CHAPTER XVIICONCLUSIONS
The next scene in this little drama of conflicting ideas and their results takes us to a small park where Jack led Betty to a bench and sat down beside her. Neither wore any hats and the late afternoon sunshine fell upon Betty’s gold locks and Jack’s dark ones through the Maytime green of boughs above them. They had talked of incidental school matters on the short ride, when Betty had preferred the park to being entertained at a tea room.
At once Jack had began to tell Betty how he had just heard about her going home, through the colored maid who had looked from a downstairs window and had seen Betty outside, “flyin’ along as if de ol’ Nick hise’f was afteh her!” Jack’s mouth showed some mirth as he quoted the dialect.
“That was the way I felt, Jack. Honestly this is no joke. I was frightened about going home, but I was more scared to stay, Jack. I’ve no doubt but you intended to have me taken home safely. I went to speak to you about matters but I saw that you were in no condition, or mood, for that matter. Why, Jack, I never was where anybody was intoxicated before, and I think it wasterrible!”
“Oh, Betty, it wasn’t as bad as that. You’re just a little goose about it. You’ll get used to it.”
“Never. Do you think I’d risk having my senses half gone, or all gone, and not know, scarcely, what was happening?—besides getting so you have to have it! And how did it happen that you didn’t know I was gone? Just becauseyoudidn’t know whatwashappening.”
“Ye-ah. That’s the reason I wouldn’t come out to your house. I thought your father might meet me with a gun.”
“Please don’t joke about it.”
Betty went on to explain that if there had been any older people there at the time, she would have asked to be sent home and made “proper leave-takings.” She described briefly her trip home, her satin slippers muddy from the “April shower in May,” her talk with her mother, and what her parents thought about the matter.
“You see, Jack, in the little town we came from there was a nice boy next door that we justsawgoing to pieces little by little and having his life ruined and breaking his mother’s heart—losing his jobs—I imagine you see more what drinking does to people in a country town where you know everybody. Why, I’d be the most thankful friend you’ve got, Jack, if I thought you’d let it alone!”
“Honestly, Betty, I don’t know whether I could or not.” Jack was serious enough as Betty summed up the situation from her viewpoint. He folded his arms and looked down at the grass where a little chipping sparrow was hopping about. Then suddenly his mood changed. “Aw, Betty, come now. It isn’t as bad as you think. Why, we’ve always had liquor of some sort around. Father’s had it all his life and it never hurt him. (Oh, hasn’t it? Betty thought.)
“I was just celebrating my birthday a little too much—that was all. Let’s forget it. I’ll make it up to you. Mother’s provoked about it and I think she was going to call up your mother today; but whatever our folks think we can be friends, can’t we?”
“Jack, as I told you when we began to talk about this, I looked forward to that party, and I did and do appreciate all that your mother and father did to make everything lovely for all of us. It was a wonderful entertainment, dinner, the pretty house, everything, and I don’t for a minute think you are responsible for what the other boys brought in in their flasks, or for the way some of them behaved. And you can count upon me, Jack, not to tell about those things at school, or anywhere else, for that matter.
“But to be special friends or see much of each other—we just can’t, that’s all. We are too different. You think things are all right that I—well, you see how hard it is for us even to talk about them.” Betty stopped, for Jack was frowning.
“How about that picnic that we fixed up that night at dinner? You said you’d go. I promise you that I’ll not have a drop of anything with me.”
Betty had all she could do to keep steady. Jack did like her, and his eyes were so distressed. “Oh, I’d love to say it was all right, Jack, because you’ve been such a good friend; but even if I could tell you that I would go, Mother and Father would never let me go anywhere with that crowd again.”
“How about me alone, with a different crowd?”
“The same, Jack—I’m sorry.” Betty, too, looked distressed.
“I don’t think you care very much, Betty.” Jack jumped up. “I’ll drive you home unless you think that your parents will think you quite contaminated by the ride!”
“Would you rather drive me home, or not, Jack? We could easily say good-bye here. The street car line, only a block away, takes me right out home.” Betty would really have preferred to take the street car, but Jack vetoed that.
