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CHAPTER III – MISSING: A LETTER
When Marjorie returned to school that afternoon, her eyes widened in startled surprise as they became riveted on a square white envelope on her desk addressed to herself. For an instant her heart sank. Then she laughed softly, under her breath, as she recalled that although the script was unmistakably that of the Observer, she now had no need to dread it. The Observer had been laid to rest on a certain snowy afternoon of last winter. This note was from Lucy Warner, her friend.
Opening it, a quick light of pleasure dawned in her face as she read:
“Dear Marjorie:
“How can I ever thank you enough for what you have done for me? Miss Archer sent for me to come to her office this morning and, of course, you know why. I was so surprised and delighted. To be her secretary is a great honor, I think. Then, too, the salary, which is ten dollars a week, will help mother and me so much. I have almost enough credits now to graduate, for I have always carried six studies and taken the special reading courses, too. Now I am going to take only two studies each term. That will give me almost all my time free for secretarial work. I am going to rent a typewriting machine and study stenography by myself, so I shall soon be ready to do Miss Archer’s work in creditable fashion.
“Although I’ve never said a word to anyone about it, I have always wished for the position I now have. One reason, of course, is the salary; the other the experience. When school closes I can take an office position in Sanford, and by working hard save a little money toward some day going to college. It will take a long time, but I am determined to do it. If I can earn enough money to pay my tuition fees, then perhaps I can obtain secretarial work in whatever college I decide to go to. I only wish I had a chance to try for a scholarship. Doesn’t it seem strange that Sanford High School doesn’t offer at least one? Perhaps if it did, I could not win it, so there is no use in sighing over it.
“I hope you won’t be bored over this long letter. I know it has nothing in it but my own affairs, but, somehow, since that winter day when you forgave me for having been the hateful Observer I feel very near to you, and I wish you to know my ambitions for the future. You are so splendid and honorable that I know I can freely trust you with my confidence. Mother and I would be very pleased to have you come home from school with me some evening soon and take supper with us.
“Gratefully, your friend,“Lucy Warner.”
Marjorie experienced a delightful glow of satisfaction as she finished the letter. How glad she was that Lucy and she now understood each other so fully, and what a clever girl Lucy was. Marjorie was lost in admiration of the quiet little senior’s brilliancy as a student. She wished she could help make Lucy’s dream of going to college come true as soon as her high school days were over. She knew that Lucy was too proud and sensitive to accept from anyone the money to continue her education. Yet Marjorie determined then that if ever she could become the means of helping to realize the other girl’s ambition, she would be happy.
A tender little smile lingered on her lips as she returned the letter to its envelope and tucked it inside her blouse. Very reluctantly she reached for her Cicero and was soon lost in preparing for her next hour’s recitation. Marjorie had not been able to arrange her senior program so as to have the coveted last hour in the afternoon for study. In the morning Advanced English and French Prose and Poetry took up the first two periods, leaving her the last one free. After luncheon the first afternoon period was now devoted to study. During the next she recited in Cicero and the third and last period was given over to a recitation in Greek and Roman History. As she had already gained the required amount of credits in mathematics, she was satisfied to forego trigonometry. She was not fond of mathematics and had decided not to burden her senior year with the further study of them. Once in college she knew she would have her fill of trigonometry.
“I’ve something to report, Captain,” was her gay sally as, school over for the day, she tripped into the living room. “I’ve the dearest letter from Lucy Warner. I’m going to sit right down and read it to you. I found it waiting for me on my desk when I went back to school this afternoon. For just a minute it made me feel queerly. You can understand why. But it was very different from – well, you know.” Marjorie unpinned her pretty white hemp hat and hastily depositing it on the library table, plumped down on the floor at her mother’s knee. Dignified senior though she had now become, she had not outgrown her love for that lowly but most confidential resting place.
“That is pleasant news.” Mrs. Dean glanced affectionately down at her daughter, who was busily engaged in exploring the folds of her silk blouse for the letter.
“Why!” A frightened look overspread Marjorie’s lately radiant face. “Why, it’s gone! Oh, Captain, I’ve lost it!”
“Perhaps it has slipped to the back of your blouse, dear.” Mrs. Dean became the acme of maternal solicitude. “Unfasten your blouse and look carefully.”
Ready to cry, Marjorie sprang to her feet and obeyed the instruction, but the missing letter was not forthcoming. “How could I have lost it,” she mourned despairingly. “I always tuck my letters inside my blouse. But I’ve never lost one before to-day.”
