They were love-letters, the sweetest, merriest letters to a girl named Patricia from a man who signed himself “R.” One or two of Patricia’s notes to “R.” were tucked in with the letters, but as they all began “Mine,” they threw no light on the significance of the “R.” Betty liked that; it added to the sense of remoteness, to the story-book atmosphere of “long-ago and far-away” that belonged to the yellowed sheets, the faded ribbons, and the quaint, old-fashioned expressions. Most of the letters had never been mailed. Madeline almost wept with joy when she discovered that they had been put in a hollow tree in Patricia’s apple orchard. They were arranged by dates and once there was a gap of six months. That was because the squire of the village had asked Patricia’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, and Patricia’s father had said yes. Patricia was an obedient child, so there were no more letters in the tree, in spite of “R.’s” pleadings, until one day when Patricia could show good reason for sending the squire about his business. And then there was a duel. Was it between “R.” and the squire, or “R.” and some other disappointed suitor? They were still discussing the evidence when Madeline remembered her train.
“Let me take these along,” she begged. “I’ll send them back in a day or so, but I simply must know how it all ended.” She turned to the desk. “There ought to be a drawer on the other side to correspond to this one.”
“Let me try to find it,” cried Betty hastily, and after a minute’s fumbling she snapped the spring. “It’s getting almost tiresome, finding so many secret hiding-places, isn’t it?” she laughed.
This drawer was full too, but of dusty, uninteresting-looking documents. Madeline glanced them through rapidly.
“Nothing exciting there, I guess. You can look them over, and if they’re about Patricia and ‘R.’ send them to me, won’t you? And if you hate talking to Mr. Harrison, get Emily to go for you, or send Young-Man-Over-the-Fence. He’d like nothing better than to champion the cause of oppressed damsels, Babbie Hildreth being one of them.”
“You don’t take this seriously enough, Madeline,” Betty told her sadly.
“No,” agreed Madeline, “I don’t, but that’s because I have such perfect confidence in your persuasive powers. Good-bye.”
The whistles shrieked for noon. Betty hastily straightened up her desk, gave some last touches to the dainty tables, and resolutely forced a smile to meet the usual twelve-o’clock invasion of hungry customers. Never in her life had she felt so forlorn and lonely, but she was too proud to show it. She resolved that if the Tally-ho Tea-Shop must be abandoned at least it should go out in a blaze of glory. At first she had not thought it worth while to begin the dinner service for only a month, but now she decided to inaugurate it at once. She hung up the prettily lettered signs that Madeline had made: “Beginning to-morrow the Tally-ho Tea-Shop will serve dinners, and will therefore be open until nine in the evening.” The appearance of this announcement created no little excitement. Six girls ordered special dinners for the opening night. Eugenia Ford sent a written order by a friend who came in for tea. She explained that she wanted everything “as elegant as possible,” because her dinner was in honor of her roommate’s mother and father—“very wealthy people.” She hoped the waitress would wear a cap. As caps were Nora’s bête noir, Betty decided to ask the newest Student’s Aid waitress if she would mind wearing one just this time, by way of helping to heap coals of fire on Eugenia’s pretty head.
CHAPTER XVII
A MAGNATE TO THE RESCUE
Emily Davis had expected to go to work the day that the dinners began, but when she tried her strength she found it much less than she had thought. She sat at the cashier’s desk until two o’clock, and then Betty, noticing how pale and miserable she looked, insisted on her giving up and going home to rest.