“Betty’s party” certainly bid fair to be a great success. Her eyes had not ceased sparkling over Judge Watson’s telegram of thanks, sent to her personally, as his “daughter’s best friend,” when something else happened quite different but equally exciting. Mary and her chum Marion Lawrence appeared at dinner one evening fairly bursting with suppressed importance.
“Have you heard the latest news?” they teased. "Guess! Has it anything to do with you? Easily! Oh, wait till after dinner, and then perhaps Laurie can be induced to tell. I couldn’t because it’s her news—her scoop, as they say in the newspaper offices. You can’t expect me to steal her scoop," ended Mary piously.
So after dinner the Belden House “Merry Hearts” besieged Marion in a corner, and by dint of bribes and threats finally got at the great item. “Did any of you happen to know that Dr. Eaton is going to a place called Nassau at Easter?”
“No! Really?” cried Betty.
“How did you find out?” demanded Roberta.
“It’s one of Mary’s rumors,” declared Madeline.
“Not at all,” retorted Mary with dignity. “Tell them how you heard, Laurie, and then perhaps they’ll believe you.”
“Met him down-town,” began Marion in her most businesslike fashion. “We walked up together, and he said he’d been buying a new steamer trunk because his old one was falling to pieces. He seems to have been to Egypt several times, and to Alaska and Japan and pretty nearly everywhere else, and now he’s going to Nassau.”
“Did he say so?” demanded Madeline.
“Certainly he did. He said he had heard it was very quaint and English, and that for so short a time he thought he should prefer it to Havana.”