“I don’t think he had a great deal. He used to say that he was a poor man; and the houses we lived in were always rather small and poor. My mother, I think, had belonged to nice people. As nearly as I can remember, she spoke nicely and wouldn’t let me use slang; and I think her father was a clergyman—I can remember an old photograph; but I’m not very sure about that.
“And here I am now, just like poor old Abbie—a boarding school orphan, with not a relative in the world.”
“No, you’re not like Abbie,” declared Jean. “We won’t let you be like Abbie. You’re smart enough to crawl out of your hole; but Abbie never was.”
“Now,” pleaded Henrietta, “tell us the secret about the Rhodes family. We’re dying of curiosity about that.”
“No,” replied Sallie, firmly. “If I were paying my way with real money I might break my promise and tell. But I don’t know that I would, either; it would take a lot of courage to break a promise to Doctor Rhodes. But, of course, as long as I owe him for my bread and butter, I just couldn’t do it.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” agreed Maude. “It wouldn’t be honorable.”
“That’s just the way I feel about it,” sighed Sallie. “And there isn’t really anything very dreadful about that secret after all.”
“Except our curiosity,” said Henrietta, “that’s just eating us.”
“Pile off this bed, girls,” said Cora, who had looked at her watch. “It’s ten minutes to dinner time and Sallie has left all your hair standing right on end.”
“Say, Sallie, ring the old bell fifty-nine seconds late,” pleaded Maude. “I have to change my dress and the other one buttons behind.”