“No,” said Mary decidedly, “I don’t; that is, if we only use her for fun, and are careful not to let her do any harm to any one. As long as she is just a gloriously big joke, I’m sure she’s all right.”
With which presidential decision “The Merry Hearts” wisely rested satisfied.
CHAPTER VII
“THE MERRY HEARTS” FIND WORK TO DO
Betty Wales found out about her, of course. As Betty said mournfully to Mary Brooks, it was rather a shame when she never, never cried herself, and hated dreadfully to see any one else cry, that she should be the one who was forever running into something of the sort. There had been Helen Adams, Emily Davis and Eleanor, and now there was Dora Carlson, the very last person that you would suspect of wearing her heart on her sleeve.
She was working in the college library one afternoon, reading up for a Lit. paper, so she whispered in answer to Betty’s friendly inquiry. Betty explained that she had come to do the very same thing, and sat down across the table from Dora in the English Literature alcove. She noticed at once that Dora looked very sober for such a cheerful little person, but she attributed this to the Lit. paper, which, in Betty’s eyes, was a very “sobering” circumstance. A little later she glanced up from her book and smiled across at Dora just in time to catch her wiping away a big tear. Betty bent low over her book again, blushing for Dora and for herself, the unwilling witness of Dora’s weakness. What could be the matter, she wondered. Dora had been so happy during her freshman year, although she had had none of the things that the average freshman considers essential to happiness—neither a pretty room nor a pleasant boarding-place, nor congenial friends, nor popularity, nor prominence of any sort. She had had nothing but Eleanor Watson, and that had been enough for her. Now she had even more of Eleanor than before, for the gentler, sweeter side that Eleanor was developing helped her to give more of herself to her friends; and besides that she was up near the campus, in the pretty room that Eleanor had helped pay for. There were pleasant girls at the new boarding-place, most of them freshmen probably, but that didn’t matter, so long as they were the right sort. Suppose they weren’t the right sort?
“That’s probably it,” Betty decided swiftly. “They haven’t been nice to her, and she’s feeling bad about it. But it isn’t like her to give up and cry. Oh, how I wish she’d stop!”
But Dora did not stop. Presently the big tears were falling too fast for any furtive wiping away to conceal them. The English Literature alcove was a comparatively secluded spot, but at any moment some one might invade its privacy. Betty endured as long as she could. Then she leaned across the table.
“Could—couldn’t you stop long enough so that you can go out?” she whispered. “It isn’t far to the door, and then we could go to walk or—or—something nice, and perhaps you’d feel better.”