"Served me right," she insisted, talking to Sally. "I know how to ride and can handle any old farm horse that ever pulled a plough, but I want my hands free and my horse must be unchecked. Stylish togs, gloves, saddles and trappings get in my way, and that hill!"
So the accident had served as a lesson, and the fallen pride was not wasted in its effect upon the ambitious equestrian.
Thanksgiving had passed with few of the girls leaving college, as special permission was required for that privilege, and now the holiday season was imminent. Even basketball had lost some of its power to enthuse, and the fact that Shirley was not considered well enough to go into the rough game, and also that Sally Howland was too small and light to be eligible, served to lessen the interest of Jane and Judith in the personnel of the teams, for as juniors in a second extension year they felt a little too grown up to go themselves generally into the big games.
Jane was chosen and acted as referee, and Judith was forced to play center in the Breslin game, but even winning over the neighboring academy somehow had lost its thrill. Golf was the popular game now with Jane, Judith, Dozia and Janet Clarke; Ted Guthrie, too, toddled around the links, and golf permitted such opportunities for confidences and was so independent of stated hours and limits of endurance that time was given on the course to talk many things over.
The girls had covered the frosted field and were returning before the first period of study, and that magic beautifier, the air of early morning, left little undone in his art of tone and tonic for Jane and Judith, when they dropped their bags and hurried to the day's tasks in mental exploits,
"This very afternoon I am going to talk with Shirley," Jane decided. "And wouldn't it be wonderful, Judy, if she turned out worth while after all?"
"No, it wouldn't," glowered Judith. "Any girl who can be as sick as she was and not have her brother Ted come to see her—well, my interest lags at that point and I don't intend to 'rouse it."
"I still have that letter," Jane reflected. "Never seem to get a chance to turn it in. And I didn't want to destroy it."
"Give it to me, Janie, do," teased Judith. "Next to knowing the darling Ted, having his letter in installments might serve. Tonight we'll read it over again. It seems so long since we found it with the ghost."
"Doesn't it? And even the play was given up when Shirley was stricken."