They were not long in finding the house, and were directed to the small room.
In answer to their knock, some one said: "Come in."
"I am Edna Waite," said Teddy, as the girl she addressed looked up from her work, "and this is my friend, Miss Janet Ferguson."
The girl pushed her books to one side and came forward. She had wide innocent blue eyes which were red from crying. Her complexion was like a rose leaf, and her soft brown hair curled around her forehead and ears, and was gathered into a heavy coil at the back of her head in a style that was the least becoming to her. She was dressed plainly and in poor taste, her clothes being home-made and ill cut.
"Cousin Maria Purviance told me you were here," said Edna, "and I wanted to meet you."
"Oh, yes, you are Miss Maria's cousin. I am so glad to see you." The girl spoke timidly, and glanced around her little room for an unoccupied chair. There were but two in the room, and one stood behind the table which she had just left.
"I'll sit on the bed or on your trunk," said Janet easily. "They never do give one enough chairs, do they? Half the time some of us have to sit on the floor when we go visiting. It's nice and quiet up here, isn't it? And what a fine view you have. I love to face the western sky." She spoke cheerfully, leaning forward to look out of the one window.
"Yes," said Miss Perkins, taking her chair again after seeing her visitors seated, "it is quiet, almost too quiet sometimes," she added with a wistful little smile.
"Aren't there other students in the house?"
"Yes, but they are almost all upper classmen or specials."
"I wish you were in our dormitory," said Janet warmly; "we can't complain of loneliness there, can we, Ted? It is almost too lively."
"It certainly is," agreed Edna. "You would have thought so a while ago, Miss Perkins, if you could have seen us disciplining one of the seniors."
"Oh, did you dare?" said Miss Perkins innocently.
Edna laughed. "Of course we dared. She is a mite of a thing, and a dreadful tease; as full of mischief as possible. What do you suppose she confessed to us that she had been doing?"
"I'm sure I don't know," returned Miss Perkins, through whose mind ran all sorts of remarkable possibilities that might be allowed any one so tremendously important as a senior.
"She had been telling our poor dear freshmen that they couldn't come to our party unless they were provided with white silk frocks. Such an absurd notion. I hope they all knew better than to believe her."
"I didn't," returned Miss Perkins with an air of relief.
"Then I'm glad we can disabuse your mind of any such idea. The girls can wear anything they choose from a calico frock to a sequin robe," Edna told her.
"I shall not wear a sequin robe," said Miss Perkins with a dry little smile. "I am much more likely to wear a calico frock."
"Why not all wear calico frocks," suggested Janet. "Why don't we make a calico party of it, Ted? I think that would be a scheme. We could have a spelling bee, and an apple paring, and such old-time sports."
"Let's do it," cried Teddy. "We are on the committee, you see, Miss Perkins. Janet is chairman, and what she says is likely to go. Don't you think it would be fun? It certainly would make us all more free and easy."
"I certainly think it would be a lovely plan," agreed Miss Perkins, her face beaming.
"You'd look dear in lilac or pink," said Janet, in a friendly tone, with her head one side, viewing the girl critically. "Do you happen to have a gown of either of those colors?"
"I have a purple and white percale," said Miss Perkins doubtfully, "but it isn't new."
"It will do perfectly well," said Janet reassuringly, "with lilac ribbons and a lilac sunbonnet."
The girl's face fell. "I haven't the ribbons, and—"
"Oh, never mind, I have," said Teddy easily. "On such occasions, we always borrow from each other anything that comes handy. You must learn that the first thing. Why, I don't believe I possess a single article, from a hat-pin to an evening cloak, that some one hasn't wanted to borrow in the two years I have been here. We'll make the sunbonnet. Come over to our rooms on Saturday, can't you? I know some one who has a dear pattern for the cunningest trick of a bonnet; we'll cut it out and have a sewing-bee. We'll get the stuff for it, for we know where to go, and you don't."
"But I can't have you do that," protested Miss Perkins.
"Oh, yes, you can."
"Not unless you let me pay for it."
"No, you shall not; for I am going to make the bonnet for myself, and I will lend it to you for the party."
"I think you are perfectly lovely to me," said Miss Perkins, the tears coming to her eyes. "You know, perhaps—Miss Maria may have told you that I am trying to make my expenses, so you can imagine that every penny means something to me."
"Of course, it does," put in Janet sympathetically. "You don't know how we admire you for being so brave as to do this way. I'd never in the world have such courage. I think it is heroic, and I am a regular hero-worshiper."
Teddy gave her a look, and laughed meaningly, while Janet blushed scarlet.
"I mean—I—I do admire strength of character," she stammered. "I adore ambitious people, so I expect you will find me very curious and a great bore before I get through, but you must know it is because I am so tremendously interested. Would you mind telling us just what you are doing, or want to do,—to—to—make your way?"
"Anything," said Miss Perkins, "from sewing on skirt braids, to teaching German. I do know German," she went on; "it is the one language I am perfectly familiar with, for in our little village there is an old German who tinkers watches and clocks. He is really very well educated, and is quite an odd character. He has talked German with me, and has given me lessons, and lent me his German books ever since I was eight years old, so I think I could teach the language."
"Good!" cried Janet. "Perhaps you can get some coaching to do. Ted, who was it we heard of yesterday that was so dreadfully weak in her German, and was in despair? Some one of the new girls, I know. O, I remember, it was Lee Penrose's cousin, Page Carter. I'll see Lee about it this very day."
"Are you very busy? Are we keeping you?" Edna asked as she noticed Miss Perkins nervously turning over the papers on her table.
"Oh, no, no," was the reply. "I was just wondering how I could thank you. I was so lonely and dispirited when you two came in, and now I feel as if I could accomplish anything. I haven't words to thank you for coming."
"Never mind the words," said Janet, going over and laying her hand caressingly on the girl's lovely head. "We are under obligation to you. Anything as interesting as you are is a perfect boom to a jaded junior. We really must go, though, for we do not eat the bread of idleness, and are not exactly lilies of the field."
"You won't forget to come Saturday afternoon," Edna reminded her. "Come early, and we can have a cup of tea before you must leave; then you can meet some of our friends."
And they left the lonely girl, their warm spontaneous sympathy showing itself in the kiss each gave her at parting.
"Isn't she the dearest thing you ever saw?" said Janet when they had gained the street. "Pretty Polly Perkins; that is just the name for her. How I should love to take her and dress her up as I pleased. She'd make a sensation. Did you ever see such a complexion and such blue, blue violet eyes, and that mop of magnificent hair that she screws up tight in the most unbecoming way she can. I've got to get my hands on that girl and teach her to make something of her looks. She was so perfectly unaffected and frank, too, about her poverty. I am going to hunt up Lee at once, and ask her to persuade her cousin to have Polly coach her. I declare, Ted, after all it is good to get back. There are larger opportunities here than at home."
"We mustn't forget to call a meeting and propose the calico party."
"We must surely do that. It will be one on Fay Wingate, and if for no other reason, I'd like to put it through on that account."
