"And I might have been with them now," she thought bitterly, "if it hadn't been for my vile temper that Christmas Eve."
Judith had learned a good many hard lessons during the winter. She had found out that friends in prosperity are not always friends in adversity. Her old-time rich associates at the Beta Phi House had paid her one or two perfunctory calls in the room over the post-office, but the days of her leadership were over forever. Mary Stewart came often to see her and Jenny Wren was faithful, but there was great bitterness in Judith's heart and she chose frequently to hang a "Busy" sign on her door so that she might brood over her troubles alone. She grew very sallow and thin, and sat up late at night reading, there being no ten o'clock rules at the post-office. Many times Madeleine Petit, her neighbor, was wakened by the fragrant aroma of coffee floating down the hall into her little bedroom.
"If she was my daughter," Madeleine observed to Molly one day, "I'd first put her through a course of broken doses of calomel, and then I'd put her to work on something besides lessons. Even laundry is good to keep people from brooding. If I stopped to think about all my troubles and all that is before me in the way of work and struggles to get on," she rattled along, "I wouldn't have time to study, much less do up jabots and things. But I just trust to luck and go ahead. I find it comes out all right. Mighty few people seem to understand that it makes a thing much bigger to think and think about it. I'd rather enlarge something more worth while than my misfortunes."
Molly smiled over Madeleine's philosophy.
"I mean to make friends with her next year," went on Madeleine. "She was rude to me once, but I am sorry for her because we are both going through the same struggle and I think I can give her some ideas. You may not believe me, but I always succeed in doing the thing I set out to do. College was as far off from me two years ago as Judith seems to be now——"
"It will be a fine thing for Judith if she gains a friend like you, Madeleine," interrupted Molly warmly. "See if you can't start it by bringing her to our garden party with you next Saturday."
Molly delivered the invitations with which she had called, and giving Madeleine a friendly kiss, she hastened on her way.
But Madeleine's words were prophetic, as we shall show you in the story of "Molly Brown's Junior Days." Judith Blount was to learn much from this energetic little person and to listen with the patience of a tried friend to her stream of conversation.
Molly felt very much like embracing all her friends that day and kissing both hands to the entire world besides. A letter had come from her mother which settled the one great question in Molly's mind just then: Should she be able to return to college for her junior year and share with Judy and Nance a little three-roomed apartment in the Quadrangle near their other friends, who were all engaging rooms in that same corridor? And that very morning all doubt had been dispelled. Her mother had written her the wonderful news:
"The stockholders of the Square Deal Mine will get back their money, after all. It seems that Mrs. Blount had some property which she was induced to hand over. I am sorry that they should be impoverished, but it seems just, nevertheless. It will be some time before matters are arranged, however. In the meantime, I have had the most extraordinary piece of luck in connection with the two acres of orchard on which I borrowed the money for your college expenses. I have just sold it for a splendid amount—enough to cover all debts on the land, including the one to the President of Wellington University, and to furnish your tuition and board for the next two years. Scarcely anything in all my life has pleased me more than this. I don't even know the name of the buyer. The land was purchased through an agent. But whoever the person was, he must have been charmed with our old orchard. It is a pretty bit of property. Your father used to call it 'his lucky two acres,' because it always yielded a little income."