And having laughed and smiled and frowned, Betty read the letter all through again, sat up straight in her big easy chair, and, choosing one of Will’s stockings, began to darn the very biggest hole in it. She wanted to think hard, and she could always think harder when her fingers were busy.
A slump in the ploshkin market meant no more ploshkin income. When she considered staying at home for the winter, Betty had counted on that hitherto prolific source of revenue to keep Dorothy on at Miss Dick’s, as well as to provide herself with necessary pin-money. Father wanted her to stay at home, but Betty wondered sadly if he realized how much she would cost! A girl doesn’t know about that until she has tried living on her earnings. Betty Wales understood just how fast little things will count up, try as you may to be careful. Father wasn’t yet back on Easy Street; Will had made a bad joke to the effect that Easy Street was certainly Hard Street when it came to getting a place on it again after you had carelessly slipped off.
“That’s true as well as funny,” Betty reflected sadly, “and the reason is that people who have been rich don’t know how to be poor. We’re still an extravagant family, no matter how hard we try to save. So I almost think—oh dear! I wonder if they do miss me much at home when I’m away! Because President Wallace is sure that Morton Hall will miss me if I don’t go back to it. I wonder if he’s right. I almost think—— Goodness, I should hate to seem conceited about it, because I know as well as anything that it’s perfect nonsense the way they all think I can do things that other people can’t. Anybody could do anything that I’ve ever done,—if they’d only try,” ended Betty Wales, with a fine disregard for antecedents and a serene lack of appreciation of the rarity of people who try—and who keep on trying to the bitter end.
If Dorothy didn’t go back to Miss Dick’s there would be two extra ones at home; that would put boarding, with five in the family, out of the question, and rents in town were frightfully expensive. It did seem as if a person who had a good salary waiting for her in Harding would better “go back on the job,” as Will would have put it.
A big, snorting motor-car slewed round a corner, with a silvery peal of its “gabriel,” glided swiftly down the street, and drew up with a lurch in front of the Wales cottage. Betty, her eyes on Will’s stocking, her thoughts working hard on the perplexing Harding-or-no-Harding problem, gave a little start at discovering that she was going to have callers. By the time she had dropped the stocking and carefully arranged the kitten in a comfortable little furry ball on a hammock cushion, the two ladies in the tonneau of the car had shed their protecting goggles, hoods, veils, and ulsters, and started up the path to the door.
“Nobody I know,” reflected Betty, going forward hospitably to meet them. They were both young-more likely to be Nan’s friends than Mother’s, and Nan was off spending a week with Ethel Hale Eaton. Looking more closely Betty decided that they must have mistaken the house; the pretty, overdressed girl with the huge plumed hat, and the more subdued young woman in a wonderful silk gown and a close-fitting toque, both in the very latest style, did not look quite like friends of Nan or indeed of any of the Wales family.
The girl was ahead as they came up the steps. “Is Miss Wales at home?” she asked in a sweet, assured voice, smiling a dazzling smile from beneath the big drooping plumes.
“Do you mean the real Miss Wales-my sister Nan?” Betty asked. “She’s away paying some visits. I’m Betty, the next youngest. Won’t you sit down a moment?”
“Thanks, yes,” the older woman, with the sweet, subdued face and manner answered. “And it ain’t your sister we want. It’s you. I’m Mrs. James O’Toole, of Paris, France, and that’s my girl Marie.”
“I’m very glad to meet you both,” Betty stammered. “That is,—I haven’t met you before, have I? I have such a bad memory.”