A BLUE GOWN AND A SOLEMN RESOLVE
The next day in school was a particularly trying one for poor Marjorie. It was decidedly hard for the sore-hearted little freshman to believe that Miss Arnold's motive in asking her to resign from the team had been purely disinterested. She was reasonably sure that she had Mignon to blame for the humiliation. Jerry Macy had told her of Miss Arnold's respect for Mignon's father's money, and that Miss Archer's thin-lipped, austere-looking secretary was one of the French girl's most devoted followers.
The wave of dislike which had swept over Marjorie upon first beholding Marcia Arnold had, as the days passed, intensified rather than lessened. Jerry, too, could not endure the secretary. "I never could bear her," she had confided to Marjorie. "I'm glad she's a junior. I'll have two years of comfort after she's gone. I suppose she deserves a lot of credit for keeping up in her studies and earning money as a secretary at the same time, but I'd rather have a nice wriggly snake, or a cheerful crocodile for a friend if it comes to a choice."
Marjorie was equally certain that Miss Arnold did not like her. She had had occasion to ask the secretary several questions and the latter's manner of answering had been curt, almost to rudeness. The desired resignation was yet to be written. Marjorie had purposely delayed writing it until the last hour of the afternoon session. She wished to think before writing. It took her the greater part of the hour to compose it, although, when it was finally copied on a sheet of note paper she had brought to school for that purpose, it covered little more than one side of the sheet.
While she was addressing it for mailing, she suddenly remembered that she had not yet asked Miss Arnold for her Hallowe'en invitation. Should she hand the secretary her resignation instead of mailing it? She decided that the more dignified course would be to mail it. As to the invitation for the dance, she was entitled to it; therefore she was not afraid to demand it. She wondered if Constance had received hers, and, when her new friend returned from class, Marjorie managed to catch her eye and question her by means of a sign language known only to schoolgirls. A vigorous shake of Constance's fair head brought forth more signs, which, when school was dismissed, resulted in a determined march upon Miss Archer's office by the two friends, reinforced by Jerry and Irma, who had managed to join Marjorie and Constance in the corridor.
"That's just why we waited," announced Jerry, wagging her head emphatically when Marjorie explained her mission. "We wondered if she'd given them to you. You let me do the talking. She won't have a word to say when I'm through."
"Hush, Jerry!" cautioned Irma. "She'll hear you."
They were now entering Miss Archer's living-room office. Marcia Arnold, who was seated before her desk, intent on the book she held in her hand, raised her eyes and regarded the quartette with a displeased frown. Then she addressed them in peremptory tones.
"Please make less noise, girls. Your voices can be plainly heard in Miss Archer's office and she is too busy now to be disturbed." This last with a view to discouraging any attempt on their part to see the principal.
"We didn't come to see Miss Archer," was Geraldine Macy's calm retort. "We came to see you about Miss Dean's and Miss Stevens' invitations for the dance. They haven't received them."
"I know nothing whatever about them," snapped Miss Arnold, picking up her book as a sign of dismissal.
"You ought to know. The invitations were given to you by the boys' committee," was Jerry's pertinent reminder. "You sent them the list of names, didn't you? Perhaps you accidentally left out these two names."
This was a malicious afterthought on Jerry's part, but it had a potent effect on Marcia Arnold. A tide of red rose to her sallow face. For a second her eyes wavered from the four pairs searchingly upon her. Then she answered with elaborate carelessness: "It is just possible that these two names have been omitted. I will go over my list and see."
"Yes, do," advised Jerry, laconically. Then she slyly added: "It seems funny, doesn't it, that when 'D' and 'S' are so far apart on the alphabetical list, they should both happen to be overlooked? If the girls don't receive their invitations by to-morrow night I'll speak to my brother about it. He's the president of the junior class, you know, and he'll take it up with the committee. Come on, girls."
The three young women obediently following her, Jerry marched from the room with the air of a conqueror. True to her prediction, Marcia Arnold had found nothing to say to the stout girl's parting shot.
"There really wasn't much use in our going. I'm afraid we weren't very brave. We shouldn't have stood like wooden images and let you fight our battles, Jerry. It was awfully dear in you, but I do hope Miss Arnold won't think Constance and I are babies," demurred Marjorie.
"What do you care what she thinks as long as she hunts up your invitations?" asked Jerry, with superb contempt. "What she thinks will never hurt either of you."
The belated invitations were delivered to the two freshmen by Miss Arnold herself the next day, greatly to Jerry's satisfaction.
"I saw her give them to you, girls," she whispered to Marjorie on the way to the English class. "She looked mad as a hatter, too. She thought she'd hold back your invitations until the last minute; then maybe you would get mad and not go to the dance."
"But why should she wish to keep us from going?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly.
