“Well, I sit very still and dig my toes into the soles of my shoes and my finger nails into the palms of my hands and say over and over the thing I’m trying to concentrate on.”
The girls were still laughing joyously when Molly came in. Her face wore an expression of unwonted seriousness, and she was frowning slightly. Three things had happened that morning which worried her considerably.
The first shock came before breakfast when she had looked in her handkerchief box where she kept her funds promiscuously mixed up with handkerchiefs and orris root sachet bags and found one crumpled dollar bill and not a cent more. There was a kind of blind spot in Molly’s brain where money was concerned, little of it as she had possessed in her life. She never could remember exactly how much she had on hand, and change was a meaningless thing to her. And now it was something of a blow to her to find that one dollar must bridge over the month’s expenses, or she must write home for more, a thing she did not wish to do, remembering the two acres of apple orchard which had been sunk in her education.
“And it’s all gone in silk attire and riotous living,” she said to herself, for she had bought herself ten yards of a heavenly sky blue crêpey material which she and Nance proposed to make into a grand costume, also she had entertained numbers of friends at various times to sundaes in the village. One of the other of her triple worries was a note she had received that morning from Judith Blount, and the third was another note, about both of which she intended to ask the advice of her two most intimate friends.
“What’s bothering you, child?” demanded Judy, quick to notice any change in her adored Molly’s face.
“Oh, several things. These two notes for one.” She drew two envelopes from her pocket and opening the first one, began to read aloud:
“‘Dear Miss Brown:
“‘Since you come of a family of cooks and are expert on the subject, I am going to ask you to take charge of a little dinner I am giving to-morrow night in my rooms to my brother and some friends. I shall expect you to be chief cook, but not bottle-washer. You’ll have an assistant for that; but I’d like you to wait on the table, seeing you are so good at those things. Don’t bother about cap and apron. I have them.
“‘Yours with thanks in advance,
“‘Judith Blount.’”
The note was written on heavy cream-colored paper with two Greek letters embossed at the top in dark blue. Judith lived in the Beta Phi House, which was divided into apartments, and occupied by eight decidedly well-to-do girls, the richest girls in college, as a matter of fact. It was called “The Millionaire’s Club,” and was known to be the abode of snobbishness, although Molly, who had been there once to a tea, had been entirely unconscious of this spirit.