"Mm!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Muriel Harding. "You wouldn't think her quite so nice if you knew as much about her as we do. Wait until you see her play basketball. She plays center on the soph.o.m.ore team, and she makes some very peculiar plays. She's always creating trouble, too. She and some of her soph.o.m.ore friends seem to have a particular grudge against Mignon.

They are forever criticising her playing. They have even gone so far as to say that we don't play fairly; that we are tricky. The idea!" Muriel looked highly offended at the mere idea of any such thing.

Marjorie listened without comment. Muriel's ready tirade against the pleasant-faced soph.o.m.ore who had willingly offered her services that morning made her feel decidedly uncomfortable. Then Miss Seymour's straightforward speech to Miss Archer came back to her. The soph.o.m.ore had been generous to her enemies, if they were enemies, in that she had refused to mention any names. Marjorie wondered if Muriel or Mignon would be equally generous in the same circ.u.mstances. She resolved to say nothing of what she had been privileged to hear. It was not hers to tell.

Suddenly she divined, rather than saw, Mignon's elfish eyes fixed upon her. "You met another girl, at noon, did you not, Miss Dean?" asked the French girl, with an almost sarcastic inflection.

"Yes; Miss Stevens," was the composed answer. "We share the same locker.

She is a nice girl, too, and I like her very much, so, please, don't say anything against her," she ended, in half-smiling warning.

Mignon La Salle's face grew dark. She recognized the challenging note in the new girl's tone. Muriel, too, frowned. Susan Atwell sidled up to Mignon, Irma Linton looked distressed and Geraldine Macy calmly curious as to what would come next. It came in the way of a small tempest, for the French girl lost her temper over Marjorie's retort.

She stamped her foot in childish rage, saying vehemently: "She is a n.o.body, that Stevens person, and her family are vagabonds. You will make a great mistake if you choose her for your friend." Then, her rage receding as suddenly as it had come, she shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly. "Pardonnez moi." She bowed to Marjorie. "I spoke too strongly. It is not for me to choose Miss Dean's friends." Slipping her arm through Muriel's, she drew her ahead of the others. Susan Atwell took a hurried step forward and caught her other arm, leaving Marjorie to walk between Irma and Geraldine.

"Don't mind her," said Jerry, in a low voice. "She has it in for that Miss Stevens. She, the Stevens girl, did something, no one knows what, to make Mignon angry with her. Mignon says Miss Stevens talked about her and Muriel and Susan believed it, but Irma and I are not so silly."

Two blocks further on Marjorie bade good-bye to the five girls. She said it without enthusiasm. Their carping, quarrelsome att.i.tude had taken all the pleasure from knowing them. She made mental exception in favor of Irma and Jerry. The gentleness of the one and the st.u.r.dy, outspoken manner of the other had impressed her favorably. But she was sorely disappointed in Muriel.

Should she tell her mother of the disagreeable ending of her first day?

She decided not to do so. She would carry nothing save pleasant tales to her captain to-day. And so that night, when she entered the living-room and found her mother, in a becoming negligee, occupying the wide leather couch by the window, she saluted, like a dutiful soldier, and included in her report only the pleasant happenings of her first, never-to-be-forgotten day in Sanford High School.

CHAPTER VIII

STANDING BY HER COLORS

When Marjorie took her seat in the study hall the next morning, Muriel's greeting was as affable as it had been before the disagreement of the previous afternoon. She even went so far as to whisper, "Don't take Mignon too seriously. She is really dreadfully hurt over the unkind things Miss Stevens has said of her."

Marjorie listened in polite silence to the Picture Girl's rather lame apology in behalf of her friend. She could think of nothing to say.

Muriel had turned about in her seat, her eyes fixed expectantly upon the other girl. But just then came an unexpected interruption.

"Miss Dean," shrilled Miss Merton's high, querulous voice, "who gave you permission to leave school before the regular hour of dismissal yesterday afternoon?"

"I did not----" began the astonished girl.

"Young woman, do you mean to contradict me?" thundered Miss Merton.

Marjorie had now risen to her feet. Her pretty face had turned very white, her brown eyes gleamed like two angry flames. "I had no intention of contradicting you, Miss Merton." Her low, steady tones were full of repressed indignation. "What I had begun to say was that I did not know I was expected to return to the study hall after my last cla.s.s. In the high school which I attended in B---- we went from our last cla.s.s to our locker rooms. It is, of course, my fault. I should have inquired about it beforehand." The freshman quietly resumed her seat.

Every pair of eyes in the room was turned upon Marjorie.

Miss Merton, however, had no intention of letting her off so easily.

"The rules and regulations of another high school do not, in the least, interest me, Miss Dean," she said, with biting sarcasm. "It is my business to see that the rules of _Sanford_ High School are enforced, and I propose to do it. You have been a pupil in this school for only one day, yet I have been obliged to reprimand you on two different occasions. If you annoy me further I shall consider myself fully justified in sending you to Miss Archer."

The ringing of the first recitation bell put an end to the little scene.

Marjorie rose from her seat and marched from the study hall, her head held high. If Miss Merton expected her to break down and cry she would find herself sadly mistaken. Muriel overtook her in the corridor. "My, but Miss Merton hates you!" she commented cheerfully, as though enjoying her cla.s.smate's discomfiture.

Marjorie made no reply. Her proud spirit was too deeply crushed for words. She went through her recitation in English that morning like one in a dream. Several times during her French hour she gazed appealingly at Constance, but the Mary girl kept her fair head turned resolutely away. She did not appear at her locker either at noon or after school was over, although Marjorie lingered, in the hope that she would come.

