“Aren’t you ever going to forget, Emmy!” Ruth asked almost appealingly. It was the first time the painful subject had been brought up since that eventful night at Wanderer’s Roost when Emmy had found her better self.
“No; I don’t think so. I hope not,” was the steady response. “If I did, I might stumble again, especially if my good little roommate happened to be far away from me. All year I’ve tried to follow your example and consider others before myself. That’s the only way to keep out of mischief.”
“Now it’s you, instead of Jane, who are taking things too seriously,” cried Ruth, coloring under Emmy’s tribute to herself. “You’ve been a perfect angel to all the girls here, Emmeline Cerrito. You’ve done all sorts of kind things and everybody here adores you.”
“Nonsense.” Emmy made a deprecating gesture, as though to discount the very idea of her own popularity at Hillside.
“It’s the truth,” was Ruth’s stout insistence.
It was indeed true that Emmy had returned to Hillside the previous fall, a changed girl. Once she had shown merely a bored tolerance of her fellow students. But she had long since dropped her provoking attitude for one of kindly interest in her classmates. During the year so nearly ended, more than one girl owed her a lasting debt of gratitude for some favor graciously bestowed. There was still left in her enough of the Emmy of old to draw the line at Blanche and Jeanette. She had never succeeded in bringing herself to the point of being more than civil to either, sometimes hardly that. Comparing them to Ruth, whom she made her model, they were as dross to pure gold.
It was this very distrust and contempt for them which had leaped to the surface to oppose Ruth when she made plea to her chums for Blanche. The mere mention of Marian’s name had been sufficient to move Emmy to withdraw that opposition.
“No breakfast for you and Emmy unless we end this complimentary session and do a rapid-dressing stunt,” was all she vouchsafed to Ruth’s emphatic assertion. “Observe the time, oh, noble Torch Bearer, and you still languishing in your kimono!”
“I am observing it.” Ruth sprang to her feet. Slipping hastily out of her kimono she proceeded to dress with a speed that quite outstripped Emmy’s leisurely preparations for the day. “There, I beat you,” she announced as she deftly fastened the last troublesome hook in place. “It’s your turn to do a little observing. You still are minus your outer garments, my dear Miss Cerrito.”
“Not now.” Emmy’s black head emerged triumphantly from the one piece gown of navy blue broadcloth which she had slid over it, temporarily eclipsing her lovely face. “Help me fasten my frock. There’s a dear. Then we must run. The breakfast bell rang at least five minutes ago.”