“Of course we’ll do what we can,” assured Mrs. Henry, “but it may take a little time. You must be patient for a little while, even if you have to rest under a suspicion that you don’t deserve. Shall I take these things away?”
“Please do.”
“And you know nothing at all about them?” asked the older Mrs. Rhodes. “You’re not keeping them for Sallie Dickinson?”
“For Sallie? Oh, no. Sallie wouldn’t have taken them—I’m sure of that.”
“What about your roommate?”
“Henrietta? Why! Henrietta wouldn’t either.”
“Don’t worry too much,” advised Mrs. Henry. “You’d better go to bed and forget your troubles for tonight.”
When Henrietta went to her room almost an hour later, she found poor little Marjory huddled in a small heap on her cot, weeping bitterly. Between sobs she told Henrietta what had happened.
“Cheer up,” said Henrietta, kissing Marjory’s hot ear because that was the only dry spot in sight. “We wanted to come sooner but we didn’t dare; you know it’s against the rules to go to our rooms during a social evening; but Jean is going to slip in after ‘Lights Out’ and cuddle you a little. That’s a good deal for Jean to do, you know, when she always behaves as well as she can. And it isn’t as bad as you think. I believe in you—that’s one. The rest of the Lakeville girls believe in you—that’s four more. You believe in yourself, that’s six. Sallie and little Jane Pool adore you, Maude swears by you and there are others—”
“It’s the others that worry me,” sighed Marjory. “They’re going to be just beastly to me, I know.”