"Be careful of your friends. Don"t ever cultivate unprofitable people."
To Nance Oldham she said:
"You will always be very popular--if you stick to popular people."
It was all soon over. Molly"s fortune had been left to the last. The strange witch had gone so quickly from one girl to another that they had scarcely time to take a breath between each fortune.
"As for you," she said at last, turning to Molly, "I can only say that "kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood," and by the end of your freshman year you will be the most popular girl in college."
"Who are you?" cried Molly, suddenly coming out of her dream.
"Yes, who are you?" cried Judith, breaking through the circle and seizing the witch by the arm.
With a swift movement the witch pushed her back and she fell in a heap on some girls who were still sitting on the floor.
"I will know who you are," cried Jennie Wren, with a determined note in her high voice, as she grasped the witch by the arm, and it did look for a moment as if the Kentucky spread were going to end in a free-for-all fight, when suddenly, in the midst of the scramble and cries, came three raps on the door, and the voice of the matron called:
"Young ladies, ten o"clock. Lights out!"
The girls always declared that it was the witch who had got near the door and pushed the b.u.t.ton which put out every light in the room. At any rate, the place was in total darkness for half a minute, and when Molly switched the lights on again for the girls to find their wraps the witch had disappeared.
In another instant the guests had vanished into thin air and across the moonlit campus ghostly figures could be seen flitting like shadows over the turf toward the dormitories, for there was no time to lose. At a quarter past ten the gates into the Quadrangle would be securely locked.
Nance lit a flat, thick candle, known in the village as "burglar"s terror," and in this flickering dim light the two girls undressed hastily.
Suddenly Molly exclaimed in a whisper:
"Nance, I believe it was Frances Andrews who dressed up as that witch, and I"m going to find out, rules or no rules."
She slipped on her kimono and crept into the hall. The house was very still, but she tapped softly on Frances" door. There was no answer, and opening the door she tiptoed into the room. A long ray of moonlight, filtering in through the muslin curtains, made the room quite light.
There was a smell of lavender salts in the air, and Mollie could plainly see Frances in her bed. A white handkerchief was tied around her head, as if she had a headache, but she seemed to be asleep.
"Frances," called Molly softly.
Frances gave a stifled sob that was half a groan and turned over on her side.
"Frances," called Molly again.
Frances opened her eyes and sat up.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
Molly went up to the bedside. Even in the moonlight she could see that Frances" eyes were swollen with crying.
"I was afraid you were ill," whispered Molly. "Why didn"t you come to the spread?"
"I had a bad headache. It"s better now. Good night." Molly crept off to her room.
Was it Frances, after all, who had broken up her party?
Molly was inclined to think it was not, and yet----
"At any rate, we"ll give her the benefit of the doubt, Nance," she whispered.
But there were no doubts in Nance"s mind.
CHAPTER VI.
KNOTTY PROBLEMS.
"I tell you things do hum in this college!" exclaimed Judy Kean, closing a book she had been reading and tossing it onto the couch with a sigh of deep content.
"I don"t see how you can tell anything about it, Judy," said Nance severely. "You"ve been so absorbed in "The Broad Highway" every spare moment you"ve had for the last two days that you might as well have been in Kalamazoo as in college."
"Nance, you do surely tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," said Judy good naturedly. "I know I have the novel habit badly. It"s because I had no restraint put upon me in my youth, and if I get a really good book like this one, I just let duty slide."
"Why don"t you put your talents to some use and write, then?" demanded Nance, who enjoyed preaching to her friends.
"Art is more to my taste," answered Judy.
"Well, art is long and time is fleeting. Why don"t you get busy and do something?" exclaimed the other vehemently. "What do you intend to be?"
Judy had a trick of raising her eyebrows and frowning at the same time, which gave her a serio-comic expression and invested her most earnest speeches with a touch of humor. But she did not reply to Nance"s question, having spent most of her life indulging her very excellent taste without much thought for the future.
"What do you intend to be?" she asked presently of Nance, who had her whole future mapped out in blocks: four years at college, two years studying languages in Europe, four years as teacher in a good school, then as princ.i.p.al, perhaps, and next as owner of a school of her own.
"Why, I expect to teach languages," said Nance without a moment"s hesitation.
"Of course, a teacher. I might have known!" cried Judy. "You"ve commenced already on me--your earliest pupil!
""Teacher, teacher, why am I so happy, happy, happy, In my Sunday school?""
She broke off with her song suddenly and seized Nance"s hand.
"Please don"t scold me, Nance, dear. I know life isn"t all play, and that college is a serious business if one expects to take the whole four years" course. I"ve already had a warning. It came this morning. It"s because I"ve been cutting cla.s.ses. And I have been entirely miserable.
That"s the reason I"ve been so immersed in "The Broad Highway." I"ve been trying to drown my sorrows in romance. I know I"m not clever----"
"Nonsense," interrupted the other impatiently. "You are too clever, you silly child. That"s what is the matter with you, but you don"t know how to work. You have no system. What you really need is a good tutor. You must learn to concentrate----"
"Concentrate," laughed Judy. "That"s something I never could do. As soon as I try my thoughts go skylarking."
"How do you do it?"
"Well, I sit very still and dig my toes into the soles of my shoes and my finger nails into the palms of my hands and say over and over the thing I"m trying to concentrate on."