"Oh, dear, I wish ten o'clock were here!" sighed Marjorie as she straightened the last object on her dressing table and viewed with satisfaction the immaculate order to which she had reduced her room.

Keeping her room clean and dainty was almost a sacred obligation with Marjorie. Her mother had spared neither time nor expense to make it a marvel of pink-and-white beauty. The furniture was of white maple, the thick, soft rug had a cream background scattered with small pink roses.

The window curtains were cunning ruffled affairs of fine white dotted Swiss, while the window draperies were in pink-and-white French cretonne. An attractive willow stand, which stood beside the bed, the two pretty willow rockers piled high with pink and white cushions and the creamy wallpaper with its graceful border of pink roses made the room a perpetual joy to its appreciative owner. Marjorie always referred to it as her "house" and when at home spent a great deal of her time there.

But this morning the May sunshine poured rapturously in at her open windows, touched her brown hair with mischievous golden fingers that left gleaming imprints on her curls, and mutely coaxed her to come out and play.

"I can't stand it indoors another minute," she breathed impatiently.

"It's almost ten. I'll walk down to the corner. Perhaps I'll see Constance coming."

As she was about to leave the window she caught a glimpse of a slender blue figure far down the street. With a cry of, "Oh, there she is!"

Marjorie raced out of her room, down the stairs and across the lawn to the gate.

"You dear thing!" she called, her hands extended.

The next instant the two girls were embracing with a degree of affection known only to those who, after blind misunderstanding, once more see the light.

Tears of contrition stood in Marjorie's eyes as she led Constance into the house and upstairs to her room. "Can you ever forgive me?" she faltered, pushing Constance gently into a chair and drawing her own opposite that of her friend.

"There is nothing to forgive," returned Constance, unsteadily. "You didn't know. If only I had made you stay that day until we came to an understanding! When you said 'Good-bye' in that queer tone, I called to you to wait, for it seemed to me you were angry; but you had gone. Then your note came. I didn't know how you could possibly have learned about the pin, for I hadn't told a soul besides father and Uncle John. It occurred to me that perhaps you had seen Uncle John and he had told you.

When I read what you said about not seeing me again I thought just one thing, that, knowing my story, you didn't care to be friends with me any more."

"What do you mean, Constance?" Marjorie's query was full of compelling insistence. "I don't know any story about you."

"I know that you don't, dear; but I thought you knew. When Uncle John came in that afternoon I asked him if he had seen you in the last two days, and he said 'no,' and then 'yes.' I asked him if he had told you about what had happened to me, and he declared that he couldn't remember. I was sure that he had told you, because he often says that when he is afraid father or I won't approve of something he has done.

That is the reason I didn't come to see you. Then I went to New York in a hurry without dreaming of what your letter really meant. Jerry wrote me two days before I had planned to come home. So I changed my plans and started for Sanford the same day her letter reached me. Charlie was so much better that I wasn't needed."

"Charlie?" repeated Marjorie, in bewildered interrogation.

"Yes," nodded Constance. "Haven't you seen father since I left? Didn't he tell you?"

"Only once. I--he--I didn't let him know about us. It was right after you went away. He said you had taken Charlie with you. I met him in the street and stopped only a minute. I had come from your house that day but there was no one at home. I couldn't bear to let things go on as they had.

"Now," declared Marjorie, drawing a long breath, "begin at the beginning and tell me every single thing."

"I will," a.s.sured Constance, emphatically. "Let me see. It began the day after Christmas. A letter came from New York in the morning mail addressed to father. I gave it to him, and after he read it he sat so still and looked so white that I thought he was going to faint. Then he made me come and sit down beside him and told me that the letter was from my mother's sister in New York and that she was rich and wanted me to come and live with her.

"I said that I would never desert my own father no matter how poor he was, and then he told me that he was only my foster father, just as he was Charlie's. That my own father had been his best friend when they were boys. Later on, my father became a worthless, drunken wretch and my mother had to do sewing to take care of herself and me. My mother's family never forgave her for marrying my father and would not help her.

She was not strong and could not stand it to be so poor and work so hard. She died when I was a year old, and just a month afterward my father died with pneumonia. No one wanted me, so I was put in an orphan asylum, but Father Stevens, who had been trying to find my father, heard where I was and took me to live with him. He wrote to my aunt first, but she said she didn't want me. That is the first part of my story."

