One thing she would not do, and her mother suggested it only once—and that faintly. Beth refused to take her samples of work to the Haven place and ask Mrs. Haven to recommend her to her friends.
Everybody who could afford it in Hudsonvale went away for at least a fortnight in the summer, and Mrs. Haven and her son went to some northern resort soon after Beth came home from Rivercliff; so it was not strange that Beth saw little of Larry, even in the most casual way, during the vacation.
She was once during the summer at a simple evening party, dressed in the poplin, refurbished with new ribbons, and Larry unexpectedly dropped in. He devoted himself to her entertainment for a part of the evening and, quite as a matter of course, saw her home.
Both talked very fast, and about perfectly uninteresting matters, all the way—both too nervous and excited to know afterward just what either had said—and parted with a handclasp at Beth’s gate.
Several times, however, during the later summer, Larry was at the Bemis Street cottage to see Mr. Baldwin. Beth’s father and the young man usually remained closeted together for some time, and once Mr. Baldwin came into the sitting room after such an interview, smiling broadly.
“Let me tell you,” he said, “that young chap has got something in his head that didn’t have to be put there by a surgical operation!” But just what he meant by this commendation he did not explain.
Beth was very successful that summer, and for a girl, earned a good deal of money with her nimble fingers. It was a fact that she had remarkable talent for the occupation she had taken up. People who own nice laces and the like, are only too glad to pay a commensurate price for their restoration by skilful workwomen.
She had put her acceptance of Molly Granger’s invitation to Hambro off as late in the summer as she could. But now, finally, Molly threatened so seriously to lead a pirate band of aunts into the Bemis Street camp, that it was decided Beth must go to her chum’s. And she welcomed the diversion, too.
She went to Hambro by boat, of course; and the day of her departure on this outing she received a letter from long silent Cynthia Fogg. It was rather a queer letter, too—just as queer as the girl herself!
“Are you going to return to Rivercliff School?” was a part of the epistle. “I’ve heard your father is ill and that you are not going back there. Tell me if this is so at once.... I have a good job and all is well with me.”