"But I want to know," said the old lady positively. "Anne is so very dear to me, and I can't allow these hare-brained girls to make damaging statements about her. Tell me at once, Grace."
Grace reluctantly gave a brief account of her recent disagreement with her class and the unpleasantness to which Anne had been subjected.
"What does ail Miriam Nesbit? She used to be such a nice child!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray. "Really, Grace, I feel that I ought to go straight to Miss Thompson with this."
Grace's heart sank. That was just what she did not want Mrs. Gray to do.
"Dear Mrs. Gray," she said, patting the old lady's hand, "it is better for us to fight it out by ourselves. If Miss Thompson knew all that had happened, she would forbid basketball for the rest of the season. She is awfully opposed to anything of that kind, and would champion Anne's cause to the end, but Anne would rather let matters stand the way they are, than lose us our basketball privilege. You see, the juniors have won the first game, and if basketball were stopped now we would have no chance to make up our lost ground. I firmly believe that all will come right in the end, and I think the girls will get tired of their grudge and gradually drop it. Of course it hurts to be snubbed, but I guess we can stand it. We have some friends who are loyal, at any rate."
"I suppose you are right, my dear," responded the old lady. "It is better for old folks to keep their fingers out of young folk's pies. But what did that pert miss mean about Anne's father being an actor? I had an idea he was dead."
So Grace told Mrs. Gray the story of Anne's father, beginning from where he had intercepted Anne on her way from the aëroplane exhibition during her freshman year, up to the time of the arrival of his letter begging for money.
"Anne used her freshman prize money last year to help him out of trouble. He forged a friend's name for one hundred dollars, and would have had to go to prison had she not made good the money he took, I always wanted you to know about it, Mrs. Gray, but Anne felt so badly over it, she begged me never to tell any one."
"Your story explains a great many things I never before understood," said Mrs. Gray. "That doll that was sent to the Christmas party last year, for instance. But how did Miriam find out about it?"
"We don't know," said Grace. "Her doings are dark and mysterious. Find out she did; and she has told the story with considerable effect among the girls."