Callers came in through the afternoon to welcome back to Wellington the popular wife of the popular professor and to glimpse the new baby. Kind Mrs. McLean, the wife of the doctor, a little older than when last we saw her but showing it only in her whitening hair and not at all in her upright carriage and British complexion, stopped in “just for a moment” to be picked up later by the doctor on his way to a country patient. Miss Walker herself, the busy president of Wellington, ran in from the meeting of the faculty to greet her one time pupil and to give one kiss to the college baby. Several of the seniors, who were freshmen when Molly was still at college as post graduate and who had the delight of calling her Molly while most of the others had to say Mrs. Green, came in fresh from a game of basketball, glowing with health and enthusiasm.

While these friends were all gathered about Molly and the baby, Alice Fern, Edwin Green’s cousin, driving in to Wellington in a very stylish new electric car, stopped to make a fashionable call on her law kin. She had never forgiven Molly for stealing (as she expressed it) Edwin’s affections. She was still Miss Fern, and although she was possessed of beauty and intelligence, it was likely that she would remain Miss Fern. Molly was never very much at her ease with Alice. She was particularly sensitive to any feeling of dislike entertained toward her, and Edwin’s cousin always made her feel that she disapproved of her in some way.

The living room in the broad old red brick house on the campus, occupied by the professor of English, was a pleasant room, breathing of the tastes and pursuits of the owners. Low bookshelves were in every nook and cranny, filled with books, the shelves actually sagging with them. Botticelli’s Primavera, a present from Mary Stewart, adorned one wall; Mathew Jouette’s portrait of Molly’s great grandmother, a wedding present from Aunt Clay, another. This was the portrait that looked so much like Molly and also like the Marquise d’OchtÈ, between whom and Aunt Sarah Clay there was no love lost; indeed, it was this likeness that had induced Aunt Clay to part with such a valuable work of art. The other pictures were some dashing, clever sketches by Judy Kean, and Pierce Kinsella’s very lovely portrait of Mrs. Brown, that had won honorable mention at the Salon and then had been sent by the young artist to adorn Molly’s home. On the whole, it was a very satisfactory and tastefully furnished room and Molly and Edwin always declared they could talk better and think better in that room than in any they had ever seen.

On that first day home, Molly was a little conscious of the fact that the room needed a thorough cleaning, not the scrubbing that Katy was so desirous of administering, but just a good thorough cleaning. However, she was so glad to see her friends again and so proud of showing her wonderful baby to them that the cleaning seemed of small importance.

“I’ll dust all the books to-morrow,” she said to herself, “and have Katy wipe down the walls, polish the glass on the pictures, and above all, wash the windows.”

She well knew that Miss Walker and dear Mrs. McLean were not noticing such things, or, if they did, they would make all excuses. As for the college girls—dirt was not what they came to see. They came to see the lovely Molly and her adorable baby. If the walls were festooned with cobwebs, why that was the way walls should be in the home of a learned professor of English, who had written several books, besides the libretto to a successful opera, and who was married to a beautiful Titian-haired girl who was also a genius in her way, having been accepted in magazines when she was not even out of college. What did they care for dust on the books and smeary window panes? Molly was so popular with the college girls that in their eyes she was perfection itself.

Alice Fern’s entrance broke up the cheerful group gathered around Molly and the rosy Mildred. Miss Walker suddenly remembered that she had an important engagement and hurried off, and Mrs. McLean, who made no endeavor to hide her impatience at Miss Fern’s exceeding smugness, went outside to wait for the doctor. The girls stayed, however, hoping to sit out the unwelcome interrupter.

These girls were favorites of Molly’s. The harum scarum Billie McKym from New York reminded her in a way of her own Judy, although no one else could see it. Josephine Crittenden, Tom boy of college and leader in all sports, hailed from Kentucky, and being a distant relative of Crittenden Rutledge, Mildred Brown’s husband, was of course taken immediately under the wing of the loyal Molly. She had what she called a crush on Molly, and not a little did she amuse that young matron, as well as annoy her, by her gifts of flowers and candy.

