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diff --git a/old/68551-0.txt b/old/68551-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e33c072..0000000 --- a/old/68551-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7711 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Betty Wales & Co., by Margaret Warde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Betty Wales & Co. - A story for girls - -Author: Margaret Warde - -Illustrator: Eva M. Nagel - -Release Date: July 18, 2022 [eBook #68551] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (The New York Public Library's - Digital Collections) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES & CO. *** - - - -[Illustration: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”] - - - - - BETTY WALES - & CO. - - A STORY FOR GIRLS - - _by_ - - MARGARET WARDE - - AUTHOR OF - - BETTY WALES FRESHMAN - BETTY WALES SOPHOMORE - BETTY WALES JUNIOR - BETTY WALES SENIOR - BETTY WALES B.A. - - ILLUSTRATED BY - EVA M NAGEL - - THE PENN - PUBLISHING COMPANY - PHILADELPHIA - MCMIX - - - - - COPYRIGHT - 1909 BY - THE PENN - PUBLISHING - COMPANY - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -MANY of the girls who will read this book have already made the -acquaintance of Betty Wales, and know all about her adventures at -Harding College, from her rollicking freshman days to the time when -she was a “grave and reverend senior”--and was always being mistaken -for a freshman, nevertheless. Mary Brooks graduated from Harding a -year before Betty, and she always considered that this gave her the -privilege of patronizing her friends in 19--, Betty’s class. Madeline -joined 19-- in its sophomore year, and Babbie Hildreth (she and her -friends Babe and Bob were known collectively as the three B’s) was -another of the shining lights of that famous class. She and Madeline -and Betty planned the tea-room, though only in fun, during a trip -abroad that came as a grand finale to their college days. You can read -all about that in “Betty Wales, B. A.,” which also tells about Mary -Brooks’s “impromptu” wedding. But you will have to go back to “Betty -Wales, Senior,” to find out how Mary’s “little friends” discovered -that she was interested in Professor Hinsdale. There are a lot of other -things that you will want to know about Betty and her friends--if you -like them--in “Betty Wales, Freshman,” “Betty Wales, Sophomore,” and -“Betty Wales, Junior.” - - MARGARET WARDE. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - I. UNPLEASANT DISCOVERIES 9 - II. BETTY WALES, “M. A.” 24 - III. THAT TEA-ROOM AGAIN 39 - IV. PLANS AND PARTIES 56 - V. THE REAL THING 74 - VI. EUGENIA FORD’S LUNCHEON 97 - VII. MARY, THE PERFECT PATRON 113 - VIII. YOUNG-MAN-OVER-THE-FENCE 128 - IX. AN ORDER FOR A PARTY 145 - X. UNEXPECTED VISITORS 162 - XI. THE ADVENT OF THE PLOSHKIN 181 - XII. A TRAGIC DISAPPEARANCE 198 - XIII. MORE “SIDE-LINES” 221 - XIV. THE REVOLT OF THE “WHY-GET-UPS” 236 - XV. A SEA OF TROUBLES 252 - XVI. THE MYSTERY SOLVED 270 - XVII. A MAGNATE TO THE RESCUE 291 - XVIII. A ROMANCE AND A BURGLARY 307 - XIX. THE AMAZING MR. SMITH AND OTHER AMAZEMENTS 329 - XX. A FINAL EXCITEMENT 346 - - - - -Illustrations - - - PAGE - - “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” _Frontispiece_ - “HOW ARE WE GOING TO WORK?” 62 - SHE STOPPED THE GIRLS AS THEY WENT OUT 117 - “THIS TEA-SHOP CLOSES AT SIX” 148 - TRUE STORIES OF DOLLS 190 - THEY INTERCEPTED THE PRESIDENT 303 - “COME ALONG NOW” 325 - -Betty Wales & Co. - - - - -Betty Wales & Co. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -UNPLEASANT DISCOVERIES - - -“THE very loveliest part of going abroad is coming home again!” laughed -Betty Wales, trying to kiss her mother, hug the smallest sister, and -rush into her father’s outstretched arms all at one and the same -minute. Fortunately Will and Nan had had their turns at the station, -and the smallest sister’s kitten had run away at the critical moment; -otherwise matters would have been hopelessly complicated. - -“I hope you’ll always feel just that way, dear,” said Mrs. Wales. - -“We’re mighty glad to have you back, child,” added father, with a queer -little catch in his merry voice. - -“Have you got anything for me in your trunk, Betty?” demanded the -smallest sister, who was a very practical young person. - -“Lots of things, dear,” Betty assured her gaily, “and something for the -kitten, even if she isn’t here to say ‘how do you do’ to me.” - -“We’ll have dinner first,” mother insisted laughingly. - -“And then we’ll all sit around in an expectant circle and watch Betty -unpack,” added Nan. - -“I’ve stopped being expectant since I’ve heard the news,” put in Will. -“She’s brought back money. How’s that, dad, for one of the Wales -family?” - -“Well, there weren’t any emergencies,” Betty explained earnestly. “So -of course I could save my emergency fund.” - -“Seeing something that she wants in a store-window is Nan’s definition -of an emergency,” declared Will. - -“What’s yours?” retorted Nan. “Besides, haven’t I turned over a new -leaf this month, and isn’t it this very next week that I’m to begin -earning my own bread and butter and jam?” - -“What do you mean, Nan?” demanded Betty in amazement. - -“Oh, your college course and your trip abroad have bankrupted father,” -laughed Nan; and then, seeing Betty’s expression of genuine distress, -“No, dear, only we are an expensive family and hopelessly extravagant, -as Will says, and times are bad. Anyway I’m tired of rushing around, -studying and traveling and amusing myself. So when two of the girls in -my class, who have a school in Boston, offered me a job, I jumped at -it. Don’t you think I’m likely to make a stunning school-ma’am?” - -“Of course,” Betty assured her promptly. “You’re so bright. But I -thought you hated Boston, and you always said that Ethel was so silly -to drudge at teaching when she didn’t need to.” - -“But can’t I change my mind?” asked Nan gaily. - -“I suppose so.” Betty looked in a puzzled way around the family group. -“Only----” - -“Only dinner is ready,” suggested mother again; and all through the -meal the talk was about Betty’s voyage home, with its exciting storm, -and her visit to Harding, with Georgia’s gargoyle party and Mary -Brooks’s absurd methods of housekeeping as main features of interest. -The minute dinner was over the smallest sister caught Betty around the -waist, and whispered something in her ear. - -“All right, dear,” Betty promised. “You shan’t have to wait another -minute to see what I’ve brought you.” And they all, except Will and Mr. -Wales, who preferred the library and the evening papers, adjourned to -Betty’s room to help unpack. - -“Such a mess!” she sighed, as she uncovered the top tray. “You see I -took out some things on shipboard, and then Mary and Roberta and Bob -and Georgia all wanted to see what we’d brought home, and of course -I was in too much of a rush to put things back straight. Besides, it -wasn’t worth while to be particular, when all my clothes need mending -or pressing or something. Move back, little sister, so I can have room -for the Katie pile. It’s going to be about all Katie pile, I’m afraid.” - -“Is the Katie pile what you want Katie to fix in the sewing-room?” -inquired the smallest sister. “Because we haven’t got Katie any more, -so you’ll have to call it something else.” - -“Haven’t got Katie any more!” Betty’s face wore an expression of blank -amazement. “Has Katie left?” - -“I thought we could get on without her,” Mrs. Wales explained hastily. -“I have so little to do, now that my girls are all grown up. Dorothy is -going to help me mend stockings this winter, aren’t you, dear?” - -The smallest sister nodded impressively. “I’ll help you mend your Katie -pile too, Betty. Katie has gone to the Elingwoods’ to live, and she -likes it, but she says it’s not the same thing, and when times are -better she’ll be glad of it, because then she’ll come right back here.” - -“You see it’s this queer horrid panic, Betty,” Nan explained. “Father -hasn’t actually lost much, I imagine; but business is bad, and so we’re -trying to economize.” - -“And you never told me!” Betty looked reproachfully at her mother. - -Mrs. Wales laughed. “No, dear. Why should we? Anyway it’s all come up -lately, since we got back from the shore. Even now there’s really -nothing to tell, except that everybody is talking hard times and -father’s business is dull. I’m very sorry it happened this season, -because I meant you to be very gay your first winter at home, and now -we can’t do much formal entertaining.” - -Betty’s face clouded as she remembered a house-party she had planned -for the “Merry Hearts.” Luckily, she hadn’t mentioned it; it was to -have been a grand surprise to everybody. Then a horrible thought swept -everything else out of her head. - -“Oh, mother dear,” she began, “perhaps I ought to teach too, like Nan. -I don’t believe I could, ever in the world, but I suppose every college -girl ought to be able to, and I could try.” - -“Betty Wales,” mother ordered solemnly, “unpack your trunk just enough -to satisfy Dorothy’s curiosity, and then go to bed. You’re worn out, -and as nervous as a witch. Just because I’ve decided not to keep a -seamstress in the house this winter, and Nan is tired of society and -jumps at an excuse to do a little teaching, you decide that the family -is on the way to the poorhouse.” - -“It isn’t only that----” Betty stopped. She had started to say that -father looked worried, and didn’t joke back at all when you teased -him; but perhaps that only seemed so to-night because she was fatigued -herself from too much gaiety at Harding. - -So she hunted out six assorted neck-bows for the gray kitten, six hair -ribbons from Paris for the kitten’s small mistress, a Dutch doll, and -a long chain strung with tiny silver charms, each with a story of -its own; and having assured the smallest sister that this was only a -beginning of the treasures she might expect, Betty went to bed and -dreamed that she had lost her emergency fund under the teacher’s desk -in Nan’s schoolroom, and had to teach a class in senior “English -Lit.” before she could get it back. But she couldn’t remember when -Shakespeare was born, and the girls stood up on their desks and waved -their handkerchiefs and screamed, and she waved too, because it was -the Harvard-Cambridge boat race on the Thames. No, it was brother Will -calling her to breakfast, and little Dorothy saying in a sepulchral -whisper, “Oh, hush, Will! Mother said Betty was to sleep over.” - -“Coming! Wouldn’t sleep over for anything!” Betty called back, making a -rush for her bath. - -It was such a jolly day. People kept dropping in to say welcome home, -and to tease Nan about her “latest fad,” as everybody called it. In the -evening there was a regular party of Betty’s and Will’s friends on the -big piazza, and before it was over Betty had promised to help at six -“coming-out” teas, take part in one play, be on the committee to get up -another, join a morning French class and a reading-club, and consider -taking a cross-country ride every Saturday afternoon as long as the -good weather lasted. - -Up-stairs in her room she took down the rose-colored satin dress she -had bought in Paris, and examined it approvingly. But one simply -couldn’t wear the same thing at six receptions. There was her -graduating dress, of course, but styles had changed frightfully since -spring. If only Katie were here to use her magic touch on the pink lace -evening gown that Bob had stepped on at class-supper! - -“I never can mend it myself!” sighed Betty. “I shall need another -afternoon dress anyway, and a suit, and I did want a new riding habit. -Mine is horribly rusty. I wonder how careful about money we’ve got to -be. And I wonder if Will thought to bolt the piazza door.” - -She slipped on a kimono and crept softly down the stairs, a slim, -golden-haired ghost in a trailing robe of silk and lace. Will hadn’t -locked the door. And there was a light in the library, though it was -long after midnight. - -“It’s Nan, probably, reading up things to teach. I’ll go in and bother -her and make her come to bed.” - -But it wasn’t Nan. It was father, poring over a big sheet of paper -scrawled full of tiny figures. Betty closed the door after her, crept -quietly across the room, and descended precipitately upon the arm of -her father’s chair. - -“What in the world are you doing here all by yourself at this time of -night, Father Wales?” she demanded gaily. - -Mr. Wales looked up at her, still frowning absently, with a finger on -his place among the figures. “Nothing, daughter; just looking over a -contract that I wanted to do a little estimating on before to-morrow.” - -“But it’s horribly late,” objected Betty. “Think how sleepy you’ll be -in the morning.” - -Mr. Wales smiled faintly. “Shall I? Well, run along to bed, so you -won’t be sleepy too.” And he was back at his figures again. - -Betty watched him for a minute, dropped a kiss on his puckered -forehead, and slipped softly away without a word. - -“He’s just awfully worried,” she reflected, as she went up-stairs. “Nan -and mummy and Will don’t realize how changed he is, because they’ve -been here right along. Why, in these three months he’s a different -person!” She put the rose-colored satin dress carefully back in its -cheese-cloth covering. “I wonder if we’re really going to be poor. Why, -this may be the first and the last Paris gown I shall ever have! I know -one thing. I’m going to talk to father, and make him tell me just how -poor we are now. You can go ahead so much better when you understand -things.” - -But it was such a busy week, what with catching up the threads of -the home life that had been dropped for so long, helping Nan off, and -getting Dorothy started in school, that it slipped by without the talk -that Betty had promised herself. On the evening of Nan’s departure, -however, her opportunity came. Will had an engagement, mother was -tired, and Dorothy very sleepy; so only Mr. Wales and Betty went with -Nan to her train. - -It was a fine September evening, and Betty craftily suggested that -they walk home. The down-town streets were too noisy for serious -conversation, but out on the avenue Betty plunged in at once. - -“Father, you’re awfully worried. Please tell me why.” - -Mr. Wales threw back his head and laughed. “Goodness, Betty, but you -come right to the point! Suppose I deny that ‘awfully.’” - -“You mean because it’s slang?” asked Betty anxiously. “And isn’t it a -good thing to come right to the point?” - -“Wouldn’t that depend on the point, little girl? Suppose it was a point -you had never expected to come to, and didn’t want to come to,--what -then?” - -Betty’s face wore its most intent expression. “But if you had come to -it all the same, father----” - -“Then you’d better get away again as fast as possible, and ask little -girls not to bother their heads about you in the meantime.” Father’s -tone was very brusque and final--the one he used when he meant “no” and -was not going to change his mind, no matter how much you teased. - -“All right, father.” Betty tried not to show that she felt hurt. “I -won’t bother you again. Only I thought that if I understood perhaps -I could help a little. I don’t think mother really knows how much we -ought to try to save this winter, and I’m sure Nan and Will don’t. -You’ve always been so generous and let us have just whatever we wanted. -I want lots of things just now, but I can be happy without them.” Betty -stopped suddenly, not quite sure where she had meant to come out. - -There was a long pause. “Are you quite sure of that--quite sure you can -be happy without them, little girl?” father asked at last. - -“Perfectly sure, if I know I’m helping you out, daddy.” - -“Well, then---- But I can’t have your mother worried, not any more than -she is now at least.” - -“Oh, but I won’t worry her!” Betty promised eagerly. “It will just be a -secret between us two.” - -Mr. Wales smiled at her eagerness. “Not a very agreeable secret, I’m -afraid. Well, then, Betty, if you insist, here it is. My business has -scarcely paid expenses for three months, and a big investment I made -in June is going all wrong. By Christmas time I shall probably know -where I stand. Until then I need every cent of ready money that I can -get hold of, and the more things you can be happy without, the better. -That’s all, I guess.” - -“Th-thank you.” Betty felt as if she had suddenly been plunged up to -her neck in a blinding fog that made all the old familiar landmarks of -life look queer and far away. “It’s rather bad, isn’t it? But I’ll be -very economical, and I’ll think up ways of making the others economical -without their knowing it. And you can have my emergency fund this very -night. That’s ready money. I meant to give it to you before, but----” -There was no use explaining that Nan had said it was foolish to give -the check back, when she would need all of it and more so soon for her -fall wardrobe. - -“Keep it and make it go as far as you can,” father told her. “And don’t -think too much about these business troubles, or I shall be sorry I -confided in you.” - -They were turning in at their own door. “No, you won’t be sorry,” Betty -assured him proudly. “I won’t let you be sorry. Goodness! I see one way -to economize this very minute. Mother’s got dozens of lights turned -on that she doesn’t need.” And she flitted gaily ahead to begin her -economy program. But before she had reached the door, she rushed back -to whisper a last word in her father’s ear. - -“It’s mean not to tell mother too, daddy. We could have so much more -fun over it if we all knew.” - -“Fun over it!” repeated Mr. Wales slowly. “Fun over it!” Then he -reached out and caught Betty in a big hug. “You’re the right sort, -little girl. You stand up and face life with a smile. Keep it up just -as long as you can, child.” - -Betty considered, frowning in her earnestness. “I’ve always had the -smiling kind of life so far, father, haven’t I? But I’ve wished -sometimes that I had to get things for myself, like Helen Adams and -Rachel and K. You know I’ve told you about them, and about K.’s brother -who wants to go to college, and she’s going to help. I shan’t mind a -bit being rather poor--till Christmas,” she added prudently. “Now I’ll -go and turn out the lights and see that Dorothy is all right, and you -be telling mother.” - -But father shook his head. “Not to-night, anyway. You don’t realize the -meaning of all this yet, Betty. When you do, I’m afraid it will look -very different to you.” - -“I won’t let it,” declared Betty eagerly. “I said I’d help, and I will. -Just try me.” - -Betty went to bed with her pretty head in a whirl. This was what they -called being “out in the wide, wide world.” “The real business of life” -that she had talked about so glibly with the B’s and Roberta was going -to begin at last. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -BETTY WALES, “M. A.” - - -THINGS did look different in the morning. Betty sighed a little as -she considered her last winter’s suit, which she had relegated to -the position of a rainy day stand-by, in the light of a “general -utility,”--K.’s delightful name for her one street costume. K. and -Rachel had managed very well with a new suit once in two or three -years. Well, then, so could she, Betty told herself sternly. Just then -Mary Hooper telephoned to know about the Saturday rides. - -“I’m afraid you can’t count on me,” Betty explained to her. “No, I’m -not too busy, Mary, but riding horses are very expensive, and I don’t -believe I can afford it.” - -Mary’s curt, “Oh, very well, I didn’t suppose you had to consider that. -Good-bye, then,” stung a hot blush into Betty’s cheeks. She didn’t care -what Mary Hooper thought of her--yes, she did--well, she wouldn’t any -more. - -That night at dinner mother looked worried, in her turn. - -“My new cook has given notice,” she told the assembled family the first -time the waitress went out of the room, “and I thought she was going to -be such a treasure!” - -“What’s her trouble?” demanded Will gaily. - -“She doesn’t like living where they keep only two maids. Of course it -is difficult to manage, especially with such a big house. Maggie is too -busy sweeping and dusting and answering the bell to help at all in the -kitchen. Yesterday the cook absolutely refused to clean the silver, and -to-night she grumbled about wiping the dishes.” - -“Then have the third maid back, Alice. It was only to be an experiment, -this cutting down household expenses. I simply won’t have you worried.” -Father’s voice sounded impatient, because he felt so very unhappy. - -“I don’t know how I can help worrying when everything goes wrong, and -I understood that it was absolutely necessary to cut down expenses.” -Mother’s voice sounded stiff and unsympathetic, because father didn’t -realize how glad she had been to do her part. - -Then in a flash everything came out. “If it wasn’t absolutely necessary -to retrench when we talked things over, it certainly is now,” father -began abruptly; “my New York broker has disappeared. It seems he’s been -on the wrong side of the market lately, and to help himself out he’s -been borrowing the securities that his customers had left on deposit -with him. That means that a good many thousands of my money have gone, -with practically no hope of recovery. I’d been holding that stock as -a last reserve. I’m afraid this spells ruin.” Father pushed back his -plate, and got up from the table. - -“Please don’t go, father,” begged little Dorothy solemnly, catching at -his coat tails. “Are we going to be really and truly poor? Because if -we aren’t going to have enough to eat by and by, we ought not to waste -to-night’s dinner, that’s all cooked.” - -Mr. Wales laughed in spite of himself; and then, because Maggie was -coming back with the salad, he sat down again, and somehow, between -silence and conversation about the weather, dinner was finished. - -Afterward Betty got Will and Dorothy down in the furthest corner of -the lawn with the gray kitten, so that mother and father, up on the -piazza, could talk things over and come to an understanding. - -“Tell me, Betty, are we going to be really and truly poor?” little -Dorothy demanded. But when Betty kissed her and said no, not really -hungry and ragged, she was quite ready to forget all about it and -devote herself to teaching the gray kitten to climb trees. That left -Will and Betty free to discuss the family crisis. - -“I shall take that job Cousin Joe West offered me out at his shops,” -Will declared. “He’s awfully fussy, and father says he works his men -to death. That’s why I didn’t go last June. Father thought he could -certainly get me something better by fall, but nothing has turned up -yet, and if I go with Joe that will be one thing off father’s mind.” - -Betty sighed. “It’s so easy to be poor if you’re a boy. You’ll be -earning your own living----” - -“I suppose a fellow can live on what I’ll earn, if he has to,” -interrupted Will, making a wry face. - -“And I shall have to spend father’s money just as usual, only not so -much of it. Oh, dear, I wish I was bright enough to teach, like Nan!” - -“A penny saved is a penny earned,” quoted Will sagely. “Nan will never -save a penny, that’s one thing sure. I say, didn’t we promise the -Benson girls that we’d be over to-night?” - -When the Benson girls accused Betty of being quiet and absent-minded -she laughed at them and asked if she generally monopolized the entire -conversation. But on the way home she confided to Will that she hadn’t -heard a word Sallie Benson had said about the plans for her coming-out -cotillion. For almost the first time in her life, except the night -after her famous runaway in senior year, Betty did not fall asleep the -minute her head touched the pillow. She had promised father to help and -she meant to, as much as ever she could. The hard question was how to -keep her word. - -Next morning she put her plans into action. After breakfast she hunted -up Mrs. Wales, who was in the sewing-room with a huge pile of mending -on the table beside her. Betty heroically helped herself to one of -Will’s stockings, and led up to her errand. - -“When does the cook leave, mother?” - -“This evening, I believe. She’s packing now. I haven’t dared ask her -what she means to do about the breakfast dishes.” Mother laughed -happily. “We had such a nice talk last night, your father and I. I feel -as if I were back in the days when we were first married, and had to -count all the pennies we spent. After all, being poor isn’t so bad as -long as we have each other.” - -Betty nodded sagely. She didn’t want mother to find out that any one -else had been confided in first. “I knew you’d feel so--I mean I think -it’s a lot nicer to know the worst. But are you going to get another -cook?” - -Mrs. Wales nodded. “I told your father that we could get on beautifully -with a general maid, but he insists upon two. He thinks we must keep up -appearances as far as possible, as a sort of business asset.” - -“But a cook doesn’t appear,” Betty suggested. “She’s behind the scenes.” - -“Exactly, and that gives the second maid a chance to be in front of -them. A good many business acquaintances of your father’s come through -the city, and he wants to be able to bring them up to dinner without -worrying about its being properly served.” - -“It would have to be properly cooked too, wouldn’t it?” Betty reflected -solemnly. “Well, anyhow, there’s no harm in telling you what I want. I -want to do the cooking. I hate sweeping and dusting and mending, and -the things I mend are frights. But I love to mess in the kitchen, and -I’ve always wanted a chance to do it without a fussy old cook to glare -at me and make remarks about its being her kitchen, and a lot too full -of people. I don’t know how to make very many things, except salads and -chafing-dish ‘eats,’ but I’m wild to learn. Please let me, mother. How -much does a cook cost?” - -“Eight dollars a week, unless she’s a particularly good cook and gets -ten,” laughed Mrs. Wales. “But you’re absurd, Betty. You don’t realize -how much work it is to cook for a big family like ours. Besides, how -would you manage when we had guests? It would be very awkward.” - -“Oh, I’ve thought that all out,” began Betty eagerly. “I’d wait till -the last minute and then just turn things over to the waitress,--we’d -have to find a very accommodating waitress, of course,--whisk off my -laboratory apron, and appear in the bosom of my family arrayed in my -best dress.” - -Mrs. Wales shook her head. “That sounds very simple, but I’m afraid it -wouldn’t work. You’d be red in the face from bending over the fire, and -your hands would be spoiled. I’m sorry, dear,” as she noticed Betty’s -expression of disappointment, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to think of -some other more practical ways of saving money.” - -Betty stabbed viciously at the biggest hole in her second stocking. -“All right, mother,” she said at last. “But please don’t say no to my -being cook just until you can find one. You haven’t found one yet, have -you?” - -Mrs. Wales shook her head. “A friend of Maggie’s is coming to see me -this afternoon, but I don’t imagine she’ll do.” - -“Don’t engage her unless she sounds perfectly splendid,” urged Betty, -folding up Will’s stockings and tossing them on top of the pile of -finished mending. - -A few minutes later she danced back, enveloped in a long, checked -gingham apron. “The new cook, mem,” she announced, curtseying gravely. -“And the ould wan is gone, mem, so wad yuz plaze be so kind as to lave -me have the ordhers for the dinner.” - -Betty’s first dinner was a great success. It was agreed not to tell -father and Will who cooked it; and when father praised the roast, and -Will loudly lamented the imminent departure of a cook who could make -such “dandy” lemon ice, Betty blushed pink with pride and pleasure. -Next morning it was only fun to get up early and dress in a hurry. But -the first relay of toast burned up, and the eggs were done too hard, -because the coffee wouldn’t boil at all and then boiled over. Will -grumbled, father read his paper in gloomy silence, and though mother -tried to smooth things over, she wore an “I-told-you-so” expression, -and Betty felt sure she would be on hand to help with the next -breakfast. - -But before that there was luncheon, and Will, who was going out to see -about his new position, announced that he would come home for it. Just -as Betty was putting on her big apron to begin operations, Mary Hooper -rang the bell. Betty discovered that Maggie had said she was at home, -so she slipped off the big apron, and went down. Mary was chairman of -the play committee, and she wanted to get Betty’s ideas about the cast -and the costumes before she called the rest of her committee together. - -“College girls are so clever at plays,” she explained. “I thought you -and I could save a lot of time if we got everything decided beforehand.” - -This wasn’t exactly Betty’s idea of good committee work, but Mary -hadn’t asked her advice on that point, so they set to work. At -half-past twelve Mary discovered that it was raining. - -“How jolly!” she exclaimed. “That lets me out of a tennis match with -the Bensons and Ted Farnum, and we can have the afternoon clear for -this.” - -“Then will you excuse me for a few minutes, Mary?” Betty asked -anxiously. “Our cook has gone, and I’m taking her place. I want to be -sure that you’ll have some luncheon.” - -Mary lifted haughty eyebrows. “Can’t one of the second maids see -to that?” she asked, getting up and going over to the window. “Oh, -well, if it’s going to put you out, I won’t stay. Besides, it looks -clearer already, so we may play tennis after all. Oh, no, thank you, I -shouldn’t think of staying if you’re going to make company of me, as -they say in the country. I remember at my aunt’s in New Hampshire, they -never could have any one for Monday dinner, because it was wash-day. -Well, we’ve got a good deal done. I’ll drop in at Milly’s, perhaps, on -my way home, and see what she thinks about our cast.” - -Without waiting to find her apron, Betty rushed to the kitchen, fully -expecting to find Mrs. Wales and Maggie there, and lunch well under -way,--which would have been rather a disgrace to the young lady who had -begged to be allowed to act as cook, but on the whole a comfortable -arrangement. Instead, however, the kitchen was deserted. - -“Oh, dear!” soliloquized Betty sadly. “I wonder what mother meant to -have. I remember now that she went out. I wonder what there is to have. -Maggie might know--but she probably wouldn’t. I’ll ask her, though, if -she’s down setting the table.” - -Maggie was laying the table, but she had no ideas on the subject of -possible luncheon dishes. So Betty found some eggs, got a chafing-dish -ready, and had all her preparations made for a delicious omelette, when -Will came in, exasperated at Cousin Joe’s fussiness, and very hungry, -and reminded her that he hated eggs. - -“Oh, Will! I’m so sorry! Well, anyhow you love strawberry jam.” - -“Bread and jam aren’t specially filling,” grumbled Will. - -“Couldn’t you begin on that?” suggested Betty bravely. “And in the -meantime I’ll find you something else that is filling.” - -“When are we going to have a cook, anyhow?” demanded Will, when Betty -had taken her seat again, having instructed Maggie to slice some cold -roast beef. - -“When are we going to have an experienced cook, you mean, monsieur,” -Betty corrected him gaily. In the pantry she had decided that she -should probably be cross herself in Will’s place, and had therefore -resolved to take all his faultfinding in good part. “Because at present -you’ve got me, such as I am. Suppose you give me a list of all your -favorite dishes, Will, and I’ll make them, if they aren’t too hard. And -just to relieve your mind I’ll confide to you that mother is hunting -cooks this very morning.” - -That afternoon Betty got a note from Roberta Lewis. - - “I’m considering working for an M. A. at Bryn Mawr,” she wrote. - “Father is away all day, and I don’t know enough people here in - Philadelphia to keep me from getting lonely. Of course in some ways - I should lots prefer going to Harding, but father wouldn’t consent - to that. He wants me here whenever he is at home. We’re getting to - be regular chums. We go to the theatre together, and he always takes - me for supper afterward, because he’s heard that debutantes prefer - theatre-suppers to almost anything. He wanted to have Aunt Nell come - down from New York to help him give a big party for me; but I made - him see how absurd it would be for a staid old lawyer like him and - a quiet, stay-at-home, ’fraid-of-a-man like me, to bother about big - fussy parties. So we just have nice little dinners for father’s old - friends, and next summer he is going to teach me to ride horseback--I - shudder whenever I think of it!--and to play golf, so that we can - enjoy more things together. Write me what you think about the M. A. - - “ROBERTA.” - -Betty scribbled her answer at once. - - “I’m doing an M. A. myself, Roberta dearest. It surprises you to - hear that, doesn’t it? Well, in my case M. A. stands for Mother’s - Assistant, and so far it’s the hardest course I ever took. But if - mother ever finds a good cook--I’m the cook at present, and I should - love it if everything didn’t go wrong--why, perhaps it will be easier. - The other topics in my M. A. are mending and dusting and housekeeping - odds and ends. - - “If I am ever married and have any children, I shall bring them up - to eat whatever there is on the table. Will hates eggs, and loves - apple-pie. Dorothy hates pie and adores ice-cream. Father never eats - ice-cream and likes his steak rare. Mother wants her steak actually - burned, and nothing but crackers and cheese and coffee for desert; and - father loves coffee, but mustn’t drink it. I am just as fussy as any - of them, but I never shall be again. I must stop and get dinner. Pity - the poor cook of this hard-to-suit family! - - “I think it would be grand to be able to write M. A. after your name, - but if you want to really and truly learn something take my kind. - - “Yours, with her sleeves rolled up, - “BETTY.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THAT TEA-ROOM AGAIN - - -BETTY WALES, arrayed in her cook’s regalia, sat by the kitchen table, -one eye on the range, the other on the fly-leaf of the new cook-book -that Will had given her. It was scribbled full of figures, which -Betty added and subtracted and multiplied laboriously, with sighs and -incredulous stares at the distinctly unpleasant results. - -“Three weeks’ hard work, and so far as I can see I’ve saved the family -exactly five dollars and sixty-four cents. And that Vermont maple sugar -is boiling over again!” Betty made a dive for the saucepan in which -she was cooking maple frosting for father’s birthday cake. “If it -tastes burned, what’s left of it, I shall just give up!” she declared -plaintively. - -“Oh, Betty dear!” Dorothy’s shrill voice and pattering footsteps -sounded down the hall. “You aren’t forgetting the kitten’s birthday, -are you?” - -“Of course not,” Betty assured her, tasting the frosting critically. -“She’s to have oysters and whipped cream. By and by you can whip the -cream, dearie, but it’s too soon now, and I’m very busy, so you’d -better run and find mother.” - -“All right. I’m busy too. I’ve got to tie on my kitten’s new neck-bow, -and she wiggles so that it’s awfully hard work. And then I’m going to -give her her box of corks that I bought for her.” - -Betty tasted the frosting again, decided that it was done, put it away -to cool, and went back to her figures. - -“Burned steak, two dollars,” she murmured; “salty ice-cream, a dollar -and twenty cents; boiled-over coffee, thirty cents. I don’t believe -I’ve forgotten anything important that I spoiled.” Then her smile -flashed out suddenly. “But real cooks spoil things--why, of course they -do! Not so many, maybe, but some.” She began stirring the frosting -vigorously. “You always hear that figures lie. I suppose the reason is -because it’s so hard to put down all about real cooks and other real -things in figures. Anyway, I’ve tried to help hard enough. After this -I shall always be sorry for cooks. I suppose there may be worse ways of -earning your living, but I shouldn’t want to try them.” - -“Here’s a letter for you, Betty!” The smallest sister was back again, -having evidently intercepted the postman. “And the kitten has got a -post-card that says ‘Birthday greetings.’ Isn’t it pretty? My chum at -school sent it to her.” - -Betty declared hastily that the kitten’s post-card was perfectly -lovely, and asked Dorothy to put her letter, with the address in -Madeline’s fascinating scrawling hand, and a foreign stamp, into -the table drawer; for the cook’s fingers were sticky, the frosting -obstinately refused to thicken, and dinner-time was approaching with -alarming rapidity. - -The day after Mary Hooper’s ill-timed call Betty had delivered an -ultimatum: “You’ve either got to tend up to things or leave them alone. -Hereafter, when I’m busy in the kitchen I can’t stop, no matter what -happens. Just tell people the truth, please.” - -It was trying that the first thing to happen should have been an -invitation to go automobiling by moonlight; and missing the second--an -impromptu tally-ho party, with a corn-roast and a barn-dance to -follow--would have plunged Betty into the depths of woe if she had not -sternly resolved to “smile and smile and go on cooking,” as Katherine -had picturesquely advised her, no matter what happened. It was worth -the cost too, when father called her into the library to tell her, in -confidence, that he was proud of her, and that she was setting Will a -splendid example. - -Will was finding Cousin Joe quite as trying as he had been led to -expect, and as he had gone through life hitherto on the easy theory -that it is foolish to put yourself out much, because the people who -expect the most of you are always cranks, nobody had thought that he -would stay long with Cousin Joe, who was certainly an ideal instance -of the theory. But though he came home every evening tired and -discouraged, and grumbled a good deal about Cousin Joe’s unfairness and -silly notions, he refused to give up his position. - -“I’m no quitter. I can stick it out if the girls can,” he announced -doggedly, and on his very first pay-day he bought Betty a cook-book -inscribed “With deep respect, from a sympathetic fellow laborer,” which -meant a great deal from reserved, undemonstrative Will. - -Betty suspected that Will’s admiration was at the bottom of her -mother’s tacit consent to her keeping on as cook. They had never -discussed the matter after the first interview, but Mrs. Wales had -gradually stopped visiting agencies and looking up advertisements, and -Betty was beginning to feel that she was accepted as “permanent.” And -now some bad fairy had put it into her head to see how much she had -saved father, and all she could see was five dollars and sixty-four -cents! - -But that didn’t prevent the birthday dinner from being a great success. -Three weeks’ experience had wrought a wonderful change in the new -cook’s methods. Not only did she “tend up” to the business in hand, -herself, but she could plan work for Maggie, and she was no longer -too proud to call on mother or Dorothy for help if she needed it. So -things went smoothly, not by happy accident, as things had always had a -fashion of doing for Betty Wales, but because she had planned them to -go that way. The cream soup did not curdle, the roast came on hot and -done just as mother liked it at one end and as father liked it in the -middle. The salad was crisp and deliciously flavored. The pineapple ice -was not salty, and if the maple frosting was a little inclined to drip -off the edges of the birthday cake, that was due, as Will pompously -explained, to “the extreme age of the distinguished person whose -semi-centennial we celebrate, and to the consequent over-heating of his -cake by fifty burning candles.” - -After dinner they went into the library to taste a wonderful cereal -coffee, which Betty felt sure father would like just as well as the -real thing that he mustn’t drink. - -“Let me see, Betty,” said Will sipping his share reflectively. “This is -the sixth near-coffee that glib-tongued salesmen have palmed off on you -in three weeks.” - -“It’s only the fifth,” returned Betty indignantly, “and besides they -were all free samples.” - -“In that case suppose you see if you can’t discover some more brands -before we settle on one for family use,” suggested father gaily. - -Betty made a wry face as she emptied her cup. “The trouble is the -directions always say ‘the whole secret of success is in the cooking,’ -and ‘one trial is a gross injustice,’” she quoted so solemnly that -everybody laughed. - -“Come and see the kitten eat her whipped cream,” begged Dorothy. “She -gets it all over her little nose, and she hates to stop and wash it -off. Besides, I think she ought to have more people than just Maggie -and me at her party.” - -So Betty went out to the kitchen to swell the numbers at the kitten’s -party, and suddenly remembering Madeline’s neglected letter she slipped -away to read it. - - “Well, I’m coming back to my own, my native land,” Madeline wrote. - “Father thinks he wants to sub-let the apartment in Washington - Square. Of course he’ll jolly well change his mind before I get to - New York, and then he’ll waste his substance cabling me frantically - not to sub-let. And perhaps he and mother will come back too, later - on. But I don’t mind coming along by myself. I’ve had enough of Italy - and idleness. My head is full of tales that I want to get out of my - system and into the magazines. I want to talk them over with Dick - Blake. He’s a frightful cynic, and he’ll be sure to tell me that I can - never make good. But he can’t stop me that way, not till I’ve sat on - editors’ door-steps for a while and seen for myself. - - “Incidentally here I am in London buying china madly for the - tea-room--yours and mine and Babbie’s, that we planned last summer. - The plans are so lovely that we’ve simply got to carry them out. I - ‘elect’ us to do it. I’ve written Babbie to come and spend October - with me and help at one of my famous house-cleanings. You must come - too, and then we can discuss it--the tea-room, I mean. I should - hate to hear my house-cleanings discussed. And if we don’t have the - tea-room, the china will be adorable in the apartment. It’s a blue - Canton kind, and I’m getting mostly double-decker bread-trays, and - little toast-racks, and mustard pots--such fascinating squatty fat - ones--and pepper grinders. If you were here, we’d hunt up an English - cooking school and learn to make scones and bannocks and Bath buns. - I’ve asked a queer little English woman in my boarding-house to give - me the recipes. Perhaps you can make them out. I can cook only by - taste, just as I can play only by ear; and the taste of scones and - bannocks is as complicated as Wagner. I got your letter about being - the family cook. It will be valuable experience for the tea-room. - - “Come down early in October. Wire and I’ll meet you any day after the - fourth, when my boat is supposed to come in. If either of you could - get there sooner, it would be terribly jolly, because then you could - meet me. The key to the house is at the tailor’s underneath, the cook - left her new address on the mantle in a pink cloisonné jar, and she’ll - bring the usual black cat for company while you wait. - - “Yours en route, - “MADELINE.” - -Betty read it all through twice. It was so delightfully haphazard and -cheerful and Bohemian. To-day was the twenty-sixth of September. It -would be such fun to go to New York and share Madeline’s welcome home -to Bohemia. Babbie would go, of course, and they would have famous -parties to make use of the blue Canton mustard pots. And if they -should really open a tea-room! For the first time since the launching -of the economy program Betty winked back some real tears. Then she -carefully turned out the lights in the dining-room, which Maggie never -could remember about, and went back to the library to read the family -her letter, as she always did when any of the Old Guard wrote to her. -As Will said, the penalty of writing entertaining letters to Betty was -that she felt under obligation to celebrate your epistolary ability by -turning herself into a town-crier, and crying your bon mots from the -house-tops. - -And the very next morning came a scrap of a note from Babbie: - - “I’m going to spend October with Madeline. Mother is off paying - visits, so I can get away easily. Be sure to come right away, because - we ought to get the tea-room started at once. Mother says I may do - just as I like about it, only of course I know that I can’t stay away - from her all the time. When she says I can do as I like she really - means that I may have all the money I want. - - “Betty dear, if you really want to earn some money, why couldn’t you - run the tea-room? Madeline will be too busy with her writing. Besides, - she hates running things. I should love it, only there’s mother to be - amused. - - “Babe is too wrapped up in her beloved John to answer any letters. - Bob is trying to make her father start a newsboys’ home, and he says - perhaps he will if he can have his own home back again. Bob has some - little ragamuffin or other up there all the time. I prefer tea-rooms - myself to newsboys’ homes or fiancés. - - “BABBIE.” - - “P. S. Jack and I have had a dreadful quarrel. He was the one who came - to see me off, you know, and I never, never dreamed we could change - our minds. But all is over between us. Please never mention his name - to me again. - - “P. S. Do you think we should have the tea-room in New York or - Harding?” - -This letter Betty read and reread, and finally put away in her -writing-desk without so much as mentioning it to any one. But that -afternoon she went all by herself to have afternoon tea at an -attractive little shop that had just been opened down-town. She read -the menu carefully, and finally asked the waitress if she might take -it away with her. She counted the tables, the waitresses, and the -patrons. She scanned the decorations with a critical eye. She frowned -when she noticed that there were three different kinds of china in -the tea service that the maid had brought her. Then she sat for a -long while, sipping her tea and trying to remember little details -of the fascinating Glasgow tea-rooms, and of the Oxford Street and -Piccadilly shops that the B. A.’s abroad had haunted so persistently -in the pursuit of Madeline’s “dominant interest.” Finally she tried to -compare the prices on the cards with those at Cuyler’s and Holmes’s in -Harding. And last of all, she extracted a tiny silver pencil from her -shopping-bag, and put down a few figures on the back of the menu. But -she soon gave up that. Hadn’t she just discovered that figures lie? -And besides, when you can’t even guess at rents, and haven’t the least -idea how much chairs and tables and china cost, and are even a little -uncertain about waitress’s wages, the calculating of the probable -expenses per month of running a tea-room becomes, to say the least, a -difficult matter. - -At last, having remembered her responsibilities about dinner, Betty -rushed home and into her big apron--she had half a dozen big ones -now--as fast as possible. She was very quiet during dinner, but -afterward, as soon as she had helped Maggie clear the table, she put -out the lights, walked into the library, and made an astonishing -announcement. - -“Father dear, if you’re willing and mother can get another cook and you -won’t all miss me too much, I want to go to New York next week to see -about running a tea-room for Babbie Hildreth. We haven’t decided yet -whether to have it there or in Harding, but Babbie thinks I could run -it, and I think so too.” - -“Why, Betty, don’t be absurd!” - -That was mother’s comment. Will whistled; Dorothy, scenting the loss -of her beloved Betty, came over to hug her; but father threw away his -cigar, folded his paper slowly, and pointed to the arm of his chair as -the best available seat. - -“Now begin again,” he advised, when Betty had established herself -comfortably. “Your proposition does sound absurd, as mother says, but -perhaps that’s because we don’t understand it. To begin with, has Miss -Babbie Hildreth already gone into the tea-room business? I understood -from Miss Bohemia’s letter of yesterday, that so far the sole assets of -the tea-room were some double-decker bread-trays, whatever those may -be, and some very fat mustard jars, which hadn’t yet left London, and -which Miss Bohemia really wanted for her own use.” - -“Oh, father, that was just Madeline’s queer way of saying it. She’s -written to Babbie, and Babbie has asked her mother for the money, and -her mother is willing. So now Babbie has written me. Of course there -are a lot of things still to be arranged,” Betty admitted reluctantly, -“but it won’t take Babbie and Madeline long to arrange them.” - -“I see.” This time Mr. Wales was quite serious. “And you think that -under the circumstances--my circumstances, I mean--you would like to -join in their project. I’m afraid I can’t spare you any capital, little -girl.” - -“Oh, I don’t want you to,” explained Betty hastily. “The others don’t -expect it. But I’ve thought it over and--isn’t it likely to be a long -while before business is good again, father?” - -“I’m afraid it will be fully a year before I’m on my feet again.” - -“Well, I want to help, to be really and truly earning something, I -mean, like Nan and Will. I should perfectly hate to teach, but I should -love to run a tea-room.” - -“I don’t like the idea of my daughter’s going into the restaurant -business,” put in Mrs. Wales stiffly. - -“Oh, mummy dear!” Betty abandoned her father’s chair for a seat -beside her mother on the sofa. “An adorable little tea-room isn’t a -restaurant. College girls are always running tea-rooms. Why, Mary -Hooper has a friend in Boston who does it, and Mary is always telling -about her, for all she’s such a snob.” - -“Would you have to sit at a desk near the door and see that everybody -paid up before he could get out?” demanded Will, very scornfully. - -Betty considered. “Why, I don’t know. I might. But if Madeline plans -things she’ll have a desk that the Queen of England would be dying to -sit at, if she saw it,” she ended gaily. - -“But are you sure of making money?” demanded father dryly. “Times are -bad----” - -“But even in bad times people have to eat,” Betty took him up hastily. -“And if tea is sixty cents a pound, and there are piles of cups in -that, and you sell a cup for ten cents, how can you help making money? -People do, in tea-rooms, or they wouldn’t be sprouting up everywhere. -And if it can be done I’m sure Madeline and Babbie and I can do it. I -just know we can!” - -Mr. Wales’s glance traveled from Betty’s dancing eyes to her mouth with -its pleading curves. “Well, mother,” he said, “shall we let her try?” - -Mrs. Wales hesitated. “I don’t like the idea at all, but under the -circumstances----” - -“We’ll talk it over and let you know in the morning,” father suggested. - -“Betty,” began little Dorothy forlornly, “you said I could be ’sistant -cook as soon as I learned to toast the bread and not burn it. And now -I’ve learned. If you go away and have a tea-room, I think I ought to be -something in that.” - -“You can be a silent partner, mademoiselle,” suggested Will teasingly. - -“What’s that?” demanded Dorothy. - -“About the same thing as a company, I guess,” explained Will. “Betty -can call herself Betty Wales & Co., and you can be the Co. See?” - -“Of course I see,” declared Dorothy with great dignity. “And I think -I’d rather be a Co. than a ’sistant cook. Don’t forget that I’m the -Co., Betty.” - -“I won’t,” Betty promised laughingly. But she gave “Co.” a hug that -made the little girl gasp for breath. The tea-room might be mere fun -for Madeline and Babbie, and father and mother might look upon it as a -foolish fad; but to Betty it was solemn earnest, and the unqualified -interest and approval of even one little girl, who didn’t understand, -helped. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -PLANS AND PARTIES - - -NEXT morning Mr. Wales called Betty into the library to tell her -she might do as she liked about the tea-room. His voice broke as he -explained that unless things took a sudden turn for the better they -should probably have to give up their house, at least for a year or so. - -“So your present position is likely to be abolished,” he went on with a -rather forlorn attempt at gaiety, “and I heartily sympathize with your -wish to be up and doing. I hate to think that a daughter of mine needs -to work, but I’m glad she isn’t afraid to. It used to be the fashion -for young ladies whose families had lost their money to sit at home, -turning and mending their clothes and remembering better days.” - -“I know--like Mary Hooper’s great-aunts,” laughed Betty. “That’s so -stupid. I’m glad I was born later. But, father, did mother come around -to the restaurant idea? Because maybe Nan or Rachel or somebody could -get me a place to teach, if mother would be happier about it. But girls -who want to work don’t all teach nowadays. Truly they don’t.” - -Mr. Wales laughed. “That’s another antiquated notion, is it--that -teaching is the only ‘genteel’ calling? Your mother and I about came to -that conclusion last night. Anyway we’re quite willing that you should -try out this project. I will give you the money that your board here -would cost for the rest of the winter. You can use it as capital if -you like, but I should strongly advise holding it as an emergency fund -for personal expenses. Tea may be sixty cents a pound and ten cents a -cup, but I imagine you’ll find that’s only one very small detail in the -budget of a tea-room.” - -“Of course,” agreed Betty, not daring to avow complete ignorance of the -meaning of a budget. “And thank you ever so much, father, for letting -me try. If we don’t succeed and my emergency fund gives out, will you -send me some beautiful references as a cook?” - -“Certainly not, after you’ve basely deserted us with less than a -week’s notice,” retorted her father, pulling a yellow curl, and Betty -danced off, perfectly delighted at the exciting prospects before her, -to look over her clothes and make a list of other things she should -need “in her business.” But her ideas of the duties of her position -were so vague and businesslike, and clothes so very uninteresting, -that she finally decided not to waste her last week at home over them. -If Madeline thought her shirt-waists looked too frivolous, she could -overwhelm her with the six big aprons and Will’s cook-book. - -Betty timed her arrival in New York a day after Madeline’s, but only -Babbie Hildreth met her train. - -“Madeline’s stuck in the fog down the harbor,” she explained. “So when -I came last night I got the key from the tailor and hunted up the cook, -all by myself, and she brought the cat just as Madeline said she would. -And then that nice Mrs. Bob, the one we met before, helped me give a -party.” - -“How did you happen to be giving a party?” laughed Betty. - -“Because Mrs. Bob was tired of her own apartment. It’s perfectly -gorgeous, you know, since they got all that money, but she says it’s -so elegant and well-kept that it spoils the informality of things. -So the cook swept, and we dusted, and Mr. Bob invited the people and -bought the food. It was great.” Babbie gave a comical little skip to -emphasize her complete satisfaction with life. Then suddenly her small -face took on its most serious expression. “And to think how miserable -I’ve been lately. Poor mother was glad enough to let me come down here, -I’m afraid, I was so cross. I’m never going to look at a young man -again, Betty Wales, as long as I live. So there now!” - -Betty patted Babbie’s arm soothingly. “That won’t prevent their looking -at you, I’m afraid,” she suggested, “at least not unless you stop -buying such becoming hats.” - -Babbie frowned. “One can’t turn oneself into a frump, just on their -account. Buying becoming hats is one of the chief consolations of life. -I didn’t mean that I was going to retire from the world, but I shall -never let any one fall in love with me, never. That’s settled!” - -“All right,” laughed Betty. “Now let’s settle where we’re going.” - -“That’s settled too,” explained Babbie. “Mr. Dick Blake is meeting -Madeline, because I had to meet you. Then we are all to meet each other -for a grand lunch party, to celebrate Mr. Blake’s getting into his -scrumptious new offices,--the ones that your Mr. Morton arranged for, -you know. And to-night Mrs. Bob is going to take us all for dinner -to a new East Side place that they’ve discovered.” Babbie stopped to -survey Betty critically. “You don’t mind wasting to-day, do you, and -beginning on tea-rooms the first thing to-morrow? Your letter sounded -as solemncholy as Helen Chase Adams when she was a freshman.” - -Betty laughed. “How dreadful! Of course I don’t mind. But you see, -Babbie, this tea-room business is just fun for you, but for me it’s -dead in earnest. If we can’t make it pay pretty well, why, next year I -may have to teach.” - -Babbie nodded vigorously. “I see. That’s a prospect to make a person -solemn, isn’t it? But by next year your father will probably be rich -again. And I don’t want you to think I’m not in earnest too, Betty. -I’m going into this thing head over heels, just to show a certain -person that he doesn’t make one least little speck of difference to -me.” Babbie’s big eyes flashed dangerously. “So to-morrow we’ll pursue -tea-rooms like anything.” - -But ten o’clock the next morning found the three pursuers of tea-rooms -gathered rather languidly around Madeline’s dainty breakfast table. -Mrs. Bob’s party had been, as usual, a continuous performance, -beginning at a very foreign café in Little Italy, going on, because -the Italian dessert had proved disappointing, to a glittering hotel -on Fifth Avenue, thence back to a Yiddish theatre, whose leading lady -was Mr. Bob’s latest enthusiasm, and winding up, very late indeed, at -supper near the park, after which it took so long to get home that Mrs. -Bob declared she was hungry again and made everybody come up to the -apartment for more supper. - -“If everybody in New York eats as often as we did last night, there -ought to be a good chance for tea-rooms,” said Babbie, sipping her -coffee meditatively. - -“If it makes them feel so sleepy the next day, they won’t do it very -often,” suggested Betty prudently. - -“Yes, they will, but they’ll order breakfast at eleven instead of at -ten,” amended Madeline. “Well, now,” she went on briskly, “how are we -going to work? Having decided to start a tea-room, what does a person -do next?” - -“We have absolutely decided, haven’t we?” asked Betty, to make sure. - -“Of course.” Madeline waved a hand at the huge box of china that an -expressman had just delivered. “Coming over in the cab yesterday, Dick -read the story I wrote on shipboard--the one I thought was going to -make me a name instanter--and he says it’s amateurish. That’s the most -hateful adjective in the language of Bohemia, and I’ll make him eat his -words. But meanwhile I’ve got to eat something more sustaining than -words, and I’ve spent all the money I had to live on this quarter. -So I’ve got to get rid of that china. So we’ve got to take it for a -tea-room.” - -“If you think this tea-room is being started to confirm you in -your extravagant habits, Madeline Ayres----” began Babbie, in mock -indignation. - -[Illustration: “HOW ARE WE GOING TO WORK?”] - -“Well, the point is that we’ve decided to start it,” pursued Madeline -calmly, “and I might add that the china designated as my latest -extravagance is likely to be its chief charm, if not exactly its reason -for being. Now I should say the next question is where to have it. And -as it’s such a glorious day, let’s go out and explore.” - -The exploring expedition, being conducted by Madeline in true Bohemian -style, bid fair to degenerate into a progressive course luncheon, -leading from one of her favorite tea-shops to the next. - -“But it’s very instructive,” she declared in answer to Babbie’s -protests. “I’ve made a beautiful collection of menu cards for us to -consider to-night. I’ll get Bob Enderby to do us a design that will -make a regular hit by itself. What’s that, Betty? Of course a menu -design isn’t the principal thing. But it will be a beautiful feature, -like the china. Well, this is the sixth cup of tea I’ve had, so I -don’t mind stopping now. If you girls don’t like my methods, suggest -something else. I think we’ve had a most entertaining morning, and -garnered in loads of valuable ideas.” - -“Well, but what have we actually decided?” demanded Betty, the -matter-of-fact. - -Madeline told off the points solemnly on her fingers. “To have -waitresses with soulful eyes and, if possible, adorable French accents. -To remember that it is the special features that people tell their -friends to go and see, but the food must be passable too, or they’ll -never come twice. To have immaculate linen, and china that matches. To -provide dusky corners for romantic couples.” - -Babbie sniffed. “I hate romantic couples!” - -“They order recklessly,” Madeline argued. “Therefore, for mercenary -considerations, they must be encouraged.” - -“But aren’t those things we would have done anyway?” pursued Betty. “I -think we ought to find a place and get started, and then look out for -the features.” - -Madeline considered. “That sounds sensible. Well, then, let’s discuss -sites.” - -“Wouldn’t it be a good plan to know something definite about rents?” -suggested Betty, who foresaw that Madeline’s next move would be a -leisurely promenade up Fifth Avenue, which would be very pleasant but -productive of no tangible results. - -“Rents--of course. I’ll tell you what!” Madeline had had another -inspiration. “I know a man who is in real estate--the one we rent our -place from. I’ll call him up and ask him if he’s too busy to enlighten -us this very afternoon.” - -Madeline came back from the telephone in high spirits. “He will be -dee-lighted to see us. Oh, dee-lighted is out of fashion, isn’t it, -since I went away? Well, proud and happy then. Come along. It’s only a -little way from here, and we can do up the whole thing before dinner.” - -But “the whole thing” proved much more complicated than Madeline had -supposed. The agent treated them in a businesslike way, which was -really very nice of him, Babbie said afterward, considering their vague -and even childlike ideas on the subject of what they wanted. He had -half a dozen suites on his books that seemed to Madeline suitable, and -she went over them easily, suggesting their respective advantages to -the other two girls, who were less familiar than she with the ins and -outs of New York life. - -“This is really the best, I think,” she decided at last, pointing to a -Fifth Avenue address. - -“It’s a rather expensive location,” suggested the agent politely. “But -perhaps that’s no object”--with a glance at Babbie’s exquisite little -figure. - -“Oh, yes, it is,” Betty assured him solemnly. “You see we want to make -a lot of money. How much is the rent, please?” - -The agent’s figures fairly took the girls’ breath away. “And I believe -they prefer a seven years’ lease,” he added. - -“Seven years!” repeated Babbie incredulously. “Why, we shall all be -mar--dead in seven years, probably. A month’s rent at that rate would -take up about what I think mother meant to give me. But then she’ll -have to give me more. Which is the very cheapest place, please?” - -The agent pointed it out, but it was only cheap by comparison. -And then, as if matters were not bad enough already, he made a -disheartening suggestion. “You ought to have at least capital enough -to keep you going for a year,” he said. “You couldn’t hope to make -much the first year, you know. That’s usually reckoned a dead loss, in -conservative business estimates, I believe.” - -The girls exchanged glances of consternation. - -“We’re very much obliged,” said Babbie, with a fine combination of -dignity and her sweetest smile. “But I’m afraid we can’t decide on -anything to-day. We may be back----” - -“That’s all right,” the agent cut her short. “Always very glad to be of -service. Good-day.” - -“He doesn’t want us to come back,” Babbie declared hotly, outside the -door. “He’s afraid we wouldn’t pay the rent on time.” - -“We probably shouldn’t, any such rents as those,” Madeline assured her. -“We acted like babes in the wood, I suppose. Never mind. We’ll ask Bob -Enderby and Dick. They’ll know what to do. You were jolly right, Betty, -about beginning on the essentials.” - -That night Mrs. Bob’s sitting-room was the scene of a solemn council -of war. Dick Blake was scribe, Henri, the Enderbys’ cook, who had once -conducted what Dick irreverently described as the slowest quick lunch -place in town, was called in as an expert, along with the girl in the -top flat, because her two cousins had had a tea-room, until one of them -discovered that drawing caricatures of the customers paid much better -than selling them sandwiches and tea. - -“But it was a splendid thing--that tea-room,” explained the girl -earnestly, “because Arline never knew she could draw until then. She -sat at the desk, you see, and took checks, and there wasn’t much she -could do, so she got to sketching and thought it was fun, and went -into an evening class, and now she’s got two things in the big autumn -exhibit.” - -“Listen to that,” cried Mr. Bob with enthusiasm. “Which of you is going -to sit at the desk?” - -“I suppose I am,” confessed Betty, “and I haven’t the least talent for -drawing, so there won’t be any great artist discovered in our tea-room.” - -“Well, my other cousin got married through the tea-room,” explained -the girl from the top flat, naively. “They sold candy there, and she -married the man they bought their candy boxes of. He’s a millionaire.” - -“Hear! Hear!” cried Mr. Bob. “Now which of you is going to get the -millionaire?” - -“Come, Bob, do be serious,” begged Madeline. “We want to get at the -facts.” - -“A millionaire is a very valuable fact,” objected Mr. Bob flippantly. -“That’s all, Henri, except that we shall want an extra fine supper -by and by. Now, Miss Andrus, tell us some more about the profits of -tea-rooms, the legitimate ones, if Madeline insists upon it.” - -But Miss Andrus was vague about “legitimate” profits. She only knew -that her cousin had had a darling shop, and had hated to give it up. -Then she went over to the piano and played dreamy music, while Richard -Blake and Mrs. Bob and the girls struggled with their estimates. - -When they had finished, Madeline’s brow puckered. “It’s going to be -too big for us to swing, I think. Mrs. Hildreth might give you all -that money, Babbie, but I don’t think we ought to take it.” She swept -the papers together. “Enjoy our society while you have it, ladies and -gentlemen. To-morrow we’re going up to Harding to open a tea-room.” - -“But, Madeline,” began Betty, “are you sure----” - -“I’m not sure of anything except that rents are lower there, because it -would be absurd if they weren’t, and that those college girls eat and -eat, and they appreciate stunty features beyond anything. Now Cuyler’s -isn’t stunty and Holmes’s isn’t stunty. With that china and the menu -card that Bob is going to do for us--I forgot to ask you before, Bob, -but of course you will--and all the other features that we can easily -think up, why, at Harding our fortune is made. I can’t see how we ever -hesitated!” - -“But if you go up there we can’t patronize you,” objected Mrs. Bob -forlornly. - -“Oh, yes, you can,” Madeline assured her promptly, “you can motor up. -And Dick can see that your escapade gets into the society columns of -all the leading dailies. In a month it will be the fashion to motor up -from New York for a cup of tea.” - -“Madeline,” said Dick severely, “you’re a persuasive sophist. Who holds -the controlling interest in this tea-room, anyhow?” - -“Babbie, I suppose,” admitted Madeline cheerfully. “Because she -furnishes all the money--or all that’s worth mentioning, at least. But -Betty furnishes the sense, and I furnish the inspirations. Now what’s -the matter with that combination?” - -“Aren’t you about through with your business?” demanded Mr. Bob -irrelevantly, from his place by the piano. “Because Miss Andrus is -hungry, and I’m starved.” - -Betty partook of Henri’s famous club sandwiches and Turkish coffee in -forlorn silence. She ought not to have come. She ought to have realized -that Madeline’s haphazard methods were splendid for getting up college -“shows,” but not to be relied on when one’s bread and butter had to be -earned. Madeline was in a corner by the fire talking earnestly with -Mrs. Bob, who was saying something that made Madeline hug her and -presently rush over to Betty and Babbie to explain. - -“The lovely Mrs. Bob wants to invest in our tea-room,” she told them. -“You say your mother spoke of four hundred, Babbie. Well, Mrs. Bob says -she’ll put in the same, and after Betty’s salary is paid and the other -expenses, the profits are to be divided--that’s what you said was -right, isn’t it, Dick?” - -“But half my profits go to Madeline,” Mrs. Bob took her up, “for the -inspirations.” - -“Then I know mother will want half hers to go that way, too,” put in -Babbie, “and I shall take the other half, to pay her up for being -pessimistic about profits. She just laughed when I spoke of them.” - -“Well, it will be all kinds of fun, anyway,” said Madeline. “Goodness, -but I feel as if the worst was over now! Does any one know about early -trains up to Harding? By the way, father hasn’t cabled, so I suppose -this domicile is to let. Just spread the report, please, everybody, -and I’ll come back in a few days to see about it. It’s just as well, -because I suppose I’ve got to live in Harding now. I never could manage -long-distance inspirations.” - -The three girls departed early to pack and telegraph Mary Brooks -Hinsdale that her “standing invitation” to come and visit her should -stand no longer unheeded by her little friends of old. - -So perhaps it hadn’t been a wasted day after all, Betty thought, -falling asleep while Madeline was still busily discussing where they -should live in Harding, and how much they ought to pay the tea-shop for -their meals, if they ate them there. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE REAL THING - - -MARY’S “beamish” smile was dimmed when she met her guests at the -station. - -“I’m just terribly glad to see you all,” she explained, “and to-morrow -we can begin to have some fun. But to-night I have an awfully -particular faculty dinner-party on, and what do you think? My cook has -gone and caught the jaundice.” Mary’s tone was positively tragic. - -“This is what you get for marrying a distinguished member of the -faculty,” Madeline told her, patting her shoulder sympathetically. “But -don’t you give that very particular dinner-party another thought, my -child. What’s the point of having a full-sized catering company invade -your happy little home if you don’t make use of them?” - -“A catering company?” Mary stared. “There isn’t such a thing in -Harding.” - -“Well, a tea-shop corporation then,” Madeline amended briskly. “We are -that, you know. We’ve come up here to establish ourselves. Meanwhile we -are not above displaying our talents for the benefit of our very best -friends. Betty says she can cook, and Babbie and I are bursting with -ideas for original menus and beautiful table decorations. Have you a -waitress?” - -“Yes, but she’s very green and needs piles of coaching. Betty, please -explain a few of Madeline’s riddles.” - -“Come up to Cuyler’s first,” suggested Babbie. “It’s such a very long -story.” - -So the story was told, in all its ramifications, over many cups of -Cuyler’s hot chocolate, and Mary went into ecstasies over the idea of -a tea-shop in Harding, and into more ecstasies over the prospect of -having Betty, and probably Madeline, so near her. Then she returned to -the subject of her dinner. - -“Would you really cook it, Betty?” - -“Would you really trust her to cook it?” jeered Madeline. - -“Yes, because there’s absolutely nothing else to be done,” said Mary, -so dismally that everybody else shrieked with laughter. - -“Very well then,” agreed Madeline. “You and Betty go and do your -marketing, and Babbie and I will examine tea-room sites. We ought not -to lose any time, you know,” she added impressively, with a sly glance -at Betty. - -“Don’t decide everything without me,” begged Betty innocently. - -“Of course not,” Madeline promised, with a very solemn, responsible -air. “Come on, Babbie. Oh, I say, is that Polly Eastman going into the -bookstore?” - -“Not at all likely,” laughed Babbie, rushing off. “I never knew Polly -to buy a book.” - -The pursuit of Polly ended all serious business for that morning. It -transpired that she had just been elected a member of the senior play -committee, and she had resolved to buy a set of Shakespeare in honor -of the occasion. First Babbie and Madeline must help her choose the -books, then they must explain themselves, and as that was “such a long -story,” they all retired to Holmes’s to talk it over and have ices. -Then Polly had to hurry back for a noon recitation, and it would be a -shame not to rush up to the campus with her and say hello to Georgia -Ames. And Georgia, who also had a twelve o’clock class, begged them, -with tears in her big brown eyes, to hang around till one, and then -have “eats” with her down-town. So Madeline wrote a note to Mary, who -would be relieved not to have so many people to lunch, and bribed -a freshman friend of Georgia’s to deliver it on her way home. And -she and Babbie sat on the steps of College Hall in the warm October -sunshine, surrounded by a crowd of friends, old and new, to all of whom -Madeline confided, under the strictest pledges of secrecy and with much -delightful mystery as to where and when and by whom, the fact that a -new and particularly “stunty” tea-shop was to be started right away in -Harding. - -“I should make my fortune as an advance advertising agent,” she told -Babbie complacently, as they hurried up to Mary’s after lunch. “Getting -everybody properly excited is awfully important, but I’m afraid Betty -won’t appreciate that, and will think we ought to have found a place. -Did you happen to notice any that would do?” - -Babbie considered. “Why, any place down on Main Street would do well -enough, I should think, but they’re all full, aren’t they? I don’t -suppose any store would move out to let us in.” - -“There must have been some vacant places that we didn’t notice,” said -Madeline cheerfully. “We’ll just tell Betty that we think she ought -to choose, as long as she’s going to run it. That will throw the -responsibility on her.” - -“I don’t see how it will find us a place, though,” said Babbie -gloomily. “And we’ve forgotten the water-color paper for Mary’s -place-cards.” - -Mary embraced her guests almost tearfully when, the dinner-party having -taken its staid departure, the cook and her assistants returned to the -“realms of day,” as Madeline poetically designated the library. - -“I had awful times explaining,” Mary told them. “They pricked up their -ears at the place-cards. The soup got them seriously interested, -and the salad positively went to their heads. I muttered something -about a new cook, and I could see every woman at the table privately -resolving to get her away from me forthwith.” Mary chuckled. “When you -get ready to establish a catering branch, I’ll write you a screaming -advertisement like this: - - “_Remember Mrs. Hinsdale’s Dinner and how - Envious it made you - And Patronize her Caterers, Betty Wales & Co_.” - -Betty smiled and then sighed. “We can’t establish branches until we’ve -started, can we? And we can’t seem----” - -“Reproach us not, fair maiden,” Madeline broke in. “You are hereby -elected committee on rooms, isn’t she, Babbie? You go ahead and choose, -and we’ll agree to anything you decide.” - -Next morning the committee on rooms announced her plan for a systematic -campaign. “I wish you two would come and help look, but if you do, -remember that we can’t stop to talk with Georgia or any one else we -meet, and we can’t do any shopping or eating until after half-past -twelve.” - -But a brisk walk the whole length of Main Street only served to confirm -Madeline’s and Babbie’s fears. Every building was occupied. - -“We’ll go in somewhere and ask what to do when you want to start -something,” Betty decided, bound not to lose faith in systematic -procedure. “You do the talking, Madeline.” - -“Why, you might persuade some property owner to build for you,” -suggested the jeweler’s clerk, whom Madeline rushed in upon with her -question. - -“Thanks, but we want to move in about day after to-morrow,” Madeline -told him grandly. - -“Well, I presume you’ve all heard the old saying, ‘If wishes were -horses every Harding girl would ride,’” retorted the clerk with a grin -and a wink. - -“Horrid thing!” said Babbie, when they were outside. “He thinks we’re -college girls off on some kind of a queer lark. We’ll show him! Where -next, Betty?” - -Betty was staring up the hill with an air of profound discouragement. -“I think we ought to look at the side-streets,” she decided at last. “I -don’t believe it’s any use considering up-stairs rooms.” - -“I feel like the senior play committee,” said Madeline, as they began -their conscientious tour, hoping against hope that they should find -just the right thing lurking around some corner off Main Street. “We -read all the impossible Elizabethan dramas that anybody could hear of, -we hunted up Hindu plays, and made frantic efforts to hunt up Japanese -ones; and some particularly earnest member even wrote a play herself. -And all the time we knew as well as anything that Billy Shakespeare was -our man.” - -“Well, if that’s the way you feel about this, where, please, is our -Billy Shakespeare?” inquired Babbie a trifle irritably. - -Madeline smiled mysteriously. “We shall find him before the set of -sun,” she declared oracularly. “I have a leading to that effect.” - -“Couldn’t you make it before high noon, just as well?” sighed Babbie. -“I’ve got on new shoes.” - -Betty looked troubled. “Go home and rest, Babbie dear,” she begged. -“Two of us can do this just as well as three.” - -So Babbie went off, after a few polite protests, and Madeline and -Betty finished up the cross-streets without seeing anything that could -possibly be turned into a “stunty” tea-room. - -“Well, can there be anything up nearer the college that we haven’t -noticed?” asked Betty, trying to keep up the businesslike air -appropriate to systematic research, but feeling very silly and -completely discouraged. - -“All boarding-houses, isn’t it, right down to the theatre?” said -Madeline. - -“Shall we go and look?” suggested Betty timidly. “I can’t quite -remember what’s between the florist’s and that little white house that -a crowd of juniors had last year.” - -“Nothing,” returned Madeline promptly, as they started up the hill. -“Don’t you know--there’s a wide lawn, and you go back across it to -that big barn that the riding man had for his horses? He’s moving -out, by the way. I met him yesterday, and he assured me that ’e -missed them queer moon-lighters most hawfully. He’s going to move -somewhere where he can have a big ring and some hurdles in a meadow. -I’m afraid I rather led him to suppose”--Madeline looked properly -conscience-stricken--“that we might be up this afternoon to have a -lesson in jumping. But it looks as if we should be too busy.” - -“Do you think there’s any use hunting much longer?” demanded Betty, -who was fast losing courage. - -“Of course,” Madeline shot back unhesitatingly. “Something will turn -up; it always does--if you turn it. Let’s make perfectly sure about -this nearer-the-campus proposition.” - -But there was nothing there, and Madeline, not daring to suggest -refreshing themselves at Cuyler’s, after Betty’s strict prohibitions, -led the way up the high terrace to the back steps of Science Hall, -where they could rest and consider what to do next. Right across from -them was the little white house with the big barn looming up behind it. - -“What a shame that isn’t a house,” said Betty sadly. “How did such a -tiny house ever happen to have such a big barn, I wonder?” - -“It didn’t,” explained Madeline. “The barn went with the house over -on that other street--the one that used to be a big mansion--and now -is only part of a factory. But if the barn were a house, Miss Wales, -the riding-master wouldn’t be moving out of it. It would have been -appropriated long ago by some thrifty boarding-house keeper, and we -shouldn’t be sitting here staring at it and wondering whether the owner -could be persuaded to make it over into a house in hurry-up order.” - -“I wasn’t wondering that,” said Betty simply. “I was wondering if we -could possibly use it as it is. There’s nothing else that I can see, -and it’s an awfully nice barn. Don’t you remember how Mr. Ware showed -us through once when he first moved in, and how proud he was that it -was all paneled in solid oak, with those lovely great beams in the -ceiling? And afterward the pickle heiress’s father wanted to buy the -beams for his library, and he would have, too, only the owner was in -Europe and the pickle man couldn’t wait to cable.” - -“Yes, I remember,” agreed Madeline. “It’s a beautiful barn, but it’s -a barn nevertheless, with stalls and mangers and grain-bins and----” -Madeline paused abruptly and stared across at the barn through -half-shut eyes for a long minute. “Why, of course it will do,” she -announced briskly. “Of all the idiots--to sit here gaping! Come on!” -And grasping Betty’s arm, she dragged her in a headlong race down the -terrace, across the road, and up the drive to the big barn. - -“Oh, I’m so glad it’s open,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Now I can -show you. I see it all myself plain as anything. Long narrow tables in -the stalls--ideal nooks for romantic couples. Big sociable round tables -out here. Ferns and oak branches in the mangers. Bins transformed into -linen and china cupboards. Old sporting prints on the walls--father -has some beauties tucked away somewhere. Gargoyles and candlesticks -and Flemish lamps scattered around in dark corners. Lights--let me -see--oh, yes, carriage lamps for lights. An open fire--we simply must -have that--it’s the one thing lacking. Why, Betty Wales, there’s -nothing like it anywhere! People will go crazy over it, and we shall -make our everlasting fortunes. See, this little room back here--it’s a -harness-room, I suppose--is just the thing for the kitchen. Why, it’s -perfect, and the rent will be a mere song. Come and tell Babbie this -minute. - -“And to think that it was Betty and not I who had the inspiration!” -Madeline sighed, as she ended her enthusiastic recital to Babbie and -Mary. “When Mrs. Bob and Mrs. Hildreth are paying me for supplying -them, too. It’s disgraceful.” - -“But, Madeline”--it was the first chance Betty had had to get in a -word--“I only said I wondered if it would do, and I’m not sure yet. -Where could we put the range and the sink in that harness-room? Barns -don’t have furnaces, do they? Even if there could be an open fire, that -wouldn’t make it warm enough in winter; and I doubt if carriage lamps -would make it light enough. Those things are even more important than -your beloved features.” - -“Betty,” said Madeline severely, “what is the matter with you? You -ought to be dancing around on one foot in your childish glee. You’re -not a practical person. You weren’t, I mean, when I knew you.” - -“She’s growing up, silly,” Mary Brooks answered, with an arm around -Betty. “And it’s very lucky she is, if you’re going into this thing -seriously. Now you telephone your riding-man to see who owns this -stable, and then we can make sure it’s not already rented again, and -that the rent isn’t beyond you. And if everything is all right so far, -Betty and I will go and look the place over in the true scientific -spirit. You and Babbie can come along if you like, but I don’t consider -it necessary.” - -“Hear the experienced-housekeeper-wife-of-an-experimental psychologist -talk!” jeered Madeline. “Run along and cast your evil eye on my scheme -if you want to. But it will work, practical or not practical. It’s -simply too lovely not to work.” - -“I adore your logic, Madeline,” declared Mary admiringly. “You’d better -come too, after all.” - -So, first having assured themselves about the rent, the four set out. -Babbie sniffed daintily as they went inside. - -“Everything is to be varnished over,” Madeline explained, “walls, -floor, everything. Some of the rough places should be planed down a -little, but we’ll leave the dents alone. It will be a stunning effect -in the lamplight--quite like an old English castle.” - -“The stalls are too narrow for two rows of chairs and a reasonably -wide table,” announced Mary, from the depths of one of them. “The -romantic couples will knock plates.” - -“Then don’t have chairs. Build in benches on the sides, and take away -the mangers in some stalls to make more room for big parties who prefer -to be by themselves--the getting-into-societies celebrations and all -that kind of thing.” - -“That sounds possible. Now about the kitchen,” pursued Mary. “Betty, -come and look at this harness-room again. I believe it might do. -There’s running water here and----” - -Babbie sat down on the steps leading to the loft. “I’ve only said ‘oh’ -and ‘ah’ so far, like the chorus in a Greek play, but just watch me -work at getting us started. And I may have a bright thought some day.” - -Just then the agent arrived, Mary and Betty came back, and all four -girls fired questions and suggestions at the poor man so fast and -furiously that he lost his head and yielded every point, promising to -shellac the whole interior, put up a stove that would “heat the place -red-hot,” and carriage lamps with reflectors that would make it “blaze -with light,” and a big fireplace at one end of the room, since Madeline -declared it to be an absolute necessity. And he guaranteed to have -the barn swept and garnished and ready for occupancy within ten days. -Meanwhile the girls could install the kitchen fittings, and order their -furniture. - -“And engage a cook and decent waitresses,” added Mary portentously. -“And if you do that in ten days I shall be green with envy.” - -But Babbie did it, without, as she expressed it, lifting a little -finger. She happened to meet Belden House Annie on the campus, and -during their interview it developed that Annie had a pretty sister -Nora, who would gladly come and be waitress, and an Aunt Bridget, who -could “cook to the quane’s taste, or the prisidint’s.” - -“We’ll have ‘quane’s’ style Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” suggested -Madeline, “and ‘prisidint’s’ style the rest of the time. That is, if -that idiotic carpenter ever gets the tables right.” - -The carpenter, Madeline declared, was wearing her to a thread; but -Babbie, who was pricking her pretty fingers hemming table-linen, and -Betty, immersed in lists of pots and kettles, groceries and silverware, -heartlessly refused to come to her rescue. - -So Madeline relieved her mind by much grumbling, and in the intervals -of her supervision developed new “features” with a joyous abandon that -threatened to reduce the Hinsdales’ scholastic ménage to chaos. Dr. -Hinsdale came home one afternoon to find his study darkened, the floor -and table strewn with bits of multi-colored paper and paste-board, -and Madeline, in a studio apron, trying the effect of her latest -inspiration in candle-shades on the desk lamp. - -“I’m going to make a different design for each stall,” she explained -cheerfully, without looking up when the door opened. “That will be more -interesting to make, and when a thing is interesting to make it’s more -likely to turn out well, isn’t it now? Oh, I thought it was only Mary! -I beg your pardon. I know I shouldn’t have come in here, but they had -table-cloths and dish-towels spread around everywhere else. The first -day it rains we’ll treat you to a free lunch, Dr. Hinsdale, to pay up. -Oh, you’ve got--there’s some one else! Why didn’t you tell me?” - -As Madeline fled precipitately, she heard “Prexy’s” pleasant laugh. - -“We’re disgraced forever,” she announced tragically to the -sewing-party. “Prexy will probably proclaim a boycott upon us at -to-morrow’s chapel.” - -But he sent word instead, by Professor Hinsdale, that he wanted to be -counted in for the free lunch. - -“He may, if he’ll let us tack our posters on the campus trees,” agreed -Madeline calmly. - -“Posters!” cried Betty and Babbie in a breath. - -Madeline nodded. “I’m designing one. It’s stored under the sofa in -Mary’s pink and gold reception room. I’ll get it. It’s all done but the -name.” - -“Why, we haven’t any name!” cried Babbie. - -“I thought you called yourselves Betty Wales & Co.,” put in Mary. - -“That’s what we are, of course,” agreed Madeline, reappearing with -her poster, “so we’d better call ourselves something else, hadn’t we? -Everybody can see that Betty is a regular feature. A name should bring -out unexpected qualities. Besides, Betty wouldn’t want her name to be -stuck up on a sign.” - -“That’s a good theory about the unexpected qualities,” said Mary, “but -I’d like to see you work it.” - -Madeline sighed plaintively. “As if it was anything against a theory -that you can’t work it. I furnish the theory. It’s only fair for some -one else to furnish the name.” - -“Old Barn Tea-Shop,” suggested Mary. - -“Sounds sentimental,” objected Babbie. - -“And rickety,” laughed Betty. - -“The Coach-and-Four Tea-Shop,” from Mary again. “That’s certainly the -height of elegance.” - -“But it’s humpy to say,” Madeline told her, “and possibly a little too -elegant for us to live up to.” - -“The Saddle and Stirrup,” was Dr. Hinsdale’s offering. - -“That’s lovely,” declared Madeline, “just like a quaint old English -inn. But it’s too--well, too sophisticated for us. College girls -wouldn’t take to it.” - -“Tally-ho Tea-Shop sounds rather neat,” said Babbie reflectively, “but -I don’t know that it brings out any of Madeline’s unsuspected features.” - -“Why, yes, it does,” Madeline declared. “It suggests dash and pleasant -glitter and snap--and general stuntiness.” - -“And ear-splitting horns,” added Mary sarcastically. - -“But college girls love to blow horns,” Betty reminded her. - -Mary grinned. “I adore it myself,” she admitted, “but I try to live up -to the dignity of my position.” - -Madeline had been sketching in some letters rapidly on her poster. -“Tally-ho Tea-Shop fills the space I left most beautifully. I’ll copy -this in oils on thin wood, and we’ll nail a gargoyle to the big tree -in our front yard and let the sign dangle out of his mouth. Mary, be a -jewel and lend us your gargoyle. Ours are all needed inside.” - -It was certainly a strenuous week. - -“If anybody had made us slave the way we have over this tea-shop,” -Babbie declared, “we should have called it cruelty to animals and -children. And I don’t believe we could have done it except up here at -Harding, where everybody throws things together between classes.” - -Just to be sure that everything was “thrown together,” they gave a -private view, on the evening before the opening day, for the Hinsdales, -Georgia, Polly Eastman, and a few other chosen spirits, who pronounced -the Tally-ho Tea-Shop “very neat,” “a gem,” “adorable,” “too cute for -words,” or “truly stunty,” according to their favorite adjectives. -The open fire, the carriage lamps, and the darkened oak gave just the -effect of dim splendor that Madeline had wanted. The bits of old brass -tempted one to exploring expeditions; the double-decker bread-trays -made one long to order them filled and eat them empty. - -“When we get the prints and the candle-shades, it will be about -perfect,” declared Madeline, surveying the scene complacently. - -“You need a horseshoe over the door for luck,” suggested Dr. Hinsdale. - -So Georgia rushed out to a near-by stable to get one, and Dr. Hinsdale -nailed it up while the girls sang: - - “Here’s to Betty Wales & Co.! - Drink ’em down! - Here’s to Betty Wales & Co. - Drink ’em down! - Here’s to Betty Wales & Co. - They’ll be sure to make things go! - Drink ’em down, - Drink ’em down, - Drink ’em down, down, down!” - -Betty, standing with Georgia’s arm around her, gave a little shiver. - -“What’s the trouble? Are you catching cold?” whispered Georgia -anxiously. - -“No, nothing,” Betty whispered back. Well, there wasn’t--anything at -least that you told people, except perhaps Miss Ferris, who had been -kept from the private view by an important department meeting. It was -only what K. had once laughingly dubbed “growing pains,”--the same -frightened feeling that you had the first time your brother teased -you to swim out over your depth, and you weren’t a bit sure he could -rescue you if you went down. Also, it had taken Betty the whole long -afternoon to clean and fill the carriage lamps that every one was -exclaiming over. Cleaning lamps didn’t come under the head of either -waiting on table or cooking. Betty wondered, with a tired little sigh, -who would do it all the other days. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -EUGENIA FORD’S LUNCHEON - - -THE success of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop’s opening day left the amazed -proprietors somewhat aghast. When Babbie Hildreth arrived at twelve, -in a plumed hat and a trained gown, and with a lunch party of six in -tow, things were already at such a pass that after a whispered word -with Betty she shoved her guests hastily into the one empty stall, -pinned up her train, tucked her plumed hat under one of the benches, -and proceeded to take Betty’s place as cashier, so that Betty could -go to the rescue of her well-nigh distracted cook. At twelve-fifteen -Madeline appropriated Polly Eastman’s runabout and drove at a gallop to -the Hinsdales’ to borrow Mary’s waitress and a fresh supply of linen -and silver. At twelve-thirty Georgia Ames appeared, very hot and hungry -from a strenuous game of tennis, only to be mercilessly seized upon by -Babbie and rushed off for more oranges and bananas. - -“They cry for fruit salad like children for castoria,” declared Babbie -fiercely. “And they have nothing but five dollar bills. Bring me all -the change you can carry.” - -At one o’clock the real rush began. Girls sat on the broad steps or -swarmed over the lawn waiting for vacant tables. At half-past one -Madeline went out to them and explained that nearly everything was -gone, except tea and bread-and-butter sandwiches; and some of the girls -went off, after having engaged tables for next day. At half-past five, -when the last of the afternoon tea drinkers had departed, the managers -of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop held a solemn conclave in the front stall, -their aching feet tucked comfortably under them on the long benches. - -“It was a fright,” said Babbie. “I took three hundred checks, and money -enough to pay the rent till Christmas. I hope I made right change some -of the time.” - -“It’s great,” sighed Madeline, “simply great! There’ll be perfectly -huge profits for Mrs. Hildreth and Mrs. Bob and me.” - -“If this is going to keep up,” put in Betty, “we’ve got to have more of -every single thing. I’m afraid we’ve killed off Bridget already.” - -“Send her home in a carriage,” suggested Madeline recklessly. “Let’s -all go home in a carriage. Speaking of home, I’ve got to take the -sleeper down to-night. Poor Mrs. Bob has telegraphed twice. You see -I told her to advertise the apartment, and the would-be tenants are -standing on the door-steps shrieking to get in. I’ll be back here the -first minute I can, though.” - -Betty looked at Babbie. “Didn’t you say your mother had changed her -plans and come home?” - -Babbie nodded. “I’ve got to fly back to her or she’ll get blue and rush -me off to Palm Beach for the whole winter. You’ll be all right without -us, Betty. You must have all the extra help you want, and if we’re -going to do such a tremendous business I think you ought to have more -salary.” - -“So do I,” chorused Madeline, “which is very sweet of me, considering -how it will wipe out profits.” - -“We’d better wait and see whether this rush keeps up,” advised Betty -wisely. “Maybe those that came to-day didn’t like it and won’t come -again.” - -“Everybody was perfectly crazy over it,” declared Madeline. “I’m sure -it’s all plain sailing, now that we’ve got started.” - -Betty, tucking a complicated marketing list into her shopping-bag with -a still more complicated memoranda of “things to be attended to,” said -nothing. She wasn’t afraid of hard work, but the responsibility and the -thought that perhaps she couldn’t possibly get through it all worried -her a good deal. She could have hugged Georgia Ames next morning, when -that brisk young person, having banged persistently on the tea-shop -door, finally climbed in the kitchen window. - -“Found you a room,” she announced breathlessly, “in that little white -house in front. Woman has a big beauty left over, and you can have -it cheap, because it’s so late in the season. With or without meals. -Heard you say you wanted one. Now send me on more errands. I’ve got -a free morning--no classes till twelve, and then only a snap course -in psychology. What? You silly! As if I wouldn’t do anything for you -after the way you treated me last year.” - -It was Georgia who suggested applying to the Students’ Aid for more -waitresses and who, when the Students’ Aid insisted that it couldn’t be -expected to provide them on less than a day’s notice, sought out the -spendthrift Dutton twins and pressed them into Betty’s service. - -“They’re always poor after the second of the month, aren’t you, my -children?” she asked them, as they presented themselves in two of -Nora’s aprons, flushed and giggling, for Betty’s inspection. “Your hair -is in a mess, as usual, Fluffy. Remember, Straight, your right hand is -the one you take notes with--if you ever do take notes. Now run out to -the kitchen, and Bridget and Nora will show you where things are. And -remember it’s only a lark to you, but you mustn’t queer the Tally-ho -Tea-Shop.” - -These instructions they faithfully obeyed, seeking out Betty later to -tell her so. - -“And we think we ought to have our lunch extra,” the fluffy-haired -twin explained, “because all our little pals came in to see us do our -stunt.” - -“And we egged them on to have all sorts of expensive things, more than -they’d meant to order,” added her straight-haired sister. “Besides, we -want to save our wages for lucky pieces.” - -But while they were eating the lunch that was “extra,” Lucile -Merrifield came in, and being noisily invited to join them, ate up the -lucky pieces and much more, while she listened to the twins’ joyous -account of their new “stunt.” “So the lunch wasn’t exactly extra after -all,” said the fluffy-haired twin as she paid the bill, “because we -egged Lucile on too. Extravagance is a good quality in a waitress, -isn’t it, Miss Wales? I shall write my father that. It may tickle him -so that he’ll raise our allowance, and if he does we’ll be right down -here giving a party.” - -After the first fortnight things began to settle themselves into a more -businesslike routine. The girls Betty knew, having recklessly indulged -themselves during the tea-shop’s first week, were obliged to be content -with campus fare for a while. One noon she realized with a little -start of amazement that there wasn’t a girl that she knew in the room. -Some of them doubtless knew her. Most of them had probably heard that -she was a Harding girl, who was suddenly obliged to earn her living. -Well, wasn’t she? And hadn’t she wanted to go into a really and truly -business, and been almost sorry that in Harding everything was too much -fun to seem like real work? - -“We’ve been waiting a perfect age,” announced somebody over her -shoulder. “Will you send a waitress, please, right away? You ought to -give good service, you know, when you’re just starting in.” - -The speaker was a tall, overdressed girl, with a scowl and a mouth that -drooped at the corners. Betty remembered distinctly having seen her -come in only a minute before. But she said, “I’m sorry,” and took the -order out to the kitchen herself. - -When Bridget had served it in a hurry, Betty heard the tall girl laugh -disagreeably. “Wasn’t that neat?” she demanded of her companion. “I can -always get what I want. Maybe she did see us come in; she couldn’t say -so. That’s the way to treat tradespeople, even if they have been to -college.” - -That very afternoon, while the tall girl’s speech still rankled in -Betty’s memory, recalling other petty slights and snubs, Miss Eugenia -Ford rustled in to order a luncheon for twelve for the next noon. - -Eugenia Ford was small and fair, and as exquisitely dainty and delicate -as a French doll. She was universally conceded to be the prettiest girl -in the entering class, and the petting she had received had gone to her -head. - -“If her grandmother dies before long, she may get a little real -expression into her face, and then she’ll be the college beauty,” -somebody had said about her. - -“It will take heaps more than losing her grandmother to put any -expression into Eugenia’s face,” Georgia Ames had retorted wisely. - -At present Eugenia was certainly as vain and frivolous as she was -pretty, and very badly spoiled indeed. - -“Good-afternoon, Miss--Miss Welch,” she began in businesslike tones. - -“Wales,” suggested Betty, smiling at the child because she was so -pretty, and because she had been so comical about gargles and gargoyles -at Georgia’s party. - -“Wales.” Eugenia accepted the correction gravely. “I want a table for -twelve persons to-morrow, for a one o’clock luncheon. This is the menu -that I want served. I shall have my flowers sent here, and I suppose -you can arrange them. Here are my place-cards, and this list gives the -order that I want them arranged in. I want the front stall.” Eugenia -completed her directions without relaxing one iota of her unsmiling -dignity. - -“I’m sorry,” Betty told her, “but the front stall is engaged for -to-morrow. You can have the third--that’s just as large--or the big -round table out here.” - -“But I like the candle-shades in the first stall better,” announced -Eugenia calmly. “Change them to the third, and give me that. And please -serve us very promptly, because some of the girls have afternoon -engagements.” And Eugenia started off. - -“I’m sorry, Miss Ford,” Betty called after her, “but the girl who -engaged the first stall particularly wanted those candle-shades. They -are understood to belong to the stall, you know.” - -Eugenia’s smooth white forehead puckered itself into a disagreeable -frown. “Very well,” she said crossly, “but you ought to have two sets -of that kind of shade. They’re the only pretty ones in the place.” And -she rustled off, annoyance in every line of her dainty little figure. - -Betty smiled sadly after her. “I suppose she’s forgotten that she ever -met me. Freshmen have so many people to remember. Madeline will be -pleased to know her opinion of all those candle-shades that she’s so -proud of.” - -Betty arranged Eugenia’s roses herself, and inspected every detail of -the table with great care. Last of all she put around the place-cards -in the order that Eugenia had specified. Georgia’s name was on one, and -Lucile’s, and Polly’s, and the fluffy-haired Dutton twins’--the one -who wrote such cunning verses and was sure to go into Dramatic Club -the first time. It was plainly what Katherine used to call a “polite, -politic” luncheon. - -Unfortunately for Eugenia she was late in arriving--or her guests were -early. When she hurried in, looking prettier than ever because her -cheeks were flushed with her quick walk down the hill and her eyes -sparkling in anticipation of a triumphant occasion, she found Georgia, -Polly, Lucile, and the Dutton twins all hanging over Betty’s desk, so -absorbed in their conversation that they entirely failed to notice the -advent of their small hostess. - -“Oh, here you are,” began Eugenia, with a vague little nod toward the -group. “Shall we go and sit down while we wait for the others? Our -table is all ready, I think.” - -“Come on, Betty, and give us the rest of it while we’re waiting,” -coaxed Lucile, pulling Betty toward Eugenia. “She’s been telling us -how Babe the man-hater fell in love. It’s a joyous tale. You met Babe, -Eugenia, when she was up this fall--and you’ve met Betty Wales, of -course.” - -Eugenia looked gravely at Betty. “Yes, I believe I’ve met Miss Wales,” -she said. - -“Of course, at my gargoyle party,” put in Georgia. “Go on, Betty, about -that fascinating Paris pension, and their rubbering out into the garden -and planning to have breakfast together every morning.” - -Betty, watching Eugenia, shook her head, with a brave little smile. -“Some other time. I’m busy now. That is, I can’t desert my post to play -with you, as I’ve told you all sixty times before.” - -“Shall we go and sit down?” asked Eugenia again, sweetly. And as they -filed off, her clear high voice came back distinctly to Betty. “I -didn’t ask her to come,” she was explaining to Georgia, “because I -think it’s much better not to mix business and society, don’t you, Miss -Ames? Of course if I saw her up on the campus I should be nice to her. -But here it’s rather awkward, because some of my friends would think it -was awfully funny to be introduced to the cashier.” - -Betty couldn’t hear Georgia’s low, emphatic retort, but she could -guess at its tenor, and later, when Polly Eastman leaned around the -edge of the stall, wearing her widest, most provoking smile, and waved -her handkerchief, she could imagine how she and Lucile and the Dutton -twins were making poor Eugenia’s life a burden to her by those subtle -methods of persecution that had won the trio their reputation for -being the best friends and the worst enemies that a Harding girl could -have. It was four to one, and Betty pitied poor Eugenia, who felt the -hostile atmosphere--without in the least understanding what it meant, -and spent the afternoon writing a tearful letter to her boarding-school -chum, all about the hatefulness of Harding upper-class girls who were -“too sweet for anything” one minute and “perfectly horrid” the next. -She thought she would leave at Christmas time, she wrote, even if her -father had said she couldn’t keep changing her mind. Then she made out -a check to the Tally-ho Tea-Shop for her luncheon and mailed it, with a -disagreeable little note, complaining of the waitress’s awkwardness and -too much pepper in the soup. “The table wasn’t decently laid, either, -and the flowers were a mess,” she concluded, and addressed the note to -“Miss Welch.” - -“That’s what Georgia Ames gets back for calling me an idiotic little -snob,” muttered Eugenia, as she posted her letters. - -Eugenia’s note, which Betty couldn’t find time to read until late the -next afternoon, was the last straw in the load of a very hard day. The -week before, business had been so dull that Betty had reluctantly -decided to dispense with two of the Students’ Aid waitresses, and, -having tried to choose the ones who could best do without the money, -she had screwed up her courage and explained the situation. They had -both cried, and now, the very day after they were gone, the Tally-ho -Tea-Shop was crowded to overflowing, and poor Nora and her one -remaining assistant fairly ran back and forth between the kitchen and -the stalls in their efforts not to keep impatient customers waiting. -Then everybody had been seized with a mad desire for English muffins -just on the very day when Bridget had decided only to make up a few, -and the sandwiches that there never had been enough of before were all -left over. Several people had complained that they could never get -what they ordered, and some had gone away. Betty stood it until five -o’clock, and then, confiding to the Students’ Aid waitress that she -felt as if she should fly, she left her in charge and went up to see -Miss Ferris. - -“What’s the trouble now, little girl?” demanded Miss Ferris, when she -had established Betty in a big easy chair by the open fire, with a box -of chocolates at her elbow. - -“Nothing,” said Betty bravely, “or at least there oughtn’t to be -anything. What would you do, Miss Ferris, if things that you knew -oughtn’t to bother you, bothered you awfully all the same?” - -Miss Ferris considered. Anybody else would have said, “What things, for -instance?” but Miss Ferris never asked stupid questions like that. She -only smiled back at you and read what she wanted to know in your face. - -“Well,” she began slowly after a minute, “I’d go to bed very early, -so as to get well rested, and next morning I’d look around to find -somebody with a big, real trouble that I could help, perhaps--or try to -help anyhow. And first of all I’d take off my hat and stay to dinner at -the Hilton.” - -When Betty bid Miss Ferris good-night after a merry evening in the -Hilton House parlors, she was her smiling self again. - -“I’m all right even without the going-to-bed-early part,” she declared -eagerly. “The things I can’t help I won’t worry about. The things -I oughtn’t to mind I won’t mind--not one little speck. I guess that -disposes of all my troubles, and the first thing to-morrow I’ll begin -hunting for somebody to help. I don’t believe I’ve thought much about -helping lately--except helping father by earning this money. Things are -so different----” - -“No, they’re not,” Miss Ferris cut her short, “because you’re the very -same Betty Wales.” - -“Am I?” Betty wondered, as she buttoned the coat of her last year’s -suit and ran down the hill. “I suppose I am. Now there’s Rachel--she -couldn’t be any dearer if she owned a gold mine. Besides, I promised -father I wouldn’t care and I won’t.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -MARY, THE PERFECT PATRON - - -MADELINE had been gone for three weeks and never sent so much as a line -of “inspirations” back to the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, when the expressman -drove up one morning with a great mahogany writing-desk for Betty, -with “Sent by M. Ayres” on the shipping ticket. On one of the lovely -old-fashioned brass knobs was tied a note, and Betty stopped unpacking -the desk to read it. - -“The chief joy of having a tea-shop,” Madeline wrote, “is that it grows -on your hands. I never was quite satisfied with your desk. A harness -cupboard, with a covered watering trough underneath it, ought to have -made a picturesque and Tally-ho-ish effect, but some way it didn’t. -Yesterday I went out into the country to meditate on my Literary -Career, and at the little old inn where I lunched I saw the very thing, -which I enclose herewith. (That’s what I say to all the editors about -my stories. I hope you’ll like the enclosure well enough to keep it, -which is a thing no editor has done yet.) - -“Isn’t the inlay lovely, and don’t you adore the bulgy little -compartments? There’s also a secret drawer--not the fake kind that -anybody can open after a little hunting, but the real thing. I got all -these fascinating features for a song, with the recipe for the most -luscious cake thrown in--literally thrown in, Miss Betty Wales. Open -the secret drawer, and you’ll find it. (Ha! ha! A lively hunt you’ll -have first.) It’s called Aunt Martha’s cake, and if it doesn’t make a -hit for the Tally-ho, I shall lose faith in the Harding appetite. - -“Now don’t look solemn and sigh over the wild extravagance of all good -Bohemians, Betty dear. If you feel that the Tally-ho can’t afford the -desk just now, why, Mrs. Bob Enderby is crazy about it, and she’ll give -the firm exactly twice what I paid. Get little Mary Brooks to bidding -against her, and we shan’t have to worry over dull times. - -“I am sending this with the desk, because my Literary Career takes all -the postage stamps I can afford,--and then some. Dick Blake says that -writing is exactly like painting. You’ve got to learn how. He calls -my stories ‘beginner’s daubs--promising, but daubs.’ I’ve talked to a -lot of other discouraging people, and I’ve got hundreds of plans, and -several inspirations for B. W. & Co., so I’m coming back to-morrow to -settle down for what Katherine calls a little spell of work.” - -“Goodness, but I shall be glad to see her and talk things over!” Betty -said to herself, and looked up to find Mary Brooks standing in the -door, smiling in her vague, near-sighted fashion. - -“Oh, it is you,” she said, as Betty hurried to meet her. “Are you all -by yourself? Where are the members of the ‘Why-Get-Up-to-Breakfast -Club’?” - -Betty laughed and then looked sober. “It’s almost as nice a name as the -‘Merry Hearts,’ isn’t it? They’ve stopped coming here lately. I wish I -knew why.” - -“Give them buckwheat griddle-cakes,” advised Mary promptly. “Cuyler has -nothing but wheat ones. Tell Lucile to tell everybody that yours are -heaps nicer. What’s that in the crate?” - -Betty explained, and Mary, who adored old writing-desks and had been -hunting for years for one just to her liking, pulled off her gloves -in great excitement and helped unpack the desk, move it into a sunny -alcove between the front door and a window, and hunt for the secret -drawer. - -“It’s exactly what I want,” she declared rapturously, after they had -spent half an hour without finding any trace of the recipe for Aunt -Martha’s cake. “I’ll give you ten dollars more than your Mrs. Bob -offered. But you mustn’t sell it to either of us, Betty. A secret -drawer is a splendid tea-room feature. It suggests all kinds of -romantic mysteries.” - -Betty nodded. “Of course, I should just love to have it here, but we -can’t afford it. We haven’t done a bit well lately, Mary.” - -“Try the buckwheat griddle-cakes,” Mary called over her shoulder, as -she hurried off to meet her husband at the end of his eleven o’clock -class. - -[Illustration: SHE STOPPED THE GIRLS AS THEY WENT OUT] - -But directly after luncheon she was back again. “I’m bound to find that -drawer before Madeline comes, so we can crow over her,” she explained. -“Besides, George Garrison Hinsdale is writing a paper for a -philosophical society with a name a yard long, and he’s most dreadfully -cross. So I thought that as I can’t help talking and looking frivolous, -I’d better go away. Shall I bother here?” - -Mary hunted for the secret drawer in the same sociable fashion in which -she evidently expected Dr. Hinsdale to write a paper for his learned -society. She stopped the girls as they went out, to ask if they knew -anything about secret springs, and she soon had an animated, admiring -group around her, eagerly examining the points of Betty’s treasure, -and incidentally revealing to the astute Mary their opinions of the -Tally-ho Tea-Shop and drinking in her casual references to delicious -crispy brown buckwheat griddle-cakes and to the wonderful new recipe in -the desk, that would certainly come to light before long. - -About four o’clock, in the lull between lunch and afternoon tea, Mary -detached herself self from the girls around the desk and buttonholed -Betty in a secluded corner. - -“I always knew I had a head for business,” she began modestly. “The -reason they don’t come in to feed isn’t because they don’t like -the eats, but because they’re saving up money for Christmas. Don’t -you remember how we used to do that? At least,” added Mary, with a -reminiscent smile, “I used to mean to save, but in the end I always -sent home for an extra check.” - -“I know,” agreed Betty. “But what can you do about it? It’s just one of -the drawbacks of the tea-room business, isn’t it?” - -Mary surveyed her smilingly. “Don’t you really see what to do?” she -inquired impressively. “Why, my child, it’s as plain as two and two. -Open a gift-shop department, of course.” Mary paused for the full -splendor of her idea to dawn upon Betty. - -“But--but this is a tea-room,” began Betty doubtfully. - -“Of course it is,” Mary took her up, “and if people won’t buy enough -tea, you have to give them griddle-cakes, don’t you? And if they don’t -jump at griddle-cakes, you’ve got to find out what they will jump at. -That’s business. What you want is their money. You’ve got plenty of -room for a long table of fol-de-rols over there in the corner. They’ll -hear about it and come in to buy Christmas presents, and they’ll see -Aunt Martha’s cake melting in their friends’ mouths and have to have -some. While they’re eating, they’ll remember that they haven’t bought -a thing for their own dear Aunt Martha. So they’ll hop up and pick out -more Christmas things. See? That’s Association of Ideas, my child. -George Garrison Hinsdale is writing his paper about it. I’m going home -this minute to tell him that I know how it works, and also to give -him his tea, which is an idea that he associates with me. I’ll be in -to-morrow, to see if you’ve found the drawer.” - -The more Betty thought of the gift-shop department the better she -liked the idea. They could make a specialty of Tally-ho candle-shades -and one or two other things that Madeline could be trusted to think -up. The Students’ Aid girls that she had been obliged to dismiss -could take charge of the table--“I shan’t have it look a bit like a -counter,” Betty reflected, remembering the unpleasant remark about -tradespeople--during her own busiest hours. Some of the other girls who -were earning their own way might like to put work on sale there. - -“Pretty things would surely sell better here than from the -bulletin-board in the gym,” Betty decided swiftly, “and that’s a way -to help. We might take orders for mending and copying and such things, -too. The girls who come here are the very ones who have money to spend, -and I’m sure lots of them don’t bother to hunt up Students’ Aid girls, -when they want work done. Why, this is more helpful than I ever could -be when I was in college! Miss Ferris was right--she always is. We’ll -do it! I must consult Babbie and Madeline first, of course.” - -But Mary, appearing bright and early the next morning, scoffed at -delays. - -“George Garrison Hinsdale looked as if he wanted to put me in storage -till lunch time,” she explained, “so I can work for you the whole -morning if you’ll only decide now. Anyway, we know Madeline is for it. -Don’t you remember she said in her letter that she liked tea-rooms -because they grow on your hands? Well, this is a beautiful example of -growth. And you and Madeline are a majority, though I’m sure Babbie -will be for it too. Now I’ve thought of a lovely new kind of Tally-ho -candle-shade with little bunches of oats for fringe. I’m going to fix -up a workroom for the gift-shop department in the loft. I’ve brought -down oceans of things in here,” and Mary emptied paste, paints and -brushes, scissors, a sewing kit, and a miscellaneous collection of -scraps of paper, which she explained were designs for Christmas cards, -out of a very stylish shopping-bag, borrowed Betty’s biggest apron, and -proceeded to improvise a work-table out of two sawhorses and an old -storm door. But having laid out her implements on it, she discovered to -her dismay that the workroom would be plainly visible to the inmates -of the third stall, and she came down to consult Betty about the most -artistic color for a curtain to screen her from the curious public -below. - -“For this gift business is to be a secret, you know,” she explained to -Betty, “until you’re ready to spring it on them. Not exactly a dead -secret, but the interesting half-way kind. Madeline knows how to manage -secrets. And speaking of Madeline, here she comes.” - -Madeline approved the new departure so vehemently that she would hardly -wait to shake hands before she was up in the loft investigating Mary’s -arrangements, and emptying the miscellaneous contents of her suit-case -out on the floor, to find a “spook” candle-shade, that the little -artist, whose cousins had once had a tea-room, had designed for the -new adventurers in the same field. When you examined it, you saw just -a confused mass of red, blue, green, yellow, and white spots separated -by broad black lines; but with the light behind them the spots resolved -themselves in a big yellow Tally-ho coach drawn by white horses, who -pranced grandly up to a red-roofed inn on the next panel, with a green -lawn in front of it and green trees and blue sky behind. - -“Isn’t it too cute?” Betty declared enthusiastically. “It ought to be -our very specialest specialty, oughtn’t it, Mary?” - -“I suppose so,” agreed Mary grudgingly. “They’ll take loads of time to -make, though. There’ll be more real profit in mine. I must get some -oats for my kind, while I’m out buying the curtain. Why, it’s noon -already--I must fly! Madeline, come down and show us the secret drawer -before I go.” - -Madeline had appropriated a piece of Mary’s cardboard and was tracing -the design of the “specialest specialty” on it. - -She shook her head absently. “It’s a trade secret, only for members of -the firm. Perhaps, if you don’t call me ‘my child’ too often, and make -us some terribly cute shades and cards, we’ll let you into it by and -by.” - -“You ought to let her in right away,” declared Betty loyally. “I was -getting just dreadfully blue, with you and Babbie away, and first she -thought of buckwheat griddle-cakes and then of this.” - -“Yes, I’m the very Perfect Patron,” Mary chimed in eagerly, “and I ask -you where any business would be without patrons? They’re as necessary -as the firm, if not more so.” - -Madeline stopped work to smile benignly at her. “Mary, the Perfect -Patron,” she repeated, “your logic is irresistible. Your distinguished -husband ought to be very proud of you. I’ll tell you what, Betty, I’ll -make out a set of Rules for the Perfect Patron, and if Mary agrees to -abide by them she shall be duly initiated with the rite of the Secret -Drawer.” - -“I agree to anything, if you’ll only show me that drawer right off,” -begged Mary. - -But Madeline was inexorable. “It is the present duty of the committee -on Inspirations to see if it can copy this candle-shade,” she said. -“And I may add that it is the duty of the Perfect Wife to be on time -for meals. And the moral of that is----” - -“Goodness gracious!” supplied Mary, who had been consulting a -diminutive watch, and now rushed down the stairs murmuring sadly, “It -must be fast, but I thought it was slow this morning.” - -“I’m not at all sure that I can find that drawer again, myself,” -Madeline confided to Betty, when they were alone. “It’s an awfully -complicated arrangement.” - -But that night just before they closed the tea-room, Madeline found the -combination, after a little preliminary fumbling, and proudly entrusted -to Betty the much-vaunted recipe for Aunt Martha’s cake. - -“Let’s see.” She went over the formula. “First you press a spring that -opens this panel. Then you pull out that drawer. There’s a second -spring back of that, and a false bottom that comes up, and then a -spring to open the secret drawer. I shan’t forget it again. The woman -who sold the desk to me said she thought there was some way of working -the whole combination at once, but I don’t believe there can be.” - -“We mustn’t put anything in there if you’re ever going away again,” -Betty declared, “for I never could get it out, unless you write down -the rules for me.” - -Madeline shook her head vigorously. “Don’t you see, dearie, that -the whole idea of a secret drawer is not to have the rules written -down where anybody can get at them? Sometimes things get lost in -secret drawers for a generation or two, and it’s so lovely having -your grandfather’s will or your great-aunt’s love-letters, or your -wicked uncle’s confession of a murder he committed, tumble out some -day unexpectedly, just because you touched a spring that you didn’t -even know was in existence. But the rules for the Perfect Patron -are a different matter. I shall devote my evening to composing -them.” Madeline sighed deeply. “I suppose I ought to devote it to my -Literary Career. I simply mustn’t neglect that, Betty, even to make -extra-special Tally-ho candle-shades.” She sighed again. “The trouble -with a Literary Career is that you work on it for ages, and you’ve got -nothing to show for your trouble but a story that ten editors have -turned down. Whereas a candle-shade is a candle-shade, and a Rule for -a Perfect Patron is sure to be amusing at least to yourself. Let’s -see--‘First Rule for the Perfect Patron: Don’t act patronizing to the -Firm; confine your patronage to the menu.’ How’s that, Betty?” - -“Lovely!” declared Betty with enthusiasm. “Only Mary never can do it. -She loves to call us my children.” - -“That’s the point of the rule,” explained Madeline sagely. “Little Mary -has got to work hard before we initiate her into the rite of the Secret -Drawer. If I can think up enough joyous impossibilities for rules we -might organize a Perfect Patrons’ Society, limited to six members.” -Madeline threw aside her pencil and paper and curled up comfortably on -Betty’s couch. “I foresee,” she announced blandly, “that the secret -drawer is going to be our prize feature. First rule for tea-rooms: -Take care of the features, and the patrons will take care of you.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -YOUNG-MAN-OVER-THE-FENCE - - -THE only trouble with the gift-shop department was that it went too -well. When Madeline and Mary had each made a dozen candle-shades and -Betty had decorated some cards and blotters and secured a few pretty -samples from needy undergraduates, Madeline painted a “postscript sign” -to hang like a pendant from the big one in the gargoyle’s mouth, and -tacked a gay poster, announcing the Tally-ho’s new departure, on to -the barn door. By five o’clock that night all the shades, except those -reserved for samples, and nearly all the cards were sold, and there was -an order list for the “extra special” shades that Madeline declared -would be the utter ruin of her Literary Career. The workshop in the -loft fairly hummed with activity. Mary Brooks was its presiding genius. -Dr. Hinsdale continued to work on his learned paper, so it was a mercy, -Mary said, waving aside Betty’s thanks, that she had something to work -on too. Every morning and nearly every afternoon she fluttered in, to -see how things were getting on. - -“I’ve thought up a splendid idea,” she would call, as she climbed the -stairs. - -Or, “Dreamed a scrumptious rhyme in the night, Madeline, for the cards -with the half wreaths on them.” - -Or, “I’ve heard of a girl who makes the loveliest stenciled things. -Will she be reliable about filling orders? How in the world should I -know about that, Betty Wales?” - -That was Betty’s part--to make the undergraduates fill orders according -to their agreements, to keep accounts for them and for Madeline and -her assistants, to sift Mary’s “splendid ideas,” discarding the -impractical and arranging to have the useful ones carried out, to spur -on Madeline’s enthusiasm, and to help, whenever she could find a spare -moment, with the actual work of making the pretty novelties for sale. - -“Let’s stop. We’ve earned lots of money now, and I’m tired to death of -cutting queer-shaped holes in cardboard,” Madeline would complain at -least once every day. - -“That wouldn’t be business,” Betty insisted firmly. “It isn’t but three -weeks now before Christmas, and then we shall have to stop for a while -at least. I’ll hire some girls to make the shades and you can show them -how and then do cards for a while. No, think up some perfectly new -thing. The new things take best.” Betty tactfully didn’t add “and keep -you interested and at work best.” - -“But I’ve got an idea for a story,” Madeline would grumble. - -“Can’t it wait? Think of all the stamps you can buy with this money,” -Betty suggested craftily. - -“I’m getting to be dreadfully diplomatic,” she confided to Mary Brooks. -“I used to hate the girls who were like that--Jean Eastman and her -crowd. But now I scheme in all kinds of ways to get Madeline to do as -I wish, and to keep Bridget good-natured, and make the customers think -they’d a lot rather have English muffins, if the sandwiches are all -gone.” - -“You are developing a hard case of executive ability, my child,” Mary -told her. “It’s perfectly comical, because you look so young and -innocent with all that curly hair. By the way, Betty, hasn’t Bridget -a recipe for cookies that you can christen ‘Cousin Kate’s’? I’ve been -talking to ever so many girls about their relatives, and it seems as if -they all had a Cousin Kate. And then by association of ideas, you see, -they’d buy more presents.” - -“Hasn’t Dr. Hinsdale finished his paper?” laughed Betty. “Because if he -has you mustn’t bother too much about us, Mary. You’ve helped us now -more than we can ever thank you for. You certainly ought to take the -money for your candle-shades.” - -“Remember you three girls made me famous as a hostess, through the -length and breadth of Harding,” Mary told her. “I’ve got to even up for -that. And Madeline has half promised that if I’m a very Perfect Patron -indeed till Christmas she’ll show me the secret drawer. I think I’ll go -up and make her promise me fair and square before I go to work on this -new order-list.” - -It was rather early for afternoon tea drinkers, but Betty didn’t like -to follow Mary and leave the tea-room alone; and Nora was busy in the -kitchen helping Bridget to transform chicken salad left over from -lunch into “our special tea-sandwiches.” So she sat down at her desk -and was soon so deep in the auditing of her weekly accounts that she -didn’t hear the door open, nor see a tall young man stop just inside -to look around the room with an appreciative smile and then cross -hesitatingly to her desk, his smile growing broader as he found himself -still unnoticed. - -“Is there a sign anywhere: ‘No men allowed within’?” he asked, finally. - -Betty looked up with a little gasp of surprise, and the tall young man -bowed to her over the desk, still smiling reassuringly. - -“Oh, no, there isn’t any sign of that kind,” Betty explained hastily. -“The one on the door is about our new gift-shop department. The -snow-storm last night washed it almost out, and we haven’t had time -yet to make a new one. I suppose I might at least take it down.” Betty -started toward the door, but the tall young man barred her way. - -“Let me take it down for you,” he suggested, “while you get me some -tea. Because if there isn’t any sign--but perhaps you just depend on -the general understanding that seems to pervade this manless town.” - -“Oh, no,” Betty assured him hospitably. “We’re very glad to have men -come here. They often do--or at least,” she added truthfully, “several -have since we opened.” - -“That’s good,” said the young man gaily. “All right then, since I may -stay, I should like a pot of tea--a very big pot, please, with lots of -hot water, and lots of cream, and lots of crackers spread very thick -with strawberry jam. Now I’ll pull down the sign while you’re getting -the tea.” - -“Very well,” said Betty demurely. “Which table do you prefer?” - -“This,” said the young man promptly, pointing to the small one in the -alcove, close to Betty’s desk. - -When she came back after having left his order with Nora, he was pacing -up and down the room, examining the old brasses with interest, peering -into each stall and nodding approvingly as he whirled the double-decker -bread-trays, patted the fat mustard jars, and inspected all the -different varieties of candle-shades. - -“I say,” he began, when he saw Betty, “if you put in those nails on the -door, you did a very good job. I can’t get them out. Have you a hammer?” - -It was zero weather outside, and the young man had no overcoat. When -he came in again with the remains of the poster under his arm, he was -shivering with the cold. Betty, who was sure that he was a gentleman, -even if he did have rather a queer way of talking, felt that the least -she could do was to bring a chair close to the fire and poke the logs -into a blaze for him; and of course he insisted upon doing the poking -for her, and that led to more conversation. - -“It’s a jolly little place you’ve got here,” he said, leaving the -fire to examine the motley array of pretty trifles that covered the -gift-table. “I saw it yesterday as I drove up from the station, and I -realized that it would probably save my life. You see, I’ve been years -in England, and I’m awfully addicted to afternoon tea. If I had my way, -we’d serve it regularly at the factory, but a lot of more important -things must come first, so I shan’t queer myself by mentioning anything -so frivolous as tea yet a while--especially when I can just climb the -fence and drop in here. I say,” he added quickly, “you don’t mind my -coming in over the fence, do you? It’s licks shorter.” - -“Over the fence?” repeated Betty slowly. “Why, I didn’t know there was -a fence.” She glanced out of the front window, interrogatively. - -“Oh, not over there on the college side,” explained the young man -impatiently. “Behind, between you and the stocking factory. I’m not a -new college professor. I’m attached to the stocking factory.” - -Nora brought in his tea just then, and he drank it very fast and quite -in silence. - -“I shall be in to-morrow,” he told Betty, as he paid his bill, “and I -shall want the same things, except orange marmalade instead of the jam. -Could you have it all ready for me at four? You see this break in the -middle of the afternoon is--er--rather unauthorized, so I can’t be gone -long.” - -Betty promised and he hurried off, while Madeline and Mary, who had -been listening and peeping surreptitiously from behind their curtain, -rushed down to tease Betty and watch her visitor climb the fence. It -was five feet high and of solid boards, but he vaulted it easily, -and they watched him sprint up the snowy slope on the other side and -disappear through a basement door into the great factory that crowned -the hill. - -“Who in the world can he be?” demanded Mary excitedly. “I didn’t -suppose that kind of man worked in a factory. He might be the owner, -but apparently he’s only just come upon the scene for the first time.” - -“A new manager, probably, of a very superior brand,” Madeline -suggested. “He certainly has some authority, because he talked about -making changes. But he didn’t act a bit businesslike. We’ll just have -to call him Young-Man-Over-the-Fence and await developments. Hist! -Customers approach, and must not discover me in my work-apron.” And -Madeline rushed headlong up the stairs, and slipped behind the curtain -just in time to escape a merry party of freshmen seeking refreshment -after a “regular terror” of a written lesson in Latin. - -“I was going to have tea to-day myself,” Mary told Betty, “but I think -I’ll wait till to-morrow--at four exactly. Young-Man-Over-the-Fence -must learn not to expect a tête-à-tête thrown in with the tea.” - -But the gentleman in question appeared not at all put out, when he -arrived next day punctually on the stroke of four, to find a dainty -little lady, who smiled demurely down into her teacup, in possession -of his chosen table, and a white-capped maid ready to intercept his -progress to Betty’s desk with the information that his tea would be -served in one minute, at the table by the fire or in one of the stalls, -just as he preferred. - -He didn’t even glance in Betty’s direction as he slipped silently into -a chair by the fire, looking tired and dejected somehow, and staring -gloomily into a dusky corner straight ahead of him while he waited. But -he had a sudden smile and a “thank you” for Nora when she hurried back -with his tray, and he ate and drank with evident enjoyment. - -“You don’t ask enough for your tea,” he told Betty, after having -carefully ascertained from Nora that one always paid one’s bill at -the desk. “I ought to be charged three prices for such a very big -pot. Did you say I have been charged an extra big price?” He shook his -head dubiously. “I don’t believe you make enough then. And I say, is -it permissible for customers to make suggestions--not complaints, you -understand, but hints for improvements? Well, in my father’s English -stables the name of each horse and a picture of it is nailed up at the -head of the stall. Don’t you think that would take well here?” He waved -his hand toward the stalls. “Winona, Prince, Down-and-Out, Vixen, King -o’ Spades--you get the idea? And little colored prints fastened just -below the names.” - -“I think that would be splendid,” Betty told him cordially. “It would -be a real feature, to be able to order your lunch served in Vixen’s -stall or Prince’s, instead of just in the third or first. I’ll tell -Madeline--I mean Miss Ayres--and I’m sure she’ll see to it.” - -“Is she the decorating committee?” inquired the young man. “Because if -so, she’s certainly to be congratulated. And does she also make the -pretty things on that table? I’m coming over here for lunch some day, -and then I shall have time to select Christmas gifts. Marmalade again -to-morrow, please. Good-bye.” - -The next afternoon he came carrying a handful of scarlet pepper -berries. “I had a lot sent on from California,” he explained, “to -brighten up our barracks over there. They’ll fit in beautifully here, -won’t they?” - -“He’s heard about the Perfect Patrons’ Society,” Mary declared, “and -he’s trying to qualify for membership. Let him in on condition that he -explains himself. I’m simply bursting with curiosity.” - -But Young-Man-Over-the-Fence came for his tea, calmly oblivious of the -interest he had aroused. He generally arrived tired and listless, and -he always hurried out smiling. - -“You will save my life yet,” he told Betty gaily one day. “I generally -forget to go to lunch, but I never pass up my tea. If ever I should, -Nora must run up the hill and remind me--no, that would be a lot of -trouble for her, because she couldn’t climb the fence, and it’s further -round by the street.” - -“Then you mustn’t forget,” Betty insisted. “And I’m sure you oughtn’t -to miss your lunch either,” she added gravely. “It must be very bad -for your health. Is the stocking business so absorbing?” - -The young man laughed good-humoredly. “It’s not the stocking business -exactly that’s absorbing; it’s the people who make the stockings. -There’s a little Italian boy whose hand was caught in a machine -yesterday morning. He was responsible for my passing up yesterday’s -lunch. And there are two old men--Russians--who know hardly a word of -English. They’re terribly forlorn and lonely. And then the girls, and -the miserable little children----Oh, it’s a paradise compared to our -mills in the South, of course, but--I’m afraid I’m boring you. Perhaps -you aren’t interested in such things.” - -“Oh, yes, I am,” Betty told him earnestly, “only I don’t know very much -about them. Are you--do you----” - -“I try to see that the workers are all safer and happier,” he helped -her out. “It’s very hard to accomplish much. The manager thinks I’m -crazy, and the workers won’t trust me because I’m my father’s son. It’s -my father’s mill, you understand. If I plan a dance or a concert they -think it’s some new kind of trap to lower wages or get in non-union -workers, or to make them buy a lot of new clothes at the Company’s -store.” He smiled sadly at Betty. “I suppose the tea-room business -isn’t all roses, but I can tell you it looks like long-stemmed American -beauties compared to my job. I must be off. Next time it will be your -turn to grumble.” - -But when the hour of Young-Man-Over-the-Fence struck the next day, -Betty had a friend beside her desk--Babbie Hildreth, just arrived in -response to a despairing summons from Betty, who had found the keeping -up of the gift-shop department through the Christmas rush, with Mary -off to hear Dr. Hinsdale read his famous paper, Madeline tired and -worried over her neglected stories, and the college girl helpers -overwhelmed with end-of-the-term papers and festivities, a good deal -more than she could manage. - -“Of course we oughtn’t to stop now,” Babbie agreed eagerly as she -listened to Betty’s account of the situation. “I’m ready to pitch in -day and night. I haven’t had anything on hand that I absolutely had to -do for so long that I feel half asleep. Who’s the long-legged man, -Betty?” - -Betty explained. “We don’t know his name,” she concluded, “so Madeline -calls him Young-Man-Over-the-Fence.” - -Babbie nodded comprehendingly. “Of course he can jump fences, but if he -couldn’t he’d get over them all the same--witness his chin. He’s got -nice eyes and a nice smile, but I hate a chin like that.” - -“You’ve got quite a determined chin yourself, Babbie Hildreth,” Betty -reminded her laughingly. - -“Probably that’s why I hate them for other people,” Babbie admitted. -“Well, I’m going up to let Madeline set me to work.” - -The “nice eyes” of Young-Man-Over-the-Fence followed her graceful -little figure absently, as she climbed the stairs. He had dawdled an -unprecedented time over his tea, watching the pretty picture that she -and Betty made, absorbed in their merry, animated talk. - -“Some day I think you might let me go up-stairs,” he told Betty, as he -paid his bill. “I’ve noticed that all your very nicest customers do -it. I’m a very regular customer--if that counts in any one’s favor.” - -“Babbie isn’t a customer,” Betty explained. “She’s one of the firm. -Mrs. Hinsdale is a customer, but she helps us make things. The -gift-shop workroom is up there, you know.” - -“Is it? Well, I’ll help make things too, if you’ll let me come,” he -promised. “You keep it up evenings, don’t you? I was at the factory -last night, and I saw your light going up there. I thought seriously -of coming over to protest against your infringing on the working man’s -rule for an eight-hour day. If I had, would you have let me in?” - -“I presume so,” Betty admitted laughingly, “because we should have -thought it was Georgia Ames come to say good-night, or some college -girl, who had filled orders for us, bringing the things.” - -Young-Man-Over-the-Fence nodded approvingly. “Then the next evening -that I find myself perishing of loneliness I shall try it.” And he -rushed for the door so violently that he almost ran down a pair of -little freshmen, who were chattering too busily about their senior -crushes to look out for human whirlwinds coming along in the opposite -direction. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -AN ORDER FOR A PARTY - - -“I SUPPOSE people do sometimes have to be away from their homes on -Christmas day.” Betty held the “extra-special” shade she had just -finished up against the light, and gazed pensively at the prancing -horses and the hospitable red roof of the inn. - -“It has been done,” gurgled Madeline, her mouth full of pins, “and it -will be done again, with the Washington Square homestead rented and -Sorrento, Italy, a little inaccessible from Harding, U. S. A.” - -“Poor, lonely lady! Come and eat your Christmas dinner with mummy and -me,” urged Babbie sympathetically. “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday that -college closes?” - -“Not till Wednesday,” murmured Madeline, “and then it’s me for freedom -and the literary life!” She took the pins out cautiously, one by one. -“It’s dear of you to ask me for the vacation, Babbie, but I’ve got to -improve the shining hours. While the tea-room is shut, and Betty, -the cruel slave-driver, has gone to be clasped in the arms of her -adored and adoring family, I shall turn our palatial apartment into an -author’s paradise--papers everywhere, genius burning, and positively -no dusting allowed. If the wallpaper gets on my nerves I shall come -over and start a fire here, and try the effect of a desk with a secret -drawer in it on the imagination that Dick Blake rudely says I haven’t -got.” - -“I’m sorry, Madeline, but I don’t think I can go home.” Betty was -swallowing hard to keep back the tears. She had thought it all out in -the night, and made up her mind not to care, but telling it made it -seem more final some way, and consequently worse. “Some of the orders -can’t be filled until the last minute, and some will surely be late -and have to be mailed. I haven’t made any payments to outsiders for -two weeks, because I couldn’t take time to go over the accounts. I -shouldn’t enjoy Christmas with all those things hanging over my head.” - -“Then stop making those everlasting candle-shades and go to work on -the accounts this very minute,” commanded Babbie, with a tilt of her -determined chin. - -“But if I do that,” Betty objected, “we can’t possibly fill our orders. -Besides, I don’t believe the tea-room ought to be closed during the -vacation. A good many girls stay over, and anyway it won’t seem -businesslike.” - -“I’ll keep it open then,” declared Madeline magnanimously. - -“Oh, you couldn’t ever manage, Madeline. You’d make a mess----” Betty -stopped short, with a swift effort to be tactful. “You’d ruin your -imagination, I mean, thinking up new sandwiches and paying grocer’s -bills.” - -Babbie and Madeline exchanged despairing glances. - -“I won’t dust our room, Madeline,” Betty promised, “not once in the -whole two weeks, and you may scatter papers wherever you like. And you -mustn’t think I mind terribly, Babbie. You’ve got to tend up to things -you do for a living or else---- Oh, dear! who is that knocking?” - -“I’ll go,” Babbie offered, “because I’ve just washed the paint off my -hands.” - -So Babbie Hildreth and not Betty, who had been sympathetic about lonely -evenings, opened the door for Young-Man-Over-the-Fence, and after a -frigid “Good-evening” stood frowning in disapproving silence while she -waited for him to explain himself. - -“I came to ask--that is, I wanted to see about placing an order. I -suppose I shouldn’t have come this evening, only I was in a hurry to -get things settled right away. Is Miss--the young woman who sits at the -desk--could I see her?” - -“I’m not sure,” Babbie told him coldly. “You can’t have dinner here, -you know. This tea-shop closes at six, and it’s nearly eight now.” - -“I’m very sorry,” murmured Young-Man-Over-the-Fence contritely. Babbie -Hildreth in a blue gingham studio apron, with a distractingly becoming -dinner-gown peeping out from underneath it, was a sight calculated -to inspire contrition in the breast of any man who had unwittingly -incurred her displeasure. “I’ll come back in the morning--no, in the -afternoon,” he added humbly. - -[Illustration: “THIS TEA-SHOP CLOSES AT SIX”] - -“If it was an order for Tally-ho candle-shades,” Babbie told him, -still icily, “we’re not taking any more. We have all the work that we -can finish for Christmas already.” - -“No, it’s not candle-shades,” Young-Man-Over-the-Fence assured her -blandly. “It’s a bigger thing than that.” He paused impressively and -was rewarded when a gleam of curiosity crossed Babbie’s impassive -little face. “I’ll come back to-morrow afternoon,” he repeated. - -“Wait a minute,” Babbie commanded swiftly. Betty had inspired her -with a sense of the importance of being businesslike, and here was a -big order that ought, perhaps, to be treated with special respect and -consideration. “I’ll tell Miss Wales that you’re here and possibly she -can see you more conveniently now. The name, please?” - -“Robert Thayer, Junior, from the stocking factory,” he told her. “And -say, please, that I’ve come on business, about a Christmas party that I -want to arrange for.” - -“I don’t think we do catering for parties,” Babbie told him, “and I -believe we are to close for the Christmas holidays. But I’ll tell her.” - -A minute later Betty was shaking hands with Young-Man-Over-the-Fence, -alias Mr. Robert Thayer, Junior, of the stocking factory. - -“It’s lucky I didn’t just cut in here to be cheered up, as I’d intended -to,” he explained with a sigh of relief. “That other member of the -firm is a suspicious person--or perhaps you’d warned her against me. -But her theories were unfounded. May we sit down? You see I’ve had an -inspiration, and I couldn’t wait to get it going.” - -“That’s just like Madeline,” laughed Betty. “She wakes me up in the -middle of the night with her inspirations. Once she even wanted me to -dress and come over here with her to see whether we could make a big -horseshoe out of oats.” Betty pointed to the one over the fireplace. -“And then when I wouldn’t, she was days and days getting around to it.” - -Mr. Thayer laughed appreciatively. “I understand that perfectly. -There’s everything in being in the right mood for things. Now to-night -I’m hot on the trail of a Christmas party. I was over in my office -directing invitations--they like to get formal invitations, you -know--when it suddenly struck me that if I had a regulation Christmas -party it would naturally be a regulation failure, like the others I’ve -tried. So I racked my brains for something extraordinary, and nothing -came. Then I looked over here and thought of all the extraordinary -things you’ve planned, and here I am to place an order for one -extraordinary party, with food, all guaranteed to please three hundred -assorted factory hands.” - -Betty stared at him in amazement. “I don’t understand----” she began. - -Young-Man-Over-the-Fence smiled his merry, reassuring smile. “As your -tea-shop is to the regulation kind of tea-shop, so is the Christmas -party I want to the regular thing. I want it to look something like -this room, to be--well----” - -“Stunty,” supplied Betty quickly. - -“Stunty--that’s a new one on me, but if it describes all this----” He -waved his hand comprehensively at the fire, at a grinning gargoyle with -its hanging lantern, and across to the dusky line of stalls. - -“Features, Madeline calls the queer little touches,” Betty broke -in again. “I understand what you want. You want a party in Harding -style,--that will go off the way the spreads and Hallowe’en things and -freshmen frolics do. Madeline could think up something lovely. But I -don’t see--how did you happen to come to us?” - -“Because I felt sure you could get me what I wanted.” - -“But we don’t do things like that,” Betty objected. - -“Then you ought to,” he told her. “There’s a field for it.” He laughed -merrily. “I’m the field. And--I dislike to mention anything so sordid, -but it pays very well, much better than tea and candle-shades, I’m -sure. In London once I remember my sister paid twenty pounds to a firm -for planning her a cotillion. I’d thought that would be about right for -this party.” - -“Twenty pounds--why, that’s a hundred dollars!” cried Betty -incredulously. - -The young man nodded. “That doesn’t include the refreshments, you -understand. It’s for the design only--the design for a stunty party -with features. And then think of all the pleasure you’ll be giving. -But--I forgot; the young lady who let me in said you were going to -close your shop for Christmas. Perhaps that means that you won’t be -here to run a party on Christmas eve.” - -Betty smiled sadly. “We were just discussing that and we’ve decided--at -least, I’ve decided, to keep open during the holidays. But we’re very -busy.” She considered, frowning. “It all depends on whether Madeline -likes the idea,” she decided at last. “I’ll call her down, and you can -tell her about it.” - -“Oh, wait one minute,” he begged, as Betty started off. “Tell me how to -make her like it, please. Is she the one who let me in?” - -“No,” Betty told him, “but of course Babbie will have to approve too.” -She stopped to consider again. “I’d tell you how to make Madeline -like it if I knew myself, but I don’t. It just depends on how a thing -strikes her.” - -But when Madeline and Babbie appeared, Betty did help by breaking the -ice, for she gravely presented “Mr. Fence” to the other members of the -firm, whereupon Madeline promptly told him about his pseudonym at the -Tally-ho, and then, rather abashed by her own temerity, lit the candles -in the stalls to show him how she had named them that very evening, -according to his suggestion. - -So they were all, except Babbie, very friendly, when they sat down -again to discuss Mr. Thayer’s order; and Mr. Thayer seemed to have -decided that it was safest to ignore Babbie, for he addressed himself -entirely to Madeline, as he explained again what he wanted. - -And of course, because it was absurd and unexpected, Madeline liked -the idea. She forgot how busy they were already, and how she hated -conducting rehearsals and working out details. She threw her Literary -Career to the winds. - -“You want it on Christmas eve?” she began briskly. “Then we’ll have -a masque of the Christmas stockings to start off with. Isn’t that an -appropriate touch for the stocking-makers’ Christmas party? How old are -your youngest stocking-makers, please?” - -“They say they’re fourteen, as the law requires,” explained Mr. Thayer -grimly, “but you’d never know it. Anyhow they’re small enough to do -beautifully for a masque of the Christmas stockings.” - -“And then,” Madeline went on, staring hard at the shiny tip of Babbie’s -slipper, “and then--well, Twelfth Night isn’t till the sixth of -January, but probably the stocking-makers won’t object to anticipating -the date a little. We’ll have a pageant of Twelfth Night cakes and -Twelfth Night bakers. And we’ll choose and crown a King and Queen of -the Revels, in accepted Twelfth Night style. Does that sound promising -to you, Mr. Thayer?” - -“It sounds great,” he assured her enthusiastically, “and I’m sure it -will be as good as it sounds.” - -“The invitation card,” Madeline ordered calmly, “is to have a -beautifully frosted cake at the top and a stocking with a Santa Claus -head sticking out of it at the bottom. You’ll just have to throw away -the ones you got ready to-night. I’ll come around some time to-morrow -to look over my children.” - -“Thank you. That will be great,” said Mr. Thayer eagerly, and suddenly -turned to Babbie, who had listened in silence to all Madeline’s -enthusiastic planning. “Won’t you please come too? It’s a queer place. -I think you’d like going through it.” - -“I shall probably have to come,” Babbie told him rather ungraciously, -“because Madeline can’t go alone, and Betty will be too busy.” - -“I’m sorry that I should be the means of inconveniencing you,” Mr. -Thayer told her gravely, holding out his hand. “Good-night.” And he was -gone, with only a nod for the others. - -“Goodness, Babbie, but you’re chilly,” Madeline protested. - -“Well, you’re absurd,” Babbie retorted. “You can never make such a -thing go in the world, Madeline. That sort of people won’t know how to -carry it through.” - -“Of course not,” Madeline conceded. “I’ve thought of that. Some of -the children will do for Stockings, but for the Cakes and the Jester -and all that, I’m going to have college girls who stay here over the -holidays. I think I’ll go up now to see Georgia about who’ll be here.” - -“Oh, what a splendid idea!” cried Betty eagerly. “I’d been wishing we -could make a Christmas for the left-overs.” - -“I don’t believe they’ll want to bother with anything like this,” -objected Babbie. “Besides, only freaks stay over Christmas.” - -“Bother!” Madeline took her up. “They’ll jump at it--the freaks -particularly, because they don’t get in on such gay doings very often. -Now, Betty, don’t you worry about my helping on the ‘extra-special’ -order-list. I was afraid Mr. Thayer would be scared off if I explained -that I meant to dump all the finishing touches on the left-over girls. -They can make the costumes, too, Wednesday night and Thursday.” - -“If he knew you better, he would have been sure that you’d never bother -with any finishing touches yourself,” Babbie remarked crushingly. - -“How can you expect a person who has such splendid ideas to bother with -fussy little details?” put in Betty, who had listened in wondering -admiration to Madeline’s offhand suggestions. “I’m sure the college -girls will like to help. The only trouble is, if they do most of the -work who ought to have the hundred dollars?” - -“What hundred dollars?” chorused the other two, and Betty explained -that the financial side of the Tally-ho’s biggest order was being -entirely overlooked. - -“It ought not to be put in with the tea-room profits, except the bill -for the refreshments,” Babbie declared, “and I certainly ought not to -have any of it. I shan’t be any help. You and Madeline can divide, -because you made friends with him first, and she thought up the -entertainment.” - -“But if the others sew for us----” began Betty. - -“Oh, let’s wait and see how it comes out,” Madeline suggested easily, -slipping on her ulster. “You two can be planning Twelfth Night cakes -for refreshments, while I’m gone. Did you ever see them in London, -Babbie? They’re fearfully and wonderfully concocted.” - -At the door she came back to make another suggestion. “All big -businesses have their pet charities. We might have the stocking people -for ours. We could just ask Mr. Thayer to pay the expenses, and make -him spend the rest of the money for a club-house--well, keep it toward -a club-house then, Miss Betty the practical.” - -Next morning Madeline came back from her visit to the factory more -enthusiastic, if possible, than before. She had talked to the Italian -boy with the bandaged arm--he came down every day to have it dressed -by the company’s doctor--and he was from Sorrento and knew her father, -had posed for him once in the olive orchard behind the villa. Even -Babbie had been interested in the children, Italians, French, Poles, -Bohemians, Greeks, dark-eyed, swift-fingered, chattering eagerly to -“da pretta lada” in broken English, and all agog over the mysterious -Christmas party. - -“They live all together down there somewhere.” Babbie pointed vaguely -off behind the kitchen. “They were nearly all brought over to this -country three years ago, when the factory was opened. It’s a real -foreign quarter, Mr. Thayer says, with old-country customs and pitiful -poverty and ignorance. It’s queer that we never knew anything about -them, isn’t it? The college is on that hill, and the factory on this, -and yet they’re so far apart that one has hardly heard of the other.” - -“So the stocking people weren’t so terribly unpleasant after all?” -asked Betty slyly. - -Babbie blushed faintly. “Well, you and Madeline made me cross. You gave -in so to his chin. I suppose I was disagreeable, but I was perfect -to-day, wasn’t I, Madeline?” - -“Depends on what you mean by perfect,” Madeline told her. “If you -mean that you made everybody in the place from the social secretary, -or whatever Mr. Robert Thayer, Junior, calls himself, to the smallest -cotton-spinner of them all fall madly in l----” - -Madeline and the rest of her sentence found themselves smothered under -a huge cushion, which Babbie pummeled viciously. - -“Don’t bother me about that,” she commanded wrathfully. “One minute you -say I’m haughty and disagreeable, and the next----” - -“The next,” Betty told her comfortingly, “we only say you’re such a -darling, that people can’t help seeing it, you silly child.” - -“I don’t care,” sniffed Babbie tearfully. “I shan’t go over there -again, and I shan’t be here for his old party. So now!” - -After which declaration of rights, Babbie did her hair low in her neck, -donned her most becoming afternoon dress, and asked a dozen adoring -freshmen to tea with her in the stall named “Jack o’ Hearts.” As -Babbie sat in the most secluded corner of the stall, it is doubtful if -anything but the tip of her ear, a nodding plume, and an absurdly small -hand stretched out to press more of Cousin Kate’s cookies upon a hungry -freshman, could have been visible to the staid young gentleman who had -his tea at a small table in the alcove opposite. - -“He’s the new history professor,” one of the freshmen announced in a -sepulchral whisper. “Isn’t he handsome?” - -“No, he isn’t,” snapped Babbie. “Isn’t the new history professor, I -mean. He’s something or other in a factory. So don’t be making plans to -move into a history course after midyears, Susanna.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -UNEXPECTED VISITORS - - -MADELINE composed the Masque of the Christmas Stockings in the -first frenzy of her enthusiasm, and then, declaring that genius -wouldn’t burn any more, she left the Pageant of Twelfth Night Cakes -until so late that Betty was in despair; and she persistently forgot -the Christmas Stockings’ rehearsals until Babbie, rallying to the honor -of the Tally-ho, took them in charge. - -“Don’t you wish you were going to stay for the party?” Mr. Thayer asked -her, at her last rehearsal, while Madeline, who had come to take over -the reins again, was giving her final directions to the children. In -the intervals of the rehearsal, she had scribbled off some songs and -speeches for the Cakes, which were so clever that Babbie had been -compelled to drop what Madeline had wickedly dubbed her Perfect Manner -and laugh heartily over them, as she and Mr. Thayer read them together. -Her Perfect Manner was quite different from the one that she had -hastily called perfect on the day of her first visit to the stocking -factory. Madeline had written the other B’s about it, describing it -deftly as “Sweetness from a Long Way off.” - -So now Babbie answered with distant courtesy, “Of course I’m very much -interested in the party, but I shouldn’t think of not going home for -Christmas.” - -“Oh, certainly not,” Mr. Thayer agreed hastily. “I shouldn’t either, -only I haven’t been sufficiently urged. I had a letter from my father -yesterday saying that the laws I got passed last month by the state -legislature were going to ruin him, so now I’m not even expecting a -present.” - -“Why do you go to work and have laws passed that your father doesn’t -like?” inquired Babbie severely. - -“You wouldn’t want me to have any passed that could possibly please -him, would you?” Mr. Thayer retorted, and when he caught the flicker -of interest in Babbie’s eyes he went on, “You see, Miss Hildreth, my -father has the wrong point of view. He always thinks of the dollars, -where he ought to think of the workers. He holds to the old-fashioned -theory that the man who toils hasn’t any feelings. He’s never seen any -of his factories. He sits in an office in New York, at a shiny mahogany -desk with twenty nice little pigeonholes in it, one for each of his -factories. When a manager’s report shows fat profits, he smiles and -tucks it into its pigeon-hole. If the profits go down, he sends for the -manager--or bounces him without sending for him. When I left college he -gave me a pigeon-hole.” - -“This factory, you mean?” asked Babbie. - -“Not at first. He’s changed my pigeon-hole several times. First he -gave me a mill in South Carolina, and I went down and wrote about the -appalling conditions there for one of the prominent magazines.” - -“That was rather unkind of you, wasn’t it,” Babbie demanded, “when he’d -just given you the factory?” - -The young man smiled. “My father thought it was, but I maintained that -I could do as I pleased with my own property. Anyhow he took back his -little gift and sent me to a beet-sugar plant out in Michigan, and told -me to see if I could keep out of mischief there. Well, the railroads -were all giving us special freight rates, and we were fairly coining -money and crushing all our competitors to the wall. I told them they -must play fair, or I’d expose them. My father was furious,--but I think -he was just a little proud too, to find that I couldn’t be taken in. So -we had a big pow-wow about the duty of sons and fair play in business, -and he finally agreed to give me a free hand here, at the least -profitable factory he owns. Whatever profits there are I am to have to -improve conditions with, and I can take as long as I like to show my -father that it pays to treat your men like human beings.” - -“I don’t see the use of fussing so much to prove that,” Babbie told -him coldly. “If they don’t like working for him, they can leave, can’t -they?” - -“If they enjoy starving they can,” Mr. Thayer told her grimly. Then -he smiled the smile that Babbie always warmed to in spite of herself. -“You’re a capitalist and an employer yourself, Miss Hildreth. If you -have such mistaken ideas on the labor question, I think I ought to -stop patronizing your firm. You may be abusing the cook.” - -“I’m afraid she is overworked days when there’s a rush,” Babbie -admitted soberly. “But if she says she’s tired, we always send her home -in a carriage, and she calls us all ‘me darlin’.’” - -Mr. Thayer threw back his head and laughed. “Then I can certainly -patronize you with a clear conscience. I’m so relieved. It would be -terrible to have to call off the Christmas party.” - -It would indeed have been tragic to call off the Christmas party, with -three hundred eager factory hands, not to mention twenty-five homesick -college girls, looking forward to it as the great event of the holiday -season. The whole college had heard about it, and took a deep and -envious interest in the proceedings. - -“Just mean of you to give it when I can’t come,” grumbled Georgia. - -“Madeline, let us repeat the Pageant of the Twelfth Night Cakes for -Dramatic Club’s January meeting,” begged Polly Eastman. - -“Make him have another party when we’re here,” put in the -fluffy-haired Dutton twin. “It’s hateful of you to keep him all to -yourselves.” - -College closed at noon on Wednesday, and lunch hour at the Tally-ho was -a pell-mell rush of happy, hungry girls, loaded down with suit-cases, -running out between courses to look for “that dastardly cabman who said -he never in his life was late,” or hailing a passing car with a frantic -wave of a sandwich wrapped in a paper napkin. “And it’s all I’ll get -till eight to-night,” they assured Betty joyously, for lunch is a small -thing when you’re going home for Christmas. Betty reveled in the rush -and the gay confusion. She helped little Ruth Howard spirit Lucile -Merrifield’s suit-case into a secluded corner to tuck in a mysterious -little package tied with holly ribbon. She took orders for belated -gifts, repacked bags that simply wouldn’t hold their owner’s left-over -note-books and last purchases until she took them in hand. She looked -up trains, promised to forward trunk checks that hadn’t come in time, -and was here, there, and everywhere until, when she heard the far-away -whistle of the two-fifteen, she gave a little sigh of relief and -declared that she felt like the distracted centipede in the nonsense -rhyme. - -And then a dismal quiet descended on the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. Madeline -was up-stairs with a bevy of Cakes, who were rehearsing and working on -their costumes. Betty refused to join them until she had straightened -out her accounts; she had a horror of being behind with them. So she -was sitting quite alone working busily, when Eugenia Ford came in. -Eugenia’s pretty face was tear-stained, her eyes were swollen half -shut, and her whole appearance was as limp and woebegone as it usually -was alert and aggressive. She hesitated for a minute, and then crossed -quickly to Betty’s desk. - -“Good-afternoon, Miss Ford,” Betty said cheerfully, tactfully ignoring -the tear-stains, and then she waited, not knowing how to go on. - -But Eugenia only nodded and stared at her in dumb misery, evidently -afraid to speak lest the tears should start again. - -So, “Won’t you sit down?” Betty suggested cordially. “Or did you want -to go up and see Madeline and the Cakes? They’re behind the curtains -in the loft, rehearsing.” - -Eugenia dropped into a chair. “I’m not going home for Christmas,” she -announced tremulously. - -“Oh, aren’t you?” Betty began comfortingly. “Well, then you must -certainly have a part in the Masque of the Cakes. You’d make a lovely -Sugar Cooky, and I heard Madeline say they needed more.” - -“I--I look like--a fr-fright,” choked Eugenia, stifling a sob, “if -that’s how a sugar cooky looks, and I don’t want to see anybody b-but -you.” - -“All right,” Betty assured her hastily, “then you shan’t. There won’t -be a soul in here now for a while. Please don’t feel so unhappy, but -tell me what I can do to help you.” - -“I’ve been warned in three different studies.” Eugenia’s voice was -weighted with the tragic significance of her words. “And I th-thought -I was doing beautifully,” she added, while two big tears rolled -slowly down her soft cheeks. Eugenia dabbed at them with a very damp -handkerchief. - -“Oh, I’m so sorry,” cried Betty sympathetically, racking her brains, -meanwhile, to think why in the world Eugenia Ford had come to her -with her tale of woe. “It’s the worst thing about freshman year, -I think--the not being able to tell how you’ve done, nor what the -teachers expect of you. I worried fearfully, I remember.” - -“Were you warned too?” demanded Eugenia with the frankness of despair. - -“N-no.” Betty was really sorry at the moment that she hadn’t been. “But -lots of my friends were,” she added consolingly. - -“My father and mother think I ought to have known that I wasn’t -studying enough,” Eugenia explained. “You see, I didn’t pass my -prep. school exams one year and my father thought that was perfectly -dreadful, so he’s extra cross now. I had to write home about it, -because of all the money I shall need for a tutor, and when I did that, -my father said I should stay on here through the vacation and w-work.” - -“It’s hard now not to go home, but you’ll be glad you didn’t next term, -I guess,” Betty suggested. “The time just flies, from the day college -opens again to midyears.” - -“Well,” continued Eugenia gloomily, “then my tutor changed her mind at -the last minute and went off and left me, and Miss Ferris--she’s our -class officer--told me to come to you. I said I didn’t think you ever -tutored, but she said to come all the same and she sent you a note. Oh, -I ought to have given you the note first!” A big tear splashed down on -the address, as she handed Miss Ferris’s note to Betty. - - “Dear little helper,” Miss Ferris had written, “here’s a chance for - you to cultivate the right kind of college spirit. That’s what Miss - Ford needs. She seems bright enough to keep up with her class easily. - You must inspire her with pride in her work and determination to do it - justice. I needn’t tell you that she’s a dreadful little snob. Some - day you must tell me why she begged me most pathetically to send her - to anybody else but you. - - “Merry Christmas, - “MARGARET FERRIS.” - -Betty read it all through twice, while Eugenia, huddled in a forlorn -little heap, watched her eagerly. - -“Oh, dear, I just can’t,” she began at last. “Miss Ferris has forgotten -what a stupid I was. And if you should be----” She had started to -say “flunked out at midyears,” and paused in blank dismay at her own -thoughtlessness. - -“Oh, but I won’t,” Eugenia took her up earnestly, reading Betty’s -thoughts in the light of her own guilty conscience. “I promise I won’t -be horrid. I was--the other day--I was--well, I’m awfully ashamed of -it now, Miss Wales, and I just hated to come and ask a favor of you, -after having been so disagreeable, but I couldn’t actually disobey Miss -Ferris, could I? If you’ll only take me, I’ll do just as you say, and -work awfully hard, and try not to be much bother.” - -Betty gave a deep sigh, and then a comical little laugh. “I’m sure you -will,” she said. “And I shall have to do it. Don’t you see I shall? -Miss Ferris has gone away for the vacation, hasn’t she? Well, I can’t -disobey her either, or disappoint her. But just imagine me tutoring -anybody!” Betty sighed again resignedly. - -“Miss Ferris said you’d be the best one she could possibly pick out -for me,” Eugenia told her, smiling wanly through her tears. “When shall -I come, so as to be the least trouble, Miss Wales?” - -They arranged an hour, and then Betty asked Eugenia, as a great favor, -to help her make tea for Madeline and the Cakes, because Bridget and -Nora had both gone to a wedding, and their long talk had made her -late with the preparations. And by the time the sandwiches were made, -the lemons sliced, and the tea served, Eugenia’s face looked merely -interestingly pale and care-worn, and she was planning her Sugar Cooky -costume with positive enthusiasm. - -Of course, Mr. Thayer’s party was a grand success. Had any party of -Madeline’s planning ever been otherwise? First the little Stockings -hopped merrily on to the stage that Mr. Thayer had had built at one end -of the big social hall on the top floor of the factory. Hopping was -their only means of locomotion, for each of them was tied securely into -a mammoth stocking, its toe stuffed with paper to give it the proper -shape, and its top gathered around the neck of its small occupant, -whose head peered inquiringly out above. There was a Mother-Stocking, -a Father-Stocking, a Good-Little-Willy-Stocking, and a Bad-Little-Billy -one; there was a fireplace, and a Santa Claus, who, being a jolly -fellow, relented even toward Bad-Little-Billy, and loaded the whole -family with comical gifts--for in Stocking Land Santa Claus is not the -mysterious, secretive apparition we know of, but a friendly visitor, -who slaps you familiarly on the back and lets you come up the chimney -and pat the reindeer. The frantic race of Billy and Willy Stocking to -get up the chimney with their costumes intact ended the Stockings’ -performance, and left the audience tearful with mirth. - -Then the Cakes appeared. Sponge Cake led the procession, in a -corn-colored gown trimmed elaborately with fringes of tiny sponges. She -wore a festoon of sponges in her hair, and carried before her a sort -of baton with the biggest sponge you could imagine stuck on the end of -it. After her came Chocolate Cake, with ruffles of brown and white, and -a necklace and bracelets made of chocolate candies. Next came Bride’s -Cake, all in white, with a veil and orange blossoms, and Wedding Cake, -with garlands of raisins, and wedding bells that tinkled when she -moved. Devil’s Cake, adorned with all the little red devils that could -be found on the Harding campus--relics of a fad that had prevailed -in Betty’s senior year--drove a regiment of Sugar Cookies before -her--yellow-haired girls, each carrying a huge cooky, whose framework -was a hoop, plentifully besprinkled with a glittering sugary paste. -Last of all came the Doughnuts, very big and beautifully browned, worn -like life-preservers around the shoulders of their representatives. The -Cakes sang and discussed their respective merits. The Sugar Cookies, -being challenged to show what they could do, had a hoop-rolling, in the -course of which all the sugar fell off them. Then the Twelfth Night -Bakers came in, in white caps and long white aprons, and the Sugar -Cookies, no longer sugared, reproached their makers, and were placated -with wonderful new Twelfth Night decorations in the shape of toys, -birds, and flowers. - -Finally the Bakers produced a huge cake, and, served by the plebeian -Doughnuts, sat down to eat it. Hidden in it were a bean, a pea, and a -clove, and the three Bakers who were lucky enough to find these Twelfth -Night emblems in their portions of cake had the privilege of naming the -King and Queen of Revels, and the Twelfth Night Jester. - -The King and Queen had really been chosen beforehand from the mill -hands, and they had nothing to do but sit on gilt thrones and look -imposing, while the Jester, a queer freshman who was wonderful at -sleight-of-hand tricks, gave a performance in which cakes and stockings -replaced the conventional rabbits and eggs. - -It was all absurd and inconsequent and certainly quite different from -the usual mill party, even to the way the refreshments were served, for -the Cakes moved about among the audience carrying trays of ices, and -the Bakers peddled their wares in the shape of little cup-cakes whose -fantastic decorations rivaled those of the live Cakes in variety and -grotesqueness. - -“Shure an’ they ain’t fit fur civilized humans to ate at all,” Bridget -had announced, as she surveyed them indignantly, “an’ it’s a shamefu’ -waste of good material, not countin’ me slavin’ two days solid on ’em.” - -But Betty had consoled her with explanations about the “foreignness” of -the mill people, and their consequent love for queer things. Betty felt -capable of consoling anybody that day. She fairly danced as she packed -the cakes on the afternoon of the party, and her infectious gaiety in -the evening was one of the best reasons why everything went off so well. - -“It has been just lovely, girls,” she said to the group of Cakes who -crowded around her begging her to tell them how they looked and whether -they had done their dance well. “Those little Italian girls in the -front row told me they never knew a party could be so beautiful, and -their mothers almost cried when they thanked Mr. Thayer. We’ve had lots -of fun ourselves, but the best of it is that we’ve given them a good -time they’ll remember as long as they live.” - -But Betty had a special reason for feeling happy. For two letters had -come in her morning mail. The one she opened first was directed in the -smallest sister’s round, painstaking hand. - - “Darlingest Betty,” she began, “mother says I may come to see you. - She said I could go to see Nan. I love Nan, but I am your compiny. A - person who is compiny always comes to see you. I will be a good girl - and always run away when you are busy. - - “DOROTHY.” - -“The dear little midget,” laughed Betty, and tossed the letter to -Madeline. “She wanted to help with the tea-room, so Will told her she -could be a silent partner--the company in the firm. And now she wants -to come and see me because she’s my ‘compiny.’” - -“She says she is coming,” Madeline corrected her. “Is that her own -idea, or is she really going to make us a visit?” - -“I don’t know.” Betty was deep in her mother’s letter. “Why--oh, dear! -Father is going away off to Mexico, and he’s going to take mother with -him! He may have to stay all the rest of the winter. It’s some land -he’s going to see about, and he hates to go alone. He and mother are -such old lovers! oh, and he hasn’t been very well, and he hates to go -alone, and mother can’t bear to have him. He says that her fare now -will cost less than a doctor later, and she can just as well board down -there as in Cleveland, if I can manage Dorothy.” - -“Well, you can, can’t you?” inquired Madeline placidly. - -“I can, can I?” Betty’s eyes sparkled. “It’s plain, Madeline Ayres, -that you’re an only child. You haven’t the least idea how it feels to -get a letter like this from that cute youngster. Mother says they tried -to make her go to Nan’s school, but she wouldn’t come to any one but -me. Can I manage? I can manage anything with a dear little sister to -play with. Oh, Madeline, I’ve been homesick, and I never knew it till -now!” - -“That’s a good brand of homesickness to cultivate,” laughed Madeline. -“She’ll have to go to school here, won’t she?” - -Betty nodded. “Mother says she can go to the public schools in a nice -little town like this, but I shan’t have her. I’ve saved lots out of -my salary and my share of the gift-room profits, and I shall pay her -tuition at Miss Dick’s. She can prepare for college thoroughly there. -And some day, if we keep on having such good luck at the Tally-ho, I -can help put her through Harding. Won’t that be perfectly splendid, -Madeline Ayres?” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -THE ADVENT OF THE PLOSHKIN - - -IF you are busy enough, you usually don’t discover that you are -homesick--especially if, whenever you do take time to think of your own -private affairs, you can run to the calendar to count the days before -the coming of the smallest sister. And between work and fun, Betty and -Madeline were very busy indeed. - -First there was Christmas dinner at Mary’s--as gay and lively as all -Mary’s hospitalities. Next day there was a select lunch party at the -Tally-ho, at which Mary was the only guest, and at the end of which, -with much pomp and ceremony, she was officially designated the One and -Only Perfect Patron, and initiated with the rite of the Secret Drawer. - -“You’re not opening that the way you did before, Madeline,” Betty -declared, as the three bent their heads together over the desk, while -Madeline pressed one after another of the tiny, hidden springs. - -“Oh, yes, I am,” Madeline assured her. “There couldn’t be but one way -to open it. First you press this spring and take out this drawer; then -you press another spring in the side wall, and out flies your secret -compartment.” - -“You did at least two more things before,” insisted Betty. - -“Well, the woman I bought the desk of thought one push would do it -all,” Madeline reminded her. “Before long we may discover the one magic -touch.” - -“Oh, I hope not,” sighed Mary rapturously. “I like to have it -complicated, so that you forget exactly how it goes between times, and -have to fuss and fumble around. Now please shut it and let me find it -again all by myself.” - -“No, that is the second rite,” Madeline told her severely. “Come back -in a week, a day, and an hour. Meditate, meanwhile, on the Rules for -the Perfect Patron, and concoct at least one beautiful new feature for -the tea-shop. Then, and not till then, are you permitted to touch these -mystic springs. For to-day all is finished, and your long-suffering -husband is waiting sadly for his tea.” - -Though it was vacation time, the Tally-ho Tea-Shop found plenty of -patrons. Besides Mr. Thayer, there were all the left-over girls, -who, having discovered that they could have a good time if they -kept together, organized breakfast and lunch parties and afternoon -tea-drinkings, with skating, snow-shoeing, and sliding expeditions for -appetizers between times. Betty and Eugenia had to seek the privacy of -the loft for their lessons, while Madeline spread her Literary Career, -in the shape of a heterogeneous litter of half-finished stories, over -Betty’s desk, and good-naturedly combined the duties of cashier and -manager with the toils of authorship. The best thing about a Literary -Career, she confided to Mr. Thayer, when he came in one day for his -tea, is that you can pursue it in any reasonably quiet corner. - -“Who publishes your things?” Mr. Thayer inquired interestedly. “I must -read them.” - -And Madeline was forced to admit that so far she had no publishers. -“But I’m going to keep on till I do,” she declared hopefully. “I could -learn to paint easier, I know, because that runs in the family, but -I don’t want to. I’m bound to write, and I’ll keep at it until I -succeed.” - -“And I’ll back you to make a big hit,” Mr. Thayer declared solemnly. -“Anybody that could write those Cake songs, and that Stocking Act---- -By the way, please ask the real cashier to send me a bill for my party.” - -Madeline promised, and wasted the next hour considering whether she -should spend her share of the December profits for a trip to Bohemia, -New York, or a set of Dickens in morocco bindings. The worst thing -about a Literary Career is the ease with which one’s mind wanders away -from it. - -Eugenia Ford cheered up a little over the Pageant of the Cakes, but -when that was done with she relapsed into her former state of tearful -melancholy. She was too busy to join in the fun the other girls were -having, and besides, as she explained carefully to Betty, they weren’t -any of them in her crowd. Betty received this statement in discreet -silence. She believed in taking things one at a time, and Eugenia’s -complete ignorance of the history of early English literature, her -hopeless wonder at the intricacies of geometrical figures, and her -perfectly appalling ideas about the principles of exposition, as -exhibited in her themes, were certainly all that could be attended to -in a two weeks’ vacation. Betty had been “good” in solid geometry; she -could glean the main facts of the literary history from the text-book -and the notes that Eugenia had thoughtfully borrowed from a friend who -was a “Lit. shark”; the themes she could easily see were poor enough to -secure their author a warning, but what the exact trouble was she could -not tell. - -“I don’t believe I could do any better myself,” Betty confided to -Madeline. “Please tell me what to tell her.” - -Madeline read through a few of Eugenia’s stupid little efforts, and -called Betty’s attention to the marks in blue pencil at the end. - -“‘No sequence of thought, no progressive logic, no relevant detail.’ -That’s the trouble with them all. ‘Poor paragraphing; no development -of the central idea.’ Her instructor gave her plenty of hints, but she -blissfully ignored them all.” - -“She didn’t understand them, I suppose,” Betty defended Eugenia. -“Anyway I don’t, and you’ve got to explain till I do, Madeline Ayres. -I’m sorry to bother so, but I’ve got her on my hands, and she shan’t be -flunked in composition if I can help it.” - -“All right,” laughed Madeline. “Now just what is it that you don’t -understand?” - -At the end of an hour’s careful explanation Betty declared that -she thought she could coach Eugenia in theme-work. “You might have -explained straight to her instead of to me,” she added, “only she cries -such a lot. It’s awfully embarrassing, until you get used to it, to -have to talk to a fountain.” - -But if Eugenia wept copiously, she listened attentively, and worked -hard, and gradually both she and Betty were conscious that their -efforts were telling. Betty was more relieved, if possible, than -Eugenia. - -“You’ve certainly improved a heap in geometry,” she told her pupil, -toward the end of the second week. “And you know that table of dates -in ‘Lit.,’ and your themes are a speck better. Your regular tutor will -have to put most of her time on those.” - -“My regular tutor!” Eugenia’s tone was terror-stricken. “Oh, Miss -Wales, I want to keep on with you, of course.” - -“No, you don’t want anything of the kind,” Betty assured her -emphatically. “I was second choice, remember, and besides, I don’t do -tutoring. I only did it through vacation to oblige you and Miss Ferris, -but just as soon as she gets back and the tutor, and----” Betty paused. -Eugenia had not cried for three days, but now she was winking hard. -“Well, we’ll talk it over with Miss Ferris,” Betty told her hastily. “I -really must go now. I’ve got to take the two-fifteen to the Junction to -meet my little sister.” - -Eugenia’s face softened and brightened suddenly. “Is she really -little?” she demanded. “Because I had--I mean I love little girls.” - -“Yes, she’s really little,” Betty laughed. “She’s eleven and very small -for her age.” - -“Mine would have been----” began Eugenia, and stopped again, the soft, -sweet look still in her eyes. - -“You wouldn’t care to come and meet her too?” Betty asked hesitatingly. -“Madeline was going with me, but some girls have engaged tea here, so -she’s staying to see to it.” - -“I should perfectly love to,” declared Eugenia enthusiastically. “I’ll -be company for you on the way down, but on the way back I’ll sit in -another seat and--and do theme outlines. It’s lovely of you to ask me, -Miss Wales.” - -But Eugenia did no theme outlines that afternoon. The smallest sister -was a very friendly little person. She flew into Betty’s arms--Will, -who had brought her, was going straight to Boston on business for -Cousin Joe--and having hugged and been hugged “’most to pieces” -she turned to Eugenia, held up her face for a kiss, and snuggled -confidingly up to her new friend while Betty went to see about the -baggage, and later sat in the car with one arm around Betty and the -other around Eugenia. - -Eugenia smiled rapturously at Betty. “It feels so good. You see I had -a little sister, Miss Wales, and she--I miss her every day of my life. -May I please come and play with yours sometimes?” - -Betty assured her that she might come whenever she pleased, smiling to -herself as she remembered how she had meant to warn little Dorothy that -girls like Eugenia Ford were too busy to bother with smallest sisters. - -It seemed as if nobody was too busy to amuse Dorothy. Miss Dick’s -school did not open until a week after Harding, and by that time the -smallest sister had become a regular--if very restless--feature of the -Tally-ho Tea-Shop. Polly and Georgia and Lucile and the fluffy-haired -Dutton twin had each had her to dinner on the campus, and the -straight-haired twin, who was a basket-ball fiend, had secured her -as mascot for the sophomore team, thereby plunging Eugenia, who took -no particular interest in basket-ball and so had not thought of the -freshman mascot, into the depths of woe. But no amount of flattering -attention could supplant Eugenia in Dorothy’s affections. Eugenia knew -how to talk to little girls. She had a way of appearing when Betty was -busy and Dorothy was thinking hard of mother. Her stories were almost -as nice as Madeline’s, and she was never too busy to tell one. It soon -got to be a regular thing for her to slip down from the campus in the -dusk of the afternoon, when Betty was always busiest in the tea-room, -and it was too cold and dark for a little girl to want to play outdoors -by herself. That was Dorothy’s lonesome time--or it would have been, -but for Eugenia. - -First Eugenia told “true stories” of dolls and canary birds that she -had had when she was little, and of a tame toad that lived under the -door-step at home. Then she invented the ploshkin, and after that she -had to tell how to catch and kill a ploshkin every night for two weeks. - -“Do you know how to catch and kill a ploshkin?” the story began, and -the answer to that was an anxious “No,” even after you knew quite well, -by heart, how the deed was done. - -“The ploshkin is a sad little soul,” Eugenia went on solemnly, “and it -lives in the middle of the bay.” - -“What bay?” demanded Dorothy. - -[Illustration: TRUE STORIES OF DOLLS] - -“The bay of the ploshkin, of course. It lurks in the deep round hole -that you see exactly in the middle of the bay. So you must row out -there in a skiff, taking with you a pail of mortar.” - -“What a funny thing to take,” giggled Dorothy each time. - -“The only thing,” Eugenia announced severely. “And when the skiff is -exactly in the centre of the bay you must fasten the prow to the top of -a wave, with a pink shoe-string.” - -“Who ever heard of a pink shoe-string?” demanded Dorothy gleefully. - -“You have--now,” Eugenia told her. “Where was I? Oh, yes, tie the prow -to the top of a wave with a pink shoe-string, and then you must wait -and wait and wait and wait, till by and by the ploshkin will come up to -drink.” - -“I should think he could drink enough down where he was. Don’t you mean -come up to breathe?” inquired Dorothy acutely. - -“I mean come up to drink. The ploshkin has an ingrowing face and he -drinks up, not down. Now shall I go on with the story?” - -“Please,” begged Dorothy. - -“Well, when he comes up with a flip of his tail, you must jump for the -pail of mortar and sprinkle it on him, and he’ll be so mortified that -he’ll die of mortification.” - -“And must you hold him by the tail? You said ‘catch and kill,’” Dorothy -reminded her. - -Eugenia nodded. “But it’s never been done yet. The tail is prickly, you -see, and slippery between the pricks, and the pink shoe-string gets in -your eyes.” - -“How could it?” demanded Dorothy. - -“It’s enchanted,” Eugenia assured her with the air of finality that -little girls love. “And so this is how you catch and kill a ploshkin.” - -“Could you please make me a picture of a ploshkin?” asked Dorothy on -the third night of the story. - -“I can’t draw pictures, dear, but Miss Ayres will, I’m sure,” Eugenia -told her, and that was how Madeline heard of the ploshkin, and fell so -in love with its name, its ingrowing face, and its prickly, slippery -tail, that she spent a whole morning making sketches of it, when she -should have been pursuing her Literary Career. - -Dorothy displayed the sketches to all her friends, and the exact -appearance of the ploshkin began to be vigorously discussed in college -circles, and pictures of it adorned the fly-leaves of note-books and -the margins of corrected themes. The fluffy-haired Dutton twin, who -took modeling, even made a comical little clay ploshkin and presented -it to Dorothy, who thanked her and tactfully refrained from mentioning -that she had forgotten the prickly tail. But Madeline was not so -reticent, and she and the Dutton twin together modeled another figure -that made Dorothy fairly dance with delight. It had, besides the -prickly tail, one wing, held coquettishly before its “ingrowing face,” -which was rather like a fish’s, except for a “sunny Jim” smile around -the mouth; and there was something inexplicably fascinating about the -grotesque huddle of its posture. - -“That’s a real touch of genius--that makes you feel like laughing -whenever you look at it,” explained the Dutton twin triumphantly, “but -it won’t help me any if I cut again in Elocution. Good-bye,” and she -was off, singing, “Midyears are coming, tra-la, tra-la,” with a joyous -disregard for time and tune. - -While the others were still admiring the new ploshkin Mary Brooks -appeared. - -“It’s two weeks, and two days, less two hours,” she explained, when -she had kissed Dorothy and examined the ploshkin. “I couldn’t come at -the proper time, because my Uncle Marcellus has been to visit us--the -one that gave us the desert island for a wedding gift, you know.” Mary -sighed deeply. “A desert island is a lovely thing to own, but when it -involves an Uncle Marcellus I’d advise anybody to think twice. Well, -he’s gone at last and here I am, to open the drawer.” - -“Why didn’t you bring your Uncle Marcellus in to lunch?” demanded -Madeline severely. “You haven’t been any kind of a patron lately. And -where’s your new feature for the shop that I told you to think up? -You’re trying to shirk your responsibilities, little Mary.” - -“Uncle Marcellus,” said Mary calmly, “is a vegetarian with dyspepsia. -Of course I didn’t bring him in here to find fault with everything. -New rule for the Perfect Patron: Keep the dyspeptic vegetarian away -from the Tea-Room. As for features, I’d thought of something. Let me -see--oh,--why, of course! Make ploshkins.” Mary smiled her beamish -smile at the two proprietors. - -“Now, Mary, you thought that up on the spur of the minute,” began -Madeline. “It’s not fair----” - -“Nonsense,” Mary denounced her affably. “You’re always preaching the -advantage of impromptu inspirations.” - -“But why should we make ploshkins?” demanded Betty. - -“Why indeed?” Mary beamed. “Have you forgotten the day when the Gibson -girl hung over every desk on the Harding campus? And after that came -the Winged Victory. Last year it was red devils, wasn’t it? Well, now -it shall be ploshkins. The Harding girl must have her little idol, and -the Tally-ho Tea-Shop may as well have the Harding girl’s money.” - -“But they’d take ages to make,” objected Madeline. “Fluffy and I spent -two long and weary afternoons on this one.” - -“Don’t be so literal, child,” advised Mary. “Have them made, I mean, of -course. Get one of those plaster statuette places in New York to turn -them off for you. Let me see--three--five--order five hundred. Three -hundred girls will rush to buy them, and two hundred out of the three -will get that wing broken off before June and sorrowfully buy another.” -Mary smiled blandly. “I ought to have been the wife of a shopkeeper, -oughtn’t I? Now may I play with your secret drawer?” - -Being of a fickle disposition, Mary had no sooner received full and -free permission to play with the drawer whenever she liked, than the -secret springs lost their tremendous attraction for her. She had just -got the drawer open when Georgia Ames appeared and Mary promptly -deserted her new plaything to secure Georgia’s advance order for -ploshkins, and then to help her concoct a beautiful little notice about -them to be circulated discreetly through the college. - -“Zoology classes, Attention!” it ran. “The ploshkin is as instructive -as the grasshopper, and you should lose no time in observing its -anatomy. To be had, without the trouble of catching it in the Bay, at -the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. Order early.” - -“The name and that senseless touch about the Bay will get them,” Mary -declared, and went home to tell George Garrison Hinsdale all about it. -So the secret drawer stood open all day long--for Betty, who would have -noticed it, had had an exasperating struggle with the stove, on top -of a particularly irritating time over the carriage lamps, and went -home early with a headache, leaving a message for Eugenia, who still -insisted upon coming for lessons. Madeline found the drawer, when she -was straightening up the tea-room for the night, and shut it in hot -haste. For what is the use of having a secret drawer at all if you -leave it wide open all day for every one to look at? - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -A TRAGIC DISAPPEARANCE - - -“I THINK we ought to send for Babbie,” declared Madeline Ayres a day or -two later. - -“To talk ploshkin?” asked Betty. The ploshkin project was still, to -Mary’s great disgust, being discussed pro and con. - -“Yes,” assented Madeline, “and to have a say about our keeping the -tea-room open for dinners. Also, and most important of all, to save -Young-Man-Over-the-Fence from an early grave.” - -“Oh, yes, we ought to decide right away about the bill for his party,” -agreed Betty innocently. “At least, we have decided, haven’t we, that -it was too much fun to take pay for? But we ought to let him know.” - -“Yes, we undoubtedly ought, but Babbie hasn’t a thing to do with that -party,” Madeline reminded her. - -“That’s so. Then what----” Betty had a sudden inkling of Madeline’s -meaning. “Do you think he’s really interested in Babbie?” she -demanded. “Because Babbie doesn’t like him, and she perfectly hates -having men fall in love with her.” - -“She says she does, you mean,” corrected Madeline, “and perhaps she -even thinks she does. But she doesn’t. No girl does, if the man is -worth anything. I like Young-Man-Over-the-Fence myself, probably -because he’s so optimistic about my literary ability, and I’m sorry I -queered him with Babbie by my premature announcement of his devotion. I -don’t know how I can help matters now, though.” - -Betty laughed. “He’ll help them himself, if he wants to, I guess. He -isn’t the kind to give up easily. The very reason Babbie was prejudiced -against him was because of his determined chin. I’ll make out his bill -for the food and the other expenses right now, before I forget it.” - -When Mr. Thayer came in for his tea that afternoon and was informed of -the Tally-ho’s decision, he objected vigorously. - -“Suppose those girls from the college did help you a little,” he said. -“Give them a spread, if you like, to square things up, and take my -check for yourselves. You really must, you know.” - -Betty explained that it had been only fun for everybody, and Madeline -presented her plan for a club-house. - -Mr. Thayer smiled sorrowfully. “I’ve thought of that, and I want them -to have one; but if they have a club-house they must have clubs. They -must have clubs anyway, for do you know”--his voice took on a tragic -intensity--“not much over half of them can read and write. Last month I -got a law passed that prohibits their working in this state unless they -can read simple English and write little things like their own names, -and now I find there are no evening schools in this benighted town, -and if there were, what would old men and grown women do in a regular -evening school?” - -“Was that the law your father didn’t like?” asked Betty. - -Mr. Thayer nodded gloomily. “It’s a perfectly good law, but it’s making -me no end of trouble. Miss Wales, I’ve noticed that you always seem to -come to the rescue of despairing mortals. Can’t you suggest something?” - -Betty shook her head thoughtfully. Instead of coming to any one’s -rescue she had got to dismiss her extra waitresses again. Nobody -had time for lunches and teas just before midyears, and even if the -tea-shop should decide to serve dinners a little later, she might be -able, with the longer hours, to get on without extra help. Then she -remembered something funny that had come in her morning mail. - -“I must be queer,” she declared, “because people--despairing -mortals--want me to do such funny things for them. This morning I had a -letter from a father whose daughter isn’t popular in college, wanting -me to show her how to make friends. And I never even heard of the girl -before!” - -“Well, you’ll do it,” Mr. Thayer declared, preparing to take his -leave, “and you’ll help me out somehow, too. I’ve got three months’ -grace from the factory commission, before my employees must begin to -attend school. Meanwhile I shall put an architect to work on plans for -the club-house you’ve compelled me to build by your hundred dollar -donation. And by building the club-house I put you under obligations -to help me with the clubs. That’s even. Good-bye.” - -“We’ve gotten ourselves into a lovely fix now,” said Betty solemnly, -staring after him. - -“You have, please say,” Madeline corrected. “He doesn’t expect me to do -anything about his old clubs, after the way I piled the Stockings off -on Babbie.” - -“I should love it if I had time,” sighed Betty. “It’s the only kind of -teaching I know enough to do, just the plain three R’s,--and you could -feel as if your work counted for something, when they must learn and -can’t in any other way.” - -“It would be splendid practice,” added Madeline. “I should almost think -some of the college girls who are going to teach might like to take -classes a night or two each week.” - -Betty gave a little cry of pleased assent. “Why, of course! Why didn’t -you think of that when he was here, Madeline? I know they’d like it, -and girls who don’t mean to teach would, too--Fluffy Dutton and Georgia -and their kind. They’d like the queerness of it.” - -“I might even take a class myself,” Madeline conceded, “if I were -allowed to choose my pupils. I hereby speak for my fascinating little -Italian boy.” - -“It will be a fine chance to practice modern languages, too,” cried -Betty eagerly. “Some girls will like it for that. But the classes -wouldn’t get on very fast, studying only a night a week; and every -night would be a good deal to give. Oh, Madeline, I know what! He could -hire some girls for the big stupid classes that would have to come -several nights a week, and that would help with the Student’s Aid work.” - -“You’re worrying about those waitresses again,” said Madeline -accusingly. “I believe you care more about them than you do about -tea-room profits.” - -“You don’t really think that, do you, Madeline?” demanded Betty -solemnly, “because the tea-room pays me for looking out for its -profits, and if I didn’t put that ahead of anything else, I shouldn’t -be honest.” - -“Of course I don’t think it,” Madeline told her quickly, with a loving -little hug. “You’re altogether too honest, and you work lots harder -than you ought to. If we decide to serve dinners, I shall insist on -your having an assistant. And that will be more help for the Student’s -Aid,” she added mockingly, and went off to Dramatic Club’s dress -rehearsal of the Masque of the Twelfth Night Cakes. - -A few moments later the carriage lamp above Betty’s desk flickered -uncertainly and grew dim. - -“Oh, dear, I never filled one lamp this morning!” sighed Betty. The -stove and the lamps were the hardest things in her winter’s experience. -Bridget had announced, soon after her arrival, that she couldn’t be -“bothered wid ony ile lamps,” and Nora had remarked pointedly that -nowadays you needn’t expect any girl to fuss with those old-fashioned -ways of lighting. So Betty, valuing Bridget and Nora too highly to take -any risks, had quietly assumed the care of the lamps and later of the -stove. She didn’t dare to carry a light near the kerosene can, and in -groping her way to it she tore her sleeve on a nail and got a sliver in -her finger. She had pinned together the tear and taken out the sliver, -and she was sitting by the open fire, trying to finish up the repairs -by smoothing out her ruffled temper, when Eugenia Ford appeared, -looking provokingly spick-and-span and elegant in new furs that her -father had just sent her. - -“He knew he was mean to keep me here over Christmas,” said Eugenia, -when she had duly exhibited her treasures. “Is your headache all gone, -Miss Wales?” - -Betty laughed. “I’d forgotten that I ever had one. That was two days -ago, wasn’t it? I was sorry to make you miss a lesson.” - -“Oh, it didn’t matter,” Eugenia said easily. She was in a very -complacent mood to-day. “I told Miss Ayres that it didn’t matter. I’ve -had two ‘very goods’ said to me in geometry recitations this week, and -I wasn’t sat upon in Lit. to-day. That’s the most of a compliment you -can hope for in Lit. unless you’re a perfect wizard.” - -“Well, don’t get careless and let things go,” Betty warned her -solemnly. “And when you’re cramming, if you find one single little -thing that you don’t understand, you’d better come and let me explain -about it.” Betty flushed uncomfortably. The financial side of such -affairs she found very embarrassing. “It won’t be anything extra; it -will just be a favor to me. I shall feel so nervous until I know you’re -through all right.” - -Eugenia nodded brusquely. “I suppose they’re always dreadfully down on -people who’ve had warnings, but I guess I shall get along.” She seemed -restless and ill at ease somehow, saying almost nothing, answering -Betty’s questions at random, not even noticing the ploshkin that she -had gone into raptures over when she had seen it before, or inquiring -for little Dorothy, as she did invariably whenever she came in. - -“She’s probably worried to death and too proud to let me see it,” Betty -decided; but that was an absurd supposition, considering all the tears -that Eugenia had taken small pains to dissemble. Finally it came out. - -“I must be going,” Eugenia announced at last with sudden briskness. “I -only stopped to inquire for your headache. Oh, yes--and I presume I’d -better take my theme, because it’s due to-morrow morning, and I may not -be down this way again. Did you read it, Miss Wales?” - -Betty’s brow puckered in perplexity. “Your theme? Were you to have -one ready for the other day? I thought it was only the last six -propositions in geometry that we were going over together. Madeline -didn’t give me any theme.” - -“No,” explained Eugenia. “I didn’t tell her anything about it. I just -dropped it on your desk. I thought you’d notice it and read it, and if -you found anything fearfully wrong, I could fix it over.” - -“But I don’t understand what theme it was. We went over all those that -I assigned; and you revised them, and then we went over them again.” - -“This was my ‘final,’” explained Eugenia. - -“Your ‘final’!” Betty’s tone was full of dismay. “But I wasn’t to see -that, Eugenia. That’s to be entirely your own work, like all the themes -you handed in before you were warned. Don’t you remember I told you -how Miss Raymond called a meeting of English tutors to explain that -they were to give no help of any kind on the ‘final’ theme; and she -announced it in classes too, didn’t she?” - -“Oh, yes, if you take it that way”--Eugenia assumed an air of injured -innocence. “Most of the tutors don’t. You see, Miss Wales, some of -the girls are worried to death and bother their tutors for ideas and -pointers until the poor things just about write their freshmen’s themes -to get rid of them. Of course they won’t--or they oughtn’t to--do that -with the ‘final.’ That’s the help Miss Raymond meant.” - -“So is reading it over and making suggestions giving help,” Betty -objected. “She meant help of any kind--or at least that was what she -said.” - -Eugenia shrugged her shoulders. “All right,” she said. “There’s no -harm done, as long as you haven’t even seen the old thing. It’s due -to-morrow anyway, and all I expected you to tell me was little things -like misspelled words or slips of the pen. I couldn’t copy it all over -to-night possibly.” - -Betty always tried to put the best construction on actions that didn’t -seem to her quite honorable. “Oh, if that’s all you wanted, why I don’t -suppose any one would object. But it’s better to keep exactly to Miss -Raymond’s regulations, don’t you think so? If you try hard, you can -find little things like misspelled words for yourself. You will go over -it carefully, won’t you?” Betty added earnestly. “I heard of a girl -once who was conditioned on account of bad spelling. That would be a -perfect shame, after all the time we’ve spent studying really hard -things like outlines.” - -While she talked, Betty was looking through her pigeonholes, where neat -little piles of bills and memoranda for the different parts of the -tea-room business were kept. After one week of chaos she had decided -that order was the first law of business; and since then her desk had -been a model of neatness and system. - -“Where did you say you left the theme, Eugenia?” she asked after a -minute, looking up from her search. - -“Right out on top,” explained Eugenia. “Isn’t it there? Seems to me -a drawer was open. Maybe it got slipped in by mistake with something -else, when the drawer was shut.” - -Betty opened every drawer and looked carefully through the contents. -Then she went through the pigeonholes again, while Eugenia waited, -anxiety fast taking the place of her serene assurance. - -“It’s not here,” Betty announced at last. “Are you perfectly sure you -left it, Eugenia?” - -“Perfectly. You see,” Eugenia, being thoroughly frightened, became, -according to her custom, perfectly frank and open. “You see I knew -you’d think it was cheating to help on a ‘final,’ no matter if -all--well, some,” she amended hastily, “of the regular tutors do it. So -I folded it up and laid it on your desk where I thought you’d naturally -pick it up to see what it was. And after you’d begun it, I thought -you’d finish out of curiosity, because you’re so interested in my not -flunking. And if you thought it was a fright I just hoped you wouldn’t -be able to resist bringing it to me to revise. I guess it wasn’t -honest, and I never mean to actually cheat,” ended Eugenia, with a -feeling for nice distinctions, “so I’m really and truly glad you didn’t -find it before. But it must be there, Miss Wales. It simply must.” - -“It isn’t,” Betty answered with decision. “I’ve looked twice at every -single paper.” - -“Then somebody has taken it.” - -Betty considered. “You might have picked it up yourself, Eugenia, with -your other things, in a fit of absent-mindedness. The maids never touch -this desk. The only other person who could possibly have moved it is -Madeline. She was writing here, I think, the day you say you left it. -She’s up on the campus now. You go and hunt through your room, and as -soon as she comes home, I’ll ask her about it.” - -“Suppose we don’t either of us find it?” queried Eugenia anxiously. - -“Oh, we shall find it,” Betty assured her. “I’m almost sure you took it -off.” - -“Oh, no, I didn’t, Miss Wales,” declared Eugenia. “I know I didn’t, -but I’ll go and look. And if I don’t find it, I shall come right back -here to see if Miss Ayres has it. Oh, just think--what if it’s lost for -keeps?” Eugenia fastened her sable furs as unconcernedly as if they had -been last year’s style and squirrel, and rushed off, her eyes big with -terror. - -Betty went over the desk again, just to be doing something. Just before -Madeline arrived, she remembered the secret drawer. The theme was in -that, of course! When Madeline declared that she hadn’t seen it, and -that it couldn’t be with her papers, because she hadn’t had any on the -desk for five days, Betty insisted on her opening the secret drawer. - -“I simply must learn to open it,” she said. “I knew something would get -lost in there, and if you were away, I shouldn’t be able to get it out. -There, Madeline, that’s the way you did it the first time you opened -it. I think I shall remember now. Oh, it isn’t there! I do hope she’s -found it herself.” - -But a minute later Eugenia burst in, arrayed in her roommate’s oldest -raincoat, furs and complacence alike discarded. “Have you found it?” -she cried. “Because I knew I shouldn’t, and I didn’t.” - -“Oh, Eugenia! No, it isn’t here. Madeline, do come and suggest what to -do.” - -Madeline was as sympathetic as possible, but even her vaunted -resourcefulness could find no feasible remedy for Eugenia’s plight. - -“Ask for more time,” she began. - -“She won’t give it unless you’ve been sick,” Eugenia objected. - -“Go home and write your theme to-night. You can do it, with coffee and -wet towels. If your matron is fussy about lights, come down to our -house.” - -“Oh, I couldn’t,” declared Eugenia tragically. “I can’t hurry on -themes. I’m as slow as a snail when I try to write sense. I spent six -evenings on this, outside of copying.” - -“Then go and explain that you’ve lost it, and throw yourself on the -lady’s tender mercies. Go right away, so she won’t be irritated -beforehand by all the other regular eleventh hour excuses.” - -Eugenia considered. “I suppose that’s the only thing to do. If I -hurry I can get there before dinner. Between tea and dinner is her -good-natured time.” Eugenia pulled up the raincoat, which was much too -long for her, and started off. - -Half an hour later she was back again, shivering forlornly with the -cold and choking with tears. - -“I told her. I told her exactly how I happened to lose it, because she -asked me, and I never thought how awful it would look. She says I’m -a cheat, and don’t deserve more time. She says she’ll flunk me in the -course, and she hopes I’ll flunk enough other things so I can’t stay in -college. Oh, Miss Wales, what shall I do? I told my father I was all -caught up. He doesn’t know about midyears. I guess that wasn’t honest -either, to say I was caught up before I’d passed the exams. If I’m -flunked out now I shan’t ever dare go home. Oh, what shall I do? What -shall I do? What shall I do?” - -Betty tucked the forlorn, weeping little bundle into a chair, heaped -more wood on the fire that she had been trying to put out, brewed hot -tea, and hunted through the larder for tempting “left-overs” that -would make up an appetizing little supper for two. When Madeline -and the smallest sister came to see, as Dorothy put it, whether the -ploshkin had caught and killed Betty, she sent them away with a hastily -whispered explanation. - -“Now first,” she told Eugenia, “you’re to stop crying or you’ll make -yourself sick, and then where will your midyears be? And secondly -you’re to eat what I’ve cooked, because it isn’t polite to act as if -you didn’t like my cooking. And thirdly you’re to escort me as far as -the door of the Davidson. I’m going to see Miss Raymond. I’m sure you -misunderstood part of what she said, because she isn’t the kind to -speak that way. If she has made up her mind to flunk you, I don’t know -that I can do anything, but I’m going to try.” - -“Oh, you mustn’t bother,” moaned Eugenia. “It’s no use. I suppose it -was cheating. You said it was yourself.” - -“I ought to have told you specially not to bring the ‘final’ theme -to me,” Betty told her. “And if you did leave it here, why, I’m -responsible in a way for its loss. I shall tell Miss Raymond that. I -can’t have you fail because something you left with me has disappeared -off the face of the earth.” - -On their way Betty told Eugenia to walk ahead slowly while she ran up -to bid Dorothy good-night. - -“I just hate to go,” she told Madeline. “I don’t know Miss Raymond very -well. If it was Miss Ferris, I should know just what to say; but I’m -afraid Miss Raymond will think it was partly my doings that Eugenia -brought me the theme. I just hate to be mixed up in anything that isn’t -perfectly straight.” - -“Then let her get out of it as best she can herself.” - -Betty shook her head. “That certainly wouldn’t be straight,” she -declared. “I’m helping her because the theme was lost off my desk--and -because she’s been so sweet to Dorothy.” - -After all, the interview wasn’t so dreadful. Miss Raymond began by -thanking Betty for coming at once to explain her side of the affair. - -“Though of course I knew all that you have told me about the part you -took,” she said. “But one thing more--do you think Miss Ford is telling -the truth about her part? You think she really wrote the theme?” - -“Oh, yes, I’m sure she did,” Betty answered earnestly. “She has queer -ideas about what would be fair and honest, but I’m sure she doesn’t -tell out-and-out lies. Besides, how would she ever think of such a -story?” - -“It’s no stranger than others I’ve listened to that proved to be the -invention of girls stupider than Eugenia Ford,” Miss Raymond assured -her smilingly. “But I shall accept your judgment in the matter.” - -“And give her a chance to write another theme?” asked Betty eagerly. - -Miss Raymond hesitated. “I don’t see how I can do that, when I have -refused half a dozen others who had better excuses. But what’s lost -generally turns up, doesn’t it? Suppose I give Miss Ford three weeks, -in the hope that her theme will come to light. Of course I shall trust -to her honor not to write another and substitute it for the original.” - -“But if it doesn’t come to light?” Betty knew just how thoroughly she -had ransacked her desk. - -Miss Raymond considered. “Then what I can do will depend on the reports -I get from her other instructors--and from you, if you are to continue -tutoring her.” - -Betty blushed violently. “If you remember my themes, Miss Raymond, I -know you think it’s perfectly crazy for me to be tutoring in English.” -And she explained how she had been driven to beginning with Eugenia, -and then not allowed to stop. - -“When I see the ‘final’ I can judge better how successful you’ve been,” -Miss Raymond told her cordially, “but I imagine you’ve done good work. -The best writers don’t make the best teachers. What was her subject?” - -Betty blushed again. “‘Little Girls.’ I’d kept telling her to take -something definite and something she knew about, instead of hope, and -Japanese gardens, and things of that kind. But ‘Little Girls’ is a sort -of ridiculous title, isn’t it?” - -“It sounds rather promising to me,” Miss Raymond said. “I hope I shall -have the opportunity of reading about ‘Little Girls.’ Will you explain -our arrangement to Miss Ford?” And Betty felt that she was dismissed. - -She hurried over to tell Eugenia how far she had succeeded, and Eugenia -cheered up perceptibly over the ray of hope held out to her, and even -found heart to taste the fudge that her sympathetic roommate had made -to comfort her. - -Betty finished off her evening with a call on Miss Ferris, who assured -her, in answer to her apologetic account of the situation, that she -didn’t in the least regret, nevertheless, having practically compelled -Betty to tutor Eugenia. - -“And Eugenia is quite right; you can’t stop now,” she declared -laughingly, and then grew serious. “This episode is hard on both of -you, but it will result in her practicing, if she doesn’t fully accept, -a higher code of honor. Then you say she has learned to work, and this -is her chance to show it. Miss Raymond won’t be hard on her if she -shows that she means to do her best. You didn’t think I expected you to -change all her spots in a minute, did you?” - -Betty went home, feeling that a great load was off her shoulders. -To be sure, she was perfectly certain that Eugenia’s theme was lost -“for keeps,” but nobody, not even Eugenia, seemed to blame her. And -something would surely happen to make things come right. - -At home something had already happened to make things interesting, in -the shape of a telegram from Babbie, who had decided to come up to -Harding, although Madeline had not yet carried out her plan of sending -for her. And so she didn’t know a word about the ploshkin or the dinner -project. It wasn’t to discuss those, certainly, that she was coming to -Harding. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -MORE “SIDE-LINES” - - -ON the afternoon of her arrival Babbie had tea, alone and very early, -at the Tally-ho. Just after Nora had served her, Mr. Thayer appeared. -He came over to Babbie’s table to shake hands, as a matter of course, -and he lingered over the process until the very least Babbie could do -was to invite him to share her repast. - -“I met a cousin of yours,” she informed him, “at the week-end party -I’ve just come from--Mr. Austin Thayer. I saw a lot of him, and we got -quite chummy.” - -“Austin’s a fine fellow,” agreed Mr. Thayer cordially, “but he and I -disagree about so many things--we don’t hit it off at all.” - -“No,” said Babbie serenely, crushing a slice of lemon relentlessly with -her tiny wooden spoon--Japanese spoons, for the Japanese teas were -the latest innovation at the Tally-ho. “Your cousin Austin thinks you -are ‘a very foolish boy,’ to quote his own words. We discussed you at -dinner last evening.” - -Mr. Thayer flushed. “And did you defend me just a little?” he asked. -“Because if you didn’t, considering what Austin has called me now and -then, I don’t see how there could have been much discussion.” - -“Well, if you make a point of it, it wasn’t a discussion,” Babbie told -him coldly. “It was an--an exchange of experiences. He told me what he -knew about your past life, and I told him the very little I know about -your present activities.” - -Mr. Thayer smiled a perfunctory smile. “It must have been a desperately -dull dinner. My affairs are never the least bit exciting. Next time you -meet Austin at anybody’s week-end, make him talk about himself.” - -“Oh, he did that too,” Babbie explained, “sitting out dances the first -evening. He’s had piles of fascinating experiences. If I were a man I -think I should go in for the same sort of thing exactly. I love the -way he pounces down on the Stock Exchange, straight out of a South -African jungle, and after he’s made two or three millions calmly -departs again to climb Mount McKinley, or motor through Tibet. And when -his two millions are spent, he builds a town or sells a gold mine, and -then buys a castle on the Hudson and a car and a motor-boat, and tries -another kind of fun. He doesn’t bother with employees and fiddling -little plans for making them ‘safer and happier,’” Babbie quoted -maliciously. - -“No, he doesn’t,” returned Mr. Thayer with asperity. “They mobbed him -once in Chicago, because he’d cornered the wheat supply and the price -of bread had nearly doubled.” - -“Was that the time he made five millions in three months?” asked Babbie -blandly. - -That evening, while Babbie, in a ruffly pink negligee, sat cross-legged -on Madeline’s couch, eating fudges and playing with the ploshkin, she -explained to her two friends that the week-end party had “bored her to -tears.” - -“There wasn’t a possible man there, and Margot kept pairing me off with -a fright of a millionaire who was always getting you into a corner and -making you listen to wild tales of gigantic business ventures he’d -pulled off. I detest business. Money should be seen and not heard,” -ended Babbie sententiously. - -But the next afternoon she rushed out of Flying Hoof’s stall, where she -was being entertained at tea by some adoring freshmen, to inform Mr. -Robert Thayer that his cousin Austin had sent him kind regards. - -“In a note, you know.” She fluttered it before him tantalizingly. -“We’re both invited to another house-party, you see. He wants to know -if I’m going to accept.” - -“And are you?” ventured Mr. Thayer. “That is, if I may ask, by way of -showing a cousinly interest in Austin’s happiness.” - -“Most certainly not,” snapped Babbie fiercely. - -“Ah, I beg a thousand pardons! I was only joking, Miss Hildreth.” - -“I’m most certainly not going, I mean,” Babbie explained amiably, after -a moment of frowning perplexity, and swept back to her tea-party, -leaving a completely bewildered young man behind her. - -He relieved his feelings by telling Betty the good news about the -club-house. - -“I’ve bought that big, old-fashioned place across the street from the -factory. We couldn’t have begun building before April, and it seemed -out of the question to delay so long. Besides, this is just the thing, -or it will be in a month, when the architect and his minions have -finished with it. I told him that you people changed a barn into a -tea-shop in ten days, and if he can’t alter a few partitions, paper a -few walls, and get in the furniture in a month, he needn’t expect any -more work from yours truly. So bring on your college girls, find out -who wants to teach what and to whom, and tell me which ones are to -go on the pay-roll and which are ready to give their services. I’ll -send you a list of the prospective pupils, with ages and nationalities -attached.” He paused and looked sharply at Betty. “Are you tired -to-night, Miss Wales?” - -Betty shook her head. “I’ve lost something, and I’m being foolish and -worrying over it.” - -“You work too hard,” Mr. Thayer decreed. “When I’m overworked I always -lose my gloves. It’s a sure sign. You’re not to be bothered with those -lists. But the trouble is, I don’t know the college girls. There’s got -to be somebody for a go-between. Could I hire one of the hire-able -ones for a sort of secretary?” - -Betty considered. “Midyears are making everybody awfully busy now and -it wouldn’t do to wait ten days or so, till they’re over, would it? -Besides, this thing will have to be managed just right to give it a -good start. Why don’t you ask Babbie? She’s awfully good at things like -that, and awfully interested in the club-house idea.” - -“Is she?” gasped Mr. Thayer. - -Betty nodded. “She says she thinks the finest thing a rich man can do -is to look after the men and women who are making his money for him.” - -“She said that?” gasped Mr. Thayer again. Then he looked pleadingly at -Betty. “Would you ask her to take charge, please? I think she’d do it -quicker for you.” - -And he hurried off, leaving Betty to piece together all the things -Babbie had said and done in connection with Mr. Thayer, and all that -he had said and done in connection with Babbie. Her final conclusions -were, first, that Mr. Thayer was afraid of Babbie; second, that Babbie -was interested in Mr. Thayer’s work, but not in Mr. Thayer; and -third, that Madeline was therefore mistaken, owing to an over-romantic -tendency developed by the writing of a great many love-stories. - -In any case Babbie readily agreed to post notices about the opening of -the stocking factory’s classes, see that the most promising volunteer -teachers got the most difficult pupils, interview the Student’s Aid -officers about the paid instructors, and be present during the evenings -of the first week to make sure that each teacher found her class and -that things ran smoothly. - -“It’s a good excuse to delay going South until next month,” she said. -“Mother is just as bored by Southern resorts as I am, but she hasn’t -the strength of mind to break off the habit of going to them. So she’ll -be secretly relieved, and as proud as Punch, too, to think that I’m -bossing a big evening-school. Mother’s