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Title: The Ranch Girls at Boarding School

Author: Margaret Vandercook

Illustrator: Hugh A. Bodine

Release Date: December 1, 2017 [EBook #56097]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RANCH GIRLS AT BOARDING SCHOOL ***




Produced by Roger Frank








[Illustration: MARGARET BELKNAP’S BROTHER COULD BE SEEN DANCING
ATTENDANCE ON JEAN]




THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES

The Ranch Girls at Boarding School

By

Margaret Vandercook

Illustrated By

Hugh A. Bodine

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA




Copyright, 1913, by

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY




CONTENTS

    I. “STILL AS THE NIGHT”
    II. IN DISGRACE
    III. “GERRY”
    IV. GETTING INTO HARNESS
    V. NEWS AND A DISCOVERY
    VI. HER TEMPTATION
    VII. CINDERELLA
    VIII. SHADOWS BEFORE
    IX. FRIEDA’S MISTAKE
    X. THE HOUSE OF MEMORY
    XI. “SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”
    XII. WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY
    XIII. THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
    XIV. “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”
    XV. THE DANGER OF WEALTH
    XVI. ELECTION DAY
    XVII. CONGRATULATIONS
    XVIII. FANCIES OR MEMORIES?
    XIX. NEW YEAR’S EVE
    XX. THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE
    XXI. JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL
    XXII. READJUSTMENTS
    XXIII. “MAY TIME is GAY TIME”
    XXIV. SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES
    XXV. “JACK”




The Ranch Girls at Boarding School




CHAPTER I

“STILL AS THE NIGHT”


Would the long night never pass? A figure on a bed in a big bare room
stirred and then sighed. Ages ago a clock in the great house known as
Primrose Hall, not far from the famous region of “Sleepy Hollow,” had
struck three, then four, and now one, two, three, four, five solemn
strokes boomed forth and yet not a glimmer of light nor a sound to
announce the coming of morning.

“In the Lord put I my trust; how say ye then to my soul, that she should
flee as a bird unto the hill? For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and
make ready their arrow within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at
them which are true of heart,” a tired voice murmured, and then after a
short pause: “Oh, girls, are you awake yet? Aren’t you ever, ever going
to wake up? Dear me, this night already seems to me to have lasted
forever and ever!” For no answer had followed the question, although a
door stood wide open between this and an adjoining room and the bed in
the other room was occupied by two persons.

Five minutes crawled by and then another five. Tired of reciting the
“Psalms of David” to induce repose, the wakeful figure slipped suddenly
from its own bed and a slim ghost stole across the floor—a ghost that
even in the darkness revealed two shadowy lengths of jet-black hair. In
the farther room it knelt beside another bed, pressing its cheek against
another cheek that felt both plump and peaceful, while its hand reached
forth to find another hand that lay outside the coverlet.

“They are both sound asleep and I am a wretch to be trying to waken
them,” the spectre faltered; “but how can they sleep so soundly the
first night at a strange boarding school when I am so homesick and
lonely I know that I am going to die or cry or do something else
desperate? If only Jack were here, things would be different!” And Olive
Ralston, one of the four girls from the Rainbow Ranch, sliding to the
floor again, sat with her legs crossed under her and her head resting on
her hands in a curious Indian posture of grief. And while she waited,
watching beside the bedside where Jean Bruce and Frieda Ralston were now
quietly asleep, her thoughts wandered away to the hospital in New York
City, which held her beloved friend Jack.

Only the day before the three ranch girls, accompanied by their
chaperon, Ruth Drew, had made their initial appearance at Primrose Hall
to begin their first year of fashionable boarding school life. But once
the girls had been introduced to the principal of the school, Miss
Katherine Winthrop, and Ruth had had a talk with her and seen the rooms
assigned to the ranch girls, she had been compelled to take the next
train back to New York, a journey of twenty or more miles, for Jack had
been left behind in a hospital and must not be long alone. There she lay
awaiting the verdict of the New York surgeons to know whether after her
accident at the Yellowstone Park the summer before she might ever expect
to walk again. The chief reason of the trip from the Rainbow Lodge in
Wyoming to New York City had not been to give the ranch girls an eastern
education and to fit them for a more cosmopolitan life now that so great
wealth was being brought forth from the Rainbow Mine, but to find out
what could be done for Jack.

Now even while Olive was thinking of her best loved friend, a faint,
chirrupy noise and a flutter of unfolding wings sounded along the
outside walls of Primrose Hall. Lifting her head with a smothered cry of
delight, the girl spied a thin streak of light shining across the floor.
A moment later, back in her own room with the door closed behind her and
her own window open, her eyes were soon eagerly scanning the unfamiliar
scene before her. Dawn had come at last!

The young girl drew a deep breath. In the excitement of her arrival at
school the day before, in the first meeting with so many strangers,
Olive had not spared time to see or think of the surroundings of
Primrose Hall, but now she could examine the landscape thoroughly. Set
in the midst of one of the most beautiful valleys along the Hudson
River, this morning the fields near by were bright with blue asters,
with goldenrod and the white mist-like blossoms of the immortelles; the
low hills in the background were brown and red and gold with the October
foliage of the trees. Beyond the fields the Hudson River ran broader and
deeper than any stream of water a ranch girl had ever seen, and across
from it the New Jersey palisades rose like hoary battlements now veiled
in a light fog. Surely no sunrise on the river Rhine could be more
wonderful than this sunrise over the Hudson River; and yet, as Olive
Ralston gazed out upon it, its beauty did not dry her tears nor ease the
lump in her throat, for what she wanted was home, the old familiar
sights and sounds, the smell of the Rainbow Ranch—and nothing could be
more unlike the low level sweep of their Wyoming prairie than this
Hudson River country.

“Heimweh,” the Germans call this yearning for home, which we have named
homesickness, but a better word theirs than ours, for surely this
longing for home, for accustomed people and things in the midst of
strange surroundings, may be a woe very deep and intense.

From the first hour of the ranch girls’ planning to come east to
boarding school Olive Ralston had believed that the change from the
simple life of the ranch to the more conventional school atmosphere
would be more difficult for her than for either Jean or Frieda. True,
she had not spoken of it, but Olilie, whom the ranch girls had renamed
Olive, had never forgotten that she was in reality an unknown girl, with
no name of her own and no people, and except for her friends’ generosity
might still be living in the dirty hut in the Indian village with old
Laska.

After talking it over with Ruth and Jack, they had all decided that it
would be wiser not to mention Olive’s strange history to her new
schoolmates. Now in the midst of her attack of homesickness, Olive
wondered if the girls would not at once guess her mixed blood from her
odd appearance, or else might she not some day betray her ignorance of
the little manners and customs that reveal a good family and good
breeding? In the two happy years spent at the Rainbow Ranch she had
learned all she could from Ruth and the other three girls, but were
there not fourteen other ignorant years back of those two years?

A charming picture Olive made standing at the open window with her
quaint foreign face framed in the high colonial casement. But now,
finding both the autumn air and her own thoughts chilling, she turned
away and began slowly to dress. She was still blue and yet at the same
time ashamed of herself, for had she not been indulging in the most
foolish habit in the world, feeling sorry for herself? Here at Primrose
Hall did she not hope to find the beginning of her big opportunity and
have not big opportunities the world over the fashion of starting out
with difficulties to be overcome? When Olive’s education was completed
she had made up her mind to return once more to the Indian village where
she had spent her childhood and there devote her life to the teaching of
the Indian children. Though Jack and Frieda Ralston, since the discovery
of the gold mine near Rainbow Creek, were probably very wealthy and
though it was but right that Jean Bruce as their first cousin should
share their fortune with them, Olive did not feel that she wished to be
always dependent even on the best of friends.

Having slowly dressed with these thoughts in her mind, the young girl’s
mood was afterwards a little more cheerful, and yet she could not make
up her mind how best to amuse herself until the half-past seven o’clock
bell should ring for breakfast. She might write Jack, of course, but
there was no news to tell her at present, and stirring about in her room
hanging pictures or arranging ornaments would surely awaken Jean and
Frieda, who were still slumbering like the seven famous sleepers. No
other girl shared Olive’s room because Ruth and the four ranch girls
hoped that after a few weeks’ treatment in the New York hospital Jack
would then be able to join the others at school.

Idling about and uncertain what to do, Olive came again to her open
window and there stood listening to the “chug, chug, chug” of a big
steamer out on the river and then to the shriek of an engine along its
banks. Suddenly her face brightened.

“What a goose I am to be moping indoors!” she exclaimed aloud, “I think
I will try Jack’s old remedy for a bad temper and go and have a good
walk to myself before breakfast.”

Now Olive did not have the least idea that in going out alone and
without permission she would be breaking an iron law of Primrose Hall.
Nothing was farther from her mind than disobedience, but no one had yet
told her of the school rules and regulations and taking a walk alone
seemed to her the most natural thing in the world. Had she only waited a
few hours longer she must have understood differently, for the students
were expected to assemble that very morning to hear what was required of
them at Primrose Hall.

As quietly as possible Olive now slipped on her coat and hat, creeping
along the hall on tiptoes so as not to disturb the other sleepers, and
for the same reason she as quietly unlocked the big front door. But once
out on the lawn, so innocent was she of trying to escape unnoticed, that
she paused for several moments to gaze back at the great house she was
about to leave.

Primrose Hall was so handsome and imposing that its new pupil felt a
thrill of admiration as she looked upon it. A red brick mansion of the
old colonial period, it was set in a lovely garden with flowers and
shrubs growing close about the house and an avenue of elm trees leading
down to the gate. Back of the house was an English garden with a border
of box and a sun-dial at the end of a long path. This morning only a few
late asters were in bloom in the garden and bushes of hardy hydrangeas
with their great blossoms now turning rose and brown from the first
early autumn frosts. The house and estate of twelve acres had belonged
in the family of Miss Katherine Winthrop for the past five generations
and Olive smiled a little over her queer conceit, for the house somehow
suggested its present owner to her. Surely Miss Winthrop had appeared
just as imposing and aristocratic as her old home on first meeting with
her the day before, but far colder and more imposing than any mere pile
of brick and stone.

Primrose Hall was of so great size that it included all the bedrooms and
reception rooms necessary for its pupils and teachers, and the only
other school buildings about the grounds were the recitation hall and
two sorority houses devoted to the pleasures of the girls. Olive had
never heard of secret societies, yet she wondered what the mystic words
“Kappa” and “Theta” meant, inscribed above their doors.

Primrose Hall had been recommended to Ruth Drew and the ranch girls by
Peter Drummond, the New York friend whom they had learned to know at the
Yellowstone Park, but apart from its excellent reputation as a finishing
school, their choice had fallen upon it because of the far-famed beauty
of its historic grounds. In this same old house Washington and Lafayette
had been known to stay, and who can guess how many powdered belles and
beaus may have flirted with one another in the garden by the old
sun-dial?

When Olive had grown tired of the views about the houses she determined
to extend her walk over a portion of the estate, and coming to a low,
stone wall, climbed over it without thinking or caring just where it led
her. Being outdoors once more and free to wander as she choose after two
weeks’ confinement, one aboard a stuffy train and the other in a
palace-like hotel in New York, was now so inspiring that Olive felt like
singing aloud. Indeed, it seemed to her that her own personality, which
had somehow vanished since leaving the ranch, had come back to her this
morning like a dear, familiar garment. It was as though she had lately
been wearing fine clothes that did not belong to her and in this hour
had donned once again her own well-worn dress.

Running along with the fleetness and quietness of her early Indian days,
soon the truant found herself in a woods thick with underbrush and trees
never seen before by a Wyoming girl. The air was delicious, the leaves
sparkled with the melting of the frost, there was a splendid new wine of
youth and romance abroad in the world and Olive completely forgot that
she was in the midst of a highly civilized community and not in the
heart of a virgin forest. Indeed, it was not until she had come entirely
out of the woods that her awakening took place. Then she found herself
apparently in some one’s private yard, for she stood facing a white
house set up on a hill with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled
windows on either side. At the entrance to its big front door stood two
absurd iron dogs, and yet there was nothing in any of these ordinary
details to make the onlooker turn crimson and then pale. And yet as she
stared up at the house the idea that had suddenly come to her seemed so
utterly, so absurdly impossible that surely she must be losing her
senses.

For five minutes Olive waited without taking her gaze from the house,
and then with a shrug of her shoulders turned and walked back into the
woods. At first she paid no particular attention to what direction she
was taking until all at once, hearing footsteps not far behind, she felt
reasonably sure they were following hers.




CHAPTER II

IN DISGRACE


It was ridiculous for Olive to have been so frightened with so slight
cause, yet the thought that some one might be in pursuit of her filled
her with a nervous terror. To the people not afflicted with timidity,
most fears are ridiculous, and yet no single weakness is harder to
overcome. Of the four ranch girls, Olive was the only timid one, but
before one criticizes her, remember her childhood. Now with her heart
pounding and her breath coming in short gasps, she quickened her pace
into a run, recalling at the same time their chaperon’s forgotten
instruction that she must no longer expect the happy freedom of their
western lands. But the faster the frightened girl ran the faster the
traveler back of her appeared to be following. And now Olive dared not
hide deeper in the woods, knowing that the hour was growing late and
that any added delay would make her late for breakfast.

Many times in her life would her Indian knowledge of the woods save her
in emergencies of this sort, so in another moment she remembered that an
Indian never runs away from his pursuer, but hides until his enemy has
passed. Behind a low clump of laurel bushes the girl hid herself,
crouching low and expecting each instant to see a tramp or an armed
gamekeeper, whose business it was to keep intruders out of private
property, savagely on the lookout for her.

Her pursuer did come on without hesitation and finally arrived just
opposite Olive’s hiding place, but then it was the girl in hiding who
suddenly sprang to her feet, startling the newcomer. For the enemy she
had so dreaded was only another girl like herself with a smile on her
face and a bundle of books under her arm. She was ten years older
perhaps, yet she looked not unlike Jacqueline Ralston before her
illness; her eyes were blue instead of gray, but she had the same bright
bronze hair and firm line to her chin and the same proud way of holding
up her head.

“Who or what are you?” she asked Olive, “a wood nymph living in this
underbrush, for your clothes are of so nearly the same color that I did
not see you at first.”

Olive, who was wearing a dark olive-green coat suit and a tam-o’-shanter
of velvet of the same shade, shook her head. “I am one of the new girls
from Primrose Hall and I have been out for a walk, but as I am not very
familiar with these woods, I am not just sure where I am. Would you
mind—” Her request came to an abrupt end because of the expression of
surprise and disapproval on the older girl’s face.

“A student from Primrose Hall and outdoors alone at this hour of the
morning! How on earth did Miss Winthrop happen to give you permission?”
she asked in the positive fashion that Olive was to learn to know so
well later on.

The first consciousness of possible wrong-doing now swept over the
truant. Could it be that in taking a walk without asking permission she
had broken a rule of her new school? The idea seemed ridiculous to
Olive, and yet—were not all things different than in the old days? “I am
so sorry, but no one gave me permission to take a walk. Was it necessary
to ask?” she inquired. “You see, we only arrived at Primrose Hall
yesterday and we—I—why, we often stay out hours before breakfast at
home, riding over the plains!”

Olive’s innocence of offense and her distress were so plain to the older
girl that straightway she slipped her arm through hers and without delay
hurried her along toward school, talking as she went.

“I am Jessica Hunt, the teacher of English and elocution at Primrose
Hall, and I have been spending the night with some friends.” Jessica
gave a reassuring pressure to the hand in hers. “You must not be
frightened, child, if Miss Winthrop seems rather terrifying on your
return. I used to be a pupil at Primrose Hall before I started in with
the teaching and I’m really very fond of her. Miss Winthrop isn’t so
severe as she looks, but I expect I had better tell you that it is after
breakfast time now and, as the school girls are never allowed to go out
alone and never without permission, why she may scold you a bit.”

If only she might at this moment have dropped down in the path to weep
like a naughty child about to be punished for a fault, Olive would have
felt it a great relief, and only the thought of her age prevented her
doing this. Could she ever live through the embarrassment of facing
fifty strange girls, more than half a dozen teachers and Miss Winthrop
while she was being reprimanded. Why, yesterday just on being introduced
to Miss Winthrop, with Ruth and Jean and Frieda with her for protection,
had she not felt as tongue-tied and frightened as a silly baby? And now
must she face this stern woman alone and under the shadow of her
displeasure?

Never as long as she lived (and the circumstances of Olive Ralston’s
life were always unusual and romantic) would she ever forget the next
half hour’s experience at Primrose Hall, nor the appearance of the great
hall as she entered it, with girls and teachers grouped about, and
towering above everything and everybody, the tall, commanding presence
of its principal, Miss Katherine Winthrop.

Almost without her own volition Olive found herself standing in front of
Miss Winthrop, Jessica’s arm still through hers, heard the teacher of
mathematics say, “Here is your new runaway pupil with Miss Hunt,” and
realized that this teacher, whom she had disliked yesterday because she
wore round spectacles and dressed like a man, wished not so much to get
her into trouble as to involve Jessica in her disgrace.

But Jessica was not in the least disturbed, being the only teacher at
Primrose Hall not afraid of its owner. “Miss Winthrop,” she now began
coaxingly, “I have brought our new girl home. She was only taking a walk
in the woods near by, but I am sure she would rather explain to you
herself that in going out without permission she did not know she was
breaking a school rule. You see, she has lived always in the West and
been accustomed to such perfect freedom—” Jessica was continuing her
case for the defendant, realizing that Olive was still too frightened to
speak for herself. But suddenly Miss Hunt was thrust aside by a small,
plump person, with the longest yellow braids and the biggest blue eyes
in the school, and without the least regard for either teachers or
principal, Frieda Ralston now flung her arms about Olive.

“For goodness sake, why didn’t you tell Jean and me where you were
going?” she demanded. “We have been so frightened about you.”

And then before Olive could reply, another girl stood at her other side,
a girl with dark brown hair, a pale skin and demure brown eyes, whose
nose had the faintest, most delicious tilt at the end of it. Jean Bruce
said nothing, but she looked ready and anxious to defend her friend
against all the world.

Surrounding the little group of ranch girls and the three teachers were
numbers of other students, most of whom were casting glances of sympathy
at the new pupil who had so soon fallen into disgrace. Breakfast just
over, they were supposedly on their way upstairs to their own rooms, but
Olive’s entrance with Jessica had interrupted them and until Miss
Winthrop spoke no one had stirred.

“You may go to your own apartments now, girls,” she said quietly. “Miss
Ralston will explain her absence to me in my private study.” As her
words and look included Jean and Frieda, they also were compelled to
follow the other students up the broad mahogany stairs, leaving Olive to
face her fate alone. Only one girl with short curly hair and a freckled
nose actually had the courage to stop in passing and whisper to the
offender:

“Fare thee well, light of my life, farewell. For crimes unknown you go
to a dungeon cell,” she chanted. Then while Olive was trying to summon a
smile in return, a beautiful girl with pale blonde hair joined both of
them, and drawing the other girl away, said loud enough for a dozen
persons near by to overhear: “Oh, do come on upstairs, Gerry. When will
you learn not to be friendly to objectionable persons whom no one knows
anything about?” And so cool and indifferent did her expression appear
as she made her unkind speech that it was hard to believe she understood
that her words could be overheard. But Olive Ralston heard them and in
spite of her gentleness never in after years forgot or forgave them.

A minute or so later, when everybody else had disappeared, Olive found
herself alone in Miss Winthrop’s study, seated in a comfortable leather
chair facing a desk at which Miss Winthrop was writing.

“I will talk to you in a few minutes,” she had said as they entered the
room, and at first the prisoner had felt that waiting to hear her
sentence would be unendurable. Of course she would be expelled from
Primrose Hall; Olive had no other idea. And of course Ruth and Jack
would understand and forgive her, but there would be no going back on
her part to be a burden and disgrace to them. Somehow she must find work
to support herself in the future!

But as time passed on and Miss Winthrop continued with her writing, by
and by Olive’s attention wandered from her own sorrows and she busied
herself in studying her judge’s face. Miss Winthrop’s expression was not
so stern in repose, for though the lines about her mouth were severe and
her nose aquiline, her forehead was high and broad and her dark eyes
full of dignity and purpose. And then her figure. Olive felt obliged to
admit that though she was taller and larger than almost any woman she
had known, her grace and dignity were most unusual and the severity of
her simple black silk gown showed her to great advantage.

Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next traveled idly
to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting there for an eager moment,
while in her interest she forgot everything else. For the first time in
her life this young girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had
her attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.

On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic figure of a
woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and wonderful flowing draperies.
The figure was without head or arms and yet was so inspiring that,
without realizing it, Olive gave a sigh of delight.

Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked
quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged
Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the
stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some
day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me
and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the
statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman,
what all we women must hope to be some day. See the beauty and dignity
of her, as though she had turned her back on all sin and injustice and
was moving forward into a new world of light. I like to believe that the
splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children in them.”

Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above the head of
her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to study the girl’s face.
Now she saw by its sudden glow and softening that she had caught at
least a measure of her meaning.

“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the world held
nothing else and that she knew all the varieties, and yet one could
never be too sure, for here before her was a new type unlike all the
others and for some reason at this moment she attracted her strongly.

To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had thought it wise to
confide as much as they knew of Olive’s extraordinary history, pledging
her to secrecy. Now to herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly
ridiculous to believe this child has Indian blood, for there is
absolutely nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her
history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”

But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after her first
speech her manner appeared to change entirely. Sitting very erect in her
chair, she turned upon her pupil “You may go,” she said coldly, “for I
understand that by your action this morning you did not deliberately
intend to break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the
future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience, whatever
its cause.”

With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall, wondering if
she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who could be so stern one moment
and so interesting the next. For her own part Olive felt that she much
preferred their former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less
handsome and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human. If
only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to scold and pet
them for their misdoings all in the same breath.




CHAPTER III

“GERRY”


The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of
the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to
reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long
corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not
interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean,
and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a
conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.

“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,” one of the
voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as nice to these new
Western girls as I know how. They are strangers and I think it horrid to
try to snub them just because you think perhaps they are not so rich and
fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you will try to
turn as many of the other Juniors against them as you can twist around
your finger, but kindly don’t include me in your list. Perhaps you think
I don’t know why you have had me for one of your chums for so long.
Goodness, child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am
homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the stately beauty
than ever in contrast with poor little me. But maybe you won’t always be
thought the prettiest girl in the school, for this queer looking Olive,
what’s her name, is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way,
and the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second. If you
are angry with me, why you need not have me for a roommate, for I am
going this very second to call on the new ranch girls and welcome them
to Primrose Hall.” And with a flounce the same short-haired girl who had
stopped to tease Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall
after her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of fashions.
“Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she inquired, “for I have
been several years at Primrose Hall and know the place like an old shoe.
Besides, I think that you and the older one of your sisters or friends,
I can’t guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior class,
and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close together these days.”

By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door, but hearing
queer noises in another room, they followed the sounds, discovering Jean
and Frieda in the adjoining chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’
sitting room. An immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean
and Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the trunk of
their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two sisters, Mollie and
Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had come in to lend them hammer and
nails and were now watching them with deep absorption.

“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she stopped in some
confusion, remembering that she had not yet heard their new friend’s
name.

The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see their new
visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows, at your service,” she
explained, “but I’m better known to the world as Gerry. See I have
brought your Olive safe back from the lion’s den and, as she is no more
eaten up than was the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint
to start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you about
Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what not to do?”

Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully, but Jean
closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard the question. She was
not accustomed to feeling out of things as she had this morning and was
not sure she cared to have strangers making an effort to be kind.
Suppose this Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to
be one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well even
that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!

But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness and having
already taken a fancy to her, as strangers usually did, now seated
herself cross-legged on the floor, beckoning to the others to follow
suit. “All Gaul, my children, is divided into three parts, as we learn
in our Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to say,
is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred Graham likes and the
girls she docs not. I used to belong to the first class, but now I
probably belong to the second. I was kind of in love with Winifred last
year and let her boss me around, but during the summer I thought things
over and decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this
morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a snap about
my desertion, for she never cares for people unless they are rich and
I’m not a bit, only my father is a famous surgeon in New York and I’m
going to be a doctor myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind
gentleman to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls
didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively tongue,
pretending not to be able to say anything more, although Jean was gazing
at her in a more encouraging fashion than she had worn at the beginning
of her speech.

All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York City the four
ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend, Frank Kent, had discussed
this question: Should the girls on arriving at boarding school speak of
their new-found gold mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack
advised against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and Frank
thought they might as well mention it now and then, while Jean was
determined to speak of their gold mine whenever the chance offered and
to make the biggest impression she possibly could. So now it was
surprising to hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of
her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose Hall to care
for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,” she answered demurely; “so
I am afraid Miss Graham and her friends will not like us any too well.
You see, we are simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by
that. I suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because our
clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks apiece as most of
the girls here have. Olive and I were laughing yesterday because on our
arrival we were given United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels!
why we haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes that
belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head warningly at
Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and whose lips were
about to form the name of the Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to
divert her attention, Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics
and diving down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian
baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to remind you
that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall and we hope our first
friends,” she said prettily, handing a basket to Gerry and then the
others to the two sisters. But all the while Jean was talking and acting
this little pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was
right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will find out who
the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and then—” Well, it was
comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last letter, written after they had
left the ranch, he had said the pot of gold from the end of their
Rainbow Mine had yielded five thousand dollars within the month just
past and that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had come
from.

Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls started with
surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining perfectly calm. Getting up
from the floor, however, she stuck her Indian basket on her head for a
hat, using the handle as a strap.

“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the recitation
hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just sounded, only a gentle
reminder that we are to assemble within the next ten minutes to meet our
teachers and to get ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I
can only hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for
Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the room to the
tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after her: “You were awfully
good to come in to see us and we are obliged to you, so please help us
out whenever you can. I am afraid that the things we know, such as
riding bareback and raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be
considered accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked
unusually humble and particularly pretty.

Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned ourselves at
Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of insects here, butterflies as
well as bookworms. But I will say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is
a fashionable school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as
our P’s.”

Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what does it mean
‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired solemnly.

“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and how to enter
a room and what to say when you get there and all the things that mean
Society with a big S, Miss Frieda Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s,
Q’s are dreadful things called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find
out what quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the
mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the delicious
name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda, if you want to know the
truth about the meaning of the old expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’
the Century Dictionary tells us that the expression alluded to the
difficulty in the early days of discerning the difference between the
two letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of her curly
head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’ room.




CHAPTER IV

GETTING INTO HARNESS


Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch girls at
boarding school and so many changes appeared to have taken place in
their lives that already the weeks seemed as many months. One of the
changes they themselves did not realize, but nevertheless it was a
serious one, for Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as
they had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was going her
own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new friendships and
apparently forgetting the importance of past ties.

And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for Mollie Johnson,
the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy Johnson was a good deal older than
Frieda, but Mollie was a year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and
looked up to her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made her appear
like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of being treated like a
baby by her family, and besides, as no one had ever told her before that
she was in the least like a heroine, she found the idea distinctly
pleasant. The two Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small and dark
and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such a complete contrast
to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements that it was small wonder the two
girls were drawn together by their very unlikeness and that already
their schoolmates were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
everywhere together with their arms locked about one another, wore one
another’s clothes when their different sizes permitted, and were never
without true lover’s knots of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes,
knots made from a sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair
ribbons. Not that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and in spite of
Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids had disappeared and in
their place a Pysche knot of huge proportions could be seen at the back
of her head. The Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did
not have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest fashion and of
course nothing else really matters. As Frieda’s school work was not the
same as Jean’s and Olive’s, on account of her age and the fact that she
never had cared much about books, the division of her time was different
from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the excitement of her
first independence and without Jack’s influence, she should be for the
first time in her life “ganging her own gait.”

But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed together over
Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while they were laughing, though
she had said nothing, Olive was wondering if Jean did not know that she
saw almost as little of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without
realizing it or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most popular girls in
the school. As a proof of it she had already been invited to join both
the two sororities and had not made up her mind which one she should
choose. The fact that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,” for from the
hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of Winifred’s character there had
been open war between Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness
to Olive was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was almost
forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry. It was an open
discussion that the choice for Junior class president, which must be
made before the Christmas holidays, would lie between these two girls.
For though Jean had continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls
in the school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest
families in New York City, people who looked down upon the Four Hundred
as belonging to the dreadful “new rich.”

But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly for Jean and
Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was making no friends.
Though it was customary to invite the new girls at Primrose Hall into
one or the other of the secret societies almost immediately upon their
arrival at school, Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority.
Too shy and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she did
not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon her. Only in
secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if her blood showed itself so
plainly that her classmates disliked her for that reason or if she were
more unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack, who was
finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world, had cared for her
and if only the doctors would say that Jack was strong enough to join
them at Primrose Hall, nothing else would make any difference! Letters
from Ruth Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured the
girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected, but as yet there
had been no definite report from the surgeon?

However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her
classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her,
who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher
whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was
something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a
strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to
reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and
was trying her best to discover their cause. Some secret story might
possibly be in circulation about the newcomer, but so far Jessica had
not been able to find it out.

One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting room for
several hours. Always books had been her consolation for loneliness
since the days when her only white friend had been the teacher in the
Indian school in her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected
knock at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to join
her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on opening the door her
eyes had widened with surprise.

“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a
visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you
everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas.
To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at
the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the
other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her
the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter
over sensibly together and she might be able to help. But alas for
Olive! Though Ruth had warned her to try to overcome her reserve that
day of the flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only answered Miss
Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider than the other girls that I
have to stay in my room to study more. But I am through with my work now
and awfully glad to see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome
revealed more of her real feeling than any number of words.

Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave a little
cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you don’t wish to be
outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the most charming girls’ room at
Primrose Hall! It makes me think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I
was misquoting a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some
day when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself. And
surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are one.’”

Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had dreamed of
making it in the last days at home, a bit of the Rainbow Lodge in
miniature, their own beloved ranch house living room reproduced many
miles across the continent. By Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted
to the three ranch girls a large and almost empty room, containing only
a divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was covered
with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright shawls were thrown
over the divan, piled with sofa cushions of leather and silk, and on the
walls were prints of Indian heads, one of them a picture of a young girl
looking singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of cowboys
on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace, about one-fourth the
size of the one at The Lodge, was the head of an elk shot by Jim Colter
himself on the border of their own ranch, and on the mantel the very
brass candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home, besides
several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient ornaments discovered by
Frieda in the Indian cave on the day when Olive had made her first
appearance in the ranch girls’ lives.

But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room she began at
once to look more closely at the few photographs which the ranch girls
had placed on top of their bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker
way to learn to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must represent
the persons nearest and dearest, their families and closest friends.

The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures, only an
absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell present to them, but
as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and his Sunday clothes, it was not
in the least like their big, splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was
one of Ruth and alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost
instinctively Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched Olive’s heart.

“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is just the type
of girl I admire the most, so graceful and vigorous and with such a lot
of character. Oh, I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended
suddenly, seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.

Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t vigorous any
more.” And then, to her own surprise and relief, Olive poured forth the
whole story of Jack’s accident and their reasons for coming east.

Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing that takes
place every day, but just as Olive was on the point of telling Miss Hunt
that she expected each day to hear more definite news of Jack, a message
was sent upstairs to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception
room desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once. Would
Olive find the other girls and come to the reception room immediately?

With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew who had come
to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with a hurried apology to
Jessica, begging her to wait until her return, fled out, of her room
down through the lower part of the house and then out into the school
grounds to search for Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at
once to Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls hear
the good news with her.

And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the ranch girls’
room for a few minutes longer, for standing near the photograph of
Jacqueline Ralston was another photograph whose presence in the room
puzzled her greatly. She did not feel that she had the right to ask
curious questions and yet she must look at this picture more closely,
for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying in her own bureau
drawer between folds of lavender-scented silk.




CHAPTER V

NEWS AND A DISCOVERY


Jean and Frieda were not to be found on either of the two great side
porches, where the Primrose Hall girls spent many recreation hours on
these warm Indian summer afternoons, but just in front of the sorority
house with “Theta” engraved above the door, Olive spied Jean surrounded
by a dozen girls. She was talking in a very animated fashion and had her
back turned so that she did not see Olive, who started to run toward her
and then hesitated and flushed. Each girl in the group was known to her
by name, all of them were Juniors and her classmates and yet not one of
them, except Geraldine Ferrows, had ever voluntarily held five minutes’
conversation with her. Did she have the courage now to thrust herself
among them and to interrupt Jean? Only the thought that Ruth must be
waiting for them with news of Jack braced her. “Jean,” Olive called
softly and then in a louder tone, “Jean!”

At once Jean swung round, but at the same moment twelve other pairs of
eyes stared poor Olive up and down.

“Oh, I am so glad you have come, Olive,” Jean exclaimed, her brown eyes
shining with enthusiasm, “for it has all been arranged that I am to join
the ‘Theta’ Society and I do hope that you will come in with me. Then we
are going to form a dramatic club in our sorority and after a little
while give a perfectly stunning play. I am sure the girls will want you
to take part in it, for you see Olive can act better than any one of us,
or at least she used to when we had charades at Rainbow Lodge.” Jean
paused, feeling a peculiar change in the atmosphere about her. Would no
one echo her invitation to Olive? And why had her friends drawn away in
silence unless something was the matter, for Olive was standing right
before them with her cheeks crimson and biting her lips to hide their
trembling?

Jean stamped her foot with a flash of her old anger. “If you think for
an instant, Margaret Belknap,” she said, turning to her best friend in
the little company, a tall, distinguished, but plain-looking girl, “that
I will be in things and do things without Olive, why—” But Olive took
Jean softly by the arm. “Please don’t say anything, dear,” she
whispered, and then as Jean caught the message she had come to give her,
without further thought of anything or anybody at Primrose Hall, the two
friends hurried off together. Jean was not so conscientious about trying
to find Frieda, but leaving word with the maids to send her after them,
in a few moments the two girls appeared at the reception room door.

“Ruth, you darling,” they called in chorus and then turned white faces
to stare at each other and at the tall figure that rose to greet them
holding Frieda’s hand in one of his. “It is Peter Drummond, gooseys;
don’t you know him?” Frieda cried happily. “Some one told me we had a
caller and I came in here expecting to find some strange, horrid
visitor, and when I saw Peter I forgot I wasn’t a little girl any longer
and most hugged him. You might say you think it good of him to come to
see us,” she ended, rather crossly.

“We thought you were Ruth, Mr. Drummond,” Jean replied, coming to
herself sooner than Olive, “but of course we are terribly glad it is
you; only—why—the truth is, we expected Ruth to be able to tell us that
Jack was better or something. Just think, we haven’t seen old Jack in
weeks, ages it seems.” Jean put out her hand to take hold of their
friend’s when Olive spoke: “I think Mr. Drummond has come to tell us
about Jack instead of Ruth,” she said in a slightly strained voice. “I
am afraid that Jack isn’t so well as we hoped she would be and Ruth
couldn’t leave her. Won’t she ever be able to walk again like other
people? Have the doctors said? Tell us, please, quickly what has brought
you to see us, for anything is better than suspense.” And still for a
second Peter Drummond did not reply.

The first cause of his silence was that Frieda, entirely surprised at
Olive’s interpretation of his visit, had unexpectedly burst into tears.

“Come now,” Mr. Drummond said finally, patting Frieda’s hand, “it isn’t
so bad as all this. Olive did guess the truth and I have come to tell
you about Jack. Perhaps she isn’t so well as we hoped, for she can’t
join you at school just at present or get about very much. The fact is—”
Mr. Drummond cleared his throat, “well, the surgeons are not quite sure
of Jack’s condition yet and must wait a while longer and keep her very
quiet before they can decide. But I saw her a minute the other day and
she and Ruth send you their love and Jack hopes boarding school isn’t so
dreadful as she thinks it must be and— Why doesn’t some one else say
something, for never before in my life have I been with three women and
had to do all the talking?” And Peter, with a man’s embarrassment at
being the bearer of ill news, looked at the ranch girls with pretended
indignation.

“Are you sure you have told us the truth, Mr. Drummond?” Jean asked, and
their visitor, not in the least offended by the question, emphatically
bowed his head.

Jean turned to the other two girls. “Then Olive and Frieda, I don’t
think we need be frightened,” she said stoutly, “though of course we are
terribly disappointed at not having Jack here at school with us, I have
always felt she would be well some day. Even if the surgeons should say
she won’t, my money is on old Jack!”

Instantly Frieda’s face cleared at Jean’s courageous attitude, though
Olive looked considerably depressed. But at this minute Mr. Drummond, to
divert everybody’s attention, turned toward Frieda. “Will somebody tell
me, please, what is the trouble with the youngest Miss Ralston, for if
two weeks at boarding school can affect her like this, What will a whole
year do?”

Instinctively Frieda’s hand went up to her Psyche knot. “Don’t tell Jack
and Ruth,” she begged, and then, tossing her blonde head: “Oh, tell away
if you like, Peter Drummond. I haven’t any disease, if that’s what you
mean; I am just not a baby any longer.”

Peter’s expression was a funny mixture of gravity and amusement. “If
it’s old age that is afflicting you, Frieda,” he said pulling at his own
heavy iron-gray hair, “then you’ve got about the worst disease in the
world and the most incurable, but I didn’t really think it was apt to
overtake one at fifteen.” Seeing that Frieda looked injured, he turned
again to Olive and Jean. “The Harmons have been awfully nice to Jack and
Ruth and they are coming out here to see you pretty soon. There is a
queer old house in this neighborhood where an old relative of theirs
lives. The house is supposed to be haunted, or at least there is some
mystery about it. I wonder if you girls have seen it?”

“I have,” Olive answered quickly and Jean laughed.

“How on the face of the earth do you know you have seen the place Peter
is describing, Olive?” Jean questioned, “for he hasn’t told you the name
of it or what it looks like or anything to identify it.”

Olive looked puzzled. “Yes, I know it is funny, but it is a place called
‘The Towers,’ with a high tower at the top of it and a balcony and queer
little windows.” Quite unconsciously Olive had closed her eyes, because
for some strange reason she seemed to be able to recall the house she
had seen on the morning of her early walk better with her eyes closed.

Mr. Drummond smiled at her. “Olive is right, the place is called ‘The
Towers.’ I remember now,” he repeated. “I wonder if because Olive is
perhaps a gypsy or an Indian, she is going to be a fortune teller.” But
because Olive’s face had crimsoned at his speech his tone changed. “My
dear Olive, suppose you are half Indian, why on earth should you care?
There isn’t the least disgrace in it, is there?” And Olive noticed that
Mr. Drummond’s speech ended with a question.

But he had now risen, picking up from the table near him a large box and
a small one. The large box he handed to Jean. “You are please to conceal
this from the powers that be, if it’s against boarding school laws to
eat candy,” he said and then stood turning the smaller box about in his
hand, surveying it thoughtfully. “This is a gift to you girls from
Jack,” he remarked finally. “Miss Drew tells me it contains a great
surprise, and as I haven’t the faintest idea what is inside of it, may I
be present at its opening?”

The girls allowed Frieda to tear off the paper covering outside the
parcel. Inside a white velvet box was revealed which opened with a
spring. Instantly Frieda touched this spring there were three cries of
“Oh,” followed by a moment’s silence. On the white satin lining of the
box were three crescent-shaped pins as large in circumference as a
quarter. The pins were composed of seven lovely jewels shading from red
to pale violet. Each girl took her gift from the box, regarding it with
characteristic expressions. Jean’s eyes were dancing with delight, the
dimple showing at the corner of her mouth, Frieda’s blue eyes were bluer
than ever and her cheeks pinker, while Olive’s eyes were overclouded and
her face quivered with pleasure.

[Illustration: THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S
SILENCE]

“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the grandest,
and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor any more,” Frieda
announced.

“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor girls may have
fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.

“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our gifts to
suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still resting on the glowing
colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins
represent rainbows? I have been repeating the rainbow colors to
myself—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are
seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”

Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you are, and
Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been collecting jewels all
my life and never thought of so pretty an idea as this. Here is a garnet
to start with for the red, then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond
next, an emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for
indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of violet.”

“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and the mine and
all the good things that have come to us through a rainbow,” Jean said
thoughtfully and then more huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.”
Frieda made a dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a
piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when I
opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she announced. “Oh,
goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has written us a poem!” And
Frieda read:

    “Here are seven colors in nature and art,
    What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;
    Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day
    And orange and yellow to shine on your way.
    Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar
    To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.
    And yet to the end shall we ever forget
    Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”

“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes pretty well,”
Frieda ended doubtfully.

Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful, I think.
And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever do go to Europe, as we
sometimes have planned, we must never forget the Rainbow Ranch. You
know, Frieda dear, that the alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and
white like the clover in the east.”

But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr. Drummond had now
to tear himself away in order to catch his train back to New York.
Hurrying out into the hall, with the three ranch girls close behind him,
he suddenly came to an abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young
woman, who also stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes
and a haughtily held head.

“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here when I told
you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say with the least little
nervous tremor in her voice.

Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica, Miss Hunt,”
he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest idea of seeing you at
Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but the ranch girls are my very dear
friends and my visit was solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically
away when a hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve.
This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might have known
you would never trouble to come to see me again.”

That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her
head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that
Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a
certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep,
child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall
see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get
married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how
Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so
silly and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too and
let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very serious for the
moment and also very bewitching.

But Olive answered her with the voice of prophecy. “Jean Bruce, you will
have the hardest time of us all in making up your mind when you are in
love.”




CHAPTER VI

HER TEMPTATION


Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean Bruce. Always
beyond anything else had she desired to be popular, even in the old days
at the ranch when the only society in which she had a part was composed
of the few neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at
Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her heart’s
desire, and would she for the sake of another be compelled to give it
up? For how could she accept the honor that might be bestowed upon her
of being chosen for Junior class president without turning traitor to
Olive. After her friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta”
house on the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no longer
shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the cause of it? Try as
she might she could not find out, yet the prejudice was certainly deeper
than any one could suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the
bottom of the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she had
circulated any story against Olive no one would confess it. “Miss
Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so odd, I do not think
she enjoys being with other girls,” these evasions of the truth were all
Jean could get hold of. But in the meantime there was no doubt that
Olive’s classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the two
sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented in the history
of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have appealed to Miss Winthrop
or one of the other teachers, asking that their influence be exerted in
Olive’s behalf, but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do.
For even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities, how would
it change her classmates’ attitude toward her? Would it not make them
more unkind than ever? No, there were only two courses open to Jean,
either she must join the sorority she had chosen without any question of
Olive’s being a member or else she must decline to be admitted herself
until such time as the girls should come to their senses and voluntarily
desire the election of them both.

Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two sororities had
been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small excuse for her hesitation.
But a larger issue was at stake. Unless she became a member of a
sorority and as one of its leaders could influence new girls to her
cause, she might lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the
head of the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.

Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very charming
fashion, just by the power of her own personality, which is after all
the greatest force in the world. She had no prominent family
connections, as so many of the Primrose Hall girls had, and she
continued to act as though she had no money except what was necessary
for very simple requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done
had the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the discovery of
the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a hard fight and many times
the young girl longed to break faith with herself.

Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading of the
Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the three ranch girls’
school outfits, but now these clothes seemed so simple and ordinary that
at least two of the girls hated the wearing of them.

Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light weight
flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon entertainments and
dinner use and a single party dress for the monthly dances which were a
feature of Primrose Hall school life. Their underclothes were plentiful
but plain. Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s
lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very wealthy ones at
that, could have such possessions. Just think of a single item of a
dozen hand-made nightgowns at fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s
outfit; and yet these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly
expressed her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a gift
of two of them without hurting her new friend’s feelings.

To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed atmosphere that
Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a revelation. She seemed not to know
the meaning of snobbery, not to care who people were so long as she
liked what they were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to
another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already asked Jean to
visit her in her home in New York during the Christmas holidays, as she
longed to introduce her to her own family in order that they might lose
their prejudice against western girls. But more especially Margaret
desired to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean together
so as to find out what they would think of one another. She was only
awaiting the first opportunity. In the meantime, although Jean would not
accept other gifts from her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the
flowers Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about school
so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in her hair that she
soon became known as “the pink carnation girl.”

One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to send flowers
to Margaret in return, but in order to retain her masquerade of poverty,
most of the time she had to refrain. Only now and then she did relieve
her feelings by presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses
regardless of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums
would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been especially
kind to Olive, Frieda or her.

With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to spread
abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no pocket money, but
with Frieda the case was very different. It is quite certain that Jean
would never have had her way with Frieda except by appealing directly to
Jack for advice and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging
her little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to agree to
Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not that she saw any sense
in her sacrifice or was in the least reconciled to it, but simply
because under the circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could
refuse her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard on
both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives had they had
any money of their own to spend and now Jack was sending each one of
them fifty dollars a month for pin money. Think of the fortune of it, if
you have had only one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use
before!

And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to
temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the
grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a
dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy
herself a pair of gloves.

Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be
dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed
in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large,
lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the
bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked
too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be
ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a
pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and
twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for
it.

Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s
extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it
certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income
away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day
in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but
intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.

While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose
Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so
much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of
girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as
Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief
reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order
to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose
Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch,
who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud
of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its
help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on
Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin
enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being
the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious
an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way
or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her
friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the
“Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her
pride.

Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the
evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding
schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss
Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were
brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully
introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall
as a training school for the larger social world and desired her
students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and
naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls
and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their
school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false
notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore,
although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall
toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a
simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss
Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first
much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students
and their friends together, the older woman could often give her
students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of
young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be
excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had
positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted
from either the Junior or Senior girls.

It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at
eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into
Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but
really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in
overcoming her shyness.

Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown
to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of
Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance
and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a
pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so
pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?

But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of
Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her
friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation
girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep
rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by
accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was
particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her
hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance
made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.

“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I
think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”

“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously.
“I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t
Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected
in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy
and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”

Olive colored, but did not reply at once.

“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would have some
influence with you and not let you be so pokey and unfriendly. I am sure
I have tried in vain to stir you up and now I think I’ll write Jack and
Ruth how you are behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good
times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean, knowing that
Olive did not yet understand how her failure to be invited into either
sorority was influencing her chance for the class election, yet had the
grace to turn her face away.

For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or Ruth, Jean,”
she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know I am not a success at
school and if you tell them that no one here likes me they will then
know that I am unhappy and will be worried, and Jack must not have any
worry now. It isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are
mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter with me,
Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”

In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her
warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you
and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake.
Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be
friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in
some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else
her classmates must see how charming she was.

Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes would soon
be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s, who would be noticing
her unpopularity. And would she know a single guest at the dance?

Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that Jean and
Olive went down to the big reception rooms together, holding each
other’s hands like little girls.




CHAPTER VII

CINDERELLA


To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that she desired
her students at Primrose Hall to grow into something more useful than
mere society women. Her ambition was to have them fill many important
positions in the modern world now offering such big opportunities to
clever women. Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold
perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just always and
interested in their welfare. But then none of her girls knew the story
of her youth nor realized that the last life she had ever expected for
herself in her rich and brilliant girlhood was that of a mistress of a
fashionable boarding school. Years before, Katherine Winthrop had been
the belle and beauty of the countryside, a toast in New York City and in
the homes of the old Dutch and English families along the Hudson River,
until she had let her pride spoil the one romance of her life. By and
by, when her father died and her family fortune disappeared, she had
then opened up her old home as a girls’ boarding school and her
aristocratic connections and old name immediately made Primrose Hall
both fashionable and popular, until now its mere name lent its students
an assured social prestige. Nevertheless, Miss Winthrop wished her
school to be something more than fashionable. Indeed, this thought had
been in her mind when she had chosen the ranch girls for her pupils from
among a list of fifty or more applicants whom she had been obliged to
refuse. There was little in the life of her school which she did not see
and understand, and now her hope was that Jean and Olive and Frieda,
with their freedom from snobbery, their simplicity and broader way of
looking at things, would bring the element most needed into their mere
money-loving and conventional eastern atmosphere. Though no one had
mentioned it to her, she had already observed Jean’s great popularity
with her classmates, Frieda’s good time among the younger girls and
Olive’s failure to make friends. What was the trouble with this third
ranch girl?

Although Miss Winthrop had been particularly busy for the past month in
getting her school into good working order, she had not forgotten the
peculiar emotion that Olive had awakened in her at their first meeting.
Because the child was unusual in her manner and appearance was scarcely
a sufficient reason for the universal prejudice against her, and
to-night, at the first dance of the school season, Miss Winthrop had
determined to watch Olive closely and find out for herself wherein lay
the difficulty. Jessica Hunt was receiving with Miss Winthrop to-night
and had also wondered how Olive would stand the ordeal of their first
evening entertainment. For the dances at Primrose Hall were not
informal, it being a part of the principal’s idea that they should train
her girls for social life in any part of the world where in later years
circumstances might chance to take them.

Miss Winthrop, her teachers and students, always appeared in full
evening dress at these entertainments, and this evening Miss Winthrop
wore a plain black velvet gown with a small diamond star at her throat,
a piece of jewelry for which she had a peculiar affection. Jessica Hunt,
who was standing next her, was in pure white, so that her blue eyes and
the bronze-gold of her hair (so like Jack’s, Olive had thought) made a
striking contrast with the darker, sterner beauty of the older woman.
Though there were a dozen or more of the Primrose Hall girls grouped
about the two women when Jean and Olive entered the reception room
together, both of them immediately saw and watched them as they came
slowly forward.

The eyes of Jean, the flush and sparkle of her, spoke of her
anticipation of unutterable delights. Yet who should know, as she moved
through the room with an expression of fine unconsciousness, that this
was the first really formal party she had ever attended in her life.
Neither her blush nor her dimple betrayed her, although she was
perfectly aware that a number of youths in long-tailed coats and black
trousers, wearing immaculate white gloves and ties, had stopped talking
for several moments to their girl friends in order to glance at Olive
and at her. She even saw, without appearing to lift her lids, that a
tall, blonde fellow standing near her friend, Margaret Belknap, was
deliberately staring at her through a pair of eyeglasses. And at once
Jean decided that the young man was extremely ugly in spite of his
fashionable clothes and therefore not to be compared to Ralph Merrit or
other simple western fellows whom she had known in the past.

Perhaps five minutes were required for this list of Jean’s passing
observations in her forward progress toward Miss Winthrop, and yet in
the same length of time Olive, who was close beside her, had seen
nothing “but a sea of unknown faces.” Even her school companions
to-night in their frocks of silk and lace looked unfamiliar. And yet
somehow, with Jean’s assistance, she also managed to arrive in front of
Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt and to pay her respects to them. Then,
still sticking close to Jean, she was soon borne off for a short
distance and there surrounded by a group of Jean’s girl friends.

