“Doesn’t it look as if we were going to have a grand time though?” said Mary gleefully. “Did you know that Miss Hale has heard from the steamer people? We can all have state-rooms together, and the boat sails the very day after college closes.”
“Isn’t that splendid? Aren’t we in luck? Hurrah for Mr. Wales!” cried “The Merry Hearts” hilariously. Only Betty Wales, who was usually the most hilarious of them all, was silent. She sat still on the couch, her forehead puckered with lines of deep thought and her eyes staring very far away. There was something she wanted to do, but she was afraid of the B’s.
“Coward!” she said to herself. “Why don’t you ask and get it over? You think you ought, and if they don’t like it, why they can say so, and things will be just as they were before.”
Would they be just the same, Betty wondered. The one thing she hated was a “fuss.” It was so much easier to slide along quietly, avoiding disagreeable subjects; but was it always right? Betty had been over at the Hilton that afternoon to see Eleanor. Eleanor was trying very hard and she was making a little headway against the tide of opposition and prejudice that had overwhelmed her. Girls who didn’t know her well were beginning to say that Miss Watson might be a cheat for all they knew but she most certainly wasn’t a snob—she was a good deal pleasanter and more friendly than some of the ones who circulated disagreeable stories about her. This opinion was gaining ground fast. Eleanor felt its influence and it gave her the hope to go on. But she had worked very hard, she was tired and despondent, and she had just heard from home that her little step-brother was ill with scarlet fever, and that she would better not plan to come home for the Easter vacation.
“Oh, I wish I could ask you to come and see me,” cried Betty impulsively, “but you know I’m going to the Bahamas.”
“How lovely!” said Eleanor. “I can’t imagine anything nicer than a southern trip after this awfully cold, long winter.”
Betty wondered if she had heard before about “The Merry Hearts’” cruise, but decided not to ask. “Where will you go, Eleanor?” she said instead.
“Oh, to my aunt in New York, I suppose,” answered Eleanor, uncertainly. “Jim is going to stay with a friend in Montreal, so there really isn’t anything else for me to do. I love Aunt Flo dearly, but somehow she always upsets all my ideas. I’m beginning to see now why father doesn’t care to have me go there. Perhaps I shall decide to stay on here and rest.”
A lonely vacation at Harding seemed very forlorn indeed to Betty. She went home in a thoughtful mood, and she was still thinking when her friends drifted in for the customary after-dinner chat, that now always centred around the Nassau trip. It would be so pleasant for Eleanor to join the party; but would her coming spoil the feeling of good-fellowship and fun that made all “The Merry Hearts’” festivities so delightful?
Betty was still considering the question absently, when she heard Mary say, “Why can’t two of us walk with her, pray tell?”