Mr. Baldwin looked at his wife oddly, but he asked no question—then or at any subsequent time. When Mrs. Baldwin was as firm as she looked now, the others dared not be inquisitive.
But as delighted as Beth was at the sudden opening of her prospects, she felt that a sacrifice of some kind had been made. She feared her mother and father had done some hard thing for which they might be troubled all through her school years. She had no suspicion of the truth—not for a moment.
“But I will learn from other girls at school how to earn money to pay my way. And I’ll pay mamma back, too,” Beth thought, with but faint appreciation, after all, of how huge a sum four hundred dollars is, and how long it would take to earn and save it in any way open to a girl of fifteen.
Of course, the whole of it did not have to go for tuition and board. There would be a small sum for what Ella called her older sister’s “trousseau,” and for pocket-money and incidentals. Rivercliff was a more expensive school than one or two others Beth had thought of and she wished she could gain the advantages she craved in some other institution.
However, a girl with a diploma from Rivercliff had a distinct advantage over applicants from other schools with the State Board of Education. And for good reason. Rivercliff was more than a preparatory school in the usual acceptation of the term. A girl who faithfully took the courses laid down by Miss Hammersly, the principal, was well fitted for most places in life.
The summer was not spent idly by Beth. She had not merely resolved to obtain an education at her parents’ expense. She was ready and willing to do all in her power to help bring the much desired thing to pass.
She obtained the opportunity of posing on several occasions for an illustrator for the magazines, who came each summer to a rustic studio she had built near Hudsonvale. Beth had done this work before, and the artist paid her fifty cents an hour. It was not an easily won fifty cents by any means. Retaining the poses as was desired strained the muscles and tired the mind more than most other work Beth had ever done.
She could crochet, too; but the payment she received for a baby’s bootees “a fly would starve to death on,” Ella declared—and with some apparent truth. However, Beth kept busy and happy. That is, she told herself she was quite, quite happy. But there was one thing that troubled her mind in secret. Larry Haven had never come to the little cottage on Bemis Street to see her.
From Mary Devine Beth heard much about Larry. He had established himself in the office next to Dr. Coldfoot, and——
“Such scrumptious furniture, Beth, you never did see. They say his mother made him a present of it all—furnished his office right up to the minute. And he’s got a very splendid sign,” added Mary, with enthusiasm.