“Perhaps some stupid let it out by mistake,” suggested Madeline, “or may be some of the faculty got hold of it and didn’t approve.”
“But I should think he’d be a little amused,” said Betty sadly, “and he didn’t show the least little speck of amusement. Of course I suppose he has a right to be annoyed at our freshness. We have been awfully fresh, you know.”
“But if it was that,” objected Nita, who had come to sit on the arm of Betty’s seat, “I should think he’d have shown his feelings long ago. He’s been so amiable about Georgia—so much more amiable than he has about anything else—that I thought he’d suspected all along that she was a fake, and that he liked the joke as well as we did.”
Betty stared disconsolately out the window. “It’s such a pity that Georgia should be spoiled just at the end,” she said. “I wish I had asked him right out what the matter was.”
“You might go back and do it now,” suggested Mary. “He is probably still sitting there thinking about Georgia, and it may spoil his whole vacation.”
Betty shrugged her shoulders and turned back from the dismal prospect with a sigh.
“Well,” she said, “you may laugh all you like, but I am sorry. I like Dr. Eaton, if Madeline doesn’t, and I hate to have a misunderstanding about Georgia.” But Betty was never disconsolate for long. “Bob,” she called across the aisle a few moments later, “is Georgia liking Tombstone so far?”
Bob nodded. “And isn’t Georgia’s photographer a perfect wonder? I got her picture this morning. Want to see it?” she asked, turning to the round-eyed freshman in the next seat. “You know we all think that Georgia Ames is about the most interesting girl in your class.”
The freshman stared at Georgia’s picture in awe-struck silence, privately resolving to look up Miss Ames the minute she got back. For if she was admired like that by “The Merry Hearts,” she must indeed be a marvel.