Speed Nell
Molly Brown's Sophomore Days

CHAPTER XV.
A RECOVERY AND A VISIT

Young Andy McLean was not destined to be gathered to his forefathers yet, however, and before Christmas he was able to sit up in bed and beg his mother fretfully to telephone to Exmoor and ask some of the fellows to come over.

"The doctor says you're not to see any of the boys yet, Andy," replied his mother firmly.

"If I can't see boys, is there anything I can see?" he demanded with extreme irritability.

Mrs. McLean smiled and a little later dispatched a note to Queen's Cottage. That afternoon Nance came shyly into Andy's room and sat down in a low chair beside the white iron hospital bed which had been substituted for the big old mahogany one.

"Your mother says you are lots better, Andy," she said.

Andy gave a happy, sheepish smile and wiggled two fingers weakly, which meant they were to shake hands.

"Mother was afraid for the fellows to come," he said, "on account of my heart. I suppose she thinks a girl can't affect anybody's heart."

"I'm so quiet, you see," said Nance, "but I'll go if you think it's going to hurt you."

"You wouldn't like to see me cry, would you? I boohooed like a kid this morning because they wouldn't let me have broiled ham for breakfast. I smelt it cooking. It would be just like having to give up broiled ham for breakfast to have you go, Nance. Sit down again, will you, and don't leave me until I tell you. Since I've been sick I've learned to be a boss."

"I'm sorry I didn't let you boss me that night, Andy," remarked Nance meekly. "I ought never to have coasted down the hill. I've wanted to apologize ever since."

"Have you been blaming yourself?" he broke in. "It wasn't your fault at all. It all happened because I was angry and didn't look where I was going. I have had a lot of time to think lately, and I've decided that there is nothing so stupid as getting mad. You always have to pay for it somehow. Look at me: a human wreck for indulging in a fit of rage. There's a fellow at Ex. who lost his temper in an argument over a baseball game and walked into a door and broke his nose."

Nance laughed.

"There are other ways of curing tempers besides broken bones," she said. "Just plain remorse is as good as a broken nose; at least I've found it so."

"Did you have the remorse, Nance?" asked Andy, wiggling the fingers of his good hand again.

"Yes, awfully, Andy," answered the young girl, slipping her hand into his. "I felt just like a murderer."

The nurse came in presently to say that the fifteen minutes allotted for the call was up. It had slipped by on the wings of the wind, but their friendship had been re-established on the old happy basis. Andy was unusually polite to his mother and the nurse that day, and Nance went straight to the village and bought two big bunches of violets, one for Molly and one for Judy. In some way she must give expression to the rejoicing in her heart, and this was the only means she could think of.

Besides Andy McLean's recovery, several other nice things happened before Christmas. One morning Judy burst into her friend's room like a wild creature, waving a letter in each hand.

"They are coming," she cried. "They have each written to tell me so. Isn't it perfect? Isn't it glorious?"

No need to tell Molly and Nance who "they" were. These girls were fully aware that Judy treated her mother and father exactly like two sweethearts, giving each an equal share of her abundant affections; but the others were not so well informed about Judy's family relations. Otoyo Sen began to clap her hands and laugh joyously in sympathy.

"Is it two honorable young gentlemen who arriving come to see Mees Kean?"

"Now, Otoyo, how often have I told you not to say 'arriving come,'" exclaimed Molly. "I know it's a fascinating combination and difficult to forget in moments of excitement, but it's very bad English."

"Mees Kean, she is so happee," replied the Japanese girl, speaking slowly and carefully. "I cannot remembering when I see so much great joy."

"Wouldn't you be happy, too, if your honorable mamma and papa were coming to Wellington to visit you, you cunning little sparrow-bird?" asked Judy, seizing Otoyo's hands and dancing her wildly about the room.

"Oh, it is honorable mother and father! That is differently. It is not the same in Japan. Young Japanese girl might make great deal of noise over something new and very pretty, – you see? But it is not respectful to jump-up-so about parents arriving."

There was a great laugh at this. Otoyo was an especial pet at Queen's with the older girls.

"She's like a continuous performance of 'The Mikado,'" remarked Edith Williams. "Three little maids from school rolled into one, – the quaintest, most adorable little person."

"And when do these honorable parents arriving come?" asked Margaret Wakefield.