The third girl was from the West. Thelma Olsen was her name, and although her family had been in America for three generations, Thelma had inherited the characteristics of a Viking maiden along with the name. She was very tall, with an excellent figure and the strength of a man. Her hair was as yellow as gold and her eyes as blue as corn flowers. She moved with dignity, holding her head up like a queen. Her expression was calm and kindly. She had, in very truth, worked her way through college, which of course appealed to Molly, remembering well her own boot blacking days and her many schemes for making a few pennies. But what most touched our Molly was the fact that Thelma had a writing bee in her bonnet. The girl had an instinct for literature and a longing for expression that must come out. Professor Green thought very highly of her gift for prose and did much to encourage her.

These three girls formed a strange trio, but they were inseparable, having roomed together since their freshman year. Billie was very rich in her own name, since she was an orphan with nothing closer than a guardian and an aunt-in-law. Money meant no more to her than black-eyed peas. She was intensely affectionate and where she loved, she loved so fiercely that it positively hurt, she used to say. She was witty and clever but not much of a student, as is often the case where learning comes too easily. She was so generous it was embarrassing to her friends. Her talent lay in clothes. She knew more about clothes than Paquin and Doucet and all the others. It positively hurt her when her friends did not wear becoming clothes, just as it hurt her when she loved them so hard. The object of her life was to clothe her dear friend Thelma in dark blue velvet. Thelma was too proud to be clothed in anything that she had not paid for herself, and the consequence was that coarse blue serge was as near as she came to poor Billie’s dream.

Alice Fern seated herself on the front of a chair with very much of a lady-come-to-see expression and then formally entered into a conversation, going through the usual questions about when Molly had arrived and how old the baby was, polite inquiries regarding the relatives in Kentucky, etc.

Molly was eager to get into the kitchen just for a moment to start Katy on the right track, well knowing that nothing would be doing until she did, but Alice Fern’s arrival made that impossible. She would not in the least have minded excusing herself for a moment to the girls, but if Edwin Green had to wait until midnight for his dinner, she could not be guilty of such a breach of etiquette with the cousin-in-law, whose disapproval she felt was ever on the alert for a raison d’Être. A leg of lamb, and well grown lamb at that, must have plenty of time and the oven must be hot (something Katy knew nothing about), but the wife of Professor Green must not let his relatives know that she was such a poor manager as to have to leave the parlor to attend to cooking at a time in the afternoon when callers were supposed to be doing their calling.

Alice Fern was really a very pretty young woman, and since she had nothing to do but attend to her person, she was always excellently well groomed. No blemish was allowed on her faultless complexion from sun or wind. An hour a day was religiously given up to massage and manicure. Her hair was always coiffed in the latest mode, and not one lock was ever known to be out of place. Her costume was ever of the richest and most stylish.

On that afternoon, as she rode up in her closed electric car, dressed in a fawn-colored suit with spotless white gloves and spats, she really looked like a beautiful wax figure in a showcase. Beside her, poor Molly looked like a rumpled Madonna. She had on a very becoming blue linen house dress that she had donned as not only suitable for possible callers but also not too pure or good in which to cook her husband’s food. The baby had delighted the admiring audience, before the arrival of Miss Fern, by clutching a handful of her mother’s pretty hair and having to have her little pink fingers opened one by one to disengage them. No doubt it was a highly intelligent and charming performance, but it had played sad havoc with Molly’s hair.

“We are so glad you are back, Molly, for more reasons than one,” exclaimed Jo Crittenden, hoping to loosen the tension a little, when Alice had completed her perfunctory catechism. “When are you going to begin the Would-be Authors’ Club?”

“Oh, do begin soon!” begged Billie. “Thelma has turned out some scrumptious bits during vacation, and even I have busted loose on paper.”

“Yes, I have written a lot this summer,” said Thelma, as Molly smiled on her. “Have you done anything, or has the baby kept you too busy?”

“Oh, I had plenty of time while I was in Kentucky. You see, out there I have a very good servant and then my mother helps me with Mildred. I have finished a short story and sent it off. Of course, I am expecting it back by every mail.”

“I should think your household cares would prevent your giving much time to scribbling,” sniffed Alice, if one could call the utterances of such an elegant dame sniffing.

