Marjory was right. If several of the girls were not “Just beastly” they were pretty close to it. One of Hazel’s beads had been broken and that fact made Hazel more unforgiving than she might have been. Before long, too, the story of the black bundle found in the little girl’s room leaked out (no one knew just how), and many were the scornful glances cast at poor Marjory. If she had been unpopular before, she was considerably worse than unpopular now. She seemed to shrink visibly under the scathing looks of her schoolmates. She even began, it was noticed, to wear a guilty look that proved exasperating to Henrietta.
“Hold your head up,” Henrietta would say, vigorously shaking her little friend. “You haven’t a thing to be ashamed of. For mercy’s sake, look folks right in the eye as you used to. You’re not half as bad as you look. You’re a good child. Well, then, look like a good child.”
“I can’t help wondering,” confessed poor Marjory, “if I took those things in my sleep. Those blue beads—I just loved them.”
“And that horrible magenta sweater of Augusta’s—I suppose you loved that too.”
“Well, of course, I’d have to be asleep to take that. But do you think I could have taken those things in my sleep?”
“Of course you didn’t, Marjory. You didn’t take them at all. It was some kind of an accident. I’ve thought sometimes that poor old Abbie wasn’t quite right. You know how absent minded she is. I don’t think she’d steal anything; but she goes around in sort of a daze and her hands keep plucking at things, as if her mind were in one room and her body in another, like the time she set the dining room clock back and then accused everybody else of doing it. She’s always doing things like that. And you know she’s always had to do such a lot of picking up after years and years of careless girls—well, perhaps she’s gotten the habit of picking up things unconsciously and putting them in places where they don’t belong.”
“Well, anyway,” pleaded Marjory, “do watch me. If you catch me taking things in my sleep I hope you’ll be able to prove that I am asleep. And let’s all of us keep an eye on poor old Abbie daytimes. You might be right about her.”
“A letter for Miss Henrietta Bedford,” said Sallie’s voice at the door. “Charles was late again today. Hope it’s a nice one, Henrietta.”
Henrietta ripped her letter open hastily and read it.
“It isn’t a nice one. It’s from my grandmother. That London man that looks after Father’s affairs has started for China to hunt for him. Mr. Henshaw thinks he went to Shanghai but isn’t sure. You see, girls, there really is cause for alarm. I’d like to go right over there and help search for him; but of course I couldn’t. And it’s awfully hard to have nothing to do but wait.”