“‘When she was good she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.’
“Eleanor is a perfect dear most of the time. And Nan, there’s something queer about her mother. She never speaks of her, and she’s been at boarding school for eight years now, though she’s not seventeen till May. Think of that!”
“It certainly makes her excusable for a good deal,” said Nan. “How is my friend Helen Chase Adams coming on?”
“Why Nan, she’s quite blossomed out. She’s really lots of fun now. But I had an awful time with her for a while,” and she related the story of Helen’s winter of discontent. “I suppose that was my fault too,” she finished. “I seem to be a regular blunderer.”
“You’re a dear little sister, all the same,” declared Nan.
“I say girls, come and play ping-pong,” called Will from the hall below, and the interview ended summarily.
But the memory of Eleanor Watson seemed fated to pursue Betty through her vacation. A few days later an old friend of Mrs. Wales, who had gone to Denver to live some years before and was east on a round of visits, came in to call. The moment she heard that Betty was at Harding, she inquired for Eleanor. “I’m so glad you know her,” she said. “She’s quite a protégé of mine and she needs nice friends like you if ever a girl did. Don’t mention it about college, Betty, but she’s had a very sad life. Her mother was a strange woman–but there’s no use going into that. She died when Eleanor was a tiny girl, and Eleanor and her brother Jim have been at boarding schools ever since. In the summers, though, they were always with their father in Denver. They worshiped him, particularly Eleanor, and he has always promised her that when she was through school he would open the old Watson mansion and she should keep house for him and Jim. Then last year a pretty little society girl, only four or five years older than Eleanor, set her cap for the judge and married him. Jim liked her, but Eleanor was heart-broken, and the judge, seeing storms ahead, I suppose, and hoping that Eleanor would get interested and want to finish the course, made her promise to go to Harding for a year. Now don’t betray my confidence, Betty, and do make allowances for Eleanor. I hope she’ll be willing to stay on at college. It’s just what she needs. Besides, she’d be very unhappy at home, and her aunt in New York isn’t at all the sort of person for her to live with.”
So it came about that Betty returned to college more than ever determined to get back upon the old footing with Eleanor, and behold, Eleanor was not there! The Chapin house was much excited over her absence, for tales of the registrar’s unprecedented hardness of heart had gone abroad, and almost nobody else had dared to risk the mysterious but awful possibilities that a late return promised. As Betty was still supposed by most of the house to be in Eleanor’s confidence, she had to parry question after question as to her whereabouts. To, “Did she tell you that she was coming back late?” she could truthfully answer “No.” But the girls only laughed when she insisted that Eleanor must be ill.
“She boasts that she’s never been ill in her life,” said Mary Brooks.
And Adelaide Rich always added with great positiveness, “It’s exactly like her to stay away on purpose, just to see what will happen.”