“No, you haven’t met us,” Miss Marie O’Toole told her with an amused giggle. “If you had, you’d remember. Even people with bad memories don’t forget Ma and me.”
“No?” Betty laughed back at her in friendly fashion. In spite of the plumes, too much jewelry, and an absurdly hobbled skirt, there was something very winning about Miss Marie O’Toole, with her pretty doll face and her sweet, thrilling voice. But Mrs. O’Toole was a curiosity. Betty had had to try hard not to jump when the demure little lady, dressed with such exquisite elegance, had opened her mouth and been suddenly transformed into a very ordinary person with a dreadful twang in her voice and a shocking lack of grammar in her conversation. She listened in blank silence to her daughter’s comment, and then handed Betty a card.
“That’s to interduce us. Has the letter followed?”
Betty stared in bewilderment. The card was President Wallace’s, introducing Mrs. and Miss O’Toole. “Letter will follow” was written after the names.
“Oh,” exclaimed Betty comprehendingly, “you are friends of President Wallace’s, and he is going to write me about—something. I’m very glad to meet any friends of his. Isn’t he splendid?”
“I think he’s a cross old bear,” returned Miss Marie O’Toole sweetly, “and Ma thinks he hasn’t ordinary common sense, don’t you, Ma?”
“Never mind about that,” said Mrs. O’Toole sharply. “But we ain’t any friends of his. The letter to follow is about Marie entering the college. I told you we had ought to have waited a while, Marie, for that there letter.”
Marie smiled blandly. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess we’re capable of explaining ourselves to Miss Wales.”
“I’m sure you are,” agreed Betty hastily. She was bursting with suppressed curiosity.
“Well,” began Mrs. O’Toole, “it’s like this. Marie wants to go to college. I can’t think why, but she does. She met some swell New York girls in Paris last winter, and they told her that it was all the rage. Of course,” added Mrs. O’Toole magnificently, “we know all the elect of the American colony.”