Bobs looked down at her for a minute, with the old smile. Then he answered slowly, shaking his head. “Boston and the United States mails are good enough for me.”
“Oh, dear! I fished for that and now I’ve caught it I don’t know what to do with it!” she exclaimed, trying to laugh away the queer little flutter that Bobs’s words had thrown her into. “Don’t stay behind that tree any longer,” she added archly, over her shoulder, “you’ll be lonesome!”
“Jacquette, you’re wanted here,” called Uncle Mac’s voice, as she appeared. “The girls say you’re to present this to Mademoiselle.”
A silence fell in the room, as Jacquette took the tiny box from her uncle and bending before the French teacher, said, simply,
“To our dear Mademoiselle, with the love of her little peacocks, Blanche, Etta, Mamie, Flo, Bess, the three Maries, and Jacquette.”
“My chickens! My little chickens!” Mademoiselle murmured, actually with tears in her eyes, as Jacquette opened the box and taking out an exquisite little necklace clasped it round Mademoiselle’s throat. But, the next minute, before the tears were dried, she and everyone else had begun to laugh together, for Uncle Mac had just announced impressively, “To Robin Sidney Drake, from his friend, Bud Banister: A photographic study, entitled ‘Bobs’s Rest-cure’”—and the picture which was being passed from one to the other had proved to be nothing else than a small snap-shot of the barred gymnasium windows at Marston High.
Then, suddenly, when it was merriest, the laugh faltered. There stood Clarence Mullen, in the middle of the room, awkward and uncomfortable. Bud had never thought of such a thing as his being there, when he had planned his little joke.
For an instant, no one made a sound. Then Bobs clapped the younger boy on the shoulder, and cried out, “Come on, Clarence—laugh with us! That’s all past and gone. Besides, the rest-cure did me a lot of good, I tell you, boy!”
“I believe it, Bobs,” Marquis chimed in, taking the cue. “We were all half crazy that day. A quiet half hour alone might have helped some of the rest of us. Don’t you say so, Mademoiselle?”
“Not a doubt of it, my lambkin!” she agreed, so emphatically that the laugh was turned on Marquis, much to his own delight. As soon as his voice could be heard, he said,