Judy at the foot of the bed, half buried in tissue paper and Christmas presents, glanced out of the window at the snowy landscape. There was a strange expression on her face and two little imps of laughter lurked in her wide gray eyes. Molly looked at her a moment, but Judy would not meet her gaze.

"Julia Kean," broke out Molly, suddenly, "do you know whom you look like this moment? Mona Lisa. You have the same mysterious smile as if you knew a great deal more than you intended to tell. Now just turn around and look me in the eyes." Molly crawled from under the covers and put her hands on her friend's shoulders. "Who sent me that first Martin Luther with all the small change?"

Judy's lips curled into an irresistible smile. There was something very mellowed and soft about her face, like an old portrait, the colors of which had deepened with the years.

"You aren't angry with me, Molly, dearest?" she asked, laying her cheek against Molly's.

"Angry? How could I be angry, you adorable child?"

"You see it was just taking money out of one pocket to put it in the other, and it was the only way I could think of to make you take the yellow dress. You wouldn't accept it as a gift. Of course, I never dreamed the real thief would repent."

The two friends looked into each other's eyes with loving confidence.

"Dear old Judy!" cried Molly, "I don't know what I have done to deserve such a friend as you. And what an imagination you have! Who but you would ever have conceived such a notion? And to think, too, that I would never have known, if the real person who took the money hadn't had an attack of conscience."

"It would certainly have remained a secret forever unless Nance had confessed it on her death bed," laughed Judy. "She's that close, I imagine her first confession would be her last one."

"I'll wear the dress to-night, Judy, just to show you how much I appreciate the gift," announced Molly.

Judy put on a broad lace collar that morning and a lavender velvet bow, by way of lightening her mourning.

There was a good deal to do during the day, getting the rooms straightened and writing letters.

All morning the snow fell so softly and quietly that the Quadrangle seemed to be isolated in a still white world of its own. Not even the campus houses could be seen through the thick curtain of flakes. Molly could picture to herself no more delightful occupation than to stay indoors all day and read one of her new Christmas books. Nothing could have been more cheerful than the little sitting room with its Christmas greens and vases of flowers.

Curled up in one of the big chairs, Molly's mind wandered idly from the open pages of the book in her lap to the recent inexplicable happenings.

Who was the mysterious visitor in the Professor's study? After all, it was none of her business, but she felt some natural curiosity about it.

Who was the girl who had stolen the china pig?

"I don't want to know," she admonished herself.

Nevertheless, it was impossible not to make a few random conjectures.

Judy, restlessly beating a tattoo on the window, was thinking the same thing.

"Molly," she burst out, after a long silence, "I have an idea who that girl is. Have you?"

"Yes, but I'd rather not mention her name. It's too dreadful. And you know how I feel about circ.u.mstantial evidence."

"All I say is," announced Judy, "that it's a certain person who makes the loudest noise about losing her own things."

"Well, she's repented," said Molly, "so let's try and forget it."

There was another brief but eloquent silence. Judy pressed her face against the window pane.

"I did think," she observed presently, "that those boys would come to take us out for a sleigh ride or a coast or something this afternoon.

But we can't wait around here all day for them. It would be paying them too much of an honor. Why not go coasting ourselves? I'll get Edith's sled and we'll walk over to Round Head."

"That would be fine," said Molly, with all the enthusiasm she could muster. Reluctantly she laid aside her book and began to dress for the walk.

When two intimate a.s.sociates are not mutually agreed, the more selfish one never dreams of the sacrifices of the other. Molly had no taste for battling with the snow, and when in half an hour they found themselves plunging through the drifts on their way to the steep coasting hill, she turned a wistful inward eye back toward the comforts of the yellow-walled sitting room. The Morris chair, the prized antique rug and the j.a.panese scroll with the snow-capped Fujiyama and the sky-blue waters called to her insistently.

"Isn't this glorious, Molly?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Judy, fired with the energy of her enthusiasms.

"Dee-lightful," replied poor Molly, brushing the snow out of her eyes with admirable pretense at cheerfulness. However, the snowfall began to diminish and when they reached Round Head the storm had apparently spent itself. Molly felt the glow of exercise she really needed and she admired the splendid panorama of the snow-clad valley stretching before them.

"It is beautiful," she admitted, "and what fun, Judy, to go whizzing down Round Head! It will be the longest coast I have ever taken in my life."

Clambering up the side of the hill had not been as difficult as they had expected, because the wind had swept that part of it clear of drifts and the way was plain. When at last they reached the top, Molly was no longer sorry that Judy had dragged her from "The Idylls of the King" and the comforts of an easy chair.

"You're not afraid, Molly?" asked the reckless Judy, looking with the glittering eye of antic.i.p.ation down the long track of white over which they would presently be flying.

"I don't see why I should be," answered Molly evasively. "Even if we fall off, it will be on a bed of snow as soft as a down comfort."

"Come along, then," cried Judy, "we'll have the sensation of our lives.

And we might as well make it a good one, because it's beginning to snow again and we'd better not try it a second time."

Judy had coasted down Round Head before and knew just the spot on the hill where the Wellington girls were accustomed to start the long slide on bobs and sleds.

Sitting behind Judy, Molly closed her eyes and the sled commenced its journey. For some moments it skimmed along at a reasonable speed, but as it gained in impetus, she had the sensation of riding on the tail of a comet.

"Look out for the b.u.mp," called Judy with amazing calm and forethought, considering the circ.u.mstances.

But the warning had no meaning for Molly, whose experience in coasting was of a very mild and unexciting character. The shock of the rise caused her to lose her hold, and the next thing she knew she was buried deep in a snow drift and Judy was whizzing on alone into the unknown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEXT THING SHE KNEW SHE WAS BURIED DEEP IN A SNOW DRIFT, AND JUDY WAS WHIZZING ON ALONE.--_Page 224_]

"I never did really enjoy coasting," thought Molly, climbing out of the drift and shaking herself vigorously like a wet dog. "It's all right if nothing happens, but something always does happen and then it's a regular nuisance."

Already the tracks of the sled were covered by the fast falling snow and it was impossible to see just where the tumble had occurred on the hillside.

"Judy," called Molly, hurrying down the hill; while at the same moment Judy was calling Molly as she hastened back.

The two girls pa.s.sed each other at no great distance apart, but they might have been as widely separated as the poles for all they could see or hear in the blinding snowstorm.

After calling and searching in vain, Judy started back to Wellington, feeling sure that her friend had gone that way; and Molly, who was gifted with no b.u.mp of location whatever, blindly groping in the snowstorm turned in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE WAYFARERS.

Human beings have been variously compared by imaginative persons to p.a.w.ns on a chessboard; storm-tossed boats on the sea of life; pilgrims on a weary way, and other things of no resemblance whatever to the foregoing.

Molly, marching stoically along the lonely road under the impression that she was on her way to Wellington when she was really turned toward Exmoor, might have fitted into any of those comparisons rather more literally than was intended.