CHAPTER XVI.

MORE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS AND A COASTING PARTY OF TWO.

All the bells in Wellington were ringing when the girls awoke Christmas morning. The sweet-toned bell of the Chapel of St. Francis mingled its notes with the persistent appeal of the Roman Catholic bell across the way, while on the next street the bell of the Presbyterian Church sent out a calm doctrinal call for all repentant sinners to be on hand sharp for the ten o'clock service. And in this confusion of sound came the tinkle of sleigh bells like a note of pleasure in a religious symphony.

"Merry Christmas!" cried Judy, running into the room with an armful of parcels done up with white tissue paper and tied with red ribbons. "Here are the presents Nance and the others left for you. 'My lady fair, arise, arise, arise!'"

"Merry Christmas!" cried Molly, bounding out of bed and rushing to find the presents she had been commissioned to take care of for Judy.

The two girls climbed under the covers and began to open their gifts.

"Dear old Nance!" ejaculated Judy. "How well she knows my wants. She's given me an address book because she disapproved of my keeping addresses on old envelopes."

"And she's given me a pair of silk stockings," cried Molly, "because she knows my luxurious tastes run to such things."

"Edith Williams is the class joker," remarked Judy, laughing. "She's sent me a novel by Black and she's written on the fly leaf, 'For the first six months the Merry Widow read only novels by Black.'"

"Weren't they dears?" broke in Molly. "They knew we'd be lonely and they wanted to make us laugh Christmas morning. Look what Edith sent me."

It was a small round basket of sweet grass, no doubt purchased at the village store, and inside on pink cotton was a pasteboard medal. Printed around the outer edge of the medal was the following announcement: "Awarded to Pallas Athene Brown for the Best General Average in Good Manners and Amiability by the Wellington High School."

There was a hole punched in one end of the medal with a blue ribbon run through it. On one of Edith's cards in the box was written:

"To be worn on great occasions."

The two girls received other amusing presents. If their friends had hoped to cheer them on their lonely Christmas morning, they had succeeded wonderfully well. Judy especially was in the wildest spirits. It was a custom of hers to describe her feelings exactly as a chronic invalid recounts his sensations.

"I'm all aglow with good cheer. I could dance and sing. It must be a sort of Christmas spirit in the air. I do adore to get presents. I think I have more curiosity in my nature than you, Molly. Why don't you open the rest of yours?"

Molly was lost in admiration of a beautiful little copy of Maeterlinck's "_Pelleas et Melisande_" sent to her by Mary Stewart.

"Because I like to eat my cake slowly," she answered, "and get all the fine flavor without choking myself to death. Oh," she cried, taking the tissue paper off a small parcel, "how lovely of your mother, Judy, to send me this beautiful lace collar!"

"It's just like the one she sent me," answered Judy, as pleased as a child over Molly's enthusiasm. "But do look in the other boxes. What's that square thing? If it were mine, I should be palpitating with curiosity."

If Judy had guessed what the square box contained, she would not have been so eager to precipitate an embarrassing situation.

"Very well, Mistress Judy, we'll find out immediately what's inside. Where did it come from, anyway?"

"There's not the slightest inkling of who sent it," answered Judy, examining the address printed in a sort of script. "Whoever sent it knew how to do lettering, certainly. But the postmark is smeared."

Molly cut the string and removed the brown paper wrapping. The article inside the box was folded in a quantity of tissue paper.

"It has as many coverings as a royal Egyptian mummy," exclaimed Judy impatiently.

It had indeed. After stripping off several layers of paper it was necessary to cut another string before the rest of the paper could be removed.

At last, however, another china Martin Luther emerged from his tissue paper shell. The two girls gasped with surprise and consternation.

"Will wonders never cease?" ejaculated Molly.

"I'm sure it's just another joke the girls are playing on us," broke in Judy with some excitement. "Here's a card. What does it say?"

On a pasteboard card, written in the same script as the address, was the following mystifying message:

"Was it kind to put such temptation in the way of the weak?"

"What does it mean, Judy?" asked Molly. "I seem to be groping in the dark."

Judy shook her head.

"You can search me," she said expressively. "Why don't you break a hole in him and see?"

"No sooner said than done," answered Molly. "But I really feel like a butcher. This is the third time I've destroyed a pig."

She cracked the bank on the head of her little iron bed, but only a silver quarter rolled out on the floor. The rest of the money was in bills, three five dollar bills, which had been compactly folded and pushed through the slit in the pig's back.

"Fifteen dollars and a quarter!" ejaculated Molly. "That was just about what the original sum was, but I suppose in silver it was too heavy to come through the mails."

She lay back on her pillows, her brows wrinkled into a puzzled frown.

"It's a curious performance," she said, after a brief silence. "I don't understand."

Judy at the foot of the bed, half buried in tissue paper and Christmas presents, glanced out of the window at the snowy landscape. There was a strange expression on her face and two little imps of laughter lurked in her wide gray eyes. Molly looked at her a moment, but Judy would not meet her gaze.

"Julia Kean," broke out Molly, suddenly, "do you know whom you look like this moment? Mona Lisa. You have the same mysterious smile as if you knew a great deal more than you intended to tell. Now just turn around and look me in the eyes." Molly crawled from under the covers and put her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Who sent me that first Martin Luther with all the small change?"

Judy's lips curled into an irresistible smile. There was something very mellowed and soft about her face, like an old portrait, the colors of which had deepened with the years.

"You aren't angry with me, Molly, dearest?" she asked, laying her cheek against Molly's.

