“There’s no use arguing about it, Dorothy,” Betty cut her short. “I mean exactly what I say. Put on your hat at once.”
A month of being the youngest boarder and the school pet, supplemented by Eugenia’s many flattering attentions, had badly spoiled the Smallest Sister, but she could still recognize the voice of authority. In an uncomfortable flash she came to her senses. Her sister Betty meant what she said. She was going to be sent back to mother in disgrace. For a few minutes longer pride sustained her. Silently she lifted her chin for Betty to draw the elastic of her hat beneath it. Silently she stretched out her arms for Betty to pull on her coat. With only a faint tremor in her voice she said good-bye, and holding herself very erect marched out of the room, shutting the door after herself in a fashion that could not absolutely be called banging, because then Betty might tell her to come back and do it over, but was perilously near that unladylike mode of procedure.
When she had gone Betty sank down wearily in her big chair. She was bewildered, frightened, discouraged. “I didn’t manage right,” she reflected sadly. “I ought to have got around her some way. I can’t bear to send her home. I love to have her here so, and then she will feel that it’s a punishment—and it is too—when it’s only that I have to do it, because I don’t know how to manage. I’ve tried to do more than I can. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” Betty’s golden head sank down on the arm of the big chair, and her slender figure shook with her tears.
It was thus that the Smallest Sister, flying up the stairs and bursting precipitately into the room she had left with such dignity, found her.
“Please go away. I’m t-tired. I’d rather be let alone,” Betty sobbed, evidently mistaking the invader for somebody else.
The Smallest Sister hesitated, then her soft little arms tugged at the prostrate figure. “Please don’t cry,” she begged. “Please listen to me, Betty. I know I’ve got to go home. I haven’t come to tease you to take it back—honestly I haven’t. But I’m going to tell you all about Shirley and Francisca and me. I’d rather. Please don’t cry any more, Betty dear.”
Betty sat up, dabbing at her wet cheeks with a damp handkerchief. Dorothy offered her a dry one, and when Betty moved to one side of the big chair and smoothed down her skirts invitingly, the Smallest Sister climbed in beside her. Two in a chair is always the way to begin to make up.
“Now I’ll tell you,” she began. “You see Frisky had a spread for her four roommates in their study after the lights were out. She rooms ’way down at the end of the long corridor, and they shut the door—that’s against the rules—and lit a candle, and trusted to luck that nobody would see it shining underneath the door. Miss Carson—the one we call Kitty Carson, because she comes along so still—is their corridor teacher, and she doesn’t often bother to go ’way down to that end, unless there’s a noise. She didn’t that night, but Shirley woke up and was thirsty and wanted a drink. And on the way to where the table with the pitcher of ice-water is, she got lost, because the hall is pretty dark, and she saw the light under the door and knocked, and they started her back the right way. Next morning she was telling about it at breakfast, and Kitty Carson heard her, and asked her all about how she got back, and Shirley told every single thing—about the spread and who was there and all. And so now Frisky has to stay in bounds for two weeks, and she can’t have any candy or a box from home till after Christmas. Kitty Carson wrote to say so—and that’s all, Betty dear. Frisky said she was sick of the subject, and not to mention it again, but of course she never meant not to tell you. I s’pose you have a good reason to want to know. I’m sorry you had to cry.”
Betty leaned over and kissed the flushed, eager little face so close beside hers. “Thank you for coming back,” she said. “Now we’re good friends again, aren’t we?”
Dorothy nodded.