Betty agreed to this, and the two were swinging home in the dusk, when Madeline proposed that, as it was not quite dinner time, they stop and call on Miss Hale.
“Oh, I’m so glad you spoke of it,” said Betty. “Nan said in her last letter that Ethel had written her the bluest notes lately. She told me to go and cheer her up, and I haven’t had a minute since then.”
Ethel’s sitting-room was in front on the first floor of the house where she boarded.
“She’s there,” said Betty, as they turned in. “Doesn’t it look cheerful, with the lamp lit and the curtains up? I think everybody ought to——” She stopped short. “Why, Madeline—she’s—I don’t believe we’d better go in now, do you?”
“No,” said Madeline shortly. “We’ll come again in a day or so.”
For full in the cheerful glow of her big student lamp, Ethel sat, her arms on her desk, and her face buried in her arms; and while the girls stood there, unwitting eavesdroppers of her unhappiness, she lifted her head and wiped away the tears with a handkerchief that was already too wet to be very useful.
“Oh, dear!” said Betty sorrowfully, as they turned away, “I ought to have gone sooner. I wonder what can be the trouble. Dear me! If I was bright enough to be on the faculty just after I’d graduated, seems to me I should be as proud and happy as a peacock all the time. Nan says that Ethel was the brightest and most popular girl in her class.”
“Perhaps she hates teaching,” suggested Madeline.
“No, it can’t be that,” objected Betty, “because she doesn’t have to do it. Her family is very well off, but she has several sisters at home and she doesn’t care one bit for society, for all she is such a favorite. Nan says it was always her ambition to teach here. At first her family didn’t like the idea, but now they’re awfully proud of her.”