CHAPTER XX.

THE PARABLE OF THE SUN AND WIND.

If Molly had been carrying a stick of dynamite she could not have held it more gingerly than the square box she was taking to President Walker on Monday morning.

"That was the reason I never liked her," she thought, mentioning no names even in her own mind. "I wonder if it is true that she couldn't help it. It must be, when she was so rich. What could she want with Minerva's medals or Margaret's initialed ring? Both M's, though," she thought, half smiling.

"Oh, Miss Brown," cried a voice behind her, and Madeleine Petit came tearing across the campus as fast as her little feet could carry her. "Is it true that Millicent Porter has run away from college?"

"I'm afraid it is," answered Molly.

"She owed us fifteen dollars," cried Madeleine tragically. "She promised to pay this morning, and I have just heard rumors that she has disappeared, bag and baggage."

"You _did_ do the work for her?" asked Molly.

"Yes, really, against my will. I knew you would never advise without having something to advise about. But Judith was determined, and the only reason I gave in was because she had never done any work before, and I thought it would be good for her to make a start. She was so happy over earning the money. It was really wonderful to see how she brightened up. And when we couldn't get a cent out of Miss Porter on Saturday afternoon, poor old Judith was so disappointed that she cried. Think of that."

"What a shame," exclaimed Molly, appreciating Judith's feelings with entire sympathy. "I'm sure I should have cried if I had done all that hard work and then couldn't collect."

"But what are we to do? Must we sit back quietly and let the rich trample the poor? Don't you think she is coming back?"

"I think not," answered Molly.

"Did you find out something those few minutes you were in the den?"

Molly nodded her head.

"Is she----"

The two girls exchanged frightened glances.

"And her father a millionaire, too! Well, I never," cried Madeleine. "I think I'll just drop him a letter," which she accordingly did that very day. But she never received an answer, and the debt still remains unpaid.

In the meantime Molly was closeted with Miss Walker for ten minutes.

"It's strange," said the President. "I just had a letter this morning from an old friend at the head of a private school warning me about this unfortunate girl who was a pupil there."

But Molly was loath to discuss the matter, and still more loath to keep stolen property in her private possession. She placed the box on the President's desk and hastened away as soon as she politely could. That afternoon there appeared on the bulletin board the following unusual announcement:

"All those who have lost property during the winter may possibly be able to obtain it by applying to the Secretary of the President."

That the thief had been apprehended at last was of course understood. Putting two and two together, the Wellington girls concluded that Millicent Porter must have had some important reason for fleeing early in the morning without explanations, leaving two trunks and a debt of honor behind her. The trunks were afterwards expressed, according to directions left in her room.

But, for the honor of Wellington, open conversation on the subject was not encouraged, and most of the talk was in whispers behind closed doors.

A crowd of the girls from the Quadrangle, where most of the pilfering had been carried on, went together to claim their property on Monday evening. Those who had lost money returned disappointed. The box of restored goods contained none whatever. But the other articles were duly claimed and distributed, with the exception of one.

"Does any one know to whom this belongs?" asked the secretary, placing a photograph in a beautiful silver frame on the top of the desk.

"It must be yours, Nance," announced Edith Williams, with a teasing smile.

"It is not," said Nance emphatically.

The other girls, now gathered around the picture, began to laugh.

Undoubtedly the small lanky boy in kilts in the photograph was Andy McLean.

"Perhaps it is Mrs. McLean's," suggested some one.

Margaret, examining the frame with the eye of an experienced detective, remarked in her usual authoritative tone:

"The design on the frame is Japanese."

"Otoyo," cried Judy, and the little Japanese, lingering near the door, crept timidly up and claimed the picture. Her face was a deep scarlet, as, with drooping head, she rushed from the room.

"Bless the child's heart, who'd have thought she had a boy's picture," laughed Katherine Williams.

That very night Otoyo returned the photograph to Mrs. McLean, and with many tears confessed that she had removed it from the drawer without so much as asking permission.

"My sweet lass," exclaimed the doctor's wife, kissing her, "you shall have a good picture of Andy if you like, taken just lately. I am only too happy that you admire his picture enough to put it in that beautiful frame. I'm sure I think he's a braw lad, the handsomest in three kingdoms; but I am his mother, you know, and not accountable."