“I don’t like to pile up misery, Lieutenant, but that seems to me a rather careless practice,” commented her mother. “I am truly sorry for you. Perhaps you left it in school instead of putting it inside your blouse.”
Marjorie shook a dejected head. “No; I didn’t. I wish now that I had. I know I put it inside my blouse. I was anxious to bring it home and show it to you. I would feel worried about losing any letter that had been written me, but this is a great deal worse. It was a very confidential letter. In it Lucy spoke of – of – last winter and of her plans for the future. Suppose someone were to find it who didn’t like her very well? The person who found it might gossip about it. That would be dreadful. Of course, anyone who finds it can see by the address that it is my letter. I think most of the girls would be honorable enough to give it back. A few of them perhaps wouldn’t. None of the four juniors who were on the sophomore basket-ball team last year like me very well. And there’s Mignon, too. I wouldn’t say so to anyone but you, Captain, but I’m not quite sure what she might do.”
“No, my dear, I am afraid you can never trust Mignon La Salle very far.” Mrs. Dean grew grave. “I made up my mind to that the day your girl friends were here at that little party you gave while you were sick. If ever a girl’s eyes spelled treachery, Mignon’s showed it that afternoon. Several times I have intended mentioning it to you. You know, however, that I do not like to interfere in your school affairs. Then, too, since her father so depends on your help and that of your girl chums, it seems hardly right in me to wish that you might be entirely free from her companionship. Yet, at heart, I am not particularly in favor of your association with her. Sooner or later you will find yourself in the thick of some disagreeable affair for which she is responsible.”
“I am always a little bit afraid of that, too,” was Marjorie’s dispirited answer. “I try not to think so, though. But it’s like trying to walk across a slippery log without falling off. Mignon is so – so – different from the rest of us. You know I told you of the things she said about that nice girl who works for Miss Archer and her sister. Well, the girl came to school to-day. Her name is Veronica Browning and she’s a senior.”
Marjorie went on to tell her captain of the locker-room incident, and the walk home from luncheon, ending with: “She is awfully dear and sweet. We are friends already. I may invite her to come and see us, mayn’t I, Captain?”
“By all means,” came the prompt response. “I am very glad, Lieutenant, that you have no false pride. It is contemptible. You may invite your new friend here as soon as you like. No doubt when I see Miss Archer she will tell me more of her protégé of her own accord. Judging from what you say of her, she seems to be a rather mysterious young person.”
“She acts a little as Connie used to act before I knew her well,” declared Marjorie. “She has the same fashion of starting to say something and then stopping short. I think it is only because she is quite poor. But she doesn’t seem to mind it as Connie did. She just smiles about it.”
“A young philosopher,” commented Mrs. Dean, her eyes twinkling. “I shall look forward to knowing her.”
“Oh, you will surely like Veronica,” Marjorie confidently predicted. The next instant her face fell. “Oh, dear,” she sighed, as fresh recollection of her loss smote her, “what shall I do about that letter? I’ll simply have to tell Lucy that I lost it. She’s so peculiar, too. I am afraid she won’t like it.”
“Don’t put off telling her,” counseled Mrs. Dean. “It is right that you should. Perhaps when you go to school to-morrow morning, you may find that some one of your friends has picked it up. I sincerely hope so, for your sake, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Marjorie brightened a trifle. “I am going to hope as hard as ever I can that I’ll have it back by to-morrow.”
Marjorie’s earnest wish that the lost letter might be returned to her the next morning met with unfulfillment. Anxious inquiry among her close friends revealed no clue to the whereabouts of the missing letter. Nor, during the long day which anxiety made longer, did any of her schoolmates seek her with the joyful news, “Here is a letter I found, Marjorie, which is addressed to you.”
At the close of the afternoon session, which had lagged interminably, Marjorie turned slow steps toward Miss Archer’s big living-room office where Lucy Warner now claimed the secretary’s desk.
“Why, Marjorie, I was just thinking of you!” Lucy’s bluish-green eyes lighted with pleasure as Marjorie approached her desk. “I was hoping you’d run up soon to see me. I am so glad my hope came true.” Her hand went out to Marjorie in cordial greeting.
“I am ever so glad to have a chance to talk to you,” returned Marjorie earnestly as she took Lucy’s hand. “I received your letter. It was splendid. I loved every line of it. I – but I am afraid you won’t feel so glad that I came when I tell you what I’ve done.” A quick flush dyed Marjorie’s cheeks.
