Three pairs of startled eyes met and conveyed the same dismaying thought. What would the team do without Captain Muriel?

CHAPTER XXV-A STRENUOUS HIKE TO A TRYING ENGAGEMENT

Everybody knows the trite saying: "It never rains but that it pours."

The disasters of the following week seemed quite in accord with it.

Muriel's spectacular slide down the ice steps brought her a broken collarbone. The three anxious girls had awaited news of Muriel at Marjorie's home had hardly taken their leave when the ring of the postman brought her fresh misery. Little knowing what he did, that patient individual handed Marjorie a letter which filled her with angry consternation. Why in the world had the hated Observer come to life again at such a time?

Without waiting to read the unwelcome epistle in her Captain's presence, Marjorie ripped open the envelope with a savage hand. This time the unknown was detestably brief, writing merely:

"Miss Dean:

"I hope you lose the game next Sat.u.r.day. You are more of a sn.o.b than ever. Defeat will do you good. Prepare to meet it.

"The Observer."

"Oh!" Marjorie dashed the offending letter to the floor. Muriel's accident was bad enough. It had not needed this to complete her dejection. Recapturing the spiteful message she was about to tear it into bits. On second reflection she decided to keep it and add it to her obnoxious collection. Something whispered to her that the ident.i.ty of the tormenting Observer would yet be revealed to her.

Facing the lamentable knowledge that Muriel must be counted out of the coming contest, Harriet replaced her. This in itself provided a grain of comfort. Harriet was a skilful player and would work for the success of the team with all her energy. The other four players congratulated themselves on thus having such able support. Due to Muriel's absence, Marjorie had been asked to a.s.sume temporary captainship. Her mind now at ease by reason of Harriet's good work, she gave her most conscientious attention to practice.

Matters skimmed along with commendable smoothness until the Wednesday before the game. Then she encountered a fresh set-back. Word came to her that Susan Atwell had succ.u.mbed to the dreaded tonsilitis that all through the winter had been going its deadly round in Sanford. On receipt of the news she recalled that for the past two days Susan had complained of sore throat. She had given it no serious thought, however.

Her own throat had also troubled her a trifle since that stormy day when Muriel had come to grief. There was but one thing to do. Put Lucy Warner in Susan's position. Her heart almost skipped a beat as she faced the fact that Lucy, too, had been absent from school for over a week.

Someone had said that Lucy was also ill. Marjorie reproached herself for not having inquired more closely about the peculiar green-eyed junior.

"I ought to have gone to see her," she reflected. "I'll go to-night.

Perhaps she is almost well by this time, and can come back to school in time for the game. If she can't, then I'd better ask Mignon to play in Susan's place."

School over for the day she accosted Jerry and Irma with, "I can only walk as far as the corner with you to-night. I'm going to see Lucy Warner. She's been sick for over a week. Did you ever hear of such bad luck as the team has been having lately? I feel so discouraged and tired out. I don't believe I'll try for the team next year." Marjorie's usually sprightliness was entirely missing. Her voice had taken on a weary tone and her brown eyes had lost their pretty sparkle.

"You'd better go straight home and take care of _yourself_," gruffly advised Jerry, "or you won't be fit to play on the team Sat.u.r.day."

"Oh, I'm all right." Marjorie made an attempt to look cheerful. "I'm not feeling ill. My throat is a little bit sore. I caught cold that day Muriel fell down the steps. But it's nothing serious. I shall go to bed at eight o'clock to-night and have a long sleep. I'm just tired; not sick. I must leave you here. Good-bye. See you to-morrow." Nodding brightly she left the two and turned down a side street.

"See us to-morrow," sniffed Jerry. "Humph! I doubt it, unless we go to her house. She's about half sick now. It's the first time I ever saw her look that way. She's so brave, though. She'd fight to keep up if she were dying."

Meanwhile, as she plodded down the snowy street on her errand of mercy, Marjorie was, indeed, fighting to make herself believe that she was merely a little tired. Despite her languor, generosity prompted her to stop in pa.s.sing a fruit store and purchase an attractive basket filled with various fruits likely to tempt the appet.i.te of a sick person. She wondered if Lucy would resent the offering. She was such a queer, self-contained little creature.

"What a dingy house!" was her thought, as she floundered her way through a stretch of deep snow to Lucy's unpretentious home. Detached from its neighbors, it stood unfenced, facing a bit of field, which the small boys of Sanford used in summer as a ball ground. It was across this field that Marjorie was obliged to wend a course made difficult by a week's fall of snow that blanketed it. An irregular path made by the pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing of someone's feet led up to the door. It appeared that the Warners were either too busy or else unable to clear their walk.