“I’m sore enough over all this,” said he, “but I’d rather take you home. I’m not a perfect bounder, and if you like I’ll go into the house and talk to your mother.”
“I wish you would,” said Betty, dreading it, however.
But when the roadster drew up before the Lee home, Jack courteously accompanied Betty to the front door, but said that he had changed his mind about coming in. “I may do it some other time,” said he.
Betty, just inside the hall door, turned to see Jack hurrying out to his car, starting it and rolling off with never a look backwards. She sighed, shut the door and went to ask her mother if Mrs. Huxley had telephoned. She had not. “It’s all over, Mother, my talk with Jack. Did you see him bring me home in his roadster? It’s the last time, of course, but I can’t tell you about what we said just now.” To Betty’s own surprise her voice shook and at her mother’s sympathetic look the tears came.
“I think I’ve got to go off and cry,” she said in a squeaky tone and as she fled toward her room she heard her mother say that she would keep Doris away if she came home too soon. One lovely thing about Mother was that she wasn’t curious! She could wait until her children felt like telling her things.
Betty, however, had some repentant thoughts. It would have been better, perhaps, to have braved the opposition, or criticism, or disagreeable circumstances at the party, as her father had suggested, to telephone to him at home, rather than to have risked coming home so late and alone. A city was no place for that. But if she wrote an apology to her hostess it might “mess things up worse than ever,” she concluded. Hereafter she would try to “keep her head,” but also never to get caught in such a situation.
CHAPTER XVIIIA HAPPY DISCOVERY
Early in May the concert given by the combined musical organizations was given. That was the next great interest for Betty and her musical friends. A close study of good music had been made under the direction of the leader, and the result was an entertainment of which Lyon High was not ashamed.
Betty, pretty and excited, in her light dress, gracefully manipulated a bow in the orchestra. Chet was also prominent, tooting away at the proper time. Lucia sang with the combined glee clubs. Ted Dorrance and his mother sat near enough for Ted to salute Betty with hand and head. The entire Lee family attended; and the countess, with Mr. Murchison and some other friends, sat in the middle of the balcony. The orchestra was one organization where favoritism was seldom shown. You played well or you didn’t and were ranked accordingly. You came to practice or were dropped. You behaved or you were sent to “D. T.,” the common expression for “detention” or staying after school in a sort of study hall.
But it was good fun and you met other boys and girls who liked music, some of them with fine gifts in the line. And dear me, how wide Betty’s acquaintance had grown to be in these three years at Lyon High! Hikes and picnics with the G. A. A. or the class or a few friends; a party here, a meeting there; the Dramatic Club, the Latin Club, the Girl Reserves and Y. W. affairs. Betty needed a private directory, she declared, not to forget “who was who and where she had met them.” Some were more interesting than others, and among those who were interesting she counted the “Pirate of Penzance,” Marcia Waite’s brother, from whom she occasionally heard through Marcia, or Lucia, who was in Marcia’s sorority. Once she had a very friendly letter from him and at Christmas time he had sent her a card. He always addressed her as “Titania” in remembrance of their first meeting on Hallowe’en. It was his face that she had seen in the mirror. Wouldn’t it be funny if, after all—but what nonsense!
Carolyn and Kathryn were taking a great interest in swimming in this junior year and now all three were working hard at the life-saving tests. Betty longed to have some riding lessons to ride “properly,” with Lucia, for from little things that Lucia said from time to time, she fancied this to be Lucia’s last year at Lyon High. But Betty could not do everything. Riding would be just as good another year, her mother said.
And now, one lovely week-end, Mrs. Murchison sent for Mrs. Lee. The poor bewildered old lady in the suite upstairs was slipping quietly over the border from life here to life eternal. Betty went over to stay with Lucia, who had told Betty before how they had put the dolls away when Grandmother Ferris had seemed to come to herself for a while, though weak, sleeping a great deal and finally falling asleep not to waken.
