Nance was still sound asleep when Molly crept from her bed and dressed herself. It was a dismal cold morning. A fine snow was falling and she shivered as she tied a scarf around her head, threw her long gray eiderdown cape over her shoulders and slipped from the room, without waking her friend, who was weary after the excitements of the day before.

Across the wind-swept campus she hastened, anxiety lending swiftness to her steps, and at last reached the Athletic Field. At the far end snuggled several low wooden sheds like a group of animals trying to keep warm by staying close together.

“I must hurry,” Molly thought, “or the snow will be so thick I shall never be able to find the ring,” and summoning all her energy she ran as fast as she could straight to the spot where she remembered to have dropped the day before behind the sheds. Breathless and tingling all over with little prickly chills, she knelt down and began to search in the dead grass, brushing the snow away as she hunted. She had not stopped to find gloves, neither had she wasted any time lacing her boots, but had slipped on some pumps at the side of the bed.

For a long time Molly searched every inch of the ground back of the sheds where she might have been. Then, with an ever-growing feeling of desperation, she hunted in the field itself, across which she had followed the parade. And it was here that Judy and Nance found her so absorbed in her search that she had not even noticed their approach.

“Oh, Molly, Molly! what are we going to do with you?” cried Nance, seizing her by the arm impulsively. “You’ll kill yourself by your imprudence. Why didn’t you wait and let us look?”

Molly opened her mouth to answer, and the words came out in a husky whisper. She had entirely lost her voice from hoarseness, without even knowing that she had caught cold.

“I’ve looked everywhere,” she whispered, “and I haven’t found it. I couldn’t have lost it while I was on the stilts, because I never let go of them for a moment. It must have been when I fainted.”

“Judy, you take her home while I look again,” volunteered Nance.

“Take her to the infirmary, you mean,” answered Judy, and she promptly led Molly by a short cut toward the last house on the far side of the campus, where stood the small college hospital.

Molly obediently allowed herself to be piloted along. Her cheeks were burning; there was a feverish light in her eyes, and she no longer felt cold at all, but hot all over with little chills along her spine.

“I’m afraid I’m a great nuisance, Judy, dear. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m really in great trouble,” she said huskily, as Judy confided her to one of the two nurses at the hospital.

“Don’t worry,” was Judy’s parting command. “We’ll find the ring. It can’t possibly be lost utterly. It’s too big and green. I’ll see Judith Blount, too. Some one may have found it and returned it to her by this time. I’ll leave a notice on the bulletin board and stand my little St. Joseph on his head,” she added laughing. “You may be sure I’ll leave nothing undone to find that old ring.”

The first thing Judy did after breakfast that Sunday morning was to pay a visit to Judith Blount. There was a placard on her door announcing to whom it might concern that Judith was busy and did not wish to be disturbed, but Judy knocked boldly and at an impatient “Who is it?” replied: “I wish to see you on important business. Please unlock the door.”

Judy couldn’t make out why Judith Blount looked so white and uneasy when she entered the room; nor why her expression changed to one of intense relief a moment later.

“I came to ask you,” began Judy abruptly, “if any one had found your emerald ring.”

“Miss Brown has my ring,” answered Judith promptly.

“Didn’t you know that Molly had fainted and is now ill in the hospital and the ring is lost?”

“My emerald ring lost?” Judith almost shouted.

“Don’t carry on so about it,” put in Judy. “It’ll be found. Molly herself was up at dawn this morning. She stole away before anybody could stop her, and went to the field to look for it, but she hasn’t been able to find it, and neither has Nance, who looked for it later. Nance has gone down to the village to find the surrey that took Molly home. We are all doing everything we can and in the meantime I thought I would tell you so that you could help us.”

Judy could be very impudent when she wanted to, and she was impudent now, as she stood looking straight into Judith’s angry black eyes.

“She should have been more careful,” burst out Judith in a rage. “How do I know that——” she stopped, frightened at what she was about to say.

“Better not say that,” said Judy calmly. “It simply wouldn’t go, you know, and you must know as well as I do that it would be absolutely false.”

“How do you know what I was going to say?”