"To-morrow afternoon," answered Judy. "Where shall I get rooms? What shall I take them to see? Shall I give a tea and ask the girls to meet them? Don't you think a sleighing party would be fun? And a fudge party in the evening? Papa loves fudge. Do you think it would be a good idea to have dinner up here in Molly's and Nance's room, or let papa give a banquet at the Inn? Do suggest, everybody."

Judy was too excited to sit down. She was walking up and down the room, her cheeks blazing and her eyes as uncannily bright as two elfin lights on a dark night.

"Be calm, Judy," said Molly, taking her friend by the shoulders and pushing her into a chair. "You'll work yourself into a high fever with your excitable ways. Now, sit down there and we'll talk it over quietly and arrange a program."

Judy sat down obediently.

"I suppose it does seem funny to all of you, but, you see, mamma and papa and I have been brought up together – "

"You mean you brought them up?" asked Edith.

"We brought each other up. They call me 'little sister', and until I went off to college, because papa insisted I must have some education, life was just one beautiful lark."

"What a jolly time you must have had!" observed Nance with a wistful smile which reminded the self-centred Judy at last that it was not exactly kind to pile it on too thickly about her delightful parents.

Not a little curiosity was felt by the Queen's girls to see Mr. and Mrs. Kean, whom Judy had described as paragons of beauty and wit, and they assembled at Wellington station in a body to meet the distinguished pair. Judy herself was in a quiver of happy excitement and when finally the train pulled into the station, she rushed from one platform to another in her eagerness. Of course they had taken the chair car down, but she was too bewildered to remember that there was but one such coach on the Wellington train, and it was usually the rear car.

"I don't find them. Oh, mamma! Oh, papa! You couldn't have missed the train!" she cried, addressing the spirits of the air.

Just then a very tall, handsome man with eyes exactly like Judy's pinioned her arms from behind.

"Well, little sister, don't you know your own father?"

He was just as Judy had described him; and her word-picture also fitted Mrs. Kean, a dainty, pretty, little woman, with a doll-like face and flaxen hair, who would never have given the impression that she was in the habit of roughing it in engineering camps, sleeping out of doors, riding across sun-baked plains on Texas bronchos, and accompanying her husband wherever he went on his bridge and railroad-building trips.

"Judy hasn't had much home life," she said later to Molly. "We had to take our choice, little sister and I, between a home without papa or papa without a home, and we decided that he was ten thousand times more delightful than the most wonderful palace ever built."

Her extravagant speeches reminded Molly of Judy; but the mother was much gentler and quieter than her excitable daughter, and perhaps not so clever.

They dined at Queen's that night and made a tour of the entire house, except Judith Blount's room, all apartments having been previously spruced up for inspection. Otoyo had shown her respect for the occasion by hanging a Japanese lantern from the chandelier and loading a little table with "meat-sweets," which she offered to the guests when they paused in her room during their triumphal progress through the house.

Later Molly and Nance entertained at a fudge and stunt party and Mr. and Mrs. Kean were initiated into the secrets of life at Queen's.

They entered into the fun like two children, and one of the stunts, a dialogue between the Williams sisters, amused Mr. Kean so much that he laughed loud and long, until his wife shook him by the shoulder and exclaimed:

"Hush, Bobbie. Remember, you're not on the plains, but in a girls' boarding school."

"Yes, Robert," said Judy, who frequently spoke to her parents by their first names, "remember that you are in a place where law and order must be maintained."

"You shouldn't give such laugh-provoking stunts, then," answered Mr. Kean, "but I'll try and remember to put on the soft pedal hereafter."

Then Molly, accompanying herself on Judy's guitar, sang:

 
"Big camp meetin' down the swamp,
Oh, my! Hallelujah!"
 

Mr. Kean suddenly joined in with a deep, booming bass. He had learned that song many years before in the south, he said, and had never forgotten it.

"He never forgets anything," said Judy proudly, laying her cheek against her father's. "And now, what will you sing, Bobbie, to amuse the ladies?"

Mr. Kean, without the least embarrassment, took the guitar, and, looking so amazingly like Judy that they might have been twins, sang:

 
"Young Jeremy Jilson Johnson Jenks
Was a lad of scarce nineteen – "
 

It was a delightful song and the chorus so catchy that after the second verse the entire fudge and stunt party joined in with:

 
"'Oh, merry-me, merry-me,'
Sang young Jeremy,
'Merry-me, Lovely Lou – '"
 

Presently Mr. Kean, seizing his daughter around the waist, began dancing, and in a moment everybody was twirling to that lively tune, bumping against each other and tumbling on the divans in an effort to circle around the room. All the time. Mrs. Kean, standing on a chair in the corner, was gently remonstrating and calling out:

"Now, Bobbie, you mustn't make so much noise. This isn't a mining camp."

