Dolly looked at her sharply. “You are evading my questions, Mary Sutherland. I just know that you have told Professor Newton how I have gushed over her, and how deeply in love with her I am. Don’t try to fool me. I will never, never tell anything to you again. Don’t talk to me about unsophisticated girls from the country, they are deeper than any city girl I ever saw.”
And Dolly settled back in her seat with a look of vengeance in her eyes, that did not disturb Mary in the least. It was very true that Dolly had fallen deeply in love with Professor Newton, after the harmless fashion that students have. Her lessons for Professor Newton were faultlessly prepared, and while she was a good student in all her chosen studies, she absolutely shone in Professor Newton’s classes. There was something very attractive about this teacher. She understood girls and knew how to deal with them.
She had written a couple of textbooks herself, and it was generally understood among the students that she had supported herself when attending college. Yet she had not become hard or bitter. Her face was strong, but sweet, and her own experience made her very tender toward those girls who were trying to win an education against great odds. It was to this aunt that Mary Sutherland went, knowing that she could trust her implicitly to do the very best for all concerned.
Beth knew that her room-mate was summoned to the president’s room the following Wednesday, and that she came back looking very angry and half frightened as well. Evidently, whatever had been said to her was of such a nature that she did not suspect Beth in the least. In fact, the president (alluding, of course, to Professor Newton) had said that “one of the members of the faculty had told her that Miss Ainsworth was proving herself untrustworthy.” Then there had followed a serious talk in which Margery said as little as she could. She surmised that she had probably been seen by some one of the professors on one of her many escapades; on which one it might have been, she had no means of knowing, and she was afraid of saying too much in extenuation or excuse, lest she might inadvertently admit some misdemeanor of which the president was ignorant up to this time. Therefore, she returned to her room both wrathful and alarmed.
Beth reported later to Dolly, that her room-mate was doing more studying and paying more attention to the rules, than she ever had before.
“Will it last, do you think?” queried Dolly anxiously.
“I have my doubts. In my humble opinion, she is simply trying to throw them off their guard now, and to induce them to believe that she does not need watching. From several little things that have happened, however, I am perfectly positive that the faculty is keeping a very wide-awake eye on her. We have not many rules here, you know, but it goes hard with any girl who attempts to break those few.”
“Yes, the mere fact that we are on our honor to a great extent, ought to make the girls behave. I feel like being doubly careful.”
“My dear, you are hardly the same type of girl as Margery Ainsworth. She is the sort to take advantage of any privilege. She is so very quiet now, that I cannot help thinking there is some special reason why she is endeavoring to throw them off their guard before the Christmas holidays.”
“They are only a week distant. Remember that you are going to eat Christmas dinner with me, Beth. Mary will go, too, and Fred has invited Mr. Martin and Mr. Steele for the holidays, so that we shall have the same crowd we did at Thanksgiving time.”