The session between the Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation always seemed a brief one, filled as it is with plans for the latter holiday.
When the Thanksgiving holiday was over Beverly and the boys went back to their respective schools under Admiral Seldon’s escort. At least he went as far as Front Royal with Athol and Archie, leaving them at that point to go on by themselves while he accompanied Beverly to Leslie Manor. He was minded to have a few words with Miss Woodhull and know something more of the lady’s character than he already knew. The outcome of that interview left a good deal to be desired upon the Admiral’s part. He returned to Woodbine “with every gun silenced,” and the lady triumphant in her convictions that her methods of conducting a school for girls were quite beyond criticism. It would be utterly impossible for Beverly to even think of visiting her brother at Kilton Hall, she said, nor could she consent to Athol visiting Leslie Manor. She did not wish to establish a precedent. As to Archie ever coming there, that idea was preposterous. Why every boy for miles around would feel at liberty to call upon her pupils and they would be simply besieged. She had conducted her school successfully for many years under its present methods and until she saw more cogent reasons for changing she should continue to do so.
Had not the Admiral made arrangements for the year it is safe to surmise that Beverly would have returned to Woodbine with him, and his frame of mind, and the remarks to which he gave utterance, as he drove back to the junction, elicited more than one broad grin or chuckle from Andrew J. Jefferson as he drove. But Beverly did not know anything about it.
So the weeks sped by until the Christmas recess drew near and the girls were once more planning to scatter, far and wide, for their two-weeks holiday.
Now be it known that Petty had returned from her Thanksgiving trip to Annapolis in a more sentimental frame of mind than ever, and filled as full of romance as an egg is of meat.
Each day brought a letter always addressed in a feminine handwriting, to be sure, or there would have been little chance of said letter ever reaching Petty. They were, she confided to every girl in the school under strictest promises of secrecy, re-addressed for “Reggy” by “darling mamma,” for mamma, knowing how desperate was their devotion to each other, just simply could not help acting as a go-between. And she knew very well too that she, Petty, would not have remained at school a single day unless she did this. Why, mamma, herself, had eloped with papa before she was sixteen. One whole year younger than she, herself, was at that moment. “Wasn’t that romantic?”
“Where is papa now?” asked Beverly. She had never heard him mentioned.
“Oh, why—well—he has business interests which keep him in South America nearly all the time, and—er,”
“Oh, you needn’t go into details. It doesn’t make any difference to me,” said Beverly, and walked away with Sally.
“Isn’t she odious! And so perfectly callous to sentiment,” cried Petty.