"Good-morning, Mrs. Dean. Is Marjorie here?" There was a hint of suppressed excitement in the clear voice that asked the question.

"Good morning, Harriet. Come in." Mrs. Dean smiled pleasantly upon her caller, as she ushered her into the hall. "You are out early this morning. Yes, Marjorie is here. She hasn't come downstairs yet. She is a little inclined to linger in bed on Saturday morning."

"I can't blame her," laughed Harriet. "I am fond of doing the same. But I've a special reason for being out early this morning. It's about basket ball. You may be sure of that."

"Basket-ball is enjoying its usual popularity. I hear a great deal about it of late," returned Mrs. Dean. "Pardon me." Raising her voice, she called up the stairway, "Mar-jorie!"

"Coming down on the jump, Captain!" answered Marjorie's voice. Verifying her words, she bounded lightly down the stairs, still in her dressing gown, her hair falling in long loose curls about her lovely face. "I knew who was here. I heard Harriet's voice."

"Oh, Marjorie," burst forth Harriet, taking a quick step forward. "I—something awfully queer has happened!" She glanced nervously about her, but Mrs. Dean had already vanished through the doorway, leading into the dining room. She rarely intruded upon Marjorie's callers longer than to welcome them.

"What is it, Harriet?" fell wonderingly from Marjorie's lips. Her friend's early call, coupled with her agitated manner, betokened something unusual.

"Read this!" Harriet thrust a sheet of pale gray note paper into Marjorie's hand. "It's the strangest thing I ever heard of!"

Marjorie swept the few scrawling lines of which the paper boasted with a keen, comprehensive glance. As its import dawned upon her, her brown eyes grew round with amazement. She re-read it twice. "Where did you receive it?" came her sharp question, as she continued to hold it in her hand.

"I don't know when it came. Mother found it on the floor in the vestibule this morning. I was still in bed. She sent Nora, our maid, upstairs with it. You can imagine I didn't stop to finish my nap. I hurried and dressed, ate about three bites of breakfast and started for your house as fast as I could travel. I thought you ought to see it first. What do you make of it?"

"I hardly know what to think." Marjorie's glance strayed from Harriet's perturbed face to the mysterious letter of warning. "Somehow, I don't believe it was written for a joke. Do you?"

"No, I don't." Harriet shook her head positively. "I think it was intended for just what it is, a warning to be on our guard to-day. I'll tell you something, Marjorie. I never mentioned it before because—well—you know I've never liked Mignon La Salle since she nearly broke up basket ball at Sanford High last year, and I was afraid it might sound hateful on my part, but the girls of Mignon's squad are as tricky as can be. Twice, in the first practice game we played, I had my own troubles with them. Once Daisy Griggs nearly knocked me over. She pretended it was an accident, but it wasn't. Then, in the second half, Mignon poked me in the side with her elbow. We were bunched so close that not even the referee saw her. I almost had the ball, but my side hurt me so that I missed it entirely. Susan Atwell was awfully cross about something that day, too. I asked her what had happened, but she only muttered that she hoped she'd get through the game without being murdered. She wouldn't say another word, but you can guess from what I've told you that she must have had good reason for getting mad. Did she say anything to you?"

"No; I wish she had." A flash of anger darkened Marjorie's delicate features. "The girls of Mignon's team have played fairly enough with me. They are rough, I'll say that, but, so far they've not overstepped the rules."

"They know better than to try their tricks on you!" exclaimed Harriet hotly, "or on Muriel, either. Mignon's afraid of you because you are everything that's good and noble!"

"Nonsense," Marjorie grew red at this flattering assertion.

"It's true, just the same. She's afraid of Muriel, too, because she knows that Muriel would report her to Miss Archer in a minute. She thinks she can harass Esther and Susan and me and that we won't dare say anything for fear Miss Archer will make a fuss. She knows how crazy we are to play and that we'd stand a good deal of knocking about rather than spoil everything. It's different with Muriel. If she got mad, she would walk off the floor and straight to Miss Archer's office, and those girls know it."

Marjorie was silent. What Harriet said in regard to Muriel was undoubtedly true. Since the latter had turned from Mignon La Salle to her, she had been the soul of devotion. She had never forgiven Mignon for her cowardly conduct on the day of the class picnic. Muriel reverenced the heroic, and Mignon had disgraced herself forever in the eyes of this impulsive, hero-worshipping girl.