“I guess it is nothing very dreadful.” Lucy smiled her utmost faith in her pretty visitor.
“Lucy, I – well – I hate to tell you, but I’ve lost that letter you wrote me.” Marjorie looked the picture of anxiety as she made the disagreeable confession.
“You’ve lost it!” gasped Lucy, her heavy dark brows meeting in the old ominous frown.
“Yes. I tucked it inside my blouse,” went on Marjorie bravely, “and when I reached home it was gone.”
Lucy’s green eyes fastened themselves on Marjorie in an angry stare. For a moment her great liking for the gentle girl was swallowed up in wrath at her carelessness. Intensely methodical, Lucy found such carelessness hard to excuse. Remembering tardily how much she owed Marjorie, she made a valiant effort to suppress her anger. “It’s too bad,” she muttered. “I – you see – I gave you my confidence. I wouldn’t care to have anyone else know all that I wrote you.”
“Don’t I know that?” Marjorie asked almost piteously. “I can’t begin to tell you how dreadfully I feel about it. I know you think it careless in me to have tucked it inside my blouse. It was careless. I’ve waited all day, thinking someone who might have found it would return it. My name on the envelope ought to insure a prompt return if I dropped it in or near the school building. But if I lost it in the street and a stranger found it, then I’m afraid I wouldn’t stand much chance of getting it again.” Marjorie made a little gesture of hopelessness. “You must know how humiliated I feel over it. But that won’t bring the letter back,” she concluded with deep dejection.
During this long apology Lucy’s probing eyes had been riveted unblinkingly on Marjorie, as though in an effort to plumb the precise degree of the latter’s regret for the accident. “Don’t worry about it any more,” she said rather brusquely. “It may not amount to anything after all. If you dropped it in the street, the wind may have blown it away; then no one would ever see it. If you dropped it in the school building, it may be returned to you, or perhaps to me. My full name was signed at the end of it. It has taught me a lesson, though.”
Within herself Lucy knew that this last speech bordered on the unkind. Yet she could not resist making it. Although she was earnestly endeavoring to live up to the new line of conduct which she had laid down for herself on the day when she had confessed her fault to Marjorie, much of her former antagonistic attitude toward life still remained. Having, for years, cultivated a spirit of envy and bitterness, she was still more ready to blame than condone. A kind of fierce, new-born gratitude and loyalty toward Marjorie transcended momentarily her personal displeasure. It was not quite powerful enough, however, to check that one caustic remark. She had not yet learned the true secret of gratitude.
“I can’t blame you for feeling that I am not a safe confidant,” Marjorie made honest reply. “Still it hurts me to hear it. I must go now, Lucy. The girls are waiting for me outside. We are all going down to Sargent’s for ice cream. I’d love to have you come, too, if you are through with your work and would care to join us.”
“Thank you, but I shall be busy here for the next half hour,” Lucy returned, a tinge of stiffness in the reply. She wondered how Marjorie could thus so easily dismiss the annoying matter of the lost letter. Perhaps, after all, she was not half so sorry as she pretended to be.
“Please don’t think that I am trying to make light of my misdeed,” Marjorie said eagerly. Lucy’s curt refusal of the invitation bore a hint of offended pride. “I shall have that letter on my mind all the time until we learn what has become of it, or are sure that it hasn’t fallen into unfriendly hands.”
At the words “unfriendly hands” Lucy’s heavy brows again met. She mentally saw herself held up as an object for ridicule by some unknown person whom the letter might apprise of her secret ambitions. “That’s just the trouble,” she flashed forth sharply. “Hardly any of the girls at Sanford High understand me in the least. I am sure some of them would be only too glad for an opportunity to make fun of me. It wouldn’t be very pleasant for me if some morning I should walk into school and find that about half the girls here knew all about my personal business. You know, as well as I, how fast news travels among a lot of girls.”
“I understand – all – that – perfectly.” There was a faint catch in Marjorie’s clear utterance. “I can only say again that I am very, very sorry for my carelessness.”
“That won’t bring back my letter,” was the testy retort. “But never mind. Let’s not say anything more about it.” With a little shrug her green eyes sought the pile of papers on her desk.