“This takes away one reason for Mother’s staying here,” said Lucia to Betty after the funeral, when Betty came after school to stay all night again. “This is what I wanted to talk over with you, Betty. I wrote everything to my father, Betty, and I wrote again to Italy where he is now. I haven’t had a word from him in reply to all I said, or about coming, just cards about where he was and how soon he would reach Italy and how he was having thepalaoopened in Milan. Nowthatmay mean something. I left the letter where mother would find it. And Betty, when your mother was here, my mother broke down a little over grandmother’s going, and I heard her say, ‘Oh, I’m solonely, Mrs. Lee!’ And your mother asked her right away if her ‘husband’ would not soon return from his African trip. Evidently you hadn’t told your mother a word.”
“Oh, no, Lucia! Of course not!”
“Mother said she hoped that he’d get back safely, and your mother said that the hardest thing in the world was for families to be separated. Probably she has heard some talk about Mother’s staying here so long, but anyhow she saw this sort of thing is all wrong, whether I get educated in America or not. I’d stay here another year alone if I could get mother to go back to my father!”
“Wouldyou, Lucia? I wish you would stay. I hate to lose you for a friend.”
“You’re never going to lose me, Betty Lee! I need you. Don’t you think it would be nice to have a real old Italianpalaoto come to when you ‘go abroad,’ as they say here.”
“It isn’t possible,” grinned Betty. “That, Lucia, is a fairy story!”
This conversation took place at the scene of previous confidences, Lucia’s own room. And when the girls started to the drawing room a little later, they passed a room in which Betty heard the sound of a machine. “Peep in a moment, Betty,” Lucia suggested, stopping Betty as she would have gone more rapidly.
Betty looked in at the open door. There sat Giovanna at the machine, and there in a chair beside her sat a dark-haired girl, simply but neatly dressed, and weaving a needle in and out in the meshes of some beautiful lace. As the girls paused, the needle stopped and the girl turned her head in their direction, to smile at Lucia.
“You saw us in the mirror, didn’t you?” Lucia asked, stepping within the room. “Betty, see how wonderfully this lace is being mended. She is practically making lace where it is torn. This is my friend Betty Lee, Rose. Betty—” but the Countess Coletti was at the door and spoke.
“Girls, run right down, please. Uncle wants to see you, Lucia.”
With a smile at the “Rose,” who was about to be more fully introduced to her, she supposed, Betty followed Lucia downstairs, while the countess went into the sewing room. “I thought I’d surprise you, Betty, though I almost forgot it,” said Lucia.
“You certainly did! That is the face that we saw at the window when we went carolling?”
“Yes. It was just accidental we found the girl, though. Mother has some lace to be mended, as you saw; and when she inquired a little, one of her friends told her about discovering this girl that does such fine work.”
“What is her name?”
“Rose Seville, I believe.”
“Seville! That is a place in Spain, isn’t it? First class in geography stand up, as Mother says! And it’s awfully like Sevilla, too!”
Lucia looked puled, then saw her uncle, who came from the drawing room into the hall as the girls reached the foot of the stairs. He was ready to leave the house, they saw. Nodding to Betty, whom he had seen before since her arrival, he detained Lucia for some message; Betty did not hear what it was and would not have listened. She went on into the drawing room and walked to one of the windows that looked out upon the lawns, now lovely with flowers.
Betty was thinking about the girl upstairs. Rose, like the “Rosie” of Mrs. Woods account. Seville, like Sevilla, and that man had called them the Sevillas. At leasthehad not found them; and if this were Ramon’s sister, she must have found enough work to get along. She would ask Lucia if she might talk to this Rose Seville.
Betty had not long to wait and when Lucia came into the room to find her she told her that she had a “mystery to solve,” a statement that interested Lucia exceedingly. They sat down together on the soft cushions of a handsome davenport while Betty told Lucia “all about it.” With a bit of her mother’s energy and direct efficiency, Lucia jumped up and declared that they would find out at once. Two eager girls ran up the stairs to the sewing room, which the countess was just leaving.
