“All right. One—two—three—” The door was flung open, Betsy and Babs were about to throw their arms about the girl who was expected to be on the porch, but they stopped, and their outstretched arms dropped to their sides, for the visitors were lads from Drexel Academy. Benjy Wilson, his two best friends Jack Dennison and Dick Beardsley, while the fourth was Donald Dearing. They were in their dress uniforms and looked very fine indeed. The amazed faces of the girls puzzled the lads until the impulsive Betsy exclaimed, “Oh, we almost hugged you! We were expecting Eleanor Pettes. We were sure we heard the school bus.”
“So you did! We came up from the station on it. There was a girl on the bus, but she saw some of her friends in the orchard and so she joined them.” Then Benjy hurried on to explain, “Of course we know that it’s much too early for the party guests to arrive, but if we may, we would like to speak with Mrs. Martin. Then we are going back to town, and return at the proper time.”
The principal received the lads in her office and the girls raced out to the orchard, where they found the former editress of the Manuscript Magazine, surrounded by seniors. She turned with outstretched hands to greet the younger girls, and Betsy bubblingly related the narrow escape the boys had had from being pounced upon.
“I can’t imagine why they came so early. I’m just ever so curious to know why they wanted to see Mrs. Martin,” Babs said when Sally whispered, “See, there they go now. How straight and nice they look in their dress uniforms.”
Virginia noticed with pleasure that Sally had said this in the same way that any of them would have done. She no longer simpered, and, in fact, the girls had forgotten that they had ever called her “Sentimental Sally.”
“We’re ever so excited,” Margaret confided to Eleanor Pettes as they all turned to go in to the school. “In less than half an hour we are to gather in the gym for assembly. Miss Torrence wanted to wait until you arrived, and then the last Manuscript Magazine of the year is to be read aloud.”
Babs skipped up to say, “Betsy insists that her name is to be in it, but we are sure that she is joking. Composition isn’t her best subject.”
But a surprise awaited them.
There was a flutter of excitement evident among the 45 girls who were gathered in assembly just as the clock told the hour of three. Dean Craig, who had accompanied the boys to Vine Haven, was the only outsider who had been invited to the reading. He sat with Mrs. Martin and the other teachers on the raised platform at one end of the long hall.
Miss Torrence rose.