CHAPTER XX.
MISS STEEL.
With the wonderful powers of recuperation which natures like Molly’s have, on Sunday morning she was up and dressed, almost dancing about her room in the infirmary, long before it was time for Dr. McLean to call and grant her permission to leave.
It was good to be up and well again; it was good to be at college, for she had been homesick for Wellington since she had been shut up in the hospital, and better still, it was good to have friends, such friends as she had.
As for the emerald ring—a shadow darkened her face. The thought of the emerald ring would push its way into her mind.
“I believe it will come out all right,” she said to herself. “I believe it—I believe it! I couldn’t help losing it, and if it isn’t found, I can’t help that, either. I just won’t be miserable, that’s all. I feel too happy and too well.”
“Are you at home to visitors this morning, Miss Brown?” asked a sharp unmusical voice at the door.
“Oh, yes; do come in,” answered Molly, rising to meet Miss Steel, who had walked up the uncarpeted steps and along the echoing corridor without making a sound, as usual.
Molly’s manners were unfailingly cordial to visitors, and when she shook hands with Miss Steel and insisted on making her take the armchair, that flint-like person visibly softened a little and faintly smiled. Molly wondered why the sanitary inspector had called on her, but she appreciated attentions from anybody and was as grateful for being popular as if it were something entirely new and strange to her.
She showed Miss Steel her flowers and pinned a lovely pink rose on the inspector’s granite-colored cloth coat. She made light of her illness, and rejoiced that she was returning in a few hours to dear old Queen’s. She was, in fact, so wonderfully sweet and charming that Sunday morning that it must have been very difficult even for the stony inspector to touch on the real business of her visit.