Betty stared at her in solemn silence. “What an awful lot it costs to lose your reputation,” she said sadly.
“And it costs a good deal to be everybody’s guardian angel, doesn’t it, dearie?” Madeline said affectionately. “I oughtn’t to have bothered you, but I seem to have made a dreadful mess of things so far.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t,” Betty assured her. “Eleanor knows how queer Jean is, and what horrid things she says about people who won’t follow her lead. None of that crowd would help about the toy-shop except Kate Denise, but every one else has been fine. And I know they haven’t thought that Eleanor was trying to get anything out of them.”
Madeline sighed mournfully. “In Bohemia people don’t think that sort of thing,” she said. “It complicates life so to have to consider it always. Good-night, Betty.”
“Good-night,” returned Betty cheerfully. “Don’t forget that the senior ‘Merry Hearts’ have a tea-drinking to-morrow.”
“I’m not likely to,” laughed Madeline. “Every one of them that I’ve seen has mentioned it. They’re all agog with curiosity.”
“They’ll be more so with joy, when I’ve told them the news,” declared Betty, holding her candle high above her head to light Madeline through the hall.
“Dear me! I wish there could be a class without officers and committees and editors and commencement plays,” she told the green lizard a little later. “Those things make such a lot of worry and hard feeling. But then I suppose it wouldn’t be much of a class, if it wasn’t worth worrying about. And anyway it’s almost vacation.”