"I've thought of another thing," said Teddy, after a moment's silence.
"What is that?"
"Why, don't you remember the day Becky Burdett took us to Miss Thurston's studio, and how she said she had such a time getting the proper models for her illustrations, and asked if we couldn't find some one among the students who would be willing to pose for her once in a while? That was last year, but I don't doubt the need still exists."
"The very thing," said Janet. "We will tell Becky about Pretty Polly Perkins. It will do the dear little violet-by-a-mossy-stone good in more ways than one, for Miss Thurston will know just how to costume her, and when the child sees how lovely she can be made to look, she will never screw back her hair in that way, and wear that hideous green and black waist. Oh, Ted, you certainly have thought of the very best thing."
"But where will she get the clothes to pose in? Miss Thurston wants modern girls in their proper dress."
"Sure enough; I hadn't thought of that."
"We'll simply have to carry a lot of our things, hats and waists and such, down there, and explain how it is to Miss Thurston."
"I think we'd better tell Becky. She will find a way. Becky has a very fertile invention, and she'll know how to manage it. I'm afraid if Polly thinks the things are ours, it will hurt her blessed little feelings. I think the clothes would better belong to some one else, and she can believe them to be Miss Thurston's studio properties."
"That will be the best plan," agreed Edna.
They were not long in seeking out Lee, who, fired by their enthusiasm, fetched her cousin, and the arrangements were completed then and there, Janet and Edna promising to notify Miss Perkins of the matter.
"It will be so much better than sewing on skirt braids," said Janet. "Imagine having to do that, Teddy, for the sake of an education. Hand me my biology. I shall sit up till midnight to-night, and astonish every one this semester by my studious habits. By the way, I saw Mr. Evans this afternoon. He is to be here permanently, he told me. There is another example of perseverance and devotion to duty. I certainly have a deep respect for that young man."
"Yes he is not the hero," returned Teddy.
Janet simply raised her eyes, and gave Teddy a reproachful look, and then fell to work.
CHAPTER XII
A STUDIO TEA
THE calico party was a great success.
Anything sweeter than Pretty Polly Perkins, as every one now called her, could not be imagined, and when she came in, wearing her lilac sunbonnet, a little silk work-bag hanging on her arm, and her frock turned in at the neck to display her beautiful throat, she was, as Edna said, the loveliest thing in sight. A soft mull fichu hid the defects of bad fitting, which had at first made Janet despair of any possibilities of the costume. A knot of lilac ribbon fastening the fichu, matched the color of the fascinating little sunbonnet which half concealed, half emphasized the beauty of the girl's face. Janet, too, had loosened the soft hair, and had piled it up becomingly on Polly's shapely little head, so that Polly herself was surprised at the effect. She had been perfectly willing to place herself in the hands of these juniors who knew so much and were so good to her, but the result astonished the unsophisticated little lass.
"She is a raving, tearing beauty," said Cordelia, looking at Polly in astonishment. "Where did you unearth her, Janet?"
"Oh, she is a friend of one of Edna's cousins, and we were asked to be nice to her."
"Nice to that? To that exquisite bit of humanity? How could any one help being nice, if she is half as lovely as she looks?"
"She is just as lovable as she appears," Janet told her. "She is an orphan, and is the pluckiest little thing, in spite of her delicate little face and her innocent eyes. She has a stepmother, who isn't so bad, but she is poor, and can't do very much for Polly."
Then she went on to tell of Polly's ambitions, and of how she wanted to make her way in the world by her own efforts, so Cordelia's sympathies were enlisted, and before the evening was over, half the junior class looked upon Polly as a heroine and were prepared to adore her.
The next triumph for the girl was when Becky sent word that she had seen Miss Thurston and that she would be delighted if the girls could bring Polly to her, the sooner the better. She needed just such a model for a set of illustrations she was about to begin. So Janet raced off to the little bare attic to tell its occupant of this new opportunity.
"Polly, my dear," she said, as she burst into the room, "there are new fields for you to work in." Then she unfolded her plan.
"Oh, Miss Ferguson," Polly began.
"Janet, please. If I Polly you, you must Janet me."
"Dear Janet, then," said Polly kissing her cheek, "I never heard of such luck. Will I do? Do you think I look the kind of girl she wants to suggest? Can I do what she wants? You know I know so little about anything, and I am so green and awkward."
"Can you sit still for twenty minutes at a time? Can you stand for as long?"
"What a question. Of course I can do that."
"That is all there is to it. You don't have to stand a tiptoe like a flying Mercury, nor twist yourself into contortions like a Laocoon. You simply have to be an ordinary girl under ordinary circumstances doing ordinary things. I know you have those casts in the Museum in mind, but you are not an antique, my dear, and are not expected to be for many years to come. Miss Thurston will probably dress you up in costumes to suit her subjects, but you won't mind that; it is part of the requirements of a model, you know; and there will be nothing objectionable in the whole performance; in fact I should think you might get considerable fun out of it."
"Oh, I understand all that; and I am willing to wear anything, from a Greek dress to the most elaborate costume of a modern belle."
"Then you are all right. Good-bye, Pretty Polly Perkins. You'll be 'as beautiful as a butterfly and as proud as a queen,' like the other Polly Perkins of Abington Green. Ted and I are going with you, so you won't be scared at the lay figure and the skull in Miss Thurston's studio. Friday afternoon, sweetness."
And Janet hastened back to the theme she had left uncompleted in order to make this visit.
Friday afternoon brought Polly, who appeared promptly in her dowdy little cloth jacket, ugly plaid skirt and shabby hat.
"Oh, me," said Teddy as she saw her coming, "if we only dared to furbish her up a bit. Miss Thurston will never see her possibilities in those clothes. Do you suppose she would object to my lending her a hat?"
"I'm afraid she would," said Janet. "You know how she was about the sunbonnet, and it was all I could do to get her to wear that fichu of mine. If we hadn't made an obvious point of borrowing all sorts of things from one another, she'd never have let us lend her all we did for the calico party."
"I'll try, anyhow," said Teddy; "she can do no more than refuse." So when Polly entered, she said coaxingly: "Don't you know, Polly dear, that is a very unbecoming hat? Please don't be offended at my mentioning it; Janet and I always tell each other when either wears anything unbecoming. Won't you let me lend you one of my hats just for to-day, so Miss Thurston will see you at your best? Janet and I often exchange in that way. If you will lend me yours, I will lend you mine."
But Polly, who knew that her rusty out-of-date black felt was no match for the stylish plumed affair that Teddy poised on her hand, said a little stiffly: "Thank you very much, Teddy, but I prefer to wear my own hat." Then the red came to her cheeks. "Please don't think I—I am unappreciative of your kindness. I realize that it is really heroic for you to offer to appear in my hat, but I am used to it, and I don't mind, while you couldn't help feeling awkward and queer in it. I should be unhappy if I allowed you to wear it." Then whimsically: "Besides, I can't see it when it is on my own head, and if I had it before me on yours, I'd realize more than ever what a horror it is, and I'd never be able to put it on again with any tolerance of it. So don't try to make me any more dissatisfied with it than I am."