Together the two women fitted the latest photograph of the callow youth into the frame. Otoyo presently bore it triumphantly back to her room and placed it on the mantel shelf where all the world could see it. That night she slept with an easy conscience and a thankful heart. Her one dishonest deed was wiped out forever.

The untangling of one snarl in the skein of affairs generally leads to the untangling of many others. So it happened that Molly and Judy, by the turn which events had taken, were able to clear up a mystery that had puzzled them for months.

"I feel, Judy," remarked Molly, one day, "that we ought to do something nice for Minerva Higgins, because of--you know what. We mentioned no names and never breathed it even to each other except vaguely Christmas day, you remember. But we did suspect her, and thinking is just as bad as talking when you think a thing like that, so cruel and horrible."

Judy nodded her head thoughtfully.

"But she will never know we are making reparation, Molly," she said. "It will have to be purely for our own private satisfaction."

"Of course," replied Molly. "That is what I meant. We did her a wrong in our minds, and in our minds we must undo it."

"And how, pray?" demanded Judy.

"Well, let me see. Couldn't we ask her here some night with just the three of us, and make her fudge and be awfully sweet and interested?"

"I suppose we could, if we made a superhuman mental and physical effort," answered Judy lazily. "And it would take both. Why not let well enough alone?"

"But it isn't 'well enough,' Judy, and we've had an ugly thought about her for weeks."

"Do you call those practical jokes she played on us last autumn pretty?" demanded Judy, who had no liking for Minerva.

"No, but she has learned better now. Anyhow, Judy, I want to try an experiment. Do you remember the allegory of the sun and the wind and the man wrapped in his cloak? The wind made a wager with the sun that he could make the man take off his cloak, and he blew and blew with all his might, and the more he blew the closer the man wrapped his coat about him. Then the wind gave up and the sun came out and tried his method of just shining very brightly and cheerfully, and presently the man was so hot he took off his coat."

Judy laughed.

"Meaning, I suppose, that we have been trying the human gale method instead of the merry little sunshine way. All right, Molly, dearest, bring on your Minerva and I'll be as gentle as a May morning. But don't let the Gemini come, because we could never carry it through if they were present."

It was agreed that the three friends, Molly, Nance and Judy, should entertain the vain little freshman at an exclusive party all to themselves. Other persons were advised to keep away.

"Hands off," exclaimed Judy. "Stay away from our premises this evening, ladies, because we are going to try an experiment with explosives, and it might be dangerous."

It was unfortunate that, on the very evening that Minerva Higgins had arranged to go to the three friends, somebody played a practical joke on her and she was in an extremely bad humor. Although she had regained her two medals, she was always losing things and crying her losses up and down the corridor. She usually found the articles mislaid in her own room, but she had a suspicious nature and was generally on the lookout for thefts. That afternoon she had rushed into the corridor crying:

"My water pitcher has been stolen from me. I will not have people going into my room and taking my things."

"As if anybody wanted her old water pitcher," remarked Margaret, in a tone of disgust.

Edith Williams smiled mysteriously.

Presently Minerva and the matron, much bored, passed the door.

"Come on, let's go and see the fun," suggested Edith.

"How do you know there will be any fun?" demanded Margaret.

"There's likely to be."

They strolled slowly up the corridor, and as they passed the door the matron was saying:

"Really, Miss Higgins, I must request you not to raise any more false alarms like this. There is your water pitcher."

She pointed to the chandelier where the pitcher had been hoisted on a piece of cord. A good many other girls had gathered about Minerva's door, and a ripple of laughter swept along the hall.

"Edith, did you play that joke?" asked Margaret later.

"Judy was a party to it, and Katherine and several others," answered Edith evasively. "We thought it high time to put an end to burglar alarms. Minerva Higgins has come to be a public nuisance."

Margaret smiled. Her dignity would never allow her to enter into what she called "rowdy jokes." However, it did not mar her enjoyment of the story about them afterward.

But it was an angry, sullen Minerva who presented herself at the door of No. 5, Quadrangle, that evening at eight o'clock. She had left off her medals and she had not worn the indigo blue. Judy was relieved at this, but Molly and Nance considered it a bad sign.

The first half-hour of the reparation party dragged slowly.

"We've piped for Minerva and she will not dance; we've mourned for her and she will not mourn. It's a hopeless case," Judy remarked in an aside to Nance.