“Wait a minute, Mother, please,” asked Lucia. “Betty wants to speak to Rose and I think you will be interested.”
Smilingly, and with her usual poise, the countess waited, Lucia slipping her hand into that of her mother and standing back a little, near the door, while Betty stepped closer to the girl that raised such surprised but beautiful eyes to her.
“Excuse me, Miss Seville,” said Betty, “but your name reminds me of some one that I do not know, but—that I may have some good news for.” Betty spoke rather stumblingly, in her effort not to startle the girl if she were the lost “Rosie.”
“I have been wanting to find a lady and her daughter named Sevilla ever since a Mrs. Woods told me about them.” Betty stopped, for the girl before her turned pale and started to rise hastily.
“But you know I said I have good news for them!” exclaimed Betty, certain now.
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, dropping back. The countess drew a little nearer and spoke reassuringly. “Rose, this young girl is perfectly safe with any secret you may have, and so are we. Nothing can harm you here.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, softly, again. “I—yes. I am the one they called Rosie Sevilla there.”
“And have you a brother called Ramon? Because we know a very nice boy that was known as Ramon Balinsky here; but he went away and we had a letter from him, and it’s very likely that he will come back to see us some time.”
Now the girl was all eager interest. The countess drew the lace from her hands and lap and sat down herself, in Giovanna’s vacant chair, to listen while Betty told all she knew and Rose acknowledged that they had been looking for Ramon. “Some time I can tell you all,” she said in her soft English with the foreign accent. “Ramon is a good boy. The jewels are our own. That man has been deceiving us first and then doing us all the harm he could. When we at last found out more about him, we tried to escape him and find Ramon. Then he must be looking for us, too. We went away from the rooms we had because I had seen that evil man upon the street here and I knew he would find us. Then a friend we have told us that he had gone and we came back because I could have work here and knew some good people like the countess here. The pretty Italian signorina here told me that she had seen me when the pretty carols were sung. I listened, but my mother, who is old and sick, wanted me to put down the window.”
Rose stopped, but looked troubled. “When did the man come to see your father? He has come back again!”
“It was some time ago,” answered Betty, “and Father thought that he would probably go to Detroit to look for Ramon.”
“He has money—our money, and he will kill Ramon, I think.”
“Perhaps he’s been just scaring you,” suggested Betty. “He did not look so terrible as that.”
“He is a serpent,” said Rose. “Some time I may tell you more, if you care about it.”
The countess, listening, had not much relished having Lucia called the “Italian signorina,” however flatteringly, as Lucia herself had noted by her mother’s expression. Oh, yes, Countess Coletti was making an American out of her daughter—perhaps, Lucia thought. But the countess had an idea.
“Rose,” she said, “how would you like to bring your mother here and help me for a while? You would be safe, I think, and especially if we arrange for another of your names to be used. I suppose you have a string of them, like most of the noble families in the old world.”
“Yes. That has been our mistake—but we wanted Ramon to be able to find us if he were still alive.”
“Poor child!” cried the countess. “There are those rooms on the third floor since Grandmother Ferris has gone. They are in a wing, by themselves. I will speak to my brother about it. The nurse and maid who took care of Madam Ferris both wanted to leave. There is much to be done, with her private possessions all to be looked over; and some way I can not bear to do it, or let careless people do it. I could use you in many ways, Rose and we would pay you well. Will you come?”
“Can you mean that?” Rose Sevilla was eagerly leaning forward, almost afraid to believe the countess. Rich people sometimes had kind impulses and then forgot!
“I mean it,” smiled Countess Coletti. “Finish the lace now. Come tomorrow and by that time I will have consulted our new housekeeper and considered the matter of furniture and just what rooms shall be cleared for you and your mother. There is every arrangement for cooking light meals there, since it was often necessary.”
“Mother is more sick with worry than anything,” said Rosie. “This news will make her happy—and to be safe! She is old and has been through so much that it will be like heaven here! I will do everything. No work is too hard for me.”
The countess smiled. “You shall do enough to earn the way of both of you, never fear, though I shall want to know some time what daughter of Spanish nobles is living on our third floor.”
