“So you’re going to give up four splendid years at college and all the friends you’ve made—Nance and me and Margaret and Jessie, and nice old Sallie Marks and Mabel, all the fun and the jolly times, the delightful, glorious life we have here—and for what? For a three months’ trip you have taken before, and will take again often, no doubt. Just for three short, paltry little months’ pleasure, you’re going to give up things that will be precious to you for the rest of your life. It’s not only the book learning, it’s the associations and the friends——”
“I don’t see why I should lose my friends,” broke in Judy sullenly.
“They’ll never be the same again. They couldn’t after such a disappointment as this. You see, you’ll always be remembered as a coward who turned and ran when examinations came—you lost your nerve and dropped out and even pretty little Jessie has the courage to face it. Oh, Judy, but I’m disappointed in you. It’s a hard blow to come now when we’re all fighting to save ourselves and pull through safely. And you—one of the cleverest and brightest girls in the class. Don’t tell me your father will be pleased. He’ll be mortified, I’m certain of it. He’s much too fine a man to admire a cowardly act, no matter whose act it is. You’ll see. He’ll be shocked and hurt. If he had thought it was right for you to give up college on the eve of examinations, he would have written for you to come. It will be a crushing blow to him, Judy.”
Judy lay on her bed, her hands clasped back of her head. There was a defiant look on her face, and she kicked the quilt up and down with one foot, like an impatient horse pawing the ground. Then, suddenly, she collapsed like a pricked balloon. Burying her face in the pillows, she began sobbing bitterly, her body shaking convulsively with every sob. It was a terrible sight to see Judy cry, and Molly hoped she would be spared such another experience.
Without saying another word, Molly began quietly unpacking the trunks and putting the things back in their places. Then she pulled the empty trunks into the hall. This done, she filled a basin with water, recklessly poured in an ample quantity of Judy’s German cologne, and sitting on the side of the bed, began bathing her friend’s convulsed and swollen face. Gradually Judy’s sobs subsided, her weary eyelids drooped and presently she dropped off into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Nance crept into the room.
“She’s all right now,” whispered Molly. “She’s had an attack of the ‘wanderthirst,’ but it’s passed.”
All day and all night Judy slept, and on Sunday morning she was her old self once more, gay and laughing and full of fun. That afternoon she was an usher at Vespers in Wellington Chapel, with Molly and Nance, and wore her best suit and a big black velvet hat.
She never alluded again to her attack of wanderthirst, but her devotion to Molly deepened and strengthened as the days flew by until it became as real to her as her love for her mother and father.
Once in the midst of the dreaded examinations they did not seem so dreadful after all. The girls at Queen’s came out of the fight with “some wounds, but still breathing,” as Margaret Wakefield had put it. Molly had a condition in mathematics.