“I could guess,” said Judy, shrugging her shoulders. “I can often guess things you would like to say, but don’t, Miss Blount. What I came for was to ask you to help us find the ring. Molly is very ill, and, of course, it’s the loss of the ring as much as anything else that’s made her so. We’re all doing the best we can, and if you’ll just kindly add your efforts to ours, it might help some.”

“Supposing the ring isn’t found, what redress have I? It’s been in our family for generations. It was brought over from France by a Huguenot ancestor——”

“Nice place to be wearing it, then, at a football game!” exclaimed Judy indignantly. “And then forcing other people to take charge of it for you! Redress, indeed! Do you want Molly to pay you for your ring? I tell you, Miss Blount, that a person who really had Huguenot ancestors would never have suggested such a thing. It wouldn’t have been Huguenot etiquette.”

And Judy flung herself out of the room and down the steps before the astonished Judith had time to realize that she had been insulted by an upstart of a freshman.

It looked very much for a day or two as if Molly were going to have a congestion in one lung. For several days she was a very sick girl. She had a strange delirium that she was looking for something while she was walking on stilts. Many times she asked the nurse if sapphires were as valuable as emeralds, and once she demanded to know if an emerald as large as her little finger nail was worth much money, say, two acres of good orchard land. But the lung was not congested, as Dr. McLean had at first thought. In a day or two the fever subsided and by Thursday she was able to sit up in bed, propped by many pillows and see Judy and Nance.

Her room was a bower of flowers. They had even come from Exmoor, Lawrence Upton having sent her a box of lovely pink roses. Mrs. McLean had brought her a bunch of red berries from the woods, and one day two cards were brought up, one of which looked familiar: Miss Grace Green and Mr. Edwin Green, inquiring as to the improvement in Miss Molly Brown’s condition, were pleased to hear that she was better.

And now Nance and Judy sat on either side the young invalid, each trying to assume a cheerful expression and each feeling that whatever disagreeable things had happened—and several had happened—they must be hidden from Molly at all costs.

Judith Blount had scattered reports around college of an extremely hateful character which Molly’s friends had done their best to suppress. The ring had never been found, although everything had been done that could be thought of in the way of advertising and searching.

Moreover, Miss Steel had asked twice of Molly’s condition in a very meaning tone of voice, and had wished to know exactly when the nurse thought Molly would be able to see visitors. These things the girls knew, and since Molly was still weak and very hoarse, her friends were careful to keep off dangerous subjects.

Strange to say, Molly had never mentioned the ring to any one since she had been in the hospital.

“Everybody has been so beautifully kind,” she was saying, “and really, I think the rest is going to do me so much good, that when I get well I’ll be better than I was before I got sick,” she added, laughing.

“We’ve missed you terribly,” said Nance dolefully.

“Queen’s just a dead old hole without you, Molly, dear,” went on Judy affectionately.

Molly smiled lovingly at her two friends.

“You are the dearest——” she began, taking a hand of each when the nurse entered.

“Miss Stewart would like to see you, Miss Brown.”

“Oh, yes,” cried Molly; “do ask her to come up.”

Nance and Judy did not linger after Mary Stewart’s arrival. Her face also wore a serious look, and she took Molly’s hand and gazed down into her face almost with a compassionate expression.

“How are you, Molly, dear?”

“Oh, I’m much better,” replied Molly, cheerfully. “I shall be up by to-morrow, the doctor says, and I expect to go back to Queen’s Sunday.”

Mary sat down and drew her chair up close to the little white bed.

“It’s almost providential my being in the hospital like this,” went on Molly, “it’s rested me so. You see, I was terribly worried about something when I came here.”

“And you aren’t worried any longer?”

“No; I’ve conquered it. I know it’s got to be faced; but I believe there will be a way out of it, and I’m not frightened any more. I have always had a kind of blind faith like that when things look very black.”

“You are talking of the emerald ring, aren’t you, Molly?”

“Yes, Mary. I know it hasn’t been found, of course. I can tell that by the girls’ faces, and I know that Judith Blount is—well, she is your friend, Mary——”

“Oh, no; not now,” put in Mary. “We’ve had a—er—difference of opinion that has—well, not to put too fine a point on it, broken up our friendship. I always admired her, without ever really liking her.”