But Molly had formed a resolution and she was determined to carry it through.

"Behind that Chinese wall of vanity, Minerva has a little soul hidden somewhere and I'm going to reach it to-night if I have to blast with dynamite," she thought.

Nance was stirring fudge on the chafing dish and Judy was occupying herself strumming chords on the piano. Molly led Minerva to the divan and sat down beside her.

"Are you glad you came to college, Minerva?" she asked, wondering what in the world to talk about.

"No," answered the other emphatically. "I detest college. Except that the studies are higher, I think Mill Town High School is better run. I don't like college girls, either. They are all conceited snobs."

"Perhaps you will like it better when you are a sophomore and have more liberty," suggested Molly. "The first year one can't look forward to much pleasure. But a freshman is always under inspection, you see. If she accepts the situation without complaining and is nice and obliging and modest, it's like so much treasure laid by for her the next year when she finds how popular she is with the other girls."

"It's not like that in Mill Town. A freshman is just as good as anybody else," snapped Minerva.

Judy, overhearing this statement, blinked at Nance, who smiled furtively and went on stirring fudge.

Molly still persisted with the patience of one who looks for certain success.

"The most interesting part of being a freshman," she continued, "is that a girl begins to find out about herself, and by the time she's a sophomore she knows what she really wants."

"Oh, but I knew perfectly well what I wanted before I came," interrupted Minerva in a lofty tone, "I want to study the dead languages."

"But there is something you want more than that," broke in Molly. "You want to be popular."

Minerva gave her a suspicious glance, but Molly was beaming kindly upon her with all the warmth of her affectionate nature.

"How do you know that?" she demanded in a somewhat softened tone.

"It was not hard to guess. You said you were disappointed with the girls here because they seemed to be snobs. Now if you hadn't minded it very much, you never would have mentioned it. Don't you think the girls are just a little afraid of you? You see, they had heard you were the brightest girl in your school and when they saw all the medals and you talked to them on such deep subjects, they were scared off. They thought, perhaps, you wouldn't care for them because they didn't know enough. After all, people's feeling toward you is just a reflection of what you feel toward them. If you are interested and admire and love them, they are pretty sure to feel the same toward you. You see, I know you can be just as nice and human and everyday as the rest of us--" Molly laid her hand on Minerva's--"but the others haven't had a chance yet to find out."

Minerva's stiff figure relaxed a little and she leaned against Molly confidingly.

"I do want to be liked," she whispered. "All my life I've wanted it more than anything in the world. But even at Mill Town the girls were afraid of me, just as you say they are here. I might as well own up, as you have guessed it already."

"But it's only a question of time now before you make lots of friends," said Molly, "You are so clever that you'll find out how to make them like you."

"But how?"

"Well," said Molly, "I think people who are sympathetic and who listen more than they talk generally have a good many friends. I'm afraid I've talked more than I listened this evening," she added, pinching Minerva's cheek.

"But you've talked about me," answered Minerva. Suddenly her face turned very red and her eyes filled with tears. "I shall not wear the medals any more," she whispered unsteadily. "And--there is something I want to confess. I--I waited for you that night you were on the lake, and I sent an unsigned note to Miss Walker the next day to get even with you because you wouldn't let me go walking with you."

Judy, at the piano, was singing a vociferous medley, and Nance was joining in.

"That's all right," whispered Molly. "It was much better for her to know because we would have been misrepresented always unless someone had told her, and we couldn't exactly tell her ourselves. But I think it's awfully nice of you to confess, Minerva. Now, we shall be better friends than ever."

The two girls kissed each other. The cloak of vanity had slipped off and the smartest-girl-in-Mill-Town-High-School became her real natural self.

Until a quarter before ten the four girls laughed and talked pleasantly together, while the convivial fudge plate was passed from one to the other. But never once did Mill Town High School or comparative philology come into the conversation.

When at last the evening was at an end and Minerva had departed, Nance and Judy led Molly gravely to the divan.

"Now, tell us how you did it," they demanded in one voice.

"I only told her the truth," answered Molly, "but I didn't put it so that it would hurt her. I said the reason why the girls were stand-offish was because they were afraid of her learning and her gold medals."

"Marvelous, brilliant creature!" cried Judy, embracing her friend, while Nance laid a cheek against Molly's.

"You are a perfect darling, Molly," she said.