“I’ll manage some way,” she assured her new assistant hopefully. “And you’ll most certainly catch your never-get-over if you sit here with all the draughts blowing on you, when you’re not well enough to be up.”
“A stove doesn’t give a very even heat, does it?” said Emily wanly. “I’m warm all but one side.”
“A stove,” said Betty with feeling, “is a relic of the barbaric ages. So are kerosene lamps. Running this place without the stove and the lamps would be simply blissful. I should feel like a robber when I took my salary.”
“You shall have a chance to feel that way just as soon as I begin to earn mine,” Emily assured her. “I hate to leave you to-day, but——”
“Run along,” Betty broke in. “I shall need you a lot more after Nora is gone.”
But her resolute hopefulness turned to blank dismay when the newly engaged waitress, who had seemed so promising, sent word that she had sprained her ankle. Nora’s regular assistant was a stout, stupid girl, who could be trusted only with simple orders and unexacting customers. Betty went over the names of the girls who had engaged stalls, found no unexacting ones among them, promptly arrayed herself in one of the caps that Nora scorned and an apron, sent the stupid waitress after a stupid friend who could probably make change correctly, and planned a division of work with Nora, who was frankly horrified at her mistress’s new rôle.
“But the first night must be a success, Nora,” Betty explained. “I’ll stay in the kitchen getting orders ready for Mary Jones as long as I dare. But when she begins to look wild-eyed and distracted, I shall put her in the kitchen, and come out myself. It’s the only way to have things go off well.”
By half-past six the tea-shop was crowded. Betty, peeping in through the kitchen door, was relieved to find very few of her particular friends among the diners. She hoped that nobody would exclaim over her new departure or stop her to demand explanations. She had a presentiment that if any one did she was going to feel, as Nora declared she ought, “most awful queer.”
Eugenia’s arrival occurred at an unlucky moment, when Nora was too busy to attend to her, and Betty decided that her time had come. After the first plunge, past Eugenia’s blank, unrecognizing stare and through a little flurry of amused nods and puzzled glances from other girls who knew her, it wasn’t so bad. Except Eugenia’s party, nobody who gave her orders neglected to hail her and condole over Emily’s grippe and the new waitress’s ankle. Betty soon got into the spirit of the occasion, thoroughly enjoying everything but the many trips to Eugenia’s stall, with its hedge of pompous dignity. She was on her way out to the kitchen with a big trayful of dishes, when the door opened and in strode an elderly gentleman, with a militant air and keen gray eyes that twinkled merrily under his bushy eyebrows, as he closed the door with a terrific bang and looked eagerly about him from one absorbed group of diners to another. But a man is a novelty in Harding, and this particular man would have attracted attention anywhere; in an instant he was the centre of interest; in another he had discovered Betty and she had discovered him.
“Well, Miss B. A.!” he called out gleefully, quite oblivious of the staring crowd of girls. “Put down that tray and come and shake hands. Didn’t expect to see me to-night, did you? Well, I was almost up here, and I’d promised myself that some time this winter I’d investigate Harding College, so I seized the opportunity. I telegraphed the little tomboy that John’s so fond of to meet me and help show me around. Haven’t seen her, have you?”