Half a dozen or more of them, Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap in the
number, had come up with their cousins, brothers and friends to meet
Jean Bruce and to fill up her dance card. They were, of course, also
introduced to Olive, but as she did not speak, no one noticed her
particularly and no one invited her to dance. Jean had not intended to
desert Olive, but when the music of the first waltz began she forgot her
and marched off with an enthusiastic partner, who had asked Gerry
Ferrows to introduce him to the most fascinating girl in the room, and
Gerry had unhesitatingly chosen Jean.

There were two or three other girls and young men standing near Olive
when Jean had turned away, but a few seconds later and she was entirely
alone.

Is there greater anguish than for a shy girl unaccustomed to society to
find herself solitary in a crowded ballroom? At first Olive felt
desperate, knowing that her cheeks were crimson with shame and fearing
that her eyes were filling with tears. Then looking about her she soon
discovered a group of palms in a corner of the room not far away and
guessed that she could find shelter behind them. Slipping across she
came upon a small sofa hidden behind the evergreens, and with a little
sigh of thanksgiving sank down upon it. Soon after Olive began to grow
serene, for from her retreat she could watch the dancers and see what a
good time Jean and Frieda were having without being seen herself. Once
she almost laughed aloud as Frieda waltzed by her hiding place—Frieda,
who had been a fat, little girl with long plaits down her back just a
few weeks ago, now attired in a blue silk and lace, was whirling about
on the arm of a long-legged boy who had such a small nose and ridiculous
quantity of blonde curls that he might almost have been Frieda’s twin
brother. Five minutes later Olive decided that Jean was the belle of the
evening and that she would write the news to Jack to-morrow, for
apparently every young man in the ballroom was wishing to dance with
her. Even the supercilious fellow with the eyeglasses, whom Olive
recognized as Margaret Belknap’s much-talked-of Harvard brother, could
be seen dancing attendance on Jean.

Twenty minutes, half an hour must have passed by in this fashion until
Olive felt perfectly safe in her green retreat, when unexpectedly a hand
was laid upon her shoulder and a voice said sternly, “What in the world,
child, are you doing hiding yourself in here? When I said you could not
stay up in your room to-night it was because I desired you to take part
in the dancing; there really isn’t much difference between your being
concealed up there or here.”

And then to Olive’s discouragement an absurd catch in her breath made
her unable to answer at once.

Olive’s retreat behind the palms had not been unnoticed as she had
thought, for both Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt had seen first her
embarrassment at being left alone and next her withdrawal. In much the
same fashion that Jack would have followed, Jessica had wished to rush
off at once to comfort Olive, but Miss Winthrop had held her back.

“What is the difficulty about this girl, Jessica, what makes her so
unpopular?” she had asked when every one else was out of hearing. “I
wish you would tell me if you know any explanation for it.”

But Jessica had only been able to shake her head, answering, “I can’t
for the life of me understand. There are a good many little things that
Olive does not seem to know, and yet, as she studies very hard, I
believe she will soon be one of the honor girls in my class. I have a
friend in New York, or an acquaintance rather,” and here Jessica blushed
unaccountably, “who seems to know the ranch girls very well. Perhaps I
had best ask him if there is anything unusual about Olive.”

But the older woman had interrupted, “No, I had rather you would ask no
questions, at least not now please, Jessica, for I have heard at least a
part of the girl’s history, and yet I believe the real truth is not
known to any one and perhaps never will be. It may be happier for Olive
if it never is found out, but I wish we could teach her not to be so
sensitive.” And then when the opportunity arrived Miss Winthrop had
moved across the room to where Olive was in hiding. As the girl’s
startled brown eyes were upturned to hers Miss Winthrop, who was not
poetic, yet thought that her pupil in her pale green dress with her
queer pointed chin and her air of mystery, somehow suggested a girl from
some old fairy legend of the sea. And she wondered why the girls and
young men in the ballroom had not also seen Olive’s unusual beauty,
forgetting that young people seldom admire what is out of the ordinary.

Some impulse after her first speech to Olive made the older woman
quickly put out her hand, clasping Olive’s slender brown fingers in
hers. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she said in a voice that was gentler than
usual, “for I understand it is timidity that is making you hide
yourself. Don’t you think though that you would enjoy dancing?”

Olive’s face was suddenly aglow. “I should love it,” she returned,
forgetting for the instant her shyness, “only no one has invited me.”
Then as her teacher suddenly rose to her feet, as though intending to
find her a partner, with a sudden accession of dignity and fearlessness
Olive drew her down again. “Please don’t ask anyone to dance with me,
Miss Winthrop,” she begged; “if you will sit by me for a little while I
am sure it will be delightful just watching the others.”

While the woman and girl were quietly gazing at the dancers, Miss
Winthrop happened to notice a silver chain with a cross at the end of
it, which Olive was wearing around her throat. Leaning over she took the
cross in her hand. “This is an odd piece of jewelry, child, and must be
very old; it is so heavy that I wonder if there is anything concealed
inside it.”

Olive shook her head. “No, that is, I don’t know anything about it,
except that I hope it once belonged to my mother,” she replied. For some
strange reason this shy girl was speaking of her mother to a comparative
stranger, when she rarely had spoken the name even to her best beloved
friend, Jacqueline Ralston.

But before Miss Winthrop had time to reply a new voice startled both of
them. “Why, Olive Ralston,” it exclaimed, “what do you mean by hiding
yourself away with Miss Winthrop when I have been searching the house
over for you.”

Turning around, to her intense surprise, Olive now beheld Donald Harmon
standing near them, the young fellow whose father had rented the Rainbow
Ranch from the Ralston girls the summer before and whose sister had been
responsible for Jack Ralston’s fall over the cliff.

“I wonder why you would not tell Olive that I was to be one of your
guests to-night, Miss Winthrop,” he continued, “and that my aunt is your
old friend and lives near Primrose Hall.”

While Miss Winthrop was laughing and protesting that she had no idea
that Olive and Donald could know each other, Donald was trying to
persuade Olive out on the ballroom floor for her first dance with him.
By accident it happened to be a Spanish waltz and Olive had not danced
it before, but she had been watching the other girls. Donald was an
excellent partner and in five minutes she might have been dancing it all
her life.

Now dancing with Olive and with Jean was quite a different art, although
both of the girls were beautiful dancers. Jean was gay and vivacious,
full of grace and activity, keeping excellent time to the music, but
Olive seemed to move like a flower that is swayed by the wind, hardly
conscious of what she was dancing or how she was dancing it and yet
yielding her body to every note of the music and movement of her
partner.

By and by, as Olive and Donald continued their dancing, many of the
others stopped and at once the young men demanded to be told who Olive
was and why she had been hidden away from their sight until now?
Whatever replies the girls may have made to these questions, they did
not apparently affect their questioners, for from the time of her first
dance until the close of the evening Olive no longer lacked for
partners. She did not talk very much, but her eyes shone and her cheeks
grew crimson with pleasure and now and then her low laugh rang out, and
always she could dance. What did conversation at a ball amount to anyhow
when movement was the thing, and this stranger girl could dance like a
fairy princess just awakened from a long enchantment?

Donald Harmon grew sorry later in the evening that he had ever brought
Olive forth from her retreat, but just before midnight, when Primrose
Hall parties must always come to an end, he did manage to get her away
for a moment out on the veranda, where chairs were placed so that the
young people could rest and talk.




CHAPTER VIII

SHADOWS BEFORE


The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded
electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a
corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for
he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten
the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the
peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.

But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really
liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently
brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude
on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your
mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
coldness.

Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both
unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend
Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot.
But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just
come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from
college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls
again,” he ended honestly.

“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a
glimpse of Jean or Frieda.

“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with
them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack
of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can
easily walk over.”

Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have
us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what
seemed to her a reasonable excuse.

Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner.
“Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss
Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest
friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were
girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is
always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps
some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss
Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she
always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown
too old and too cranky to leave her place.”

Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald
had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry
to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with
more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will
be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white
house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer
gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”

The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are
dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as
children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our
family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of
color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial
lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the
walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”

Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I
made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I
think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house
somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few
questions.”

At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes
and a voice asked:

    “Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
    Whose hands about thee are entwined?”

The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come
up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry
Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with
Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the
others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive
to do but to try to talk to Cecil.

Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than
Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that
for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean
laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through
the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean
smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a
moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up
a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had
evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping
over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was
struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior
companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single
remark.

Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for
having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned
to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to
think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she
is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
and inscrutable.”

Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small
ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account
of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a
Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was
impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had
added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy?
Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now
hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.

However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive
aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and
annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past
hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single
time. Has she spoken to you?”

Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,”
she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though
we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”

But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up
airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it
is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly
twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child
should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they
have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”

“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to
be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see,
we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to
her independence.”

But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of
family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this
moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened
to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to
boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began
to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.

Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired
her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later
Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and
Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald
would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second
best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced
upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other
dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had
promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.

So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching
Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for
Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue,
Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in
the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would
have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the
western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice
to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might
induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared
particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman.
Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes
a martyr of himself for her sake!

However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls
were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great
room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone
away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop
and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and
yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose
Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and
what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten
into some kind of mischief?”

Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been
said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But
outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such
a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
good-night long ago.”

Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the
room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was
not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.

Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says
Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what
on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and
will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then
if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a
little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to
her, she was both angry and frightened.

“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly,
knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss
Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might
be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads
than the disappearance of one.

“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you
prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t
help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here
in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of
bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls
bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.




CHAPTER IX

FRIEDA’S MISTAKE


Jean had on her blanket wrapper and had taken down her hair, but Olive,
still fully dressed, kept darting from her own bedroom to Jean’s and
Frieda’s, peering out both doors for a sign of the wanderer.

Finally Jean turned to her. “Come on, Olive, I don’t care in the least
what Miss Winthrop does to Frieda when she finds out how she has
behaved, but you and I must go to look for her.”

Jean and Olive were half-way out in the hall, where the lights were now
being turned low, when a figure brushed by them. “Please let me get into
my own room,” a voice said peevishly, and nothing loath, the three
figures returned inside the room. “Begin undressing at once, Frieda
Ralston,” Jean commanded, “and don’t say one word in explanation or
excuse until Rebecca Sterne has gone by our room, for it is just barely
possible that she may not have seen you sneaking along the hall.”

Jean spoke in tones of the utmost severity and even Olive gazed upon the
youngest ranch girl with an expression of disapproval.

The preceptress’s knock came at this very instant.

“Whatever are you doing in your ball gown, Frieda?” Miss Sterne
inquired, with her head on one side, gazing about through her large horn
spectacles that Olive had so promptly disliked, like a wise old owl.

“And you, Miss Ralston, why aren’t you in your own room?” she continued,
“you know you are not expected to enter another girl’s sleeping
apartment after the hour for retiring.”

Without replying Olive promptly slipped back into her own room and
rapidly began making ready for bed, not returning to talk to Jean or to
Frieda even when Miss Sterne’s retreating footsteps were far out of
hearing.

And only once in the next ten minutes did she understand what the other
two ranch girls were saying and then it was Jean’s tones that were the
more distinct.

Frieda was quietly slipping off a pale blue silk stocking and slipper,
keeping her eyes fastened conscientiously on the floor, when Jean, now
in her night gown, planted herself before her. “Where have you been all
this time, Frieda Ralston, and why didn’t you and Mollie Johnson say
good-night to Miss Winthrop when the rest of us did?”

Frieda looked up, her eyes, almost the color of her blue stockings,
swimming in tears. “I was in the back hall, Jean, and I didn’t dream of
its being so late. Do you think Miss Winthrop noticed?” the culprit
faltered.

Jean cruelly bowed her head. “What is there that goes on in this school,
Frieda, that escapes Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I suppose you will
be able to explain to her in the morning why you were in the back hall
instead of in the parlor with her guests, as you never seem to care to
tell anything to Olive or to me any more. Please hurry to bed.”

Frieda was very angry at Jean’s superior air, but her own heart was
quaking and her lips trembling, so that she could not answer back in the
cool fashion she desired. “Mollie Johnson was with me,” she managed to
say, “and two boys.”

Jean might have been the late Empress Dowager of China or the present
Czarina of Russia, so majestic was her manner as she sat up in bed with
her arms folded before her.

“I had no idea you were alone, Frieda,” she said firmly, “but will you
please tell me why you went to the back hall when you knew perfectly
well that Miss Winthrop was trusting you to behave like a lady and
remain in the rooms where she was receiving her guests. I don’t know
what Ruth and Jack will say.”

Frieda began to cry softly. “We were so hungry, Jean,” she murmured,
struggling to braid her long locks of flaxen hair. “You see, we had only
ices and cake for the party, and about eleven o’clock Tom Parker, the
boy I was with, said he wished he had a sandwich, and I was just as
hungry for one, so we found Mollie and another boy and slipped out of
the dining room. Mrs. White, the housekeeper, was up and back in the
pantry and she gave us cheese and pie and all sorts of good things.” And
now Frieda’s courage returning in a small measure, she turned out the
electric lights, hopping into bed. “I am not going to be treated like a
criminal, though, Jean Bruce, so I shan’t tell you anything more,” she
ended, burying herself under the cover.

So half an hour passed and supposedly the three ranch girls were sound
asleep, though in reality the three of them were still wide awake.

Jean and Olive were both worrying over Frieda, not yet understanding the
real facts of her escape, and Frieda was longing with all her might for
some one to sympathize with her and help her in her scrape, some one who
would let her cry herself out.

By and by Olive crept softly from her room to Jean’s bedside. “Jean, has
Frieda explained things to you?” she whispered.

Jean sighed. “She said they were hungry, she and Mollie and two boys,
and that they went into the pantry and had something to eat, but she
didn’t say why they stayed in the back hall afterwards. They couldn’t
have kept on eating pickles and cheese for over an hour.” And both girls
giggled softly in spite of their worry, for was it not like little
greedy baby Frieda to have required extra food just as she was
constantly doing on their long trip through the Yellowstone the summer
before?

“Well, it all sounds pretty simple, Jean,” Olive comforted, “and I don’t
think Miss Winthrop will be very angry when she hears that the pantry
was the difficulty, for she knows how good the housekeeper is to all the
little girls.”

“It isn’t the pantry that worries me; it’s the back hall.” Jean’s voice
became low and impressive, “What do you suppose that Frieda Ralston
could have to talk about to a—boy?”

A stifled sob at this moment shook the bed-clothes and both older girls
started, guiltily. Reaching over, Olive patted the outside of the
blanket.

“Were you talking to the boy, Frieda?” she inquired in a sterner manner
than was usual to her, “or were all four of you just sitting around
having a jolly time together?” Now that Frieda’s sobs assured the other
two girls that she was awake, they were glad enough to be able to go on
with her cross-examination.

“I was talking to the boy all by myself,” Frieda’s reply was
unhesitating though somewhat choked. “Mollie and the other boy were
sitting on a higher step and the servants were around, but no one told
us how late it was.”

“Well, what were you talking about that you found so interesting that
you could not hear the clock strike twelve, or the ‘Home, Sweet Home’
waltz, or the good-byes being said?” Jean demanded fiercely.

This time Frieda made not the least effort to restrain her sorrow, for
the bed fairly shook with her weeping. “We were talking about worms!”
she sobbed.

“Worms!” Olive and Jean repeated in chorus, believing that they could
not have heard aright.

“Oh, yes, worms and flies,” the culprit continued. “You see, we got to
talking about fishing and Tom Parker said he loved it better than most
anything he ever did and some summers he goes way up into the Maine
woods and fishes in the lakes for trout. He uses flies for bait always,
but I told him that we fished with worms in Rainbow Creek and sometimes
when it wouldn’t rain for a long time we used to have to dig way down
under the ground to find them. I told him too how once I started a
fishing worm aquarium and kept all the worms I could dig up in a glass
bowl to sell to Jim and the cowboys whenever they wished to go fishing.”

Frieda did not further endeavor to outline her grown-up conversation
with her first admirer, feeling too angry and too puzzled to go on for
the minute, for her former irate judges were now holding their sides and
doing their level best to keep from shrieking with laughter.

“And I was afraid she was talking sentiment instead of fishing worms,”
Jean whispered in Olive’s ear.

Around to the other side of the bed Olive went to tuck the covers more
closely about Frieda. “Go to sleep, baby, and dream of Jack,” she
comforted, “and perhaps Miss Winthrop will never hear of your mistaking
the time for saying good-night.”

“And if she does hear, you’ll ask her to forgive me,” Frieda returned
sleepily, “for I believe she likes you, Olive, better than most any of
the girls. I have seen her looking at you so strangely every now and
then.”

In another half minute Frieda was fast asleep, not feeling so penitent
over her escapade as the two older ranch girls supposed. But Frieda had
always been a good deal spoiled and, as Miss Winthrop had not noticed
her failure to say good-night, no further scolding impressed her fault
upon her mind. Perhaps this was unfortunate, for it is better that both
little girls and big receive their punishment for a fault so soon as the
fault is committed, in order not to keep on growing naughtier and
naughtier until Fate punishes us for many sins at once.




CHAPTER X

THE HOUSE OF MEMORY


After lunch the day following the dance, as it chanced to be Saturday
afternoon, Jean came into the ranch girls’ sitting room looking for
Olive and Frieda. She had been playing basketball for the past two hours
and in spite of having known nothing of the game on her arrival at
school, was already one of its acknowledged champions. But although
Jean’s cheeks were glowing and her hair in a tumbled mass above her
face, her expression was uncommonly serious and in her hand she held a
bundle of letters. One she tossed to Frieda, who was curled up on a sofa
nursing a small cold due to her frivolity, and two to Olive, keeping two
for herself.

Olive quickly tore open the letter addressed to her in Jack’s
handwriting and Frieda followed suit. When Jack had first been taken to
the hospital and there compelled to lie always flat on her back, her
handwriting had been difficult to read, but now that she had gotten used
to this method of writing, her stroke was again as vigorous and
characteristic as of old.

Frieda, after reading a few lines, smiled up at the other girls. “Jack
says she is getting on very well and we are to see her in a few
weeks—perhaps,” she announced.

Olive looked over at Jean. “It is worse than Jack writes, of course,
isn’t it?” she asked. “I suppose Ruth has written you, for Jack never
tells anything but the best news of herself.”

“There may be an operation or something of the sort later on,” Jean
conceded, “Ruth does not say positively, for it may not be for some
months yet. Only if the operation does have to take place Jack has
demanded that Jim come on from the ranch to New York, leaving Ralph
Merrit to look after things at the mine. Jim would come now, but things
are in a bit of a tangle. I wonder how Ruth will behave if Jim does
come?” And Jean sighed.

An interested expression, crossed Frieda’s face. “Why should she behave
in any special way?” she inquired, sitting straight up on the couch to
gaze from Olive to Jean.

Quickly the subject of conversation needed to be changed, for Frieda was
the only one of the four ranch girls who knew nothing of what had
happened at the ranch between Jim Colter, their overseer, and Ruth Drew,
their chaperon. What had come between the two lovers only Jack Ralston
understood, but Olive and Jean were both perfectly aware that Jim and
Ruth had seemed to care a great deal for one another and then some
mysterious misunderstanding had suddenly parted them.

“I wonder if old Jack looks very badly,” Jean suggested, knowing this
would surely divert Frieda’s attention to one theme. “Sometimes I wish
for Jack’s sake that we were all back at Rainbow Lodge, for there she
was able to be out in the air a part of the time and now—” The vision of
Jack lying helpless at the hospital was too much for the three girls, so
that there was a moment of painful silence in the room. Then Jean said
more cheerfully after re-reading the latter part of Ruth’s letter: “Jim
says that Ralph Merrit is doing perfectly splendid work at the mine and
that he is a trump. Do you know I am rather vain of having discovered
Ralph that day in the wilderness, considering how well he has turned
out; Jim likes him a lot better than he does Frank Kent.”

The young lady on the sofa with the cold had not yet forgiven Jean for
last night’s scolding. Now she turned up her small nose a trifle more
than usual. “Oh, you just say that because Ralph likes you best and
Frank Kent is more fond of Jack,” she answered scornfully. And Jean
flushed.

“That is not true, Frieda. Of course it is only natural that Jim should
like Ralph better because Ralph is poor and has to make his own way in
the world just as Jim has; and Frank Kent, though he is awfully simple
and a thorough good fellow, is the son of an English Lord and may have a
title himself some day.”

“Then wouldn’t it be splendid if Jack should become an English lady and
own country estates and ride to hounds?” Frieda suggested more
peacefully, gazing across the room at Frank Kent’s photograph, which
ornamented the bookshelf. “I think I should love to be introduced into
English society and talk to earls and princes and things,” she ended
lamely.

A fine sarcasm curled Jean’s lips, though her eyes sparkled with
mischief. “Talk to earls and princes and things about fishing worms,
baby?” she queried with studied politeness.

And promptly Frieda, flushing quite up to her ears, hurled a sofa
cushion at Jean, which Olive caught, saying gently:

“Please don’t let’s quarrel, children, we never used to at the Lodge.
What would Ruth think of us?” And picking up a second letter that Jean
had brought to her, she began to read it.

Jean sat penitently down on the sofa trying to kiss Frieda, who
resolutely covered up her head. “Come on and get dressed, infant; no,
your cold isn’t too bad for you to come. Olive is reading a note of
invitation from Mrs. Harmon for us to come over to ‘The Towers’ to have
tea and Miss Winthrop and Jessica Hunt are to go with us.”

But the rôle of invalid was too precious a one and too seldom enjoyed by
the youngest Miss Ralston for her to surrender it easily.

“I am too sick, please tell Mrs. Harmon,” she protested resolutely;
“only if they have any candy or cake and happen to mention sending me
some you might bring it along. And I do wish both you girls would go out
for a while, for Mollie is coming to spend the afternoon with me after
she finishes her music lesson and we would love to have the sitting room
to ourselves.”

“I hope, Olive, that you know when you are not wanted without being
actually knocked over by the broadness of the hint,” Jean said, seeing
that Olive was hesitating about what she should do. “Come along, it will
do us both good to get away and not to sit here thinking about what we
can’t help,” she ended.

While both girls were putting on their best afternoon frocks preparatory
to starting forth on their visit, in the silence of her own room Olive
was trying to persuade herself that her hesitation in going for the call
upon the Harmons was because she dreaded to be reminded by the sight of
Elizabeth of the old tragedy to Jack. But there was something more than
this in her mind, for actually she dreaded entering the big white house
which had given her such an uncomfortable sensation the moment her eyes
had rested upon it. Yet what connection could she have ever had with an
old place like “The Towers,” or any house resembling it? Her impression
that she must have seen the house somewhere before was sheer madness,
for was it not an old Dutch mansion, perhaps built hundreds of years
ago, and certainly wholly unlike any of the ranch houses out West?

Olive resolutely put all the ridiculous ideas that had annoyed her out
of her mind and with Jessica Hunt, Miss Winthrop and Jean started gayly
forth on their walk. It was about four o’clock in the late November
afternoon and instead of following the path through the woods, the
little party set out along the lane that led through an exquisite part
of the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood. Crossing a little brook they climbed
a short hill and from the top of it could see at some distance off the
spire of the old Sleepy Hollow church and on the other side the Hudson
River with the autumn mists rising above it like breath from its deep
hidden lungs.

Jessica and Olive were together, Jean and Miss Winthrop. As Olive was
particularly silent, Jessica drew her arm through hers. “This is a land
of legends and of dreams about here, dear, and some day I must take you
western girls about the country and show you the historic places nearby.
Do you know anything about them?” she asked.

But Olive was dreaming or else stupid, for she only shook her head. “I
don’t know,” she answered, “the country does seem somehow familiar, yet
it did not at first. Don’t you believe that all the world, at least the
world of outside things, of hills and trees and valleys and water,
somehow belongs alike to all of us and once we have seen a landscape and
moved about in it, why we are at home. There isn’t any strangeness in
nature, there can’t be; it is only people and houses and streets that
are odd and unlike and fail to belong to us.”

Donald Harmon met his four guests some yards up the road on their
approach to the house. As he was holding a great St. Bernard dog by the
collar and as it bounded away from him all of a sudden, nearly upsetting
Olive and Jessica in the rapture of its welcome, the little party
entered “The Towers” with too much laughter and excitement for Olive to
feel any self-consciousness or emotion. Indeed, she quite forgot all of
her past foolishness in meeting Mrs. Harmon and Elizabeth again after so
many eventful months. Elizabeth was able to walk about the room quite
easily and of course her first inquiry was for Jack.

Without a chance for exchanging views, Jean and Olive both decided
at once that the drawing room at “The Towers,” in spite of its
magnificence, was one of the darkest and most unattractive rooms either
of them had ever seen. For everything was very stiff and formal and
without life or fragrance. Carved black furniture sat stiffly against
the walls, which were hung with old portraits of men and women in high
fluted ruffs, with gorgeous embroidered clothes and hard, cold faces.
Over in one corner stood a tea table piled with silver and white linen
and having a large arm chair near it carved like a throne. And behind
this chair was a portrait of a beautiful boy of ten or twelve, who
looked a little like Donald Harmon.