Nobody heard her soft expostulations, and only the little lady herself heard the sharp rap on the door and noticed a piece of paper shoved under the crack. Rescuing it from under the feet of the dancers, and seeing that it was addressed to "Miss Kean," she opened and read it.

"Oh, how very mortifying," she exclaimed. "Now, Bobbie, I knew you would get these girls into some scrape. You are always so noisy. See here! Our own Judy being reprimanded! You must make your father explain to the President or Matron or whoever this Miss Blount is, that it was all his fault."

"What in the world are you talking about, Julia Kean?" demanded Judy, snatching the note from her mother and reading it rapidly. "Well, of all the unexampled impudence!" she cried when she had finished. "Will you be good enough to listen to this?

"'Miss Kean: You and your family are a little too noisy for the comfort of the other tenants in this house. Those of us who wish to study and rest cannot do so. This is not a dance hall nor a mining camp. Will you kindly arrange to entertain more quietly? The singing is especially obnoxious.

"'Judith Blount.'"

Judy was in such a white heat of rage when she finished reading the note, that her mother was obliged to quiet her by smoothing her forehead and saying over and over:

"There, there, my darling, don't mind it so much. No doubt the young person was quite right."

Mr. Kean was intensely amused over the letter. He read it to himself twice; then laughed and slapped his knee, exclaiming:

"By Jove, Judy, my love, it takes a woman to write a note like that."

"A woman? A cat!" broke in Judy.

Mrs. Kean put her hand over her daughter's mouth and looked shocked.

"Oh, Judy, my dearest, you mustn't say such unladylike things," she cried.

"It's just because she wasn't invited," continued Judy. "I wouldn't let the girls ask her this time. She usually is invited and makes as much racket as any of us."

"It was rather mean to leave her out," observed Molly. "I suppose she's sore about it. But we didn't ask all the girls at Queen's. Sallie Marks and two freshmen were not invited, and if we had gone outside, we'd have invited Mary Stewart and Mabel Hinton."

"Still," said Mr. Kean, "there's nothing meaner than the 'left-out' feeling. It cuts deep. Suppose we smooth things over by asking her to our next party. Let me see. Will all of you give Mrs. Kean and me the pleasure of having you dine with us to-morrow evening at the Inn? Now, may I borrow some writing materials?" he added, after a chorus of acceptances had been raised.

Nance conducted him to her writing desk, which was always the acme of neatness, and well stocked with stationery. Here is the letter that Mr. Kean wrote to Judith Blount, which Judy, looking over her father's shoulder, read aloud as it evolved:

"'Dear Miss Blount:' (Blount, did you say her name was? Humph!) 'You were quite right to scold Mr. Kean and me for making so much noise. It was inconsiderate of us – '"

"But, Bobbie," protested Mrs. Kean, "it isn't fair to lay the blame on me and make me write the letter, too."

"Be quiet, my love," answered her husband.

"'Will you not give us the pleasure of your company at dinner to-morrow evening at the Inn? We are anxious to show you what really quiet, law-abiding people we are, and Mr. Kean and I will be much disappointed if you do not allow us the opportunity to prove it to you.'"

Judy's father paused, his pen suspended, while he asked:

"Didn't I see bill posters at the station announcing a performance at the Opera House?"

"Yes," cried Judy. "They're giving 'The Silver King.'"

"'Dinner will be a little early,'" he wrote, "'because Mr. Kean is planning to take us all to the play afterwards. He will call for you in' – what shall I call for you in?"

"The bus," promptly answered every girl in the room.

"' – the bus at six fifteen. Anticipating much pleasure in having you with us to-morrow, believe me,

Most cordially yours,

Julia S. Kean.'"

"Now, Julia, my love, sit down and copy what I've written in your best handwriting, and we'll try to smooth down this fiery young person's ruffled feathers."

Mrs. Kean obediently copied the note. After all, it wasn't an unkind revenge, and Otoyo delivered it at Judith's door while the others chatted quietly and absorbed quantities of hot fudge and crackers.

Presently Otoyo stole softly back into the room.