"That settles it," said Janet. "You are a dear philosophical thing, Polly. Come along and never mind your hat."
It is true that Miss Thurston looked a little disappointed when Polly was presented to her, but when Janet had tweaked off the girl's hat and Polly had removed her ill-fitting jacket, she smiled appreciatively.
"Do you think I will do?" asked Polly, an anxious expression in her lovely eyes, for she had been quick to note that first glance of disapproval.
"Do, my dear? Why, of course," replied Miss Thurston. "If you can hold your pose well, I shall be more than satisfied. I have a lot of costumes here and I am sure I can adapt them to your figure. Let me see." She brought out a hat whose elegance announced that it was the creation of no ordinary milliner.
Janet recognized it at once as being one of Becky's favorite pieces of head-gear, and when Miss Thurston set it upon Polly's head both Janet and Edna exclaimed: "Isn't she too lovely for anything in that?"
Miss Thurston stood off to note the effect. "That is charming," she declared. "Now, Miss Perkins, just try this on," and she held out a handsome coat trimmed with bands of fur.
The girls fairly screamed their admiration. "I knew she would look like a dream in that," said Teddy. "Just look at yourself, Polly. Aren't you as beautiful as a butterfly?" She pulled Polly toward the long mirror at the end of the room, and Polly laughed unaffectedly.
"I'm like a peacock," she said. "I'm all right as long as I don't look below my magnificence. When I look at my dingy old skirt, I feel like a barn-yard fowl dressed up in peacock's feathers."
Miss Thurston laughed. "Then slip this on," she suggested, handing her a long cloth skirt, and when Polly had donned it the transformation was complete. "You'll do beautifully," said the artist in a pleased tone. "Could you sit for me this afternoon?"
"Why, certainly," replied Polly ingenuously; "I came for that, you know."
"Then we'll leave her to your tender mercies, Miss Thurston," said Teddy.
"I'll promise not to tire her out the first hour," said Miss Thurston. "I will make some rapid sketches first; they will not require a fixed pose for very long. By the way, couldn't you two stay for a few minutes, and let me get a group or two? It would help me so much in finding the proper relation. Have you time?"
"Why, yes," returned the two, looking at each other. "It is Friday, you know, and there isn't any pressing need for us to hang over our books all afternoon."
So Polly was soon properly attired, and the three girls spent an hour in taking various positions, and after this Miss Thurston insisted upon giving them a cup of tea, so they had quite a jolly time of it.
"I shall give a studio tea soon, and I wish you girls would come and help me, all three of you," Miss Thurston said in the midst of their talk. "Becky Burdett is coming, and I thought it would make it interesting if we all were to wear some sort of costume. What do you think of that plan?"
"Lovely," cried the girls.
"I have a lot here, you know," said Miss Thurston. "There is a Dutch dress."
"I'll take that," cried Edna.
"And an Italian peasant costume."
"That will just do for me," said Janet
"It will just about fit you," Miss Thurston told her, as she scanned her critically. "Then there is a pretty empire gown that will exactly suit Miss Perkins, and I can take a certain Japanese costume which is the most comfortable of all and fitted to my more mature years." She laughed as she spoke, for, in spite of her gray hair and the fact that she was not young, she seemed in her enthusiasms as eager as a girl.
"What have you for Becky?" asked Janet.
"Oh, Becky can wear a French marquise dress which is gorgeous, and will be the very thing for her."
"Do hurry up and have it," said Teddy. "I'm just longing to see myself in one of those queer caps with a pair of bed-springs standing out over my ears."
"Then hold yourself in readiness for the third Friday of next month," said Miss Thurston. "Must you go, girls? I am greatly indebted to you for bringing Miss Perkins, and for your goodness in posing for me. When can you come again, Miss Perkins? Now that I have you, I want to hold on to you."
"Any afternoon, but Thursday."
"Then I shall be glad for awhile if you will come every afternoon but Thursday. I can forge ahead famously with these illustrations if you come as often as that. When these are done, I shall want you for something else, if you have the time to give me. Good-bye. Tell Becky, if you see her, that I have a thousand things to say to her."
The girls took their departure down a steep stairway and groped their way out. The elevator was not running. They discovered through later experience that it seldom was.
"Well, Polly," said Teddy when they had reached the street. "What do you think of your job?"
"I think it is wonderful," Polly answered. "I was so interested in all those curious things, and Miss Thurston is so nice that I feel as if I were in a dream. I did want to go around and examine all those strange objects she has scattered around in such careless profusion."
"Not so careless as you may suppose," said Janet. "They will become familiar enough to you before you get through."
"It will be a liberal education to me," said Polly, whose eyes were bright with excitement. "I never expected to come into contact with a real artist and to be going every day to a studio. It is perfectly wonderful to me to suddenly step into such a world." She gave a long sigh. "How different, how very different from the humdrum life at home. You girls have opened up a new avenue of pleasure to me. What can I ever do for you?"
"Just love us a little," replied Janet affectionately slipping her arm into Polly's. "Isn't it fine about the studio tea? And wasn't it dear of Miss Thurston to ask us to help her? I shall love to dress up in that costume and pass around tea and cakes."
"I think," said Polly slowly, "that Miss Thurston must have a beautiful nature. She couldn't have included me, if she hadn't thought of the costumes, and so she did it that I might be on an equal footing with you all in the matter of dress. I know that."
"Why, Polly, what makes you think so?" asked Janet.
"I saw her expression when she first saw me, and after that I noticed that she seemed to be thinking of something very intently; while we were drinking tea, it was. I am sure she planned it all out then."
"Well, if she did," said Janet lightly, "it will be ever so much more fun. Don't feel sensitive about it, Polly, but take the good the gods send without asking why it was sent."
"Oh, I do that," said Polly happily, "and if I looked for motives, I should find that all those that inspired my friends were such as I can only wonder at and be thankful for."
After that, Polly went regularly to Miss Thurston, and one day came to the girls with glowing cheeks and beaming eyes. She had discovered another revenue. Mrs. Thurston expected to go abroad and was deficient in German. When she heard of Polly's familiarity with the language, she begged that she would combine the work of model with that of teacher, and so Polly would earn more than double. "I am the luckiest girl that ever lived," she said.
"And the sweetest," said Janet, kissing her. Janet, it may be said, was fairly in love with the little country maid, and often said she wished she could employ her to sit for her. "I'd like nothing better than to gaze at her by the hour," she told Teddy. "I think I'll turn artist and have her for a perpetual model."
"As if one could turn artist who has no talent for it," said the literal Teddy.
But in spite of Polly's luck the girl did not make more than enough for her expenses, and found it hard to cover those, modest as she tried to make them. The old black hat and the frayed-at-edges jacket were still in evidence. Only on the afternoons when she went to Miss Thurston was Polly a grand lady, in gorgeous street attire, in dainty silken house gowns, or ravishing evening costume. Once or twice Janet had beheld her thus transfigured and had come home with a cry against fate for so allowing Polly's charms to be hidden from the world.
