“Go to Professor Newton,” said Dolly promptly, “and take Miss Sutherland with you. She is Professor Newton’s niece, and can help you out, if you need any assistance, but I do not suppose you will.”
“Thanks for the suggestion. I shall get the permission first, but possibly Margaret will not care to room with me after the hornet’s nest I have raised. I wonder, Miss Alden, if you would ask her to come here while Miss Sutherland and I are interviewing Professor Newton?”
“I shall be very glad to do so. It will be much better to have your talk here, than in her room, where Abby Dunbar would be liable to interrupt you at any moment. And, Miss Van Gerder, do not feel too conscience-stricken over your inadvertence. For my part, I believe that Margaret will be glad, after the first fuss is over. No one, then, can accuse her of sailing under false colors. Everything will be perfectly open and aboveboard.”
“It is good of you to say so, but I am sure that your room-mate does not hold that opinion. At least, I made no mention of her father. I presume that would be a still harder thing for Miss Dunbar to overlook.”
“I think,” said Dolly persistently, “that it would have been better for all concerned, if you had said that Mr. Hamilton was your uncle’s coachman. Then everything would have been told at once, and Margaret would have no future disclosures to dread.”
“I think I was sufficiently stupid as it was;” and then Mary and Miss Van Gerder went off to see Professor Newton, while Dolly went in search of Miss Hamilton.
She did not fancy the errand much, for she had a premonition that Miss Dunbar might also be in the room, and that a scene would be inevitable. And she was not wrong.
CHAPTER XIII
As she drew near Margaret’s room, she caught the sound of excited voices. Abby Dunbar’s tones reached her, high-pitched and shrill.