"What did she say, little one?" asked Judy.

"She was very stilly," answered Otoyo shyly. "She spoke nothing whatever. I thought it more wisely to departing go."

The laugh that was raised at this lucid report restored good humor in the company.

A vehicle called for Mr. and Mrs. Kean at a quarter before ten to take them down into the village, and it was not long before every light was out in Queen's Cottage but one in a small single room in an upper story. Here, in front of the mirror over the dressing table, sat a black-eyed girl in a red silk dressing gown.

"Judith," she said fiercely to her image in the glass, "can't you remember that you are too poor to insult people any longer?"

Then she rolled up Mrs. Kean's note into a little ball and flung it across the room with such force that it hit the other wall and bounded back again to her feet, and she ground it under her heel. After this exhibition of impotent rage, she put out her light and flung herself into the bed, where she tossed about uneasily and exclaimed to herself:

"I won't be poor! I won't work. I hate this hideous little room and I loathe Queen's Cottage. I wish I had never been born."

Nevertheless, Judith Blount did humble herself next day to accept Mrs. Kean's invitation. At the dinner she was sullen and quiet, but she could not hide her enjoyment of the melodrama later.

The one taste which she had in common with her brother Richard was an affection for the theatre, no matter how crude the acting, nor how hackneyed the play.

But the insulting letter that she had sent to Judy Kean widened the breach between her and the Queen's girls, and no amount of effort on her part after that could bridge it over.

CHAPTER XVI.
CHRISTMAS EVE PLOTS

Molly was not sorry to spend Christmas in Wellington this year. Numbers of invitations had come to her, but even Mary Stewart could not tempt her away from Queen's Cottage.

"Otoyo and I shan't be lonesome," she said. "We have a lot of work to do before the mid-year exams. and by the time you come back, Otoyo's adverbs are going to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. You'll see," she assured her friends cheerfully.

And when the last train-load pulled out of Wellington, and she trudged back along the deserted avenue, there was a strange gladness in her heart.

"I'm not homesick and I'm not lonesome," she said to herself. "I'm just happy. Except for Otoyo's lessons, I'm going to give myself a holiday. I'm going to read – poetry – lots of it, all I want, and to sit in the library and think. I'm going to take long walks alone. It will be like seeing the last of a dear friend, because Wellington will not be Wellington to me when I am installed at O'Reilly's."

Hardly half a dozen girls remained at college that Christmas, and Molly was glad that she knew them only by sight. She was almost glad that the doctor and Mrs. McLean had taken Andy south. She could not explain this unusual lack of sociability on her part, but she did not want to be asked anywhere. It was a pleasure to sit with Otoyo at one end of the long table in Queen's dining room, and talk about the good times they had been having. As for the future, Molly hung a thick veil between these quiet days and the days to come. Through it dimly she could see the bare little room at O'Reilly's, sometimes, but whenever this vision rose in her mind, she resolutely began to think of something else.

It would be time enough to look it in the face at the end of the semester, when she must break the news to Nance and Judy and pack her things for the move.

Most of the girls had left on Saturday, and it seemed to Molly that Sunday was the quietest day of her whole life. Scarcely a dozen persons appeared at the Chapel for Vespers and the responses had to be spoken, the choir having departed for the holidays. Monday was Christmas Eve, and on that morning Mrs. Murphy, kind, good-natured soul that she was, carried Molly's breakfast to her room with a pile of letters from home. Molly read them while she drank her coffee, and saw plainly through their thinly veiled attempts at cheerfulness. It was evident that her family's fortunes were at a low ebb. Her mother was glad that Miss Walker had arranged for her to stay at college and she hoped Molly would be happy in her new quarters.

Molly finished her dressing.

"If I could only do something," she said to herself fiercely as she pinned on the blue tam, buttoned up her sweater and started out for a walk. Otoyo, that model of industry, was deep in her lessons as Molly passed her door.

"I'll be back for lunch, Otoyo," she called as she hurried downstairs.

She had no sooner left the house than Queen's Cottage became the scene of the most surprising activities. Little Otoyo leaped to her feet as if she had unexpectedly sat on a hornet's nest and trotted downstairs as fast as her diminutive legs could carry her.

"Mrs. Murphee, I am readee," she called.

