Molly Brown's Freshman Days

Miss Steel was a very busy woman that afternoon. She was shut up with Judy Kean for half an hour; she visited the livery stable in the village, she paid a call on Dr. McLean and finally she went to see Professor Green.

It is in Professor Green’s study on the Cloisters that we now find her, sitting bolt upright in her chair, alert and bright-eyed. At such times as this, Miss Steel is not unlike a hunting dog on the scent of his quarry.

Professor Green sits at his desk. He looks tired, and his heavy reddish eyebrows are drawn together in a frown. When the inspector came into the room he had pushed a pile of manuscript under some loose papers, but a sheet had slipped off and now lay in plain view. Across it was written in a bold hand:

“Exeunt FAIRIES in disorder, leaving WOOD SPRITE at Left Centre.

“THE SONG OF THE WOOD SPRITE.”

“I hope you will pardon this intrusion, Professor. I see you are very busy,” the inspector began, glancing at the manuscript with a look of some slight amusement.

The Professor hastily covered up the sheet.

“Not at all,” he said politely; “I’m just idling away a little time. What can I do for you?”

He had seen Miss Steel about the building and most of the Faculty knew her by this time as “Inspector of Dormitories.”

“Do you remember helping a young lady who fainted on the day of the football game?”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” replied the Professor, absent-mindedly fingering a paper cutter.

“You lent her your overcoat that afternoon, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes; I believe I did.”

“Have you worn the coat since?”

“Certainly,” he answered, laughing; “every day, and several times a day. It’s the only one I have. Are you a detective?”

“Yes. Do you ever put things in the pockets of your coat?”

The Professor smiled shamefacedly like a schoolboy culprit.

“In one of them. There’s been a hole in the other one for a long time – two years at least.”

“Would you mind letting me see that coat?”

He lifted the blue overcoat from a hook on the door and placed it on a chair beside Miss Steel.

“Am I a suspect?” he asked politely. “Has anything been lost?”

The detective seized the overcoat and began rummaging through the pockets with a practised hand.

“Yes,” she answered; “something has been lost, and extremely disagreeable things have been said by the owner about it.”

“About me?” asked the Professor, still groping in the dark.

“No, no; about the girl who lost it.”

“Miss Brown?”

The detective did not reply. She had run her hand through the hole in the pocket and was now searching the corners between the lining and the cloth.

“Ha!” she cried at last, exactly like the detective in a play. “Here it is!”

With a swift movement she extricated her hand from the bottomless pocket and displayed between her thumb and forefinger a large emerald ring.

“Why, that’s the ring of my cousin, Judith Blount!” exclaimed the Professor in amazement. “And I have had it in my pocket all this time. Great heavens! what an extraordinary thing, and how did it get there?”

“Miss Blount forced Miss Brown to take charge of it while she was playing football. After Miss Brown came to from her faint, she must have been very cold and slipped her hands in the pockets of this coat for warmth – ”

“She did,” confirmed the Professor.

“And the ring slipped off. When she found it was lost she got up at dawn next day and went out in her slippers in the snow to find it, and nearly caught her death. But she’s had no thanks for her trouble from your relation, I can assure you. Nothing but abuse – ”

“What!” shouted the Professor. “You mean to say that Judith has dared to insinuate – ”

“She has,” said Miss Steel.

“And she whom Miss Brown has shielded – great heavens! this is too much.”

He began walking up and down the room in a rage.

“Shielded from what?”

“I am not at liberty to tell you,” he replied. “The girl repented of what she did. I know that, but she’s an ungrateful little wretch.”

A scholarly professor of English literature, however, is no match for a well-trained detective, and with a knowing smile on her lips the inspector rose to leave.

“You may return the ring,” she said. “It will be a great relief to Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky to know it has been found. She was about to give up two acres of good apple orchard to pay for it; the land, in fact, which was to provide the money for her college expenses.”

And with that she sailed out of the room and went straight to the home of President Walker, with whom she spent the better part of an hour.

Professor Green followed close on her heels. He did not pause at Miss Walker’s pretty stucco residence, however, but hastened down the campus and rang the bell at Queen’s Cottage.

Miss Brown was in, he learned from the maid. She had only arrived from the Infirmary that afternoon.

The Professor waited in the sitting room deserted by the students at that hour, those who were not studying in their rooms being at Vespers. Presently Molly appeared, looking very slender and tall, like a pale flower swaying on its stalk.

The Professor rushed up and seized her hand unceremoniously.

“My dear child!” he cried, “how am I ever going to make my apologies to you for all this trouble of which I have been the unconscious cause?”

“For what – ” began Molly, too much astonished to finish her question.

“The ring! The ring! It’s been concealed in the ragged lining of my shabby old overcoat all this time, and that clever detective of dormitories, or whatever she is, ferreted it out just now. Perhaps I should have thought of it myself; but, you see, I hadn’t even heard the ring had been lost. I am afraid you suffered a great deal.”

“I did at first; but after I grew better I never let myself slip back into that state again. I kept believing it would be found. I was so sure of it that I haven’t really been unhappy at all. You see, everybody is so beautifully kind and no one believed – ”