“My aunt will be down in a few minutes, Katherine,” Mrs. Harmon had said
as soon as her guests were seated. “She has asked us to wait tea for
her.” And Jean and Olive both noticed that Mrs. Harmon’s manner was a
little constrained and that she kept looking at Olive as though she
intended asking her some question, but as the question was never asked,
the girls must have been mistaken. However, the conversation in the
little company did not become general, for no one except Miss Winthrop
seemed to feel at ease, until by and by the tap, tap, tap of a long
stick was heard coming along the hall and with a low bow the butler
flung open the drawing room door.

Everybody sat up straighter in their high-back chairs; Jean could not
forbear a slight wink at Donald, but Olive felt her heart rise up in her
throat. Why on earth was the old mistress of “The Towers” so formidable
that the entire neighborhood felt an awe of her? Olive was rather sorry
that she was competing for one of her prizes offered to the Junior
students at Primrose Hall.

“Madame Van Mater,” the butler announced very distinctly and at the name
of the owner of the white house, which Olive now heard for the first
time since her arrival at Primrose Hall, the young girl caught at the
sides of her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. Then when no one was
looking at her, smiled at herself and turned her gaze curiously on their
ancient hostess.




CHAPTER XI

“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”


For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom there is
no English expression so good as the French, “a grande dame.”

There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but she
stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with brilliant,
hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and slightly inclining her
head. Then she walked over to the high, carved chair near the tea table
and sat down under the picture of the little boy. Feeble from old age,
she was yet of too determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for
when Donald tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned
it away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head by a
careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of age, was yet as
delicately powdered and rouged as if she had been an actress about to
make her debut, and she was carefully dressed in a gown of deep purple
silk with lace at her throat and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort
could hide the ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the
coldness of her air and expression suggested that she would have
repelled grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.

The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful after
its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed to be able to
speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was plainly ill at ease and
even Elizabeth had been taught to treat this wealthy old aunt, whose
fortune she expected some day to share with her brother, with more
respect than she showed to any one else in the world.

Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had huddled
close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having little to say to
one another.

Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was barely able
to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater said, “bring the girl,
whom you tell me you met in the West and who bears so strange a
resemblance to your mother, closer to me. I think all resemblances are
ridiculous and yet you have made me curious.”

Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of all
things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for her to do in
this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead her across the room
to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged forgiveness for the old woman’s
peremptory manner, and yet he showed no sign of disobedience.

“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the dusk was
creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing her hostess,
Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.

It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers even to
raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared straight at Madame Van
Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as hers and almost as searching
and haughty. For Olive’s emotion was immediately one of the deepest
antagonism toward this woman, however old she might be, who summoned her
as a queen might summon a subject.

Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her slowly
through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of course, resting
longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she drew one of relief as she
turned again to Donald and to Mrs. Harmon? “I do not see the least
likeness in this girl to any member of my family,” she announced.
“Whatever her name may be, her appearance is quite foreign and I should
prefer never to have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.”
And nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her
seat.

But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her drawing
her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she murmured. “I had
not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has seemed to me that I have
seen some one a little like you somewhere, I fancied in some old
picture.” Then smiling she shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I
see any likeness to your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is
enough of a suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”

And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair, where she
sat down pretending to look out of the window, though all the time she
was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in which she had just been
compelled to play an unwilling part. Why, because she was so uncertain
of her ancestry, should she be forced to go through these moments that
made the fact more bitterly painful to her?

Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls had tried
their best to keep her story from the ears of the Harmons during their
stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald, his sister and mother had
learned through Aunt Ellen, through the cowboys on the ranch and through
one or two of their closest neighbors. And for this reason the young
fellow was perhaps even more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he
wished very much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into
which his own idle talk had led her.

Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and Miss
Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with me?” he
asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I am sure that
Elizabeth will excuse us.”

Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being left with
only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was the only one of the
ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she made no objection,
particularly as no one waited for her to speak. For Jean fairly bounced
from her chair with relief, Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon
after, feeling that she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged
to remain another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The
Towers.”

Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared suddenly to
have been released from prison. Jean danced a two-step, Jessica clapped
her hands softly together and Olive laughed, while Donald straightway
plunged head first up the dark mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he
begged, “for there isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well
enough to tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great
view that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have
rather a long climb.”

Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then Jessica.
Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like those in any
ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral resembling the steps in
a lighthouse. About midway up these steps Jessica noticed that Olive
paused, pressing her hands to her eyes as though to shut out some idea
or some vision that assailed her, and that she wavered as though she
felt faint.

“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired, knowing that
climbing to unexpected heights often has this effect on sensitive
persons. And though Olive now shook her head, moving on again, Jessica
determined to watch her.

To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a small,
closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big, spacious apartment out
of which the little gabled windows winked like so many friendly eyes.
The room was fitted up as a boy’s room with a bed apparently just ready
to be slept in, there was a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but
the bookcases were filled with books of all kinds and for all ages,
French, Spanish and German books and plays from the days of the miracle
plays down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a
long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which seemed to
be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols were hung on the
walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete figure of a knight in
armor stood in one corner. Curious why these masculine trophies should
interest a girl, and yet for some reason they did interest Olive, for
she waited there alone; Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one
of the windows were gazing out over the countryside made famous the
world over through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of
Dreams.”

Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to see the
view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in the next few
minutes.”

And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also looked out
the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the bridge over which
they had lately passed, with the stretch of woodlands to one side and
the autumn-colored hills rising in the background. Very quietly she
began to speak:

“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little
valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the
quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it,
with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional
whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound
that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.”

These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape and her
lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of poetry long ago
forgotten and now brought back to mind by the objects that inspired it.

It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to herself by
reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement, but neither Donald
Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least surprised and after a moment,
as though again striking the strings of her memory, the young girl went
on: “If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the
world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a
troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.”
And then her recitation abruptly ended.

“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded; “or tell
us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur of the moment to
impress your English teacher?”

Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is repeating! I
should have taught it you before now, but Olive seems to have gotten
ahead of me and learned it first.”

“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing a thing
like that and then waiting for a critical minute to recite it so as to
impress her audience. I never should have suspected her!”

But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica said in
explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington Irving’s
description of this countryside, which he gives in his ‘Legend of Sleepy
Hollow,’ and when you get back to school, Jean, I advise you to ask
Olive to lend you her book.”

Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to Primrose
Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first both the woman
and the girl were silent, but as they neared the school Olive spoke
suddenly:

“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the feeling
of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking that you have been
there before, seen the same things or people and even heard the same
words said?”

Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and yet not
appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s expression was both
puzzled and intent.

“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered. “No one
can understand or explain it very well, but the impression is more apt
to come to you when you are young. I can recall once having gone into a
ballroom and there having had some one make a perfectly ordinary speech
to me and yet I had a sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was
I that at some past time I had been in the same place, under the same
circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the time it
was impossible.”

“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in a
certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into one’s mind
without our remembering where we have learned it before,” Olive
persisted.

Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said quietly,
“I think there are many wonderful things in the world around us that we
do not believe in because we do not yet understand them, just as long
years ago men and women did not believe that our world was round because
it had not then been revealed to them. And so I do not understand about
these strange psychical experiences about which we have just been
talking. But I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most
remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In this
story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the hero’s mind
from the time he is a little boy all through his life. He does not
understand why he remembers this song, but by and by it is explained to
the reader that this song had played an important part in the life of
one of Peter Ibbetson’s ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color
of our eyes, the shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some
far-off ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental
impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing to
understand, but the idea is interesting.”

“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the book.”

Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the darkness of
the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.

“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you ever
felt that you have been in a certain place before, where you know you
could never really have been, or have you thought suddenly of something
that you did not remember having in your mind before? But please do not
answer me if you would rather not, for I know that these queer
experiences most of us would rather keep to ourselves.”

“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women started
up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.




CHAPTER XII

WINIFRED GRAHAM AND GERRY


While Jean and Olive were having tea at “The Towers” and Frieda and
Mollie were engaged in a confidential talk in the ranch girls’ sitting
room, school politics were playing an important part in the precincts of
Primrose Hall, for Winifred Graham and Gerry Ferrows were devoting that
same Saturday afternoon to canvassing their class in order to discover
whether Jean or Winifred might hope in the following week to be elected
president of the Junior class. Gerry was electioneering for Jean, while
Winifred was conducting a personal investigation. Indeed, the situation
between these two girls was a peculiar and a difficult one, for having
once been intimate friends, they had now become violently estranged from
one another and yet continued to be room-mates. For no other reason than
because Winifred suspected Gerry’s political intentions on that Saturday
afternoon did she arrange to bring her own followers together and with
their aid to outclass Gerry, for Jean had positively refused to work for
herself, having turned over her cause to her two best friends, Gerry and
Margaret Belknap.

But before leaving for “The Towers” very early on that morning Jean and
Gerry had had a long and intimate talk over the chances for her election
and Gerry had been perfectly frank about the whole situation.

Olive was still the obstacle standing in the way of Jean’s success. If
even at this late date Jean would allow herself to be elected into one
of the sororities and thus proclaim her independence of the girl whose
presence in the school her classmates resented, she might yet win their
complete allegiance; if not—well, it was just this state of the case
that Gerry was trying to fathom. For Jean absolutely declined to turn
her back on her adopted sister and yet longed with all her heart for the
honor of the class presidency. Gerry’s own position on this question of
Olive was an exceedingly anomalous one; while she was too good a sport
to be unkind to any one in adversity, yet she did not herself care to
associate with Olive on terms of perfect equality, although she had
never mentioned this fact to Jean. And lately she had felt her own
decision waver, for since her father had written her that he had charge
of Jack Ralston’s case at his hospital and found her the pluckiest girl
he had ever seen, Gerry longed to take all the ranch girls under her
protection, and yet her prejudice still held out against Olive.

Being but human and entirely devoted to Jean, this prejudice grew deeper
on the afternoon that Gerry went from one room to the other of her
classmates, asking them point-blank whether they intended to cast their
votes for Winifred or for Jean at the coming election. Some of the girls
were quite frank. They had intended voting for Jean, but lately decided
that it would be wiser not to have as the representative of their class
a girl who claimed as her adopted sister a half-caste Indian. Others of
the Juniors hedged, they might or they might not vote for Jean, not
having entirely made up their minds between her and Winifred; a number
of them were, of course, Jean’s frank and loyal supporters and yet it
was with a feeling of discouragement that Gerry at the close of her
canvass returned to her own room. She had taken a note book with her and
written down each girl’s position in regard to the election, and yet she
could not now decide whether Jean’s prospects were good or bad. So it
was peculiarly irritating on bouncing angrily into her sitting room to
find Winifred already there before her, with her long blonde hair down
her back, and, while she was pretending to cut the pages of a magazine,
wearing a particularly cheerful and self-satisfied expression.

Winifred Graham was a very beautiful girl and perhaps not an agreeable
one, and yet she represented a type not unusual in a certain portion of
American society. As long as Winifred could remember she had been taught
these two things: By her brains and her beauty she must some day win for
herself the wealth and the position that her family had always longed to
have and yet never had quite succeeded in attaining. For always her
mother and father had been spending more money than they could afford in
trying to keep up with their friends who were richer and more prominent
than themselves. Indeed, Winifred’s presence at Primrose Hall was but
another proof of their extravagance, for they could by no means afford
the expense of such a school, yet their hope was that there Winifred
would make so many wealthy and aristocratic friends that later on they
might help her to a wealthy marriage.

But Winifred was not only ambitious socially; she had a good mind and
longed to succeed in her classes as well as in her friendships, so it
was hardly to be wondered at that she should cordially dislike the two
older ranch girls, who, coming out of nowhere and pretending to nothing,
seemed likely to prove her rivals. For, while Jean might stand in the
way of her being chosen to fill the highest position in the Junior
class, Olive was seeking to wrest from her the Shakespeare prize which
the old lady at “The Towers” offered each year to the Junior students in
Jessica Hunt’s class. Gerry Ferrows was also competing for this prize,
but as it represented a fairly large sum of money, sufficient to cover a
year’s tuition at Primrose Hall, Winifred felt that in any case it must
be hers.

She looked up and laughed mockingly as Gerry flung herself down on their
couch, closing her eyes as though she wished to take a nap.

“What luck for the fair Jean at the coming election, friend Gerry?” she
asked in an irritating fashion.

“Better luck than for the fair Winifred,” Gerry answered, none too
truthfully, but enraged at her companion’s air of calm assurance.

Winifred laughed again. “That isn’t the truth, Gerry, and you know it,
and I thought you always spoke the truth no matter if it half killed
you, being anxious to prove that women are as honest as men, as brave
and as straight-forward and as clever, and therefore should be entitled
to equal suffrage.”

Gerry now sat up on her couch challenging her foe, her homely face
crimsoning. “You are right, Winifred, I wasn’t quite truthful; I am
afraid that your chance for the presidency is better than Jean’s. But
you know that it is all because the girls here think that Olive isn’t a
fit associate for the rest of us, or else Jean would have won in a
walkover. I wonder if the story of Olive’s not knowing anything of her
parentage is true and if she is a half Indian girl? You told it me.
Where did you get the information? Perhaps after all it isn’t so!”

“Oh, the story came through the Harmons, who were out West and heard the
tale and Elizabeth’s repeating it to one of the younger girls she knew
in this school. I don’t suppose Elizabeth meant any harm in telling, for
she seemed to think that we would be pleased to have an Indian enliven
us at Primrose Hall. You may be very sure, however, that Olive and Jean
and Frieda have been very quiet about the whole question of this
objectionable Olive, but if you don’t believe the story, Gerry, why
don’t you inquire of Miss Winthrop?” Winifred ended.

Again Gerry flushed. “I have,” she answered shortly, “and Miss Winthrop
treated me with her most frozen manner. ‘If there is any mystery about
Olive Ralston’s parentage, that is her private affair,’ she said. ‘But
kindly remember that she is a student at Primrose Hall and if I thought
her unfit for the companionship of my other girls, she would not be
among you.’ You can imagine that I felt about the size of a small
caterpillar when she got through with me.” And Gerry bridled, still sore
from Miss Winthrop’s snubbing.

“You can count on Katherine Winthrop to recommend you to mind your own
business,” Winifred interposed with secret satisfaction, knowing from
Gerry’s report that Miss Winthrop had heard of Olive’s past and glad to
have the truth of the story that she had been repeating confirmed.

“But don’t you think perhaps it is unkind to be so unfriendly to a girl
for something she cannot help?” Gerry questioned, not so anxious to have
Winifred’s opinion as to clear things up in her own mind.

Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but
honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think
she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss
Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’
parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is
just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she
seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you
and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why
don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix
yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day
and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”

Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked
sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election!
And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan
that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten
things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”




CHAPTER XIII

THE APPEAL TO OLIVE


And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by
making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was
as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta
sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the
invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been
deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck
her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’
attitude toward her?

The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as
both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her
leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could
have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business;
I wish to talk to you quite alone.”

Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her
other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive
appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak
to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all
mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no
one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.

“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive
nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not
come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the
afternoon?”

But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No,
I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided,
“and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish
to say to you.”

“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one
else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”

Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were
walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the
subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.

Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure of
having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to make, and
yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s manner that made
her companion a little fearful of approaching her with advice or
entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as well to have laid this
matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last resort, Miss Winthrop, before
forging ahead. But Gerry was an ardent suffragette in the making and, as
she had determined to follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father,
she knew that indecision must never be a characteristic of the new
woman. However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl recognize
her entire friendliness before she made known her mission.

Having talked of many things together, of their love of the outdoors, of
Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at last opened up the way
for her companion’s disclosure.

“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I have not
yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me. What is it?”

And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened and she
looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this moment it had not
occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire for a private interview
with her could have any serious import, but noticing Gerry’s hesitation
and apparent embarrassment, Olive suddenly believed that she intended
questioning her about her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack
had advised her not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now
asked her for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her false,
her desire now might be to disprove it.

With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she hoped for
the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she asked again.

Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean to be
elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.

Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me. And I am
awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving Jean, for she is
awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter and all of us would
be so proud of her if she should win after being so short a time at
school.”

“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do something
to help her instead of standing in her way?” This question was even more
blunt than the first. And it hurt, because Olive bit her lips.

“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her walk and
turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me, please, how I can
help her and how I stand in the way of her election?”

At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she was not
of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a whole lot by making
her join our Theta Sorority at once and not hold back any longer because
you have not been invited to join also.”

There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine.
“Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls
tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I
thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the
matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make
me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class
president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays
out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”

Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly
for her either to add to it or to contradict.

“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what
I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very
sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a
student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I
could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth
Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much
because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West
these things do not count to so great an extent.”

To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this
proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive
seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she
had no part.

But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in
times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because
Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride,
but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses
itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated
with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with
dignity and in silence.

Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes
quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of
color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank
you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did
not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness
and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I
surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this
before.”

And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult,
though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had
intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion
across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not
angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an
apology.

“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must
not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place
so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply
don’t know what I should do!”

And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home,
walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a
characteristic of her training.

Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to
keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a
brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose
Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in
their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever
unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to
breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first
intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her
allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been
too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And
at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive
to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And
as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned
that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.

    “Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater
      than herself,
    Too noble for this place.”




CHAPTER XIV

“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”


Fortunately the two girls had not to spend a minute in looking for Jean,
for no sooner had they entered the front hall of the school than she was
seen talking with a group of friends.

“Hello,” she cried, pleased to find that Gerry and Olive had been out
together for a walk and grateful for what she thought Gerry’s
friendliness to Olive.

Olive went straight up to her, too much in earnest to be abashed by the
presence of others. “Come on up to our sitting room, Jean,” she begged,
“for Gerry and I have something to talk to you about that must be
decided at once.”

It was a pity that Olive must be in such a hurry, Gerry thought a little
impatiently, and also a pity that she had used her name in speaking to
Jean and plainly wished her to be present at their coming interview, for
there was, of course, a possibility that Jean might be a good deal vexed
at her interference. But as Jean left her other friends immediately,
slipping one arm through Olive’s and another through Gerry’s and
propelling them as rapidly as she could up the broad stairs, what was
there for Gerry to do but to surrender and let things take their course?

“Whatever weighty problem there is on your mind, Olive Ralston, that you
wish me to help you solve,” Jean exclaimed gaily, as they reached their
own door, “kindly remember that three heads are better than one, even if
one is a dunce’s head, else I should never have allowed Geraldine
Ferrows to be present at our council.” And giving each of the girls an
added shove, the three of them plunged headlong into the sitting room.

Frieda was not to be seen, but to their surprise there before their open
fire Jessica Hunt sat peacefully, holding a large open box of flowers on
her lap, with her cheeks a good deal flushed, possibly from the heat of
the fire.

“I beg your pardon, children, for having taken possession of your
apartment in this way,” she explained, “but I happen to have a present
for you sent through my care and it seemed to me that the surest way to
find you was to wait at your own hearthstone until you chose to appear.”
While Jessica was speaking she was holding out the box of flowers toward
Jean and Olive. “Mr. Drummond has sent you these with a note to me
asking me to see that you get them.”

With cries of delight the two ranch girls, pouncing on the great box,
which was brimful of violets, buried their noses in its fragrances.

“They are just too lovely and too Rainbow ranchy for anything,” Jean
exclaimed, thrusting a bunch into Gerry’s hand. “Won’t Frieda be
homesick for her violet beds when she sees them, even if she is so
enraptured with boarding school that she hardly talks of home any more?”

While Jean was speaking Olive was busily lifting the flowers from the
box. Just toward the last she discovered a separate bouquet, wrapped in
white paper and bearing a card with a name inscribed upon it.

“This is for you, Miss Hunt; it has your name upon it,” Olive announced,
trying to look entirely unconscious, although she and Jean both guessed
at once that the gift of the large box of flowers to them had been made
largely in order to include the smaller offering inside it.

Jessica, assuming a far-away expression of complete indifference, took
the flowers; they were lilies of the valley encircled with violets and
it was difficult for any girl to conceal her delight in them.

Watching her with her head slightly to one side and a dangerously demure
look on her face, Jean said suddenly, “I wonder, Miss Hunt, how long you
have known our Mr. Drummond? You see, we are awfully fond of him and he
has been very good to all of us, especially to Jack. Sometimes I have
wondered if he could think you and Jack look a little bit alike? Olive
and I think you do. But we don’t know anything about Mr. Drummond except
that he is terribly rich and terribly good looking and very kind. Can’t
you tell us something more?”

Jessica shook her head gravely. “I am afraid that is all I can tell you
about Peter, I mean Mr. Drummond, that is of any importance. Just that
he is rich and good looking and kind. He is so rich that he has never
done anything or been anything else, and I have known him a great many
years, since I was a small girl and he was a big boy and we used to live
near one another in Washington Square, before my father died and we lost
some of our money.”

“Well,” Jean returned reflectively, “it seems to me that it is a good
deal to be just rich and good looking and kind, for there are lots of
people who are not one of those three things.”

And though Jessica was not feeling especially happy at the moment,
Jean’s words made her smile. “That is true, dear,” she returned, “but I
am afraid that I want a man to be more and to mean more in this world
than just that.” She was about to leave the room when Olive put her hand
on her arm. “Don’t go, Jessica, Miss Hunt I mean,” she apologized, “but
I so often think of you as a girl like the rest of us. I want to talk to
Jean about something and I wish you to stay to help me make her behave
sensibly.”

Still unsuspicious of what Olive had in mind, but realizing now that it
was important, else she would not have called in so many persons to her
assistance, Jean put down her flowers and coming up to her friend placed
one hand on each of her shoulders, looking closely with her own
autumn-toned brown eyes into her friend’s darker ones.

“Out with it, Olive Ralston. What on earth is it that you wish me to do
that requires so much persuasion?”

And Olive, equally in earnest, likewise put her hands on Jean’s
shoulders, so that the two girls made an unconscious picture
illustrating the old proverb: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

“I want you, Jean, please not to be a goose,” Olive pleaded.

Gay laughter rang out in response. “I knew, Olive, from the first that
you were going to ask me something I could not grant,” Jean returned
plaintively. “Has any one in this world ever heard of a goose who chose
to be one?”

Her listeners could not help smiling, but Olive’s mood was too intense
for interruption. Without allowing Jean another opportunity for a
moment’s speech she began her request, imploring her to join the Theta
Society at once and not to put it off a day longer than necessary. “For
how, dear, can you do me the least good by not belonging when the girls
want you so much and when if you don’t you may lose your chance at the
Junior election,” she ended.

“And who, Olive, has been telling you that I am not already a member of
the Theta Society and that my chance for the presidency will be
influenced if I am not?” Jean inquired angrily, although she did not
glance toward any one for her answer save Olive.

But Gerry Ferrows was not in the least a coward, neither did she feel in
any sense a traitor either to Jean or to Olive, so now she moved quietly
forward.

“I told Olive, Jean,” she answered, “and you may be angry with me, but I
have no intention of playing a sneak. For the life of me I cannot see
how it will hurt Olive for you to join the Thetas without her and it
will hurt you very much in your election if you don’t. Olive is not
going to be invited to become a member if you stay out and you may lose
the class presidency if you are so obstinate.”

Olive turned to Jessica Hunt. “Won’t you please tell Jean that Gerry is
perfectly right and that there is no other way of looking at this
matter?” she entreated. “She will just break my heart if she does not,
and I can’t see a bit of sense in her position.”

“I can,” Jessica answered briefly, “but I would rather not say anything
at all until I have heard just how Jean feels about this whole
business.”

A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward Gerry.

“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because of
course I know you are being good as gold to me and only acting for what
you believe to be my good, but I don’t think either you or Olive in the
least understand my position. I am not staying out of the Theta Society
for Olive’s sake; I am staying out for my own.”

“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.

“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to
think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would be (leaving me
out of the case entirely) if that girl should win out in a big matter
like a class election by turning her back on her best friend and more
than her friend, her almost sister. And you, Olive, suppose you had no
part in this business at all, or suppose you and I had changed places,
what would you think of a girl who would say to another group of girls,
‘Yes, thank you, I am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to
enjoy your superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love
and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with you?’ I,
of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a traitor if you
will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown eyes were flashing and
her face was pale, yet she laughed a little at her own fierceness.

“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just this
thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on, “and I argued
it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt Olive by joining the
Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself that such an action would not
hurt me. See here, dear,” and Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling
as she spoke again directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to
forget our friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for
wouldn’t you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little
me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day time
and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was? No, sir-ee,”
and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude, pretending to slip her
fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the words of that famous
gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick Henry, or Daniel Webster, I
can’t remember, ‘I would rather be right than President!’”

“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I take off my
hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this question any further
with Jean, for she has just said something that we all know to be a
fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any
man.’”

Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like an
embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right, Jean,” she
conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are if you feel as you
say you do, so I shall not try to make you change your opinion.”

But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in the
center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good, but I don’t
care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself in the
way you are doing for me. I must find out how to prevent it and I warn
you now that I shall write to Jack and have her ask you to change your
mind.”

Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow to be a
poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t let us talk about
this tedious subject any longer and do let us put the kettle on and all
take tea, for I have talked so much I am nearly dying of thirst.”

Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch girls
getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for just such
occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was said until they
were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then Jean turned to Olive.

“Look here, Olive, I want to ask Gerry a question, if it won’t hurt your
feelings too much, and while Miss Hunt is here with us it seems to me
the best time to ask it. Gerry, of course we have known for some time
that there has been some gossip about Olive going the rounds of the
school, but we have never known who started it nor just what the story
is. Would you mind telling us?”

