Nell Speed - Molly Brown's Sophomore Days

"Some day I shall have a room like this," Molly thought, closing her eyes. "I shall wear peacock blue and old rose dresses like the Florentine ladies and do my hair in a gold net – "

Her heavy eyelids fluttered and drooped, her hands slipped from the arms of her chair into her lap and her breathing came regularly and even like a child's. She was sound asleep, and while she slept Miss Maxwell peeped into the room. Seeing no one, apparently, in the dim light, she went out again. Evidently the sophomore had not waited, she decided, so she said nothing to Miss Walker about it.

Half an hour slipped noiselessly by; the sun set. For a few minutes the western window reflected a deep crimson light; then the shadows deepened and the room was almost dark.

"Never mind the lights, Mary. I'll see Miss Walker in her office at five thirty," said a voice at the door. "She expects me and I'll wait here until it's time."

"Very well, sir," answered the maid.

Someone came softly into the room and sat down near the window, well removed from the sleeping Molly. Again the stillness was unbroken and the young girl, sitting in the antique chair in which noble lords and ladies and perhaps cardinals and archbishops had sat, began to dream. She thought the dark-haired girl in the photograph was standing beside her. She wore a long, straight, black dress that seemed to fade off into the shadows. Molly remembered the face perfectly. There was a sorrowful look on it now. Then suddenly the sadness changed inexplicably and the face was the face in the photograph, the peaceful calmness returned and the eyes looked straight into Molly's, as they did from the picture.

Molly started slightly and opened her eyes.

"I must have been asleep," she thought.

"My dear Edwin," Miss Walker's voice was saying, "this is terrible. I am so shocked and sorry. What's to be done?"

"I don't know. I haven't been able to think yet, it was all so sudden. I had just heard when I telephoned you half an hour ago. It's a great blow to the family. Grace is with them now, and she's a tower of strength, you know."

"What's to be done about Judith? She was getting on so well this year. I think her punishment last winter did her good."

"She did appear to be in a better frame of mind," said Professor Green drily.

"Is she to be told at once?"

"She has to be told about the money, of course, but the disgraceful part is to be kept from her as much as possible."

Molly's heart began to beat. What should she do? Make her presence known to Professor Green and Miss Walker? But how very embarrassing that would be, to break suddenly into this intimate conversation and confess that she had overheard a family secret.

"The thing has been kept quiet so far," went on the Professor. "The newspapers, strange to say, have not got hold of it, but it's going to take every cent the family can get together to pull out of the hole. Hardly half a dozen persons outside the family know the real state of the case. I have taken you into my confidence because you are an old and intimate friend of the family and because we must reach some decision about Judith. Her mother wants her to stay right where she is now, just as if nothing had happened. Judith has always been very proud and her mother thinks it would be too much of a come-down for her to live in cheaper quarters."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Walker. "On the contrary, I think it would do Judith good to associate with girls who are not so well off. Put her with a group of clever, hard-working girls like the ones at Queen's, for instance."

Molly's heart gave a leap. How much she would like to tell the girls this compliment the President had paid them! Then again the embarrassment of her position overwhelmed her. She was about to force herself to rise and confess that she had been an unwitting eavesdropper when she heard the Professor's voice from the door saying:

"Well, you advise me to do nothing this evening? Richard is going to call me up again in an hour on the long distance in the village for the sake of privacy. If he agrees with you, I'll wait until to-morrow."

"Where's Mr. Blount now?"

"They think he's on his way to South America. You see, Richard, in some way, found out about the fake mining deal and the family is trying to get together enough money to pay back the stockholders. There are not many local people involved. Most of it was sold in the West and South and we hope to refund all the money in the course of time. It's nearly half a million, you know, and while the Blounts have a good deal of real estate, it takes time to raise money on it."

"What did you say the name of the mine was? I have heard, but it has slipped my memory."

"'The Square Deal Mine'; a bad name, considering it was about the crookedest deal ever perpetrated."

Molly started so violently that the Venetian vases on the mantel quivered and the little table on which stood the picture in the gilt frame trembled like an aspen.

"The Square Deal Mine!" Had she heard anything else but that name all summer? Had not her mother, on the advice of an old friend, invested every cent she could rake and scrape together, except the fund for her own college expenses, in that very mine? And everybody in the neighborhood had done the same thing.

"It's a sure thing, Mrs. Brown," Colonel Gray had told her mother. "I'm going to put in all I have because an old friend at the head of one of the oldest and most reliable firms in the country is backing it."

The voices grew muffled as the President and Professor Green moved slowly down the hall. Molly felt ill and tired. Would the Blounts be able to pay back the money? Suppose they were not and she had to leave college while Judith was to be allowed to finish her education and live in the most expensive rooms in Wellington.

She pressed her lips together. Such thoughts were unworthy of her and she tried to brush them out of her mind.

"Poor Judith!" she said to herself.

The President's footsteps sounded on the stairs. She paused on the landing, cleared her throat and mounted the second flight.

How dark it had grown. A feeling of sickening fear came over Molly, and suddenly she rushed blindly into the hall and out of the house without once looking behind her. Down the steps she flew, and, in her headlong flight, collided with Professor Green, who had evidently started to go in one direction and, changing his mind, turned to go toward the village.

"Why, Miss Brown, has anything frightened you? You are trembling like a leaf."

"I – I was only hurrying," she replied lamely.

"Have you been to see the President?"

"I didn't see her. It was too late," answered Molly evasively.

They walked on in silence for a moment.

"I am going down to the village for a long-distance message. May I see you to your door on my way?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Molly, half inclined to confide to the Professor that she had just overheard his conversation. But a kind of shyness closed her lips. They began talking of other things, chiefly of the little Japanese, Molly's pupil.

At the door of Queen's, the Professor took her hand and looked down at her kindly.

"You were frightened at something," he said, smiling gravely. "Confess, now, were you not?"

"There was nothing to frighten me," she answered. "Did you ever see a picture," she continued irrelevantly, "a photograph in a gilt frame on a little table in the President's drawing room? It's a picture of a slender girl in an old-fashioned black dress. Her hair is dark and her face is rather pale-looking."

"Oh, yes. That's a photograph of Miss Elaine Walker, President Walker's sister."

"Where is she now?" asked Molly.

"She died in that house some twenty-five years ago. You know, Miss Walker succeeded her father as President and they have always lived there. Miss Elaine was in her senior year when she had typhoid fever and died. It was a good deal of a blow, I believe, to the family and to the entire University. She was very popular and very talented. She wrote charming poetry. I have read some of it. No doubt she would have done great things if she had lived."