purely ornamental herself, so -she admires the useful type of woman. I must write her immediately -about the tea-shop’s latest departure. Betty, can’t you induce Mr. -Thayer to serve coffee and sandwiches to the ones that learn their -lessons nicely, and then the tea-shop will be making something out of -my school.” - -“Wait till we get our dinners started, before we begin on nine-o’clock -lunches,” Betty advised her. - -“I shall order the very grandest dinner you can imagine for the opening -night,” declared Babbie enthusiastically, “so you must manage to start -before I leave.” - -“We can have new menu cards now,” put in Madeline. “I never did like -the color of these, and besides I think Bob Enderby ought to put a -gift-shop in one corner of the design he drew for us. It certainly -ought to be noticed in some way on the menu.” - -“I think he ought to add a night-school too,” declared Babbie -playfully, “and a notice that Betty does tutoring. If we’re broadening -out so much, we ought to let people know all about it.” - -“Just because you happen to be running it, the night-school isn’t a -branch of the tea-shop, Babbie,” demurred Madeline. “Wait until Mr. -Thayer actually promises to buy the sandwiches before you consider it a -part of the ‘eats’ business.” - -“Well, it’s an outgrowth of it,” retorted Babbie. “The tea-shop is -responsible for the club-house.” - -“Oh, if we’re going to put all that the tea-shop is responsible for on -the menu,” Madeline began, with a provoking little smile, “we should -have to put on a picture of a broken h----” - -“Come, girls,” interposed Betty, hastily, foreseeing another blundering -reference from Madeline to Mr. Thayer’s devotion to Babbie, “don’t -quarrel about unimportant little things like menu cards, but let’s -discuss what we shall serve and what new china we need.” - -“Oh, new china!” cried Madeline in great excitement. “I hadn’t thought -of that! I shall go to New York to buy it. Now, whoever said the fat -little mustard jars were an extravagance? We shall use them a lot for -dinners.” - -Betty banged the table for order. “Now how many dinner plates shall we -buy to begin with?” she inquired in businesslike tones. - -Madeline banged the table noisily in her turn. “I know something much -more important than dinner plates,” she declared ostentatiously. “Do -let’s be businesslike, Betty, and systematic. Your haphazard methods -jar upon my order-loving soul.” - -Betty waited resignedly. - -“The most important thing is an assistant for you,” Madeline went on. -“You can’t do more than you are doing now. If we serve dinners, there -will be more marketing, more accounts, more to see to all around the -place, and longer hours for the cashier.” - -“Oh, of course Betty must have an assistant,” chimed in Babbie, “and a -bigger salary. It’s not fair for us to be making such good profits when -she works so hard.” - -“You’ll make more, even with a good many extra expenses, if the -dinners go as I think they will,” put in Betty, forcing her associates -to listen, while she explained what could be done if the average -dinner check was so-and-so, the average attendance so-and-so, and the -additional expenses kept down to this and that. - -“All right; let’s serve dinners by all means,” said Babbie gaily. “I -hate averages, because as far as I can see they never come out the way -you want them, but I’m all for expansion. Mummy will like it too. -She’s awfully proud of us. Now Betty can do a go-as-you-please on the -details, can’t she, Madeline? We only bother by putting in our oars; -we’re such ignoramuses.” - -Empowered to choose her own assistant, Betty spent two days anxiously -considering various possibilities. If only it were fall, and Katherine -or Rachel were free to try this unconventional way of earning a living! -And then, just at the crucial moment, when she had almost decided to -ask a junior who was working her way through college to come and try -the work for the rest of the term, arrived a letter from Emily Davis, -with moving pathos behind its story of a bitter disappointment bravely -accepted. - -“I can’t blame my old eyes,” Emily wrote, “because they’ve served me -long and well, and I’ve overdriven the poor beasties shamefully. So now -they balk, and the doctor says they just must be humored. They’ll hold -my position in the school for me until next fall. In the meantime I’m -hunting for any honest means of livelihood that doesn’t require eyes. -I should cry a few tears at having to give up this perfectly splendid -position that I was so elated to get; but crying is very bad for the -eyes, so I smile and smile and keep on thinking how in the world I can -manage to earn my bread and butter until next September. This summer, -if worse comes to worst, I can wait on table at a seaside resort. -Please don’t think I’m hinting for a chance to do it at the Tally-ho. -I should hate to explain to everybody I know at Harding how it happens -that I’m back at an underclass girl’s last resort--I, who was a star -tutor way back in my junior year, and who meant to come to our reunion -in June a star teacher, with all the money I borrowed to go through -college paid back, and enough left for board at my sister’s through a -restful summer. And now the oculist’s bill is gobbling up everything in -sight. - -“What a growl! But this is a safety-valve letter, Betty. As you are -earning your living too, I feel extra sure you’ll understand.” - -“What she means is, she feels sure that I won’t offer her money,” Betty -reflected shrewdly. “And isn’t it just splendid that I can offer her a -good position!” - -For of course Emily was the very one to be assistant manager. To be -sure, Betty hated the clerical work, and had planned to have her -assistant take charge of the accounts. But the keeping of those was a -small thing compared to having dear old comical Emily Davis back, with -her famous “stunts,” her cheerful fashion of meeting defeat and failure -with a smile, and her marvelous ability to work twice as hard as any -one else and yet always appear calm and collected and unhurried. Betty -had a feeling that Emily would insist upon attending to the lamps and -the stove. She wouldn’t let her do it all, of course--she knew too well -how hard it was--but just a little help would be such a relief. - -Of course Babbie and Madeline were as eager as Betty to have Emily join -the tea-room’s force, and Emily could not have resisted the combined -logic and pleading of the three letters they sent her, even if she had -wanted to. So she wrote back post-haste a grateful acceptance of their -offer and promised to be on hand within a fortnight. - -There remained still the ploshkin project to consider. The tea-room’s -uninvested capital would just about buy the extra china and other -equipments needed for the dinner service. Betty was averse to asking -Mrs. Hildreth or Mrs. Bob for more money, and the profits had been -divided in January, so they were not available. But Betty had kept -her emergency fund intact all winter, as her father had advised, and -she had added to it appreciably from her salary, her tutoring money, -and her work for the gift-shop department. It was now well on toward -spring, and the tea-shop had fully proved its money-making capacities. - -“So, if you don’t mind, I should like to have the ploshkins made with -the money that father gave me, if it’s enough--and it will be if -Madeline can get them done at about what she and Mary thought would be -a good investment. Then I’ll sell them here, and give the shop a small -commission, as the college girls did when we sold their things before -Christmas.” - -This was perfectly satisfactory to everybody, and Madeline departed -gaily to pay visits in Bohemia, see editors, match china, and get -ploshkins manufactured--a potpourri of assorted activities that -thoroughly delighted her variety-loving temperament. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -THE REVOLT OF THE “WHY-GET-UPS” - - -IT was the dull season between midyears and spring vacation--a time -that makes the ordinary Hardingite restless, and drives the clever ones -to all sorts of absurdities and extravagances. The best stunts are -always invented at this season, and the wildest pranks perpetrated. -This year Prexy guilelessly announced in chapel that “bobbing” and -“hitching” with sleds were not, in his estimation, dignified forms of -recreation for the “womanly woman” who was Harding’s ideal. So with -dust-pan coasting also under the ban, and the ice on the skating-rink -frozen humpy--just to be spiteful, Georgia Ames declared--the dull -season opened ten times duller than usual. - -Of course Betty heard all about the “anti-bob” ordinance, and -sympathized duly with its downtrodden victims. - -“There are getting to be too many old rules in this place, anyway,” -declared Lucile Merrifield hotly, as they discussed the matter over -their teacups in Flying Hoof’s stall. “We’re supposed to be sensible, -reasonable creatures and to know what’s permissible in this rural -retreat. I shouldn’t go ‘hitching’ in New York. I should probably wear -my hat there when I went out shopping. Prexy doesn’t give his sweet -creation, the womanly woman, credit for ordinary intelligence.” - -“He wouldn’t be able to if he heard you talk, my dear,” Polly Eastman -told her soothingly. “Have some more of Betty’s Cousin Kate cookies. -They’re very good for the temper, and not against the rules.” - -“Are you sure?” demanded Lucile acidly. “There are so many rules now -that I shouldn’t pretend to keep them all in my head at once.” - -“Let’s get Madeline and make her tell tea-ground fortunes,” suggested -Georgia. “I’m tired of all this fuss about rules.” - -But Madeline, who was in the loft writing, had overheard enough of -the conversation to enable her to make her fortunes timely, and the -“anti-bob” ordinance was not yet disposed of. - -“You’ve got a tempest in your teacup, Lucile,” she announced. “It’s a -frightful brain-storm brought on by the lack of your favorite outdoor -exercise. Isn’t ‘hitching’ your favorite exercise, dearie? Well, do you -see that? That’s a tipped-over sleigh. A brain-storm is better than -an early and ignominious death encountered while ‘hitching,’ Lucile. -But you’re going to do something very silly during the brain-storm.” -Madeline frowned portentously over the grounds in Lucile’s cup. “I -think I see Prexy--yes, the venerable Prexy himself is in here. You’ll -be called up before the powers, Lucile, to answer for your foolishness, -so beware.” - -Lucile smiled her subtle, far-away smile--it was first cousin to Mary -Brooks’s “beamish” one. “That will at least be exciting,” she said. -“Fluffy Dutton, what do you say to a race to see which of us can break -the most of their old rules at one go?” - -Fluffy shook her curly head vigorously. “I’ve been up before the powers -once, thank you, for too many lights after ten and cutting Greek prose -and being back late after Christmas. I don’t care for it at all. If -he’d glare and storm it wouldn’t be so bad, but when he appeals to -your better judgment----” Fluffy shrugged expressively. “He treats you -like an equal, and looks at you hard and shakes hands so nicely when -he’s finished you up. And then you go off feeling like a marked-down -bargain-lot of last night’s faded violets. No, thank you, Lucile. I’ll -race you anywhere you like except to interviews with Prexy.” - -“Good for you, Fluffy.” Georgia patted her on the back approvingly. “I -didn’t think you had so much sense.” - -“Lucile has just as much, only she’s trying to deceive us about it,” -put in Betty, who had come over to hear the fortunes. - -And then Madeline discovered a tall, light-haired suitor in Polly’s -cup, and being accused of inventing him pointed him out to the -satisfaction of the assembled company. And when Polly vehemently denied -knowing a single light-haired man, she predicted a speedy meeting, a -box of chocolates, an adventure by water, and a summer together by more -water. - -“Prom. man, of course,” explained Georgia easily, “invited for you -by Lucile-of-the-vast-masculine-acquaintance, after your own man -has decided to break his arm. Really, girls, there ought to be a -rule against proms., because of the broken bones they produce. Well, -Lucile’s friend will take you out on Paradise, thinking he can paddle, -and upset you. And then he’ll spend the summer at Squirrel Island, -where you always go. That’s easy. Madeline, just tell me if there’s a -suitor in my cup, please. That’s all I care about. Your presents and -trips abroad don’t interest me a bit.” - -Betty had quite forgotten this conversation when, a week or so later, -Polly Eastman appeared one morning at the Tally-ho. - -“Don’t you want to rent your loft for a little party?” she demanded. -“It’s bigger than the down-town hall, and it will be so nice to sit -down here between times. We want extra-good eats too, so you’ll get -very wealthy out of us.” - -“What in the world do you want to give a girl-dance for?” demanded -Betty. “By junior year we were all pretty tired of them, except Helen -Chase Adams, who never had a chance to go to any other kind. This is a -girl-affair, of course?” - -Polly was busily examining the depleted gift-shop table. “I always -meant to buy a pair of these candle-shades,” she said, holding up one -of the Tally-ho’s specials. “Will you take the order now? Did you -ask who was giving the affair, Betty? Oh, just our own crowd--the -‘Why-Get-Up-to-Breakfast Club,’ and a few choice spirits who’ve been -invited to join us. Eats for thirty, I think Lucile said; and we want -them very grand and quite regardless of expense. About three courses, -and all nice and spicy, the way campus food never is.” - -“I think it’s such a funny idea,” pursued Betty. “Your house party -comes before long, doesn’t it? Why in the world don’t you wait for -that?” - -“Nothing but lemonade for refreshments and a crowd of stupidities that -you can’t get away from,” explained Polly succinctly. “Will it be all -right about the loft, Betty? I’m due at chemistry lab., and I promised -the others that I’d have this business all arranged by lunch-time.” - -“Why, ye-es,” began Betty doubtfully. “You can have it, I think. -The gift-shop workroom may as well be closed until next fall, and -Madeline’s papers are used to being moved around. I suppose a little -dance like this is just like a party in a campus room. You don’t have -to get permission from anyone, do you?” - -“Easily not,” Polly assured her calmly. “It’s exactly the same thing as -a dinner down here, or a spread. You’ve had spreads down here, haven’t -you?” - -Betty nodded. - -“Then I’ll tell them it’s all right.” Polly tucked her armful of books -more securely under her arm and started off. “Did I say that it was -next Saturday evening? We want the eats at half-past nine, before -everything but the last dance.” - -Betty began planning the menu and estimating expenses at once, -reflecting as she did so that there was certainly no accounting for -tastes, and half wishing she had suggested to Polly that a three course -supper wasn’t at all in keeping with the best Harding traditions. -“The Merry Hearts” had not exactly handed down their ideals to the -“Why-Get-Ups,” but the one society had largely taken the other’s place -in the life of the college. - -“This kind of thing makes people talk about the fashionable amusements -here and the money it costs to go through Harding College. I wish -I’d----” Betty remembered suddenly that her first duty was to the -tea-shop, and went at her figures in earnest, trying to feel properly -elated over the big order and the new source of revenue suggested by -Polly’s idea of renting the loft. - -It was Wednesday of the next week, and oddly enough not one of the -“Why-Get-Ups” had been in for breakfast, lunch, or tea. They were -saving up for their spread-eagle party, Betty thought, until the -high-pitched chatter of two Belden House freshmen explained the -“Why-Get-Ups’” unusual party, and suggested several other possible -reasons why they stayed away from the Tally-ho. - -“I’m just broken hearted,” one freshman declared in her shrill treble. -“You see when I asked Marie to our house-party, she promised to come -if she could have a dance with Lucile Merrifield. And now Lucile isn’t -coming. I thought girls always went to their house-parties.” - -“Goodness, no, dear,” the other told her importantly. “That is, they -always have before, but you can trust this crowd to be different. -Haven’t you heard anything about the fuss?” - -The shrill-voiced freshman shook her head sadly. - -“Well, of course it’s a dead secret,” the other went on, “but my -roommate is an intimate friend of Miss Eastman’s. They asked her to -join them, but she decided not to. She told me because she was just -dying to talk it over with somebody. That was away back last week. It’s -leaked out more now, so I’m sure there’s no harm in my telling you. Of -course everybody will know Saturday night when they don’t appear.” - -“Do go on,” begged the other. - -At this point Betty, who scorned eavesdropping, made an errand to the -kitchen. As early as possible that evening she went up to the Belden. -Polly’s room was dark, but Betty found the “Why-Get-Ups” gathered -in full force in Georgia’s corner single. Their greetings were -constrained, and they plunged at once into a lively discussion of the -last number of the “Argus,” which had come out that afternoon. - -But Betty refused to delay. “I’ve come on business,” she announced. “I -want to know if your house dance is this Saturday?” - -“Why, yes, I believe it is,” Polly admitted casually, after a nudge -from Lucille, “but we’re not going. I told you we were sick of weak -lemonade and stupid partners. Have you planned our three courses?” - -Betty turned upon Georgia. “Why are you all cutting your own house -dance?” she demanded. - -Georgia grinned sociably. “Bored,” she explained briefly. “Dying for -excitement. Pining for novelty. Ask Madeline: she understands the -feeling.” - -“But she wouldn’t do this kind of thing,” protested Betty. “It’s so -conspicuous. You needn’t have filled out your cards,--Madeline never -would,--but you ought to go. And you certainly ought not to have an -affair of your own that night.” - -“Oh, tell her all about it,” put in Fluffy Dutton. “I never thought it -was fair not to. She isn’t a faculty, but she’s a public institution. -She ought to go into this with her eyes open. Besides when she’s heard -the whole story, I’m sure she’ll stand for us. Mrs. Hinsdale couldn’t, -of course. I only hope that prep. school-teacher Alice is going to ask -for chaperon won’t be too curious or too conscientious. Fire away, -Lucile.” - -“Well----” Lucile paused. When you came to tell it to an outsider there -wasn’t so much of a case as there had seemed to be when they discussed -it hotly among their injured selves. “Well,” repeated Lucile, “to begin -with, we’d all asked men, except Georgia, and she’d asked a prep. girl. -And then Dickie Garrison--she’s house president--went and made rules -against them. At least there had always been a rule against men, but -everybody smuggled them in just the same and danced with them too, up -in the gallery. But Dickie said to cut it out. We wouldn’t have cared, -only we were sure she knew about our men and had cooked up this plot at -the last minute just to spite us. We aren’t very popular with Dickie.” - -“And then they ruled out asking prep. girls,” put in Georgia. - -“And finally Dickie came to me,” Fluffy took up the tale of woe, “and -said what would I think of the next house-meeting’s taking up the -matter of lights after ten. That was just insulting--to say to me.” - -“So then we decided to--to revolt,” ended the silent, straight-haired -Dutton twin. “There’s no rule against giving an off-campus party, with -men invited. Nobody ever had one before that we know of, because nobody -ever thought of it. So we’ve just kept dark to avoid possible fusses.” - -“And if we can only get the chaperon business settled, it’s all right,” -added Lucile. “Isn’t it now, Betty? We’ve asked six Hilton House -juniors to come too, and I’ve invited a lot of extra men.” - -“Including a light-haired one for me,” explained Polly gaily, -“according to the prophecy of the seeress Madeline.” - -There was a strained little silence. - -“Of course,” said Betty bravely at last, “you don’t remember when the -prom. began. It was in my sister Nan’s senior year, and I’ve heard her -tell how it was started on purpose to give the girls one good chance -to have their men friends up all at once and avoid just this kind of -thing. It was against the rules then to----” - -“It’s not now,” declared Lucile hotly. - -“Then why didn’t you ask one of the faculty to chaperon you?” Betty -asked in a queer, frightened voice, for she hated to interfere or to -seem priggish. - -“Why indeed?” Georgia echoed. “Just what Mary Brooks Hinsdale asked us. -She said she guessed it was all right, but a faculty’s wife couldn’t do -anything reckless.” - -“If you don’t want us, Betty, we can take the down-town hall,” Lucile -explained coldly. “Only we depend on your sense of honor not to give us -away.” - -“Don’t be cross, Lucile,” commented the straight-haired twin. “Betty’s -not that sort.” - -Betty smiled a thank you, and rose to go. “I don’t know what to say -to-night about the loft,” she said, “but I’ll let you know the first -thing in the morning.” - -Directly after chapel next day the straight-haired twin appeared, -frankly apologetic. “The prep, teacher turned us down too,” she said, -“and Georgia plucked up courage to ask the new math. assistant, and she -turned us down. We don’t know any town women. We wish--Fluffy and I do -anyway--that we had told our men about the new rule and asked girls -instead. This sort of thing is too much like work.” - -Betty considered an instant. She had intended to consult Madeline, but -Madeline had overslept that morning. “Tell the girls that if they’ll -put it off till next Saturday they may have it here, and that I’ll find -a chaperon myself.” - -“You angel!” cried the twin. “Lucile won’t like it because it won’t -spite Dickie, so particularly, if you don’t have it the night of the -Belden House affair, but the rest will jump at your magnificent offer. -Betty, will you come to the regular house dance with me?” - -As soon as she had received official notice that her proposal was -accepted Betty went straight to Miss Ferris and explained the whole -thing, as she understood it, from Georgia’s candid statement of motives -to the Dutton twins’ admission of regret. - -“But Lucile and Polly are so proud,” she added. “If they had to give it -all up now they’d only go ahead and think up something sillier to do. -So I thought if you’d chaperon it, and they promised not to boast of -it---- They’re all going to the house dance now, except maybe Lucile, -and most of the few girls who know about their first plan will think -it’s given up. So it will create a lot less talk and excitement than -if I’d made them find another place, and they’d telegraphed for one -of their mothers and had their party this week Saturday, in spite of -everything, as they first planned.” - -Miss Ferris smiled at her. “That sounds like good logic. I’ll come; but -suppose we don’t tell them who the chaperon is to be until they come to -their dance.” - -To arrive at what one has supposed to be a secret and forbidden -entertainment and to find the head of the philosophy department waiting -smilingly to receive you and your friends--well, it makes you feel at -once foolish and relieved. The “Why-Get-Up” party was an undoubted -success, but Georgia Ames told Miss Ferris that they were all ashamed -of it. - -“Because when you mean to be mean, why, it’s not your fault if Betty -switches you off the track. Of course we all knew that we weren’t up -here to be giving man-dances. We’ll stand by you, Miss Ferris, any way -we can.” - -The “Why-Get-Up-to-Breakfast Club” stood by Georgia’s promise. It paid -to humor their little whim, if only because Fluffy Dutton’s light was -out at ten for the rest of the year, and Lucile Merrifield’s chapel -attendance was perfect. As for the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, it had never -seemed like the other places of its kind in town, but now more than -ever its unofficial connection with the college was noted and commented -upon. - -“Isn’t there anything that girl can teach?” the president asked, when -he heard about the “Why-Get-Up” party. “We’ll have to find something to -keep her here indefinitely. She knows how to make things run.” - -But all Betty cared about was that the “Why-Get-Ups” were one and all -on the same friendly and easy-going footing with her as ever. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -A SEA OF TROUBLES - - -MR. THAYER’S month having been much shortened by his tremendous energy, -the factory classes were successfully started, and Babbie, with her -tantalizing fashion of appearing haughtily distant one minute and -amazingly friendly the next, was off for the gay Southern resorts that -she professed to hate. At some one of them, Mr. Thayer was morally -certain, his fascinating cousin Austin would make it a point to find -her. White flannels, he reflected glumly, were notably becoming to -Austin’s style. - -Eugenia’s three weeks were nearly gone too, and the lost theme had -not come to light. Betty had questioned every one who could possibly -have seen it or taken it from her desk, and she had hunted through the -tea-shop from the remotest corner of the loft to the shed where the -kerosene can was kept. Poor Eugenia had turned her room topsyturvy on -three separate occasions, on the principle of “three times and out,” -and she had begged all her friends to do likewise with theirs, if they -loved her one little bit. She had passed her midyears, and was doing -her best with all her courses, though she sadly declared it was no use -at all, since Miss Raymond had never believed she wrote her theme and -would certainly not give her another chance. - -“I don’t know that I blame her,” sighed Eugenia, “only I think she -might know that if I was going to make up a lie I’d have made up -a better one than that. If I have to take that course over in the -‘flunked-out’ class that she’s organizing to begin next week, I shall -d-die. Just think of writing a lot of extra themes on top of everything -else--in spring term too, that you all say is so lovely, when nobody -expects so terribly much of you. She’ll expect more of you, Miss -Wales!” ended Eugenia vindictively. - -Betty did not dare to hold out any encouragement, but she secretly -suspected that Miss Raymond was keeping Eugenia on tenterhooks, as -good discipline, until the last minute, and then meant to let her off -easily. Betty couldn’t bear to consider the other alternative; she -should always have to feel partly responsible for Eugenia’s misery. -The fact that Eugenia assured her sweetly that she wasn’t at all -responsible and kept on doing nice things for Dorothy only made it all -the harder. - -And then came Emily Davis, a little pale and worn with work done under -difficulties and with worry over the future, but as gay as ever at -heart. She slipped in upon Betty unannounced one snowy afternoon. - -“Indade an’ you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she cried, rushing at her -with a kiss and a hug. “And it’s destroyed I am for a talk wid ye an’ a -sup o’ your lovely tay.” - -Emily’s Irish had been a prime favorite with 19--, and Betty laughed -with delight at hearing it again. “Poor lady, did you have a horrid -trip up?” she asked, as she rang her little bell for Nora. - -“Distressin’, me darlint, distressin’,” Emily went on solemnly. “What -wid cryin’ childern an’ worritin’ wimin, wakin’ the place wid their -noise, I could nayther----” - -“Sh!” warned Betty. “Here comes Nora.” - -But she was just too late. Nora had overheard the mimicry of her -race’s speech. Her Irish feelings were hurt, and her Irish temper -kindled. When Betty introduced Emily and explained that she had come to -share the responsibilities of the tea-room, Nora tossed her head and -said, “Yes’m, and is that all you wanted?” with an air of an offended -duchess. - -She served the tea with great care, but in a haughty silence that -worried Betty and amused Emily. - -“Shall I tell her that I’m sorry?” she asked Betty. “Or would that only -make matters worse?” - -Betty was afraid it would, and promised to explain herself, if Nora -gave her an opening, which Nora did with a vengeance the minute Emily -had gone off to hunt for a boarding-place and see her old friends. - -“I’ll be going, when my week is up,” she announced briskly. - -Betty stared. “Oh, Nora, you wouldn’t leave me--just when I need you -most, too, to make the dinners go off splendidly, as I know you can. -What’s the trouble?” - -“I don’t think I’ll like taking orders from the new lady--I forget her -name.” - -“Why do you think that, Nora?” Betty threw out as a feeler. - -“She’s not my idea of a lady, Miss Betty, if you’ll excuse me saying -it out. I’m sorry to go an’ leave you in the lurch, Miss, but I should -always be feeling bothered whenever she was by, and when you’re -bothered you can’t do your work right. So this is a week’s notice, -ma’am.” - -In vain Betty explained that Emily had meant no harm by her imitation. -In vain she argued, pleaded, coaxed, and scolded; Nora was firm. She -had given her week’s notice, and in a week she would go. - -Emily was “destroyed” in earnest when she heard the news; the feeling -that she had repaid Betty’s kindness with careless trouble-making--or -perhaps it was more the reaction from the strain of wondering what -was ahead of her--combined with a bad cold to send her to bed for -a few days. With all her helpers gone, Betty found it very hard -to find time to hunt for a new waitress. In spite of alluring -advertisements and diligent search by herself and her ever-faithful -allies, Mary and Georgia, no substitute for Nora was forthcoming. -But Belden-House-Annie, who had no sympathy whatever with her sister -Nora’s “flighty ways,” had sent word by Lucile, who told Georgia, who -told Betty, that she had heard of somebody who might do, and that the -somebody aforesaid would come to see Betty that same afternoon. - -So Betty sat waiting for her, watching the hands of the clock that went -round much too fast, considering that the waitress did not come, until -the door opened, and her hopes took a sudden bound and then dropped -dead. It wasn’t a waitress. It was a gentleman. He looked like the kind -who would think the tea was cold and the cakes stale, and he would very -likely be right too. Nora had grown very careless since she had decided -to leave. Betty fervently wished that he had not come, but she went -forward, with her cordial little smile, to meet him, where he stood -staring uncertainly around the room. - -“Did you want some tea?” she asked timidly. “Because if you’ll sit -down----” - -The gentleman looked her over closely. “Tea? Why, yes, I suppose I want -tea. It’s the thing to want at this hour, isn’t it? You do a pretty -big business here, don’t you?” He glanced toward the stalls, where -groups of girls were gathered. - -“Yes, a good many people come,” Betty told him pleasantly. “Would you -like a little table in the window or one near the fire?” - -He chose one near the fire, overlooking the whole room. He ordered -nothing but a cup of tea, which he sipped and sipped, while he stared -at the girls who came in and at those who went out, at the china, the -decorations, the names over the stalls. These last appeared to interest -him particularly, and he craned his neck until Betty feared it would -break, to decipher the one at the furthest end of the line. - -Finally he got up and strolled over to her desk. - -“Nice little place you’ve got here,” he said, staring hard at her, with -his sharp ferret-eyes. “Very pretty decorations and all that.” - -“Thank you,” said Betty politely. “I’m glad you like it. We’ve tried to -make it look attractive.” - -“You--er--the owner or manager or something of that kind?” - -Betty explained her position briefly, wondering why she hated so to -talk to him. - -“And do people drink enough afternoon tea to pay your partners good -profits on their investment?” he demanded. - -Betty hesitated. Certainly a stranger had no right to pry into the -Tally-ho’s private affairs in this cool fashion, and yet, since they -were doing well, what harm could there be in saying so? “We serve -lunches as well as tea, you know,” she explained tentatively, “and next -week we shall begin to serve dinners.” - -Just then Lucile Eastman and a crowd of her friends, who had been -occupying the stall named after Black Beauty, bore down upon Betty’s -desk, laughing and chattering over their bill, which was to have been -divided because the party was a “Dutch treat,” but which Nora had put -all together by mistake, and summarily refused to change. - -“Now jam is twenty cents,” Lucile was explaining, “and toast with -cheese is fifteen, and not a single one of us had the right change. -Please help us to get it right, Betty dear. Now you go first, Polly. -You had sandwiches, and they’re twenty cents.” - -Betty got them all straightened out at last, and by that time the -party in Flying Hoof’s stall had finished too. But the gentleman, who -had been fairly swept aside by the crowd of hurrying girls, waited -patiently enough until they had gone, and then returned to Betty and -the interrupted conversation. - -“Well,” he began briskly, “I suppose you wouldn’t be branching out if -you weren’t pretty prosperous.” - -In spite of her annoyance, Betty smiled at his persistence. “I suppose -not,” she admitted. “We have a gift department too.” She pointed to -the table. “It’s pretty nearly stagnated ever since Christmas, but a -new specialty for it, that we hope everybody will buy, will be here -very soon. We’re taking orders now, from this sample.” She held out the -ploshkin for him to see. - -The gentleman shook his head scornfully. “None of that tomfoolery for -me, thank you. But there’s money in it--I know that. Here’s ten cents -for my tea. And here’s my card.” - -Betty stared blankly from the bit of paste-board he had handed her to -the gentleman whose name it bore. He was smiling a queer, disagreeable -smile, as if, for some reason that she could not guess, he found her -very amusing. When he had made sure that his name meant nothing to her, -his smile widened. - -“Don’t know who I am, eh? Got to feel pretty much at home in this barn, -haven’t you? Feel a good deal as if you owned it, don’t you?” - -Betty failed to see the connection between his first question and the -other; but then, all his questions had been queer. “No,” she replied -steadily, “I don’t know who you are, sir. I’m sorry, since you think I -ought to. I’m very stupid about names. We don’t own this barn; we rent -it. And--and I think I must ask you not to question me any more about -our business. I am employed by the others. I can’t see how anything -I have told you could do us any harm, but I don’t think it’s at all -businesslike for me to discuss my employers’ affairs with you.” - -“Maybe you’ll think differently when I tell you that I’m the owner of -this property,” snapped the man defiantly. Betty gasped. “Thought I was -in Italy, didn’t you?” He grinned at her cheerfully. - -Betty nodded. “In Europe somewhere.” - -“Thought my agent was an easy mark, didn’t you?” - -“He has always treated us very fairly and politely”--Betty rushed -indignantly to the agent’s defense--“and I don’t see how----” - -“‘Fairly and politely.’” The man, whose card read Mr. James Harrison, -repeated the words jeeringly. “Well, my agent’s got to do more than -treat young ladies ‘fairly and politely,’ I can tell you, to suit me. -Do you know what the repairs on this place cost me?” - -Betty had no idea. - -Mr. Harrison named a sum. “I suppose you do know what rent you pay?” - -“Of course,” said Betty with great dignity. “We’ve never been late with -it so far.” - -“You pay by the month. You’ve no contract--no lease. Isn’t that so?” - -“Why--y-yes,” Betty admitted doubtfully. “I supposed that as long as we -paid our rent and didn’t injure your property, we could stay.” - -“Certainly you can stay,” he told her affably, “only I’m going to raise -the rent. The rent you pay is ridiculous. From the beginning of next -month just multiply it by three, please.” - -“But--but we can’t afford to pay as much as that,” Betty told him. -“That’s why we didn’t start in New York--because rents were so high. -The first thing we asked your agent, before we even came to look at -this place, was the amount of the rent.” - -Mr. Harrison looked at her coldly. “Well, he was an idiot, that’s all. -I’m not in the real estate business for my health. This barn never paid -decent returns. Now that we’ve found a use for it, there’s no reason -why it shouldn’t. Think it over. Make up your mind to cut down expenses -and profits; and if you should decide to quit, why, I’ll buy out your -fixtures. I’ll warrant I can rent at my own price within a month.” - -Betty had been thinking desperately. “I don’t know very much about -business, Mr. Harrison,” she said at last, “but it seems to me that if -we pay rent by the month we ought to have a full month’s notice that -you have decided to raise the price. A maid who is paid by the week -always gives at least a week’s notice, and if we wanted to leave we -should certainly have told your agent at least a month beforehand.” - -“Very well,” he said briskly. “This is the twenty-third. Next month -goes at the old rate; after that multiply it by three or quit. -Good-afternoon.” - -“Good-afternoon,” Betty told him, with a sigh of relief that he had -gone, even though he left such a dreadful ultimatum behind him. But he -hadn’t gone. He stuck his head in the door to say that he would “call -around again” in a few days for her decision. - -Left alone at last Betty looked at her watch. Six -o’clock--Belden-House-Annie’s waitress wouldn’t come now. Perhaps it -was just as well. Perhaps Nora would stay for the month--the last month -of the Tally-ho. They couldn’t pay three times their present rent. No -matter how successful the dinners were, that was out of the question. -The profits, outside of the gift department, had been comparatively -small, and the busiest part of the year was now over. If Mr. Harrison -persisted in his determination to raise the rent, they would have to -stop, or move--and there was no place to move to. - -Betty looked around the pretty room, with all its attractive -“features,” and suddenly realized what the closing of the tea-shop -would mean. Madeline and Babbie would be disappointed; Mrs. Hildreth -and Mrs. Enderby would lose a part, at least, of their investment. But -she--and little Dorothy--and Emily Davis--Betty reached out for a sheet -of note-paper to write to Madeline the resourceful, and then dropped -her head down on the big desk and cried as if her heart would break. - -Why hadn’t she thought of all this before Mr. Harrison left? She had, -in a confused fashion; but instead of helping her to argue with him her -despair had made her dumb. If only he would let them stay until June! -Then Emily would be provided for through the summer, and father and -mother would be back from Mexico. Dorothy could go home and Betty too, -with a nice little sum left over to show for her winter’s work. But if -the Tally-ho stopped now, where could she sell the ploshkins? And with -the emergency fund gone, and no salary after next month---- - -Betty could hear father saying with his twinkling, amused smile, “You -oughtn’t to have counted your chickens before they were hatched, little -girl. It’s a bad habit.” - -But who would have thought that everything could go to pieces now, -after such a splendid beginning? - -Betty wiped her eyes and composed a telegram to Madeline: “If possible -countermand order for ploshkins. Rent raised. Will write.” - -Then she reflected that a letter would reach Madeline by the first mail -in the morning, and as she couldn’t countermand an order for ploshkins -before that time, a letter would do as well as a telegram. But before -she wrote it she must go and have dinner with Dorothy. - -She found Eugenia and Dorothy on the floor playing paper-dolls, quite -oblivious of the fact that it was past dinner-time. - -“I feel like a murderer the night before he’s electrocuted,” Eugenia -explained cheerfully. “To-night I am enjoying myself, for to-morrow -I’ve got to go and tell Miss Raymond that my lost theme is still lost. -And she’ll point with her awful finger to the ‘flunked-out’ class, and -I shall accept my doom.” - -Dorothy tumbled over into Eugenia’s lap and hugged her sympathetically. -“Maybe you’ll find it to-night,” she said. - -“You’re sure as sure you haven’t hidden it?” Eugenia demanded solemnly. - -“Of course.” - -“Then I think it’s in the bay of the ploshkin,” Eugenia declared -impressively, “and that’s too far off to go to to-night, so I may as -well be off to dinner. By the way, Betty, I want a dozen ploshkins out -of the very first that come.” - -Instead of the pleased smile that Eugenia had expected, Betty’s face -wore a positively tragic expression. “I’m not sure that we shall have -any to sell, Eugenia. There’s some trouble. I can’t explain to-night. -I----” - -Eugenia’s little face hardened as she listened to Betty’s astonishing -announcement. She had not lost her ambition to take a place in -Harding’s charmed circle, and she had counted on the ploshkin and her -connection with it to help her in becoming that envied and enviable -creature, a “prominent girl.” - -“Madeline Ayres and Fluffy Dutton made it, but it was Eugenia Ford’s -idea”--that was what she had looked forward to people’s saying. And -Polly Eastman was writing a song called “The Bay where the Ploshkin -Bides” for Tibbie Ware, soprano soloist of the Glee Club, to sing -for her encore number at the spring concert. There wouldn’t be point -enough to the song if there was only one ploshkin. Being naturally -silly and suspicious, Eugenia now scented a deep-laid plot against her -happiness. Without stopping to reason out the absurdity of her idea, -she disentangled herself from Dorothy’s caressing arms. - -“You don’t need to explain that,” she said. “The only thing I really -want explained is where the theme I left on your desk went to. -Good-night.” - -So that was what Eugenia really thought! Betty sat very still wondering -what would come next. - -“I’m homesick for my dear mother, Betty.” Little Dorothy, awed by -Eugenia’s coldness and her beloved sister’s forbidding silence, was -very near to tears. - -Betty held out her arms. “So am I,” she said, and in a minute more the -two sisters, clasped tight in each other’s arms, were crying out all -their troubles. Betty came to her senses first. - -“We mustn’t be such sillies,” she told Dorothy, with a watery attempt -at a smile. “Mother wouldn’t ever get homesick for two such big -cry-babies as we are. Now come and let me bathe your face, and then -we’ll go right down to dinner. No, it’s too late. We’ll go over to the -tea-shop and cook a nice little supper for ourselves. That will be lots -of fun, won’t it?” - -“Ye-es,” agreed Dorothy faintly. “Can we have strawberry jam?” - -“All you want,” Betty promised, wishing that she too was at the age -when strawberry jam could make her forget her woes. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE MYSTERY SOLVED - - -BETTY found it very hard to keep her mind on the preparations for -supper. Dorothy’s happy little babble of questions and frantic efforts -to “help” with everything, drove her to the verge of distraction. -Betty wanted some crackers and coffee and a chance to write to -Madeline--Babbie had not yet sent any address, and was, besides, too -far away to help much in the present crisis. But Dorothy insisted -upon creamed chicken on toast and hot chocolate, and wished to treat -strawberry jam as an entrée and have “regular dessert” besides. Betty -acquiesced in all her demands not so much from good-nature as because -she was sure that another flood of tears would come the minute she -said no. But she couldn’t make ice-cream, which was Dorothy’s idea of -“regular dessert,” and not a bit had been left over from the day’s -sales. - -“Just remember how you love ‘whips,’” she coaxed, and made one out of -her share of the cream for the chocolate. - -Dorothy watched the proceedings suspiciously. - -“Well, but a ‘whip’ always has jelly in the bottom,” she objected. - -Betty suggested using strawberry jam. - -“Not that kind--real jelly. I shall be sick of strawberry jam if I have -it so much.” - -Betty sighed despairingly, and then smiled. “All right, we’ll turn -it into charlotte russe,” she said, “with this big slice of cake -underneath.” - -Dorothy wanted to know which was Charlotte--the cake or the cream--and -Betty craftily encouraged the discussion, so that little Dorothy would -enjoy her dessert and not notice that she was taking all the cream away -from Betty, which would have distressed her dreadfully. - -“And now we’ll pile the dishes up, and Bridget will do them in the -morning,” Betty suggested, when they had finished. - -“Oh, let’s do them ourselves and s’prise Bridget,” objected Dorothy, -who was beginning to surmise that Betty was in a hurry to be rid of -her. No matter how sleepy she was, Dorothy never wanted to go to bed, -and to-night she was wide awake. - -“Couldn’t you do them and surprise me?” Betty asked. “I have a long, -long letter to write to Madeline, and I want to get started, because -I’m very tired and I thought I’d like to go to bed when you do.” - -“All right,” agreed Dorothy, and Betty lighted her desk-lamp and two -candles, because candle-light is so soothing and luxurious, found a -fresh sheet of paper to take the place of the one that was still damp -with tears, and had gone as far as, “Dear Madeline, I have some very -bad news for you,” when Dorothy fluttered back. - -“I thought it all over,” she announced, “and I thought it would be more -of a s’prise for Bridget if I didn’t do the dishes. She can’t imagine -what it is when she sees them all piled up in her clean sink. But if I -did them, it wouldn’t s’prise you a bit, ’cause you knew I was doing -them.” - -“All right. Now we’re all surprised,” said Betty absently. “So you see -if you can’t think of something nice to do while I write my letter.” - -“Haven’t you written it yet?” Dorothy demanded, with an elaborate show -of amazement. “Well, now I’m the most s’prised one of all! I thought I -stayed out there ages-an’-ages.” - -Betty smiled and went on writing, while Dorothy stood staring -disconsolately at her. - -“It’s been ages-an’-ages now,” she declared at the end of three minutes -by the clock. - -“Oh, Dorothy, do be quiet!” began Betty impatiently. And then, as the -smallest sister’s lips quivered ominously, “Remember, dearie, you’re my -company, and a company always helps along. This letter I’m writing is -on business about the tea-room, and you can help me just lots by being -nice and quiet until I get it all written.” - -Dorothy eyed her sister mournfully. “I thought that when you had -company come to see you, you played what they wanted to, and waited -till they’d gone home to do what you wanted to your own self. That’s -what m-mother always said.” Dorothy gulped miserably over the “mother.” - -“Yes, that’s one kind of company,” Betty explained patiently, “and you -are that kind of company too. But you said you wanted to be the other -kind--the kind brother Will told you about, that people have to keep -them in business. And I told you you might be, so we’re Betty Wales & -Co., aren’t we?” - -Dorothy nodded solemnly. “That’s why I help Nora clean the silver and -put the menu cards around on all the tables ’most every day.” - -“Of course it is,” Betty took her up eagerly. “You help a lot--I -couldn’t get along at all without my dear little company. But you’ll -help the most you ever have if you’ll be just as quiet as a little gray -mouse until I’ve finished my letter.” - -Dorothy considered. “I might draw pictures,” she suggested tentatively -at last. - -“Of course you might.” Betty handed her a pencil and paper. - -“But I haven’t any good place to sit,” Dorothy demurred. “I ought to -have a desk just as much as you.” - -“Dorothy Wales,”--Betty’s voice was very solemn,--“if I let you sit -down here, will you promise, ‘cross your heart,’ not to speak another -word until I’ve finished my letter?” - -Dorothy nodded her head so vigorously that her hair ribbon came off -and had to be tied on again. Then she established herself at the desk, -and Betty lighted more candles and moved her writing materials into -the stall of Jack of Hearts. The big room was still, save for the -scratching of Betty’s pen and an occasional loud “ahem” from Dorothy -whose throat was always affected queerly in church or anywhere else -where she was denied the joys of fluent conversation. - -As Betty wrote, the hopelessness of the situation grew clearer and -clearer. It seemed a waste of words to explain it all, when there was -absolutely nothing to be done. - -“What do girls know about business, anyway?” Will had said that with -his most scornful air, when Betty had first proposed the tea-room -project. Well, he was right. A man would have thought about a contract. -A man would have managed somehow to make out a case in behalf of the -Tally-ho. But how? Betty went over the conversation, trying to think -what she could have said, how she could have answered Mr. Harrison’s -questions so as to defeat his plans. But she had no inspiration. He was -the owner of the barn. If he wanted higher rent, he had a right to it. -To be sure, people sometimes wanted what they couldn’t get. But he had -said-- - -“I ought to have taken him up about that,” Betty reflected sadly. “I -ought to have asked him if he was perfectly sure that any other people -would pay such a lot more than we have. Madeline would have got him all -confused about it, and perhaps he’d have let us stay.” - -She went mournfully over the scene again bit by bit. - -“I wonder what he wants our decorations for,” she reflected. “They’re -only good for a tea-room. Then he must mean to use this for a tea-room. -But if he rents it all decorated, of course it’s worth more. Why didn’t -I think to say that? Why didn’t I make him think we would certainly go -right on somewhere else? He can’t steal our name and our ideas. It’s -not fair. Madeline must come and talk to him.” - -And she returned with new energy to her letter, trying to make the -case seem as urgent as possible, and Madeline’s presence absolutely -necessary. Madeline was having a beautiful time in Bohemia; Dick -Blake had told her that her stories were improving, and one of them -had actually been accepted by an obscure magazine that “paid on -publication.” Madeline had celebrated this landmark in her Literary -Career by giving a dinner at Mr. Bob’s latest find in the way of -Italian cafés, and she had discovered, over the coffee, that four of -her six guests had been honored by the same magazine, and that all were -still waiting patiently for the years to bring around the mystic time -of publication. - -“Who cares? It was a delicious dinner, and just as much fun as if I had -really arrived,” Madeline had written Betty. “And now the other four -are all going to be game and celebrate too.” - -Betty realized how much persuasion it would take to detach Madeline -from four impending celebrations, and begged her with all the eloquence -she could command to come to the rescue of the Tally-ho. She was just -folding her letter when a queer little squeal from Dorothy made her -jump. - -“I’m through now, Company,” she called, “so you can chatter away as -fast as you like. What’s the matter?” - -“I opened the secret drawer all by myself,” cried Dorothy in an excited -treble. “Nobody showed me. I just heard you and Madeline and Miss -Mary--I mean Mrs. Mary--talking about how to do it. And I remembered, -and after I got tired of drawing pictures for magazines I did it. -Look!” and she danced over to Jack of Hearts’ stall with the secret -drawer in her hand. - -“Why, Dorothy Wales!” began Betty in astonishment. “I don’t believe I -could have opened that myself. Why, there’s something in it. What! Oh, -Dorothy, you darling, you’ve helped now, I can tell you! Why, Dorothy -Wales, do you know what you’ve done? You’ve found Eugenia’s theme.” - -“If you’d asked me I’d have found it before,” announced Dorothy with -dignity. - -“What do you mean, little sister? Did you hide away Eugenia’s theme in -that drawer?” - -“Of course not. But I’d have looked everywhere and when I came to this -place, why there I’d have seen it.” - -“But Madeline and I looked there,” explained Betty in perplexity, “and -the drawer was empty then. So if you haven’t put it in there since, -some one else has.” - -“Here’s another paper,” said little Dorothy, handing Betty a card. -“What does it say? I can’t read that queer kind of printing.” - -“Well, if that isn’t the strangest thing!” Betty quite forgot to tell -Dorothy that the card said, “Mrs. George Garrison Hinsdale, Thursdays.” -“Mary put that in there herself the day she opened the drawer--I -remember she said we might lose the combination and then, years after, -her card would be found there, and people would wonder what the things -she wrote on the back could mean. See: ‘Perfect Patron, Promoter of -Ploshkins, Candle-shades, and Cousin Kate’s Cookies.’ And that card -most certainly wasn’t there either, when Madeline and I had the drawer -open hunting for Eugenia’s theme.” - -“You didn’t look very hard, I guess,” said little Dorothy wisely. But -Betty was over at the desk, putting back the secret drawer with Mary’s -card still in it. Then she went through the combination, and when the -drawer came out it was empty again. - -“Goodness, but this is funny!” she said, shutting it in hurriedly. -“But I think I see how it happens. Now, Dorothy, you open the drawer, -please.” - -And when Dorothy opened it, there was the card. She had used the second -combination that Madeline had hit upon, and Betty had used the first. -There were two secret drawers, only one of which could be opened at a -time. They were side by side, and it took close inspection to notice -the slight difference in their positions. When Madeline had shown Mary -how to find the drawer she had used the second combination, and it -was that drawer that had stayed open all day and into which Eugenia’s -ill-fated theme had slipped. But when Madeline had looked for the -theme, she had happened to use the other combination, and consequently -had opened the wrong drawer. - -Betty hastily added a postscript to her letter: “Eugenia’s theme is -found. There are two secret drawers in the desk, and it was in the -other.” - -Then she took Dorothy home, for it was long past her bedtime, and -mailed her letter, which must reach Madeline without fail the first -thing in the morning, so as to give her the earliest possible chance -to countermand the ploshkin order and get ready to start for Harding. -She reached the campus on her other errand just in time to hear the -college clock toll out the last strokes of ten and to see the shadow -of the Belden House matron and her candle stalk majestically down the -length of the lower hall. That meant locked doors everywhere, so Betty -went home and to bed. She dreamed that Eugenia Ford was throwing the -Tally-ho dishes at Miss Raymond, who was standing on a table pelting -Eugenia with handfuls of oats pulled from the big horseshoe over the -fireplace. And through the door to the kitchen wound a procession of -little ploshkins, who hopped along exactly as Billy and Willy Stocking -had at the Christmas party. - -She woke up later than usual the next morning with a queer feeling that -something unpleasant had happened. In a minute she remembered, and -resolved not to waste time in worry, but to get Eugenia’s theme to -her as soon as possible and then devote herself to persuading Nora to -postpone her departure a little. - -Eugenia received her with studied coldness. She was “very much -relieved” to have her theme back. Perhaps Betty would explain to Miss -Raymond. - -Betty was quite willing to do that. She didn’t blame Eugenia for being -vexed about the theme and disappointed about the ploshkins. She would -have been, in Eugenia’s place, no doubt; but when she asked Eugenia if -she should be down in the afternoon to see Dorothy, and Eugenia replied -coldly that she was very busy, and never even sent a message of thanks -to the little girl for finding the missing theme--then Betty was vexed -in her turn. Dorothy wasn’t to blame for any of Eugenia’s troubles. It -would be just as sensible for Miss Raymond to be disagreeable to her -because her desk had two secret drawers. - -But Miss Raymond was very friendly and very much interested in the -two drawers, which she promised to come and see for herself soon. And -Nora, won by the suspicion of tears in Betty’s eyes and by the honor -of being entrusted with Betty’s unhappy secret, promised to stay a few -days longer, until Madeline had come up and they knew how matters stood. - -Madeline arrived that very afternoon. - -“Show me the drawers,” she demanded before she was well inside the -Tally-ho, and to Betty’s dismay she utterly refused to talk business, -while she sat for an hour opening one drawer after another, and hunting -through the recesses of the desk for more sliding panels or hidden -springs. - -“For if there are two drawers, there may just as well be three or even -four,” she said. “And who knows what may be in them or how long they’ve -been lost and forgotten? Don’t look so disgusted, Betty. I ordered the -ploshkins the first day I was in New York, and this morning it was too -late to change. To-morrow I’ll hunt up your dreadful Mr. Harrison and -try my blarney on him, though after the way you managed Dick Blake -for Eleanor when we were sophomores, I don’t see how you expect me to -succeed where you’ve failed.” - -“This was so unexpected,” Betty explained. “He frightened all my -ideas away, because he came at me so suddenly. I’m never any good at -impromptus.” - -Madeline sighed. “And that’s all I am good for. Now I may struggle over -this drawer business for hours and find nothing, and then some day, -when I’m not trying, I shall just put my hand out and snap the right -spring. It’s horribly provoking--gives you such a lazy, purposeless -feeling at times.” - -Evidently Madeline didn’t care much about the disaster that threatened -the Tally-ho. She could sit and play with an old-fashioned desk, not -asking a question about all the matters that Betty had not taken time -to write of fully, nor making a single plan for the campaign against -Mr. Harrison. Well, if she believed so thoroughly in her impromptu -inspirations, why should she bother with making plans? If she only -would act as if she cared a little--as if she realized what the failure -of the tea-room meant to Betty. But she only played with the drawers, -and gave absurd accounts of the Literary Celebrations. The next one -was to be a roller-skating party, and not one of the crowd had ever -been on roller-skates before. - -“But the first one whose story is printed is going to reimburse the -rest of us for the doctors and the liniments we expect to need,” -Madeline explained, “and Bob Enderby has solemnly promised to ask the -editor of ‘The Leisure Hour’ to come and meet his near-contributors. -It’s to-morrow night. Now say I’m not businesslike if you dare, to come -straight up here and miss it all.” Then she laughed. “I may as well -’fess up that it was only the postscript about the secret drawer that -brought me. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Because now that I’m -here, I shall do my full duty by Mr. Harrison.” - -But the next morning Madeline came back in dismay from her visit to Mr. -Harrison’s Harding office. - -“He’s away,” she lamented. “The agent was there, and I talked to him; -but he can’t do anything. He’s in deep disgrace now for letting us have -so many repairs. And Mr. Harrison won’t be back for at least a week; so -you’ll have to tackle him yourself after all.” - -“Oh, Madeline, can’t you stay over?” - -Madeline shook her head decisively. “Absolutely impossible. I’ve just -hired a studio apartment consisting of two closets, miscalled rooms, -and I’ve begun a novel. It was spinning along like mad when you stopped -it. I should have to go to-morrow anyway, so why not go now, in time -for the roller-skating party? I did want to stay long enough to find -the other secret drawers, though.” Madeline frowned absently at the old -desk. - -“Perhaps there aren’t any others,” Betty reminded her practically. - -“Oh, but I’m sure there are. I have a leading.” Madeline stretched -out her hand, and, just as she had predicted, it hit the spring. A -fan-shaped panel slipped to one side, the wall at the back of the -opening dropped, and a tiny drawer, deep and very narrow, appeared, the -small key still in the lock. - -“There!” said Madeline triumphantly, opening it. “Oh, it’s stuffed -full! Betty Wales, these are love-letters, I just know it! Tied with -pink ribbons and scented with lavender. Did you ever imagine anything -so nice? It’s surely all right to read them, isn’t it?” - -“Perhaps we ought to take them to the woman you bought the desk of,” -Betty suggested. - -“But her husband had just taken it for a bad debt, and I remember she -said all the family it really belonged to had died or moved away.” - -“Then I guess it’s all right, so long as they’re so very old.” - -They were love-letters, the sweetest, merriest letters to a girl named -Patricia from a man who signed himself “R.” One or two of Patricia’s -notes to “R.” were tucked in with the letters, but as they all began -“Mine,” they threw no light on the significance of the “R.” Betty liked -that; it added to the sense of remoteness, to the story-book atmosphere -of “long-ago and far-away” that belonged to the yellowed sheets, the -faded ribbons, and the quaint, old-fashioned expressions. Most of the -letters had never been mailed. Madeline almost wept with joy when -she discovered that they had been put in a hollow tree in Patricia’s -apple orchard. They were arranged by dates and once there was a gap -of six months. That was because the squire of the village had asked -Patricia’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, and Patricia’s -father had said yes. Patricia was an obedient child, so there were -no more letters in the tree, in spite of “R.’s” pleadings, until one -day when Patricia could show good reason for sending the squire about -his business. And then there was a duel. Was it between “R.” and the -squire, or “R.” and some other disappointed suitor? They were still -discussing the evidence when Madeline remembered her train. - -“Let me take these along,” she begged. “I’ll send them back in a day or -so, but I simply must know how it all ended.” She turned to the desk. -“There ought to be a drawer on the other side to correspond to this -one.” - -“Let me try to find it,” cried Betty hastily, and after a minute’s -fumbling she snapped the spring. “It’s getting almost tiresome, finding -so many secret hiding-places, isn’t it?” she laughed. - -This drawer was full too, but of dusty, uninteresting-looking -documents. Madeline glanced them through rapidly. - -“Nothing exciting there, I guess. You can look them over, and if -they’re about Patricia and ‘R.’ send them to me, won’t you? And if -you hate talking to Mr. Harrison, get Emily to go for you, or send -Young-Man-Over-the-Fence. He’d like nothing better than to champion the -cause of oppressed damsels, Babbie Hildreth being one of them.” - -“You don’t take this seriously enough, Madeline,” Betty told her sadly. - -“No,” agreed Madeline, “I don’t, but that’s because I have such perfect -confidence in your persuasive powers. Good-bye.” - -The whistles shrieked for noon. Betty hastily straightened up her desk, -gave some last touches to the dainty tables, and resolutely forced a -smile to meet the usual twelve-o’clock invasion of hungry customers. -Never in her life had she felt so forlorn and lonely, but she was too -proud to show it. She resolved that if the Tally-ho Tea-Shop must be -abandoned at least it should go out in a blaze of glory. At first she -had not thought it worth while to begin the dinner service for only a -month, but now she decided to inaugurate it at once. She hung up the -prettily lettered signs that Madeline had made: “Beginning to-morrow -the Tally-ho Tea-Shop will serve dinners, and will therefore be open -until nine in the evening.” The appearance of this announcement -created no little excitement. Six girls ordered special dinners for -the opening night. Eugenia Ford sent a written order by a friend who -came in for tea. She explained that she wanted everything “as elegant -as possible,” because her dinner was in honor of her roommate’s mother -and father--“very wealthy people.” She hoped the waitress would wear -a cap. As caps were Nora’s bête noir, Betty decided to ask the newest -Student’s Aid waitress if she would mind wearing one just this time, by -way of helping to heap coals of fire on Eugenia’s pretty head. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -A MAGNATE TO THE RESCUE - - -EMILY DAVIS had expected to go to work the day that the dinners began, -but when she tried her strength she found it much less than she had -thought. She sat at the cashier’s desk until two o’clock, and then -Betty, noticing how pale and miserable she looked, insisted on her -giving up and going home to rest. - -“I’ll manage some way,” she assured her new assistant hopefully. “And -you’ll most certainly catch your never-get-over if you sit here with -all the draughts blowing on you, when you’re not well enough to be up.” - -“A stove doesn’t give a very even heat, does it?” said Emily wanly. -“I’m warm all but one side.” - -“A stove,” said Betty with feeling, “is a relic of the barbaric ages. -So are kerosene lamps. Running this place without the stove and the -lamps would be simply blissful. I should feel like a robber when I -took my salary.” - -“You shall have a chance to feel that way just as soon as I begin to -earn mine,” Emily assured her. “I hate to leave you to-day, but----” - -“Run along,” Betty broke in. “I shall need you a lot more after Nora is -gone.” - -But her resolute hopefulness turned to blank dismay when the newly -engaged waitress, who had seemed so promising, sent word that she had -sprained her ankle. Nora’s regular assistant was a stout, stupid girl, -who could be trusted only with simple orders and unexacting customers. -Betty went over the names of the girls who had engaged stalls, found no -unexacting ones among them, promptly arrayed herself in one of the caps -that Nora scorned and an apron, sent the stupid waitress after a stupid -friend who could probably make change correctly, and planned a division -of work with Nora, who was frankly horrified at her mistress’s new rôle. - -“But the first night must be a success, Nora,” Betty explained. “I’ll -stay in the kitchen getting orders ready for Mary Jones as long as I -dare. But when she begins to look wild-eyed and distracted, I shall -put her in the kitchen, and come out myself. It’s the only way to have -things go off well.” - -By half-past six the tea-shop was crowded. Betty, peeping in through -the kitchen door, was relieved to find very few of her particular -friends among the diners. She hoped that nobody would exclaim over -her new departure or stop her to demand explanations. She had a -presentiment that if any one did she was going to feel, as Nora -declared she ought, “most awful queer.” - -Eugenia’s arrival occurred at an unlucky moment, when Nora was too busy -to attend to her, and Betty decided that her time had come. After the -first plunge, past Eugenia’s blank, unrecognizing stare and through a -little flurry of amused nods and puzzled glances from other girls who -knew her, it wasn’t so bad. Except Eugenia’s party, nobody who gave her -orders neglected to hail her and condole over Emily’s grippe and the -new waitress’s ankle. Betty soon got into the spirit of the occasion, -thoroughly enjoying everything but the many trips to Eugenia’s -stall, with its hedge of pompous dignity. She was on her way out to -the kitchen with a big trayful of dishes, when the door opened and in -strode an elderly gentleman, with a militant air and keen gray eyes -that twinkled merrily under his bushy eyebrows, as he closed the door -with a terrific bang and looked eagerly about him from one absorbed -group of diners to another. But a man is a novelty in Harding, and this -particular man would have attracted attention anywhere; in an instant -he was the centre of interest; in another he had discovered Betty and -she had discovered him. - -“Well, Miss B. A.!” he called out gleefully, quite oblivious of the -staring crowd of girls. “Put down that tray and come and shake hands. -Didn’t expect to see me to-night, did you? Well, I was almost up here, -and I’d promised myself that some time this winter I’d investigate -Harding College, so I seized the opportunity. I telegraphed the little -tomboy that John’s so fond of to meet me and help show me around. -Haven’t seen her, have you?” - -“No, I haven’t, Mr. Morton,” Betty told him--for of course the noisy -intruder was none other than Jasper Jones Morton, the Elusive Magnate -of the European trip. “And I’m afraid she won’t come, because I had a -letter from her yesterday saying that she was in bed with a cold.” - -Jasper J. Morton’s smile clouded. “Too bad, too bad,” he muttered. -“She’ll be disappointed. She likes going off on trips with me. -We’ll have to send her a consolation present to-morrow. You’ll know -what she’d like. Now, Miss B. A., I want some dinner at this famous -tea-shop, and I want you to sit down and eat with me and tell me all -about the business.” Mr. Morton threw back his head and laughed, as if -he thought Betty Wales in business at the Tally-ho Tea-Shop the very -best joke in the world. - -Betty led him to a little table in a corner, that had opportunely -been left vacant by two girls who were hurrying off to a senior play -rehearsal. “But I can’t sit with you,” she explained, “because I’m -waiting on people to-night. The regular waitress has sprained her -ankle.” - -“There’s one.” Mr. Morton waved his hand imperiously at Nora. “She can -manage somehow. Sit down.” - -But Betty was firm. She explained that the dinners were a new -departure, that she was particularly anxious for every one to go away -satisfied with the food and the service, and finally she promised to -wait on Mr. Morton herself, and to come and talk to him later, when the -crowd had thinned. Then she flew to the kitchen after Eugenia’s salads. - -Mr. Morton watched her pick up the heavy tray. “Bless me, but she’s a -worker!” he muttered audibly, to the vast amusement of two freshmen at -the next table. “I supposed from what the little tomboy said that she -was playing at business, but it seems she’s in earnest. How I do like -to see people in earnest!” - -When Eugenia Ford had finished her dinner, she intercepted Betty in a -flying trip to the kitchen after a forgotten cup of coffee. “Isn’t that -Mr. Jasper J. Morton of New York?” she asked. “I thought it must be, -and so did Mr. and Mrs. Valentine, Susanna’s mother and father. They -know him very well, but of course he won’t expect to see them here. -Would you mind taking us over to speak to him? Why didn’t you tell me -you knew the Mortons?” - -“Why should I have told you that?” demanded Betty calmly. “The subject -never came up. John Morton is engaged to one of my best friends.” - -“Really!” Eugenia’s face was a study. “Well, come over and meet the -Valentines.” - -“Not till I’ve brought Dickie Drake’s coffee. Just a second, Dickie.” -And she was off. It was a master-stroke on Betty’s part, to cap the -information about the Mortons by showing her intimacy with Dickie -Drake, who was a most exclusive senior. It was one thing to speak of -her as Dickie--all the college did that--and quite another to address -her directly by her nickname. But Betty was not trying to impress -Eugenia--which was the reason why she succeeded so perfectly then and a -moment later, when, having been duly introduced to the Valentines, she -convoyed them and Eugenia across to Mr. Morton’s table. - -“Friends of yours, Miss B. A.?” he inquired in a dreadfully loud -whisper. “Friends of mine! Nonsense--merest acquaintances. Well, tell -me their names again, and then bring ’em along. How do you do, Mrs. -Valentine? Mr. Valentine, how are you? Your daughter--this one, no, -that one--and Miss Force. Very glad to see so many New Yorkers, I’m -sure. Miss B. A., don’t forget that I’m waiting for you. I hate to be -kept waiting, but you’re one of the people that are worth waiting for. -Do I know your father, Miss Force? It’s quite possible. I know so many -people in one way and another that it takes several secretaries to keep -me posted on the subject. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to my -dinner, which is too good to let cool.” - -Whereupon the “very wealthy” Valentines and “Miss Force” departed, -and Jasper J. Morton chuckled to himself as he wondered if they had -noticed that what he had left on his plate to cool was tomato salad. -He had reached his coffee before Betty came to keep him company. She -wasn’t hungry, she explained; she had snatched her dinner bit by bit -between-times; but Mr. Morton insisted upon her beginning all over -again and “eating like a Christian,” telling her meanwhile the latest -news of John’s senior honors at Harvard, of which he was absurdly -proud, and of the house he was building as a surprise for Babe, next to -his own stately summer home. - -“Now tell me all about yourself,” he commanded, when Betty finally -declared that she couldn’t and wouldn’t eat anything more. “Are you -well, and are you happy? It’s no use asking if your business is a -success, after watching this evening’s crowd eat. But I’m afraid you’re -overworked. Next time you’re shy a waitress just telephone me and I’ll -have one sent up from New York in short order. But if she doesn’t get -here soon enough, why, let ’em sit a while. Or let ’em run out and help -themselves. The help-yourself style of restaurant is getting to be very -popular. Now how about your latest ‘benevolent adventures’?” - -Betty told him about the factory’s club-house, and promised to take him -to see it in the morning, after they had been to chapel and made a tour -of the campus. Mr. Morton watched her closely while she talked. - -“You’re not happy, Miss B. A.,” he said at last. “You’ve got something -on your mind. You don’t laugh right out the way you did last summer, -and you were thinking about something else while I told you about the -little tomboy’s new house. Out with it now; what’s the trouble?” - -“Nothing,” Betty assured him. - -“You say that very much as if you didn’t mean it, my dear young lady,” -Mr. Morton told her. - -“Well, nothing that I want to tell you then,” Betty amended, with her -flashing smile. “You’ll want to do something about it and I don’t -think you can--anyway I don’t want you to try, and you’ll only get -awfully----” - -“Mad,” put in Mr. Morton grimly. “Well, then you’ll have a chance to -smooth me down the way you did last summer. You can do that, but you -can’t get out of telling me what’s worrying you.” - -So Betty told the whole story, beginning with Mr. Harrison’s unexpected -visit and ending with Madeline’s hurried one. She explained why she had -begun so suddenly with the dinners, and how unfortunate it was that -there would be no time to sell the ploshkins, of whose charms she gave -a lively description. She accounted for her disappointment purely on -the ground of not wishing to have the Tally-ho Tea-Shop cease at the -height of its success, saying nothing about the little sister, her -responsibility for Emily, or the low ebb of her own finances. But just -as she had predicted, Mr. Morton flew into a rage at once. Why hadn’t -she written him to come and interview that rascal Harrison? Why had -she gone into business in the first place without his advice and help? -Where was the scamp’s office? If he did not meet his engagement to go -to chapel with her the next morning she would know what had detained -him. - -“But, Mr. Morton, Mr. Harrison isn’t in town just now,” Betty -expostulated, not thinking it necessary to add that Mr. Harrison’s -absence was the chief reason why she had not absolutely refused to -confide in Mr. Morton. - -“That may be,” Mr. Morton sputtered, “but he is somewhere on this side -of the globe, isn’t he? He hasn’t dropped off the earth, and presumably -he can be reached by wire or wireless, can’t he? You go to bed and to -sleep, Miss B. A. I’ll settle this scamp Harrison.” - -“But Mr. Morton----” Betty began, only to be majestically waved into -silence. - -“I admire your independence. I always admire independence. But in this -case it’s absurd. I won’t call this man Harrison a scamp to his face, -Miss B. A.; I give you my word I won’t. But I’ll bring him to terms, or -my name’s not J. J. Morton. You see, Miss B. A., in a case like this my -name is a pretty valuable asset. It will scare him a good deal when he -finds who’s back of this tea-shop that he thought was run by a parcel -of little girls.” - -Next morning the chapel bell was tolling and the last stragglers -were hurrying up the hill, hoping to slip in before the doors were -closed, when a carriage drove up to the Tally-ho and Jasper J. Morton, -descending from it, beckoned wildly to Betty to come out. - -[Illustration: THEY INTERCEPTED THE PRESIDENT] - -“I don’t want to miss seeing this famous chapel service,” he called, as -Betty, who had been watching for him by a window, appeared. “I’ve -done your business, Miss B. A. I routed out the agent, got this -Harrison’s address, and”--he chuckled reminiscently,--“in three minutes -by long distance the whole thing was arranged. The rent and the agent -go on just as usual. The agent will bring you a contract, made out for -as long as you like. There will be no rent this summer while the place -is closed for needed repairs. Is this the right way to chapel? Come on -then.” - -The portly form of Jasper Jones Morton barely squeezed through the -chapel door as it slid shut, and he and Betty dropped breathlessly into -the back row of seats. - -“I like to accomplish what I set out to,” he murmured under cover of -the opening chant. “And I’d like to meet the president of the college -some time when it’s convenient.” - -So they intercepted the president when chapel was over, and the -president insisted upon personally conducting so distinguished a -financier as Jasper Jones Morton over his domain. Jasper Jones Morton -beamed upon the president and upon every inch of the domain, and he -made ostentatious notes of the president’s unostentatious hints -regarding the needs of the college. - -He went over these later, as he devoured an early luncheon by the -fire in the Tally-ho. “Now, shall I build them a library annex, or a -greenhouse, or a dormitory?” he demanded. “I couldn’t give him any idea -what to expect until I’d seen you.” - -“I wish you could build a dormitory for girls who can’t pay the regular -price for board,” said Betty impulsively. “They have to live so far off -and in such horrid little places----” - -“Exactly.” Mr. Morton cut her short. “Don’t I know? Have I forgotten -the holes I’ve boarded in? Now of course I’ll put up that kind of -dormitory, with an endowment to cover the expense of running it. You’ve -got nerve, Miss B. A. That gift will cost at least twice what the -others would.” - -Betty only laughed, for she was very sure that Mr. Morton did not care -what his gift to Harding cost. Besides she was too happy about the -Tally-ho’s rent to worry about anything else. - -“Now if you have that decided, please tell me how you managed Mr. -Harrison,” she begged. “I may have to manage him some time myself, when -you’re too far away----” - -“No you won’t,” Mr. Morton interrupted with decision. “I have just one -rule, Miss B. A., for the treatment of scoundrels: Eliminate them. I -applied the rule this morning in the simplest way that occurred to me, -by buying this property.” - -“So you’re our landlord now!” gasped Betty. - -“I am,” Mr. Morton assured her. “Just as soon as the college closes -I want this tea-room to close too, so that I can install decent -up-to-date systems of lighting and heating and make any other -improvements that you or the artistic young lady named--thank you, -yes, Ayres, can suggest. Remember I hate half-way measures. I want my -building to be the finest quarters for a tea-shop in the whole U.S. -Then I guess, when you are tired of running the place--or I might say -anxious to try your hand at running some lucky young man--why, you -won’t have any trouble in finding a successor.” - -“Oh, Mr. Morton,” sighed Betty reproachfully, “you shouldn’t have done -it. Really you shouldn’t.” - -“You certainly didn’t encourage me at all,” Mr. Morton told her, “so -you needn’t feel in the least responsible. By the way, send me a sample -of that plasher-thing that you’re having made in plaster. If those fool -images sell here, I don’t see why they shouldn’t make good in New York. -And tell the president what we’ve decided about the dormitory. Tell him -to write me if he favors the idea, and I’ll send a check. Good-bye.” - -“You must wait till I’ve thanked----” began Betty. - -“Miss B. A.,” broke in Mr. Morton sternly, “don’t you know me well -enough yet to know that the thing I detest most in this world is to be -thanked?” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -A ROMANCE AND A BURGLARY - - -“GOODNESS, but I’m glad I haven’t got to break the news to you that -I thought I must,” Betty told Emily, when she appeared late in the -afternoon. And then she broke the good news instead, and incidentally, -now that the danger was all over, explained how nearly the tea-room -had come to ruin. She was bursting to tell Emily, who would especially -appreciate the idea, about the new dormitory; but the president of -Harding must be the first one to hear that news. Betty left Emily in -charge of the desk and hurried up to the campus. When she got back, -after an altogether satisfactory interview, she found Nora watching in -rapt admiration while Emily deftly mended a three-cornered tear in the -new blue silk skirt that had been the pride of Nora’s heart. - -“Shure an’ she’s a wonder with her needle,” Nora informed Betty, and -never a word more did she say about her “notice.” It would indeed have -been a callous person who could bring herself to leave the Tally-ho -Tea-Shop just when something exciting was brewing there all the time. -First there was the news of Jasper J. Morton’s munificent gift to the -college. The president passed it on at once, so that almost before -Betty was back at her desk Lucile Merrifield rushed in to ask for all -the details. - -“I hear you planned the whole thing,” she said, “and we all think it’s -perfectly splendid. Why didn’t any one ever think of it before?” - -Of course Betty disclaimed all credit for Mr. Morton’s gift, but it was -no use, especially when his letter to the president was printed in the -local newspapers. He referred that gentleman to Miss Wales “for any -further ideas and for detailed suggestions, since it was she who first -interested me in Harding College and who originated this particular -form of benefaction.” Her real friends loved and respected her more -than ever for her power to bring such good fortune to pass, and girls -like Eugenia Ford were immensely impressed by her evident intimacy -with the Mortons and her influence over a man who was noted for never -taking advice from anybody. - -“It just happened that I got mixed up in it,” Betty told Miss Ferris -humbly. “But I am glad that now, when I have the least to give myself, -some one that I know can do so much. I’ve remembered all this year what -you told me last fall about helping in one way if you can’t in another. -It’s worked pretty well.” - -Just as the excitement about the dormitory was subsiding, Madeline -stirred things up with a succinct telegram to Betty: “Arrived at last.” - -Lucile and Polly and the Dutton twins happened to be breakfasting -at the Tally-ho when it came, and Betty passed it over to them for -opinions about its probable meaning. - -“With her usual Bohemian extravagance she pays for seven words that she -doesn’t send,” complained Lucile. “Let’s answer it, girls. What shall -we say?” - -“Which way were you going?” suggested Fluffy Dutton. “That’s to the -point. And send it ‘C. O. D.’ Then she’ll be more explicit next time.” - -“Not she,” objected Polly. “The charm of her is that she doesn’t know -the meaning of explicitness. But we’ll send it ‘C. O. D.’ all the same, -because we are all too poor to pay.” - -Polly had not anticipated Madeline’s obvious revenge, which -was to send a ninety word reply, unpaid, and addressed to -“Lucile-Polly-Fluffy-Georgia, Belden House.” But she was quick to see -her way out of the financial difficulty. - -“Georgia didn’t do anything about sending it, so she pays,” she -decreed; and Georgia accepted the decision with her customary bland -cheerfulness, only demanding in return the ownership of the telegram, -which would make a beautiful trophy for her “memorabil,” as the Harding -girl calls her scrap-book filled with souvenirs of her college days. - -The telegram was certainly a work of art and ingenuity, and it took -art and ingenuity to understand it, with no punctuation marks and some -words evidently invented by a despairing operator in a quandary over -Madeline’s perfectly illegible handwriting. But the general drift was -that Madeline had been “on the way to” utter despair,--because the -heroine of her novel insisted on eloping with the villain instead -of the hero--when she thought of making a story out of Patricia’s -long-lost letters from “R.” While she was waiting for her effort to -come back to her, as usual, she scribbled off a college tale about -a girl who had a desk with a secret drawer and didn’t know it. The -first story was accepted--and paid for--by the magazine that had been -the goal of her ambitions all winter, and the other had brought her a -contract for a dozen college stories to be written within a year, on -terms that made a true Bohemian like Madeline feel fairly dizzy with -sudden wealth. - -This splendid sequel to the hunt for Eugenia’s theme reminded Betty -of the papers which had filled her drawer, and which, in the rush of -other excitements, she had quite forgotten. If they had anything to do -with Patricia and “R.” perhaps Madeline might write a sequel to her -first story and score another triumph. But examination proved that -the nearest name to Patricia mentioned in them was prosaic Peter, and -the only “R.” a Robert Wales who signed one of the papers in the -minor rôle of witness for Peter’s signature. Betty was interested at -discovering her surname; but prosy old documents make dull reading, -even if witnessed by a possible ancestor. However, she finally sent -them to Madeline, for, as she told Georgia Ames, you never can tell -what a literary person will see in the most commonplace things. - -Of course Madeline was overjoyed at the happy outcome of the Tally-ho’s -crisis, and so was Babbie, who appeared in Harding with the very -earliest signs of spring. - -“Florida was duller than ever this year,” she told Betty. “I’ve left -mother in Washington waiting for really warm weather, and I’ve come -to see about my branch of the Tally-ho. I’m sure it needs my personal -attention. Mr. Thayer certainly ought to give the poor stocking-makers -ice-cream for staying in and learning their lessons now that it’s -getting to be nice weather. You’re not a bit enterprising about working -up business through the night-school, Betty.” - -“I have to leave that to you,” Betty told her solemnly. “The regular -affairs of the tea-shop, and Mr. Morton, are all that I can manage. -The ploshkins will be here to-morrow in full force, and Mr. Morton has -written to know if we can’t think of some small improvements that can -be made next week during the spring vacation. He can’t bear to wait -until summer for everything.” - -“As if this place wasn’t just about perfect now!” said Babbie -scornfully. - -But Mary Brooks, appearing in the midst of the discussion, took a -different view. “You’ve got to keep making them sit up and take notice -of something new over and over and over,” she announced. “That’s -business. The ploshkins will do for one thing, but if the Morton -millions are fairly languishing to be wasted on this property, you -ought to be able to think of some features to spend them on. Just -wait a minute--I have it--a tea-garden! Pagoda effects scattered over -the side yard. Lattice work, and thatched roofs, Japanese screens to -keep out the sun and the stares of the gaping crowd, and lanterns for -evenings. I’m sure it would take.” - -“It’s commonplace compared to what I’ve thought of,” declared Babbie -proudly. “What we want is a Peter Pan Annex in our elm trees. I -presume you’ve never been to the original Café Robinson, Mary, but we -have, and it’s way beyond any tea-garden.” - -Betty was in the window, peering out at the Harding elm trees. - -“We could,” she declared. “I always wondered how those two trees -happened to be so close together, and now it seems like fate that -they’re exactly right for a Café Robinson.” - -“And easily tall enough for three stories,” cried Babbie, joining her. - -“We mustn’t forget the big one-two-three signs for the stories,” chimed -in Betty excitedly. - -“Nor the basket to pull up with the extra things,” added Babbie. - -“We’ll tell Nora to have some extra things in every order so they can -all have the fun of hauling up the basket.” - -“The view will be perfectly lovely from the top,” declared Babbie. “And -isn’t it fine that our trees are in such a sheltered place, behind the -little white house?” - -Betty nodded. “If Bob were here she’d shin up to the top this very -minute and tell us what you can see.” - -“But Babe will surely say she likes the second story best, because she -and John made up their quarrel in the second story,” laughed Babbie; -and then they settled down to telling the bewildered Mary about the -house-in-the-trees café that they had discovered near Paris, and how -the going-away party held there for Madeline had developed into an -announcement party for Babe. And of course Mary agreed that a Peter Pan -Annex was the only thing for the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. - -“And as Madeline won’t let me call my night-school a branch of the -business, I shall write her how I thought up this,” Babbie declared. “I -will also hunt up that comical carpenter that Madeline had such times -with last fall, and show him how to build it.” - -Now carpentry and the supervision of carpentry are no work for a -woman; and the Tally-ho’s trees were in plain sight from Mr. Thayer’s -office windows. So it was only natural, when Babbie’s slender figure -appeared on the lawn for the purpose of supervision, that Mr. Thayer -should join her for the purpose of applying an understanding masculine -intelligence and a firm masculine will to the direction of the -thickest-headed carpenter imaginable. Babbie had a careless fashion of -running out on the rawest day without a wrap. This made it all the more -necessary for Mr. Thayer to come over, bringing his sweater to throw -across her shoulders. - -“I saw your Cousin Austin at Palm Beach,” Babbie had explained shortly -after her arrival in Harding, “and then at St. Augustine. At Miami he -took us on the loveliest cruise, and I drove his car at sixty miles an -hour on the beach at Ormond. It was ripping fun. Not many men will risk -your losing your head and smashing them up.” - -“And don’t you ever lose your head?” inquired Mr. Thayer blandly. - -“Not over your Cousin Austin,” said Babbie, with a flash of a smile. - -After that Mr. Thayer came oftener and stayed longer. Babbie assured -Betty and Emily Davis that they had no idea how complicated a Peter Pan -Annex seemed to an untraveled carpenter of Harding. - -“We’re so afraid it won’t have the real French air,” she said. “That’s -why we spend such ages in staring at it from all possible angles.” - -“And then it must be perfectly secure,” she explained on another -occasion, just after she and Mr. Thayer had sat for almost an hour -in the top story, among the branches that now made a most beautiful -feathery screen. “Think how horrible it would be if the railing was too -low and some silly little freshman fell out, or if the floor wasn’t -strong enough and gave way. Mr. Thayer knows all about such things. -He’s taking a lot of interest. We never could have done it properly -except for him.” - -But in spite of the accommodating slowness and stupidity of the -untraveled carpenter, the Peter Pan Annex was finished at last. - -“I’m a candidate now for the Perfect Patron’s Society,” Mr. Thayer told -Betty, “so I want to give an opening-day tea up on the top floor for -all the owners, managers, assistant managers, and small sisters. It’s -to be this afternoon at four. I also want another stocking factory -party, and hadn’t we better get it off our hands early, before -commencement begins to loom up ahead?” Mr. Thayer looked very hard at -Betty. “I suppose you are terribly busy?” - -“Terribly,” returned Betty gravely, “but I think Babbie will help.” - -Babbie would not. - -“I’m going to your Cousin Austin’s Adirondack camp,” she explained, -“to see spring come in the woods. Mother is the chaperon, and I have -an awful suspicion that I am a sort of guest of honor. Anyway, the -spring part of it appeals to me. And secondly, mother has been solemnly -promised a reunion with her long-lost daughter.” - -Later in the day Babbie, in a kimono, which is the attire of -confidential intercourse, complained that “Mummy was as bad as Margot -about a multi-millionaire,” and that she hated the woods in spring; -they were always hot, and smoky from forest fires, there was no shade -and no shooting, and the canoes leaked from being dry all winter. - -“Moreover,” added Babbie wearily, a “so-called camp, with a butler and -three other men, and a sunken garden, is going too much for me. But -when mummy really insists, the laws of the Medes and Persians aren’t in -it.” She gave a funny little mirthless laugh. “I suppose one ought to -be very sure that one isn’t foolishly prejudiced against the popular -idea of the idle rich.” - -So Emily planned the factory party with much energy and originality, -and Mr. Thayer was duly grateful. But his rare smile came only when -Betty showed him a note from Babbie, inquiring carefully about the date -of the party and stating in a postscript, with vehement underlining, -that she never wanted to see spring come in anybody’s woods again. - -“There are mosquitoes, and other things much worse,” ended Babbie -enigmatically, with the blackest possible lines under the last two -words. - -“Suppose you let me write her about the date of the party?” suggested -Mr. Thayer. “Then you needn’t bother.” - -Evidently the change in correspondents did not displease Babbie -seriously, for she was back on the appointed day, with a bewitching -smile, flashed out from beneath a bewitching hat, for all her stocking -factory friends, including Mr. Thayer. The party was a sort of spring -fête held out on the grounds of the factory, in the late afternoon and -early evening. There were folk dances in costume, national songs, and -old-country games. Emily had made all the guests feel a tremendous -pride in doing whatever they could to entertain the rest, and -everything, from the Irish bag-pipe music to the Russian mazurkas, went -off with great spirit. - -It was while Jimmie O’Ferrel was dancing a jig with all his might and -main, and with all eyes fastened upon his flying feet, that Betty, -happening to glance across the grounds, saw a bewitching hat slip -swiftly from the fence top down on the tea-shop side. But she had no -proof that Mr. Thayer was concerned in the disappearance of the hat, -until the smallest sister sought her out importantly, a little later. - -“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked. “Well, I think Babbie -and Mr. Thayer are in love.” - -“Why do you think that?” asked Betty laughingly. - -“Because,” explained Dorothy, “I ran up in the Peter Pan Annex just -now to see how small people look ’way down here from ’way up there, and -I jumped ’most out of my skin ’cause there those two sat. They never -saw me at all, and he had his arm around her and she didn’t care. She -was smiling about it. So I came straight away. Was that right?” - -“Of course,” laughed Betty. “You hadn’t been invited.” - -“I was invited to Mr. Thayer’s party, though,” objected Dorothy, “and -now he isn’t here. He’s over at our house. That’s queer.” - -Up in the Peter Pan Annex Mr. Thayer was saying to Babbie, “I must go -back before any one misses me.” - -“I can’t go back,” said Babbie sadly. “I tore my dress dreadfully -getting over the fence. You shouldn’t have made me do it.” - -“I didn’t make you,” retorted Mr. Thayer. “I particularly advised you -to go around.” - -“Exactly,” agreed Babbie, “and that made me want to go over. Dear -me! Do you suppose we shall ever really quarrel on account of my not -wanting to give in to your chin?” - -“No, because I shall always want to give in to yours,” Mr. Thayer told -her. - -“But I shouldn’t let you give in always,” declared Babbie. “I should -take turns giving in.” - -“Don’t say ‘should,’” objected Mr. Thayer. “Say ‘shall.’ Haven’t we -settled it?” - -“Of course.” Babbie gave a comical little sigh. “It feels so queer to -be settled--and so very nice. Now go back to your party, and I’ll get -Nora to lend me some pins so I can go back too. Oh, and we’ll tell -Betty, shan’t we, right away?” - -Under the circumstances Betty wasn’t extremely surprised, but she was -extremely pleased. - -“Now our tea-room is as successful as the famous one that belonged to -the cousins of the girl who lives over Mrs. Bob,” she laughed. “It -has produced an engagement, and a literary career to match the artist -person’s.” - -Babbie frowned. “You mustn’t leave yourself out, Betty. You’re mixed up -in everything, and I don’t believe that other tea-room was half as nice -as this or made half as much money.” - -“Neither do I,” agreed Betty happily. “I’m perfectly satisfied with my -profits, though they’re not so extraordinary as yours and Madeline’s. -Every morning when I unlock the door I’m in such a hurry to look in -and see that everything is all right and all here. It’s so pretty and -I love it so, that I’m afraid it will vanish some night like a fairy -palace.” - -It was odd that the very next morning when Betty unlocked the door, -she should find that some marauder had been there before her. She had -locked her desk the night before, as she always did. But during the -night the lid had been forced back, the papers in the pigeonholes -tossed out on to the floor, the drawers opened and emptied. - -Her face was white and frightened as she rushed over to find Babbie, -who was staying in the little white house this time. - -“The tea-room has been robbed!” she gasped. “Come over there, quick.” - -Babbie, who always breakfasted late, was pinning her collar, and she -gave a start that jabbed the pin straight into her thumb. “Ouch, but -that hurt!” she groaned. “What did they take?” - -“I was so frightened I didn’t stop to see. I thought they might be -hiding in the loft.” - -Babbie dropped a skirt over her head, and started down the stairs, -hooking it up as she ran. - -“They wouldn’t do that. They’d want to escape in the dark,” she called -back encouragingly. - -But at the door of the tea-shop she paused. “There is something moving -up there,” she whispered cautiously. “See! Over in that corner by the -curtain.” - -Betty couldn’t see anything moving, but when Babbie started in a hasty -retreat toward the little white house she banged to the big door and -followed. Just then Bridget came waddling breathlessly up the hill. - -“Wat’s up now, Misses?” she called. “Why are yez afther shuttin’ of me -out?” - -Bridget’s fat figure was very reassuring. Simultaneously Betty and -Babbie ran toward it, gasping out the news. - -[Illustration: “COME ALONG NOW”] - -“In the loft? Well, we’ll finish ’em thin.” Bridget seized a -brass-handled poker, the latest addition to the tea-shop’s stock of -antiques. Then she laid it down again, carefully removed her neat -black bonnet, and as carefully laid it on a table. “No use of spilin’ -that in a fight. Come along now wid yez,” she ordered. - -Betty seized an umbrella that some one had opportunely left in a -corner, and Babbie chose as weapon a tall brass candlestick. Then the -procession started, Bridget waddling and wheezing in front, Betty, -still white with terror, following, and Babbie, beginning to smile -again at the absurdity of the search, bringing up the rear. But they -hunted conscientiously, exploring every hiding-place into which a man -could possibly squeeze himself and some that would have cramped a -self-respecting cat. - -“They ain’t here at all,” announced Bridget at last, removing her -eye from a knot-hole in the wall into which she had been spying -laboriously, and standing upright with more puffings and pantings. -“It’s downstairs we go. Thim stalls are foine for burgulars, and mebbe -they’re in me kitchen this minute, ating up me angil-food that ’ud riz -light as a feather. Oh me, oh me.” - -“They aren’t here now. I’m sure they’re not,” protested Babbie. “Think -how absurd it would be for a burglar to hide in here, just waiting -around to be caught. I’m going to see what we’ve lost.” - -Bridget persisted in completing her search, and Betty would not -desert her. But when the fat cook was satisfied and had sat down to -fan herself into a semblance of calmness that would make possible the -successful cooking of waffles for the “Why-Get-Up-to-Breakfast Club,” -Betty joined Babbie, and together they straightened out and looked over -the papers from the desk. - -“There’s nothing gone. Of course they wouldn’t want grocer’s bills, -even if they were receipted,” Betty declared. “But I left six dollars -and thirty cents all rolled up in one of the top drawers. Emily forgot -it when she went to the bank. I suppose they’ve got that.” - -“Drawer wide open, and one--five--yes, six dollars and thirty cents all -here,” Babbie reported. “That’s very queer. Burglars that hunt as hard -as this and then don’t take the money when they find it are certainly -particular. Well, did they like our old brasses, I wonder, or our -plated silver spoons?” - -But the candlesticks--except the one Babbie had seized upon--and the -Flemish lamps were all in place. The gargoyles grinned serenely from -their accustomed niches. The silver drawer had not been tampered with. -In the kitchen the angel-food was just as Bridget had left it. - -“It’s a mystery,” declared Babbie at last, “a thrilling and -impenetrable mystery. When do burglars not burgle?” - -“When they are frightened off,” answered Betty prosaically. - -“But it wouldn’t have taken a second to dip out that money,” Babbie -objected. “It was all mussed up, so some one’s hand must have been in -there, since you left it in a roll----” - -“Yes, in a tight little wad,” put in Betty. - -“And that some one could have pulled back his hand full just as quickly -as empty,” Babbie went on. “I tell you it’s a horrible mystery. I’m -going to ask Robert to come over this minute and see about it.” - -Meanwhile Emily, who had been doing the day’s marketing, arrived; but -neither she nor Mr. Thayer could solve the “thrilling, impenetrable, -horrible” mystery, though Mr. Thayer found “jimmy” marks on the shed -door, and that, as Betty said, proved beyond a doubt that the burglars -had been the real thing. - -“Real, but very eccentric,” laughed Emily. “Let’s hope that all the -Tally-ho’s burglars will belong to the same accommodating tribe.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THE AMAZING MR. SMITH AND OTHER AMAZEMENTS - - -“RACHEL MORRISON? No, not yet, but she’s coming. Everybody’s coming.” - -“K. Kittredge is as comical as ever. Ask her about her prize English -pupil.” - -“Do you know, you’re glad to see everybody these days. Why, Jean -Eastman rushed up to me, and I fell upon her neck. Digs and freaks and -snobs and all, they belong to 19-- and the good old days.” - -“Do you feel that way too? I wondered if any one else had noticed the -horrid little changes. I suppose things will change, but I wish----” - -“Nonsense! Look at this tea-shop. It’s a change all right, and for my -part I don’t see how we should live without it.” - -“Oh, but this is different. This is 19--’s very own.” - -“Where’s Betty Wales, anyway? She’s so busy you can’t get within a mile -of her.” - -Thus 19--, over its ices in the Peter Pan Annex. The Tally-ho -Tea-Shop was 19--’s headquarters, official and unofficial. There they -breakfasted, lunched, tea-ed, and dined; there held informal “sings” -and rallies, and there on the last evening of the festal week they were -to eat their class supper. The tenth year class were to eat theirs in -the loft. The fifteeners had engaged the first floor of the Peter Pan -Annex, and the six graduates of the very oldest class were to lunch up -in the top floor, among the tree-tops. No wonder that Betty was busy -and had to be caught on the wing and forcibly detained by 19-- friends. -Commencement guests fairly beset the Tally-ho at meal-times. Between -meals old girls and belated undergraduates thronged the tables. Betty -could hardly believe her eyes when she counted up one day’s returns -from the Peter Pan Annex. As for ploshkins, the first order had sold -out almost before it was unpacked, and every class in college had -wanted to adopt the ploshkin for its class animal. But Betty explained -that 19-- had already secured it. - -Madeline had had that happy thought, of course, and Kate Denise, -who was chairman of the supper committee, had capped it by ordering -miniature ploshkins for favors and a mammoth one for a centerpiece. -Then Madeline had written a ploshkin song which was so much cleverer -than “The Bay Where the Ploshkin Bides,” that the Glee Club groaned -with envy. There was also a 19-- song called “Tea-Shop,” and one called -“The House of Peter Pan,” so that Betty’s enterprises were much in the -public eye, if she was not. - -It was dreadfully hard to stick to work, when you knew that 19-- was -having a “Stunt-doers’ Meet” under the apple-trees on the back campus, -or Dramatic Club’s Alumnæ tea, also with “stunts,” was on in the -Students’ Building. The only consolation lay in the fact that your -dearest friends calmly cut these surpassing attractions, to which some -of them had traveled thousands of miles, just to sit by the cashier’s -desk in the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, and talk to the cashier in her intervals -of comparative leisure, waiting patiently while she made change, found -tables for helpless or hurried customers, took “rush orders” to the -kitchen when the waitresses were all too busy, and in general made -things “go” in the steady, plodding, systematic fashion that her gay -little soul loathed. But she realized that she had made a success -of the Tally-ho just by keeping at it, and she was going home next -week with little Dorothy and “money in her pocket,” in Will’s slangy -phraseology, leaving Emily to take charge of the improvements which -Madeline and Mr. Morton had planned on a scale of elegance that fairly -took away Betty’s breath, and of the remnants of business that would -be left when the hungry Harding girls had departed, and sleepy silence -reigned on the deserted campus. - -Eugenia Ford came in one afternoon early in commencement week, looking -very meek and unhappy. - -“I’m going home to-night. I was foolish to plan to stay over, but a -senior I know asked me to, and I thought of course she meant it. And -she only let me entertain her youngest brother part of one morning, and -made me give her my ticket to the senior play.” - -“What a shame!” Betty sympathized. - -“But I was to blame. I was a goose,” Eugenia repeated. “I ought to -have known that she only wanted to get something out of me. If I rush -up to people all of a sudden, when I’ve never noticed them much before, -I generally want to get something out of them. It’s naturally the same -with other girls.” - -Betty laughed. “Better stick to the ones who are always nice to -you--your real friends,” she advised. - -“But then you won’t get on,” objected Eugenia wisely. “They say you’ve -got to scheme a lot to be in things here. You’ve got to make yourself -known.” - -“Why not just try to be worth knowing?” Betty suggested. “My friend -Rachel Morrison was as quiet and--and--unpushing as could be, but she -was so bright and nice and thoughtful for other people and so reliable -that everybody wanted her for a friend.” - -Eugenia sighed. “I’m not bright or thoughtful for others. I--oh, dear, -this isn’t what I came to talk about, Miss Wales. I--I stopped to say -good-bye to Dorothy. I--she--we made up. I mean--we hadn’t exactly -quarreled, so we couldn’t exactly make up. But I felt so ashamed. Being -mean to little girls makes you feel so ashamed--even if they don’t -know about it. Miss Wales, I’ve heard about the dormitory for poor -girls--Morton Hall. When I went home in the spring my father said that -as far as he could see you’d taught me about all the sensible things -I’d learned this year. He asked me what you’d like for a present. I -couldn’t decide, but when I heard about the dormitory I wrote and -asked him to send you a check for extra things, you know, for the -furnishings, or to pay part of some girl’s board. I thought perhaps -you’d rather have that--from us--than something for yourself.” She -put three checks into Betty’s hand. “Two of my best friends sent the -others. It was what they had left from their spring term allowances. -Susanna would like hers to go for a picture in the house parlor. Molly -doesn’t care.” - -Eugenia rushed through all this information so fast that Betty had no -chance to interrupt, and at the end she was speechless with surprise. -She glanced at the checks. The smallest was for a hundred dollars. -Together they would provide endless “extras” for Morton Hall, or help -dozens of poor girls to make both ends meet. - -“Oh, Eugenia, you are a dear,” she cried impulsively. “And your father -is a dear too, and these other girls. But why not give it right to the -college yourselves?” - -“Because you’ll think of something nicer than they would to do with -it. Anyway it’s a sort of a present to you--father’s part. You’re just -to say it’s from friends of yours. We don’t want our names mentioned. -You’re the one who put the idea into my head. We’re not doing it for -anything but to please you, and Susanna and Molly because they liked -the idea, and what was the use keeping over their allowances?” - -Betty was glad of this explanation. She had tried to choke back an ugly -little suspicion that this gift might be a part of Eugenia’s campaign -to “make herself known,” by having her father’s name linked with Mr. -Morton’s as a benefactor of Harding. Now she was reassured on that -point, and she thanked Eugenia again, trying to make her feel how much -the money would accomplish. - -“I suppose that’s so,” Eugenia agreed, “and we shan’t any of us miss -it. Lots of the girls could give away more than they do, Miss Wales, -only they never think of it.” - -“It’s the same way about helping the ones who are rather left out to -have some good times,” Betty put in eagerly. “It doesn’t take much -effort or time from your own fun, and it means such a lot to them.” - -“Yes,” Eugenia agreed soberly. “I’m going to try to be more like that -next year. It’s horrid to be as snippy as most of our crowd are. Some -awfully nice girls are left out of things for one reason or another. -We should all have more fun, I guess, if we all had it,” ended Eugenia -rather obscurely. “Good-bye, Miss Wales, until next fall.” - -Betty was wondering busily whether she should be back next fall, for -mother had just written that father’s business was improving fast and -that he hoped to have the family together again soon, when the supper -committee appeared to inquire about the shape of the 19-- table and to -consult the president about the seating arrangements. Betty was deep -in the problem of how to get all the speakers on one side of the table -and yet not separate them from their friends, when a strange gentleman -walked in and came straight up to Betty’s desk. - -“Miss Wales?” he inquired in businesslike tones. - -“I am Miss Wales.” Betty stood up behind the desk, and Kate Denise and -the rest withdrew to a window until the man should have finished his -business with Betty. - -“My name is Smith,” he went on. “I represent Furbush, a Boston antique -shop. You’ve heard of it, I presume?” - -Betty had not heard of Furbush’s. - -“Well, that’s not vital,” Mr. Smith told her smilingly, “because we buy -on a cash basis, so it’s not a question of our credit. I should have -said that I’m up here buying old furniture. I heard you had a rather -good desk that you might like to sell, and some pieces of brass.” - -“Yes, we have those things, but we don’t care to sell any of them,” -Betty told him shortly. The idea of any one’s coming to buy the -Tally-ho’s most prized features, and in commencement week too, when -every minute was precious. Mr. Smith’s hand was on the desk, but now -he looked down as if he had but just discovered the fact. - -“Oh, this is the desk I was told about, isn’t it?” he said, and came -around to Betty’s side to see it to better advantage. “It’s a good -piece--a very good piece. I’ll give you a good price for it, Miss -Wales. Just name your figure.” - -“I couldn’t, for the desk belongs to the firm--the tea-shop firm,” -Betty answered. “And if we should even decide to sell,--though I don’t -think we shall--two friends of ours are ready to give us the full value -of the desk.” - -“Now what would you consider the full value of the desk, Miss Wales?” -Mr. Smith asked, in a tone that was meant to be half persuasive and -half scornful of Miss Wales’s knowledge of antiques. - -“I don’t know exactly, and it doesn’t matter at all, because we don’t -wish to sell the desk or anything else that we have.” Betty’s tone -was meant to be wholly anxious for the immediate departure of the -importunate Mr. Smith. - -“I’ll give you four hundred dollars for that desk, Miss Wales. That’s -about five times what you paid for it, I guess, and twice what your -friends would give. Furbush’s can pay top prices for a thing they like, -because their customers are the top-price sort.” - -Betty was inwardly amazed, both at the sum Mr. Smith offered and at -the accuracy of his guesses about the price Madeline had paid and the -advance Mrs. Bob had offered. But she reflected that if Furbush’s, of -which she had never heard, would pay four hundred dollars for the desk -to-day they probably would pay that or nearly that later in the week. -Babbie was off walking with Mr. Thayer, whom she was keeping very much -in the background because only Betty and the other two B’s were to -know of the engagement until class supper night, when Babbie meant to -run around the table with the other engaged girls. And Madeline had -not yet torn herself away from her beloved studio apartment, where -her latest diversion was papering her study with “rejection slips” -from over-fastidious editors. The desk certainly could not be sold at -any price without Madeline’s consent. So in the face of Mr. Smith’s -munificent offer, Betty preserved a stony silence which finally evoked -a low whistle from that gentleman. - -“All right,” he said, slipping his hand lovingly across the carved -panels and the inlaid fronts of the little drawers. “If you feel that -way about it, Furbush must do without. Now have you the same objections -to selling me a cup of tea?” - -“Certainly you can have tea here,” Betty told him. “If you will sit -down at one of the tables you will be served directly.” Then she turned -her attention to Kate and the others, and forgot all about Mr. Smith, -who chose a retired nook in Flying Hoof’s stall, ordered tea with three -kinds of sandwiches, pulled a book out of his pocket, and explained -to the waitress that he liked to eat slowly and read, without being -disturbed. - -The supper committee worked out its seating plan and departed, highly -indignant that Betty wouldn’t come up to the campus with them to -pay calls on the lesser stars of the senior play cast, who were on -exhibition in their make-ups. - -“I’m lucky to get off to-night for the play,” Betty told them sternly, -and in the pause before dinner she tried to concentrate her mind on -preparing a menu for the next day. She needed to consult Bridget about -several items, and as the tea-room was quite empty and she would only -be gone a minute she slipped out without calling in Emily, who was busy -in the kitchen, to take her place at the desk. When she came back she -was startled to find her chair occupied by Mr. Smith, who had opened -several drawers and was poking the fan-shaped panel, trying vainly to -push it to one side. Betty stared at him for a moment in amazement, -then she called out loudly, “I thought you had gone, Mr. Smith,” -keeping meanwhile close to the kitchen door which separated her from -Bridget, Nora, and Emily, for she had no idea what a man might do when -you caught him robbing your desk. - -But Mr. Smith was not even disconcerted. “Oh, no, Miss Wales,” he began -easily. “Don’t you remember I haven’t paid for my grub? I’m not the -sort of man to go off without paying my bill. I’d finished, and you -weren’t here, so I was taking a last lingering look at your lovely -desk. Seems to me as if there might be a secret drawer behind one of -these panels.” He tapped the panels gently, one after another, with his -knuckles. - -“If we ever decide to sell you the desk, Mr. Smith, you can examine it -as closely as you like,” Betty told him with dignity. “But now I must -ask you to leave it alone.” - -“Oh, very well,” Mr. Smith answered absently, still fingering the -carved panel in the center. - -As Betty watched him indignantly, a dreadful thought came into her -head. The three checks that Eugenia had given her were on the desk. -She had tucked them carelessly under the blotter, meaning to take -them out again as soon as Kate and the others had gone. Betty did not -stop to consider how useless they would be to Mr. Smith. She only -reflected that he was certainly dishonorable, and probably dishonest, -and that the checks were a sacred trust. Mr. Smith was absorbed in the -arrangements of the desk. Betty slipped silently through the kitchen -door and approached Bridget. - -“I’m not sure, but I think there’s a burglar in there,” she whispered. -“He’s at the desk, and he won’t get away from it. I want you to scare -him into another part of the room, and then bar the door until I’ve -found out whether or not he’s stolen anything. Do you understand?” - -“Aisy,” returned Bridget calmly, wiping her hands on her apron, and -seizing a poker and a rolling-pin she marched boldly into the tea-room. - -“Scat!” she hissed into the ear of the astonished Mr. Smith, who jumped -back like a frightened rabbit when he saw the poker and the rolling-pin -brandished dangerously about his head. In a minute Bridget had him -prisoned in Flying Hoof’s stall, in front of which she danced back and -forth, waving her improvised weapons frantically. - -“I’ve got him,” she called triumphantly to Betty. “An’ if he’s a -burgular fur shure, I’ll kape him safe while Miss Emily do be runnin’ -for the perlice.” - -It took Betty only an instant to put her hand under the blotter, and -there, just as she had left them, were the three checks. - -“Oh, Bridget, he’s not a burglar,” she cried. “The money is here all -right. Let him out the door. I’m sorry, Mr. Smith,” she added with -dignity, “but you certainly acted like a thief, so you mustn’t blame -me, since I knew that there was a large amount of money in the desk, -for treating you like one.” - -“Indade it’s a good whack yez desarve for troublin’ me lovely young -ladies,” declared Bridget, reluctantly moving to one side to let her -prisoner pass out. - -Mr. Smith, scowling angrily, walked across to the desk that had been -the cause of all the trouble, and threw down the slip Nora had given -him and the change to pay it. - -“It’s a pity if a gentleman can’t satisfy his idle curiosity about the -date of an antique desk without being taken for a sneak thief,” he -declaimed angrily, as he started off. - -“It’s a pity when a gintlemin ain’t got enough bisniss of his own to -mind so it’ll kape his nose out of other people’s private propity,” -cried Bridget after him, and then she turned her attention to -comforting Betty, who had been dreadfully frightened by the episode. - -“I almost wish the desk was sold,” she declared with a sob in her -voice. “It’s always making us trouble with its queer old secret -drawers and the people that try to steal out of it--and don’t.” - -“It’s a foine desk that burgulars can’t burgle, I’m thinkin’,” Bridget -declared consolingly. - -“But it attracts burglars,” Betty objected, “and being frightened is -almost as bad as being really robbed.” - -Madeline, who came that evening, fairly gloated in the mysterious -robbery and the strange conduct of Mr. Smith. “It’s like living in a -detective story,” she declared. “Mr. Smith was hunting for something, -and so were the burglars,--something so valuable that they turned -up their noses at six good round dollars. Those old papers can’t be -valuable. Therefore it stands to reason that there must be something -else in there that we haven’t found--jewels, maybe, worth a king’s -ransom. As soon as I’ve embraced dear old 19--, I’ll have another hunt.” - -But embracing dear old 19-- was a more absorbing process than Madeline -had counted it. Class supper night, the grand wind-up of Harding -commencement, arrived, and she had not given another thought to the -hidden treasure. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -A FINAL EXCITEMENT - - -AT first Betty had not seen how she could possibly be spared from -“business” on the most strenuous night in the Tally-ho’s history, with -three class suppers being eaten at once in its precincts, a chef from -Boston lording it over Bridget in the kitchen,--or trying to, and a -little army of strange waitresses to be shown the way about. But 19-- -was firm; its president must and should sit through the whole supper -on the right hand of Eleanor Watson, who was toast-mistress again this -year; must present the mammoth ploshkin to T. Reed’s adorable young -son, and the silver loving-cup to the real class-baby, the daughter -of a certain Mary Jones, who had never in all her college course done -anything less commonplace than her name. On the day after commencement -she had married a Harding lawyer, and her living in town made the -display of her very small baby possible. - -“It’s not every first year reunion that has one right here on hand to -be inspected,” declared Katherine Kittridge. “So here’s to Mary Jones, -if she wasn’t a highly exciting member of our highly exciting class.” - -So Betty finally yielded to 19--’s demands for her own and Emily’s -release from duty, put the management of the suppers into Nora’s -capable hands, and resolved to wear the rose-colored satin dress that -she had bought in Paris and to forget for the one night that she was -anything but a “lady of leisure” come to her class reunion, just like -Bob and Babe and Roberta, without a care in the world or a thought -beyond the joy of being “back” with 19--. And partly, no doubt, -because the supper was so good and so well served, she succeeded. -Eleanor was lovelier than ever, and her little speeches cleverer; Bob, -on her other side, was jollier, Helen Adams more amusingly sedate, -K. more delightfully absurd. The toasts were as “superfine” as all -19--’s stunts, the songs went with a fine dash, the ploshkins made a -decided hit, and T. Reed’s little T.--it stood for Thomas instead of -Theresa--was so dear and comical, trying to pull his big ploshkin off -the table, and finally insisting on a chair for it between himself and -“Mother T.,” as everybody called her now. Betty realized suddenly that -she hadn’t had many “good times” this year, and that she had missed -them. Then she forgot everything but the perfectly splendid time she -was having right now, in the old care-free Betty Wales fashion. She -counted the minutes jealously, and sighed all to herself when the last -toast was over--K’s comical eulogy of “Our Working Women.” - -But with the end of the supper the night’s fun was only well started. -Up the stairs to the loft, bearing the ploshkins solemnly above their -heads, climbed 19--, to sing to the little tenth year table; then out -to the Peter Pan Annex to salute the fifteeners and pelt them with -green carnations. The third year reunion was up in the gym; the seniors -were in the Student’s Building. Off trailed 19--, to the tune of the -ploshkin song, to return _en masse_ the serenades that had enlivened -its own supper. Up-stairs the tenth year people were not half-way -through their toasts. Down-stairs Nora turned the lamps low, so that -they would burn until 19-- came back for its forgotten wraps and its -last good-byes. It was a breathlessly hot night, so Nora left all the -windows open, and she and Bridget, their duties ended, went home to -well-earned rest. - -It was long after midnight when 19--, having serenaded all the suppers, -all their favorite faculty, all their “loved spots” on the campus, came -back in scattered ranks and without music, for they had sung themselves -hoarse, to the Tally-ho. The other classes had left, and the tea-shop -was dusky and silent. Betty happened to be marching in the front rank -with Babe and Roberta. - -“I ought to have come back ahead and lighted up for you,” she said. “I -thought Nora would stay until we got here, but it’s terribly late, and -I suppose she got sleepy.” - -“We can hurry ahead and do it now just as well,” declared Babe, and the -three walked swiftly up the winding path and flung open the heavy door. - -Though the lamps were turned low, they gave light enough to see by -easily, and there, sitting at the desk, bending over the pigeonholes, -was a tall woman wearing a dark dress and a dark, drooping hat, that, -in her present attitude, completely hid her face. The three girls -discovered the intruder at exactly the same minute. - -“More Blunderbuss,” murmured Babe, remembering the mysterious robberies -of senior year. “Do you know her, Betty?” - -“No,” Betty answered quickly. - -“Then I’ll just hang on to her till we see what she’s taken,” cried -Babe impulsively, and launched herself fearlessly at the stranger, -while Roberta screamed; a relay of girls appearing in the door just -then rushed to Babe’s assistance, and Betty, not knowing what else to -do, turned up all the lamps. - -The tall, black-gowned woman was unusually strong, but she was no match -for eight stalwart and determined members of 19--. - -“I give up. Don’t smother me so,” she cried after a minute in a queer, -deep voice. Her hat had been knocked off in the struggle, and the short -hair and unmistakably masculine features that were revealed matched -the deep voice and the manly strength. - -“Why, she’s a--a man,” cried Roberta, and redoubled her shrieks of -terror. - -The man, still held firmly by his captors, struggled to his feet. “Shut -up, can’t you?” he demanded angrily of Roberta. “Call the police if you -want to, but don’t wake all the dogs and babies in the neighborhood, -and for pity’s sake”--to the others--“don’t squeeze my arms so. It’s -not ladylike.” - -Almost unconsciously the girls loosened their hold a little, and the -prisoner, making one supreme effort, dashed straight at the terrified -Roberta, who stood near the door, and in another moment was out in the -dark, running like a deer for the factory fence. When he climbed over -the top, they could just see that he had left his skirt behind. - -“Well, this is a crazy ending for a sedate little class supper,” -declared Babe, sorrowfully inspecting a great tear in her lace-trimmed -skirt. - -“Wasn’t it queer how, when you knew it was a man, you couldn’t hold so -tight?” questioned Christy Mason. - -“We ought to have chased him,” cried Roberta, to the vast amusement of -the rest. - -“It wouldn’t pay,” Betty put in, “for there’s nothing of value here -that he could take away, and nothing in the desk that any one would -want.” She stopped to examine it. “Why!” she cried in dismay. “It’s -been sawed off, all the top part, and put back again. Look, Madeline!” - -Sure enough, the top of the desk had been sawed off just below the -drawers, and then cut into three sections, which had finally been laid -in place again, so that at first sight the damage would not be noticed. - -“The vandal!” cried Madeline. “He’s ruined our prize feature. And what -was his idea? Oh, I see! He couldn’t find the springs, and this was his -hateful way of getting into the secret drawers. Do let’s count them. -Two--four--that’s all. Then there wasn’t another drawer filled with a -king’s ransom in pearls for him to make off with. That’s certainly a -relief.” - -“Oh, Madeline, do tell us what you mean,” came with one voice from -the crowd of wide-eyed girls; and with many promptings from Betty -and Babbie Madeline told the story of the secret drawers through all -its exciting stages, ending with her theory of the hidden jewels as a -possible motive for all the queer robberies. - -“But that was evidently a little too wonderful,” she added, “though for -that matter the real explanation may be even more remarkable. I await -suggestions.” - -These came thick and fast, but the best one was from Christy Mason. -“Those papers that Betty found are very likely to be what they want to -decide the ownership of some big estate or valuable lands. Old wills -and deeds are often very important. But why don’t they ask for them, -instead of trying to steal them?” - -Madeline stared. “That rubbish! Why I think I---- Well, it doesn’t -matter, because the waste-basket is as safe as any other place while -I’m away. When I packed to come up here I think I tossed them into it, -but I’m perfectly sure I didn’t empty the basket. I never do till it -overflows. I’ll rush off on the six ten to-morrow--no, this morning, -and I’ll telegraph you, Betty; Dick will know, or father’s lawyer, if -the papers are the prize package. Good-bye, all you dear old 19--’s.” - -So 19--’s collective farewells were said amid wild excitement, and -half the class waited over to be at the Tally-ho next morning when -Madeline’s telegram was delivered: “Papers safe in waste-basket. Two -thousand dollars reward.” - -This was thrilling, but tantalizingly incomplete; 19-- departed gaily -with its half-loaf, having made Betty promise to indite a round robin -to the class explaining the whole affair. - -“For it’s very much our affair,” Christy declared. “And don’t you write -until you can explain every single thing, Betty.” - -It was only a day later, as it happened, when Betty had the whole -story. It seemed that the deed signed by “Peter” and witnessed by -Robert Wales was wanted, exactly as Christy had guessed, to determine -the ownership of a property worth many millions; and the lawyers of the -rightful heirs had offered a large reward for its recovery. Meanwhile a -daring adventurer, who was trying to assert his claims to the estate, -had hired a disreputable detective agency to find and destroy the -deed. Their clever work had traced it to its strange hiding-place, and -they had made three desperate attempts to get hold of the paper. The -fact that Mr. Wales was a relative of the rightful heirs--Robert and -“Peter” were cousins--had made them suspect that his daughter would -know of the search for the paper and refuse to give it up; but they had -never guessed that the girls would have discovered and emptied the two -inner drawers, of the existence of which nobody else knew but their -client. “Mr. Smith” did not represent any Boston antique shop, and -his knowledge of old furniture was confined to an exhaustive special -course in the arrangement of sliding panels and secret springs. But -though this had failed him he was a resourceful sleuth, as is proven -by the fact that just an hour after Madeline had taken the papers to -Dick Blake he appeared at her studio apartment in the guise of the -building’s window cleaner; and it was due only to Madeline’s prompt -recognition of his resemblance to the lady in black of the night -before, that in less than an hour more he had been arrested, charged -with despoiling the Tally-ho desk and also with entering Betty’s room -in the little white house with intent to take the papers if he could -find them there. For Betty had gone home to discover her possessions in -great confusion, and Dorothy had told of waking up to find somebody in -their room who said she was the washerwoman waiting for Betty to come -and give her the clothes. - -“And when I said ‘you’re not our wash-woman ’cause she’s Mrs. Gibbs,’ -she said she was Mrs. Gibbs’ sister, and Mrs. Gibbs was sick. And then -I guess I was asleep again,” Dorothy ended comprehensively. - -From Betty’s rooms Mr. Smith had returned empty-handed to the Tally-ho, -where he had previously succeeded in opening two drawers; and this time -he completed his search in the most conclusive fashion that occurred to -him by laying open the whole interior of the desk. - -It was a detective story ready-made, Madeline declared, and promptly -wrote it up, only to have one editor tell her that it lacked reality -and the next assure her it was commonplace. - -“You certainly never can tell how things will take,” complained -Madeline sadly. “That’s what Mr. Morton says. He’s as nearly cross -with you as he can be with his dear Miss B. A., because ‘those fool -splashers’ that he got some shop to order a few of are catching on so -splendidly. It’s certainly fortunate that Bob Enderby thought of the -patent, for it seems there’s a small fortune in ploshkins.” - -“Betty Wales and Co.” had certainly enjoyed a successful year. Will’s -salary had been raised three times, and Nan had made a fine record and -been asked to take a party of girls abroad for the summer. But between -tea-shop, ploshkins, and “hidden treasure,” Betty was what Will called -“most disgustingly wealthy.” It was great fun to be able to rush down -town in Cleveland and buy the Japanese screens and the hammock that -mother wanted for the piazza of the little cottage they had taken for -the summer in a lake-side suburb. It was better still to be accepted -joyously as the family cook. Now that she had plenty of money in the -bank for summer clothes and other expenses, and a steady income from -ploshkins, it was not necessary to waste time counting up how much -her cooking saved the family. The only disappointment came when father -absolutely refused to take her “ready money,” after what he had said in -the fall about how every little would help. - -“I can’t do that,” he told her, “and I don’t need to now. We’ve pulled -through the worst of our business trouble, though we shan’t be back on -Easy Street for a good while yet, I’m afraid.” And he sighed a little. - -But Betty only laughed. “Who wants so particularly to be back on Easy -Street?” she demanded. “It’s fun to see what you can do when you try. I -like being part of Betty Wales and Co. I like being the cook. I shall -like helping in any other ways that turn up.” Betty smiled a little -far-away smile. “Lots of queer things have turned up this year. I -certainly do wonder what I shall get into next.” - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - -On page 164, pigeon-holes has been changed to pigeonholes. - -On page 249, Beldon House has been changed to Belden House. - -On page 343, francticially has been changed to frantically. - -All other spelling and hyphenation has been retained as typeset. - -Illustrations occurring in the middle of a paragraph have been moved to -avoid interrupting the reader’s flow. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETTY WALES & CO. *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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