Instead of answering Gerry hesitated, her homely, kindly face showing
nervousness and discomfort.

“Is the story just that Olive does not know who her parents are and that
we ranch girls found her several years ago with an Indian woman and that
she may be of part Indian blood?” Jean continued inexorably.

Gerry nodded her head. “Yes, and the story came originally through the
Harmons, I believe, though they meant no harm.”

“Is that all the tale or has anything else been added?” her questioner
continued. And Gerry answered with her eyes on her saucer, “Yes, that is
all.”

“Then please tell every girl at Primrose Hall that what they have heard
is perfectly true,” Jean blazed, although she was trying to speak
calmly. “I can see now that we have made a mistake; it would have been
better if we had been perfectly candid about Olive’s past from the
first. There never has been a minute when we would have minded telling
it, if any one of the girls had come and asked us, but lately I have
thought that some extra story must have been hatched up about poor Olive
and joined to the true one, for I simply couldn’t believe that any human
beings could be so horrid and so stupid as the Primrose Hall girls have
been to Olive, unless they had been told something perfectly dreadful
about her. Well, I don’t think I care a snap about being class president
of such a set of girls,” Jean added impolitely, forgetting one of her
guests. “Olive Ralston, I don’t believe you are any more an Indian than
I am, but I want to say just this one more thing and then I positively
promise to stop talking: For my part I would rather have good red Indian
blood in my veins than the kind of thin white blood that must run in the
veins of such a horrid set of snobs. Gerry, dear, I do beg your pardon
and of course I don’t mean you, but if I hadn’t been allowed to speak
this out loud, I should certainly have exploded.”

Gerry’s head dropped. “Well, perhaps I have belonged to the snobs, too,
Jean,” she answered truthfully, “but if Olive will forgive me and make
up, perhaps some day we may be friends.”

Slowly the sitting-room door now opened and a languid figure, clothed in
a marvelous dressing gown of pale blue silk and lace, with yellow hair
piled high on its head, entered the room. “What on earth is Jean
preaching about?” the voice of no other person than the youngest Miss
Ralston inquired. “I have just been across the hall with Mollie and Lucy
Johnson and I declare she has been talking steadily for an hour.”

Jessica Hunt made some laughing explanation, but Olive and Jean could
only stare in amazement at Frieda. Where on earth had she gotten so
marvelous a kimono? It really looked like a stage affair. But at this
instant, beholding the violets, Frieda, forgetting her grown-up manner
for a moment, jumped at them. “Aren’t they too beau-ti-ful?” she said
like the small girl who once had taken care of her own violet beds at
The Rainbow Lodge.




CHAPTER XV

THE DANGER OF WEALTH


The truth of the matter was that Frieda Ralston would have been somewhat
happier and certainly a great deal better off in many respects could she
now have turned back the pages of her existence for a few months and
been again that same little yellow-haired girl who was the beloved of
every man, woman and child within the thousand acres of the Rainbow
Ranch, for Frieda had lately been getting into a kind of mischief that
is of a serious nature, whether practiced by a young girl or by very
much older persons. She had been spending far too much money.

After the trip to New York and the purchase of the blue silk gown and
velvet coat a number of weeks before, the desire for beautiful clothes
awoke in Frieda. Remember that she was only a Western ranch girl and had
never dreamed of such splendors as the New York shops afforded, neither
did she have any very clear idea of the real value of money. Because
gold had been discovered on their ranch and because Jack was sending her
fifty dollars as pin money each month, Frieda considered that their
wealth must be fabulous and so she had contracted the very dangerous
habit of buying whatever she wished without considering the cost, and
the way she managed to do this was by making bills!

Earlier in the season, when the girls had found it difficult to go into
town for every little purchase it became necessary for them to make,
Ruth had opened a charge account for the three ranch girls at one of the
best of the New York shops, but the bills were expected to be sent to
the girls and to be paid out of their allowances. Jean and Olive had
made only a few necessary purchases, but though no one else knew of it,
Frieda had lately been buying with utter recklessness.

Indeed, the gorgeous kimono which had just electrified the other two
ranch girls was only one of a number of articles that had arrived that
very afternoon and been delivered in the care of Mollie Johnson. Hanging
up in Mollie’s closet at the same instant was an equally charming
garment, almost of the same kind as Frieda’s, save that it was pink and
but lately presented by Frieda to her best friend.

So it would appear that even though Frieda might be keeping the letter
of the law in not speaking of their wealth at Primrose Hall, she was
certainly not obeying it in spirit, and indeed she had broken her
promise altogether on the afternoon when she and Mollie had been alone
together, while Olive and Jean were drinking tea at “The Towers.”

Not that she had meant to do this when Mollie came in; far from it. The
story had just leaked out quite innocently at first. For Frieda
naturally began the conversation with her friend by telling her that
Jean and Olive had gone to tea with the Harmons, and then that they had
learned to know the Harmons because they had rented their ranch to them
the summer before. From the ranch the speaker traveled very naturally to
the Yellowstone and the story of Jack, told many times before, and
coming back again to the ranch ended with Mr. Harmon’s effort to buy the
Rainbow Mine.

When this word “mine” popped out, Frieda had stopped suddenly, but it
was soul satisfying to observe how her friend Mollie’s eyes had grown
wider and bigger with admiration and surprise at her words. “Why, Frieda
Ralston,” Mollie had reproached at once, “you don’t mean to tell me that
you are an heiress as well as everything else that is interesting! Why,
you have let me think that you were poor before, though I have wondered
sometimes about the lovely things you have been buying. Do please tell
me whether your mine is copper or silver or pure gold?”

To Frieda’s credit it must be stated that when Mollie thus began her
very natural investigation of her story, she felt at once both sorry and
frightened. “It is a secret, Mollie,” she began; “that is, I don’t see
any sense in its being, but I have promised Jack and Jean and Ruth Drew
not to talk about our money at Primrose Hall, since we would rather have
our friends just know us as ranch girls, but we really have a gold mine.
Do you see why I shouldn’t talk about it?”

Earnestly Mollie shook her head.

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t, so long as I have promised,” Frieda
conceded; “but now I have told you of it without meaning to, I am glad,
for I do just want to talk about it with somebody and you are my dearest
friend and I wish you to know everything about me.”

Frieda might have said that she wished Mollie to know all the nice
things about her, for it really is not our faults that we long to pour
into the ears of our friends.

The invalid, who had been stretched on the couch with a bad cold for the
past hour or so, now curled her feet up under her and rested her chin on
her hands. “Want me to tell you every single thing about our mine?” she
demanded. “It is quite like a fairy story.”

And of course there is nobody in the world (and certainly not Mollie
Johnson) who does not like to hear of the finding of a mine.

“Cross your heart and body that you’ll never betray me; say you wish you
may die if you do,” Frieda abjured. And promising everything and making
all the mystic signs necessary to eternal secrecy, Mollie then had
listened to the unfolding of the fairy tale.

Frieda had not really intended to make her story a fairy tale, but she
had no more idea of how much money the Rainbow Mine produced than a
baby, and of course with the telling of her tale the size of the nuggets
that Jim was getting out of the mine each week naturally grew.

“You see,” Frieda explained, warming with her subject, “we simply don’t
know how rich we are. Jim, our overseer at the ranch, who now looks
after our mine, says you never can tell at first how much a mine may
yield. Perhaps we may be millionaires some day.”

The word millionaire was an entirely new one in Frieda’s vocabulary,
which she had learned since coming to Primrose Hall, but certainly it
had a magnificent sound and made Mollie blink.

“It sounds just too wonderful,” the little Southern girl sighed, “and I
do declare, Frieda, that if I didn’t love you more than most anybody I
should feel envious. We aren’t rich a bit; my father is just a lawyer in
Richmond and while we have a pretty house and all that, why we have some
other brothers and sisters, and father says all he can afford to do is
to let Lucy and me have two years apiece at Primrose Hall. He can’t give
us money for the wonderful clothes you buy. Won’t I be proud if you can
make me a visit in the Christmas holidays to show you and your lovely
things to my friends!” And Mollie began twisting into curls the ends of
her Frieda’s yellow braids and looking up at her with an even increased
admiration.

Such a rush of recklessness and affection then seized hold on the
youngest Miss Ralston, that without even discussing the question with
Mollie, she immediately arose from her couch and rushing to her desk
indited a letter to a New York firm asking that the two kimonos be sent
her at once with slippers and stockings to match. For her beloved Mollie
was just too sweet and sympathetic for anything and quite unlike adopted
sisters and relations, who scolded and put on airs when one’s affairs
went a bit wrong. Frieda would have liked at the instant of writing her
letter to have poured all her wealth at her friend’s feet, but all that
she could do more was to invite her to come into town the next week to
be her guest at the matinee and lunch and to help her make a few more
purchases.

For Frieda’s December bill had not yet arrived and her check had, and so
for the time being, like many another person, she felt fairly well off,
although her allowance for the past two months had melted away like wax
without her being able to pay back a single cent of the money to either
Jean or Olive, which they had advanced to help with her first
extravagance, the blue silk dress and velvet coat.

One of the subjects that a great many people discuss, with a good deal
more money at their disposal than Frieda had at present, is the way that
five-dollar bills have of disappearing in New York City. So by the time
Frieda had paid for three tickets to the matinee, as the girls were of
course compelled to bring a chaperon into town with them, and three
lunches at a fashionable restaurant, there was so little of her money
left out of her original amount that again she was obliged to do some
charging on her account, in order to get the few more things that she
and Mollie decided might be needed in case she paid the visit in
Richmond toward the close of December.

On the way back to Primrose Hall, however, seated on the train and
feeling a bit weary, Frieda wished that she had not spent this extra
money. Now she wouldn’t be able to pay her debts until January, and what
with Christmas coming, there would be so many presents for others that
she would wish to buy! So once Frieda sighed, but when Mollie, giving
her a hug, demanded to know what worried her, she would not say. For how
confess that money matters were worrying her but a few days after the
time when she had announced herself as an heiress? Of course Jack and
Ruth would see that she was supplied with extra money at Christmas time,
if they should consent to let her make the trip south, and out of this
amount she would certainly save enough to pay her bills, without having
to confess her extravagances. For Frieda knew that Jack and Ruth would
both be angry and ashamed of her for breaking her promise and for buying
things which she did not really need.




CHAPTER XVI

ELECTION DAY


The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class had
arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three o’clock until
six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne would remain in the
library at Primrose Hall watching over the ballot box. Immediately after
six the box would be opened, the ballots counted and the choice of the
Juniors announced.

For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant days and
the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now and then in the
past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the shore waters of the
Hudson River would then be trimmed with a fine fringe of ice. Once the
election was over the Primrose Hall students would be making plans for
the Christmas holidays, but until then nothing else, not even home and
family, appeared of so great importance.

Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had gone
astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s cause. Indeed,
like many another brave campaigner, she had only worked the harder,
rallying Jean’s friends closer around her, exhorting her enemies and
trying to persuade the girls on the fence that there was no real point
in their antagonism toward Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made
she had had an able lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted
friend.

For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that unless
her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of the character
she had already established among them, nothing she could do or say at
this late day should influence them. And Jean had also never wavered
from the attitude she had taken in regard to Olive on the afternoon of
their final discussion of the subject. She had not needed that her
resolution be strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and
Jack Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that Jean be
persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the reply she hoped
for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically declared Jean’s position the
only possible one.

All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had been
conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever their presence in
one of the class rooms made it possible. Her expression was so wistful
and apologetic that Jean began to care more for her own success on
Olive’s account than her own. So as soon as luncheon was over and three
o’clock had come around, slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s,
she drew her along the hall toward the library door.

“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let us go
upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over. Then Gerry and
Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a really high-minded
person I suppose I should now vote for my rival, Miss Graham, but as I
can’t bring myself up to that point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper
for old Gerry.”

Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their own
sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign outside
announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both ranch girls
were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was plainly the more
affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in a perfectly natural
fashion, she was pale and silent and oftentimes on the verge of tears.

The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the bare
upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of the earth.

“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the writing
table before one of their windows, “why should you behave as though the
question of my election was the only important thing in the world. On a
day like this I only feel desperately homesick for Jack and the old
ranch. What wouldn’t I give if we were all there to-day and just
starting out on a long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about
never seeing Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to
Jim and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated Ralph
rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have only written
twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really coming east to see how
Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will hate to see Ruth again or like
it? One never can tell about a person in love.”

Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the Rainbow
Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no sooner had she
put her pen to the paper than apparently all worry and suspense left her
and she scratched away rapidly and clearly for several hours.

But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she kept up
such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room that at any other
time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded. First she tried studying
her Shakespeare, since she was making a special effort to succeed in the
Shakespeare class, and before coming east to school had read only a few
plays with Ruth and the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge.
But not the most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy
by William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea that
engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to read, she flung
her book down on the floor, saying petulantly: “Tiresome stuff! I wonder
what ever made me think for an instant I could stand any chance of
getting the Shakespeare prize?”

Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us thought
you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you dearly love to
read and study at most times. But why don’t you go out for a walk, you
can find Frieda somewhere around downstairs and make her go with you. I
don’t want to.”

“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a good deal
more temper than usual with her, and flying into her own room, she
banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for some occupation, she
came across a piece of sewing which she had once started at the Lodge,
some white silk cut in the shape of a round cap to be covered over with
small white pearl beads.

Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low stool
by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would have a more
soothing influence upon her than reading for the two more hours that had
somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing on this occasion was more
distracting than reading, for very soon Olive’s fingers worked
automatically while her brain began to concern itself with interesting
and puzzling ideas. The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose
Hall had not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of and to
ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led such eventful
lives.

After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation later with
Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books in the school
library that she could find, which might help her explain the curious
experience—confided to no one—through which she had passed that
afternoon. But it was not just this one experience that had puzzled and
worried Olive, for many strange fancies, impressions, memories, she knew
not what to call them, had been drifting into her mind since her first
sight of that white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival
at Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything that
was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe that she could
recall dim ideas and events having no connection with the years she had
spent in the Indian tent with old Laska. But why had these far-off
memories not assailed her in the two years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps
then the recollection of Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her
with such an odd mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people
about her whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent
in her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was impossible, for
Olive felt sure that she had never been east before in her life.

Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last six.

Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly folding
up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective envelopes. She
looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but composed. At last she got up
from her chair and crossing the floor knelt down in front of Olive,
taking the piece of sewing from her cold fingers.

“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill
from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our
sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next
hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have
really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an
hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been
thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet
look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply
disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion.
“Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think
that you have had anything to do with my failure.”

Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know
perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide
the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were
strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward
their door.

Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do
with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president
nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”

The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean
tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had
not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing
about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming
down the hall.”

As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
appeared to interrupt them.

“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because
it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and
Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few
ballots of the Junior class.”

However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall
approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.

It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean
waited calmly in the center of the room.

Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie
Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the
truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a
farm clasp of Olive’s hand.

“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.




CHAPTER XVII

CONGRATULATIONS


By this time the usually self-contained Margaret was weeping bitterly in
Jean’s arms, while she patted her reassuringly on the back. Gerry looked
utterly exhausted, her hair was in a perfect tumble and a smut
ornamented one of her cheeks. Frieda had turned toward the wall and Lucy
and Mollie Johnson each had an arm about her.

“Well, girls, the game is up, isn’t it?” Jean spoke first, but Olive
simply would not accept what her eyes had already told her.

“It isn’t true, Jean hasn’t been defeated, has she Gerry?” she
entreated, squeezing the hand that held hers.

“Winifred Graham has just been elected president of the Junior class at
Primrose Hall for the coming year!” Gerry announced stoically, and then
there was a sudden sound of weeping from all parts of the sitting room.

“Why, goodness gracious, girls, don’t take things like this,” Jean
insisted, being the only dry-eyed person on the scene. “Margaret dear,
you are positively wetting my shirtwaist. Of course, I am sorry not to
have been elected, but I’m not disappointed, as I haven’t thought lately
that I could be. And please, this isn’t anybody’s funeral.” Then Jean
kissed Margaret and walked over to shake hands with Gerry.

“You have both worked terribly hard for me and I never can cease to be
grateful to you, but now that things are all over do let us show the
girls that we can take defeat gracefully anyhow. Please everybody stop
crying at once and come on with me to shake hands and offer my
congratulations to Winifred Graham. Wouldn’t we look a sorry set if the
next time she beheld us we should all appear to have been washed away in
tears? The first person that looks cheerful in this room shall have a
five-pound box of candy from me in the morning.”

Of course Jean’s suggestion that Winifred Graham should not learn the
bitterness with which they accepted their defeat had an immediate
effect, as she had guessed it would, upon Gerry and Margaret. Both girls
stiffened up at once.

“Jean is perfectly right,” Margaret immediately agreed, “for it will
never do in the world for us to make a split in our Junior class just
because things have not gone as we wanted. Lots of the girls did vote
for Jean and if we take our defeat bravely, why Winifred Graham and her
set can’t crow over us half so much as if we show our chagrin.”

Gerry made such a funny face over the prospect of Winifred’s crowing
that everybody was able to summon a faint laugh.

“Come on at once then, let us go and offer our congratulations to
Winifred while we have our courage screwed to the sticking point. For my
part I would rather do my duty and remember my manners without delay.”

And Jean opened the door, believing that all her friends would follow
her. Once in the hall, however, she soon discovered that Olive was
missing and going back called out softly: “Come on, Olive, and help us
congratulate the winner. You wouldn’t have us show an ugly spirit now,
would you?”

But Olive quietly shook her head. And as Jean was by no means sure how
Winifred might receive any attention from Olive, she forbore to insist
on her accompanying them. Should Winifred be disagreeable under the
present circumstances Jean was not perfectly sure of being able to keep
cool; and of all things she must not show temper at the present moment.
Besides, her few minutes’ conversation with Olive, before the coming of
the girls to announce her defeat, had evidently borne good fruit, for
Olive did not appear particularly distressed at the result of the
election. After a first moment of breaking down she had entirely
regained her self-control. Truly Jean was delighted at seeing her so
sensible.

One, two, three minutes passed after the other girls’ departure and an
entire silence reigned in the room, Olive standing perfectly still. Had
Jean been pleased because she had accepted her failure so sensibly?
Sensibly! why Olive had not spoken simply because she could not trust
herself to speak. She had not cried, because in the first moments of
humiliation and regret, there are but few people who can at once summon
tears. Of course, Olive was taking the affair too seriously and Jean’s
view was the only reasonable one, but she had not been defeated herself,
she had stood in the way of her friend’s victory and this last blow had
come to her after months of coldness and neglect on the part of her
classmates, which she had borne bravely and in silence. Now Olive was
through with courage and with silence.

At last she seemed to have made up her mind to some action, for the
relief of tears came. Going into her own room, Olive flung herself face
downward on the bed, giving herself up to the luxury of this weakness.
When she arose her face wore a look of unusual determination. Whatever
her fight, it was ended now. First she walked over to her bureau and
there unlocking a small iron safe took out a sandalwood box, a box which
all who have followed her history, know to be the single possession she
had rescued from the Indian woman before running away from her for the
last time.

The girl carried her few treasures to her desk and before beginning the
letter she plainly intended writing, she picked them up one by one,
looking at them closely, the silver cross and chain worn on the evening
of the dance, the small book only a few inches in size, and the watch
with the picture of a woman’s face in it, the picture that Ruth and the
ranch girls had always believed to look like Olive.

At the face she looked longest, but after a few moments this also was
laid aside for the work she had in mind.

“DEAR RUTH” (her letter read):

“I write to tell you that I am not willing to remain longer as a student
at Primrose Hall. I am sorry to trouble you with this news and if Jack
is too ill to be worried, please do not mention this to her. I have
tried very hard to bear my difficulties here and truly I would have gone
on without complaining, for I can live without the friendship of other
girls so long as you and the ranch girls care for me, but what I cannot
bear is to be a drawback to Jean and Frieda and to stand in their way as
I do here. I do not know what to ask you to do with me, for I cannot go
back to live among the Indians until I know more than I do now and am
able to teach them. Can I not go to some little school where the girls
will not care so much about my past? But if you are not willing for me
to do this, and I know how little I am worthy of all you and the ranch
girls have done for me, you must not mind if I find some work to do, so
that I can make my living. For no matter what happens, I can remain no
longer at Primrose Hall.

“With all love, OLIVE.”

And when the letter was finished Olive, whose head was hot and aching,
rested it for a moment on the desk upon her folded arms. When she lifted
it, because of a noise nearby, Miss Katherine Winthrop was standing only
a few feet away.

“I beg your pardon, I knocked at your door, Olive, but you must have
failed to hear me and then I came inside, for I wanted to talk to you.”

The fact that Miss Katherine Winthrop in some remarkable fashion seemed
always to know, almost before it happened, every event that transpired
at Primrose Hall, with the causes that led to it, was well recognized by
her pupils. So of course she now knew not only that Winifred Graham had
been elected to the Junior Class presidency, but the particular reason
why Jean had been defeated.

“I am sorry to have you see that I have been crying, Miss Winthrop,”
Olive said, knowing that there was no use in trying to disguise the
truth. “I know you think it very foolish and stupid of me.”

Miss Winthrop sat down in a big chair, beckoning the young girl to a
stool near her feet. “Well, I suppose I do usually discourage tears,”
she answered with a half smile; “at least, I know my girls think I am
very unsympathetic about them. But I suppose now and then we women are
just obliged to weep, being made that way. What I want to talk to you
about is Jean’s defeat at the election this afternoon. You feel
responsible for it, don’t you?”

Why be surprised at Miss Winthrop’s knowledge of her feelings, as
apparently she knew everything? So Olive merely bowed her head.

“I want to ask you to tear up the letter which you have just written
asking your friends to let you leave Primrose Hall because of what has
happened.”

Miss Winthrop’s eyes had not apparently been turned for an instant
toward the desk on which her letter lay, and even so she could not have
seen inside a sealed envelope. Olive stared, almost gasped. “How could
you know, Miss Winthrop?”

Miss Winthrop put her hand on Olive’s dark hair, so black that it seemed
to have strange colors of its own in it. “I didn’t know about your
letter, dear, I only guessed that after the experience you have passed
through this afternoon, with what has gone before, you were almost sure
to have written it. And I want to ask you to stay on at Primrose Hall.”

Olive shrank away, shaking her head quietly. “I have made up my mind,”
she returned; “I have been thinking of it before and now I am quite
determined.”

A moment’s silence followed and then in a different voice, as though she
were not speaking directly to the girl before her, Miss Winthrop went
on. “I believe there are but three types of people in this world, be
they men or women, that I cannot endure,—a coward, a quitter and a snob.
Unfortunately I have discovered that there are among the girls here in
my school a good many snobs. I guessed it before you ranch girls came to
me and now that I have seen what you have been made to suffer, I am very
sure. But, Olive, I want you to help me teach my girls the weakness, the
ugliness, the foolishness of snobbery. And can you help me, if though
not a snob, you are one or both of the other two things I have
mentioned?”

“A coward and a quitter?” Olive repeated slowly, wondering at the older
woman’s choice of these two words and yet knowing that no others could
express her meaning so forcibly.

“But I would not be going away on my own account, but for the sake of
Jean and Frieda,” she defended.

“I think not. You may just now be under that impression, but if you
think things over, does it not come back at last to you? You feel you
have endured the slights and coldness of your classmates without
flinching and it has hurt. Yes, but not like the hurt that comes to you
with the feeling that your presence in the school is reflecting on
Frieda and Jean. They do not wish you to go away, Olive, they will be
deeply sorry if you do and whatever harm you may think you have done
them has already been done and can’t be undone. No, dear, if you go away
from Primrose Hall now it is because of your own wounded feelings,
because your pride which you hide way down inside you has been touched
at last!”

Miss Winthrop said nothing more, but turned and looked away from her
listener.

For Olive was trying now to face the issue squarely and needed no
further influence from the outside. By and by she put her small hand on
Miss Winthrop’s firm, large one. “I won’t go,” she replied. “I believe I
_have_ been thinking all this time about myself without knowing it, You
made me think of Jack when you spoke of a coward and a quitter, for they
are the kind of words she would have been apt to use.”

Miss Winthrop laughed. “Oh, I have been a girl in my day too, Olive, and
I haven’t forgotten all I learned. Indeed, I believe I learned those two
words and what they stood for from a boy friend of mine long years ago.
Now I want to talk to you about yourself.” The woman leaned over, and
putting her two fingers under Olive’s sharply pointed chin, she tilted
her head back so that she could see in sharp outline every feature of
the girl’s face.

“Olive, your friend Miss Drew told me on bringing you here to Primrose
Hall what she and your friends knew of your curious story, of their
finding you with an old Indian woman with whom you had apparently lived
a great many years. I believe that the woman claimed you as her
daughter, but though no one believed her, your Western friends have
never made any investigation about your past, fearing that this Indian
woman might again appear to claim you.”

“Yes,” the girl gratefully agreed.

“Well, Olive, I have seen a great deal of the world and very many people
in it and since the idea that you are an Indian worries you so much, I
want to assure you I do not believe for a moment you have a trace of
Indian blood in you. Except that you have black hair and your skin is a
little darker than Anglo-Saxon peoples, there is nothing about you to
carry a remote suggestion of the Indian race. Why, dear, your features
are exquisitely thin and fine, your eyes are large. The idea is too
absurd! I wonder if you could tell me anything about yourself and if you
would like me to try to find out something of your history. Perhaps I
might know better how to go about it than your Western friends.”

