“Oh! Well, go on,” Quis consented, and after much re-writing, this was the letter they sent:
“Tia Mia,
“The first day at school has been simply glorious and now I have a great favour to ask. Don’t refuse it! I have been asked to join the nicest girls’ club in Marston High School. May I do it? Of course I’d rather wait till you are here and could know the girls, too, but Quis says I ought to accept when I’m asked, as it’s a great compliment, and they may never invite me again. It’s called a sorority—a sisterhood, you know—and it stands for the highest ideals in scholarship and everything else.
“Darling, please, please don’t make me lose this chance of being closely associated with the very best girls, just because you’re not here to judge for yourself. Trust me.
“I don’t know what the dues will be, but not large, Quis thinks, and I could pay them out of the money set aside for my education. It’s really a part of my high school education, they seem to think, here.
“Please say yes, dearest, and by return mail.
“Always the same love,
“Your Girl.”
CHAPTER II
MADEMOISELLE
NEXT morning dawned bright and clear—another day like midsummer—and, when Jacquette began to dress, a remark that Louise had made on the way home from the spread the night before, came into her mind.
“This is your travelling suit, isn’t it?” Louise had said. “It’s so appropriate—plain and dark! I love plain things for travelling, don’t you?”
With this in her thoughts, Jacquette discarded the simple shirt-waist suit she had intended to wear, and took out, instead, a fluffy rose-coloured mull, which Aunt Sula had advised her to put on often for dinner, while she was visiting at Uncle Malcolm’s.
She felt repaid for the change when she saw Aunt Fanny’s welcoming smile and Quis’s glance of admiration, at breakfast. Uncle Mac studied her without comment, but, just as she was starting for school, he put his arm around her and whispered, tenderly,
“Your mother’s own daughter—that’s what you are! Don’t let ’em spoil you with their secret societies and things. Keep your pretty head level.”
The pretty head, hatless this morning, nodded confidently as Jacquette tripped away at Marquis’s side.