“What nonsense!” observed Lisa.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Persis, suddenly. “I am just beginning to realize that you will not be in school this year, Lisa,—neither will Margaret Greene,—and I shall be one of the seniors, and then next year I shall be at college. Think of it, Lisa!” And she gave her sister a gentle pinch.
“Don’t nip the bud,” expostulated Lisa, “even if you are going to college. I don’t like nips. You are too enthusiastic when you show your emotions, Persis.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to hurt,” contritely said Persis. “Tell me, my bud, what is the Popinjay going to do if you ignore society?”
“I’m not going to ignore it.” And over Lisa’s face a cloud came. Then she arose from her place and left the room.
“There! I never open my mouth but what I put my foot in it, as the Irishman said,” Persis declared, turning to Mellicent. “I don’t quite understand Lisa these days. She’s ever so much gentler, only she’s more—sort of uneven. One day she is as gay as a lark and the next she’s down in the dumps. She has been that way ever since we came back from Bellingly.”
“I believe you had a better time down there than I had at the mountains,” returned Mellicent. “I got so tired of so many people coming and going all the time. No one seemed to stay long enough for you to become really acquainted, and there were hardly any young people.”
By the first of October all three girls were busy at work with their various studies, and to Persis, who was now nearing the end of her time as Miss Adams’s pupil, the future held delightful possibilities.
It was therefore a great downfall to her hopes when one day her father told her that she must give up the prospect of going away from home to college the next year. “I am afraid, my dear child, it is going to be a greater expense than we can afford,” he told her.
Persis looked at him with surprise and disappointment. “Why, papa! Why, papa!” she stammered; “what is the reason?”