CHAPTER XIV.
AN INSPIRATION.
"This is like having a bedroom _salon_," exclaimed Molly with ahospitable smile to some dozen guests who adorned the divans and easychairs, the floor and window sills of her room.
Surely there was nothing Molly liked better than to entertain, and whenshe had callers, she always entertained them with refreshments of somekind. Often it had to be crackers and sweet chocolate, and she had evenbeen reduced to tea. But usually her family kept her supplied with goodthings and her larder was generally well stocked.
She lay in bed, propped up with pillows, and scattered about the bedwere text-books and papers.
"You've been studying again, you naughty child," exclaimed Mary Stewart,shaking her finger. "Didn't Dr. McLean tell you to go easy for the nextweek?"
"Go easy, indeed," laughed Molly. "You might as well tell a trapezeactor to do the giant-swing and hold on tight at the same time. But it'sworth losing a few days to find out what loving friends I have. Yourpink roses are the loveliest of all," she added, squeezing her friend'shand.
"Tell us exactly who sent you each bunch?" demanded Jessie, passinga box of ginger-snaps, while Judy performed miracles with a tea ball,a small kettle and a varied assortment of cups and saucers. "I havea right to ask you," continued Jessica, "because you asked the samequestion of me last Tuesday when two boxes came."
"No suitor sent me any of these, Mistress Jessica," answered Molly,"because I haven't any. Miss Stewart sent the pink ones, and thePresident of the senior class sent the red ones. Judy brought me thedouble violets and Nance the lilies of the valley, bless them both, andanother senior the pot of pansies. The seniors have certainly beensweet and lovely."
"There's one you haven't accounted for," interrupted Jessie.
"The violets?" asked Molly, blushing slightly.
"Oh, ho!" cried Jessie in her high, musical voice, "trying to crawl,were you? You can't deceive old Grandmamma Sharp-eyes. Honor bright,who sent the violets?"
"To tell you the truth, I don't know. I suspected Frances Andrews, butwhen I thanked her for them, she looked horribly embarrassed and saidshe hadn't sent them. I was afraid she would go down and get some aftermy break, but thank goodness, she had the good taste not to."
"You mean to say they were anonymous?" demanded Jessie.
"I mean to say that thing, but I suppose some of the seniors whopreferred to remain unknown sent them."
"It's just possible," put in Mary, and the subject was dropped.
"Let's talk about the only thing worth talking about just now," brokein Judy. "The Flopping of Flora; or, Who Cut the Wires?"
"Why talk about it?" said Molly. "You could never reach any conclusion,and guessing doesn't help."
"Oh, just as a matter of interest," replied Judy. "For instance, if wewere detectives and put on the case, how would we go about finding thecriminal?"
"I should look for a silly mischief-maker," said Mary Stewart. "Somefoolish girl who wanted to do a clever thing. Freshmen at boys' collegesare often like that."
"You don't think it was a freshman, do you, Miss Stewart?" cried MabelHinton, turning her round spectacles on Mary like a large, serious owl.
"Oh, no, indeed. I was only joking. I haven't the remotest notion who itis."
"If I were a detective on the case," said Mabel Hinton, "I should lookfor a junior who was jealous of the seniors. Some one who had a grudge,perhaps."
"If I were a detective," announced Margaret Wakefield, in her mostjudicial manner, "I should look for some one who had a grudge againstMolly."
"Of course; I never thought of that. It did happen just as Molly wasabout to give the encore, didn't it?"
"It did," answered Margaret.
The girls had all stopped chattering in duets and trios to listen.
"Has any one in the world the heart to have a grudge against you, yousweet child?" exclaimed Mary Stewart, placing her rather large, stronghand over Molly's.
The young freshman looked uncomfortable.
"I hope not," she said, smiling faintly. "I never meant to give offenceto any one."
Pretty soon the company dispersed and Molly was left alone with her twobest friends.
"Judy," she said, "will you please settle down to work this instant? Youknow you have to write your theme and get it in by to-morrow noon, andyou haven't touched it so far."
Nance was already deep in her English. Molly turned her face to the walland sighed.
"I can't do it," she whispered to herself; "I simply cannot do it." Butwhat she referred to only she herself knew.
In the meantime Judy chewed the end of her pencil and looked absently ather friend's back. Presently she gave the pad on her lap an impatienttoss in one direction and the pencil in another, and flung herself onthe foot of Molly's couch.
"Don't scold me, Molly. I never compose, except under inspiration, andinspiration doesn't seem to be on very good terms with me just now. Shehasn't visited me in an age."
"Nonsense! You know perfectly well you can write that theme if you setyour mind to it, Judy Kean. You are just too lazy. You haven't evenchosen a subject, I'll wager anything."
