A few moments later the carriage lamp above Betty’s desk flickered uncertainly and grew dim.
“Oh, dear, I never filled one lamp this morning!” sighed Betty. The stove and the lamps were the hardest things in her winter’s experience. Bridget had announced, soon after her arrival, that she couldn’t be “bothered wid ony ile lamps,” and Nora had remarked pointedly that nowadays you needn’t expect any girl to fuss with those old-fashioned ways of lighting. So Betty, valuing Bridget and Nora too highly to take any risks, had quietly assumed the care of the lamps and later of the stove. She didn’t dare to carry a light near the kerosene can, and in groping her way to it she tore her sleeve on a nail and got a sliver in her finger. She had pinned together the tear and taken out the sliver, and she was sitting by the open fire, trying to finish up the repairs by smoothing out her ruffled temper, when Eugenia Ford appeared, looking provokingly spick-and-span and elegant in new furs that her father had just sent her.
“He knew he was mean to keep me here over Christmas,” said Eugenia, when she had duly exhibited her treasures. “Is your headache all gone, Miss Wales?”
Betty laughed. “I’d forgotten that I ever had one. That was two days ago, wasn’t it? I was sorry to make you miss a lesson.”
“Oh, it didn’t matter,” Eugenia said easily. She was in a very complacent mood to-day. “I told Miss Ayres that it didn’t matter. I’ve had two ‘very goods’ said to me in geometry recitations this week, and I wasn’t sat upon in Lit. to-day. That’s the most of a compliment you can hope for in Lit. unless you’re a perfect wizard.”
“Well, don’t get careless and let things go,” Betty warned her solemnly. “And when you’re cramming, if you find one single little thing that you don’t understand, you’d better come and let me explain about it.” Betty flushed uncomfortably. The financial side of such affairs she found very embarrassing. “It won’t be anything extra; it will just be a favor to me. I shall feel so nervous until I know you’re through all right.”
Eugenia nodded brusquely. “I suppose they’re always dreadfully down on people who’ve had warnings, but I guess I shall get along.” She seemed restless and ill at ease somehow, saying almost nothing, answering Betty’s questions at random, not even noticing the ploshkin that she had gone into raptures over when she had seen it before, or inquiring for little Dorothy, as she did invariably whenever she came in.
“She’s probably worried to death and too proud to let me see it,” Betty decided; but that was an absurd supposition, considering all the tears that Eugenia had taken small pains to dissemble. Finally it came out.
“I must be going,” Eugenia announced at last with sudden briskness. “I only stopped to inquire for your headache. Oh, yes—and I presume I’d better take my theme, because it’s due to-morrow morning, and I may not be down this way again. Did you read it, Miss Wales?”
Betty’s brow puckered in perplexity. “Your theme? Were you to have one ready for the other day? I thought it was only the last six propositions in geometry that we were going over together. Madeline didn’t give me any theme.”