"In proper clothes, the child could make her fortune," she said. "When I think of creatures like that awful Pauline Robinson with a complexion like a stable sponge, eyes like boiled onions and a figure like a round-shouldered beanpole, with all her elegant clothes hung on her, I can't help railing at fate."
"But consider the awfulness of the spectacle presented by Pauline in Polly's clothes," said Teddy.
"I can't consider that," said Janet, "it is too terrible to contemplate."
"Perhaps," said Teddy consolingly, "if Polly were rich, she would be disagreeable, and vain, and struck up. It's partly her poverty, maybe, that makes her so lovable. Maybe the discipline is good for her."
"She has been disciplined quite long enough," said Janet discontentedly. "I think it is time there was some let up to it. Her character is formed and what's the good of any further privations for her?"
"At all events," returned Teddy, "she'll look like an angel at Miss Thurston's tea." And Polly certainly was a bewitching beauty in her short-waisted empire gown, her lovely fluffy hair piled up on her shapely head, her round arms and her exquisite throat displayed to view. Janet, while looking quite in character, did not find her costume particularly becoming, though Becky was a magnificent marquise, and Teddy the most rosy-faced plump little Dutch girl possible.
It was when busy, passing around tea and cakes, that Janet saw Van Austin and his mother come in. At that moment she realized to its full extent the beauty of Polly, for as soon as Van's eyes fell on the girl, he stopped short in what he was saying and exclaimed, "What a dream of beauty that girl is. Who is she, Miss Janet?"
Janet's hand shook a little as she lifted the sugar-tongs to drop a lump in Van's cup.
"You mean Miss Perkins, don't you?" she said quite evenly. "The girl in the blue empire gown?"
"Yes, that is the one. Who is she? Where did she come from?"
For a little minute, Janet paused before answering, then she said bravely: "She is a dear friend of Ted's and mine, one of the loveliest girls in college. This is her freshman year. She is very young and has lived in the country all her life, even when she was going to the high school, for she traveled back and forth from the town to the village. Shall I present you? I can promise that you will find her as charming as she looks."
Leading the way to where Polly stood, she said in her most winning tones: "Polly, dear, I want you to meet my friend Mr. Austin. Tell him about your funny German teacher, and here, give me those salted almonds, Mrs. Austin looks as if she would like some."
She left the two together, and for the rest of the afternoon Van had eyes and ears for no one but Polly. He even begged Miss Thurston to say that he ought to stay till all the others had left, and excused himself from going home with his mother by telling her that Miss Thurston needed him, and it was only when he was fairly driven out that he went.
After this, he followed up the meeting by offering every attention he could to Polly. He called at her shabby little boarding house. He sent her huge bunches of violets; he dropped into the studio the afternoons that he knew she would be there, and though Miss Thurston invariably sent him away before it was time for Polly to return home, he came again and again. Polly, happy and dazzled, confided all this to Janet and received such intense and sympathetic attention to her confession that she declared Janet was the dearest friend and sweetest confidante a girl could have.
"Mr. Austin has asked me to go to a concert with him," she told Janet one day, "and Miss Thurston says she will chaperon us. But oh, Janet, what have I to wear? I simply cannot let him see me in those shabby clothes of mine. You know I never have allowed him to go anywhere with me and he has never seen me in ordinary street dress, for he almost always meets me at the studio before I have had time to change the costume in which I have been posing. Then when he has called to see me, where I live, I have that gray gown that you helped me to make respectable for house wear and I always can put that on."
"If you would only let me lend you something," said Janet.
"Oh, no, no," protested Polly, "I simply couldn't appear under false pretenses. You are a dear to offer, but I can't do that; I'd rather stay at home."
"When is the concert?" asked Janet.
"Next Friday night."
"Well," said Janet, "what have you told him?"
"I said I didn't know whether I could go or not. I felt as if I must let myself have a little hope, though I knew it was foolish to suppose I could get up a proper dress by that time. He said I needn't tell him till the last minute, and that he would drop in on Friday afternoon at the studio and find out."
"Then there is nearly a week before us. We will try to evolve some sort of scheme in that time. Don't worry over it, dear child. Run along now and let me grapple with the problem."
Polly had no sooner left than Teddy entered, her arms full of books.
"Why so sober, Janet?" she asked, plunging the books on a chair.
"I've a weighty problem to solve," Janet told her. "It is this: How can Polly Perkins provide herself with proper attire for a concert next Friday when she has not a cent to bless herself with? I am wondering how fairy godmothers manage such affairs. Not being possessed of a pumpkin large enough, nor a magic wand, nor six mice and six rats, I can't seem to settle the question satisfactorily. Do you suppose I could count on Mascot to furnish the mice and rats? I might get the pumpkin from home, though, alas, where will I find the magic wand?"
"Who is she going with?" asked Teddy with a little tartness in her tone.
"Mr. Vansant Austin and Miss Thurston."
"Janet, you are the queerest girl I ever saw," exclaimed Teddy. "I believe you would delight in haircloth and hempen ropes around your waist, and crosses with stickers all over them to jam against your chest."
"Do you?" said Janet calmly. "No, Ted, I am not of the stuff martyrs are made of, but I hope I am a self-respecting, decent, kindly American woman; that's all."
And then she returned to the German grammar she had flung down when Polly came in.
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT POLLY WORE
BEFORE the next Friday came around, Janet had solved the problem of Polly's attire.
"How much do you know about sewing?" she asked Polly abruptly one morning as she entered the girl's little attic and sat down on the foot of the bed.
"Why, I don't know," replied Polly doubtfully. "I can sew rather neatly by hand, and I can run a machine, but I don't know much about cutting and fitting."
Janet smiled; the latter fact was made so very obvious by the appearance of Polly's clothes.
"If you can put things together after they are cut out, and can run a machine, and do all that, I think I see our way clear to get some new togs for you, if you don't mind their not being bran-new."
Polly sprang to her feet. "What do you mean?"
"Why, just this: Louise Baker has just lost her brother, and is going into mourning. She isn't at all well off, but she has some pretty things, for her brother fitted her out for college, and she has made it known that she would be glad to dispose of some of her clothes. Ted and I were in there to see her this morning; we each relieved her of some of her white elephants, and she has more that she would be glad if some one would take off her hands. She was saying that she couldn't afford to pay for dressmaking, and wished she could get hold of some one who would help her with her sewing and take the pay in trade. She wants a black frock and a couple of shirt-waists right away. She has a pretty hat and a little tan jacket as good as new, besides a pale blue silk waist, and one or two other things. So, if you have any time to give her, now is your chance."
"Oh, Janet, of course I'll do it. I'll make time. If I could manage to get those things, all I would need would be a skirt and a pair of gloves."
"Perhaps there will be a way to get those, too. What number gloves do you wear?"
Polly stretched out her pretty little hand. "I prefer a six, though I can wear a five and three-quarters, on a pinch."