“Scribbling! Why, Mrs. Green has written real things and been in real magazines,” stormed Billie.

“Ah, indeed!”

“Yes, and if we had not limited the Would-be Authors to twenty, we would have the whole of Wellington clamoring to join,” declared Jo, who considered it was high time for a perfect gentleman to step in and let Miss Alice Fern know how Wellington felt toward Mrs. Edwin Green.

Miss Fern said nothing but stared at the corner of the room that Edwin and Molly called: “The Poet’s Corner.” It was where all the poetry, ancient, medieval and modern, found shelf room. Over it hung Shakespeare’s epitaph, a framed rubbing from the tomb, the same that Edwin had always kept over his desk in his bachelor days to scare his housekeeper, Mrs. Brady, into sparing his precious papers.

She kept her eyes so glued to the spot over the book shelves that finally all turned involuntarily to see what she was gazing on so intently. There it hung! There was no denying it or overlooking it: a great black cobweb that must have been there for several generations of spiders. No doubt it had taken all summer to weave such a mighty web and catch and hold so much grime.

Molly blushed furiously. For a moment, she almost hated Katy and she wholly hated Alice Fern. That elegant damsel had a supercilious expression on her aristocratic countenance that said as plainly as though she had given utterance to her thoughts:

“Author’s Club, indeed! She had much better clean her house.”

Molly was suddenly conscious that every corner was festooned with similar webs. The late afternoon sun was slanting in the windows and its searching rays had found and were showing up every grain of dust. The panes of glass were, to say the least, grimy.

“Oh!” she faltered, “I didn’t know it was so—so—dusty in here. Katy, the new maid, was supposed to have cleaned it before I came.”

“What do you care for a few Irishman’s curtains?” said the hero-worshipping Billie. “No one noticed them until—ahem—until the sun came in the window.” She said sun came in the window but she plainly meant Fern came in the door.

“I haven’t had time to do much housekeeping since I got back,” continued Molly, lamely. “The new maid, Katy, that Edwin got from New York, is most inefficient but so good-natured that I am hoping to train her. The truth of the matter is that she and I spent the whole morning doing things for Mildred and we let the house go. I am going to have a big cleaning to-morrow.”

Molly felt like weeping with mortification and she began to hate herself for making explanations and excuses to Alice Fern. Even if she kept Professor Green’s house festooned in cobwebs from attic to cellar and had dust over everything thick enough to write your name, what business was it of this perfect person? She suddenly realized, too, that that perfect person had never uttered a word although she had looked volumes.

Miss Fern arose from her prim seat and made a rather hasty retreat. The relieved Molly excused herself to the girls and rushed to the kitchen to start Katy on the dinner that should have been on half an hour before. What was her chagrin to find the fire only just kindled, as Katy had let it go out so that she might polish the stove. The Irish girl was on her knees “scroobing,” happy in a sea of soap suds.

Molly almost had hysterics. How could she ever get things done? Edwin would be home any moment now and she could not stand having a miserable underdone dinner for him, nor could she stand having his dinner hours late. She realized that there was no use in reprimanding Katy,—the girl was simply ignorant. She asked her gently to postpone her “scroobing” until later and to wash her hands and prepare the vegetables. Then she piled kindling wood in the range until the chimney roared so that Katy said it sounded like a banshee. The oven must be hot for the roast.

“I tell you what to do, Katy: make some tea immediately and slice some bread quite thin, open this box of peanut cookies, and we will have such a grand tea that the master won’t be hungry until the roast is done.”

“And phwat a schmart trick!” laughed the girl.

When Miss Fern made her adieux, Molly had flown so quickly to the kitchen that she had not seen her husband crossing the campus. Alice Fern had seen him, however, and her greeting of him was so warm and friendly, her smile so charming and her manner so cordial that she hardly seemed the same person who had just left poor Molly stuttering and stammering apologies over her Irishman’s curtains.

“Look at the pill!” exclaimed Jo. “She is about to eat up EpimÉnides Antinous Green.” That was the name Professor Green was known by at Wellington.

