“Miss Jacquette,” said Mollie, the maid, putting her head in at the door, “the woman that sews for your auntie is here, and wants to speak to someone.”
“Bring her into the library, Mollie,” Jacquette answered, and, with her thoughts still on the talk with Flo, she listened to the dressmaker’s errand, and asked her to be seated until Miss Granville should come in.
“Glad to do it, I’m sure,” Mrs. Waller agreed, as she put back the floating brown veil which covered her shabby turban, and settled herself comfortably. “I’m glad of the rest. I’ve walked about fifteen blocks to see your aunt, and now she’s not here. Just home from school, aren’t you, my dear? Go to Marston? Say, there’s plenty of excitement over there to-day, I guess. One of those sororities got into print, didn’t it? Well, I think they’re a dreadful bad thing for girls, anyhow.”
“What’s that?” Jacquette’s wandering attention was fixed in an instant. “I’m a sorority girl myself, Mrs. Waller,” she added rather coldly.
“You don’t say! Well, now, I didn’t suppose your aunt would hear of such a thing. She’s so sensible, as a general rule! But, of course, they’re not all off one piece, and yours may be better than most. This one that’s in disgrace, now, is about the worst, from what I hear. I sew for one of the teachers over there, and that’s how I come to know so much about it. She’s good friends with the principal, herself, so she gets things straight, and she tells me those Sigma something girls—whatever it is—had a pretty bad name with the faculty before this thing happened. They toss their heads at rules, and all that, you know.”
“But that isn’t true, Mrs. Waller,” Jacquette protested, her Sigma Pi spirit bristling like a porcupine. “I’d like to know which teacher made that remark. The Sigma Pi girls are as nice a set as there is in school. Any sorority is liable to make a mistake and take in the wrong kind of a member, once in a while, and then trouble may come of it, of course, but that’s no reason to think the rest are all bad!”
“Well, there, now, my dear, don’t get excited! I really couldn’t mention the name of the teacher that told me. ’Twouldn’t be right. But she knows the facts. I didn’t dream you had friends among those girls. It’s real too bad for them, isn’t it? I mean the nice ones—that is, if there are any nice ones, as you say. For of course ‘Poor Tray is known by the company he keeps,’ don’t you know?”
The postman’s ring at the door just then gave Jacquette an excuse to get away without answering, and she walked out into the hall, startled by the tumult of indignation which Mrs. Waller’s words had roused within her. “That’s the way it would always be if I should give up Sigma Pi,” she thought to herself. “At school, they would think I was queer, and, outside of school, people would just shake their heads and say what a wicked set those sorority girls must be—because Jacquette Willard had to cut loose from them! Nobody would ever understand.”
“It’s a letter for you, Miss; that’s all he brought,” said Mollie, turning back from the door which she had opened, and, as Jacquette took the envelope, she recognised the big, honest handwriting of Bobs Drake.
For a minute, sorority troubles were forgotten, and a pleased smile replaced the worried look, while Jacquette, dropping down on the hall bench, opened her letter and began to read. The first few pages were full of college news and nonsense, and the dimples played in her cheeks. Then the tone changed.