"I forgot all about the possibility of there being any mail for me," she said, tearing open the first one. "This is from Betty. I know you want to hear that, so I'll read it aloud."
Crossing the room she seated herself under one of the silver sconces in the chimney corner, so that the candlelight fell on the paper. She had never relinquished the idea that came to her on her return from school that Rob was growing especially fond of Betty. It seemed to her such a desirable state of affairs that she longed to deepen his interest in her.
"I am not being carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, by any manner of means," wrote Betty. "Life at Warwick Hall as a pupil is one thing. It is quite another to be a teacher. But I'm gaining experience and that's what I came for, and best of all I'm having some little successes that make me take heart and feel like attempting more. I have had two little sketches of school-girl life accepted and paid for (mark the paid for) by the Youth's Companion, and a request for more. 'True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings. Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.' You can imagine how happy I am over it, and what castles in the air I am already building again."
It was a long newsy letter, telling of a reception she had attended at the White House, to which she took half a dozen girls in Madam Chartley's place, and describing a famous lecturer who had been at the Hall the day before.
"Betty's a girl in a thousand!" said Rob approvingly as she slipped the letter back in its envelope. "She's a dear little piece, with sense and pluck enough for a dozen."
His hearty tone confirmed Lloyd's suspicions, and she looked as pleased as if he had paid her a compliment instead of Betty. She led him on to express a still deeper appreciation, by telling of some of the things that Elise Walton had written home about Betty's kindness to the new girls and how they all adored her. Then she opened the next letter.
"From Phil Tremont," she said, glancing down the page. "He's back in New York and has just seen Eugenia, who is still delighted with housekeeping, and makes an ideal home for Stewart and the doctor. And he's seen Joyce," she added, turning the page, "and Joyce is as happy as a clam, struggling along with a lot of art-students in a flat, and really doing well with her book-cover designs and illustrations."
She read a paragraph aloud here and there, then hastily looked over the last part in silence, laying it down with a little sigh. Rob glanced up inquiringly. "I wish he wouldn't make such a to-do about my writing moah regularly. It makes a task of a correspondence instead of a pleasuah, to know that every two weeks, rain or shine, I'm expected to send an answah. I like to write if I can choose my own time, and wait till the spirit moves me, but I despise to be nagged into doing it."
"You write to Betty every week," he suggested.
"Yes, sometimes twice or three times. But that's different. I haven't seen Phil for two yeahs and when you don't see people for a long time you can't keep in touch with them."