"But you said you'd spend Christmas with us!" argued Betty.
"Oh, Christmas is months off," returned Mr. Gordon comfortably. "I expect to be back in the States long before the holidays. And Bob's aunts have finally made up their minds where they want to spend the winter. Aunt Faith has commissioned me to buy two tickets for southern California."
"But there's Bob!" Betty gazed anxiously at her uncle. "What's Bob going to do without any one at all, Uncle Dick?"
Mr. Gordon looked at Bob, and an unwilling grin turned the corners of the boy's mouth.
"That's the way he's been acting all day," scolded Betty. "What ails him? I think it's silly to sit there and smile when there's nothing to smile about."
"I suspect Bob doesn't take kindly to secrets," returned her uncle. "Suppose you 'fess up, Bob, and when the atmosphere is clear we can have a little talk."
"All right," said Bob, with manifest relief. "I kept quiet only because I wanted to be sure I was going, sir. Betty, Mr. Littell wrote me about a military academy in the East and put me in, touch with several boys who attend it. Uncle Dick thinks it is just the school for me, and I'm going. Timothy Derby is one of the boys. He's a son of the man I worked for in Washington."
"How splendid!" With characteristic enthusiasm Betty forgot her momentary displeasure at Bob's method of keeping a secret. "When are you going, Bob? Where is the school?"
"That's the best part," said Bob boyishly. "It's the Salsette Military
Academy, Betty, and it's right across the lake from the Shadyside school.
All five of the boys Mr. Littell told me of are friends of the Littell
girls, so you see it is going to be great fun all around."
"I never knew of anything so nice!" declared Betty. "Never! So you knew when I told you about Shadyside that you were going to be so near!"