Marjorie immediately took it as a sign that Lucy did not wish to talk further to her. Not angry, but distinctly hurt, she did not try to prolong the conversation but merely said: “Good-bye, Lucy. If I hear anything about the letter I will let you know at once.” Then she quietly left the office, trying not to blame Lucy for being so austere regarding the lost letter. Yet Marjorie was too human not to feel that having once freely forgiven Lucy of a far greater fault, she had expected to receive a certain amount of clemency in return, which the peculiar, self-contained senior had not offered.
CHAPTER IV – LAYING A CORNERSTONE
“Well, how about it?” challenged the irrepressible Jerry Macy. Marjorie joined the stout girl and Constance, who stood waiting for her across the street from the high school. Both friends knew why Marjorie had lingered in the school building when the afternoon session was over. They were among the first to whom she confided the news of yesterday’s loss. She had announced to them her intention of apprising Lucy Warner of the unpleasant fact, and Jerry in particular was curious to know what effect the disclosure would have upon Lucy.
“I’m glad that’s over.” Marjorie gave a little sigh. “It was pretty hard for me to tell Lucy. It served me right for being so careless, though.”
“What did she say? Was she mad?” Curiosity looked forth from Jerry’s round face.
“No; that is, not exactly. Still, she wasn’t very well pleased,” admitted Marjorie. “I hope someone finds the letter yet and brings it to me. But where are the rest of the girls?” She decided that a change of subject was in order. Lucy’s too-evident umbrage had hurt her considerably. She therefore preferred to try to forget it for a time at least.
“They’ve gone on ahead,” informed Constance. “Muriel had an errand to do in town and so had Susan. Irma and Harriet went with them. They are to meet us at Sargent’s at four-thirty.”
“Then we had better be starting for there.” Marjorie consulted her wrist watch. “It’s ten after four now. Let’s hurry along. Did either of you have a chance to talk with Veronica after school?” she continued as they set off for Sargent’s three abreast.
“I saw her for a moment in the locker room,” replied Constance. “She seemed to be in quite a hurry. She smiled at me but didn’t say anything. Then she put on her hat and left the locker room without stopping to talk to any of us.”
“I suppose she has to go straight home from school and help Miss Archer’s sister,” surmised Jerry. “I’d hate to have to study all day and then go home and shell peas or scrub floors or answer the doorbell or do whatever had to be done. I guess we ought to be thankful that we don’t have to earn our board and keep.”
“I ought to be doubly thankful,” agreed Constance seriously. “Not so very far back in my life I had no time to play, either. Every once in a while when I feel specially self-satisfied, I take a walk past the little gray house where I used to live before my aunt played fairy god-mother to all of us. It makes me remember that my good fortune was just a lucky accident and takes all the conceit out of me.”
“Now that we are seniors I believe we ought to make it our business to do all we can for the girls in school who aren’t able to have the good times we do,” stated Marjorie soberly. “It seems to me that we might band ourselves together into some sort of welfare club. If we do well with it we can pass it on to the next senior class when we have been graduated from Sanford High.”
“Hurrah!” Jerry waved a plump hand on high. “That’s the talk. Every since last year I’ve had that club idea on my mind. Let’s hurry up and organize it at once. For that matter we can do it this afternoon; the minute we meet the girls at Sargent’s. There will be seven of us to start with. Then we can decide on how many more girls we’d like to have in it.”
“Oh, splendid!” exclaimed Marjorie, the sober expression vanishing from her pretty face. “Once we organize a club and get it well started, who knows what distinguished members we may become.”
As the three girls swung blithely along toward Sargent’s the incessant flow of conversation that went on among them betokened their signal interest and enthusiasm in the new project.
“Here we are,” proclaimed Jerry noisily to the quartette of girls seated at a rear table in the smart little shop. “Strictly on time, too, or rather five minutes ahead of it. How long have you been here?”
“Oh, we just came.” It was Muriel Harding who answered. “Maybe we didn’t hustle our errands through, though. Sit down and we’ll order our ice cream. Then we can talk.”
“The time has come, the walrus said,
To talk of many things,”
quoted Jerry mysteriously as she seated herself.
“Well, Walrus, what’s on your mind?” giggled Susan Atwell, promptly applying Jerry’s quotation to the stout girl herself.
“I’m no walrus. I don’t consider that I resemble one in the least,” retorted Jerry good-humoredly. “I’m sorry you don’t recognize a quotation when you hear one. But I forgive you, giggling Susan.”
