“‘All’s well that ends well,’” said Ruth, pinning a crimson rosette at her belt. There was a slight stiffness in her manner, but she looked at Julia with her old-time pleasant smile; and as they clasped hands, the two girls knew that they were friends again. “Naturally,” she added, “it was hard, Julia, to find you unjust—”
“But if you had only said the least little word, I should have understood, Ruth, but when you said nothing—”
“But how could I say anything? When you so evidently had your mind made up, what could I say?”
“Ah, but I must tell Polly. Won’t you come with me, Ruth?”
“Not this afternoon. I’m going to a ball game with Will; it’s only with Amherst to-day. But there’s a party of a dozen going, and not a chaperon.”
“Of course not. That’s the one delightful thing about Cambridge; we can go to ball games without any of the trammels of an ‘artificial etiquette,’ as Clarissa might say.”
Then Ruth departed for the ball game, with Will holding her parasol, and Julia standing in the doorway, waving her a good-bye after a fashion that had not been possible during the past year.
From Ruth, Julia went to Polly, and it was harder to bring up the subject of the telegram to her, for the very mention of it recalled so many sad memories.
“So, after all, Clarissa has been the most charitable of us all. Seems like we have all been carried away by suspicion, while she has always been inclined to stand up for Ruth,” said the Southern girl.
“Well, in other things besides murder trials, it isn’t worth while to trust to circumstantial evidence. But I am the most to blame, for I ought to have known Ruth better than to suspect her of a meanness. I shall begin to wonder now if I haven’t been unfair to Annabel.”