Mr. Wales smiled at her eagerness. “Not a very agreeable secret, I’m afraid. Well, then, Betty, if you insist, here it is. My business has scarcely paid expenses for three months, and a big investment I made in June is going all wrong. By Christmas time I shall probably know where I stand. Until then I need every cent of ready money that I can get hold of, and the more things you can be happy without, the better. That’s all, I guess.”
“Th-thank you.” Betty felt as if she had suddenly been plunged up to her neck in a blinding fog that made all the old familiar landmarks of life look queer and far away. “It’s rather bad, isn’t it? But I’ll be very economical, and I’ll think up ways of making the others economical without their knowing it. And you can have my emergency fund this very night. That’s ready money. I meant to give it to you before, but——” There was no use explaining that Nan had said it was foolish to give the check back, when she would need all of it and more so soon for her fall wardrobe.
“Keep it and make it go as far as you can,” father told her. “And don’t think too much about these business troubles, or I shall be sorry I confided in you.”
They were turning in at their own door. “No, you won’t be sorry,” Betty assured him proudly. “I won’t let you be sorry. Goodness! I see one way to economize this very minute. Mother’s got dozens of lights turned on that she doesn’t need.” And she flitted gaily ahead to begin her economy program. But before she had reached the door, she rushed back to whisper a last word in her father’s ear.
“It’s mean not to tell mother too, daddy. We could have so much more fun over it if we all knew.”
“Fun over it!” repeated Mr. Wales slowly. “Fun over it!” Then he reached out and caught Betty in a big hug. “You’re the right sort, little girl. You stand up and face life with a smile. Keep it up just as long as you can, child.”
Betty considered, frowning in her earnestness. “I’ve always had the smiling kind of life so far, father, haven’t I? But I’ve wished sometimes that I had to get things for myself, like Helen Adams and Rachel and K. You know I’ve told you about them, and about K.’s brother who wants to go to college, and she’s going to help. I shan’t mind a bit being rather poor—till Christmas,” she added prudently. “Now I’ll go and turn out the lights and see that Dorothy is all right, and you be telling mother.”
But father shook his head. “Not to-night, anyway. You don’t realize the meaning of all this yet, Betty. When you do, I’m afraid it will look very different to you.”
“I won’t let it,” declared Betty eagerly. “I said I’d help, and I will. Just try me.”
Betty went to bed with her pretty head in a whirl. This was what they called being “out in the wide, wide world.” “The real business of life” that she had talked about so glibly with the B’s and Roberta was going to begin at last.