For answer Olive rose and going over to her desk, returned with the
sandalwood box containing her three treasures. “This is all I have of my
own,” she said, first putting the box into Miss Winthrop’s lap and then
tearing up the letter just written to Ruth, before sitting down again on
her stool near the older woman. Gratefully she touched her lips to Miss
Winthrop’s hand, saying: “I would like very much to tell you all I can
recall about myself, for lately queer ideas and impressions have come to
me and I believe I can remember a time and people in my life, whom I
must have known long before old Laska and the Indian days.”




CHAPTER XVIII

FANCIES OR MEMORIES?


Miss Winthrop nodded. “Tell me everything you can recall and keep back
nothing for fear it is not the whole truth or that I will not
understand. Whoever your father and mother may have been, you certainly
have ancestors of whom you need not be ashamed.”

Then Olive, clasping her fingers together over her knee with her eyes on
the floor, began to speak. And first she told the story of the Indian
village and of Laska and how she could not recall a time when she had
not spoken English as white people speak it, then of her years at the
Government school for Indians taught by a white woman, who had always
been her friend and assured her that she was not of the same race as the
Indian children about her. But in proof of this she had nothing save the
ornaments in the sandalwood box, which, in the interest of her story,
Miss Winthrop had not yet examined.

Yes, and one thing more Olive could remember. Through all the years she
had lived with the Indian woman there had come to old Laska in the mail
each month a certain sum of money, large enough to keep her and her son
in greater wealth and idleness than any of the other Indians in the
village enjoyed. But from what place this money had come nor who had
sent it Olive did not know, and so to her this fact did not seem of
great value, although Miss Winthrop’s face had shown keen interest on
hearing it.

“Was there not a postmark on the outside of the letter, Olive?” she
demanded.

Clasping her fingers over her eyes in a way she had when puzzled, the
girl waited a moment. “Why, yes, there was,” she said slowly. “How
strange and stupid of me never to have thought of this before! The
postmark was New York! But New York meant nothing to me in those days,
Miss Winthrop, except just a name on a map at school. You cannot guess
how strange and ignorant I was until the ranch girls found me and began
teaching me a few things that were not to be found in school books. But
no one could have sent money to Laska for me from New York. I must have
been mistaken and this money did not come for me as I have always hoped.
Laska must have received it for some other reason.” And then Olive,
either from weariness or disappointment, stopped in her narrative, not
as though she had told all that she knew, but because she could not
quite make up her mind to go on.

A few moments of quiet waiting and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:

“The money was sent Laska for your care, Olive, I am sure of it. But
this story of the Indian woman and your life there you have told to
other persons, to the ranch girls and your chaperon, Miss Drew. What I
most wish you to confide to me are the ideas and impressions of the
years when you may not always have lived in the Indian village.”

Sadly the girl shook her head. “Miss Winthrop, the fancies that I have
had lately have been too ridiculous for me to feel I can confide even to
you, kind as you are to me. For how can it be possible that a human
being can remember things at one time of their life and not have known
them always? Why, since my arrival at Primrose Hall, do I seem to recall
impressions that I did not have at the Rainbow Ranch?”

The older woman did not reply at once, as she was pondering over the
question just asked her. “Olive,” she returned slowly, “I believe I can
in a measure understand this problem that troubles you. Half the
memories that we have in the world come through association. It is the
sight of an object that recalls something in our past which brings that
past back to us. Now when you were living at the Rainbow Ranch the
memory of your life with Laska, the fear that she might take you away
from your friends, was so close to you that you thought of little else.
But now you are in an entirely different place, the fear of the woman
has gone from you; it is but natural, I think, that new and different
associations should bring to life new memories. What is there that you
have been recalling in these past few months?”

And still the girl hesitated. “It is so absurd of me,” she murmured at
last, “but one of my most foolish ideas is that I have seen the big,
white house where Madame Van Mater lives at some time before. Of course,
I know I have not seen it, for I have never been in this part of the
world before. But the other day, standing at the window, I suddenly
remembered a description of the Sleepy Hollow scenery, which I must have
read and learned long years ago, though I never thought of it until that
moment.”

Miss Winthrop’s face was now more puzzled than the speaker’s by reason
of her deeper knowledge of life. “Go on,” she insisted quietly. “Can you
recall anything more about the house and do you think that you ever saw
Madame Van Mater before the other day?” The strange note in her
questioner’s voice was lost upon the girl at her feet.

“No, I never saw Madame Van Mater in my life and I do not like her,”
Olive returned quickly. “The furniture inside the house did not seem
familiar, only the outside and the tower room and those ridiculous iron
dogs guarding the front door. But I want to tell you something that
seems to me important—of course, my impression about Madame Van Mater’s
home is sheer madness. What I really can remember is this—” Olive
stopped for a moment as though trying to be very careful of only telling
the truth. “I remember that when I was a very little girl I must have
traveled about from one place to another a great deal, for I do not
think I ever had a home nor do I remember my mother. My father, lately I
have believed I have a real impression of him,” and Olive’s eyes, turned
toward her teacher, were big with mystery and hope. “He must have been
very tall, or at least he seemed so to me then, and I went about with
him everywhere. Finally we came to a place where we stayed a much longer
time and there Laska first must have come to take care of us. I think
now that my father must have died in that place, for I can not remember
anything more of him and ever afterwards I lived on with Laska and the
Indians. That isn’t very much to know and of nothing am I perfectly
certain,” Olive ended with a sigh, seeing that Miss Winthrop had not
spoken and supposing therefore that she considered her idle fancies of
little account.

The older woman now sat with one elbow on the arm of her chair, her hand
shading her eyes so that it was impossible to catch the expression of
her face. Whatever idea had come to her with the hearing of her pupil’s
strange story, she did not now mean to reveal.

“It is all very interesting, Olive,” she answered, quietly, “and surely
very puzzling, so that I am not surprised at your putting but little
faith in your own recollections, for I cannot see any possible
connection between your travels in the West as a little child and your
idea that you had seen some old house like ‘The Towers.’ But there is
one person who can tell us something of your early history without
doubt—and that person is this woman Laska! She kept you with her all
those years for money and probably pretends that you are with her still,
so that she continues to receive the same money each month, else she
would have made another effort to get hold of you. Well, if the love of
money has made the Indian woman keep your secret, perhaps an offer of
more money will make her tell it. We will not speak of this, Olive dear,
to any one in the world at present, but I will write to your old teacher
at the Government school in the Indian village and perhaps through her
aid we may reach this Laska.”

Olive made no answer, for to have expressed ordinary thanks in the face
of so great interest and kindness would have been too inadequate. What
could she say? Besides, Miss Winthrop was now looking at her few
treasures in the sandalwood box.

“I have seen your cross and chain before,” she said, letting it slip
through her fingers as once more she examined its curious workmanship,
“but this little book—why, it is written in Spanish and is a Spanish
prayer book.” Then for a second time Miss Winthrop put her hand under
Olive’s chin, studying the unusual outline of her face. “I wonder if you
are a Spanish girl, child, for that would explain why you are darker
than most Americans and why you have so foreign an appearance?”

Olive, silently opening the watch, lifted the picture inside it to her
friend’s gaze.

Miss Winthrop looking at the picture nodded, and then began turning the
watch over in her hand; strangely enough, not so deeply interested in
the photograph as in the watch itself. “This watch was sold here in New
York, Olive, and I have seen one exactly like it years ago.” Her voice
trembled a little and she seemed fatigued. “But don’t let us talk of
this any more this evening, as it is nearly dinner time. I am going to
ask you to trust me with these trinkets of yours, as I want to study
them more closely.”

And without another word Miss Winthrop quietly arose and left the room.




CHAPTER XIX

NEW YEAR’S EVE


Several weeks had passed since the interview between Olive and Miss
Winthrop on the evening of Jean’s defeat, and now the Christmas holidays
at Primrose Hall were well nigh over. For twelve days, save for Olive
and its owner, the great house had been empty of all its other pupils
and teachers; now in another thirty-six hours they would be returning to
take up their work again.

The time had been long and lonely for Olive, of course, for Jean and
gone into New York to visit Gerry Ferrows and Margaret Belknap and
Frieda had departed south with the two Johnson sisters. The ranch girls
had not wished to leave Olive alone and each one of them had offered to
remain at school with her, but this sacrifice could hardly be accepted
because Olive had made no friends who had wished her to be with them.
Jessica Hunt would have liked to have had Olive visit her, but she
had no home of her own and her sister’s apartment was crowded with
babies; Margaret and Gerry, who had been kinder since their common
disappointment, had invited her for week ends, but these Invitations
Olive had quietly declined. All she would have cared for in a trip to
New York was an opportunity to see Jack, and this privilege was still
denied the ranch girls.

Of course, Ruth had been informed that Olive was to be left alone at
Primrose Hall with only Miss Winthrop as her companion during the
holidays, and one afternoon had hurried out to see what arrangements
could be made for her pleasure. However, after a serious half hour’s
talk with Miss Winthrop and a shorter consultation with Olive, she had
gone away again content to leave the fourth ranch girl in wiser hands
than her own.

And though the two weeks may have been long and lonely for Olive, yet
they had never been dull, for each moment she was hoping and praying to
hear some news from old Laska and each hour being drawn into closer
intimacy with Miss Winthrop. For now that the discipline of school life
had been relaxed, the principal of Primrose Hall showed herself to her
favorite pupil in a light that would have surprised most of her
students. She was no longer unsympathetic or stern, but treated Olive
with an affection that was almost like a mother’s. Each evening in her
private study before a beautiful open fire the woman and girl would sit
close together under the shadow of “The Winged Victory,” reading aloud
or talking of the great world of men and cities about which Miss
Winthrop knew so much and Olive so little. But of the secret of the
girl’s past her new friend did not encourage her to talk for the
present.

“If you have told me all you know, Olive, then it is better for us not
to go into this subject again until we hear from the Indian woman, and
then should she fail us, I must try to think of some other plan to help
you.”

And so one by one the holidays went by, as days will go under every
human circumstance, and yet no word had come from Laska, though it was
now the afternoon of New Year’s eve. Olive had been alone all morning
and unusually depressed, for although she had not heard what she so
eagerly waited to hear, she had learned that the surgeons had at last
decided an operation must be performed on Jack. Ruth had written her
that there was supposed to be some pressure from a broken bone on Jack’s
spine that made it impossible for her to walk, and although the
operation might not be absolutely successful, Jack herself had insisted
that it should be tried.

The snow had been falling all morning and the neighborhood of Sleepy
Hollow had never been more beautiful, not even in its Indian summer
mists. If Olive could go for a walk she felt that she might brace up,
for certainly she did not intend to let Frieda and Jean find her in the
dumps on their return from their holidays. Miss Winthrop would probably
go out with her, as she had been attending to school matters all
morning, seeing that the house was made ready for the return of her
students, and Olive felt the fresh air might also do her good. They had
eaten lunch together, but Miss Winthrop had not been seen since.

While Olive dispatched one of the maids to look for her friend she
herself went into the rooms where she had been accustomed to find her in
the past two weeks, but neither in her study, nor in the library, nor in
the drawing rooms, could she be found and by and by the maid came back
to tell Olive that Miss Winthrop had gone out and would probably not
return till tea time. She had left word that Olive must not be lonely
and that she must entertain herself in any way she desired. Well, Olive
knew of but one thing she wished to do: she would go for a walk and she
would go alone. School was not in session, so school rules were no
longer enforced, and by this time Olive had become thoroughly familiar
with the nearby neighborhood.

Instead of a hundred-dollar check, which had been Jack’s Christmas
present to both Jean and Frieda in order that they might have their
Christmas visits to friend’s, she had given Olive a brown fur coat and
cap. Olive had not worn them before, but now, with the snow falling and
the thought of Jack in her mind, she put them both on. For a minute she
glanced at herself in her mirror before leaving the house and though her
vanity was less than most girls’, she could not help a slight thrill of
pleasure on seeing her own reflection in the mirror. Somehow her new
furs were uncommonly becoming, as they are to most people. The soft
brown of the cap showed against the blue-black darkness of her hair and
in her olive cheeks there was a bright color which grew brighter the
longer and faster she trudged through the lightly falling snow.

Olive did not know the direction that Miss Winthrop had taken for her
walk, but half guessed that she must have gone for a visit to Madame Van
Mater, as she was in the habit of calling on the old lady every few days
and knew Olive’s dislike to accompanying her. Indeed, she had not been
inside “The Towers” nor seen its mistress since her first and only visit
there. But now she set off in the direction of the house, hoping to find
her friend returning toward home.

The walk through the woods, Olive’s first walk in the vicinity of
Primrose Hall, was now a familiar one and less dark because the trees
had long ago cast off their cloakings of leaves and were covered only
with the few snowflakes that clung to them. No man or woman who has
lived a great deal out of doors in their youth fails to draw new
strength and cheerfulness from the air and sunshine, and Olive, who had
left school thinking only that Jack’s operation might not be successful
and of the pain her friend must suffer, now began to dwell on the
beautiful possibility of her growing well and strong as she had been in
the old days at the ranch and of their being reunited there some day not
too far off. Then she had been weakly believing that she would never
hear news of herself, that old Laska was probably dead or had
disappeared into some other Indian encampment. Now with her blood
running quickly in her veins from the cold and the snow, she determined
if Laska failed her to go west the next summer and try to trace out her
ancestry herself. Miss Winthrop, Ruth and the four ranch girls she knew
stood ready to help her in anything she might undertake.

“It is a pretty good thing to have friends, even if one is bare of
relations,” Olive thought, coming out of the woods to the opening where
she could catch the first glimpse of the big white house. “I wish Miss
Winthrop would come along out of there,” she said aloud after waiting a
minute and finding that standing still made her shiver in spite of her
furs. “I wonder why I can’t get up the courage to march up to that front
door past those two fierce iron dogs, ring the bell and ask for her. I
don’t have to go into the house, and as it is growing a little late,
Miss Winthrop would probably prefer my not walking back alone. Besides,
I want to walk with her.”

Like most people with only a few affections, Olive’s were very true and
deep, and now that she had learned to care for Miss Winthrop, she cared
for her with all her heart.

Slowly she approached the house, hesitating once or twice and looking up
toward the tower room as though she were ashamed to recall her own
foolishness on the afternoon of her introduction to it. There was no one
about in the front of the house, not a servant nor a caller. For a
moment Olive stopped, smiling, by one of the big iron dogs that seemed
to guard the entrance to the old place. She brushed off a little snow
from the head of one of them and, stooping, patted it. “Isn’t it silly
of me to think I remember having seen you?” she murmured. And then
Olive’s hand went up swiftly to her own eyes and she appeared to be
brushing away something from them as she had brushed the snow from the
statue of a dog. “I haven’t seen you before, I have only heard about
you. And I haven’t seen this old house, but I have been told about it
until I felt almost as if I had seen it,” she announced with greater
conviction in her tones than she had ever used before, even to herself,
in trying to recall the confused impressions of her childhood.

But now, instead of going up the front steps of the old house and
ringing the bell, she hesitated. And while she waited the door was
suddenly opened and into the white world outside Miss Winthrop stepped
with an expression on her face no one had ever seen it wear before—one
of surprise and wonder, anger and pleasure.

“Olive, is it you?” she said just as if she had expected to find the
girl waiting outside for her on the doorstep. “Come in to Madame Van
Mater. We have something to tell you.”

[Illustration: “I SUPPOSE I CANNOT DENY THE PROOFS YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO
ME.”]




CHAPTER XX

THE TRUE HISTORY OF OLIVE


In the same high carved chair that she had used on the afternoon of
Olive’s first meeting with her, Madame Van Mater now sat apparently
waiting for someone, for her hair and complexion were as artistically
arranged and she was as carefully dressed as ever. At the stranger
girl’s sudden entrance with Miss Winthrop she showed no marked surprise.

“Turn on the lights, please, Katherine, and bring the girl close to me,”
she commanded in almost the same tones that she had used on a former
occasion, and now for the second time Olive found herself facing the old
lady and being critically surveyed by her. Again, with almost
unconscious antagonism, their glances met.

“I suppose I cannot deny the proofs you have brought to me, Katherine
Winthrop, that this girl is my granddaughter,” Madame Van Mater said
coldly, “and I am obliged to confess that her appearance is not what I
feared it might be, considering my son’s marriage. However, I do not see
the least trace of resemblance in her to any member of my family.” And
possibly to hide the trembling of her old hands, Madame Van Mater now
picked up a number of papers with which the table in front of her was
strewn. “You may sit down, child,” she remarked turning to Olive, “and
Katherine Winthrop will explain the extraordinary circumstance of your
connection with me. Because I tried to keep you as far away from me as
possible, fate has therefore brought you here under my very nose. It has
ever been the way of circumstances to thwart me.”

Not understanding in the least what Madame Van Mater was talking about
and yet feeling a sudden curious weakness in her knees, Olive dropped
into a chair which Miss Winthrop had at this instant placed near her.

“Sit perfectly still a moment, Olive dear,” Miss Winthrop interposed.
“Strange and improbable as it may seem to you to hear that you are the
granddaughter of Madame Van Mater, it will not take long for me to
explain the necessary facts to you. Years ago your grandmother had an
only child, a son of whom she was very proud, and as her husband had
died some time before, all her great wealth was to be given to this son.
She hoped that some day he would be a great lawyer, a statesman, and
that he would make his old family name known all over the world. Well,
by and by when this son had grown up, he cared nothing for law or any of
the interests that his mother wished and one day announced to her and to
me that he had chosen the stage as his profession. It is not worth while
for me to try to explain to you what this decision meant to his mother
and to me then,” Miss Winthrop continued; “but twenty years ago the
stage did not hold the position in the world that it does to-day, and
even now there are few mothers who would choose it as the profession for
their only sons. Well, there were many arguments and threats, but as
your father was determined on his own course, he went away from this
part of the country to the far west and there after several years we
learned that he had married. I knew that your mother had died soon after
her marriage and some years later your father, but I was never told that
they had left a child. Only your grandmother, of course, has always
known of your existence, for since your father’s death she has been
paying this Indian woman Laska to have charge of you. The fact that
Laska has now sent me papers signed by your grandmother’s own hand makes
it impossible for your relationship to be doubted.” Miss Winthrop now
paused for a moment.

Olive was not looking at her, but at Madame Van Mater. “You did not wish
to recognize me as your granddaughter because you did not believe my
mother a lady?” she asked quietly.

“Precisely,” Madame Van Mater agreed.

“I see. It is all strangely clear to me now. I thought I remembered this
house because my father had talked of it so much to me that I really
believed I had seen it myself, his bedroom in the tower, the old dogs at
the front door that he used to play with as a child and all the story of
Sleepy Hollow. Well, I am sorry for your sake, Madame Van Mater, that
Miss Winthrop has discovered my father’s name and people, but for my own
I am very glad.” And Olive’s eyes turned toward the picture of the boy
on the wall. “I suppose that when my father was ill he wrote and asked
you to care for me and that is how you came to hear of Laska?” she
questioned. And again the old woman bowed her head.

Very quietly Olive now got up from her chair. “Shall we be going back to
school, Miss Winthrop?” she inquired. “I believe I would rather not stay
here any longer at present.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

In ten minutes the two women, the young and the older one, were walking
home through the winter dusk together, Olive keeping a tight clutch of
Miss Winthrop’s arm, for now that she was well away from “The Towers”
and the cold woman who was its mistress, she felt frightened and
confused, as though the story she had just heard was a ridiculous dream.

“Yes, it is very, very strange,” Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and
over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the
queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has
always been intended that you should some day know your own people and
for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very
neighborhood.”

After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my
grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one
another. But I am very glad, because if she had cared for me she might
have wished me to leave the ranch girls, and not for all the world can I
give up them.”

There was another moment of silence and then Miss Winthrop spoke again:
“I cared for your father once very deeply, Olive, and I have cared in
the same way for no one else since, but I also felt as your grandmother
did about the work he chose to do and so here in the old garden at
Primrose Hall we said good-bye one afternoon for all time. I suppose my
pride was greater than my love for him, but I have been sorry since. Now
I care very much for my old friend’s daughter and hope she will let me
be her friend.”

“She has been more than that already,” Olive returned fervently; “no one
save Jack has ever been so kind.” And then both women talked only of
trivial matters until after dinner time that evening.

In Miss Winthrop’s study from eight o’clock until nine Olive sat with
her portfolio on her lap writing a long letter to Ruth Drew, disclosing
to her the story of the afternoon and asking her to keep the discovery
of the secret of her ancestry from Jacqueline Ralston, if she felt it
better that Jack be not informed at present. And at her desk during the
same hour Miss Winthrop was also engaged in writing Ruth. Carefully she
set forth to her how through the efforts of Olive’s former teacher at
the Government school and by the payment of a sum of money (which seemed
very large to the Indian woman), Laska had been induced to surrender
certain papers proving that the old mistress of “The Towers” at Tarry
dale was undoubtedly Olive’s grandmother. Though the news had come as an
entire surprise to Olive, her grandmother was not so wholly unprepared
for the revelation. For it seemed that Mrs. Harmon had known of the
existence of a young girl, the daughter of her first cousin, who was
being taken care of by an Indian woman somewhere in the state of
Wyoming. On meeting Olive at the Rainbow Ranch the summer before and
learning of her extraordinary history she had wondered if the girl could
have any connection with her own family. Although she had not really
believed this possible, knowing that Olive had come as a student to
Primrose Hall, she had confided the girl’s story to her aunt and Olive’s
first visit to “The Towers” had been of great interest to both women.
However, Madame Van Mater’s first survey of Olive had set her mind at
rest. This girl, whom Donald believed to resemble his mother, was to her
mind wholly unlike her; neither could she catch the faintest resemblance
to her son, who had been supposed to be like his cousin, Mrs. Harmon.
Then Olive’s quiet beauty and refined appearance had also satisfied
Madame Van Mater that this girl could not be her granddaughter, for she
believed that Olive’s mother had been of too humble an origin to have
had so lovely a daughter. Besides, did not old Laska continue to receive
the allowance sent her each month for her granddaughter’s care?

In a few lines at the close of Miss Winthrop’s letter of explanation to
Ruth she added the only apology that could ever be made for Madame Van
Mater’s behavior. The proud old woman had not understood how ignorant
this Indian woman Laska was, nor had she dreamed that Olive was being
brought up as an Indian. She had simply told the woman to continue as
Olive’s servant until such time as the girl should reach the age of
twenty-one, when she intended settling a certain sum of money upon her.
She had not wished that this child of her son’s should suffer, only that
she should not be troubled with her nor compelled to recognize her as
her heiress and the bearer of her name.

By and by, however, both Olive and Miss Winthrop grew weary of their
long letter writing and Olive, coming across the room, placed herself on
a low stool near her companion, resting her chin on her hands in a
fashion she had when interested. Both women talked of her father; they
could recall his reading aloud to them hour after hour and Olive
believed that she must have learned by rote Washington Irving’s
description of Sleepy Hollow valley when she was only a tiny girl and
that her first look out of her father’s bedroom window had suddenly
brought the lines back to her recollection.

Till a little before midnight there were questions to be asked and
answered between the two friends, but just as the old year was dying
with the twelve strokes of the clock in the hall, Olive said good night.
She was half way out the door when she turned back again and Miss
Winthrop could see by the color in her cheeks that there was still
another question she wished to ask.

“Do you think,” she asked finally, “that my mother could have been such
a dreadful person? I do not think I ever saw a lovelier face than her
picture in my father’s watch.”

Miss Winthrop looked closely at Olive, remembering how her strange and
foreign beauty had always interested her. “No, my dear, your mother
could most certainly not have been dreadful,” she answered. “I think I
heard that she was a Spanish girl and these curios you have and your own
appearance make me feel assured of the fact. It was because your
grandmother was informed that your mother was a singer or an actress,
that she felt so deep a prejudice against her. But the real truth is
that she never forgave her son and wished never to hear his name
mentioned as long as she lived.”

With a little shiver at the thought of such a nature as the old woman’s
at “The Towers,” Olive went on up to her own room to bed.




CHAPTER XXI

JEAN AND FRIEDA RETURN TO PRIMROSE HALL


In less than forty-eight hours after the close of the last chapter
Primrose Hall was once more emptied of its silences and loneliness and
gay with the returning of its students now that the holiday season was
well past.

Most of the girls came back in groups of twos and threes, since trains
at Tarrydale were numerous, but every now and then the school carryall
would be loaded up with girls, hanging on to the steps, sitting in one
another’s laps. And it happened that in one of these overloaded parties
Jean and Frieda arrived at Primrose Hall together.

There was so much excitement, of course, in the arrival of such a number
of students at one time and so much kissing and embracing among some of
the girls tragically separated from their best chums for two weeks, that
in the general hubbub Jean and Frieda noticed no special change in
Olive. If Jean thought at first that she had looked a little tired she
forgot about it in a few minutes. The girls had so many stories to tell
of their own experiences, there was so much running back and forth from
one room to the other, so much unpacking of trunks and bestowing of
forgotten gifts, that the three ranch girls really saw very little of
each other without outside friends being present until almost bedtime
that night.

Then at nine o’clock, with only an hour to spare before their lights
were turned out, they met before their sitting-room fire, wearing their
kimonos, their hair down their backs, prepared at last for the
confidential talk to which for different reasons they had all been
looking forward for some time.

A sign with “No Admittance” printed on it hung outside their door and on
the floor in convenient reach of the three girls sat two large boxes of
candy, one presented to Frieda upon leaving Richmond, Va., and the other
a farewell gift to Jean from Cecil Belknap in New York.

