Then Grace gave a little surprised exclamation. The face turned toward her was that of Mabel Allison, the freshman prize girl. The glare from the neighboring light revealed her tear-swollen eyes and quivering lips.
She gave Grace one long, agonized look, then dropped her head on her arm and sobbed harder than ever.
"Why, Miss Allison, don't cry so," soothed Grace. "Tell me what your trouble is. Perhaps I can be of some service to you. I've wanted to know you ever since you won the freshman prize last June, and so has Anne Pierson. She won the prize the year before, you know."
The girl nodded, but she could not sufficiently control herself to speak.
Grace stood silently waiting until the other should find her voice. A moment more and Mabel Allison began to speak in a plaintive little voice that went straight to Grace's heart:
"You are Grace Harlowe. I believe every girl in Oakdale High School knows you. I have heard so much about you, but I never dreamed that you'd ever speak to me."
"Nonsense," replied Grace, laughing. "I'm just a girl like yourself.
There isn't anything remarkable about me. I'm very glad to know you, Miss Allison, but I am sorry to find you so unhappy. Can't you tell me about it?" she coaxed, sitting down on the bench and slipping one arm around the shabby little figure.
Mabel's lip quivered again. Then she turned impulsively toward Grace and said: "Yes; I will tell you, although no one can help me. I suppose you don't know where I live or anything about me, do you?"
"No," replied Grace, shaking her head, "but I'd be glad to have you tell me."
"Well," continued Mabel, "I'm an orphan, and I live with Miss Brant.
She----"
"Not that horrible, miserly Miss Brant who lives in that ugly yellow house on Elm Street?" interrupted Grace in a horrified tone.
"Yes, she is the one I mean," continued Mabel. "She took me from an orphan asylum two years ago. I hated her the first time I ever saw her, but the matron said I was old enough to work, that I'd have a good home with her and that I should be paid for my work. She promised to send me to school, and I was wild to get a good education, so I went with her.
But she is perfectly awful, and I wish I were dead."
Her voice ended almost in a wail.
"I don't blame you," said Grace sympathetically. "She has the reputation of being one of the most hateful women in Oakdale. I am surprised that she even allows you to go to school."
"That's just the trouble," the girl replied, her voice husky. "She's going to take me out of school. I shall be sixteen next month, and exempt from the school law. So she is going to make me stop school and go to work in the silk mill. I worked there all through vacation last summer, and she took every cent of my wages. She took my freshman prize money, too."
"What a burning shame!" exclaimed Grace indignantly. "Haven't you any relatives at all, Miss Allison, or any one else with whom you could stay?"
Mabel shook her head.
"I don't know anything about myself," she said. "I was picked up on the street in New York City when I was three years old, and as no one claimed me, I was put in an orphanage. There was one woman at the orphanage who was always good to me. She remembered the day they brought me, and she said that I was beautifully dressed. She always believed that I had been stolen. She said that I could tell my name, 'Mabel Isabel Allison,' and that I would be three years old in November, but that I couldn't tell where I lived. Whenever they asked me I cried and said I didn't know. She wanted to save my clothes for me, thinking that by them I might some day find my parents, but the matron took them away from her, all but three little gold baby pins marked 'M.I.A.' She hid them away from the matron. When she heard I was to go with Miss Brant, she kissed me, and gave them to me. She was the only person that ever cared for me."
The tears stood in Grace's eyes.
"You poor, little thing!" she cried. "I care for you, and I'm going to see if I can do something for you. You shan't stop school if I can help it. I can't stay with you any longer, just now, because I am going to Miss Bright's and I am late. It is eight o'clock, you see."
The girl gave a little cry of fright.
"Oh, I didn't think it was so late. I know Miss Brant will be very angry. She will probably beat me. I am still carrying the marks from the last whipping she gave me. She sent me out on an errand, but I felt as though I must be alone, if only for a few minutes. That's why I stopped in the square."
"Beat you!" exclaimed Grace. "How dare she touch you? Why, I never had a whipping in my life! I won't keep you another minute, but wait for me outside the campus when school is out to-morrow. I wish to talk further with you."
"I'll come," promised Mabel, her face lighting up. Then she suddenly threw both arms around Grace's neck and said, "I do love you, and I feel that some one cares about me at last." Then, like a flash, she darted across the square and was soon lost to Grace's view.
"Well, of all things!" Grace remarked softly to herself. "I think it's high time we organized a sorority for the purpose of aiding girls in distress."
"You're a prompt person. Did you really decide to come?" were the cries that greeted her from the porch as she opened the Bright's gate.
"Save your caustic comments," said Grace as she handed Jessica her hat.
"I have a tale to tell."
"Out with it!" was the cry, and the girls surrounded Grace, who began with her meeting with David, and ended with the story of Mabel Allison.
"You haven't heard anything of those boys yet, have you?" she asked when she had finished.
"Not yet," said Nora, "but never fear, the night is yet young."
"Where is Eleanor Savell?" asked Grace, noticing for the first time that Eleanor was not present. "You promised to go for her, didn't you, Anne?"
"I did go," replied Anne, "but she wouldn't come. She said she'd come sometime when she felt like it. She was playing on the violin when the maid let me in, and how she can play! She wanted me to stay there with her and didn't seem to understand why I couldn't break my engagement with you girls. She said that she always kept her engagements unless the spirit moved her to do something else."
"Is Eleanor Savell the girl who comes into the study hall every morning after opening exercises have begun?" asked Marian Barber.
"Yes," Grace answered. "I forgot for a moment that you and Eva and Miriam hadn't met her. She is really very charming, although her ideas about punctuality and school rules are somewhat hazy as yet. She lives at 'Heartsease,' Mrs. Gray's property. I am disappointed because she will not be here to-night. She seemed delighted when I asked her to join our society."
"As long as we know she isn't coming, don't you think we should begin the initiation?" asked Nora. "It is after eight o'clock and we can't stay out too late, you know."
"Very well," said Grace. "Blindfold the candidates."
The three girls meekly submitted to the blindfolding, and the chums were about to lead them to the initiation chamber, when the ringing of the door bell caused them to start.
"It's David and the boys," said Jessica. "Shall I tell them that they can't come in?"
"Of course," responded Nora. "You and Grace go to the door, while Anne and I stay here with our victims. Be careful they don't play you a trick."
The two girls cautiously approached the door, opening it very slowly, and saw--not the three boys--but Eleanor. She smiled serenely and said: "Good evening. I decided, after all, that I would come."
"Come right in," said Jessica cordially. "I am so glad you changed your mind and came. The initiation is about to begin. Have you ever belonged to a secret society?"
"Never," replied Eleanor. "But now that I'm here, I am willing to try it."
"Come this way."
"Girls," said Grace, addressing the three blindfolded girls, "this is Eleanor Savell. You can't see her yet, but you may all shake hands with her. She is to be your companion in misery."
Eleanor laughed, shook hands with the others and graciously allowed Nora to tie a handkerchief over her eyes.
"All ready! March!" called Grace, and the eight girls solemnly proceeded to the initiation chamber.
CHAPTER V