There was no telling what plot they were hatching, these two souls from nations as widely different as night from day. Boxes were pulled from mysterious closets. Mrs. Murphy and one of the maids emerged from the cellar with their arms full of greens and, stranger still, the dignified Professor of English Literature actually made his appearance at the kitchen door with a big market basket on one arm and – but what the Professor carried under the other arm had been carefully concealed with wrapping paper. These things he deposited with Mrs. Murphy.

"It's a pleasant sight, surely, to see you this Christmas Eve marnin', Professor," exclaimed the Irish woman. "You're as ruddy as a holly berry, sir, and no mistake."

"Well, Mrs. Murphy, I'm a Christmas Green, you know," answered the Professor, and Mrs. Murphy laughed like a child over the little joke.

"As for the young Japanese lady, she is that busy, sir. You would niver expect a haythen born to take on so about the birthday of our blessed Lord. But she's half a Catholic already, sir, and she's bought a holy candle to burn to-night."

"You're a good woman, Mrs. Murphy," said the Professor, standing beside the well-laden kitchen table, "and whatever she learns from you will do her good, too. She's a long way from home and I have no doubt she'll be very thankful for a little mothering, poor child."

"Indade, and she's as cheerful as the day is long, sir. And so is the other young lady, and she's used to a deal of rejicin' in her family, too. I can tell by the way she loves the entertainin'. Her company niver goes away hungry and thirsty, sir. It's tea and cake always and more besides. 'Have you a little spare room in your oven so that I can bake some muffins for some friends this mornin', Mrs. Murphy?' she'll say of a Sunday. She's that hospitable and kind, sir. There's nobody like her in Queen's. I'd be sorry ever to lose her."

"Should you call her hair red, Mrs. Murphy?" asked the Professor irrelevantly.

"It's more red than anything else, sir, especially when the weather's damp."

"And what color should you say her eyes were, Mrs. Murphy?"

"An' you've not seen her eyes, surely, sir, if you can be askin' me that question. They're as blue – as blue, sir, like the skies in summer."

The Professor blinked his own brown eyes very thoughtfully.

"Well, good day, Mrs. Murphy, I must be off. Do you think you and Miss Sen together can manage things?"

"We can, surely," said Mrs. Murphy. "She's as neat and quick a little body as I've seen this side the Atlantic."

"My sister gets here at noon. Good day," and the Professor was off, around the house, and across the campus, before Mrs. Murphy could take breath to continue her conversation.

In the meantime, Molly was hastening through the pine woods to a grove where she had once seen some holly bushes. In the pocket of her sweater were a pair of scissors and a penknife.

"We must have a little holiday decoration, Otoyo and I," she said to herself. "And it's lots nicer to gather it than buy it at the grocery store. I suppose my box from home will reach here to-night. I'll ask Mr. and Mrs. Murphy up to-morrow and give a party. There'll be turkey in it, of course, and plum cake and blackberry cordial – it won't be such a bad Christmas. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are dears – I must do up their presents this afternoon. I hope Otoyo will like the little book. She'll be interested to know that Professor Green wrote it."

As she hurried along, breathing in the frosty air, like Pilgrim she spied a figure a great way off coming toward her.

"Another left-over," she thought and went on her way, her steps keeping time to a poem she was repeating out loud:

 
"'St. Agnes' Eve – ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl for all his feathers was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass
And silent was the flock in woolly fold – '"
 

Molly had just repeated the last line over, too absorbed to notice the advancing figure through the pine trees, except sub-consciously to see that it was a girl.

"Ah, here's the holly," she exclaimed.

"'Numb were the beadsman's fingers – '"

She knelt on the frozen ground and began cutting off branches with the penknife.

"I suppose you are rather surprised to see me, aren't you?"

Molly looked up. It was Judith Blount.

"Why, where did you come from, Judith?" she asked. "Didn't you go up to New York Friday, after all?"

"I was supposed to, but I didn't. I am staying down in the village at the Inn. I may go this afternoon. I haven't decided yet. To tell the truth, I am not very anxious to see my family. Papa – isn't at home and Richard and mamma are rather gloomy company. I think I'd rather spend Christmas almost anywhere than with them, this year."

"But your mother, Judith," exclaimed Molly, shocked at Judith's lack of feeling, "doesn't she need you now more than ever?"

"Why?" demanded Judith suspiciously. "What do you know of my affairs?"