For the first moment so great was the satisfaction of the three girls at
being reunited that nobody spoke, and then all at once they began
talking in chorus.

“I think I ought to have the first chance to tell things, as I am the
youngest and have been the farthest away,” Frieda protested.

Of course Jean and Olive were glad enough to give Frieda the first
chance, but now as she began to speak, very naturally both of them
turned their attention full upon her. It was strange, for of course
Frieda had had a wonderful visit—what girl in a southern city fails to
have—and yet in spite of all her accounts of dances and dinner parties
and germans given for the school girls in Richmond during the holidays,
both Jean and Olive noticed that she did not look as cheerful as usual,
but that, if it were possible to believe such a thing, a fine line of
worry appeared to pucker her brow.

“Frieda Ralston, you have been going too hard and seeing altogether too
much of life for such a baby,” Jean insisted when Frieda had
triumphantly cast a dozen or more pretty trinkets received as favors at
germans at their feet.

But Frieda had only obstinately shaken her head, “I haven’t either,
Jean,” she declared, “Mrs. Johnson says it does not hurt girls to have a
good time in the holidays if they only study hard and behave themselves
properly at school.”

“Well, perhaps you are just tired, Frieda,” Olive suggested.

And again the youngest Miss Ralston disagreed. “I am not tired. Why
should you girls think there is anything the matter with me?” And she
turned such round, innocent blue eyes on her audience that it became
silenced. For five, ten minutes afterwards Frieda continued to hold the
floor, and then in the midst of an account of a party given at the
Johnson home she had suddenly stopped talking and thrown herself down on
the floor, tucking a sofa pillow under her blonde head. “Maybe I am
tired to-night on account of the trip home,” she confessed; “anyhow I
don’t want to talk any more just now. I suppose, Olive, you haven’t
anything special to say, just having stayed here at school with Miss
Winthrop. So Jean, you tell us what you did in New York.”

Because Jean took up the conversational gauntlet so promptly, both the
older girls failed to notice that before Frieda had even ceased talking
her eyes had filled with tears.

The story Jean told of her visits to Gerry and Margaret in New York City
was not exactly like Frieda’s, for though Jean was several years older
than her cousin, in New York school girls are never allowed the same
privileges that they enjoy in the South. But Jean had been to the
theatre many times and to luncheons and twice Mrs. Belknap had taken
Margaret and Jean and Gerry to the opera in her box. “Yes, Cecil Belknap
had been very nice and she had liked him a little better, though she
still thought him horribly vain,” Jean confessed, in answer to a leading
question from Frieda. Then she, too, abruptly concluded her story.
“There is just a weeny thing more I have got to tell everybody when the
lights go out,” she concluded, “but I am not willing to tell now.”

Frieda reached out for comfort toward her box of candy, popping a large
chocolate into her mouth.

“Now, Olive, you please tell us what you did while we went away like
selfish pigs and left you for most two weeks. You must have had a
dreadfully dull time!” Frieda suggested indulgently.

Olive laughed quietly. “Well, I didn’t have exactly a dull time; at
least, not lately.”

Another chocolate passed from the box to the youngest girl’s lips.

“Oh, I suppose you mean that Miss Winthrop was kind to you and you took
long walks together and things like that. I believe Miss Winthrop is
really fond of you, Olive, even more than she is of Jean and me. I
wonder why?”

At this both the girls laughed. “Oh, I suppose it is because she thinks
Olive the most attractive of ‘The Three Graces.’ Baby, of course you and
I are the other two,” Jean interrupted. “But I hope, Olive dear, that
she was good to you.”

And at this simple remark of Jean’s, Olive’s face suddenly flushed
scarlet. “Yes, Miss Winthrop has been good to me, better than any one
else in the world except you ranch girls,” she replied.

Struck by something unusual in her friend’s face and expression, Jean’s
own face suddenly sobered. “What do you mean, how can she have been so
unusually kind to you?” she questioned. Then with a sudden flash of
illumination. “Olive Ralston, you have something important on your mind
that you want to tell us. I might have guessed that you have been
keeping it a secret ever since we returned, letting us chat all this
nonsense about our visits first. Don’t you dare to tell us that Miss
Winthrop wants to adopt you as her daughter and that you have consented,
or none of us will ever forgive you in this world!”

Still Olive hesitated. “Truly, I don’t know how to tell you yet,” she
murmured, “though I have been planning a dozen different ways of
starting in the last two days.”

“That is it, then, Jean has guessed right,” interrupted Frieda darkly.
“I suppose it has happened just as a punishment to us for having left
you alone at Primrose Hall during the Christmas holidays. Of course Miss
Winthrop decided that we really do not care much for you and for all her
coldness to the other girls she needn’t try to deceive me; she is just
crazy about you, Olive!” Frieda now began really to shed tears. “But
whether you like Jean and Ruth and me or not, I never could have
believed that you would be so cruel as to turn your back on poor Jack
when she is too ill to speak for herself,” she finished.

“Hush, Frieda,” Olive returned sternly. “That is not what I want to tell
you. Of course Miss Winthrop has asked me to live with her if you should
ever wish to stop taking care of me, but I don’t want to live with her
if you ranch girls want me. I was only trying to explain——”

“What, for heaven’s sake, Olive?” Jean demanded, now nearly as white and
shaken as her friend, seeing Olive’s great difficulty in making her
confession.

“Jean, Frieda,” Olive began, speaking quietly now and in her accustomed
voice and manner, “it is only that since you have been away Miss
Winthrop has found out for me that I am not an Indian girl. I am not
even a western girl, or at least my father was not a Westerner. You
remember the day we went to see the Harmons at ‘The Towers’ and old
Madame Van Mater stared at me so strangely and scolded Donald for
thinking I was like his mother. She did not wish me to look like Mrs.
Harmon because Mrs. Harmon was my father’s first cousin and——”

“Oh, Olive, what are you talking about? You sound quite crazy!” Frieda
interposed.

And then Olive went on, even more clearly and rapidly telling the other
girls the history of her father and of herself as far back as she had
learned it. “Oh, I know you can’t believe what I have told you all at
once, girls, for it does sound like a miracle or a fable and we never
would have believed such a story had we read of it in a book. But Miss
Winthrop says that every day in the real world just such wonderful
things are happening as my coming here to Primrose Hall in the very
neighborhood where my father used to live and finding my grandmother
alive. In any newspaper you pick up you can run across just such an odd
coincidence.” As Olive had been allowed to talk on without interruption,
of course she believed by this time that both Jean and Frieda understood
the news she had been trying to make plain to them. Frieda had risen to
a sitting posture and was staring at her with frightened eyes, Jean was
frowning deeply.

“You mean?” said Jean helplessly. “You don’t mean?” said Frieda at the
same moment, and then, to relieve the tension of the situation the three
girls giggled hysterically.

“Please begin right at the beginning and tell the whole story over
again, Olive, and I will try to understand this time,” Jean had then
commanded and patiently Olive went through the whole tale again.

Therefore it was small wonder that they forgot about the bedtime hour,
until a knock at the door startled them. Jessica Hunt was preceptress of
their floor for the evening and, as Miss Winthrop had already told her
something of Olive’s history, she readily allowed the ranch girls a half
hour’s extra talk. She could not help their lights going out at ten
o’clock, however, but the ranch girls did not really care. A candle
under an umbrella makes an excellent light and no one outside can be any
the wiser!

Perhaps it was their two weeks of separation, perhaps it was Olive’s
strange story, for rarely had the three girls felt more devoted to one
another than they did to-night. They were sitting with their arms about
one another when Olive jumped up. “Please lend me the candle a minute,”
she begged unexpectedly, “I have been talking so much about myself that
I forgot I had some letters for you. They may be important.”

In another moment, coming back from her desk, she dropped several
envelopes in Jean’s and in Frieda’s hands. “I suppose if they are
Christmas cards you can see them by this light,” she said carelessly,
“but if they are letters you had best wait till morning.”

With a quick gesture Frieda tore open one of her envelopes and the paper
enclosed was neither a card nor a letter. “Oh, my goodness gracious,
what ever am I going to do?” she asked desperately, seeing three large
black figures staring at her even in the dark. “I have but ten cents in
all this world and I owe a bill of one hundred and fifty dollars!”

The reason for the line in Frieda’s brow was now disclosed. Instead of
having saved any of her hundred-dollar Christmas present during her
Christmas visit she had spent every cent of it. Now, without waiting for
her to find out what she could do to get the money for her dreadful
bill, the wretched, unkind shop people had sent it her on the very first
day of the New Year.

“I don’t like to borrow money of you and Olive, Jean, when I haven’t
paid back the last,” Frieda said, after a slight, uncomfortable moment
of surprise on the part of the other ranch girls, “but what can I do? I
suppose I have just got to write to Ruth and Jack, asking them to pay it
for me.”

“How could you ever have made such a bill, Frieda?” Jean demanded,
looking over her cousin’s shoulder in the flicker of the candle light.

“Clothes,” the answer came back in a weak, small voice.

Unexpectedly Jean laughed. “Oh, well, I need not preach, baby. What I
wanted to tell you myself, when the lights went out, is that I became a
backslider in New York and with Ruth’s consent told Gerry and Margaret
that we were not absolutely paupers. I just had to spend some of the
money I had saved, the things in New York were so fascinating. So I
haven’t much left to lend you, Frieda, and I am awfully sorry, for Ruth
says the mine is not yielding quite as much as it formerly did and we
must all be economical, for such a dreadful lot of money is needed right
away for Jack. I am pretty glad we did not tell the girls at Primrose
Hall that we were rich, because it may turn out that we are not after
all; gold mines are often uncertain.”

“Then I suppose I will have to go to prison for debt,” Frieda murmured.
And both older girls were heartless enough to laugh. “Oh, no, it need
not go as far as that, Frieda,” Olive assured her, “for I have hardly
spent a cent since coming to Primrose Hall, so I have nearly enough to
help you out, so you need not worry. Besides Miss Winthrop says that
however much I may dislike my grandmother and she me, I cannot refuse to
allow her to do for me now that she has discovered my whereabouts, for
the money that is now hers should _rightfully_ have come to my father
even though she did not wish him to have it.”

“Remember the fortune the old gypsy told you, Olive,” Jean repeated,
just as they were separating for the night. “‘And a fortune untold,
Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of gold.’ I used to think she
meant our mine.”




CHAPTER XXII

READJUSTMENTS


In the weeks that followed the discovery of Olive’s connection with the
wealthy old patroness of Primrose Hall a student of psychology would
have had an interesting opportunity in the study of the changed attitude
of her schoolmates toward her. In the first place, from being an Indian
girl of uncertain origin, Olive had suddenly become a heroine of romance
and also there was the possibility that she might in time be an heiress,
should her grandmother change in her feelings toward her and disinherit
the Harmons. In any case, the law would certainly allow her some portion
of the old estate. So you see that instead of being looked down upon as
the most undesirable student at Primrose Hall, the fourth ranch girl had
suddenly become exalted upon a pedestal, and perhaps it is just as
deceptive in this world to look up to other people as it is to look down
upon them, since a fair judgment can only be attained by standing face
to face.

Truly Olive had no more desire for this second false position than she
had for the first, but now her shyness, once regarded as ill breeding,
was called haughtiness and her classmates stood a little in awe of her.
The position was indeed a trying one for everybody concerned in it, for
scarcely could the girls who had been unkind to Olive, now throw
themselves about her neck begging her forgiveness, simply because so
unexpected a turn had come in her fortunes. Of course, some of the
unwise girls did do this, but not those with better judgment and taste,
for they understood that Olive must be approached more slowly and with
greater tact.

Among this second class of girls was Winifred Graham. Now no one could
be more vexed than she was with herself for her persistent snubbing of
Olive from the first day of her entrance into Primrose Hall, not because
she liked Olive any better than she had at first, but because Winifred
only cared for persons who might be useful to her, and now this
ridiculous Olive with her romantic history, might be very useful indeed.
The point at issue was the bestowal of the Shakespeare prize of several
hundred dollars, given each year by Madame Van Mater to the Junior
students in Jessica Hunt’s class. Mention has been made before that the
three girls who stood closest in line for this prize were Winifred,
Olive and Gerry. Now Winifred supposed that Olive would of course
withdraw from the contest, since she could hardly take a prize presented
by her own grandmother, but what Winifred feared was that Olive might
throw the balance of her influence in Gerry’s favor. Very carefully she
now undertook to show her change of feeling toward the ranch girls
without offending them or making them suspicious by too great haste. A
confidential talk with Jessica Hunt, who had always been their friend,
was one of the methods Winifred first employed, but there was little
assistance to be had from Jessica. For in the first place Jessica
declared immediately that Olive was not to give up her effort to win the
Shakespeare prize. Jessica had talked the matter over both with Olive
and Miss Winthrop and they had decided in council that Olive need not
give up her cherished ambition on account of her altered connection with
Madame Van Mater. The prize had been freely offered without
reservations to whatever girl in the Junior class should have the best
yearly record, write the best Shakespeare essay at the close of the
school year and give the best recitation from any one of the Shakespeare
plays.

Not approving of Olive’s continuance in the contest, Winifred had then
freely expressed her opinion to Jessica and afterwards to Olive, but
though her manner was now entirely friendly, her protest had not the
least effect upon Olive’s decision. Indeed, when things had settled down
into routine again Olive continued to work harder than ever during the
following winter and spring months. Of course, her position among her
classmates had altered somewhat; Margaret and Gerry were both her
friends as well as a number of other girls who had never been actively
disagreeable, but with Winifred, Olive could not keep up more than a
faint pretense of friendliness. At heart the two girls did not like one
another and no amount of veneering can ever cover a real antagonism of
temperament. They exchanged greetings in their class rooms and several
times Winifred called on the ranch girls, but as her visits were never
returned, she had to try other methods of softening the hostility her
own unkindness had created, hoping that before the school year was over
something would give her a chance to win their liking.

One month after the return of the Primrose Hall students from their
Christmas holidays the Theta Sorority had solemnly and with
distinguished rites received Olive and Jean into their mystic order.
When finally the invitation, so much discussed, had been extended to the
two ranch girls they had not known what to do in the matter. Of course,
they had not wished to show continued ill feeling, so with Jessica’s
advice, had joined the society, afterwards greatly enjoying the pretty
club house and the frequent informal entertainments which the sorority
gave during the rest of the school year.

So month after month rolled pleasantly and less eventfully on at
Primrose Hall. Weekly visits at the command of her grandmother were
still made by Olive to “The Towers.” At first Miss Winthrop had been in
the habit of accompanying her and later Jean and Frieda, but there were
times when pilgrimages had to be made alone. Why they had to be made at
all Olive did not understand, for Madame Van Mater still showed but
little liking for the granddaughter whom circumstances and Miss Winthrop
had surely thrust upon her. If she liked any one of the three ranch
girls it was Jean, for as usual Jean had not really felt the least fear
of her and when they had made their first call it was with difficulty
that she refrained from giving her hostess a piece of her mind in regard
to her treatment of Olive. Perhaps Madame Van Mater’s age prevented her
from receiving the scolding and perhaps her manner. For instead Jean
told her the story of the ranch girls’ discovery of Olive and of how
much she had previously suffered. And perhaps this story worked as well
as the scolding, since the old mistress of “The Towers” abruptly invited
Jean to tell her nothing more of this woman Laska, but of their life at
the Rainbow Ranch. Although all three girls could be eloquent on the
subject of the ranch, Jean was allowed the floor and three times in the
course of the conversation Madame Van Mater actually had laughed aloud,
a proceeding most unusual with her. Perhaps after all, in spite of her
hardness and pride, the old woman had not been altogether happy over her
treatment of her son’s child, even though she believed that her son had
forfeited her love and consideration by his own actions. But whatever
her reasons, thus far kept to herself, Olive was forced to continue the
weekly calls.

One afternoon in April, when Miss Winthrop was busy with school matters
and Jean and Frieda were engaged in a game of basketball, Olive found
herself compelled to go alone to see her grandmother. And she was
particularly vexed over this special visit, as she had wished to join
the other girls in their game.

Always until this afternoon Olive had been received by Madame Van Mater
with entire formality in the old drawing room, where they had had their
two memorable meetings, but to-day she found the drawing room empty and
while she waited a maid came to say that she was kindly to walk
upstairs.

Anything was better than the stiffness and coldness of the old drawing
room! Because the spring day was cool, Olive on going upstairs found her
grandmother before an open fire wrapped about with silk shawls and
comforts. Her hair was, of course, piled as high as usual and her
costume as handsome, but it was plain to see that she was not so well.

“Kindly don’t come near me, as I am suffering from a severe cold,” she
announced, as Olive approached to shake hands with her, never having at
any time offered her any more intimate greeting.

Olive sat down, trying to look properly interested, but really feeling
bored and uncomfortable at the thought of the next half hour. These
calendar-like visits and the fact that Jack Ralston was still a prisoner
in New York were the only worries she now seemed to have at Primrose
Hall.

“I am sorry you are ill,” she began politely, only to have her remark
waved aside.

“I am not ill,” Madame Van Mater returned, “only not well; but if I were
there are other more important matters than my health which I wish to
discuss with you this afternoon; therefore am I very glad to see you
alone.”

There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had never
attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by pretending to feel
any affection for her. She now simply sat perfectly still and
respectful, waiting to hear what was to be said next. But rarely had she
looked more attractive than on this afternoon. In the first place, her
walk had given her a bright color and she was wearing a particularly
becoming frock.

Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great care on
these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock, which Ruth
lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the first time. It was
of some soft material of silk and wool made with a short waist and
softly clinging skirt of a bright golden brown with a girdle of brown
velvet. Olive was very slender always and of only medium height, but her
dark coloring was rich and unusual and now her expression was gayer and
in some unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her
manner than formerly.

For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater
continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting opposite
her, and then, without the least warning of her intention, said
abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not understood why I have insisted
on your coming to see me so regularly and constantly since my discovery
of your connection with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you
have not I am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying
you and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a great
injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his choice of an
occupation and by his marriage to your mother instead of Katherine
Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off from me all responsibility in
regard to his child. You are not altogether what I would have you to be,
you have less social ease of manner and less conversational ability than
I desire in my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults
in you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them. What I
am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make reparation to you
by having you come here to live with me when your year at Primrose Hall
is passed, and if I find you as refined and as capable of being managed
as I now suppose you to be, I am prepared to change my will, making you
heir to the greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and
nephew, Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended
for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I wish to
do it. And also because it will please Katherine Winthrop, who is one of
the few persons for whom I have always cared.”

Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips, but
seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no intention of
thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly, “only of refusing your
offer. It may be very kind of you to desire me to live with you, but I
thought you understood that nothing and no one in the world could ever
persuade me to stop living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me
to be with them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or
anything else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”

“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far more
inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her. “Of course, I
wish to say nothing against these friends of yours; under the
circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful to them for their
kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect to live forever on their
bounty, and what can they offer you in the way of social opportunity? I
believe they have no parents to introduce them into society, only this
chaperon named Ruth Drew and some man or other who manages their ranch.”

Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very anxious or
very well fitted for social opportunity,” she answered, “but I don’t
think you need worry about the ranch girls, for when the time comes for
them to take any part in society I am sure they will find opportunities
enough. I wrote Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation
was over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she wanted me
to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would travel or do
whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any of us know yet
whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean and Frieda and I have
positively made up our minds that nothing will induce us to be separated
from her after this year.”

“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater returned
coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this question with you. I
shall have Katherine Winthrop put the matter before you. But you can
rest assured, Olive, of these two things: In the first place, that if at
any time you displease me I can leave my money to any one whom I may
select, as my husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and
in the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you are
not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your natural
guardian.”

Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to be
violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature anger must
get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the girl now got up from
her chair and crossing the room faced Madame Van Mater with an
expression as determined as her own. “Please understand that I do not
want to defraud either Donald or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have
always promised them. They have been very kind since the discovery of my
connection with them and of course you must be more fond of them than
you can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I don’t
want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother, nor do I feel
that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect of me. Do you think it
is quite fair for you now to speak of being my natural guardian when for
so many years you desired nothing so much as that my name should never
be mentioned to you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any
more, but understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”

Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger, for
until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her rather too
gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her shoulders
indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of course, Olive, I shall
decide later what course in regard to you I shall consider it advisable
to take.”

So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever before in
her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for consolation to
Primrose Hall.




CHAPTER XXIII

“MAY TIME IS GAY TIME”


May had arrived and with it the first warm spring weather along the
Hudson River valley. Now the river was often crowded with sail boats
dipping their white and gray canvases toward the sky and toward the
water like the wings of a seagull; motor boats chugged along, making
more noise than automobiles; while the steam yachts, ever the
aristocrats among all water craft, sailing into their own harbors up and
down the Hudson shores, ever and anon put forth again as though
intending to leave home behind for adventures on the open sea. All the
hills beyond and near by the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow were like
mammoth bouquets with their fragrance and beauty upturned to the sun,
while within the meadows and fields and gardens were a greater variety
of wild-flowers than can be found in many other places in this land.

Now at last the ranch girls understood why Miss Katherine Winthrop’s old
home had been called “Primrose Hall” long before ever the school was
thought of. For wild primroses blossomed everywhere, although the season
was late, until the garden about the old place looked like the famous
field of “The Cloth of Gold.”

As much as possible on these bright May days the students at Primrose
Hall lived out of doors, but with the school year drawing to a close it
was not always easy to desert lessons and the thought of approaching
examinations.

One afternoon Jean and Frieda had arranged themselves in a corner of one
of the big verandas with a table between them and a screen carefully set
up to protect them from interruption. The girls were not talking, indeed
an utter silence had reigned between them for the last ten minutes,
broken only by the squeak of Frieda’s pen writing its last essay for the
present term and by an occasional sigh from Jean from the depth of an
oration by Cicero.

Stealing along outside the defensive wall of this screen a short time
later mysterious footsteps might be heard, not of one pair of feet but
of several, and yet not a single head appeared above it.

Frowning, Jean listened and then went on with her work, determined not
to be lured from the strict path of duty.

“Whatever geese are outside the screen,” she thought to herself, “seeing
our sign on it, ‘Positively No Admittance, Studying,’ will go away and
leave us in peace.”

But when a screen falls to the floor with a bang only a few inches from
where one is seated, certainly no degree of devotion to the study of
literature and the classics will prevent one from jumping up with a
scream. And this Jean and Frieda did at the same instant, and behold,
there, with only the prostrate screen dividing them, were Gerry and
Margaret, Lucy and Mollie Johnson, besides several other members of
their Junior class!

“The city has fallen and the prisoners are ours!” Gerry announced,
pointing a pen at Jean’s heart as an improvised dagger.

Jean tried not to look cross. “Look here, girls, what do you want with
us?” she demanded. “You know it isn’t fair to come interrupting a fellow
at his labors, and Miss Winthrop——”

“Oh, Miss Winthrop be—any old thing,” Gerry answered saucily. “Do you
suppose that when school is nearly over that we care half so much for
the views and wishes of our lady principal as we do earlier in the year,
when we might have to live on under the shadow of her displeasure?
However, on this one occasion the fear of that august personage need not
darken our young lives, since she has given her consent to what I am now
about to propose. Oh, well, since it is Margaret’s party, I suppose I
had best let her extend the actual invitation, while I beg you to accept
it beforehand.”

Jean put up two protesting hands, but Frieda showed no such moral
hesitancy. “Please don’t ask Frieda and me to do anything agreeable this
afternoon,” Jean pleaded, “for we simply can’t accept any invitation,
and yet if you ask us we may.”

Margaret Belknap laughed. “Of course you will when you hear what it is.
You must get your coats and hats at once and come and drive with us for
a mile or so to the nearest landing pier and there father and Cecil will
be waiting for us in our yacht to take us for a sail.”

“Oh, my goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Frieda ecstatically, gathering
her school paraphernalia into her arms, “and to think that I have never
been on a yacht or even a sailboat in my whole life!”

Apparently there was to be no further question of their studies this
afternoon, for Jean and Frieda now fairly leaped over the overturned
screen in their efforts to get up to their room for hats and coats
without delay.

However, but two minutes had passed, a not sufficient time for Jean to
have made preparations for the trip, when she was seen slowly returning
toward her group of friends.

“Margaret, Gerry,” she begged, “if the other girls will please excuse
us, I want to speak to you privately for half a minute.”

Jean’s face was flushed and her manner embarrassed. “Please don’t think
I am ungrateful for your invitation, Margaret,” she said softly, “but
really I don’t believe I had better go with you this afternoon after
all. Frieda says she _will_ go,” and unconsciously the speaker put an
added emphasis on the verb will.

Margaret, hurt at her friend’s attitude, did not answer at once,
particularly as Gerry hardly gave her the opportunity.

“Will you kindly tell us, Jean Bruce, what has happened to make you
change your mind in the distance between the veranda and your bedroom
door?” she inquired. “You need not tell me that you won’t go for a sail
on the Hudson for the first time in your life because you love your
Cicero so.”

Jean shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “Well, not exactly.”

“Oh, Margaret, for heaven’s sake explain to Jean that we have asked
Olive too, but that Olive says she positively can’t join us. Of course
she is working on that plagued old Shakespeare essay of hers. And to
think that once I believed I had a chance at that Shakespeare prize.”

