But when the young man was gone home, and Leslie came back to the couch again, she suddenly drooped.
“Cloudy Jewel,” she said wearily, “it isn’t right. I don’t deserve people to be so nice to me, the dean, and you all, and Howard and everybody. It was a lot my fault that all this happened. I thought I could make that girl over if I just stuck to her. She had promised me she would come to Christian Endeavor, and join; and I wanted to show you all what a power I had over her. I was just conceited; that was all there was about it. Now I see that she was only fooling me. I couldn’t have done anything at all alone. I needed God. I didn’t ask Him to help. You’ve talked a lot about that in our Sunday meetings, but it never went down into my heart until I was driving past that old crematory, and I felt as if I was all alone and Death all in black trailing robes was going along fast beside me. Then I knew God was the only one who could help, and I began to pray. I hope maybe I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll not be so swelled-headed next time. But you oughtn’t to forgive me, Cloudy, not so easy. Cloudy, you’re just like God!”
It was several days before Leslie recovered fully from the nervous strain she had been under. She slept long the next day, and Julia Cloud would not waken her. For a week there were dark circles under the bright eyes, and the rose of her cheek was pale. She went about meekly with downcast eyes, and the bright fervor of her spirit seemed dimmed. It was not until one afternoon when Allison suggested that they get Jane Bristol and Howard Letchworth and go for bittersweet-berry vines and hemlock-branches to 268 decorate for the Christian Endeavor social that her spirits seemed to return, and the unwholesome experience was put away in the past at last.
Howard Letchworth had been most thoughtful about the matter in the village, and had managed so that the tragic had been taken out of the story that had started to roll about, and Leslie could go around and not feel that all eyes were upon her wondering about her escapade. Gradually the remembrance of it died out of her thoughts, although the wholesome lesson she had learned never faded.
More and more popular in the college grew the gatherings down at Cloudy Villa. Sometimes Leslie brought home three or four girls for Friday and Saturday, not often any on Sunday, unless it was Jane; for Sundays were their very own day for the little family, and they dreaded any who might seem like intruders.
“It is our time when we catch up in our loving for all the week,” Leslie explained with a quaint smile to one girl who broadly hinted that she would not mind being asked for over Sunday. “And, besides, you mightn’t like the way we keep Sunday. Everybody who comes has to go to church and Christian Endeavor with us, and enjoy our Bible-reading, singing hour around the fire; and I didn’t think you would.”
“Well, I like your nerve!” answered the girl; but she sat studying Leslie afterwards with a thoughtful gaze, and began to wonder whether, after all, a Sunday spent in that way might not be really interesting.
“She’s a kind of a nut, isn’t she?” she remarked to another friend of Leslie’s.
“She’s a pretty nice kind of a nut, then, Esther,” 269 was the response. “If that’s a nut, we better grow a whole tree of them. I’m going down there all I can. I like ’em!”