“I tried to.”
“Then Isabelle really saw a pig?”
“She wasn’t sure at breakfast time,” giggled Mabel.
“You haven’t any more pets concealed on the premises, I suppose! An extra pig or two or a young hippopotamus or anything like that?”
“No,” giggled Mabel, “and I don’t want any more for a long time. A pig is a fearful responsibility.”
“You’ve been punished enough, I see. Well, don’t let it happen again.”
“I won’t,” promised Mabel, cheered by a certain twitching line in Doctor Rhodes’s cheek. “I’ve had enough pets to last a long time—besides one roommate is just about all Isabelle can stand.”
[CHAPTER XXIV—STILL NO NEWS]
It was raining that Thursday morning and nobody was pleased. The recitation rooms were dark and gloomy on rainy days and all plans for a pleasant afternoon outdoors were spoiled. Naturally the girls hated the idea of being confined to the veranda when prairie, grove and meadow were so much more inviting. The morning had seemed long and poky, lessons had proved uncommonly monotonous, there was nothing at all interesting for lunch and study hour had dragged; but at last, here was Sallie with the mail bag. Everybody but Henrietta brightened perceptibly. Henrietta looked as if she were trying—without very much success—to brace herself for a trying ordeal.
Mabel, however, looked cheerfully expectant. Nowadays there was always at least one letter a week for Mabel from Germany, and when it came Mabel always felt quite distinguished; she was the only girl who received letters from a foreign land. She felt especially elated whenever Miss Wilson, the very stiffest of the Seniors, begged for the stamps to send to her brother who was making a collection. On this particular day, there were letters for most of the Lakeville girls and for Mabel too; but all four of them were casting anxious glances in Henrietta’s direction. They had acquired the habit. Their hearts were wrung by her obvious suffering and by the courage with which she endured it. This long suspense was really getting to be hard on all of them.