“Girls,” Adele declared brightly, “‘My bones are very good prophets,’ as Grandpa Dally used to say, and I just feel sure that before very many moons, we shall all seven of us be at Linden Hall Seminary for Young Ladies.”
Whether or no Adele was a true prophet, you shall hear.
CHAPTER SIX
BETTY’S UNCLE GEORGE
The next day Adele wrote a long letter to Carol Lorens telling her the good news that five of the Sunny Seven were to attend the Linden Hall boarding-school, that is, if there would be room for them. Mrs. Doring had written to Madame Deriby to inquire, and eagerly the five girls awaited an answering letter.
Meanwhile little Betty Burd was trying to be brave, but it was very hard. The day after the meeting at the Secret Sanctum, she went for a long ride on her pony, and, with tears slipping down her cheeks, she scolded herself: “You just ought to be ashamed, Betty Burd, when you have so much to be thankful for,” she said aloud as she rode through a little wood, where everything was peaceful and quiet, save now and then a rustle in the dry leaves when a squirrel darted across the path. “I’m not going to cry another tear!” she continued, as she whirled her pony’s head toward home. “Uncle George has done so much for me, and I don’t want him to even guess how I have longed to go to boarding-school with the other girls.”
As she turned in at the drive, Mr. Drexel’s car stopped a moment at the gate and her Uncle George leaped out. Betty was about to ride on, but he beckoned to her. “How’s my little Puss?” he called, pretending not to notice the reddened eyes.
“Oh, I’m all right, thank you, Uncle George,” the girl replied, trying to smile brightly, then, fearing that she would cry, she whirled her pony about and galloped to the barn, but her young Uncle George followed her.
He stabled the pony and then leading her to a garden bench, he exclaimed gaily, “Betty Bobbets, what’s this I hear about you going away to boarding-school?”
“Me?” gasped Betty in surprise. “Why, Uncle George, I’m not going at all. It’s just the other girls who are going. Mamma says that you have done so much for us already that she couldn’t think of asking you to send me. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, Uncle George, how did you know?”
The young man laughed. “Why, Puss,” he replied, “you don’t suppose that you could keep a secret from your old uncle, do you? But the way that I found out was that Mr. Drexel just now told me that Doris was going away to boarding-school and he said that he supposed that I was going to send Betty, and I said, ‘Sure thing, if the other girls are going.’”