At Gerry’s first words Jean’s face had magically cleared. “Oh, if
Margaret wants Olive too, I will make her come along with us, she shall
not be such a grind,” she protested. But before she could vanish for the
second time Margaret and Gerry both clutched at her skirts.

“Don’t urge Olive to come with us, for you see we don’t really want her,
and only asked her because we knew she couldn’t come.” Margaret
explained hastily, and then seeing Jean’s face crimson with anger and
resentment, she gave her an affectionate shake.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, when will you ranch girls get over being
so touchy about one another? You know that now we know Olive better, we
like her as much as any girl in our class. To tell you the truth, it is
just because we are trying to fix up some plan to show Olive how we feel
toward her that we did not want her to come along with us now. It seemed
to us this would be our best chance to let you know our idea and to see
what you think about it. I suppose I might have told you this at first,”
Margaret ended, “only I am not a tactful person, and perhaps put things
pretty badly.”

“You certainly did,” Jean laughed, “but now I will hurry and get my
belongings, as I am perfectly dying to hear what you have in mind.”

An hour later eight members of the Junior class, Frieda and Mollie and
Miss Rebecca Sterne, having arrived at a private landing pier not far
from their school, were assisted aboard the steam yacht “Marathon” by
Cecil Belknap and his father.

During the first half of the sail there was little real conversation
among the girls, only “Ohs” and “Ahs” of delight at the beauty of the
river scenery and the wonders of the yacht. But by and by on their
return journey when Margaret and her guests were seated around the salon
dining table drinking afternoon tea, Gerry, who never could bear putting
off things, turned to her hostess.

“Look here, Margaret,” she said in tones loud enough for the entire
company to overhear, “if your father and brother will pardon us, I vote
that we plunge right into the subject we have come together to discuss
this afternoon. I suppose your father and Cecil must both have heard
something of Olive’s story by now.”

Margaret nodded. Jean was not so sure that she cared to have Olive’s
difficulties at school discussed before Cecil Belknap, whom she did not
yet thoroughly like, but as Margaret’s guest she did not like to
protest.

Gerry then leaned across the table toward the ranch girls with her
teaspoon poised in the air.

“Look here, Jean, Frieda, everybody, it is just like this. You know that
when the three ranch girls came to Primrose Hall most of us liked two of
the three girls right from the first, after a few of their western
peculiarities had rubbed up against our eastern ones. But with the third
girl, with Olive—well, it was different. In the first place, Olive was
shy and did not look exactly like the rest of us (she is much prettier
than I am, for example); in the second place, the story was circulated
about among the girls that Olive was part Indian, the daughter of a
dreadfully ignorant Indian woman from whom she had run away and that now
she was trying to pretend that she was no relation to her own mother. Of
course, had any one of us ever looked at Olive very hard we must have
known that this story was an untruth, or else only a half truth, which
is the worst kind of a lie. But we were too prejudiced and Olive too shy
to stand up for herself and—oh, what is the use of my going into this
horrid part of my story when I want to come to the fairy tale at the
end! After a while some of us girls did begin to see a little further
than the end of our noses and to suspect that a girl as clever as Olive
in her studies, as lovely in disposition and as refined and gentle in
her manner, could hardly be what we had believed her, simply couldn’t.
And now I want to say just one thing in excuse for myself. I did know
that Olive was a lady and more than a lady, a trump, before I learned
that she was not an Indian girl, but a heroine,” and here Gerry paused
an instant to sigh and to get her breath in order to continue to express
her romantic delight in the change of the stranger girl’s fortune.

Hurriedly, however, Margaret Belknap now seized this moment’s respite.

“I knew that Olive was charming too,” she interposed, “and I did try to
be nicer to her before I went away for the Christmas holidays, intending
on my return to ask her to overlook the past and be friends. I suppose
there were other girls in our class who felt the same way and had this
same intention?”

As Margaret paused four or five other voices answered: “There certainly
were,” before she went on. “Yes, I know. But after we got back from our
holidays it was then too late to make Olive believe in our good
intentions, because in that short time things had so changed for her
that she had become more interesting than any of the rest of us. You can
see, Jean and Frieda, just what we have been up against?” (The
well-broughtup Margaret was not conscious of using slang at this moment
and only her brother smiled at her.) “If our Junior class had then
rushed up at once to Olive and apologized to her, after we had learned
of what had befallen her, why we did not believe that she would care
very much for such a belated repentance. So for months now we have been
trying to think of some pretty and tactful way to show our real feeling
toward her and now we hope we have at last hit upon the right plan.”

“Do let me tell the rest, Margaret, you have talked such a long time,”
and though a laugh went all around the table at her expense, Gerry again
burst forth: “Everybody here knows that we are to have our school finals
now in a short time and see the Seniors graduate and the Juniors, who
are trying for the Shakespeare prize, give their recitations before the
committee specially chosen to pass on them? Then of course we have
luncheon and afterwards a dance on the lawn with all our guests at the
commencement present. But there is one thing that perhaps you two ranch
girls don’t know and that is that we always choose one of the Primrose
Hall girls as our Queen for commencement day. Of course she must be
selected from among the entire school, not from any one class; but
Margaret and some of the other Juniors and I have been talking things
over with the Seniors and they say it is our turn to have the Queen and
that they are willing to—you know what we want to do, don’t you, Jean
and Frieda?”

Jean bowed her head showing that she understood, but Frieda still
appeared mystified.

“I think it would be a beautiful thing for you girls to do, if you
really wish to do it,” Jean answered a bit huskily, although she was
trying not to show any special emotion before Cecil Belknap, who had
been watching her pretty closely all afternoon through his same hateful
pair of eyeglasses.

“Beautiful to do what?” Frieda now demanded, turning first toward Mollie
and then toward Lucy Johnson for the explanation of this everlasting
preamble of Gerry’s and Margaret’s.

“Why, choose Olive for our School Queen for commencement day,” Gerry
returned, “and as our finals take place in May, I suppose you can call
her ‘Queen of the May’ if you like. For you see she does preside over
our dances all afternoon, leads any special ones, and we pay her
whatever homage we can. Now, please, don’t you, Cecil, or any other
human being at this table start reciting: ‘You must wake and call me
early, call me early, mother dear’,” she concluded, “for if it were not
for that tiresome, weepy poem, I should think the choosing of a May
Queen one of the prettiest customs in the world. But I can assure you
that at least eleven out of every twelve persons who come to our
commencement feel called upon to spout that poem; I suppose because it
is so ridiculously easy to remember.”

As soon as the speaker finished Margaret jumped up from the table, her
guests immediately following suit. “Then it is all settled,” she
exclaimed happily, lifting high her pretty teacup, “so let us drink to
Olive as our next queen and to the other ranch girls.”

“I suppose you mean Jack too, even if you don’t know her,” Frieda
suggested loyally before joining in the toast. And Gerry’s hearty “Of
course,” ended the pretty scene.

For now the entire party of girls, deserting the salon, made their way
again out on to the deck of the yacht. Of the group Jean was the last to
leave, followed by Cecil Belknap.

“Oh, I say, Miss Bruce, will you go a bit slow?” he asked. “My sister
tells me that she has asked you to pay us a visit at our cottage on the
Massachusetts coast this summer and I hope you are going to be jolly
enough to come, for I should enjoy it most awfully.”

“You wouldn’t really, not a visit from a western ranch girl?” Jean’s
eyes danced; “but it is very kind of you to say so,” she ended prettily,
extending her hand to the young man.

Cecil was looking out the open door to where the lights were now
twinkling forth one by one along the side of the Jersey shore. “No, it
is not what I would call good of me,” he replied quietly. “I thought I
told you at our house at Christmas that I liked you and that if there
wasn’t any fellow out West, I would like to see more of you anyhow. Do
say you will make us the visit?”

With a new dignity that a year of Primrose Hall had helped develop in
her, Jean now shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “I have already
explained to Margaret that I shan’t be able to come to her this summer.
You see, my cousin, Jack Ralston, whether she is better or not, is to
leave the hospital in New York early in June and then we expect to go
back to the Rainbow Ranch for the summer time. After that we may go, who
knows where?”

The young people went out on deck together as the yacht was now running
in toward shore, and beyond the landing pier in the soft, spring dusk
the travelers could see the old school carryall and in another carriage
Olive and Miss Winthrop waiting to drive the party back to Primrose
Hall. But before anybody was allowed to leave the yacht Gerry had
solemnly whispered to each one of them. “Remember, please, Olive is not
to hear a single, solitary word about our plan. It is to be a secret up
to the very last minute.”




CHAPTER XXIV

SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES


“I declare, I never saw such a spectacle as I am in my life,” Gerry
Ferrows protested, turning half way around to get a back view of herself
in her bedroom mirror. “You look perfectly lovely, Winifred, and I would
not be a bit surprised if you get the Shakespeare prize after all, even
though Olive has the best class record for the year and I the highest
mark for my essay. We are so close together in this contest that the
least thing may change the balance. It is my private opinion that
whoever gives the best Shakespeare recitation to-day will receive the
prize.” And Gerry sighed and then laughed, as she stooped to adjust her
doublet and hose. “Dear me, Winifred, why couldn’t I have been born a
stately blonde beauty like you so that I might have appeared as lovely
Ophelia instead of having to represent Rosalind on account of my short
hair?”

Winifred also laughed, just the least bit complacently, happening at
that moment to catch sight of her own fair reflection. She was dressed
in a long clinging robe of some soft white material and her pale blonde
hair, bound with a fillet of silver, hung loose about her neck. In her
hand she held a sheet of paper with her speech written upon it, which
she glanced at a little nervously every now and then.

    “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
    The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
    The expectancy and rose of the fair state.”

“Dear me, Gerry, don’t talk of my winning the prize by my recitation,”
Winifred groaned. “I have the most dreadful case of stage fright
already, and to think that I have to make the first speech!” She glanced
up at the clock on their mantel. “It is only a half hour now before we
must go downstairs and I believe that there have never been so many
guests at one of our commencements before. I suppose it is because the
day is so beautiful that we can have our whole entertainment outdoors. I
wish we had a front window, for I am sure I have heard at least a
hundred automobiles drive up to the house. If we go to the ranch girls’
room we can see out into the yard and I can have a look at Olive. I am
simply dying to find out what she looks like!”

Gerry shook her head positively. “Jean says that no one is to come near
Olive; she even means to go downstairs with her herself and to slip
around to the entrance to the stage in the pavilion, so that no one
shall dare speak to her. So I suppose if the truth be known, Winifred,
Olive is just about as badly scared as you are and a good deal more so,
considering how dreadfully shy she is. But don’t fear that she will not
look pretty. I heard Jessica Hunt say the other night that she never saw
any one so exquisite in her life as Olive in her Shakespeare costume.
And I feel rather proud because Olive chose Perdita in ‘The Winter’s
Tale’ for her character because I asked her to. She had once made me
think of a description of Perdita.”

Winifred flushed angrily and then began walking up and down the room.
“See here, Gerry Ferrows, I do think it is just too hateful for you to
have kept on encouraging Olive to try for this prize. It will look
awfully queer to people if she accepts a prize from her own grandmother
anyhow, and I do need it most dreadfully.” In her nervousness and temper
Winifred was almost in tears, though not for worlds would she
consciously have marred her lovely appearance.

A low whistle came from between Gerry’s red lips. “Please don’t leave me
out of the race altogether, sweet Winifred,” she begged. “I may not have
so great beauty as you and Olive to commend me, but remember:

    “‘From the east to western Ind,
    No jewel is like Rosalind.
    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
    Through all the world bears Rosalind.’”

Then Gerry, marching over with an exaggerated, swashbuckling stride
toward Winifred, smote her on the shoulder with more friendliness than
she had shown her in many weeks. “Come, Winifred, what is the use of our
worrying now? I believe I need this prize money quite as much as you do,
since my father has just made some unfortunate investments and may not
be able to let me come back to old Primrose Hall to graduate next year.
And of course we know this prize would mean our tuition. But we must
take what comes with a good grace, for you and Olive and I have an
equally fair chance with our speeches to-day. So if Olive wins we ought
not to fuss, for I can perfectly well understand how she wants the glory
of winning and not the prize itself. She told me that she had been
working for this prize ever since she first came to Primrose Hall in
order to show her beloved Jack Ralston how much she had appreciated the
opportunities she had given her.”

In reply Winifred merely shrugged her shoulders scornfully, but at the
same instant, a bell sounding out on the lawn and a great clapping of
hands, she again fell to studying the paper in her hand. “Good gracious,
there is someone’s speech just ending!” she exclaimed, “so our turns
will come soon.”

And Gerry, even though she was sure of being letter perfect in
Rosalind’s saucy reply to Orlando: “No, no, Orlando, men are April when
they woo, December when they wed,” opened her “As You Like It” and began
once more to read over her part.

So five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and then Jessica Hunt’s voice was
heard outside in the hall: “Where are my Shakespeare heroines?” she
demanded. “Gerry, Winifred, please put your long coats around you and
come on downstairs now. The coast is clear and it is almost time for
your speeches. I will tell Olive.”

Winifred had indeed been right: no commencement day at Primrose Hall had
ever been so beautiful as this one and never before had one called forth
so many guests.

Built as like as possible to an old Greek outdoor theatre, a stage had
been erected at the edge of a grove of trees not many yards from the
great house and a kind of covered arbor temporarily arranged so that the
girls who took part in the commencement exercises might pass from the
house to the stage without being seen by the audience. The stage had no
curtain and only the sky for a canopy, a rarely blue sky with the white
clouds that melt before the deeper warmth of June. On either side were
piled great branches of trees freshly brought in from the woods,
delicately green with the early leaves of spring, and the floor of the
stage was strewn with wild-flowers, buttercups, violets and daisies.

In the yard facing the pretty impromptu theatre the audience was seated,
perhaps two hundred persons, so that any girl making her first public
appearance before it might reasonably be frightened. Perhaps it was the
beauty of the day, perhaps the novelty of Miss Winthrop’s stage
arrangements, for surely no audience had ever appeared more enthusiastic
than hers, and as each girl had stepped forth on the stage, apparently
entering from the heart of a woods on to a carpet of flowers, the
applause and interest had increased.

The Shakespeare heroines were to be the closing feature of the
programme. Therefore, in the front row facing the stage were half a
dozen men and women whom Miss Winthrop had invited to act as judges, and
a few feet from them in a chair next Miss Winthrop’s sat old Madame Van
Mater, the owner of “The Towers” and the donor of the Shakespeare prize.
Her appearance at the commencement had been a surprise to everybody, but
whether she came because of her interest in her newly-found
granddaughter or whether because of her affection for Miss Winthrop, no
one had been told.

When Winifred Graham first came out upon the stage such a murmur of
admiration ran through the audience that its echo reached to her, giving
her just the confidence she had needed for the making of her speech. And
truly her beauty justified the admiration, for she was wearing the
costume that best suited her and was most effective against the natural
background of evergreens and flowers. The sunshine falling between the
leaves of the trees overhead touched her pale blonde hair to a deeper
gold, making fairy shadow patterns on the pure white of her dress.

Without a trace of the nervousness that had haunted her upstairs, nor a
moment’s faltering over her lines, Winifred recited Ophelia’s famous
description of Hamlet, ending with the words, “O, woe is me, To have
seen what I have seen, see what I see.” Then for just a moment she
paused with a pretty, pathetic gesture and her gaze swept the faces of
her judges before she vanished from the stage amid much clapping of
hands. Three times Winifred was recalled by the audience and at each
call Gerry’s heart sank lower and lower in her pretty high-top boots.

“There is no use my trying now,” she grumbled, “because Winifred has
already won.” When a friend standing near whispered something in her ear
she laughed in her usual good-humored fashion. “Oh, yes, I suppose I can
recite better than Winifred, but what avails it me when I can’t look
like the goddess of spring as she does at this moment there on the stage
with her arms full of flowers.”

Gerry and two of her closest friends were under the enclosed arbor in
the spot nearest the entrance to the stage, as her recitation came next,
and a few feet away Olive, closely guarded by Jean, was also waiting.

Hurriedly Jessica Hunt rushed in, whispering something to Jean. Then she
darted across to Gerry. “Winifred is coming off now for the last time;
are you ready? Winifred looked perfectly lovely, but she did not speak
distinctly enough. Remember it is difficult to hear out of doors.”

Then came Gerry’s cue. A little nearsighted without her glasses, she
tripped over some branches, making a headlong rush on to the stage in
her entrance, as though Rosalind, really trying to find her way through
an unknown woods, had stumbled in the underbrush.

No one had ever been able to call Gerry Ferrows handsome, and yet in the
character and costume of Rosalind she was certainly at her best. Perhaps
the description that the heroine gives of herself in masquerade will
best describe Gerry’s present appearance.

    “More than common tall,
    That I did suit me all points like a man?
    A gallant curtle axe upon my thigh,
    A boar-spear in my hand and—in my heart
    Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will—
    We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside.”

And truly if Gerry did feel any womanish fear during her recitation she
did not in any way betray it, for at once the gayety of Rosalind, her
wit and gallant courage, seemed to have fallen like a mantle upon Gerry.
Twice her audience laughed aloud in the course of her recitation and
once two of the judges nodded at each other, which had not happened
during Winifred’s speech. Nevertheless, though Gerry came twice on to
the stage again to receive her flowers and applause, she was certain
that unless Olive made a much better showing than she had, Winifred
would be the winner of their contest.

For some unexplainable reason there was a slight wait before the third
girl, who was to close the competition, made her appearance. And this
was unfortunate for Olive. In the first place, the large audience was
growing a little bit tired and hungry, and in the second place, it gave
them the opportunity to begin talking of Olive’s curious history,
retailing to one another as much or as little as each one of them knew.

Olive’s costume was a gift from Ruth and Jack, sent from New York and
shown to no one before the entertainment save Jessica Hunt and Miss
Winthrop. No one will ever know how much pleasure the planning of it had
given to Jack Ralston in the tiresome days at the hospital. Not that she
and Ruth were Shakespeare scholars, only it had happened that years
before Ruth had seen a famous actress, who soon afterwards retired from
the stage, in this very character of Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale” and
had never forgotten the details of her dress.

Quietly, when but few persons were looking, Olive at last skipped on to
the stage. She was wearing a pale pink crepe dress that came down to her
ankles, covered with an overdress of flowered tulle. Her long and
curiously black hair was braided in the two familiar loose braids with a
single pink flower at one side, and on her arm she carried a basket of
spring flowers.

Had all her friends and acquaintances not been convinced from the first
that Olive would be frightened to death before so many people? It was
odd, therefore, that as she first came down toward the edge of the
platform she smiled assurance at Miss Winthrop, who was trying her best
not to appear too anxious or too interested in her favorite pupil.

Then, Olive, before beginning Perdita’s speech, started slowly to dance
an old English folk dance such as the country people must have danced in
rustic England long before even Shakespeare’s time. Dancing was an art
with Olive, so that before she commenced her speech her audience was
won.

Still not showing the least trace of fright or nervousness, when her
dance was concluded, Olive stepped forward again to the center of the
open-air stage:

    “I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might
    Become your time of day; and yours, and yours—”

She looked from one face to the other in the rows of people watching her
as though addressing Perdita’s pretty speech to them.

Then Miss Winthrop lost her color and old Madame Van Mater stiffened and
her eyes flashed. “Foolish girl, she has forgotten her part and is going
to make a spectacle of herself and me!” she whispered in her friend’s
ear. “I wish I had never come.”

And apparently Olive had forgotten her lines or else grown suddenly ill,
for she continued standing perfectly still and speechless for a period
of one, two minutes, though surely it seemed like ten, while waves of
color swept over her face, turning it crimson and then leaving it pale.
“Oh, I cannot believe it,” she whispered softly to herself, never taking
her eyes from a central place in the audience, as though on this
exquisite May morning she had suddenly seen a ghost.

What secret message traveled across the heads of the audience to the
girl on the stage, no one knows, but Olive must have caught it, for she
smiled again and dipping her hand in her basket of wild-flowers appeared
to present them to various characters, who in Shakespeare’s play stand
grouped around the figure of Perdita as she makes this speech:

    “Daffodils,
    That come before the swallow dares, and take
    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
    Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
    That die unmarried—”

As Olive spoke slowly she drew her flowers from her basket, dropping
them to the ground and moving gradually backwards toward the entrance to
the stage. Then, when she had recited the last line of her speech, she
made a quick bow and before her audience realized that her speech was
actually over, had disappeared.

Whether the applause that followed after her equalled Winifred’s and
Gerry’s she did not know and at the moment did not care. For Jean was
waiting only a few yards away and Olive rushed to her at once.

“Oh, Jean dear,” she said half laughing and half crying, “I didn’t see?
It can’t be true! Oh, why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because we did not want you to be too excited,” Jean answered, trying
to speak calmly, “but oh, Olive, please hurry, for Jack wishes you to
come to her at once.”




CHAPTER XXV

“JACK”


Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms about
her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and fragile and
leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep bronze, the color of
copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes, were now unusually dark with
emotion. She was evidently trying to appear less disturbed than she
felt, for her head was tilted back the least bit and her lips were held
close together; indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at
self-control.

“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely unconscious of
the number of persons about them, and the girl in the costume of an
English shepherdess arrived at the desired goal first.

“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first meeting
after a long separation from one we love. And so for several moments the
two ranch girls clung together trying hard to keep back their tears,
while Jean, standing a little apart from them, pretended to laugh at
their emotion.

“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did it
happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I don’t care
whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are here.” Olive said at
last.

“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so much by
surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But you see it was
like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more heavily on her cane,
although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it. “When my operation was over
neither the surgeons nor anybody knew just at first whether or not I was
to get well. So of course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until
we were certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger
I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out here at
Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I did not mean to
put off coming until commencement day,” Jack continued apologetically,
“but somehow I did not get well quite as fast as I expected, until it
had to be now or never, so Ruth wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this
morning but not to let you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would
somehow affect your speech.”

“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think how I
felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I saw you
standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you used to do.”

“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only I got
so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am perfectly
well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not accustomed to
standing so long.”

Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried off,
returning in another minute empty handed. But following close behind her
was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked a little out of place at
Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a freedom and power that did not
speak of city streets, neither did the deep tan of his skin. He was
carrying the big, comfortable chair for Jean.

“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so many
surprises in one day!” Olive protested.

Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of the
Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so that he
could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another moment his big
hands closed over hers.

“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied. “To
think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books, and here I
was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow Ranch, whose
history makes most of the fiction tales look real pale! But ain’t it
great to see the boss herself again. I couldn’t believe she was getting
well when she wrote me; I was like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to
show me’.” And here Jim put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.

“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice
demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five minutes
together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to let my sister get
out of my sight again as long as I live!” Frieda had joined the little
group under the linden tree just as Jim was finishing his speech and
before Olive could answer him.

Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my
grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.

[Illustration: “DON’T TALK ABOUT SURPRISES.”]

Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully
glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us
less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well
enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your
grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had
been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who
are all those persons coming towards us now?”

Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss
Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the
line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and
apparently unconscious of every one else.

With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then
immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.

“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received
the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the
most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in
the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I
want to congratulate you.”

With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious
rival.

But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be
congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,”
she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”

“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with
them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly
trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were
standing together.

“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss Winthrop at
once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying for it just to see
what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does not wish the prize given
her, and of course under the circumstances Olive does not wish it
herself.”

Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were peremptorily borne
away by a number of their classmates. Later on from a kind of throne on
one of the Primrose Hall verandas Jack and some of her friends witnessed
the pretty ceremony of the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For
several hours afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive
raising a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in
royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during the
afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once, when Jack had
been watching them, she happened to turn to speak to Madame Van Mater,
who sat next her. But whatever she may have intended to say she did not,
but instead waited to study her companion’s expression.

There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly pleased
at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was almost a smile
of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack flushed, biting her
lips, then she leaned over and spoke:

“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have Olive go
home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if afterwards you will
do something that is kinder still?” she asked.

With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there was an
air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was very pleasing.

“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere with my
granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but what more would
you have me to do?”

For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa cushions
looking out over the garden and fields to where afar off she could see
just a silver line marking the course of the Hudson River.

“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame Van
Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t believe I
had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my life. And all the
time lately I have been thinking and longing for just two things. One to
see our beloved ranch again, to get on horseback and ride for miles and
miles over the prairie. And then—”

“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest than you
would believe she could show.

Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I can.
You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used to think
perhaps I should never see much more of the world than just four walls.”
Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders in her old, determined way.
“But I am well now and, as the doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I
want you to promise to let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and
me next fall?”

“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent idea! I
could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel and experience
may give her just the ease and culture she needs. But who will look
after you?”

At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her
companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil of
watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight hold of her
hand.

“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She will not
go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go abroad
afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”

Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss Winthrop
arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying farewell to her
guests.

So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking about in
the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left alone. Not far off
they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda
holding on to his hands like little girls.

Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.

“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to
hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw
each other again you would forget what has separated you and only
remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill,
love seems the only thing that is really important.”

Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at
the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to
her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered,
although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone
since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my
hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.”

Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than it had
been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not forget,” she
answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest, kindest person in the
world.” And then the oldest ranch girl sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the
horridest thing in the world to have to wait for the nice things to
happen?” she asked. “Of course, we all know, Ruth, that some day
everything will turn out for the best, but it is just that silly old
indefinite word some that makes the waiting so difficult.”

The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will appear
under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this story the
histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be more fully
developed, for having put childhood and school life behind them, they
will enter that broader world of young womanhood, where romance stands
ever waiting round the corner.





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