“Don’t be too sure of that,” Ann laughed her quiet little laugh. “Uncle Lacey doesn’t offer invitations very often, and he is not so terribly fond of me. He’s probably delighted to receive my telegram, and has already made up his mind that he has done his duty to his sister’s only daughter, and with a sigh of relief returned to his library.”
“Poor Glad!” Sally laughed, “cruel uncle refuses second invitation and Ann and Glad have to find other host for Christmas.” Both girls lived at a considerable distance from school.
“Not for Christmas,” Ann denied. “I am going home for that blessed day, and so is Glad, aren’t you honey?”
“I most certainly am,” Glad replied. “Christmas is one day when I must be with my mother, not to mention my small brothers and sisters.”
“What were you going to do that was so exciting, Prue?” Janet inquired carelessly.
“I was going to New York,” Prue replied. “I have never been there in my whole life.” She spoke as though she were ninety. “And Daddy promised to take me this year. We were going to meet my brother John, he’s a freshman at Princeton, you know,” she added with pride. “And, oh dear, we were going to have a simply wonderful time, and now just because the Red Twins and that horrid little Ethel Rivers have the measles, I can’t go. John will be so disappointed.”
“Don’t worry about brother,” Gladys teased. “It’s my opinion that he will be quite relieved. Grown-up boys are never very crazy about their baby sisters, especially when their friends are around. You know, Prue darling, you may feel terribly grown-up, but you still wear your hair down your back, and to boys that means you are still a babe and beneath their notice.”
“That isn’t so at all, Glad,” Prue protested. “John and I have always been the best of friends and he would like to introduce me to his friends, I know he would.”
“John is in college now,” Gladys spoke with cool and perfect assurance, “and that makes all the difference in the world. I guess I ought to know, I’ve had three brothers at Yale.”
“Perhaps that accounts for it, Yale isn’t Princeton.” Prue was almost in tears but she managed to smile as she said this.