Finding no bell, Marjorie removed her glove and knocked on the weather-stained front door. It was opened by a frail little woman with a white, tired face and faded blue eyes. She stared in amazement at the trim, fur-coated girl before her, whose attractive appearance betokened affluence. "How do you do?" she greeted in evident embarra.s.sment.

"Good afternoon. Are you Mrs. Warner?" Marjorie asked brightly. "I have come to see Lucy. How is she to-day? I am Marjorie Dean."

"Oh, are you Miss Dean? I mailed a letter she wrote you several days ago. Come in, please," invited the woman cordially. "I am very glad to see you. I am sure Lucy will be. She is better but still in bed. Will you take off your wraps?"

"No, thank you. I can't stay very long. I feel guilty at not coming to see her sooner. What is the trouble with her-tonsilitis? So many people in Sanford are having it." Marjorie looked slightly mystified over Mrs.

Warner's reference to the letter. She had received no letter from Lucy.

She decided, however, that she would ask Lucy.

"No; she was threatened with pneumonia, but managed to escape with a severe cold. I will take you to her. She is upstairs."

Following Mrs. Warner up a narrow stairway that led up from a bare, cheerless sitting room, Marjorie was forced to contrast the dismal place with the Deans' luxurious living room. Why was it, she sadly pondered, that she had been given so much and Lucy so little? The Warners' home was even more poverty-stricken than the little gray house in which Constance Stevens had once lived. Then she had deplored that same contrast between herself and Constance.

"Miss Dean has come to see you, Lucy," said Mrs. Warner. Marjorie had followed the woman into a plain little bedroom, equally bare and desolate.

"You!" Glimpsing Marjorie behind her mother, Lucy sat up in bed, her green eyes growing greener with horrified disapproval.

"Yes, I." Marjorie flushed as she strove to answer playfully. That single unfriendly word of greeting had wounded her deeply. The very fact that, half sick herself, she had waded through the snow to call on Lucy gave her a fleeting sense of injury. She tried to hide it by quickly saying: "I must apologize for not visiting you sooner. Our team has had so many mishaps, I have been busy trying to keep things going. I brought you some fruit to cheer you up."

"I will leave you girls to yourselves," broke in Mrs. Warner. As she went downstairs she wondered at her daughter's ungracious behavior to this lovely young friend. Lucy was such a strange child. Even she could not always fathom her odd ways.

"Why have you come to see me?" demanded Lucy, hostile and inhospitable.

All the time her lambent green eyes remained fixed upon Marjorie.

"Why shouldn't I come to see you?" Marjorie gave a nervous little laugh.

Privately she wished she had not come. Embarra.s.sment at the unfriendly reception drove the question of the letter from her mind.

"You never noticed me in school," pursued Lucy relentlessly. "Why should you now?"

"You would never let me be friends with you," was Marjorie's honest retort. "I've tried ever so many times. I have always admired you. You are so bright and make such brilliant recitations."

"What does that matter when one is poor and always out of things?" came the bitter question.

"Oh, being poor doesn't count. It's the real you that makes the difference. When I was a little girl we were quite poor. We aren't rich now; just in comfortable circ.u.mstances. If I chose my friends for their money I'd be a very contemptible person. You mustn't look at matters in that light. It's wrong. It shuts you away from all the best things in life; like love and friendship and contentment. I wish you had said this to me long ago. Then we would have understood each other and been friends."

"I can never be your friend," stated the girl solemnly.

"Why not?" Marjorie's eyes widened. "Perhaps I ought not to ask you that. It sounded conceited. I can't blame you if you don't like me.

There are many persons I can't like, either. Sometimes I try to like them, but I seldom succeed," she made frank admission.

"You are a puzzling girl," a.s.serted Lucy, her green eyes wavering under Marjorie's sweetly nave confession. "Either you are very deceitful, or else I have made a terrible mistake." She suddenly lay back in bed, half hiding her brown head in the pillow.

"I would rather think that you had made a mistake." The rose in Marjorie's cheeks deepened. "I try never to be deceitful."

Lucy did not reply, but buried her face deeper in the pillow. An oppressive silence ensued, during which Marjorie racked her brain as to what she had best say next. What ailed Lucy? She was even queerer than Marjorie had supposed.

With a convulsive jerk Lucy suddenly sat upright. Marjorie was relieved to observe no indication of tears in the probing green eyes. She had feared Lucy might be crying. Why she should cry was a mystery, however.

"If you had made a mistake about someone and then done a perfectly dreadful thing and afterward found out that it was all a mistake, what would you do?" Lucy queried with nervous intensity.

"I-that's a hard question to answer. It would depend a good deal on what I had done and who the person was."

"But if the person didn't know that it was you who did it, would you tell them?" continued Lucy.

"If I had hurt them very much, I think my conscience would torment me until I did," Marjorie said slowly. "It would be hard, of course, but it would be exactly what I deserved. But why do you ask me such strange things?"