"Then I can do something for you. I have an unruly pair of light gloves that seem too small for me. I usually wear a six, but these are very crampy, and I cannot button them, so if you will take them off my hands, I shall be delighted. I offered them to Ted, but she has quite as large a fist as mine, so neither of us can struggle into them. I shall have to give them to some one else if you don't take them."
"Oh, Janet, I will take them and be thankful. It is so good of you to be always looking out for my interests. I will sew on any amount of skirt braids in exchange for the gloves."
"My dearest Polly, don't always be so eager to pay off scores. I don't think it is friendly of you never to let me make you the smallest present. Just this once let it go. You never do allow me the pleasure of giving. I think you might take a pair of misfit gloves without insisting upon paying for them." Janet spoke in quite an injured tone and Polly gave in.
"I will then, if you feel that way. I suppose I am a little stiff about accepting favors, but when I can't return them, it makes me feel uncomfortable to be under any great obligations."
"You are usually exactly right about it, but in this case I think you needn't fear you will lose your self-respect. Come along and let us go to the clothes sale. Of course only a few of the girls know what Louise is doing, and they are the loyal ones who will not let it leak out. Get ready and I will wait for you."
Janet arose and went over to Polly's modest little book-shelf. "Why Polly Perkins," she exclaimed, "what are you doing with two sets of Browning when I haven't even one? You extravagant wretch, no wonder you haven't a cent for giddy clothes."
"You don't suppose I am such a reckless creature as all that," returned Polly. "It isn't my fault, I assure you. I have an absent-minded, as well as an absent-bodied, old uncle who usually sends me books at Christmas. He never remembers my existence at any other time or in any other way. Last year he sent me a set of Browning, and this year he duplicated it. It was funny but very provoking when there are so many books I should have been delighted to have."
Janet took down one of the little volumes and looked over the pages. "Just the edition I want," she said.
"Then please take it," said Polly eagerly. "I should love to give it to you, for you see it is no use to me."
"I'll give you six dollars for it," said Janet. "I will not take it for nothing. I can be proud, too, Mary Singleton Perkins."
"Oh, Janet, you are just saying that."
"Just saying it? Of course I am. Don't you suppose I know a bargain when I see it? I'd have to pay more than that for a new set, and I have been simply dying for one. Will you take me up?"
"Won't you please take it as a gift?"
"No, I will not. I will go down street this very afternoon and waste my substance upon a set just like this for which I shall have to pay at least two dollars more. Then the next time you come to my room you will be reproached by seeing how I have had to spend my money."
"Janet, you are the most wheedling person I ever saw when you want to accomplish a thing. Of course if that is the way you look at it, I shall be only too glad to let you have the set."
"I ought really to give you full value," said Janet, "for these books are perfectly new."
"No, no. Please let me have that grain of satisfaction. I think you ought to allow me such crumbs of comfort as I can pick up after all you have done for me."
"All right then. Six dollars, going, going, gone to Janet Ferguson." And Janet drew the box from the shelves and took it under her arm. "Oh, how proud I feel," she said. "Stuart gave me the money to get a set for my birthday and I recklessly spent the money. He'd rake me over the coals if he happened to come up and should find I hadn't it. So now I can face him with a clear conscience, and am two dollars to the better, the two dollars that you ought to have."
"Janet!"
"Well, it is so. You might have put up a notice on the bulletin-board and some one might have given you eight dollars."
"Please, please, don't say any more about it, as you love me. I really believe I can afford the skirt now. Could I get any sort of one for five or six dollars?"
"This time of year I think you could, with all the bargain sales going on. Shall we go to town together and see what we can do? I am a magnificent bargain hunter, as witness my latest transaction."
"I'd be so relieved if you would go with me. I don't know a thing about the city shops, not having occasion to visit them very often." She stopped to gather up a large bunch of violets which stood in a glass on the table. "Won't you let me give you these?" she said wistfully.
Janet shrank back and held her box of books in both hands. "No, oh, no, thank you," she said nervously. "I wouldn't rob you. I couldn't carry them, you see."
"I can carry them for you. Please take them. I'd love to give them to you."
"Oh, no, no," Janet protested, backing toward the door. "I shall not be at home to enjoy them. I am going to Becky's to dinner."
"But you could wear them."
"No, no. They wouldn't look well with my dress. I am going to wear red."
She bolted out the door and ran down the stairs leaving Polly to follow. The latter restored the violets to the glass and went down after Janet, a disappointed look on her face.
Janet chattered excitedly all the way to Hopper Hall, deposited her purchase upon her shelves and then proposed that they should go at once to Louise Baker's room. They found Louise at home and Janet at once unfolded her plan.
"I announce myself as agent," she began. "Polly here, sighs for a hat and jacket, only something exactly like those lying on the bed will do, and you, Louise, sigh for nimble fingers to help you with your sewing. Now, proceed to swop—My part in the matter is done."
"I'd be delighted," said Louise. "What a girl you are, Janet. I never dreamed you would be so quick in carrying out that plan. I don't know any one else so fertile in devising ways and means. I believe you would make a wonderful general."
"Then on general principles, let us proceed to clinch the bargain."
Polly groaned. "That is unworthy of you, Janet. Such a dreadful pun as that. Miss Baker, do you really want some one to help you?"
"Indeed I do, most decidedly. It seems a perfect mountain to me. Are you willing to exchange time for attire?"
"Just at this time nothing would please me more."
"That brown velvet hat," suggested Janet, "and the tan coat, Louise. I think they would be just the things for Polly. The coat isn't tightfitting and the hat is all right. You know they were the things you said nobody seemed to want because every one was supplied. And what about the blue silk waist? Is that still in the market?"
"It is still on my hands," Louise told her, producing the articles, which Polly tried on to her own and the others' satisfaction.
"Take them right along," said Louise generously. "All my customers are buying on time. I want the room these take up and I want the girls to have the good of the things before the season is over."
This matter settled, Polly agreed to give her Saturdays, and any other spare time she might have, to Louise till a certain amount of work should be done, and they parted in mutual content. Then Janet bore Polly off to hunt up a proper skirt and returned home, tired out, but well satisfied with what had been accomplished.
She sought out Teddy and with great pride told of her success in providing Polly with proper raiment.
But Teddy answered savagely, "I wish you had never seen Polly Perkins."
"Why Teddy Waite," exclaimed Janet. But her color heightened and she bit her lip.
"Yes, I do," declared Teddy, "and how you can do everything in your power to make her attractive to Van Austin passes my comprehension. After all his devotion to you last summer; all those moonlight sails, those walks and drives, all those glances and low tones and followings of you around, I don't see how you can endure Polly."
Janet sat gravely gazing off into vacancy. She knew it was very true that there had been cause for her to believe that Van Austin's devotion meant more than a summer flirtation.
