“I am ever so glad to have a chance to talk to you,” returned Marjorie earnestly as she took Lucy’s hand. “I received your letter. It was splendid. I loved every line of it. I—but I am afraid you won’t feel so glad that I came when I tell you what I’ve done.” A quick flush dyed Marjorie’s cheeks.
“I guess it is nothing very dreadful.” Lucy smiled her utmost faith in her pretty visitor.
“Lucy, I—well—I hate to tell you, but I’ve lost that letter you wrote me.” Marjorie looked the picture of anxiety as she made the disagreeable confession.
“You’ve lost it!” gasped Lucy, her heavy dark brows meeting in the old ominous frown.
“Yes. I tucked it inside my blouse,” went on Marjorie bravely, “and when I reached home it was gone.”
Lucy’s green eyes fastened themselves on Marjorie in an angry stare. For a moment her great liking for the gentle girl was swallowed up in wrath at her carelessness. Intensely methodical, Lucy found such carelessness hard to excuse. Remembering tardily how much she owed Marjorie, she made a valiant effort to suppress her anger. “It’s too bad,” she muttered. “I—you see—I gave you my confidence. I wouldn’t care to have anyone else know all that I wrote you.”
“Don’t I know that?” Marjorie asked almost piteously. “I can’t begin to tell you how dreadfully I feel about it. I know you think it careless in me to have tucked it inside my blouse. It was careless. I’ve waited all day, thinking someone who might have found it would return it. My name on the envelope ought to insure a prompt return if I dropped it in or near the school building. But if I lost it in the street and a stranger found it, then I’m afraid I wouldn’t stand much chance of getting it again.” Marjorie made a little gesture of hopelessness. “You must know how humiliated I feel over it. But that won’t bring the letter back,” she concluded with deep dejection.
During this long apology Lucy’s probing eyes had been riveted unblinkingly on Marjorie, as though in an effort to plumb the precise degree of the latter’s regret for the accident. “Don’t worry about it any more,” she said rather brusquely. “It may not amount to anything after all. If you dropped it in the street, the wind may have blown it away; then no one would ever see it. If you dropped it in the school building, it may be returned to you, or perhaps to me. My full name was signed at the end of it. It has taught me a lesson, though.”
Within herself Lucy knew that this last speech bordered on the unkind. Yet she could not resist making it. Although she was earnestly endeavoring to live up to the new line of conduct which she had laid down for herself on the day when she had confessed her fault to Marjorie, much of her former antagonistic attitude toward life still remained. Having, for years, cultivated a spirit of envy and bitterness, she was still more ready to blame than condone. A kind of fierce, new-born gratitude and loyalty toward Marjorie transcended momentarily her personal displeasure. It was not quite powerful enough, however, to check that one caustic remark. She had not yet learned the true secret of gratitude.
“I can’t blame you for feeling that I am not a safe confidant,” Marjorie made honest reply. “Still it hurts me to hear it. I must go now, Lucy. The girls are waiting for me outside. We are all going down to Sargent’s for ice cream. I’d love to have you come, too, if you are through with your work and would care to join us.”