Betty, Madeline and Mary were already there, drinking tea and talking over Georgia’s predicament. Madeline demanded the privilege of reading the note first.
“Just what I was afraid of,” she said, glancing rapidly through it and passing it to Mary. “But I couldn’t help it. The rest of you were ready enough to make the frills for Georgia, but you left all the plain sewing to me, and of course I couldn’t manage it.”
“What’s the trouble?” demanded Betty.
“Georgia is held up for cutting too much,” explained Madeline. “In other words she hasn’t handed in her ten-minute tests very regularly. You see I omitted a few when I thought the rest of you were doing them, and last week and the week before I hadn’t studied at all, and I simply couldn’t bluff for two. So I did my best for Madeline Ayres and let Georgia Ames shift for herself, poor thing!”
“Listen, girls. Isn’t this lovely?” cried Mary, who had finished the note. “‘I deeply regret the necessity of asking you to explain your many absences from English Essayists. I need not say that your work has been unusually satisfactory; but you know the Harding rule about cuts, doubtless better than I. Miss Stuart assures me that it is ironclad, and therefore I am left no choice but to hope that your absences have some good excuse—and that you have not lost interest in the course.
“‘Most respectfully,
“‘John Elliot Eaton.’”
“Fishing for a compliment, isn’t he?” said Madeline scornfully. “Well, we can give him one, I suppose; but if Georgia is to go on one of you must shoulder her ten-minute tests from now to midyears. I am really too busy to read the topics, and if I invented for two I should certainly be caught.”
“Oh, Madeline,” said Roberta sadly, “you know perfectly well that the rest of us can’t do papers for two.”
There was a discouraged silence. “How about Rachel?” asked Mary at last. “She is awfully clever.”