"To think you are so loyal and noble a friend to that girl, and she repays you by stealing—"
"Stop," Janet raised her hand. "Don't get into heroics, Ted. In the first place, Polly hasn't an idea of all that, and in the second place, I am not noble. I came as near as anything to allowing the opportunity to pass. It flashed across my mind as soon as I heard that Louise wanted to dispose of those things, and I said to myself, 'This is Polly's chance,' but I didn't mean to tell her. I thought I would let her find it out, if there was any way for her to, and if not, I would let it go. Then I thought of that line of Emerson's: 'What does not come to us is not ours.' If that did not come to me—naturally come to me, it wasn't mine. If I should allow myself to struggle for it, and should appear to have secured it, still it would not be mine. It has come to Polly. She has made no effort to secure it. It is hers. I have no right to it."
"Janet Ferguson, that is all nonsense. If you had not made it possible for Polly, it would not have come to her. Of course if one doesn't make the slightest effort to keep a thing, it is likely to slip from her. You simply stepped aside and let Polly have a clean sweep."
"It wasn't quite as you imagine it," said Janet. "When you discover that a hero is simply an every-day, ordinary man, who can be vacillating and inconstant, he loses his starry crown and you find that instead of worshiping something that actually exists you have been worshiping an ideal, and the hero is merely a creation of your own imagination, not flesh and blood but an accumulation of dreams and illusions. When you learn that an echo is merely the rebounding of the sound of your own voice why—" She shrugged her shoulders expressively and was silent.
Teddy sat looking at her gravely. She wondered how much of this was a real philosophy and how much was meant only to cover real feeling.
"Besides," Janet went on, "if it were all so, if I really did care, what sort of woman would I be to deprive that lovely child of the things which she has a right to? She has endured poverty and privation; I have always had comforts and luxuries. Her life has been a struggle; she has had to pinch and screw and contrive, and I have never had to think of real economies. What would I be worth if when this good thing came her way, I should stand in the path and prevent her from having it?"
"But suppose," said the practical Teddy, "suppose Van Austin should be no truer to her than to you?"
Janet compressed her lips and her eyes flashed. "Then he is so far removed from a hero that I could wish to see him dashed down to the nethermost regions of misery. But seriously, Ted, I don't believe that of him. I think he only thought he was in love with me, but that this is the real thing, and I shall do all I can to further her interests and his, and you must, too, if you love me."
The tears sprang to Teddy's eyes. She Was not demonstrative, but she laid her cheek against Janet's dark hair.
"Janet, dear," she said, "I have known you for over five years, but I never before discovered what is really in you. I couldn't be as unselfish as you. I would be like most other girls and would want to spite both of those two. I couldn't forget myself."
"But I am not forgetting myself," said Janet. "I am remembering myself all the time; that's just it. Don't make a saint of me, Ted."
An hour later, when Teddy had finished her work and was about to go to bed, she stole to Janet's door to see if she were still up. She beheld her sitting at her writing table, her head resting on her arms, her whole attitude one of weariness and dejection. Teddy stole back to her room very softly and shook her fist at some invisible person.
"Oh, you fiend," she whispered, "I could flay you alive."
It was a day or two after this that Cordelia, commenting upon Polly, brought troubled thoughts to Janet.
"How is pretty Polly Perkins going to get through her mid-year's creditably," said Cordelia, "if she spends so much of her time on outside things? It is as much as any of us can do to pull through without dancing off to studios every afternoon and spending all our Saturdays in sewing for other people."
"Polly has to do it; you know that, Cordelia," protested Janet. "She couldn't make expenses, you well know, if she didn't do such things. She makes the greater part of her money by going to Miss Thurston's studio."
"I know that, and Miss Thurston is all right, but why these Saturday sewing bees?"
"To pay for the things she got from Louise Baker, if you must know."
"I wonder if you are not spoiling Polly," said Cordelia thoughtfully. "I saw her at the concert Friday night with that Mr. Austin who used to come here sometimes on Friday evenings to see you. She certainly looked like a dream, but she is thinner than she was and her eyes are getting too big for her face. She is doing too much, and is working too hard for the things that she didn't care for when she first came. Aren't you afraid you will arouse an ambition which will make her restless and unhappy when she goes home and can have none of the things she is growing to depend upon? If she has to struggle through college, and doesn't have you for the last years of it, to think up ways and means for her, what will she amount to? And if she makes clothes the great desideratum, how is she to make her studying tell?"
"To hear you talk, Cordelia Lodge," said Janet, with some asperity, "one would suppose that poor little Polly had suddenly developed an inordinate love of dress and that she was wasting her time and her substance on the most expensive and gorgeous attire, when all the poor little child wants is to appear as respectably clad as her classmates. I think it is a shame to grudge her that. You would consider the costume she wore the other night as too plain to wear on such an occasion; a second-hand hat and coat, and a cheap skirt. I don't see what makes you talk so."
"Oh, don't get huffy," said Cordelia, still dissatisfied. "I can't help it. She was twice as interesting in her old clothes, I think. Now that she is like everybody else, one ceases to consider her a heroine, and she'll not receive half the consideration that she did from most of the girls."
"Well, she may be less interesting to you," returned Janet, "but she is certainly more interesting to some one else, and that is the great point."
"You mean Mr. Austin?"
Janet nodded an affirmative.
"Oh well, if it is college versus a man, I have nothing more to say. If that is a matter of the first importance, good-bye honors and a good college record. Why can't she wait till she is through college before she thinks of such things? She is young enough, goodness knows. Besides, Van Austin is the kind to have any number of affairs, and what if she wastes all her year over him and comes back to find he has another affair on hand? It will probably make her so miserable that she can't do herself justice in her classes and then where is the benefit of college to her?"
"I don't think Polly's college record will suffer," said Janet stiffly.
Nevertheless, she began to feel anxious about her little protégé, and the next time she saw her, she declared that Louise's sewing was completed and the bargain closed. She did not say that she had borne off the unfinished garments and had herself sewed upon them late at night, long after Teddy was in bed and asleep. Nor did Louise know that it was Janet and not Polly who put the finishing touches to the work. Even Teddy did not find it out, for Janet meant that she should not.
"You must get the roses back into your cheeks," she said to Polly. "You are too pale for a country girl. Are you working very hard, Polly? Don't do it, dear."
The blue eyes which met Janet's, had shadowy circles around them, but the girl's face wore a happy expression. "I don't believe the hard work hurts me," she said in her slow, sweet voice, "for I have so much play; more good times than I ever had in my life. I think when things balance that way, it is all right, don't you?"
"Perhaps," said Janet thoughtfully. "I don't want you to break-down, Polly, neither do I want you to fall behind in your college work."
Polly put her arms around her friend and laid her head on her shoulder. "I'd do anything to please you, dear princess," she said. "You haven't been to the studio for ages. I am going to tote you there some day and dress you up in some of those gorgeous costumes that will show you off. I'd like Mr. Austin to see you look as beautiful as I know you can look."
Janet's arm, which had enfolded Polly, fell to her side.
"Nonsense!" she said sharply. "The days are past when I would do such a foolish thing. I liked to parade around in my mother's gowns and shawls when I was a youngster, but I hope I am beyond dressing up for the mere looks of the thing."
