"I want to see my little girl," wrote Mrs. Wright, "but I would rather risk the sort of days you will spend among the many pupils who are sure to ask you than to let you take the expensive journey to the island, so bleak and cold as it is, and with nothing to repay you at this end but a hug from Aunt Amy."
Violet read this aloud, and her two friends listened attentively.
"I told you," said Roxana, the teacher and the eldest, "that Mrs. Wright wouldn't let you come. I shall stay here with you." She spoke firmly. Her face had the lines of one who always spoke firmly.
"Then I shall stay, too", said Regina, the art-student.
"Then you'll make me miserable, girls!" ejaculated Violet energetically, folding her letter back in its envelope. She was sitting on the table, a favorite perch not to be despised in that box of a room where she often said one must either be under the table or on it. She swung both her slippered feet and her blonde head. "Roxy—Rex—" she added beseechingly, "do you want to ruin my holidays?"
"Rex can go, it's very foolish for her to talk about staying, when she can go sleighing in the country and study the shadows on the snow," said Roxana.
"What's the use of being a bachelor girl if you can't have any independence?" inquired Violet, her blue eyes, and full, pretty lips looking stormy.
"The baby bachelor can't have everything she wants," said Roxana. "You're the baby bachelor. Rex may do approximately as she pleases, but I am the only one entirely independent. Rex still waves her hair. I stopped a year ago; just forgot it. That was the rubicon. Have you heard of the old colored mammy who deplored the failure of her dear but mature miss to marry? She said to her consolingly: 'Never mine, honey, I'se known some old maids who settled down right happy and contented when they stopped strugglin'.' I knew when I forgot to wave my hair that I'd stopped 'strugglin'." Roxana rocked gently. It was the only safe way to rock in that apartment. "So when that time comes, Violet, you will see that you have earned independence."
"Oh, Rox, don't be so unkind," pleaded Violet. "I've had ever so many invitations for Christmas dinner from parents. I knew my small admirers slapped them into it, so I refused; but I give you my word that if you will go ahead with your Christmas plans, I will write to one of the most ardent, and Cinderella's coach will be nothing compared to the limousine that will be sent for me Christmas morning, and nothing will be lacking but the prince to make the story complete. If you don't promise, I'll sulk all the holidays, and I won't stay with you either. I'll go skating in the park."
Roxana smiled meditatively.