The approach of a white-clad youth to take their order interrupted Jerry’s discourse. The instant the order had been given she continued: “Girls, as I just said, the time has come.”
“For what?” demanded Harriet, smiling.
“Marjorie will answer that. She’s the real promoter of the enterprise. I am merely the press agent. Go ahead, little Faithful.”
Marjorie’s cheeks grew rosy at the broadly-implied compliment. “You’re a goose, Jerry,” she affectionately chided. “You tell the girls about it.”
“I’d rather be a goose than a walrus,” grinned Jerry. “As for telling; let Marjorie do it. No; I mean, I’d rather you’d spring it on them. Oh, what’s the use? Slang and I are one.” Jerry sighed an exaggerated sorrow over her vain effort at eliminating inelegant English from her vocabulary.
“It must be something very important,” put in Susan, with a derisive chuckle, “or Jeremiah would never resort to slang.”
Jerry’s grin merely widened. “Go ahead and tell them, Marjorie. Hurry up.”
“It’s just this way, children.” Marjorie leaned forward a trifle, her brown eyes roving over the little group of eager-faced listeners. “For a long time Jerry and I have had the idea of forming a club. We talked of it last year, after Christmas, and again after we gave the operetta. But you know what a hard year we had over basketball, and then so many of us became sick that somehow the club idea was put away and forgotten. But now, as Jerry says, ‘the time has come.’ What we’d like to do is to form a club from a certain number of girls in the senior class. It mustn’t be just a social affair but one devoted to the purpose of looking out for anyone that needs our help. Of course when first we start we won’t be able to do much. Later we may find it in our power to do a good deal.”
“And if the club’s a success,” interposed Jerry, “Marjorie thinks it would be nice to pass it along, name and all, to the next senior class. Then they could will it to the next and so on. It would be a sorority, only I hope you won’t go and burden it with a Greek letter name. We ought to give it a name that would mean a lot to anyone who happens to hear of it.” Despite her insistence that Marjorie should put forward the project, Jerry could not resist having her say, too.
“That’s a fine idea,” glowed Harriet Delaney. “How many girls ought we to have in it?”
“I should think ten or twelve would be enough to start with,” returned Marjorie meditatively. “If we decide later that we need more we can have the pleasure of initiating them. Has anyone of you a pencil and paper?”
Muriel immediately brought forth a notebook from her leather school bag. Susan Atwell promptly produced the required pencil.
“Write on the back page of it, Marjorie,” directed Muriel. “If you put down our illustrious names anywhere else in the book, I am likely to mix them with my zoology notes.”
“Imagine Muriel standing up in class and innocently reading: ‘To the Crustacean family belong Jerry Macy, Marjorie Dean, Harriet Delaney, etc.,’” giggled Susan Atwell. Whereupon a ripple of giggles swept the zealous organizers.
“Let me see.” Turning obediently to the last leaf of the notebook Marjorie glanced about the circle and began to write. “We are seven,” she commented after a moment. “Now for the others. Esther Lind, Rita Talbot and Daisy Griggs, of course. That makes ten. I’d like to ask Lucy Warner. Have you any objections?” Marjorie had resolved to overlook Lucy’s recent cavalier treatment of herself.
No one objected and Lucy’s name went down on the list.
“We ought to ask Veronica,” reminded thoughtful Constance.
“Of course.” Marjorie jotted down their new friend’s name. Suddenly she raised her eyes, a faint frown touching her smooth forehead. “Girls,” she said slowly, “it’s our duty to ask Mignon La Salle to join the club.”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Jerry disgustedly. “I’ve been expecting to hear you say that. Must we always have her tied to our apron strings?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t ask her, Marjorie.” Muriel’s face registered plain disapproval. “If you do, we won’t have a peaceful minute. Besides, she would be the thirteenth member.”
“I’d hate to belong to a thirteen-member club,” declared Harriet superstitiously. “We’d never have a minute’s luck.”
“We’ll never have even that much luck if we drag Mignon into our club,” was Jerry’s gruff prediction.
Marjorie’s troubled gaze strayed from one to another of her schoolmates. Constance and Irma alone looked tranquil. She read strong opposition in the faces of the others.
“I am perfectly willing that Mignon shall become a member of the club.” Constance ranged herself boldly on Marjorie’s side.
“So am I,” reinforced Irma. “We all gave Marjorie our promise to help Mignon in any way that we could. I won’t go back on my part of it.”
