"Oh, Helen! You look roasted!"
"I walked so fast. Oh, will you look at these? I have not had the courage. I have done five, there are four more," she cried breathlessly.
"You poor child! Why, Helen, these are all right. It is splendid."
Helen dropped on a chair and wanted to cry from the sudden relief.
"You foolish girl, to prolong your anxiety. Here, take a fan and get some of the redness out of your face."
"I can't go in to lunch. Afterward I will go up and tell Mrs. Van Dorn. Please do not say a word about me," she entreated.
Joanna brought her a glass of iced lemonade, and she thanked her with overflowing eyes. Then she looked at the slips of paper and smiled. That was only three out of nine. What if the others should be adverse!
She had a little lunch in the far end of the kitchen by the open window, and quite recovered her spirits. It seemed as if the ladies would never get done talking over the table. Their loitering never fretted Mrs. Dayton, and Joanna had her lunch in the between time.
When the coast was clear she tripped upstairs smiling and steady of nerve, now.
"And it was so fortunate that we read about Hannibal," she exclaimed, joyously. "I knew, of course, that he crossed the Alps and menaced Rome, but if we hadn't read the history I should have been at a great loss to know just what to say. And one question about the Italian poets. It seems to me I have been learning all summer from you. I was a real ignoramus, wasn't I, except in mathematics. I owe you so much!"