“Very well,” agreed Betty gaily, “then I won’t say over the dangerous moral. But—the town he has to build is thirty miles from a railroad that hasn’t been built. I mean—the town isn’t there yet either. And it will be on a railroad by and by, but it isn’t now. Wouldn’t it be losing Jim pretty hard to have him away off there without me?”
“How about the Coach and Six?” demanded Madeline severely.
Betty went on smiling her happy little smile. “I’ll have to start it off somehow before I go. Mr. Morton will understand. He likes Jim. Oh, and when I’m gone there will be a place for Straight. So the twins are settled, and that’s one thing off my mind.”
“Who’ll undertake Montana Marie O’Toole?” demanded Madeline inexorably. “She isn’t a thing that you can start off and then leave to go on by herself in proper style.”
Betty laughed. “I don’t know about that. It’s Mr. O’Toole who has commissioned Jim, on Marie’s recommendation, to build the town. So she’s really responsible about Jim and me. I’m going to tell her to-morrow that, since she can plan things so well for other people, it’s time she managed her own affairs better. That is, of course I shall speak to her mother for her, because I promised to. Oh, dear, we can’t discuss that, because no one is supposed to know about it yet. But my freshman is all right, anyway.”
“I suppose you think the Tally-ho and Morton Hall and the Student’s Aid and small Dorothy can get along without you,” continued Madeline, who was going to miss Betty dreadfully, and was teasing her to avoid showing her real feelings.
“Of course!” Nothing could daunt Betty Wales to-night. “Anything can get along without anybody—except—Jim and me. Besides, I shall have time to see to all those things before I’m—married. I don’t know when Jim is going to Germany. I only saw him for a little minute——”
“Oh!” cried her friends, remembering how many toasts she had missed.
“Well, we didn’t get to anything practical like time,” Betty defended herself. “But if he has to go too soon, why, we can’t be married till he gets home. It takes ages to get ready to be married, doesn’t it?” She looked from one to another of the prospective brides, each of whom nodded solemnly. Betty sighed. “I never thought of that. Jim just said that the trip to Germany would be a nice honeymoon. I wonder how soon he has to start. Girls, I really must go to bed. I want to be up early to-morrow morning to talk it all over.”
“With us?” demanded Madeline.