kind friends within doors.