Muriel’s pale blue eyes turned toward her friend and her brows were lifted questioningly, as she inquired:—“Indeed? Who said that we would not tell?”
“I will not,” Daisy replied quietly. “My mother has told me to ask myself two questions before repeating something that might hurt another. First, is it kind; second, is it necessary? So, Muriel, why tell, since it is neither kind nor necessary?”
Daisy’s natural impulses were always good, but she often seemed to be easily led by her less conscientious friend, Muriel Metcalf.
“Oh well, you may side with her if you prefer,” the other said with a shrug of her shoulders, “but I shall watch her closely tonight and see what she does. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she went back to the gypsy camp, and, as for telling, I shall do as I think best about that.”
To herself Muriel added, “If Nan Barrington wins the gold medal at the recital contest next Saturday, it shall be known all over the school before night that she is only a gypsy.” Wisely, she said nothing of this to Daisy Wells, whose sense of justice, she knew, would scorn such an act of jealousy.
Nan was planning, as soon as she left the dining hall, to go at once to the office of Mrs. Dorsey and ask permission to go out of grounds, and, since she was an honor student, she knew the request would be granted without question. As the girls were sauntering through the corridors after dinner in groups of two and three, Phyllis exclaimed:—
“Well, Nan dear, the wonderful night has arrived at last,” and then when her friend’s dark eyes were turned toward her questioningly, she added merrily, “Nan Barrington, do you mean to tell me that you have forgotten what we are to do tonight? Why only this morning you said how glad you were that the day had at last arrived.”
Then it was that Nan recalled the long-planned and much-anticipated theatre party. Madame Reznor was to chaperone her class in dramatics that they might see a noted actor in a Shakespearian play which they were studying.
Since the appearance of the gypsy caravan, she had forgotten all else.
What should she do? Nan, who had never told a lie, could not say that she was ill or that she did not want to go.