Molly looked at Mary and a very tender expression came into her heavenly blue eyes.

“Was the difference about me?” she asked presently.

Mary hesitated.

“Yes, Molly; since you force me to tell you, it was.”

“She has been saying some horrid things? Of course, I knew she would. I was prepared for that. And I could tell——” Molly paused. “No, no, I mustn’t!” she exclaimed hastily.

“What could you tell, Molly?”

“Don’t ask me. I would never speak to myself again, if I did tell. She has been saying that I never lost the ring, that I was poor and needed the money, and things like that. Tell me honestly, isn’t that the truth?”

Mary nodded her head and frowned. There was a silence, and presently Mary’s strong, brown fingers closed over Molly’s slender ones.

“Molly,” she began in a business-like tone of voice, “I’m almost glad that this subject has come up because I came here really to——” she broke off. “It’s very hard,” she began again. “I hardly know how to put it. You knew, Molly, dear, that I was rich, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes; I guessed you must be, although you have been careful not to mention it yourself. You’re the most high-bred, finest girl I ever knew, Mary,” she added impetuously.

Mary laughed.

“That’s nice of you to say such things, dear, because I haven’t but one ancestor on my paternal side and that’s father, but he’s generations in himself, he’s so splendid. But to go on, Molly, dear, I am rich, not ordinarily rich, but enormously, vastly rich. It’s absurd, really, because we’ll never spend it, and we don’t care a rap about saving it; but whatever father touches just turns to gold.”

“I wish he’d touch something for me,” laughed Molly, wistfully.

“Now, listen to me, dear, and don’t interrupt. Father adores me to that extent that I could spend any amount of money and he would just smile and say: ‘Go ahead, little Mary, go as far as you like.’ But, you see, I only want a few very nice things, consequently, I can’t be extravagant to save my life.”

Molly laughed aloud at this naÏve confession.

“The point I’m coming to is this, Molly: Judith Blount is being exceedingly horrid over that ring. I believe myself it will be found eventually. But until it is found, I want you—now don’t interrupt me and don’t carry on, please—I want you to ask her the value of her old ring and give her the money for it. If she chooses to be ill-bred, she must be treated with ill-bred methods.”

“But, dearest Mary, I can’t——” began Molly.

“Yes, you can. I haven’t known you but a few months, Molly, but I’ve learned to love you in that time. And when I really care for any one, which is seldom, she becomes a sister to me. You are my little sister, and shall always be. I shall never change. And between sisters there must be no foolish pride. Now, Molly, I want to settle this thing with Judith Blount once and for all, through you, of course. She is not to know I had anything to do with it. You must tell her that you have raised the money and would like to pay her the full value of the ring. When the ring is found, she can give you back the money. That will stop her wicked, wagging tongue, at least.”

Molly tried hard not to cry, but the tears welled up in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She took Mary’s hand and kissed it.

“I wish I could kiss you, dearest Mary,” she sobbed; “but you see, I’ve got such a bad cold.”

How could she thank Mary for her generous offer or explain that her family would never allow her to accept the money, even if she felt she could herself?

“You are the finest, noblest, most generous girl,” she went on brokenly.

“No, I’m not,” said Mary. “It’s easy to do things for people we love and easier still when we have the money to do it with. If I hadn’t been so fond of you, Molly, and had been obliged to deny myself besides, that would have been generosity. This is only a pleasure. A sort of self-gratification, because I’ve adopted you, you see, as my little sister.”

Molly lay quietly for a while with her cheek pressed against Mary’s hand.

“Are you thinking it over?” asked Mary at last, patting her cheek.

“I’m thinking how happy I am,” answered Molly.

“As soon as you are well, then,” went on Mary, rising to go, “you must have an interview with Judith and settle the whole thing.”

Molly smiled up at her friend and squeezed her hand.

There are times when two friends need not speak to express what they think.

“Even if I never win the three golden apples,” she reflected after Mary had gone, “I have won three friends that are as true as gold.”