"Oh, Mrs. Weatherbee!" and impulsively Jane threw her arms around the woman who stood as mother to the Wellington girls. "How good, and kind you are!"
"Thank you, my dear. Such gratitude more than repays me. I sometimes fear my necessary intervention may be taken as interference. But when I have done my duty, and all turns out well then--I am glad."
"What can I do to assist you in this matter, Mrs. Weatherbee?" asked Jane earnestly.
"My dear, all I want you to do is to use your influence privately with the young ladies, to show them the absurdity of subscribing to anything like that so-called course of treatments. You see, the danger is, some of them may actually have given their money, and we cannot force Miss Vincez' friend--whoever she may be--to refund it. However, under any conditions, I shall not allow a single Wellington girl to visit this place--this beauty parlor."
"I will gladly do all I can, Mrs. Weatherbee, to counteract the canvass. I wish I had heard of it sooner. But there has been so much going on lately. And being anxious about our big basketball game, I have been keeping the girls at practice daily."
"Oh, yes, my dear, and that is quite right. I do not want to spoil your pretty head with compliments, but you must know that we all appreciate what you are doing. Your leadership for the juniors has given us perfectly splendid results this far."
"Thank you, Mrs. Weatherbee. But really I am only doing what anyone would do, and I feel rather foolish to be complimented. It is just a case of being in line. Someone has to lead."
"That is a fine spirit to view it in, Jane," Mrs. Weatherbee never used first names--that is, seldom indeed. The occasion must have been one of singular confidence. "But we recall that you did not fall into this place without well-deserved merit," she commented. "This is a big college and we have many fine girls, so that those chosen to lead must have been qualified. However, I want to say a word about our little Helen. She surprised me greatly with her wonderful skill at the violin. You know when she came to us, she had been sort of lost--that is, her friends had abandoned her."
"Yes, Mrs. Weatherbee," said Jane simply, choking back her interest.
"Well, I have thought since we might have traced them by their letters, which must have been in the possession of the Blindwood faculty. But I was restrained from doing this by the attitude of Helen herself. She fairly begged me not to seek her friends. Strange, I thought."