“Ain’t you the grand lady! What’s your hurry?”
“Why,” Rosalie smiled mischievously, “those other people—the ones I was afraid of—will be here to-morrow.”
“Hot on your trail, eh?” said the other. “Well, you’re a galoot to go alone, when you might be in the stage with Mr. Bruce. If he’s comin’ here to-morrow I’ll be on the watch for him, believe me!”
There were showers of rain and hail all the afternoon while Rosalie coached to the Mammoth Hot Springs. When the girl saw again the veranda where she had trembled behind Miss Hickey’s shoulder, it seemed to her that a magic wand had transformed her life; and so it was. All the way she found her path smoothed by the forethought of her benefactor; and the long journey to Boston was made with no consciousness of care or tedium.
The newly-fledged, exultant heiress left behind at the Colonial Hotel little knew that the famous lawyer through whom her own fortune had found its rightful owner had bestowed still greater relief and courage upon her humble school friend.
Clever Betsy kept her poise admirably. She did not approach Mr. Derwent, nor ask him a question.
When the party returned to Norris they little suspected how a pair of black eyes in the dining-room were, in Miss Hickey’s vernacular, “sizing them up.”
Had burning glances visible effect, Mr. Derwent’s scrupulously brushed head would have shown several bald spots. The examination was on the whole satisfactory, and, joyous to relate, Miss Hickey succeeded in waiting upon Irving Bruce.
He came to luncheon a little late, and thus sat away from his party.