“She didn’t understand them, I suppose,” Betty defended Eugenia. “Anyway I don’t, and you’ve got to explain till I do, Madeline Ayres. I’m sorry to bother so, but I’ve got her on my hands, and she shan’t be flunked in composition if I can help it.”
“All right,” laughed Madeline. “Now just what is it that you don’t understand?”
At the end of an hour’s careful explanation Betty declared that she thought she could coach Eugenia in theme-work. “You might have explained straight to her instead of to me,” she added, “only she cries such a lot. It’s awfully embarrassing, until you get used to it, to have to talk to a fountain.”
But if Eugenia wept copiously, she listened attentively, and worked hard, and gradually both she and Betty were conscious that their efforts were telling. Betty was more relieved, if possible, than Eugenia.
“You’ve certainly improved a heap in geometry,” she told her pupil, toward the end of the second week. “And you know that table of dates in ‘Lit.,’ and your themes are a speck better. Your regular tutor will have to put most of her time on those.”
“My regular tutor!” Eugenia’s tone was terror-stricken. “Oh, Miss Wales, I want to keep on with you, of course.”
“No, you don’t want anything of the kind,” Betty assured her emphatically. “I was second choice, remember, and besides, I don’t do tutoring. I only did it through vacation to oblige you and Miss Ferris, but just as soon as she gets back and the tutor, and——” Betty paused. Eugenia had not cried for three days, but now she was winking hard. “Well, we’ll talk it over with Miss Ferris,” Betty told her hastily. “I really must go now. I’ve got to take the two-fifteen to the Junction to meet my little sister.”
Eugenia’s face softened and brightened suddenly. “Is she really little?” she demanded. “Because I had—I mean I love little girls.”
“Yes, she’s really little,” Betty laughed. “She’s eleven and very small for her age.”
“Mine would have been——” began Eugenia, and stopped again, the soft, sweet look still in her eyes.