"We had better show this letter to the other girls," Marjorie said with sudden decision. "Come upstairs to my house. I'll hurry and dress. Suppose you have a few more bites of breakfast with me. Your early morning rush must have made you hungry, and you ought to be well fed, if you expect to do valiant work on the field of battle this afternoon."

"I am hungry," conceded Harriet, "and I won't wait to be urged. I'd love to take breakfast with you." Then, lowering her voice, she asked: "Is Mary going to the game?"

A faint wistfulness tinged Marjorie's voice as she said slowly. "I don't know. I haven't asked her. I suppose she is, though."

Although it was whispered among Marjorie's close friends that the unpleasant scene at her party had left a yawning gap between the two friends, never, by so much as a word, had Marjorie intimated the true state of affairs to any one except Constance and Jerry Macy. Not even Susan Atwell and Muriel Harding knew just how matters stood. Harriet remembered this in the same moment of her question, and, flushing at her own inquisitiveness, remarked hurriedly, "Everyone in school is coming to see us play."

"I'm glad of that." Marjorie had recovered again her usual cheerfulness, and answered heartily. She kept up a lively stream of talk as she completed her dressing. Tucking the letter inside her white silk blouse she led the way downstairs to the dining room. She was slightly relieved to see Mary's place at the table vacant. She guessed that the latter had heard Harriet's voice and had purposely remained in her room. She had not gone astray in this supposition. Mary had heard Harriet speak and knew only too well what had brought her to the Deans' house so early that morning.

It was nine o'clock when Marjorie and Harriet left the house to call on Susan Atwell, who lived nearest. Susan read the mysterious warning and was duly impressed with its significance. She was equally at sea as to the writer. It soon developed, however, that Harriet had been correct in assuming that Susan's wrath at the first game played against Mignon's team had been occasioned by their unfair tactics. She had been slyly tripped by Louise Selden, she asserted, and had fallen heavily.

"All this is news to me," declared Marjorie, frowning her disapproval. "It must be stopped."

"How?" inquired Susan almost sulkily.

"If necessary, we must have an understanding with our opponents," was the quiet response.

"That is easy enough to say," retorted Susan, "but if we were to accuse those girls of playing unfairly, they would simply laugh at us and call us babies."

"I'd rather be laughed at and called a baby than allow such unfairness to go on." There was a ring of determination in Marjorie's reply.

"Let us hurry on to Muriel and hear her views," suggested Harriet. "She lives next door to Esther Lind, so we can call them together and show them the letter."

Once the team were together they spent an anxious session over the letter left by an unseen hand. Discussion ran rife. With her usual impetuosity Muriel announced her intention of taking Mignon to task before the game. "I'm not afraid of her," she boasted. "I'd rather not play than to feel that at any minute I might be laid up for repairs. I'm much obliged to the one who wrote this. He or she must have had a troubled conscience."

Marjorie cast a startled glance at Muriel. Could it be possible that Mary had written the note? And yet something about the gray stationery had seemed familiar. She was not sure, but she thought she had at some time or other received a letter from her chum written on gray note paper. She resolved to look through Mary's letters to her as soon as she reached home. If Mary had, indeed, sent the warning, it was because she felt constrained to do the only honorable thing in her power. Association with Mignon had not entirely deadened her sense of right and wrong. A wave of love and longing brought the tears to Marjorie's eyes. She winked them back. She must not betray herself to her schoolmates.

"Listen to me, girls," she began earnestly. "We mustn't say a word to our opponents before the game. I know I just said that we ought to have an understanding, and I meant it. But we had better wait until the end of the first half. If everything is all right, then so much the better. If it isn't—well—we shall at least have given them their chance."

The players lingered in the Hardings' living room to discuss the coming contest, go over their signals and prepare themselves as effectually as possible for the fray. It was almost noon when Marjorie sped up the stairs to her room, there to put into execution the search she had decided to make. Mary's letters to her, tied with a bit of blue ribbon, reposed in a pretty lacquered box designed especially to hold them. Marjorie untied the ribbon and fingered them with a sigh of regret for the happy past. Most of them were written on white paper, a few were on pale blue, Mary's color. Almost at the bottom of the box was one gray envelope. The searcher drew a quick breath as she separated it from its fellows. Drawing the envelope from her blouse, she compared the two. They were identical. The mysterious warning was no longer a mystery to her.

Back to contents