“Especially as it has probably all come to nothing,” said Babe. “I hope there’ll be lots to eat.”
It was a perfect summer evening, and the up-stairs piazza, to which the girls were at once ushered, with its daintily spread table, its flowers, and its view of Paradise pond and the clear gold of the sunset sky, was so pretty that there was a chorus of delighted exclamations.
There was certainly “lots to eat,” as Babe had hoped, and Ethel had not forgotten what tastes good to college girls toward the end of spring term. Everything was cool and crisp and as different as possible from conventional campus fare. There was a centrepiece of ferns and a red rose at each place, and presently it began to dawn on the girls that everything was red and green. Strawberries on their own stems, radishes nestled in feathery parsley, tomatoes on lettuce leaves, gave a touch of 19—’s color, combined with the scarlet of their freshman allies, to each course. After the parti-colored ice had been finished, and the hostess’s health drunk in lemonade (with red cherries in the bottom of each slender green glass) there was a sudden lull in the conversation and then Miss Hale began to speak.
“Girls,” she said, looking very solemnly around the circle of eager faces, “I asked you here to-day because I wanted to make sure of seeing you all once more before I leave. I’m not coming back next year.”
“Oh, Miss Hale——” began Mary Brooks impulsively, and paused, noticing how sober Ethel’s face was, and not daring to go on with her question. “We shall miss you awfully—I mean the others will,” she ended in some confusion.
“Yes, indeed,” said Eleanor Watson eagerly, “I shall for one.”
“And I. And I,” echoed the rest, while Betty Wales watched Ethel’s face and wished she had her alone to catechize.
“Ethel,” she said, “you ought to have stayed until I got through. I shan’t know what to do without any grown-up person to look out for me. I shall be just forlorn.”
“Poor Betty!” said Ethel, with a very faint smile. “Won’t Nan come and see you sometimes?”