Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE EXPLANATION

  Owing to the fervent manner in which each succeeding dance was encored,it was after midnight before the fairy-tale masquerade came to an endand the lords and ladies of fairy lore became everyday boys and girlsagain; and went home congratulating themselves on the blessed fact thatto-morrow was Saturday and that they could make up lost sleep the nextmorning.

  Marjorie Dean, however, was not among the late sleepers. She was up andabout the house at her usual hour, for the day held promise of unusualinterest. First of all, Constance was coming to see her at ten o'clock.Then too, it was May day, a gloriously sunshiny May day, without thefaintest trace of cloud in the deep blue sky. As a third pleasantanticipation, her class had planned a Mayday picnic at a point abouttwo miles up the river. It had been an unusually early spring, and thewild flowers had blossomed in such profusion in the neighboring woodsabout the town and along the river that the picnic had been plannedwith a view to spending the day in gathering as many of them aspossible.

  The expedition having been organized by the officers of the class therewas no question of who should be invited or who should be left out. Theclass was exhorted to turn out in a body, and with the exception of afew girls who had made plans for that Saturday prior to their knowledgeof the picnic, the freshmen of 19-- had promised to attend.

  "Oh, dear, I wish ten o'clock were here!" sighed Marjorie as shestraightened the last object on her dressing table and viewed withsatisfaction the immaculate order to which she had reduced her room.Keeping her room clean and dainty was almost a sacred obligation withMarjorie. Her mother had spared neither time nor expense to make it amarvel of pink-and-white beauty. The furniture was of white maple, thethick, soft rug had a cream background scattered with small pink roses.The window curtains were cunning ruffled affairs of fine white dottedSwiss, while the window draperies were in pink-and-white Frenchcretonne. An attractive willow stand, which stood beside the bed, thetwo pretty willow rockers piled high with pink and white cushions andthe creamy wallpaper with its graceful border of pink roses made theroom a perpetual joy to its appreciative owner. Marjorie alwaysreferred to it as her "house" and when at home spent a great deal of hertime there.

  But this morning the May sunshine poured rapturously in at her openwindows, touched her brown hair with mischievous golden fingers thatleft gleaming imprints on her curls, and mutely coaxed her to come outand play.

  "I can't stand it indoors another minute," she breathed impatiently."It's almost ten. I'll walk down to the corner. Perhaps I'll seeConstance coming."

  As she was about to leave the window she caught a glimpse of a slenderblue figure far down the street. With a cry of, "Oh, there she is!"Marjorie raced out of her room, down the stairs and across the lawn tothe gate.

  "You dear thing!" she called, her hands extended.

  The next instant the two girls were embracing with a degree of affectionknown only to those who, after blind misunderstanding, once more see thelight.

  Tears of contrition stood in Marjorie's eyes as she led Constance intothe house and upstairs to her room. "Can you ever forgive me?" shefaltered, pushing Constance gently into a chair and drawing her ownopposite that of her friend.

  "There is nothing to forgive," returned Constance, unsteadily. "Youdidn't know. If only I had made you stay that day until we came to anunderstanding! When you said 'Good-bye' in that queer tone, I called toyou to wait, for it seemed to me you were angry; but you had gone. Thenyour note came. I didn't know how you could possibly have learned aboutthe pin, for I hadn't told a soul besides father and Uncle John. Itoccurred to me that perhaps you had seen Uncle John and he had told you.When I read what you said about not seeing me again I thought just onething, that, knowing my story, you didn't care to be friends with me anymore."

  "What do you mean, Constance?" Marjorie's query was full of compellinginsistence. "I don't know any story about you."

  "I know that you don't, dear; but I thought you knew. When Uncle Johncame in that afternoon I asked him if he had seen you in the last twodays, and he said 'no,' and then 'yes.' I asked him if he had told youabout what had happened to me, and he declared that he couldn'tremember. I was sure that he had told you, because he often says thatwhen he is afraid father or I won't approve of something he has done.That is the reason I didn't come to see you. Then I went to New York ina hurry without dreaming of what your letter really meant. Jerry wroteme two days before I had planned to come home. So I changed my plans andstarted for Sanford the same day her letter reached me. Charlie was somuch better that I wasn't needed."

  "Charlie?" repeated Marjorie, in bewildered interrogation.

  "Yes," nodded Constance. "Haven't you seen father since I left? Didn'the tell you?"