"I happen to know a great deal," answered Molly, "since they have a good deal to do with my own affairs."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Now, Judith," went on Molly, "this is Christmas and we won't quarrel about our misfortunes. Whatever mine are, it's not your fault. I'm gathering some holly to decorate for Otoyo and me. Won't you help me?"

"No, thanks," answered the other coldly. "I don't feel much like Christmas this year," she burst out, after a pause. "I'm seeing my last of college now, unless I choose to stay under certain conditions – and I won't – I won't," she repeated, stamping her foot fiercely on the frozen earth, which gave out a rhythmic sound under the blow. "Queen's is bad enough, but if I am to descend to a room over the post-office after this semester, I'd – I'd rather die!" she added furiously.

"We're in the same box," thought Molly. "I can appreciate how she feels, poor soul. I was just about as bad myself at first."

"Do you blame me?" went on the unhappy Judith. "Through no fault of mine I've had troubles heaped on me all winter – first one and then another. I have had to suffer for another person's sins; to be crushed into a nobody; taken from my rightful place and shoved off first into one miserable little hole and then another. I tell you I don't think it's fair – it's unkind – it's cruel!"

Molly was not accustomed to hear people pity themselves. She had been brought up to regard it as an evidence of cowardice and low breeding.

"I've just about made up my mind," continued Judith, "to chuck the whole thing and go on the stage. I can sing and dance, and I believe I could get into almost any chorus. Richard, of course, wouldn't hear of my taking part in his new opera and he could arrange it just as easily as not, but he doesn't approve and neither does mamma. But it would be less humiliating than this." She pointed to Wellington.

"But Judith, it would be a great deal more humiliating," ejaculated Molly. "You would be fussed with and scolded, and you'd hear horrid language, and live in wretched hotels and boarding houses a great deal worse than the rooms over the post-office!"

It was very little Molly knew about chorus girl life, but that little she now turned to good account.

"You would have to travel a lot on smoky, uncomfortable trains and stay up late at night, whether you wanted to or not. You wouldn't be treated like a lady," she added innocently, "and you'd have to cover your face with grease and paint every night."

"I don't care," answered Judith. "Anything would be better than being banished from Wellington and living in a room next to that talkative little southern girl who does laundry work."

"Judith," exclaimed Molly, "I'm being banished from Wellington, too. I've taken a room at O'Reilly's. I've been through all the misery you're going through, and I know what you are suffering. I was almost at the point of going home once. But Judith, don't you see that it's rather cowardly to enjoy prosperity and the good things that come in time of peace, and then run away when the real fight begins? And it wouldn't do any good, either. It would only make other people suffer and we'd be much worse off ourselves. Don't you think Judith Blount, B. A., would be a more important person than Judith Blount, Chorus Girl?"

Judith began picking the leaves off a piece of holly. Almost everything she did was destructive.

"I suppose you're right," she said at last. "Mamma and Richard would have a fit and the chorus girl rôle wouldn't suit me, either. I'm too high-tempered and I can't stand criticism. But you're going to O'Reilly's? That puts a new face on it. I'll change to O'Reilly's, too."

Molly groaned inwardly. She would almost rather live next to a talking machine than a firebrand.

"They aren't such bad rooms," she said quietly. "When we get our things in, they'll be quite nice."

"And now, I'll hurry on," continued Judith, utterly absorbed in her own affairs. "I think I will take the train to New York this afternoon. I suppose it would be rather cowardly to leave mamma and Richard alone, this Christmas, especially. Good-by." She held out her hand. "What are your plans? Are you going to do anything tonight to celebrate?"

"No," answered Molly, shaking Judith's hand with as much cordiality as she could muster. "Just go to bed."

"I thought perhaps you had formed some scheme of entertainment with my cousins."

"You mean the Greens? I didn't know they were here."

"I don't know that they are here, either. They have been careful to keep their plans from me."

Molly ignored this implication.

"I hope you'll enjoy your Christmas, Judith," she said. "Perhaps something will turn up."

"Something will have to turn up after next year," exclaimed Judith, "for I have made up my mind to one thing. I shall never work for a living."

And she strode off through the pine woods with her chin in the air, as if she were defying all the powers in heaven to make her change this resolution.

Molly shivered as she knelt to clip the holly. She seemed to see a picture of a tiny little Judith standing in the middle of a vast, endless plain raging and shaking her fists at – what? The empty air. She sighed.

"I don't suppose I could ever make her understand that she'd be lots happier if she'd just let go and stop thinking that God has a grudge against her."