“If you put it that way, neither ought the rest of us,” grumbled Muriel. “Still, we have the welfare of the club to consider. Mignon is, and always has been, a disturber. Just at present she is pretending to behave herself because her father has taken her in hand. The hateful way she has acted about Veronica shows very plainly that she hasn’t really reformed. If Rowena Farnham hadn’t left Sanford High, she and Mignon would be as chummy as ever by this time.”
“I said that same thing to Marjorie last year,” confessed Constance. “I am perfectly willing to admit it. Even so, that has nothing to do with our agreement to try to help Mignon. If Rowena were here, and she and Mignon began to go around together again, it would be our duty to look out for Mignon just the same, or else go frankly to Mr. La Salle and ask him to release us from our promise.”
“I’d rather do that than have Mignon in our club,” asserted Jerry stubbornly. “As long as you’ve mentioned Rowena I’ll tell you something that I’ve been keeping to myself. You know that the La Salles always go to Severn Beach for the summer, and so does our family. Last year the Farnhams were there, too. But this year they were at Tanglewood. It’s not more than ten miles from Severn Beach.
“Twice, while Hal and I were motoring through Tanglewood in his roadster, we saw Mignon and Rowena together. Once, in their bathing suits on the beach, and another time we saw them walking together in a little grove about a mile above Tanglewood. They didn’t see us either time. I know perfectly well that Mignon slipped away to visit Rowena without permission. It proves that they can’t be kept apart. I understand that Rowena went away to boarding school last week. That means the two will correspond. Rowena will do her best to bother Marjorie through Mignon. She will never forgive her for last year. All I have to say is that in order to protect Marjorie from her spite we ought to keep Mignon out of the club. We can try to help her in other ways.”
“That settles it!” exclaimed Muriel Harding. “I mean that I think Jerry’s reason for not asking Mignon to join the club is a good one. Every year of high school, so far, she has managed to make things hard for Marjorie. Now it’s time to put a stop to her mischief-making.”
“I agree with Muriel,” announced Harriet.
“So do I,” chimed in Susan.
Marjorie smiled a trifle wistfully. “The majority rules,” she said slowly. “It’s a case of four against three. I hardly know what to do. If I say that I won’t join the club, after being the one to propose it, it will appear that I am backing out just because I can’t have my own way. If I say, ‘very well, let us organize the club and leave Mignon out,’ then I shall be breaking my word to Mr. La Salle.
“I have never yet broken a promise I made. I should hate now to feel that I had failed to be true to myself. Please don’t think that I am asking you girls to accept my views. You must do whatever you feel to be best. For me it means one of two evils: refuse to join the club or break my promise. To do either would make me feel dreadfully.”
As Marjorie finished blank silence reigned. It was Jerry Macy who broke it. “You’ve set us a pretty stiff example to live up to, Marjorie,” she said bluntly. “You haven’t left us a foot to stand on. We all gave you our word to help Mignon. As long as you think that this is one of the ways we can help her then it must be so. We want you in the club and we want you to keep your promise to Mr. La Salle. But I’ve just one thing to say. I’ve said it before and I say it again. If after she joins the club she starts to make mischief for you or any of us, I’ll resign. If I do, you needn’t try to coax me back for I shan’t come. Remember that.”
“Thank you, Jerry, for being so splendid.” Marjorie’s slender hand reached out to Jerry in token of her gratitude. “I know that all of you would like me to be in the club. That is why it was so hard for me to say what I just said.”
“Here’s my hand, too.” Muriel flushed as she proffered it. “Susan and Harriet, you are beaten. Salute the victor. I agree with Jerry, though, about resigning from the club.”
“I’ll risk both of you,” declared Marjorie happily, as she shook hands with the three girls. “Thank you ever so much. I didn’t say so before, because I was afraid you might think that I was trying to influence you, but don’t you see that Mignon needs us now more than ever? We must try to win her away from Rowena’s hurtful influence over her. For her to join the club may be the very best way to do it. If we can interest her in whatever we may decide to do for others, she will, perhaps, care more for us and less for Rowena.”
“I guess there’s something in that,” nodded Jerry. “But what are we going to do about Mignon being the thirteenth member?”
“We had better add one more name to the list,” suggested Irma. “Why not ask Florence Johnston? She is such a nice girl.”
Concerted assent greeted Irma’s suggestion, and Marjorie duly inscribed Florence’s name below Mignon’s.