"It sounds like a story in a book," said Marjorie, softly. "Go on, Connie."

"This letter that father received was from my aunt," continued Constance. "She had been trying to find us for more than two years.

Finally, she saw father's name signed to an article in the musical magazine, so she wrote a letter and asked the publishers to forward it.

She said in the letter that she was now an old woman who had found that blood was thicker than water, and that she wanted her sister's daughter, who must now be a young woman, to come and live with her. With the letter came a jeweler's box, and in the box was the b.u.t.terfly pin. She sent it to me as a Christmas gift.

"I cried and said I would not go, but father said it was the opportunity of my life time and that I must. He said that he had no legal right to me and that he loved me too dearly to stand in my way. It almost broke my heart. How I hated that b.u.t.terfly and my aunt, too. When you came to see me that unlucky day I was feeling the worst. That very night I wrote my aunt a long letter. I told her just how I felt, how much I loved father and Charlie and poor old Uncle John and that I could never, never give them up. Father didn't know I wrote the letter. He thought I was becoming resigned to going away. I went back to school and wore the pin, as my aunt had asked me to do in a little note enclosed in father's letter.

"Then her letter came and it was so much nicer than the other that I cried out of pure happiness. She asked me to bring Charlie to New York.

She knew a famous specialist who she thought might help, if not cure him. She asked me to make her a visit and said she would never wish me to come to live with her except of my own free will.

"We went to New York as you know, and, Marjorie"--Constance made an impressive pause--"Charlie is going to be entirely well in a little while. The specialist operated on his hip and the operation was successful. He will be able to walk before very long. When he knew I was coming home he said, 'Tell Marjorie that I don't need to ask Santa Claus for a new leg next year, because the good, kind man she told me about fixed mine.'"

"Dear little Charlie," murmured Marjorie. "I'm so glad."

A pleasant silence fell upon the two young girls. So much had happened that for a brief moment each was busy with her own thoughts.

"Are you coming back to school to finish the year, Constance?" asked Marjorie, at last.

"Yes. I am going to try to make up for lost time. I'll take in June the examinations I should have tried in January. I hope to be a Sanford soph.o.m.ore, Marjorie. Aunt Edith is coming to visit us this summer. She is going to bring Charlie home."

Constance remained with Marjorie until almost noon.

"I wish you'd stay to luncheon," coaxed the little lieutenant.

"I can't. I'm sorry. I promised father I'd be home at noon."

"Then I wish you were going to the picnic this afternoon."

Constance shook her head, looking wistful, nevertheless.

"I'd rather not. Mignon will be there. It is better to be out of sight and out of mind until after Monday."

"Everything is turning out beautifully," sighed Marjorie. "There's only one thing more that I could possibly wish for."

"What is that?" asked Constance quickly.

"My lost b.u.t.terfly."

"Perhaps it will fly back home when you least expect it," consoled Constance.

"Lost pins don't fly," retorted Marjorie. "If they did my b.u.t.terfly would have come back to me long ago."

But, even then, though she could not know it, her cherished b.u.t.terfly was poising its golden wings for the homeward flight.

CHAPTER XXV

MARJORIE DEAN TO THE RESCUE

By one o'clock that afternoon 19-- had a.s.sembled at the big elm tree on the river road which had been chosen as a meeting place. The flower hunters had planned to follow the road for a mile to a point where a boat house, which had a small teashop connected with it, was situated.

Owing to the continued spring weather the proprietor had opened the place earlier than usual and it was decided that the picnickers should make this their headquarters, returning there for tea when they grew tired of roaming the neighboring woods.

Marjorie Dean had not hailed the prospect of 19--'s picnic with enthusiasm. She did not welcome the idea of coming into close contact with the little knot of freshmen that were loyal to Mignon La Salle's interests. However, it would be a pleasure to walk in the fresh spring woods and gather flowers, so she started for the rendezvous that afternoon determined to have the best kind of a time possible under the circ.u.mstances.

She had promised to call for Jerry, but the latter, accompanied by Irma, met her halfway between the two houses.

"I thought you were never coming," grumbled the stout girl, in her characteristic fashion.