“Did you ever see any one cast such a damper over a crowd without saying a single word? I thought Molly was going to cry,” declared Billie.

“I think our friend is looking very tired,” said Thelma. “I wish we could do something for her. She says this new maid is almost worse than none at all.”

“I’ve got a scheme!” squealed Billie. “I know of a way to help. Gather ’round me, girls!” And then such another whispering as went on in the house—while Molly behaved like triplets in the kitchen, being in at least three places at one time in her determination to get dinner on the stove. Mildred lay on the divan, happy with her newly found toes, and Edwin helped Alice Fern into her glass show case.

“I appreciate your coming to see my wife so soon, Alice. I should so like to have you and Molly be close friends.”

“Thank you, Edwin, I am sure nothing would please me more. You must bring Molly out to see us.” Could this be the same person who had made the living room look so dusty and ill kempt only a few minutes before, this gracious, charming, sweet, friendly creature, who doted on babies? She had paid no attention to Mildred except to give her a tentative poke with her daintily gloved finger, but to hear her conversation with Edwin, one would have gathered that she was a supreme lover of children.

The girls would not stay to tea, although Molly pressed them, but full of some scheme, they hurried off.

Dinner was not so very late, after all, and the tea and bread and peanut cookies saw to it that the professor was not too hungry before the leg of lamb had reached the proper stage of serving. Molly was too much of a culinary artist not to feel elated when things turned out right, which they usually did if she could get her finger in the pie. The day had been a very trying one for her. The sleepless night had left her little strength to grapple with it and the slow stupidity of Katy was very irritating. It was over at last, however, and dear little Mildred had decided to let her pigs rest and had gone quietly to sleep at the proper time that a well-trained infant should. Edwin was smoking his after-dinner pipe and everything was very peaceful and pleasant. Molly was trying to keep her eyes open, ashamed to confess that she was so sleepy she could hardly see.

She lay back in the easy chair while Edwin read aloud from his scrap book of fugitive verse. This scrap book Professor Green had started when he was in college, putting in only the rare, fine things he found in magazine reading. Molly had helped him in his collecting and now the volume was assuming vast proportions.

Suddenly Molly’s upturned eyes rested on the terrible cobweb that had been her Waterloo of the afternoon. How black and threatening it looked! She hoped Edwin would not see it. And the books! Actually you had to open one and beat it and blow it before you dared begin to read. All this must be cleaned to-morrow and oh, how tired she was!

“Did not Alice look lovely this afternoon?” said Edwin, stopping his reading for a moment. “I hope you and she are going to be great friends. I think it was very nice for her to come so soon to call on you. She spoke so sweetly of the baby, too.”

Molly said nothing but gazed at the cobweb. She said nothing but she did some thinking:

“Molly Brown, what right have you, just because you are tired and Alice Fern came to call on you, looking very pretty and very beautifully dressed, and found you all frumpy and your living room looking like a pig sty, what right have you, I say, to sulk? Now you answer your husband and tell him Alice was pretty and don’t tell him anything else.” Accordingly, after giving herself the mental chastisement, Molly emitted a faint:

“Yes, very pretty!” But it was so faint and so far away that Edwin looked at her in alarm, and then it was that she could stand nothing more and broke down and shed a few tears.

“Why, Molly, my dearest girl, what is the matter?”

“Nothing, but I am tired and everything is so dirty. Look at the cobwebs! Look at the dust on the books! Look at me! I am an old frowsy, untidy frump.”

“You! Why, honey, you are always lovely. As for dust—don’t bother about that. Let me read you this wonderful little poem by Gertrude Hall. I clipped it years ago.”

Professor Green saw that Molly was tired and unstrung and he well knew that nothing soothed her more than poetry. Of course, man-like, he had no idea that what he had said about Alice Fern’s looking so sweet had been too much for her, as she had contrasted herself all the afternoon with her husband’s immaculate cousin. Molly wiped away the foolish tears as Edwin read the poem.

“THE DUST.

By Gertrude Hall.

“It is lovely, exquisite!” breathed Molly. “I don’t feel nearly so bad about it as I did.”

But she did wish that Alice Fern had not seen that black, black cobweb.