Rose smiled at that. “You shall know all, perhaps, some day. I thank you fortrustingme!”
At last the trail was laid to bring Ramon and his mother and sister together. Betty felt satisfied. Her neglect or carelessness earlier in the steps of identification had not been fatal to the final outcome. And it was Lucia and the carolling that were finally responsible, as she told Lucia.
“Yes, and who got me to join the Girl Reserves?” asked Lucia. “Now bring my father over here, Betty, and youwillfix us all up!”
“That is beyond little me,” laughed Betty. “That is quite your job, Signorina Coletti!”
CHAPTER XIXBETTY SEES “X” SURPRISED
The weeks went by. Father’s little goldfish had passed the life-saving tests! She could also do some more diving “stunts” and in “endurance tests” was growing proficient. She was a candidate for more G. A. A. honors at the final award of honors. Hikes you would do anyway, of course. She tramped ten miles one day with a Lyon “Y” group whose leader became rather mixed as to route and the five-mile hike became ten. Oh, well, Betty said, it would count just that much more toward your points. But she had gotten some gravel in her shoes and limped for the rest of the week-end. Life was not always free from drawbacks!
School was nearly out. Betty Lee, junior, would soon be Betty Lee, senior. As usual, the girls “couldn’t realize it.” Some of them were going to attend summer school. Betty, still keeping on the honor roll, knew that there would be no necessity for her doing it; still if you were in the city, there might be something interesting to take. Yet there was always her violin to practice. She wanted to be a member of the “senior orchestra” next year as well as in the senior class, and that you won by ability, not by rank.
Of Jack Huxley she saw little. He was courteous enough to speak when they met and if they were unavoidably in a junior group together he was as friendly to Betty as to any one. But there was no waiting after school to see her. There were no invitations. And other matters occupied Betty’s thoughts.
“I don’t want to be inquisitive, or curious, Carolyn,” said Peggy Pollard one day to Carolyn Gwynne, “but don’t you imagine there must have been something in all that gossip about Jack Huxley’s party? I notice Betty and he haven’t been together any since. Did Betty ever tell you anything? Or isn’t it any of my affair?”
“Betty’s never said anything much about the party to me, Peggy, only that it was a big one and they had it all very ‘spuy’ there, dinner with lots of courses and everything. I really can’t remember what she did say. And was it after that Jack stopped being with Betty? He’s been around with Mathilde some, I know; but I thought it was because old Chet has been rushing Betty a lot. She was in that pretty Holland booth Mrs. Dorrance was running and you know we girls were all invited out there for a fete they had on her big lawn. But Peggy, I think it’s just as well for Betty to stick with the old crowd. Chet, too, will be in the university next year. He has to make hay while the sun shines. I feel sorry for Chet if Betty doesn’t like him as much as he likes her.”
“Don’t worry about Chet, Carolyn. Likely enough he’ll meet some girl at the university and Betty will be the one to miss our senior boys. I think I know one or two juniors, though, that won’t’ be so sorry when that bunch of boys has gone.”
“Of course. If they didn’t go, then we wouldn’t be seniors. I hope the teams won’t suffer.”
Baseball, the “senior exams,” the excitement of the approaching commencement, little social affairs of clubs and groups, more elaborate entertainments, assemblies in the auditorium that no one wanted to miss—all these and more filled the days.
There was a general rejoicing and excitement one day when great loads of handsome books were delivered at the school and a rush occurred at all possible moments to get a copy of the annual Lyon HighStar. It was the custom to order the books in advance, as they were too expensive to have any copies left over. Not all felt that they could buy one, but those who did were generous with them and it was not unusual to see a group gathered around, peering over shoulders to look at the pictures of groups or individuals, taken some time back, when the camera men came out to the school.
