"I don"t know," answered Molly. "She"ll be a noisy neighbor if she does.
But she sounds interesting, living in France with her grandmamma and so on."
Nance glanced at her watch.
"Wouldn"t you like to go for a stroll before supper? We have an hour yet. I"m dying to see the famous Quadrangle and the Cloisters and a few other celebrated spots I"ve heard about. Aren"t you?"
"And incidentally rub off a little of our greenness," said Molly, recalling the words of the girl next door.
As the two girls closed the door to their room and paused on the landing, the door adjoining burst open and a human whirlwind blew out of the single room and almost knocked them over.
"I beg your pardon," said Nance stiffly, giving the human whirlwind a long, cool, brown glance.
Molly, a little behind her friend, examined the stranger with much curiosity. She could not quite tell why she had imagined her to be a small black-eyed, black-haired person, when here stood a tall, very beautiful young woman. Her hair was light brown and perfectly straight.
She had peculiarly pa.s.sionate, fiery eyes of very dark gray, of the "smouldering kind," as Nance described them later; her features were regular and her mouth so expressive of her humors that her friends could almost read her thoughts by the curve of her sensitive lips. Even in that flashing glimpse the girls could see that she was beautifully dressed in a white serge suit and a stunning hat of dull blue, trimmed with wings.
But instead of continuing her mad rush, which seemed to be her usual manner of doing things, the young woman became suddenly a zephyr of mildness and gentleness.
"Excuse my precipitate methods," she said. "I never do things slowly, even when there"s no occasion to hurry. It"s my way, I suppose. Are you freshmen? Perhaps you"d like for me to show you around college. I"m a soph. I"m fairly familiar."
Nance pressed her lips together. She was not in the habit of making friends off-hand. Molly, in fact, was almost her first experience in this kind of friendship. But Molly Brown, who had never consciously done a rude thing in her life, exclaimed:
"That would be awfully nice. Thanks, we"ll come."
They followed her rather timidly down the steps. Across the campus the pile of gray buildings, in the September twilight, more than ever resembled a fine old castle. As they hastened along, the soph.o.m.ore gave them each a quick, comprehensive glance.
"My name is Frances Andrews," she began suddenly, and added with a peculiar intonation, "I was called "Frank" last year. I"m so glad we are to be neighbors. I hope we shall have lots of good times together."
Molly considered this a particular mark of good nature on the part of an older girl to two freshmen, and she promptly made known their names to Frances Andrews. All this time Nance had remained impa.s.sive and quiet.
Ten girls, arm in arm, were strolling toward them across the soft green turf of the campus, singing as in one voice to the tune of "Maryland, My Maryland":
"Oh, Wellington, My Wellington, Oh, how I love my Wellington!"
Suddenly Frances Andrews, who was walking between the two young girls, took them each firmly by the arm and led them straight across the campus, giving the ten girls a wide berth. There was so much fierce determination in her action that Molly and Nance looked at her with amazement.
"Are those seniors?" asked Nance, thinking perhaps it was not college etiquette to break through a line of established and dignified characters like seniors.
"No; they are soph.o.m.ores singing their cla.s.s song," answered Frances.
"Aren"t you a soph.o.m.ore?" demanded Nance quickly.
"Yes."
"Curious she doesn"t want to meet her friends," thought Molly.
But there were more interesting sights to occupy her attention just then.
They had reached the great gray stone archway which formed the entrance to the Quadrangle, a gra.s.sy courtyard enclosed on all sides by the walls of the building. Heavy oak doors of an antique design opened straight onto the court from the various corridors and lecture rooms and at one end was the library, a beautiful room with a groined roof and stained gla.s.s windows, like a chapel. Low stone benches were ranged along the arcade of the court, whereon sat numerous girls laughing and talking together.
Although she considered that undue honors were being paid them by having as guide this dashing soph.o.m.ore, somehow Molly still felt the icy grip of homesickness on her heart. Nance seemed so unsympathetic and reserved and there was a kind of hardness about this Frances Andrews that made the warm-hearted, affectionate Molly a bit uncomfortable. Suddenly Nance spied her old friend, Caroline Brinton, in the distance, and rushed over to join her. As she left, three girls came toward them, talking animatedly.
"h.e.l.lo, Jennie Wren!" called Frances gayly. It was the same little bird-like person who had been in the bus. "Howdy, Rosamond. How are you, Lotta? It"s awfully nice to be back at the old stand again. Let me introduce you to my new almost-roommate, Miss Brown," went on Frances hurriedly, as if to fill up the gaps of silence which greeted them.
"How do you do, Miss Andrews," said Jennie Wren, stiffly.
Rosamond Chase, who had a plump figure and a round, good-natured face, was slightly warmer in her greeting.
"How are you, Frankie? I thought you were going to France this winter."
The other girl who had a turned-up nose and blonde hair, and was called "Peggy Parsons," sniffed slightly and put her hands behind her back as if she wished to avoid shaking hands.
Molly was so shocked that she felt the tears rising to her eyes. "I wish I had never come to college," she thought, "if this is the way old friends treat each other."
She slipped her arm through Frances Andrews" and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.
"Won"t you show me the Cloisters?" she said. "I"m pining to see what they are like."
"Come along," said Frances, quite cheerfully, in spite of the fact that she had just been snubbed by three of her own cla.s.smates.
Lifting the latch of a small oak door fitted under a pointed arch, she led the way through a pa.s.sage to another oak door which opened directly on the Cloisters. Molly gave an exclamation of pleasure.
"Oh," she cried, "are we really allowed to walk in this wonderful place?"
"As much as you like before six P. M.," answered Frances. "How do you do, Miss Pembroke?"
A tall woman with a grave, handsome face was waiting under the arched arcade to go through the door.
"So you decided to come back to us, Miss Andrews. I"m very glad of it.
Come into my office a moment. I want a few words with you before supper."
"You can find your way back to Queen"s by yourself, can"t you, Miss Brown?" asked Frances. "I"ll see you later."
And in another moment, Molly Brown was quite alone in the Cloisters. She was glad to be alone. She wanted to think. She paced slowly along the cloistered walk, each stone arch of which framed a picture of the gra.s.sy court with an Italian fountain in the center.
"It"s exactly like an old monastery," she said to herself. "I wonder anybody could ever be frivolous or flippant in such an old world spot as this. I could easily imagine myself a monk, telling my beads."
She sat down on a stone bench and folded her hands meditatively.
"So far, I"ve really only made one friend at college," she thought to herself, for Nance Oldham was too reserved to be called a friend yet, "and that friend is Frances Andrews. Who is she? What is she? Why do her cla.s.smates snub her and why did Miss Pembroke, who belonged to the faculty, wish to speak with her in her private office?" It was all queer, very queer. Somehow, it seemed to Molly now that what she had taken for whirlwind manners was really a tremendous excitement under which Frances Andrews was laboring. She was trying to brazen out something.
"Just the same, I"m sorry for her," she said out loud.
At that moment, a musical, deep-throated bell boomed out six times in the stillness of the cloisters. There was the sound of a door opening, a pause and the door closed with a clicking noise. Molly started from her reverie. It was six o"clock. She rushed to the door of antique design through which she had entered just fifteen minutes before. It was closed and locked securely. She knocked loudly and called:
"Let me out! Let me out! I"m locked in!"
Then she waited, but no one answered. In the stillness of the twilit courtyard she could hear the sounds of laughter and talking from the Quadrangle. They grew fainter and fainter. A gray chill settled down over the place and Molly looked about her with a feeling of utter desolation. She had been locked in the Cloisters for the night.