"But I do it."
"Not simply to show off, but as a duty. There is a vast difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. I am not thinking of looks these days, but of books."
Polly looked thoughtful. "I never used to think of looks at all," she said. "I was brought up to think it wrong, but I am afraid I do think about them since I have been going to the studio. It isn't right, is it, Janet? One ought not to make trade of one's looks, nor consider them above more lasting things."
"No," replied Janet uncompromisingly. "Character first; that is lasting, the other is only superficial. I don't want you to grow vain, Polly. I should feel that I had lost you, if you were to disappoint me in that way."
"And this after I have encouraged the child to look her best!" said Janet to herself as she walked home. "I, who have told her that it was every woman's duty to make herself attractive; I, who have given her to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to bewilder her by these contradictory speeches. What will she think of me?"
But the next morning, Polly appeared with her hair screwed back in the old fashion, and in her most unbecoming of shabby gowns. At sight of her, Janet smiled sadly.
"The dear child," she said to herself, "she did it because she thought it would please me. I will not interfere. If she presents herself to Van Austin in that gear and he loves her in spite of it, I will believe he is in earnest."
The very next day she mot Polly and Van on the main thoroughfare, going to the studio. Van had his arms full of parcels and Polly wore her old hat and jacket, but both were laughing and talking happily, and as Janet came up, Van gave her a beaming smile, and a nod.
"I can't take off my hat," he said, "or I'll drop some of these precious things. We're going to have tea in the studio."
"You'd better come and join us," said Polly.
Janet pleaded an engagement and hurried on. Van had been put to the test; he had not flinched and Janet was satisfied.
CHAPTER XIV
DRAMATICS
THE mid-year examinations over, there was less strain upon the girls in all the classes, and the juniors began to think of the dramatics which they had planned to give the freshmen. Janet was cast for a prominent part requiring gorgeous costuming, and Polly was delighted. Lee Penrose as a saucy soubrette and Cordelia as leading lady were immensely interested. Girls, with suggestive-looking papers in their hands, were seen at odd times, pacing corridors or haunting corners, their lips moving silently and a far-away look in their eyes.
The sophomores had expressed their determination of being present and the juniors were equally determined that they should not get in.
"I am equal to charging upon them with a truncheon, whatever that is," said Lee. "Imagine looking up at a telling moment and seeing Jessie Turner grinning at you. No, girls, we must move heaven and earth to keep them out."
"Fancy trying to keep your mind on the variety of manly attitudes you must assume and battle with sophomores at the same time," said Grace Breitner who was cast for the part of the heroine's lover. "I'll never be able to make love to you properly, Cordelia, if I must fill my head with a dread of sophs. It's all I can do to stride and frown and cry, 'Hold sirrah,' as I should."
"Well, we won't call upon you, Grace," Lee assured her. "We, of the gentler sex, will protect ourselves. They'll not get in by the stage door, that's one thing certain."
"They'll not get in at all," declared Cordelia emphatically. "Where's Alphonso's doublet, Lee? I put it in this window box and it isn't here."
"Oh, I took it out," Lee told her. "I wanted to put in the fairy's dress, and the doublet crushed it, so I hung it up in my closet with the cap and the old monk's costume."
"You will call him a monk," protested Cordelia. "He is a minstrel."
"Well, he looks like a monk, or rather she looks like a monkess in that cloak."
"More like a monkey," put in Pen Robbins to whose lot it fell to play the part of minstrel. "I know I shall forget to sing the half of those lines extolling Alphonso's doughty deeds, as it is, and if I catch a sight of a single soph, I know I shall be a goner."
"Oh, you masculines make me tired," said Lee. "You haven't any of you the spirit of a canary bird, from the king down to the page who says, 'the knight is without.'"
"I always thought that was a silly speech," said Janet. "At eight o'clock, of course the night is without, and within, too, for that matter. I should say: 'Sir Belidor is without.'"
"I've learned it the other way," complained Nettie Slingluff, "and I'll have to say it so. I'd be sure to forget at the last minute if you mix me up."
"Nettie has three whole speeches to make," said Lee chidingly. "You forget that, Janet, and the shortest of them is not less than three words in length. I am surprised that you should want to burden her over-taxed brain with any alterations at this late moment."
Nettie pouted, but maintained that it was all very well for those girls who were to wear costumes familiar to them, but if they had on clothes which made them feel that they were not acquainted with themselves, perhaps they would not be so ready to make fun. "If I had to be a girl, I shouldn't be afraid," she declared.
"Well, take my part, I'm willing," said Lee.
But Nettie said it was too late, and every one laughed, for only Lee could do justice to the character which had been especially created for her.
Janet, as the beautiful princess, looked regal, Teddy declared, when she donned her trailing robes and appeared at Cordelia's door to display herself. "Is this ermine all right?" she asked. "I had to dab on those black splashes in such a hurry, that I'm afraid they are not very even."
"Oh, they'll do," said Cordelia, looking her over critically. "It looks very erminish, Janet; no one would suspect it to be canton-flannel and black paint. That train is stunning. You extravagant creature to buy all that velvet stuff!"
"It is only velveteen," said Janet. "I bought it 'on a bargain,' as Dicky says, and I can use it next winter for a gown if I want to; that is why I chose blue. Wasn't Miss Thurston dear to lend me this gorgeous brocade skirt and the bodice and all these jewelly things? Polly told her what I lacked and she offered these."
"It was good of her, and you are dazzling," said Lee. "I declare, Janet, you will outshine us all. But then you ought, being a princess. The king will have reason to be proud of his daughter. He has a beautiful canton-flannel robe made from his red portières, and he spent half the night in gilding his crown and sceptre. By the way, Janet, send over your fur rug in the morning; we shall want all the rugs we can get for the dais and the throne. Cordelia has thought of some fine local hits. She evolved them in bed this morning, and the minstrel is going to get them off. I wish you could see his lute. Isn't it fine to have some one in the class who can sing as well as Pen does?"
"I do hope it will all turn out well," said Janet. "I am getting a trifle anxious about my part."
"Oh, you needn't worry," Lee assured her; "you are all right, and I don't believe I shall have stage fright, but if Grace gets to laughing and forgets her stride, or if Nettie should happen to get her words hind part before, it would be fatal. I really think we should have given Nettie something easier," Lee added teasingly. "It would simply stop the whole performance if she were to announce 'without is the knight,' instead of 'the knight is without,' or if she should say: 'Your Majesty, a minstrel begs admittance, instead of a minstrel craves entrance, Your Majesty.' It actually makes my heart stand still when I think of such a catastrophe as that."
"Oh, do stop your teasing, Lee," said Cordelia. "I have my doubts about the wearing quality of this stuff; it is so thin it looks to me as if it might give out at a critical moment."
"Stay it with something strong around the armholes," suggested Janet, "that will make it all right. Gracious, there comes Mrs. Satterthwaite and Rosalie; I shall have to run." And gathering up her long train, she flew from the room.