"Ask Mignon," was Jerry's enigmatical answer. "Very likely she knows more about it than anyone else."
Marjorie found no chance for conversation with Constance until they met in French class. Even then she had only time to say, "Be sure to wait for me this noon," before Professor Fontaine called his class to order and attacked the advance lesson with his usual Latin ardor.
Constance was first at their locker. She had already put on her own hat and coat and was holding Marjorie's for her, when her friend arrived.
"What are you going to wear, Constance?" asked Marjorie, as she put on her coat and hat.
"I'm not going," was the brief answer.
"Not going!" Marjorie stared hard at her friend. Was Constance hurt because she had not received her invitation? Then she went on, eagerly apologetic: "It wasn't the Weston boys' fault that we didn't get our invitations when the others received theirs. They didn't intend to leave us out, even though they only knew our names."
"It's not that." Constance's voice trembled a little. "I—I—well, I haven't a dress fit to wear!" Her pale cheeks grew pink with shame as she burst forth with this confession of poverty. "This blue suit and three house dresses are all the clothes I have in the world. Don't say you feel sorry for me. I shall hate you if you do. I sha'n't always be poor. Some day," her eyes grew dreamy, "I'll have all sorts of lovely clothes. When I am a——" She stopped abruptly, then said in her usual half-sullen tones, "I can't go, so don't ask me."
Marjorie looked curiously at this strange girl. The longer she knew Constance the better she liked her, but she did not in the least understand her. Suddenly a bright idea popped into her head. "I'm so sorry you can't go to the dance," she commented, then promptly dropped the subject. When she left Constance, however, she remarked innocently: "Don't forget, you are coming home with me to-night. Don't say you can't. You promised, you know."
"I will come," promised Constance, brightening. "Good-bye."
The moment Marjorie reached home she made a dash for her room and going to her closet, emerged a moment afterward with an immense white pasteboard box in her arms. Stopping only long enough to drop her wraps on her bed she ran downstairs and burst into the dining-room with: "I have found her, Mother. I've found the girl this was made for."
"What is all this commotion about, Lieutenant?" asked her father, teasingly. "Are we about to be attacked by the enemy? Salute your superior officers and then state your case. Discipline must be preserved at all costs in the army. Is it a requisition for new uniforms? You soldiers are dreadfully hard on your clothes. Or is the post about to move and is that a packing case?"
Marjorie made a most unsoldierlike rush for him and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed his cheek. "You are a great big tease, and I choose to salute you this way." Then she kissed her mother, saying: "I've the loveliest plan, Captain. I'm sure that this dress will fit Constance. She says she won't go to the school dance because she has no pretty gown to wear. May I give her this darling blue one?" She opened the box and drew forth a dainty frock of pale blue chiffon over silk. The chiffon was caught up here and there with tiny clusters of pinky-white rosebuds. The round neck was just low enough to show to advantage a white girlish throat, while the soft, fluffy sleeves reached barely to the elbows. It was a particularly beautiful and appropriate frock for a young girl.
"You see, General," explained Marjorie, "Aunt Mary sent this to me when I graduated from grammar school. She hadn't seen me for two years and didn't know I had grown so fast. She bought it ready made in one of the New York stores. It was too short and too tight for me and to make it over meant simply to spoil it. It was so sweet in her to send it that when I wrote my thank you to her I couldn't bear to tell her that it didn't fit, so I kept it just to look at. I didn't really need it, for, thanks to you and mother, I have plenty of others. Don't you think I ought to make someone else happy when I have the chance? It is right to share one's spoils with a comrade, isn't it?"
Her father looked lovingly at the pretty, earnest face of his daughter as she stood holding up the filmy gown, her eyes bright with unselfish purpose. "I am very glad my little girl is so thoughtful of others," he said. "Whatever your captain says is law. How about it, Captain?" His wife and he exchanged glances.
"You may give your friend the dress if you like, dear," consented Mrs. Dean, "if you think she will accept it."
"That's just the point, Captain," returned Marjorie. "You know you said I could bring Constance home for dinner to-night, and she is coming. Perhaps we can think of some nice way to give it to her while she is here."
Marjorie carefully replaced the gown in its box and ran upstairs with it. She returned with her hat and coat on her arm, and hanging them on the hall rack hastened to eat her luncheon.
All afternoon she puzzled as to how she might best offer Constance the gown. When the four girls strolled homeward together after school she had still not thought of a way. Jerry and Irma held forth, at length, with true schoolgirl eloquence, upon the subject of their gowns. Constance listened gravely without comment. Her small, impassive face showed no sign of her hopeless longing for the pretty things she had never possessed.
Once inside the Dean's pleasant home, a flash of appreciation routed her impassivity as Marjorie conducted her into the comfortable living-room where Mrs. Dean sat reading, and her face softened under the spell of the older woman's gentle greeting.
