When Susan hurried away from her brother to find Mamie Smythe and give her the note, she knew full well what it probably contained. Jerry had told her he had come over with a party of boys, and had the very best sleigh-ride he had ever had in his life; and when she asked the names of his companions, she recognized some, who, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Ashton had forbidden to be received as visitors to the academy. Mamie Smythe read the note with a heightening color. This was it,--
"Sleigh waiting corner of Bond and Centre Streets. Supper at Bascoms" Hall engaged for a dance. Bring six lively girls! 8 P.M. sharp.
SUB ROSA."
For a moment Mamie looked doubtingly into Susan"s face. She would not have chosen her for one of the "lively girls;" but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if--Mamie had conscience enough to dally with this _if_ for a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past seven, and the time was "eight sharp," and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even with so respectable a thing as her conscience, so she showed Susan the note.
"Oh, dear! that"s too bad!" said Susan, as she finished reading it.
"Jerry is here, and he won"t go away before eight. What can I do? it would be just splendid!" And the tears actually came into her eyes.
"That"s a pity!" and Mamie, more relieved than sorry, tried to look regretful. "But don"t you tell. Promise me, Susan Downer, let come what may, you won"t tell."
"I"m no tell-tale, Mamie Smythe, and I"ll thank you not even to hint at such a thing. You"ll all get expelled, as like as not, and, come to think of it, I"m real glad I"m not to go with you."
Before her sentence was finished, Mamie had flown out of the room, and wild with delight over the "fun" before her, she rapidly made her choice among the girls, not giving them time for consideration, but hurrying them with all speed into their best clothes. They crept out, one by one, through different ways. Myra Peters jumped from a window when she heard Miss Palmer"s door open, sure that otherwise she would be found.
That her dress caught, that for a moment she hung between the moonlit sky and a deep snow-bank, seemed to her of no consequence, so she could escape. She left a bit of her best dress hanging on a hook, but this she did not know until afterwards.
The girls met in the street, near the large front gate, where a tall Norway spruce hid them entirely from the front windows of the academy.
Certainly they were not a merry group when they came together. All they had to say to each other was in hushed and frightened tones the peril of their escape.
When they reached the corner of Bond and Centre Streets there stood the sleigh! How tempting it looked with its warm fur robes, its four gayly caparisoned horses, its driver, slapping his hands together to keep them warm, and the boys coming to meet them with such a merry welcome!
Did they forget there was such a thing as consequences? Who can tell?
We would not if we could describe any further the occurrences of the evening. It was past twelve when the six girls, tired, frightened, locked out of the house by every door, found themselves--sleigh, horses, bells, boys, all gone--shivering under the back balcony, as forlorn a set of beings as the calm moon shone upon.
It was not for some time that Myra Peters remembered the window out of which she had clambered. If that were unlocked here might be an entrance that at this time of night would be wholly un.o.bserved.
"But if it is?" asked the most frightened of the girls.
"Julia Abbey, you are always croaking," scolded shaking Mamie Smythe.
"The next time I ask you to go anywhere, I shall know it!"
"I--I hope you never will; it--it don"t pay," sobbed Julia.
One of the girls had tried the window, found it still unlocked, and had partly raised it. Now the question was, who would be the first one to go in? It was Mamie Smythe who felt the responsibility of the ride, and therefore the necessity of putting on a brave face, and taking whatever consequences followed.
"I"ll go, girls," she said. "Some of you lift me."
Mamie was small and light; it was not a difficult thing to do, as she clung to the window-sill, and in a moment she had disappeared. Then her head came out of the window.
"All right, girls," she said in a whisper. "Come quickly, and as soon as you are in go softly right to your rooms. It"s still as a mouse here."
Now there was a pushing among the girls, not who should venture as before, but who might go. They were too cold and alarmed not to be selfish, and their struggle for precedence delayed them, until Mamie impatiently called the one to come by name.
In this way, one after another safely entered, crept to their rooms unheard and unseen, leaving the tell-tale bit of dress hanging on the hook, and forgetting to fasten the window behind them.
If they had been all together in one corridor, their pale faces and poor recitations might, at least, have excited the teachers" suspicion that something was wrong; but, as it was, it only seemed to be an event of not very uncommon occurrence that some one should come into the cla.s.s poorly prepared.
It now wanted ten days of Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,--those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,--but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to her room.
This was the first time such a thing had happened to Susan, and if she had been an innocent girl she would have been elated by it; but, alas, we well know that she was not, so it was with much trepidation that she answered the summons.
"Susan," said Miss Ashton kindly, "I am in a good deal of trouble; I thought you might help me. How long is it since your brother came to see you?"
What a relief to Susan! Miss Ashton had often inquired about Jerry, and once came into the room to see him, so she answered glibly,--
"Week before last, on Wednesday."
"He came in the evening, I believe."
"Yes, ma"am: it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a party of boys that were taking a sleigh-ride brought him over."
"Did he go back with them?"
"I suppose so," said Susan unhesitatingly. Jerry had not told her of his possible return in the cars.
"Does your brother know many of the young ladies here?"
"He knows his cousins, of course, and Marion Parke, and some of the girls that happened to come into the parlor when he was here, to whom I introduced him."
"Can you tell me the names of the girls?"
Susan hesitated a moment. What could Miss Ashton want to know for?
What could Jerry have done to make her suspect him?
All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return.
Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,--
"The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please."
Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment"s hesitation Susan named them.
"Thank you," Miss Ashton said pleasantly. "That is all now."
"All now, _now_," repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. "Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?"
Miss Drake, Susan"s teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term.
In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about "Storied West Rock" was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone.
She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people"s notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, "The partaker is as bad as the thief."
Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, "Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?" What should she answer?
To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled.
To say she knew nothing about it would be to tell a _lie_. Susan dealt plainly enough with herself now, not even to cover it with the more respectable name of falsehood, and it was so hard to escape Miss Ashton if she were once on the track; she _would_ find out, and if she did not expel her too, she would never respect her again.