as 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 i
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