to do with illness during her two years in America, but she remembered the dread name of typhoid. It had a sad association to her, for she had been passing the infirmary at the very moment when a black, sinister looking ambulance had brought Professor Edwin Green from his rooms to the hospital.

Molly relapsed into silence. Somehow, the joy of reunion had been spoiled and she tasted the bitterness of dark forebodings. It came to her with unexpected vividness that Wellington would not be the same without the Professor of English Literature, whose kind assistance and advice had meant so much to her. Only a little while ago she had made a secret resolution to seek him in his office on the morrow for counsel on a very vital question. In plain words: how to avoid being a school teacher. And now this brilliant and learned man, by far the brightest star in the Wellington faculty, was dangerously ill. Molly felt suddenly the cold clutch of disappointment.

The other girls were sorry but not really shaken or unnerved by the news.

"The jubilee must be to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the new Wellington—" began Margaret, after an interval of silence. "Do you suppose—" she began again and then broke off.

"Suppose what?" asked the inquisitive Judy.

"Oh, nothing. It would seem rather unfeeling to put in words what I had in my mind. I think I'll leave it unsaid."

There was a silence and again came that cold clutch at Molly's heart. She felt pretty certain that Margaret had started to say:

"Do you suppose, if Professor Green dies, it will interfere with the jubilee?"

"If there is a jubilee," suddenly burst out Judy, who had been lying quite still with her eyes closed, "if they do give it, we shall be at the head and front of it being seniors, and I already have a wonderful suggestion to make. Would it not be splendid to have an old English pageant? The whole college could take part in it. Think of the beautiful costumes; the lovely colors; the rustic dances and open air plays on the campus."

Judy's eyes sparkled and her face was flushed with excitement. With her amazing faculty for visualizing, the spectacle of the pageant stretched before her imagination like a great colored print. She saw the capering jesters in cap and bells; ox carts filled with rustics; the pageant of knights and ladies and royal personages; the players; the dancers——

"It would be too glorious," she cried, beside herself from her inflamed imagination.

The other girls, unable to follow Judy's brilliant vision, watched her with amused curiosity.

"I should think you would remember that Professor Green was at his death's door before you began making plans for a jubilee," admonished Nance.

But Judy, too intoxicated with her visions to notice Nance's reproof, continued:

"They would have it in May, of course, when the weather is warm and everything is in bloom. First would come the pageant; then the king and queen and court would gather as spectators in front of all the various side shows; morality plays and——"

The picture had now become so real to Judy that her galloping imagination had leaped over every difficulty, as the hunter leaps the intervening fence rail. In a flash she had decided on her own costume, of violet velvet and silk—a gentleman of the court, perhaps—when Molly, sitting pale and quiet beside the window, suddenly remarked:

"Miss Walker did look very serious this morning, I thought. Just before chapel I saw her in the court talking to Dr. McLean. She must have had bad news then."

Judy's inflated enthusiasm collapsed like a pricked balloon. She flushed hotly and relapsed into silence. Presently, after the others had departed to their rooms, she crept over to Molly and sunk on her knees beside her at the open window.

"I didn't mean to be such a brute, Molly, darling," she said. "I forgot about your being such friends with the Greens and I really am awfully sorry about the Professor. Will you forgive me?"

"You foolish, fond old Judy," said Molly, slipping an arm around her friend's neck. "I only dimly heard your wanderings. I was so busy thinking of—of other things; sending out hope thoughts like Madeleine Petit. Poor Miss Green! I wonder if she knows. She has been in Europe all summer. I had post cards from her every now and then."

Molly looked wistfully through the darkness in the direction of the infirmary. "I wish I knew how he was to-night," she added.

"I'll go and inquire," cried Judy, leaping to her feet, eager to make amends for past offenses. She glanced at the clock. "The gate isn't locked until a quarter past to-night on account of the late train. There'll be time if I sprint there and back."

"But, Judy," objected Molly.

"Don't interfere, and don't try to come, too. You can't run and I can," and before either of the other girls could say a word, Judy was out of the room and gone.

"I don't know what we are going to do about her, Molly," Nance observed, as soon as the door had slammed behind that impetuous young woman, "she's worse than ever."

Molly shook her head silently. Suddenly she felt quite old and apathetic, like a person who has lost all ambitions and given up the fight.

"I think I'll turn in, Nance. I'm tired to death."

With silent sympathy, Nance turned down the cover of Molly's little white bed and laid out her night-gown.

It seemed an incredibly short time when Judy burst into the room again, too breathless to speak, her face scarlet with running.

"I just did make it," she gasped presently. "The night nurse said Professor Green was very ill, but that Dr. McLean was hopeful because of his strong constitution."

"I feel hopeful, too. Thank you, Judy, dearest," said Molly, drawing the covers up over her shoulders while Nance turned out the light.

Contents

CHAPTER II.

A TROUBLED SUNDAY.

It was Sunday morning and Molly had been washing her head. She had spread a towel on the window-sill and now hung her hair out of the window that sun and wind might play upon her auburn locks.

"I always heard it was better to dry the hair by the sun than by a fire; hot air dries up the natural oils," she observed to Nance in a muffled voice.

Nance was engaged in the meditative occupation of manicuring her nails. As she rubbed them back and forth on a chamois buffer her thoughts were busy in far other fields.

"Yes," she replied absently to Molly's observation. "I suppose you learned that from Judy's new friend," she added, coming back to her present beautifying occupation. "She'll be introducing rouge to us next," Nance went on in a disgusted tone.

Molly smiled and gave her hair a vigorous shake in the breeze. In the bright sunlight it sparkled with glints of gold as if a fairy wand had touched it.

"No, I didn't, really," she answered. "I read it on the beauty page of a Sunday paper, but I knew it anyhow instinctively before I read it."

"Do you think her hair is naturally red," asked Nance, punching the dull end of her orange stick into a sofa cushion with unusual force.

"I suppose lots of people ask the same question about mine," Molly answered evasively.

"Never," Nance asserted hotly. "I don't know much about the subject but I do know that no dyes have ever been invented that could imitate the