"Angry? How could I be angry, you adorable child?"

"You see it was just taking money out of one pocket to put it in the other, and it was the only way I could think of to make you take the yellow dress. You wouldn't accept it as a gift. Of course, I never dreamed the real thief would repent."

The two friends looked into each other's eyes with loving confidence.

"Dear old Judy!" cried Molly, "I don't know what I have done to deserve such a friend as you. And what an imagination you have! Who but you would ever have conceived such a notion? And to think, too, that I would never have known, if the real person who took the money hadn't had an attack of conscience."

"It would certainly have remained a secret forever unless Nance had confessed it on her death bed," laughed Judy. "She's that close, I imagine her first confession would be her last one."

"I'll wear the dress to-night, Judy, just to show you how much I appreciate the gift," announced Molly.

Judy put on a broad lace collar that morning and a lavender velvet bow, by way of lightening her mourning.

There was a good deal to do during the day, getting the rooms straightened and writing letters.

All morning the snow fell so softly and quietly that the Quadrangle seemed to be isolated in a still white world of its own. Not even the campus houses could be seen through the thick curtain of flakes. Molly could picture to herself no more delightful occupation than to stay indoors all day and read one of her new Christmas books. Nothing could have been more cheerful than the little sitting room with its Christmas greens and vases of flowers.

Curled up in one of the big chairs, Molly's mind wandered idly from the open pages of the book in her lap to the recent inexplicable happenings. Who was the mysterious visitor in the Professor's study? After all, it was none of her business, but she felt some natural curiosity about it. Who was the girl who had stolen the china pig?

"I don't want to know," she admonished herself.

Nevertheless, it was impossible not to make a few random conjectures.

Judy, restlessly beating a tattoo on the window, was thinking the same thing.

"Molly," she burst out, after a long silence, "I have an idea who that girl is. Have you?"

"Yes, but I'd rather not mention her name. It's too dreadful. And you know how I feel about circumstantial evidence."

"All I say is," announced Judy, "that it's a certain person who makes the loudest noise about losing her own things."

"Well, she's repented," said Molly, "so let's try and forget it."

There was another brief but eloquent silence. Judy pressed her face against the window pane.

"I did think," she observed presently, "that those boys would come to take us out for a sleigh ride or a coast or something this afternoon. But we can't wait around here all day for them. It would be paying them too much of an honor. Why not go coasting ourselves? I'll get Edith's sled and we'll walk over to Round Head."

"That would be fine," said Molly, with all the enthusiasm she could muster. Reluctantly she laid aside her book and began to dress for the walk.

When two intimate associates are not mutually agreed, the more selfish one never dreams of the sacrifices of the other. Molly had no taste for battling with the snow, and when in half an hour they found themselves plunging through the drifts on their way to the steep coasting hill, she turned a wistful inward eye back toward the comforts of the yellow-walled sitting room. The Morris chair, the prized antique rug and the Japanese scroll with the snow-capped Fujiyama and the sky-blue waters called to her insistently.

"Isn't this glorious, Molly?" ejaculated Judy, fired with the energy of her enthusiasms.

"Dee-lightful," replied poor Molly, brushing the snow out of her eyes with admirable pretense at cheerfulness. However, the snowfall began to diminish and when they reached Round Head the storm had apparently spent itself. Molly felt the glow of exercise she really needed and she admired the splendid panorama of the snow-clad valley stretching before them.

"It is beautiful," she admitted, "and what fun, Judy, to go whizzing down Round Head! It will be the longest coast I have ever taken in my life."

Clambering up the side of the hill had not been as difficult as they had expected, because the wind had swept that part of it clear of drifts and the way was plain. When at last they reached the top, Molly was no longer sorry that Judy had dragged her from "The Idylls of the King" and the comforts of an easy chair.

"You're not afraid, Molly?" asked the reckless Judy, looking with the glittering eye of anticipation down the long track of white over which they would presently be flying.

"I don't see why I should be," answered Molly evasively. "Even if we fall off, it will be on a bed of snow as soft as a down comfort."

"Come along, then," cried Judy, "we'll have the sensation of our lives. And we might as well make it a good one, because it's beginning to snow again and we'd better not try it a second time."

Judy had coasted down Round Head before and knew just the spot on the hill where the Wellington girls were accustomed to start the long slide on bobs and sleds.

Sitting behind Judy, Molly closed her eyes and the sled commenced its journey. For some moments it skimmed along at a reasonable speed, but as it gained in impetus, she had the sensation of riding on the tail of a comet.

"Look out for the bump," called Judy with amazing calm and forethought, considering the circumstances.

But the warning had no meaning for Molly, whose experience in coasting was of a very mild and unexciting character. The shock of the rise caused her to lose her hold, and the next thing she knew she was buried deep in a snow drift and Judy was whizzing on alone into the unknown.

"I never did really enjoy coasting," thought Molly, climbing out of the drift and shaking herself vigorously like a wet dog. "It's all right if nothing happens, but something always does happen and then it's a regular nuisance."

Already the tracks of the sled were covered by the fast falling snow and it was impossible to see just where the tumble had occurred on the hillside.

"Judy," called Molly, hurrying down the hill; while at the same moment Judy was calling Molly as she hastened back.

The two girls passed each other at no great distance apart, but they might have been as widely separated as the poles for all they could see or hear in the blinding snowstorm.

After calling and searching in vain, Judy started back to Wellington, feeling sure that her friend had gone that way; and Molly, who was gifted with no bump of location whatever, blindly groping in the snowstorm turned in the opposite direction.