On the train Frisky considered her future and dissolved in floods of woe.
“I couldn’t stay without my money,” she wailed, “but I simply cannot go back and face the awful scoldings I shall get. Miss Dick won’t let me out of the school yard for the rest of the term, and I shouldn’t wonder if she’d tell the whole story right out in chapel. If I hadn’t been made to stay by myself so much and think, I shouldn’t have thought of so many wrong things to do. I discovered the secret passage one day when I was sent to my room to meditate. Who could resist trying to be a ghost, Miss Wales, with that secret passage all fixed up as if on purpose? I’ve felt awfully about Shirley——”
“And yet you did it again,” said Betty sternly, “to Dorothy, who might have been just as badly frightened.”
Frisky wept afresh. “I know it. She made me cross, and I didn’t care. Sometimes I don’t care what happens, Miss Wales, and other days I love everybody, even Miss Dick and my stepmother. The worst thing is that nobody trusts me. I meant to show them that I could be trusted to get along all right alone. And then I—I—I—lost my purse,” sobbed Frisky wildly.
Betty patted her shoulder comfortingly. “That plan was all wrong,” she said. “Suppose you were to come and consult me about things the way Dorothy does? I believe we could get to be good friends. I know a good many stage people,” she added craftily, “the real kind, not the make-believes like those dreadful ones in the Pratt Company.”
“But if ever I wanted to go on the stage you’d say no, Miss Wales,” demurred Frisky.
“I should say that Miss Dwight knows more about it than either of us,” amended Betty. “We are almost at Harding, Frisky. Shall I tell Miss Dick to-morrow that I’m to be your special consultation committee from now on, and that I’m willing to be responsible for your good behavior?”
“Responsible for my good behavior?” Frisky giggled, with a touch of her old irresponsible gaiety. “But I’m always in hot water, Miss Wales. I try sometimes, and sometimes I don’t, but it always ends the same way.”
“So you’re not to be trusted, then,” began Betty. “I thought you said——”
“Oh!” Frisky considered it. “If I said I’d try all the time, and Miss Dick promised to overlook some little mistakes, and I should talk things over with you instead of with the other girls—I think sometimes they stir me up on purpose to see the rumpus there will be. Well, then you’d beg me off with Miss Dick. Is that it?”