  "Only once. I--he--I didn't let him know about us. It was right afteryou went away. He said you had taken Charlie with you. I met him in thestreet and stopped only a minute. I had come from your house that daybut there was no one at home. I couldn't bear to let things go on asthey had.

  "Now," declared Marjorie, drawing a long breath, "begin at the beginningand tell me every single thing."

  "I will," assured Constance, emphatically. "Let me see. It began the dayafter Christmas. A letter came from New York in the morning mailaddressed to father. I gave it to him, and after he read it he sat sostill and looked so white that I thought he was going to faint. Then hemade me come and sit down beside him and told me that the letter wasfrom my mother's sister in New York and that she was rich and wanted meto come and live with her.

  "I said that I would never desert my own father no matter how poor hewas, and then he told me that he was only my foster father, just as hewas Charlie's. That my own father had been his best friend when theywere boys. Later on, my father became a worthless, drunken wretch and mymother had to do sewing to take care of herself and me. My mother'sfamily never forgave her for marrying my father and would not help her.She was not strong and could not stand it to be so poor and work sohard. She died when I was a year old, and just a month afterward myfather died with pneumonia. No one wanted me, so I was put in an orphanasylum, but Father Stevens, who had been trying to find my father, heardwhere I was and took me to live with him. He wrote to my aunt first, butshe said she didn't want me. That is the first part of my story."

  "It sounds like a story in a book," said Marjorie, softly. "Go on,Connie."

  "This letter that father received was from my aunt," continuedConstance. "She had been trying to find us for more than two years.Finally, she saw father's name signed to an article in the musicalmagazine, so she wrote a letter and asked the publishers to forward it.She said in the letter that she was now an old woman who had found thatblood was thicker than water, and that she wanted her sister's daughter,who must now be a young woman, to come and live with her. With theletter came a jeweler's box, and in the box was the butterfly pin. Shesent it to me as a Christmas gift.

  "I cried and said I would not go, but father said it was the opportunityof my life time and that I must. He said that he had no legal right tome and that he loved me too dearly to stand in my way. It almost brokemy heart. How I hated that butterfly and my aunt, too. When you came tosee me that unlucky day I was feeling the worst. That very night I wrotemy aunt a long letter. I told her just how I felt, how much I lovedfather and Charlie and poor old Uncle John and that I could never, nevergive them up. Father didn't know I wrote the letter. He thought I wasbecoming resigned to going away. I went back to school and wore the pin,as my aunt had asked me to do in a little note enclosed in father'sletter.

  "Then her letter came and it was so much nicer than the other that Icried out of pure happiness. She asked me to bring Charlie to New York.She knew a famous specialist who she thought might help, if not curehim. She asked me to make her a visit and said she would never wish meto come to live with her except of my own free will.

  "We went to New York as you know, and, Marjorie"--Constance made animpressive pause--"Charlie is going to be entirely w
ell in a littlewhile. The specialist operated on his hip and the operation wassuccessful. He will be able to walk before very long. When he knew I wascoming home he said, 'Tell Marjorie that I don't need to ask Santa Clausfor a new leg next year, because the good, kind man she told me aboutfixed mine.'"

  "Dear little Charlie," murmured Marjorie. "I'm so glad."

  A pleasant silence fell upon the two young girls. So much had happenedthat for a brief moment each was busy with her own thoughts.

  "Are you coming back to school to finish the year, Constance?" askedMarjorie, at last.

  "Yes. I am going to try to make up for lost time. I'll take in June theexaminations I should have tried in January. I hope to be a Sanfordsophomore, Marjorie. Aunt Edith is coming to visit us this summer. Sheis going to bring Charlie home."

  Constance remained with Marjorie until almost noon.

  "I wish you'd stay to luncheon," coaxed the little lieutenant.

  "I can't. I'm sorry. I promised father I'd be home at noon."

  "Then I wish you were going to the picnic this afternoon."

  Constance shook her head, looking wistful, nevertheless.

  "I'd rather not. Mignon will be there. It is better to be out of sightand out of mind until after Monday."

  "Everything is turning out beautifully," sighed Marjorie. "There's onlyone thing more that I could possibly wish for."

  "What is that?" asked Constance quickly.

  "My lost butterfly."

  "Perhaps it will fly back home when you least expect it," consoledConstance.

  "Lost pins don't fly," retorted Marjorie. "If they did my butterflywould have come back to me long ago."

  But, even then, though she could not know it, her cherished butterflywas poising its golden wings for the homeward flight.