“The note of the nestle,” laughed Katherine, and yawned again.
Down on the wharf Betty and Eleanor were curled up close together in an indiscriminate, happy tangle of rain-coat, golf-cape, and very drabbled muslin, holding a conversation that neither would ever forget. Yet it was perfectly commonplace; Harding girls are not given to the expression of their deeper emotions, though it must not therefore be inferred that they do not have any to express.
“Oh, Betty, you can’t imagine how dreadful it was out there!” Eleanor was saying. “And I thought I should have to stay all night, of course. How did you know I hadn’t come in?”
Betty explained.
“I don’t see why you bothered,” said Eleanor. “I’m sure I shouldn’t have, for any one as horrid as I’ve been. Oh, Betty, will you truly forgive me?”
“Don’t say that. I’ve wanted to do something that would make you forgive me.”
“Oh, I know you have,” broke in Eleanor quickly. “Miss Ferris told me.”
“She did!” interrupted Betty in her turn. “Why, she promised not to.”
“Yes, but I asked her. It seemed to me queer that she should have taken such an interest in me, and all of a sudden it flashed over me, as I sat talking to her, that you were at the bottom of it. So I said, ‘Miss Ferris, Betty Wales asked you to say this to me,’ and she said, ‘Yes, but she also asked me not to mention her having done so.’ I was ashamed enough then, for she’d made me see pretty plainly how badly I needed looking after, but I was bound I wouldn’t give in. Oh, Betty, haven’t I been silly!”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by what I said at that class meeting, Eleanor,” said Betty shyly.