So successfully did she manage to steer clear of Marjorie, who was too proud to make advances in the face of Constance's marked avoidance, that, when Friday came and the afternoon session was over, Marjorie was escorted to the gymnasium by the Picture Girl and her friends, who, even to Mignon, believed that the newcomer had been wise and taken their brusque advice.

At least half of the freshman cla.s.s had elected to try for a place on the team. Miss Randall, the instructor in gymnastics, and several seniors had been chosen to pick the team, and when the six girls arrived on the scene the testing had begun. Mignon La Salle was the first of their group to play. Her almost marvelous agility, her quick, catlike springs and her fleetness of foot called forth unstinted praise from Marjorie. Muriel, too, played a skilful game; so did Susan Atwell. When Marjorie was called upon to play left guard on a team composed of the last lot of aspirants for basketball honors, she advanced to her position rather nervously. Muriel, Mignon, Susan Atwell and two freshmen, whom she did not know, were to oppose her. She wondered if she could play fast enough to keep up with her clever opponents. Then, as she caught the French girl's elfish eyes fixed upon her, mocking incredulity in their depths, she rallied her doubting spirit and resolved to outplay even Mignon.

Fifteen minutes later Marjorie Dean had been chosen to play left guard on a team of which Mignon was center, Muriel, right guard, Susan Atwell, right forward, and a freshman named Harriet Delaney, left forward.

Muriel had also been made captain, and several girls were chosen as subst.i.tutes.

"Hurrah for the new team!" cried Muriel Harding. "Let's call ourselves the Invincibles. You certainly can play basketball, Miss Dean. How lucky in you to come to Sanford just when we need you. By the way, 'Miss Dean'

is too formal. Please let us call you Marjorie. You can call us by our first names. What's the use of so much formality among team-mates?"

Being merely a very human young girl, Marjorie could not help feeling a little bit pleased with herself. She was glad she had played so well.

She felt that she had really begun to like her new a.s.sociates very much.

Even Mignon must have her good points; and how wonderfully well she played basketball! Perhaps Constance Stevens had been just a little bit at fault. Certainly she had acted very queerly after that first day when they had pledged their friendship. Had she, Marjorie, been wise to avow unswerving loyalty to a stranger, and all because she looked like Mary Raymond? Marjorie's disquieting reflections were interrupted by something the French girl was saying.

"It was too funny for anything, wasn't it, Muriel?" Mignon laughed with gleeful malice.

"Yes," nodded Muriel. "We gave the soph.o.m.ores a bad scare."

"What did you do?" asked Irma Linton, curiously.

Seeing that she had the attention of her audience, the French girl began.

"You remember the practice game we played against the soph.o.m.ores last week? According to my way of thinking, the soph.o.m.ores played a very rough game. I complained to Miss Seymour, their captain. She laughed at me," Mignon scowled at the remembrance, "so I decided to teach her a lesson."

"I told Muriel about it, and between us we made up a dialogue. It was all about the soph.o.m.ores' unfair playing, and how surprised they would be when they found themselves forbidden to play basketball. Then we managed to walk out of school behind two girls that always tell everything they know, and recited our dialogue. The next morning Muriel saw one of the girls talking to Miss Seymour for all she was worth, so we know that she faithfully repeated everything she heard. Miss Seymour wouldn't dare go to Miss Archer with it for fear Miss Archer would ask too many questions. You know Miss Archer said last year when Inez Chester made such a fuss about her sprained wrist that if ever again one team reported another for rough playing she would disband the accused team and have Miss Randall select a new one. So I imagine we gave our friends the sophs something to think about."

"But who told you the soph.o.m.ores would be forbidden to play?" demanded candid Jerry.

"No one told us, silly," retorted Muriel, her color rising. "We simply said they would be surprised when they found themselves forbidden to play. 'When' may mean next week or next month, or next year or century, or any other time. We were only talking for their general edification."

"Then n.o.body actually said a word about it?" persisted Jerry. "You just made up all that stuff?"

"It didn't do any hurt," began Muriel. "We thought----"

"Don't be such a prig, Jerry," put in Mignon, impatiently. "It isn't half so wicked to play a joke on those stupid soph.o.m.ores as it is to ask one's mother for money for a fountain pen, and then use the money for candy and ice cream."

There was a chorus of giggles from the girls, in which Jerry did not join. She was eyeing Mignon steadily. "See here, Mignon," she said with offended dignity. "I just want you to know that I told my mother about that money that very same night. I may have my faults, but I certainly don't tell things that aren't true." Jerry punctuated this pertinent speech with emphatic nods of her head, and, having said her say, walked on a little ahead of her friends, the picture of belligerence.

"Now, you've made Jerry angry, Mignon," laughed Susan Atwell.

Mignon merely lifted her thin shoulders. "I can't please every one. If I did, I should never please myself."

"I don't know what ails Jerry all of a sudden," commented Muriel to Marjorie. "She isn't usually so--so funny."

Again Marjorie kept her own counsel. She, alone, knew that the object of the rumor which Muriel and Mignon had started had failed. Ellen Seymour had gone frankly to headquarters with it, and Miss Archer had asked no questions. Marjorie wondered what these girls would say if they knew the truth. She did not like to criticize them, but were they truly honorable? For a moment she wished she had refused to play on the team with them. Muriel and Mignon, in particular, seemed so careless of other people's feelings.

Her sympathies were with Jerry, and quickening her pace she slipped her arm through that of the fat girl, saying, "Don't you think to-morrow's algebra lesson is hard?"