friends waiting anxiously
outside the booth. She pretended to be writing something on the
telephone pad with a stubby pencil tied to a string, until she recovered
her composure.

"What's the matter?" demanded the two girls as she emerged from the
booth.

"It was just a long distance from Richard Blount," said Molly, not
knowing what else to say.

"I didn't know you had asked him to go to the Glee Club concert," said
Nance.

"He can't go," Molly replied quickly, relieved that they had been
willing to accept this explanation.

"I should think he couldn't," put in Judy, in a low voice. "Mamma has
just written me such news about the Blounts. The letter came by the late
mail and I didn't have a chance to read it until a little while ago. Mr.
Blount has failed and gone away, no one knows where. They thought they
could pay off his creditors and his family found that he had mortgaged
all his property and there wasn't any money left."

In the dimly-lighted corridor the girls had not noticed that Molly had
turned perfectly white and was clasping and unclasping her hands
convulsively in an effort to retain her self-control.

"No money left?" she repeated in a low voice.

"Not a cent," said Judy. "Papa knows because he had some friends who
lost money in a mine or something Mr. Blount owned."

"Poor Judith," observed Nance. "Do you suppose she hasn't been told?"

"Of course not. She wouldn't be flaunting around here to-night if she
knew her family were in trouble."

"How strange for us to know and for her not to!" pursued Nance.

"It isn't generally known. Mamma says the papers haven't got hold of it
yet, and I'm not to tell. You see mamma and I met Judith Blount one
afternoon at a matinee just before college opened. That's why she was
interested, because she remembered that Judith was Mr. Blount's
daughter."

All this time Molly's mind was busy working out the problem of how to
remain at college without any money. Of course, the Blounts couldn't pay
their father's debts on nothing, although Richard Blount had told her
not to worry. The family would have to move out of their old home, she
supposed, and take a small house in town, and everybody would have to
just turn in and go to work. Oh, why had her mother heeded the advice
of old Colonel Gray? He had assured her that she would make at least
fifteen thousand from the money invested, while he, poor man, had
squandered his entire inheritance in the enterprise, just