“If they resigned, then there wouldn’t be any freshman team,” stammered Gussie, thinking instantly of this dire calamity.
“Oh, yes there would,” Marjorie assured with a friendly laugh. “You would be center on a new team. Your position on the freshman team is safe. Please understand that, Miss Forbes. The other freshmen may find theirs shaky.”
Gussie stared at Marjorie with wide, solemn eyes. “I did not know you were like this,” she blurted. “What was the matter with me that I misjudged you so? I thought you and Miss Macy made fun of me on the first evening we were at Hamilton.”
“Miss Macy made some funny remarks about the noise you were all making and about you being freshies,” Marjorie felt impelled to confess, “but she did not intend to be ill-natured. We laughed, because, Jeremiah, as we call her, is almost always funny.”
“You will never forgive me,” was Gussie’s shame-faced prognostication. “The girls told me I had made a mistake. I wouldn’t listen to them. I don’t deserve your kindness to me, Miss Dean. When Miss Hurst said she was going to have me dropped from the team, I thought you would be glad of an excuse to drop me. So you can see for yourself what a horrid, suspicious person I am.”
For answer Marjorie laughed merrily. “I think you are very honest and straightforward,” she differed. “I am not sorry this letter was written. It has brought us an understanding of each other which should lead to friendship. If I were in your place, Miss Forbes, I would go on working on the team precisely as though nothing had happened. I shall write Miss Hurst this evening. I imagine after she receives my letter she will stop this annoying persecution. That is what it amounts to.”
After a little further conversation with the now placated Gussie, Marjorie shook hands with her and left her in a beatified state of mind.
“There is nothing truer than that old proverb, ‘It’s an ill wind that blows no one good,’” was Marjorie’s salutation as she entered her room. “By rights I should send Miss Hurst a note of thanks for putting me on good terms with Miss Forbes.”
Marjorie’s gay utterance was indicative of the success of her errand. She was genuinely happy over the change in Augusta Forbes toward herself. Had Gussie been one of whom her upright mind could not truly approve, she would not have been annoyed at the freshman’s misunderstanding of her. Knowing the stubborn girl to be sterling at heart, it had hurt Marjorie to be thus misjudged. It had hurt her still more to know that Augusta saw Jerry in a false light
“I notice you weren’t extinguished,” commented Jerry, her eyes resting with fond humor upon her pretty chum. “Tell me about it.”