"No," said Judy sadly.
"Why don't you write a short story? You have plenty of material with allyour travel----"
"I know what I'll write," Judy interrupted her excitedly, "The Motivesof Crime."
"How absurd," objected Molly. "Besides, don't you think that's a littlepersonal just now, when the whole school is talking about thewire-cutter?"
"Not at all. We are all trying to run down the criminal, anyhow. I shalltake the five great motives which lead to crime: anger, jealousy,hatred, envy and greed. It will make an interesting discourse. You'llsee if it doesn't."
"The idea of your writing on such a subject," laughed Molly. "You're nota criminal lawyer or a prosecuting attorney."
"I admit it," answered Judy, "and I suppose Lawyer Margaret Wakefieldought to be the one to handle the subject. But, nevertheless, I amfired with inspiration, and I intend to write it myself. I shall not seeyou again until the deed is done, if it takes all night. By the way,lend me some coffee, will you? I'm all out, and I always make some onthe samovar for keeping-awake purposes when I'm going to work at night."
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Judy," sighed Molly, as theincorrigible girl sailed out of the room, a jar of coffee under one armand her writing pad under the other.
At first she wrote intermittently, rumpling up her hair with both handsand chewing her pencil savagely; but gradually her thoughts took formand the pencil moved steadily along, almost like "spirit-writing" itseemed to her, until the essay was done. It was half-past three o'clockand rain and hail beat a dismal tattoo on her window pane. She had noteven noticed the storm, having hung a bed quilt over her window andtacked a dressing gown across the transom to conceal the light of thestudent's lamp from the watchful matron. Putting out her light andremoving all signs of disobedience, she now cheerfully went to bed.
"Motives for crime," she chuckled to herself. "I suppose I'm committinga small crime for disobeying the ten-o'clock rule, and my motive is tohand in a theme on time to-morrow."
The next morning when Judy read over her night's work, she enjoyed itvery much. "It's really quite interesting," she said to herself. "Ireally don't see how I ever did it."
She delivered the essay at Miss Pomeroy's office and felt vastly proudwhen she laid it on the table near the desk. Her own cleverness told herthat she had done a good thing.
"I don't believe Wordsworth ever enjoyed his own works more than I domine," she observed, as she strolled across the campus. "And becauseI've been _bon enfant_, I shall now take a rest and go forth in searchof amusement." She turned her face toward the village, where a kind ofOriental bazaar was being held by some Syrians. It would be fun, shethought, to look over their bangles and slippers and bead necklaces.
In the meantime, Miss Pomeroy was engaged in reading over Judy's theme,which, having been handed in last
, had come to her notice first. Such isthe luck of the procrastinator.
She smiled when she saw the title, but the theme interested her greatly,and presently she tucked it into her long reticule, familiar to everyWellington girl, and hastened over to the President's house.
"Emma," she said (the two women were old college mates, and were Emmaand Louise in private), "I think this might interest you. It's a themeby one of my freshman girls. A strange subject for a girl of seventeen,but she's quite a remarkable person, if she would only apply herself.Somehow, it seems, whether consciously or unconsciously, to bear on whathas been occupying us all so much since last Friday."
The President put on her glasses and began to read Judy's theme. Everynow and then she gave a low, amused chuckle.
"The child writes like Marie Corelli," she exclaimed, laughing. "And yetit is clever and it does suggest----" she paused and frowned. "I wonderif she could and doesn't dare tell?" she added slowly.
"I wonder," echoed Miss Pomeroy.
"Is she one of the Queen's Cottage girls? They appear to be rather aremarkable lot this year."
"Some of them are very bright," said Miss Pomeroy.
"Louise," said the President suddenly, "Frances Andrews is one of thegirls at that house, is she not?"
"Yes," nodded the other, with a queer look on her face.
"She's clever," said the President. "She's deep, Emma. It is impossibleto make any definite statement about her. One must go very slowly inthese things. But after what happened last year, you know----"
She paused. Even with her most intimate friend she disliked to discusscertain secrets of the institution openly.
"Yes," said Miss Pomeroy, "she is either very deep or entirelyinnocent."
"Some one is guilty," sighed the President. "I do wish I knew who itwas."
Judy's theme not only received especial mention by Miss Pomeroy, but itwas read aloud to the entire class and was later published in thecollege paper, _The Commune_, to Judy's everlasting joy and glory. Shewas congratulated about it on all sides and her heart was swollen withpride.
"I think I'll take to writing in dead earnest," she said to Molly,"because I have the happy faculty of writing on subjects I don't knowanything about, and no one knows the difference."
"I wish you'd take to doing anything in dead earnest," Molly replied,giving her friend a little impatient shake.