“Oh, I believe I’m almost glad of that,” said Betty softly. “It’s dreadful to be glad that she has failed in every way, but I can’t bear to think that she belongs in our class.”
So it was Miss Ferris who met the Blunderbuss in Eleanor’s room that night, who managed the return of the stolen property to its owners, with a suggestion that it would be a favor to the whole college not to say much about its recovery, and she who, finding suddenly that the noise of the campus tired her, spent the rest of the term at Miss Harrison’s boarding place on Main Street, where she could watch over the poor girl and minimize the risk of her indulging her fatal mania again while she was at Harding. She was nonchalant over having been caught stealing, but her failure in scholarship had almost broken her heart. She had worked so hard and so patiently up to the very last minute in the hope of winning her diploma that, on the very morning of the hoop-rolling, she had been granted the privilege of staying on through commencement festivities and so keeping her loss of standing as much as possible to herself. After listening to Betty’s and Eleanor’s stories and talking to Miss Harrison herself, Miss Ferris was fully convinced that the Blunderbuss was not morally responsible for the thefts she had committed, and so she was unwilling to send her home at once and thus expose her to the double disgrace that her going just then would probably have involved. So she found her hands very full until the girl’s mother could be sent for and the sad story broken to her as gently as possible.
It was the one unrelieved tragedy in 19—’s history; there seemed to be absolutely no help for it,—the kindest thing to do was to forget it as soon as possible.
CHAPTER XVII
BITS OF COMMENCEMENT
But Betty Wales couldn’t forget it yet. It stood out in the midst of the happy leisure and anticipation of senior week like a skeleton at the feast,—a gaunt reminder that even the sheltered little world of college must now and then take its share of the strange and sorrowful problems that loom so much larger in the big world outside. But even so, it had its alleviating circumstances. One was Miss Ferris’s hearty approval of the way in which Betty and Eleanor had managed their discovery, and another was Jean Eastman’s unexpected attitude of helpfulness. She assumed her full share of responsibility, discouraging gossip and speculation about the thefts as earnestly and tactfully as Betty herself, and taking her turn of watching the Blunderbuss at the times when Miss Ferris couldn’t follow her without causing too much comment. Betty and Eleanor tried to accept her help as if they had expected nothing else from her, and Jean for her part made no reference to that phase of the matter except to say once to Betty, “If Eleanor Watson can stand by her I guess I can. Besides you stood by me, and I didn’t deserve it any more than this poor thing does. Please subtract it from all the times I’ve bothered you.”
Betty was very generous with the subtraction. She was in a generous mood, wanting to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that, with a good deal of a struggle, she had managed to give Georgia. Of course the vindicating of the little freshman was quite the happiest result of the whole affair. It didn’t take Betty long to identify the amethyst pendant as the one article which the Blunderbuss had said she couldn’t return; and she was at once relieved and disappointed, on going over the stolen jewelry with Miss Ferris, to find that Nita’s pin was certainly missing. Of course that left room for the possibility that the Blunderbuss had not taken it, and the next thing to do was to consult Georgia and make sure. Betty waited until after dinner that evening for a chance to see her alone and then, unable to stand the suspense any longer, broke abruptly away from her own friends and detached Georgia from a group of tired and disconsolate freshmen sympathizing over examinations.
“Let’s go for a walk all by ourselves,” she said.