She was back in a minute with a handful of letters for the family and four for herself.
“All from late lamented Hardingites?” inquired Will, who never wrote letters and therefore seldom got any to read over his morning coffee.
Betty was tearing open the second envelope. “That one isn’t. It’s just congratulations on graduating, from Aunt Maria. But this is from Madeline Ayres—why, how funny! It’s dated Monday, in New York, and she was going to sail last Saturday. Oh, dear, I don’t understand at all! She says”—Betty frowned despairingly over Madeline’s dainty, unreadable hieroglyphics—“she says, ‘You have heard all about it by this time, I suppose, and isn’t it just—just——’ Oh, I wish Madeline could write plainly.”
“Too bad about these college graduates who can neither read nor write,” said Will loftily. “Try the next one. Perhaps they’ll explain each other. Isn’t that scrawly one in the blue envelope from Katherine Kittredge?”
Betty nodded absently and tore open the blue envelope. “Why how funny!” she cried. “K. begins just the very same way. ‘Of course you’ve heard about it by this time, and isn’t it the nicest ever? Are you and Roberta going to wear your commencement dresses too? Wasn’t it exciting the way they caught Madeline on the wharf? By the way, both the straps of my telescope broke on the way home, and so I’ve bought a gorgeous leather bag to carry on this trip, without waiting for my first salary. Dick lent me the money—you know he’s been working this winter, so that I could stay at Harding, and they never told me a word about it. We’re planning for his college course now, father and I, and I couldn’t have gone a step to the wedding if dear old Mary hadn’t sent the ticket.’ Gracious!” interpolated Betty excitedly, “what is she talking about? Dick’s her brother. That hasn’t anything to do with the rest of the letter.” She glanced at the last envelope. “Oh, this is from Mary Brooks. I hope it won’t be puzzle number three.”
It wasn’t. Betty read it all through to herself—four closely written pages—while the Wales family, who had all become interested by this time, watched her cheeks growing pinker and her eyes brighter and bigger with excitement, as she read. At the end she gave a rapturous little sigh. “Oh, it’s just perfectly lovely!” she declared.
“What?” demanded Will.
“Oh, everything,” answered Betty vaguely. “Mary’s going to be married a week from to-day, and we’re all coming,—every single one of us. She caught Madeline before she went abroad, and Eleanor before she left for Denver, and she’s sent tickets to K. and Rachel and Helen, instead of giving us all bridesmaids’ presents. Oh, father dear, may I go?”
Mr. Wales smiled into his daughter’s flushed, happy face. “Betty,” he said, “your enthusiasm is delightful. We shall miss it while you are gone, but if Mary—whoever she may be—is going to be married and can’t have it done properly without you, why we shall have to drift along for another week in our accustomed state of staid and placid calm.”
And Betty was so excited and so busy explaining to her father which one of all the girls he met at Harding was Mary Brooks, and which one of the faculty was Dr. Hinsdale, that she never noticed the letter from Babbie Hildreth, in her father’s mail, or the dainty, scented note, also postmarked Pelham Manor, which her mother read and covertly passed to Nan and then to Mr. Wales. And after breakfast she flew straight up-stairs to answer her letters, never dreaming that the long talk father and mother and Nan were having on the piazza just underneath her windows was all about her—Betty Wales—and the reasons why she should or should not go on the most glorious summer trip that a girl ever took.