Betty and Carolyn secured their copies among the first and plumped down in seats in the auditorium at the close of school to look at them. Mary Emma and Selma were standing behind them, bending over with interest; and not far away Chet and Budd were chuckling over a copy. Naturally, their own individual pictures with their class were of first interest. “Oh, Betty!” cried Mary Emma, “that isn’t half as pretty as you are, but it’s pretty good after all! And look at mine—there—on the same page. Isn’t that awful! I’m just smirking! Somebody had made me laugh and I was trying to get over it and just smile a little.”
“Wait till you see mine,” said Carolyn, “before you shed tears. I’m the crossest girl you ever saw, so far as mere looks are concerned.”
“Why, Caroline, you just look serious. Of course, you usually don’t, but what is a little thing like that?” This was Betty.
Exclamations and some laughter were the order of the next few minutes. Some of the teachers looked “wonderful” and others “you wouldn’t know at all.” But the book as a whole was eminently satisfactory, with its individual recognitions and personal history as well as the account of the year’s progress and activities. Betty would add hers to the other two reposing at home. One more would complete her high school record.
While they still looked at the book, Lucia Coletti opened the central auditorium door and looked in searchingly. “Oh, here you are, Betty. Peggy said that she thought you hadn’t left the building yet. I’ve something important to tell you, Betty. Can you come out to dinner with me? I can telephone home for you if you will. I can get the telephone in the office now. They said I could.”
Lucia’s voice was trembling with suppressed excitement, but the girls, still engaged in the pages Betty was turning, did not notice. Selma was talking to Mary Emma and some of the art work by the students themselves was being commented upon.
Betty handed the book to Selma. “You can finish looking at it, girls, and I’ll be in the hall as soon as I go to my locker a minute. All right, Lucia. Telephone, or get Mother on the line for me, if you like. I’d love to come.”
Betty fancied that there might be some development relative to the Sevillas, now comfortably settled. But she was mistaken. As the two girls left the high school building, Betty with herStarunder her arm, Lucia in the lowest tones told her that she had received a telegram.
“It was telephoned out to school, addressed to me at Lyon High, and the office telephoned to the home room, you know, to have me stop after school. It isn’t signed by anything but an initial, but it is from my father. It was sent from New York. Here it is. You can read it in the car, but don’t say a word before the chauffeur.”
“Then your father is coming!” said Betty in a surprised whisper.
“Yes. I want you, because Mother has been sick all day, just worn out with all sorts of things, chiefly late hours and all the things that are going on. She is really better than she was yesterday, though. Now she might want me with her, and I must have somebody there that knows, so that one of us can be ready to—oh, well, with just the butler there he might send in a card and Mother wouldn’t see him or something. And she’sgotto!”
Betty laughed a little at Lucia’s determination. But it was a matter of the most importance to her friend. “Good for you, Lucia. And I imagine if they once see each other——”
Betty broke off, for they had reached the waiting car which so often called for Lucia. She unfolded the piece of paper on which the telegram had been copied down as dictated over the telephone. “Coming. Beach house about six. Surprise. X.” The periods were represented by the customary “stop.”
“I can’t imagine a certain person’s arriving anywhere that early in the morning,” said Lucia, “so it’s tonight.”
“In that case, Lucia, I may not stay to dinner. I’d be a fifth wheel, but oh, I’m so glad.”
It was no time before the girls were at the Murchison door. Betty made herself at home in Lucia’s room while Lucia went to see her mother, the “X” of the telegram, who was to be surprised. Doubtless that was only intended as a public caution, designed to prevent the telegram’s being relayed home.
Lucia came back in high spirits. “You ought to see my mother,” said she. “She’s up and in the most adorable negligee you can imagine. She may dress for dinner. Uncle is to be late. It couldn’t happen better. Now if the ‘long-absent’ Count Coletti is only on time! Mother was so mad at that in the paper once.”
Lucia’s dark eyes sparkled and her cheeks were hot. Betty said a little prayer in her heart that her friend might not be disappointed with the result. “Mother’s been desperately lonely and restless lately and has been on the go nearly all the time,” continued Lucia. “Come on; we’ll go downstairs and wait. You must be right there and don’t stop keeping an ear open for the door, if I’m called to Mother or for anything else. Sometimes the housekeeper wants to see me if she can’t disturb Mother.”