A few days later, all was ready for the performance. It was to take place in the central hall of the main college building. This hall was open to the roof with galleries around the second and third floors overlooking the hall below. Upon the third floor were the studios for the use of the art classes, and on the second were various lecture rooms. The studios were usually vacated after two o'clock, but were open in case a student might elect to work there upon any special drawing.
On the afternoon of the day when the dramatics were to take place, a sophomore entered the building casually, and sauntered up to the studios by way of the stairway outside the large hall. In a little while, a second sophomore appeared and wended her way up-stairs. She carried a canvas in her hand and no one thought it anything unusual to see her there. Later on, the dress rehearsal took place, and the big hall was the scene of "confusion and creature complaint" as Lee said.
When all had assembled, Cordelia locked the outside door, and laid the key confidently upon the dais where the king was already enthroned.
"There," she exclaimed. "I'd like to see any one get in now."
The rehearsal went on till nearly dark. Then the girls filed out, Cordelia remaining till the last. When the door closed after the entire company, she called the janitor.
"Whiting," she said, "here are the keys. There is not a soul in this building but ourselves. Be sure that you lock the door after me. It is not to be opened again till it is time to admit the audience. We will come in by the basement, so be on hand to let us in by half-past six. No one is to be admitted at the front door till half-past seven, and then only those who have tickets. Remember this. The performers will all come in a body, so you will know that any one pretending to have a right here after we come, has to be sent away. Not another soul is to come in by the basement, mind."
Whiting grinned and promised to have a sharp eye for intruders.
Meantime the studios were occupied by a body of whispering, giggling girls, who, one by one, had quietly stolen up-stairs, unnoticed, each one bearing an innocent-looking color-box or roll of drawing paper. At six o'clock, each drew forth from one of these receptacles a substantial lunch which was eaten with a relish, and with the satisfied feeling which always follows a deed well done. There was absolute silence in the hall below, and save for the footsteps of Whiting as he went around lighting up, there appeared to be no sound in the building until the fifteen girls trooped up the basement stairs and with bustling excitement crossed over to the green-room.
Cordelia was triumphant. They had outwitted the sophs, she declared, and by their vigilance, the juniors had prevented the threatened intrusion.
At eight o'clock all was ready. Nettie Slingluff was declaring that she had a nervous chill. The king was expostulating with Alphonso because the latter insisted upon turning the royal robes upon their wrong side. Janet was jingling her chains and jeweled girdles as she swept up and down the room. The minstrel was wildly searching for his lute, and Lee was dancing a break-down in one corner in her joy at having circumvented the sophs.
"Almost everybody must have come," said Janet, looking through a peep-hole in the curtain. "There are quantities of the freshmen in their seats and almost all the seniors are there. Shall we ring up?"
"Ring up," returned Cordelia laconically.
Up went the curtain, and the play began. It so happened that the entire company appeared at once, just after the beginning of the first act. As the last one made her entrance, from the upper gallery came a blast of horns. The performers stopped short, aghast at the interruption. Every eye was directed toward the gallery where in smiling array appeared the whole sophomore class, each girl innocently sucking at a lemon stick imbedded in a lemon.
A perfect shout of laughter went up from the audience, and the disconcerted juniors were, for a moment, too confounded to go on. But Janet was the first to gather her self-possession. She whispered something to the minstrel who went forward and began a plaintive ballad which quieted the audience and gave the players a chance to recover themselves, then the performance went on successfully to the end. Yet though there was rage in the hearts of the players, they went through their parts with more spirit because of it, and evoked much applause especially from the uninvited guests who added to the general clapping of hands, many blasts upon their horns. They attempted no other disturbance, and behaved with the utmost propriety throughout.
"How did they get in? How did they?" cried Cordelia when the curtain had fallen on the last act, and the performers, warm and tired, sank into various attitudes about the green-room. "Could they have bribed Whiting?" she asked.
"Oh, no, they never would do that," said Janet; "they wouldn't dare, and he wouldn't take a bribe, for he might know it was as much as his place was worth. I have been puzzling over it the whole evening, and I believe I have solved the mystery. I saw a girl coming over here with her color-box just as I came in this afternoon. If one why not two or three, or a dozen, or the whole class? Did any one think to look in the studios before we began the rehearsal?"
"No, of course not," groaned Cordelia. "Idiots that we were! We should have examined every nook and corner of this edifice before we left it. All our precautions were taken to prevent their getting in at the time of the performance, whereas they had sense enough to get in before."
At the door, the departing players encountered a body of sophs drawn up in line, who blew a mighty blast upon their horns, gave their class yell and then dispersed, leaving the disgusted juniors to admit that they had been fairly worsted.
Polly was waiting outside for Janet, to precipitate herself upon her friend and congratulate her with much effusiveness. "You were the loveliest of them all," she declared, "a perfect princess of princesses. Every one of the girls said you were fine. Did you get my violets? I told Mr. Austin when he gave them to me, that I should send them to you, and he said they were mine to do with as I chose. Who sent you the lovely red roses, and oh, Janet, those dear little snowdrops, where did they come from?"
Janet with her arms full of her trophies, gave the roses into Polly's keeping. "Ted sent me those," she said, "but the curious thing is that I haven't an idea who sent the snowdrops. It would almost seem as if there must be some association connected with them, but I have racked my brain and cannot imagine who would select an unusual flower for the sake of a sentiment. There was no card with them."
"Some admirer who adores at a distance," said Polly. "It is a modest little bunch but very suggestive."
"Of what? Of snow, or innocence or springtime?"
"Let me think. Of all three, maybe. He or she saw you in a snow-storm. You are innocent of any knowledge of the passion you have aroused, and he or she hopes to meet you in the spring, yet as that is fairly here, perhaps spring merely suggests hope."
Janet laughed. "Very ingenious, Miss Polly Perkins. I haven't thanked you for your violets; they are very sweet and you are very sweet to give them up to me. Will you help me carry home these valuables? They must be returned to Miss Thurston to-morrow."
Polly willingly helped to transport the costumes and ornaments which Janet wished to keep under her own care, and left her friend at the door of Hopper Hall, returning to her own home with a party of other freshmen who were going that way.
Janet deposited her burdens on the bed, stuck the roses in a pitcher, the violets in a tumbler, but the snowdrops were given a place of honor in a fine Satsuma vase. Janet was standing before them with a contemplative look upon her face when Teddy came in.
"What are you adoring, princess?" she said.
"I'm not adoring, I am only wondering. Your roses were gorgeous, Ted. It was lovely of you to send them. Polly sent me violets, and some unknown has sent these snowdrops. Have you any idea who it could be?"
"Not the slightest," said Teddy. "No doubt some dear sentimental freshmen who has probably fallen in love with you, and worships at a distance as the manner of freshmen is."
"That is the most reasonable solution," said Janet, but she kept to herself the fact that it was not altogether a satisfactory one to her, and was better pleased to believe it was from some other than a freshman.