"I am pleased to know you, Constance," said Mrs. Dean, offering her hand. "I have been expecting you for some time. Now that I have seen you I will say that you do look very much like Marjorie's friend Mary." She did not add that this girl's face lacked the good-natured, happy expression that so perfectly matched Mary Raymond's sunny curls. Yet she noted that the blue eyes met hers openly and frankly, and that there was an undeniable air of sincerity and truth about Constance which caused one instinctively to trust her.
To the formerly friendless girl who had never before been invited to the home of a Sanford girl, the evening passed like a dream. Under the genial atmosphere of the Dean household, her reserve melted and before dinner was over she had forgotten all about herself and was laughing merrily with Marjorie over Mr. Dean's nonsense. After dinner Mrs. Dean played on the piano and Constance, who knew how to dance was initiated into the mysteries of several new steps which were favorites of the Franklin girls, and later the two girls spent a happy hour in Marjorie's room with her books, of which she had a large collection.
"Oh, dear," sighed Constance, as she glanced at the clock on the chiffonier. "It is ten o'clock. I must go."
"Wait a few minutes," requested Marjorie. "I have something to show you, but I must see mother for a minute first. Please excuse me. I'll be back directly."
"Mother," Marjorie hurried into the living-room. "Have you thought of a way? Constance is going home, and it's now or never."
"Suppose you give it to her by yourself," suggested her mother. "I am afraid my presence will embarrass her and then she will surely refuse."
Marjorie stood eyeing her mother uncertainly. Then she laughed. "I know the easiest way in the world," she declared, and was gone.
When she entered the room Constance was kneeling interestedly before the book-shelves. "You have the 'Jungle Books,' haven't you? Don't you love them?"
"Yes," laughed Marjorie. "Mary and I read them together. I always called myself 'Bagheera' the black panther, and she always called herself 'Mogli, the man-cub.' We used to write notes to each other sometimes in the language of the jungle."
"How funny," smiled Constance. Her gaze intent upon the books, she did not notice that Marjorie had stepped to her closet, returning to her bed with a cloud of pink over her arm. Next she opened a big box and laid a cloud of blue beside the one of pink. "Constance, come here a minute," she said.
Constance sprang up obediently. Her glance fell upon the bed and she gave a little startled, admiring "Oh!"
Marjorie linked her arm in that of her friend and drew her up to the bed. "This gown," she pointed to the pink one, "is mine, and this one," she withdrew her arm, and lifting the blue cloud held it out to Constance, "is yours."
The Mary girl drew back sharply. "I don't know what you mean," she muttered. "Please don't make fun of me."
"I'm not making fun of you. It's your very own, and after I tell you all about it you'll see just why it happens to be yours."
Seated on the edge of the bed beside Marjorie, the wonderful blue gown on her lap, the girl who had never owned a party dress before heard the story of how it happened to be hers. At first she steadily refused its acceptance, but in the end wily Marjorie persuaded her to "just try it on," and when she saw herself, for the first time in her poverty-stricken young life, wearing a real evening gown that glimpsed her unusually white neck and arms she wavered. So intent was she upon examining her reflection that she did not notice Marjorie had slipped from the room, returning with a pair of blue silk stockings and satin slippers to match. "These go with it," she announced.
"Oh—I—can't," faltered Constance, making a move toward unhooking the frock.
"Of course you can." Marjorie deposited the stockings and slippers on the foot of her bed and going over to Constance put both arms around her. "You are going to have this dress because mother and I want you to. I can't possibly wear it myself, and it's a shame to lay it away in the closet until it is all out of style. Please, please take it. You simply must, for I won't go to the dance unless you do, and you know how dreadfully I should hate to miss it. I mean what I say, too."
"I'll take it," said Constance, slowly.
Suddenly she slipped from Marjorie's encircling arm and leaned against the chiffonier, covering her face with her hands.
"Constance!" Marjorie cried out in surprise. "You mustn't cry."
"I—can't—help—it." The words came brokenly. "Ever since I was little I've dreamed about a blue dress like this. You—are—too—good—to—me. Nobody—was—ever—good to me before."
It was a quarter to eleven o'clock before Constance, her tears dried, her face beaming with a new expression of happiness, left the Deans' house, accompanied by Mr. Dean, who had come in shortly before ten o'clock and insisted on seeing her safely home.
Later, as she prepared for bed in her bare little room she could not help wondering why Marjorie had desired her for a best friend, and had clung to her in spite of the displeasure of certain other girls. She wondered, too, if there were any way in which she might show Marjorie her affection and gratitude, and she made a solemn resolve that if that time came she would prove herself worthy of Marjorie Dean's friendship.