With a final kiss Aunt Betty disappeared down the hall, leaving Dorothy alone with her thoughts.
“Dear old auntie,” she murmured. “Her chief desire, apparently, is for my welfare. I can never in this world repay her kindness—never!”
Then, seized with a sudden inspiration, she sat down at her writing desk by the big window, overlooking the arbor and side garden, and indicted the following letter to her chum:
“My Darling Molly:
“Heavy, heavy hangs over your head! You are severely penalized for not writing me of your return. But to surprise your friends was always one of your greatest delights, you sly little minx! So I am not holding it up against you. I’ll even the score with you some day in a way you little imagine.
“Well, well, well, you just can’t guess what I have to tell you! And I’m glad you can’t, for that would take away the pleasure of the telling. Aunt Betty has planned a fine outing for me in the South Mountains, which, as you know, form a spur of the Blue Ridge range in Western Maryland. We are to be gone several weeks, during which time who can say what glorious adventures we will have?
“You are going with us. I want your acceptance of the invitation by return mail, Lady Breckenridge, and I shall take pleasure in providing a brave knight for your escort in the person of one Gerald Blank, in whose automobile we are to make the trip. He has a new seven-passenger car given him by his father, and, in the vulgar parlance of the day, we are going to ‘make things hum.’ It is only some sixty miles to the mountains, and we expect to be out only one night between Baltimore and our destination. Besides yourself, Aunt Betty and I, there will be only Gerald, Aurora, his sister, Jim Barlow, and Ephraim, who will be camp cook, and general man-of-all-work.
“Now write me, dear girlie, and say that you will arrive immediately, for I am just dying with anxiety to see you, and to clasp you in my arms. Jim is already here, having traveled to Canada with Ephy to bring me safely home. As if a girl of my mature age couldn’t travel alone! However, it was one of Aunt Betty’s whims, she being in too ill health to come herself, so I suppose it is all right. Dear auntie will improve I feel sure—now that I am back. That may sound conceited, but I assure you it was not meant to. We are just wrapped up in each other—that’s all. The outing will do her good, and will, I am sure, restore in a measure her shattered health.
“And oh, I forgot to tell you! I am to have violin lessons after my vacation from the famous Herr Deichenberg, Baltimore’s finest musician, whom Aunt Betty had especially engaged before my return. No one can better appreciate than you just what this means to me. My greatest ambition has been to become a fine violinist, and now my hopes bid fair to be realized. I know it rests with me to a great extent just how far up the ladder I go, and am resolved that Herr Deichenberg, before he is through with me, shall declare me the greatest pupil he has ever had. It takes courage to write that—and mean it—Molly, dear; but if we don’t make such resolves and stick to them, we will never amount to much, I fear.