CHAPTER XX.

THE PARABLE OF THE SUN AND WIND.

If Molly had been carrying a stick of dynamite she could not have held it more gingerly than the square box she was taking to President Walker on Monday morning.

"That was the reason I never liked her," she thought, mentioning no names even in her own mind. "I wonder if it is true that she couldn't help it. It must be, when she was so rich. What could she want with Minerva's medals or Margaret's initialed ring? Both M's, though," she thought, half smiling.

"Oh, Miss Brown," cried a voice behind her, and Madeleine Pet.i.t came tearing across the campus as fast as her little feet could carry her.

"Is it true that Millicent Porter has run away from college?"

"I'm afraid it is," answered Molly.

"She owed us fifteen dollars," cried Madeleine tragically. "She promised to pay this morning, and I have just heard rumors that she has disappeared, bag and baggage."

"You _did_ do the work for her?" asked Molly.

"Yes, really, against my will. I knew you would never advise without having something to advise about. But Judith was determined, and the only reason I gave in was because she had never done any work before, and I thought it would be good for her to make a start. She was so happy over earning the money. It was really wonderful to see how she brightened up. And when we couldn't get a cent out of Miss Porter on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, poor old Judith was so disappointed that she cried.

Think of that."

"What a shame," exclaimed Molly, appreciating Judith's feelings with entire sympathy. "I'm sure I should have cried if I had done all that hard work and then couldn't collect."

"But what are we to do? Must we sit back quietly and let the rich trample the poor? Don't you think she is coming back?"

"I think not," answered Molly.

"Did you find out something those few minutes you were in the den?"

Molly nodded her head.

"Is she----"

The two girls exchanged frightened glances.

"And her father a millionaire, too! Well, I never," cried Madeleine. "I think I'll just drop him a letter," which she accordingly did that very day. But she never received an answer, and the debt still remains unpaid.

In the meantime Molly was closeted with Miss Walker for ten minutes.

"It's strange," said the President. "I just had a letter this morning from an old friend at the head of a private school warning me about this unfortunate girl who was a pupil there."

But Molly was loath to discuss the matter, and still more loath to keep stolen property in her private possession. She placed the box on the President's desk and hastened away as soon as she politely could. That afternoon there appeared on the bulletin board the following unusual announcement:

"All those who have lost property during the winter may possibly be able to obtain it by applying to the Secretary of the President."

That the thief had been apprehended at last was of course understood.

Putting two and two together, the Wellington girls concluded that Millicent Porter must have had some important reason for fleeing early in the morning without explanations, leaving two trunks and a debt of honor behind her. The trunks were afterwards expressed, according to directions left in her room.

But, for the honor of Wellington, open conversation on the subject was not encouraged, and most of the talk was in whispers behind closed doors.

A crowd of the girls from the Quadrangle, where most of the pilfering had been carried on, went together to claim their property on Monday evening. Those who had lost money returned disappointed. The box of restored goods contained none whatever. But the other articles were duly claimed and distributed, with the exception of one.

"Does any one know to whom this belongs?" asked the secretary, placing a photograph in a beautiful silver frame on the top of the desk.

"It must be yours, Nance," announced Edith Williams, with a teasing smile.

"It is not," said Nance emphatically.

The other girls, now gathered around the picture, began to laugh.

Undoubtedly the small lanky boy in kilts in the photograph was Andy McLean.

"Perhaps it is Mrs. McLean's," suggested some one.

Margaret, examining the frame with the eye of an experienced detective, remarked in her usual authoritative tone:

"The design on the frame is j.a.panese."

"Otoyo," cried Judy, and the little j.a.panese, lingering near the door, crept timidly up and claimed the picture. Her face was a deep scarlet, as, with drooping head, she rushed from the room.

"Bless the child's heart, who'd have thought she had a boy's picture,"

laughed Katherine Williams.

That very night Otoyo returned the photograph to Mrs. McLean, and with many tears confessed that she had removed it from the drawer without so much as asking permission.

"My sweet la.s.s," exclaimed the doctor's wife, kissing her, "you shall have a good picture of Andy if you like, taken just lately. I am only too happy that you admire his picture enough to put it in that beautiful frame. I'm sure I think he's a braw lad, the handsomest in three kingdoms; but I am his mother, you know, and not accountable."

Together the two women fitted the latest photograph of the callow youth into the frame. Otoyo presently bore it triumphantly back to her room and placed it on the mantel shelf where all the world could see it. That night she slept with an easy conscience and a thankful heart. Her one dishonest deed was wiped out forever.

The untangling of one snarl in the skein of affairs generally leads to the untangling of many others. So it happened that Molly and Judy, by the turn which events had taken, were able to clear up a mystery that had puzzled them for months.

"I feel, Judy," remarked Molly, one day, "that we ought to do something nice for Minerva Higgins, because of--you know what. We mentioned no names and never breathed it even to each other except vaguely Christmas day, you remember. But we did suspect her, and thinking is just as bad as talking when you think a thing like that, so cruel and horrible."

Judy nodded her head thoughtfully.

"But she will never know we are making reparation, Molly," she said. "It will have to be purely for our own private satisfaction."

"Of course," replied Molly. "That is what I meant. We did her a wrong in our minds, and in our minds we must undo it."

"And how, pray?" demanded Judy.

"Well, let me see. Couldn't we ask her here some night with just the three of us, and make her fudge and be awfully sweet and interested?"

"I suppose we could, if we made a superhuman mental and physical effort," answered Judy lazily. "And it would take both. Why not let well enough alone?"

"But it isn't 'well enough,' Judy, and we've had an ugly thought about her for weeks."

"Do you call those practical jokes she played on us last autumn pretty?"