People laughed that day who were rarely seen to smile. Even Miss Steel"s severe expression relaxed into a cold, steely smile.
Molly had gathered up her long cheesecloth robe and was sitting with Jessie on a bench at the side of the field.
"Isn"t it perfect, Jessie?" she was saying. "I don"t think I ever enjoyed anything so much in all my life. It will make a wonderful letter home."
Jessie smiled absently. With a pair of field gla.s.ses, she was searching the faces of the spectators for two friends (men, of course), who had motored over to see the sport. At her belt was pinned the most enormous bunch of violets ever seen. In fact, they were two bunches worn as one, from her two admirers. Presently Judith joined them on the bench. Ever since the Thanksgiving spread she had endeavored to be very nice to Molly.
"h.e.l.lo, Ju-ju!" called Jessie; "you are a sight."
"I know it," she said. "I feel that I am a disgrace to the s.e.x. I only hope I"m not recognizable."
"Your shiny black eye is the only familiar thing about you. The rest is entirely disguised."
"I think I"d recognize that ring, Miss Blount," put in Molly. "Almost everybody knows that emerald by sight now, who knows you at all."
Judith glanced quickly at her finger.
"Do you know," she exclaimed, "I forgot I was wearing it? How stupid of me! I am booked to take Rosamond"s place in a minute. Will one of you girls take care of it for me? I shall be much obliged."
"You"d better take it, Jessie," said Molly, looking rather doubtfully at the ring. She had only one piece of jewelry to her name, a string of sapphires, which had belonged to her mother when she was a girl.
But the ring was too big for Jessie"s slender, pretty little fingers.
"I can"t," she said, "unless I wear it on my thumb, and it might slip off, you know. You"ll have to take it, Molly."
Molly slipped it on her finger and held it up for admiration.
"It"s the most beautiful ring I ever saw," she exclaimed. "It"s the color of deep green sea water. Not that I ever saw any, but I"ve heard tell of it," she added, laughing.
"You don"t mean to say you have never seen the ocean!" cried Judith in a pleasant tone of voice.
Molly had never seen her so amiable before.
"No," replied the freshman, "this is the nearest I have ever been to it."
"Well, thanks for taking care of my ring," went on Judith. "I"ll see you after the game," and she departed to take up her duties on the field, just as Rosamond, at the appointed time, with a gash across her face, made with finger-nail salve, was borne from the field on a stretcher.
After the game came another grand procession in which all the wounded took part, Molly on stilts, with Jessie running beside her, as before.
All that morning Molly had felt buoyed up by the fun and excitement of the great burlesque. But, now that the game was over, as she strode along on the giant stilts, she began to feel the same overpowering fatigue she had experienced that night at the living picture show. For a week she had been living on her nerves. Often at night she had not slept, but had tossed about on her bed trying to recall her lessons or make mental notes of things she intended to do. On cold mornings, her feet and hands were numb and dead and Judy often made her run across the campus and back to start her circulation. And now that numbness began to climb from her toes straight up her body. Molly turned unsteadily and with shaky strides at least six feet long, hastened across the field.
Her feeling that she must get out of the noise and turmoil, away from everybody in the world, carried her back of a row of sheds under which the players sat during the intermissions. Once in this quiet place she let herself down from the stilts. She was conscious of being very cold.
There was a deep red light in the western sky from the setting sun, then the numbness reached her brain and she remembered nothing more until she opened her eyes and saw Dr. McLean at one side of her and Professor Green at the other.
"Here she comes back at last," exclaimed the doctor. "Aye, la.s.s, it"s a good thing this young man has an observant eye. Otherwise ye might have been lying out here in the cold all night. You feel better now, don"t you?"
"Yes, doctor," answered Molly weakly.
"I don"t like these fainting spells, my la.s.s. You"re not made of iron, child. You"ll have to give up one thing or t"other--study or play."
But there were other things Molly did beside studying and playing. Of course the doctor did not know about the "cloud-bursts" and the shoe-blacking and the tutoring.
"Aye, here comes one of my a.s.sociates with a carriage," he went on, chuckling to himself. "Shall we have a consultation now, Dr. Kean?"
Judy, still in her absurd burlesque costume, had driven up in one of the village surreys.
As the two men lifted Molly into the back seat, she noticed for the first time that she was wearing a man"s overcoat. It was dark blue and felt warm and comfortable. She slipped her hands into the deep pockets and snuggled down into its folds. Certainly she felt shivery about the spine, and her hands and feet, which were never known to be warm, were now like lumps of ice. As the doctor was still wearing his great coat of Scotch tweed, it was evidently the coat of the Professor of English Literature she had appropriated.
"It"s awfully good of you to lend me your coat," she said to Professor Green, who was standing at the side of the carriage while the doctor climbed in beside her. "I"m afraid you"ll take cold without it."
"Nonsense," he said, almost gruffly, "I"m not dressed in cheesecloth."
"But I have on a white sweater under all this," said Molly timidly.
The carriage drove away, however, without his saying another word, and later that afternoon, after Molly had taken a nap and felt rested and refreshed, she engaged one of the maids at Queen"s cottage to return Professor Green"s overcoat with a message of thanks. Then, with a sigh of relief, because when she had borrowed anything it always weighed heavily on her mind, and because she felt somehow that the Professor was provoked with her, she turned over and went to sleep again.
Just as the clock in the chapel tower sounded midnight she sat up in bed.
"What is it, Molly, dear?" asked Nance, who was wakeful and uneasy about her friend.
Molly was looking at her right hand wildly.
"The ring!" she cried. "Judith"s emerald ring--it"s gone!"
The ring was indeed gone. Neither of her friends had seen it on her finger since she had been in her room.
It was gone--lost!
"It must have slipped off my finger when I fainted," sobbed the poor girl.
Nance had summoned Judy at this trying crisis, and the two girls endeavored to comfort their friend, who seemed to be working herself into a state of feverish excitement.
"Never mind, we"ll find it in the morning, Molly," cried Nance. "You know exactly where it was you fell, don"t you? Somewhere behind the sheds. It"s sure to be there. Judy and I promise to go there first thing, don"t we, Judy?"
"Yes, indeed," acquiesced Judy, who loved her morning sleep better than anything in life. But Judy was learning unselfishness since she had been a.s.sociating with Molly and Nance.
There was no more sleep for poor Molly that night, however, and she lay through the dragging hours with strained nerves and throbbing temples wondering what would happen if she did not find the ring.
CHAPTER XIX.
THREE FRIENDS.
Nance was still sound asleep when Molly crept from her bed and dressed herself. It was a dismal cold morning. A fine snow was falling and she shivered as she tied a scarf around her head, threw her long gray eiderdown cape over her shoulders and slipped from the room, without waking her friend, who was weary after the excitements of the day before.
Across the wind-swept campus she hastened, anxiety lending swiftness to her steps, and at last reached the Athletic Field. At the far end snuggled several low wooden sheds like a group of animals trying to keep warm by staying close together.