“I thought I left it open,” mused Grace, “but I might have unconsciously pulled it to.”

“It is very strange,” replied Anne, in whose mind a vague suspicion had taken root.  Then she made a mental resolve to do a little private investigating on her own account.

When Grace reached home that night she found two boxes awaiting her.

“Oh, what can they be?” she cried in great excitement, for it was not every day that she found two imposing packages on the hall table, at the same time, addressed to her.

“Open them and see, little daughter,” replied Grace’s father, pinching her unscratched cheek.

The one was a large box of candy from her classmates, the contents of which they helped to devour the next day.

The other box held a bunch of violets and lilies of the valley.  In this were two cards, “Mrs. Robert Nesbit” and “Mr. David Nesbit.”

“Poor old David!” thought Grace, as she buried her nose in the violets.  “He is trying to atone for Miriam’s sins.”

CHAPTER XX

A PIECE OF NEWS

After the excitement of the famous game came a great calm.  The various teachers privately congratulated themselves on the marked improvement in lessons, and were secretly relieved with the thought that basketball was laid on the shelf for the rest of the school year.

Miriam Nesbit left Oakdale for a visit the Monday after the game, and did not return for two weeks.  The general opinion seemed to be that she was ashamed of herself; but the expression on her face when she did return was not indicative of either shame or humility.  She was more aggressive than before, and looked as though she considered the whole school far beneath her.  She refused to even nod to Grace, Nora, Anne or Jessica, while Julia Crosby remarked with a cheerful grin that she guessed Miriam had forgotten that they had ever been introduced.

During the Easter holidays, Tom Gray came down and his aunt gave a dinner to her “adopted children” in honor of her nephew.  Nora gave a fancy dress party to about twenty of her friends, while Grace invited the seven young people to a straw ride and a moonlight picnic in Upton Wood.

The days sped swiftly by, and spring came with her wealth of bud and bloom.  During the long, balmy days Grace inwardly chafed at schoolbooks and lessons.  She wanted to be out of doors.  As she sat trying to write a theme for her advanced English class, one sunny afternoon during the latter part of April, she glanced frequently out the window toward the golf links that lay just beyond the High School campus.  How she wished it were Saturday instead of only Wednesday.  That very day she had arranged to play a game of golf with one of the senior class girls, who had made a record the previous year on the links.  Grace felt rather flattered at the notice of the older girl, who was considered particularly exclusive, and rarely if ever paid any attention to the lower class girls.  She had accidentally learned that Grace was an enthusiastic golfer, and therefore lost no time in asking her to play.