“Oh, you probably made a mistake,” Nan said, though she too felt sure that she had seen a Tillbury postmark. “You’re not such an expert at reading upside down. Moreover, those postmarks weren’t stamped very plainly, and it would be easy to misread them.”
“Nan, you might be able to convince yourself that everything is as it should be, but you can’t convince me.” Bess stamped her foot. “Do you know that something has happened and are you keeping it from me?” she half accused Nan.
“Elizabeth Harley, what are you saying?” Nan was genuinely indignant. “Here, I’ve been thinking all week that you were keeping something from me, you’ve been acting so strangely, but I’ve said nothing about it. Now you go and jump on me.”
This brought Bess to her senses as nothing else could have. She laughed and with remarkable control for her, carried the situation off and allayed Nan’s suspicions. “Oh, Nan, have you?” she burst out. “If I’ve been acting more strangely than usual it’s because I have been worried about not hearing from mother. It’s two weeks now, you know.” And she seemed so utterly sincere about it, for she was in part, that as they pushed open the big doors of the class building they were in and walked across the quadrangle to the Hall, Nan believed her entirely.
That night, Bess was alone for a second with Rhoda. “Do you know,” she confided, “I’ll be so glad when this party is over that I’ll be willing to kiss Mrs. Cupp—well, almost,” she qualified, as a picture of that lady came to her mind.
Rhoda laughed. “I want to be there when you do it,” she said. “But tell me, why are you so anxious to have the party over and done with? I thought you loved to plan parties.”
“I do, generally, but I’m so afraid that I’m going to have a fight with Nan before this one is over that I don’t know which way to turn. We’ve never had a fight as long as we have known one another. Wouldn’t it be just my luck to have one over something nice I was trying to do for her!”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have a fight. Nan won’t let that happen. Anyway, the party is tomorrow afternoon, so there is only one more day to wait.” Rhoda’s face was alight, for she, too, found it hard to wait.
“Have you been able to find out,” she continued, “what it is that Laura’s committee has bought for a present?”
“No, not yet,” Bess answered. “I’ve asked, but they vow they won’t tell unless they know what the refreshments are going to be.”