This was all very thrilling. Lucia could not keep still or very far away from the front window. At the sound of an automobile on the drive, both girls went to the window. It might be Mr. Murchison, of course, or almost anybody. But no. “It’s a taxi,” Lucia tensely whispered.
On it came, stopping before the entrance. The driver descended from his seat and opened the door. There was a little delay as the passenger was paying before leaving the taxi. The driver was receiving a bill, which must have included a good tip, from the impressive manner and extreme courtesy which followed on the part of the driver. He took out two grips and stood aside to let a slight, distinguished-looking man pass him and go up the steps. He followed, but Betty saw that the butler had opened the door to go out.
Lucia had waited only to see who stepped from the taxi. She was out into the hall, down the steps and in the arms of a surprised father before one would have thought she could reach him. The butler, too, was smiling and welcoming the count. “Why, he was probably here when they were married,” thought Betty. “Of course, but Lucia had never thought of it!”
Invited to have a share in this arrival, Betty felt quite justified as she happily watched from the window seat, having a good view from the windows that projected in a sort of rectangular recess at the part of the room nearest the hall.
The door into the hall stood open, but Betty did not come into sight as they entered from without. She wondered if there would be any delay. Would the count go straight to his wife’s room? What would happen? She could hear the rapid Italian in which Lucia and her father were speaking. The butler spoke in his accustomed low tones, but with some excitement, too. It was being explained to him. Then up the stairs Lucia and her father went, the butler following with the grips. It was probably the intention to take the count to the proper guest room first, but a door opened and the Countess Coletti asked, “Lucia, who came?” as Lucia was in the lead of the silently coming party.
Then the countess caught sight of her husband. “Oh, my dear, my dear!” And the rest was in Italian. In the tenderest of tones the count was addressing his wife.
Lucia came rushing down the stairs to throw herself upon Betty and cry. “Oh, I can’t help it, Betty!” she cried between little sobs. “It is all right at last! She was glad to see him and he just gathered her up in his arms! I think she is crying, too!”
It took Lucia only a few minutes to gain her self-possession and explain further. “My father says he has come to ‘get us,’ as you said, Betty, but he will stay a while if it is all right with Uncle to let me finish my school. He told me that right away. But the main thing was to find out whether Mother would receive him or not. Of course, we could not mentionthatbefore the butler. He knew my father. Wasn’t that nice?”
Betty was merely a happy spectator, but Lucia would not let her go, and when at last, after she had been called to her mother’s room for a small family reunion and had come back to Betty a thoroughly happy girl again, she ran to meet her uncle, who came in just then. “Oh Uncle!” she cried, “my father, the Count Coletti, is here!” How proudly Lucia spoke, and there was a little of question in her voice.
“Thank heaven!” replied her uncle, of whose reception of her father she had been so doubtful. “It is high time! I hope he can manage her. It’s beyond me.” But Betty knew that Mr. Murchison was laughing as he spoke. “Tell him that we’ll kill the fatted calf. Have you told the housekeeper?”
“I never thought of it, but the butler knows and he does everything or sees to it, you know.”
And at dinner, when Betty had met the count and he had told her that he already knew her as his daughter’s best friend, one little speech of the countess amused her very much.
“Think, Buddy,” she said using the old term of her childhood for her brother, “think, Buddy, what a social asset he’ll be while we stay!” And with perfect understanding now, Count Coletti looked at his wife and smiled with the rest.
In the course of the conversation, which consisted chiefly in drawing out details of Count Coletti’s African experiences, it was hinted that Lucia might return after a summer in Switzerland to finish her course in the American high school. Betty modestly expressed herself as hoping that she would, and the countess said, “We shall see.”
Truly life was full of thrills to Betty Lee. There was still school to be completed. Chet would get his diploma; and should she have some little remembrance for Chet in honor of his graduation, or not? She would ask her mother. One more year and she would have a diploma, too! But first she had to be Betty Lee, senior.