Mrs. Martin in a gray silk gown stood in the lower corridor and the girls courtesied as they passed her. She smiled and nodded in return and in her heart was a warm glow of pride. Mrs. Martin loved her girls, even the most mischievous of them.
The lads in their dress uniforms were standing about the big library which had been cleared of furniture and which had crash on the floor. Miss Torrence and Dean Craig received and introduced, but at first there was a stiffness and shyness evident that these two were at a loss how to overcome. “Suppose we ask our Glee Club to sing,” Dean Craig suggested. This was done. Donald Dearing, with a truly beautiful tenor voice, sang the solo parts and a group of lads joined in the chorus.
Then Sally MacLean was asked to play on her harp. She had consented to take part in the program if her harp might be concealed by palms, but there were a few in the big room who stood in such a position that the palms could not hide from them the truly beautiful girl who sat at the golden harp. These were the lads who had just been singing. Donald Dearing, with his arms crossed, watched the all-unconscious girl as she played, and never before had Sally played with such sympathetic feeling. Something in the tenor voice had stirred a responsive chord in her music loving soul and had inspired her.
When the first waltz was played by two of the boys from Drexel on the piano and violin, Sally tried to slip away unobserved, but found Donald waiting for her near the palms. “May I have this dance with you, Miss MacLean?” he asked. Then, as they joined the others, he said softly, “My sister, who left us, was learning to play the harp. You like music, don’t you?”
“Yes,” the girl replied. “I love it. Next year mother is to take me to Paris that I may study there?”
“Good,” the lad replied, brightly. “Then, perhaps, if I may I shall be able to call on your mother and you, for my Dad is still stationed over there and I am to spend my vacations with him. He wants me to get my training at Drexel, because he did.”
Virginia glanced across the room when the dance was over and the young people were seated. In her heart there was a glow of pride for she could not but know her friendship had helped Sally to become the sweetly, sensible girl that she now was, treating her boy comrade in as frank and friendly a manner as she would a girl companion.
Somehow it seemed fitting that Donald Dearing should have the most votes and everyone knew that Sally would be chosen by him as “belle.”
Standing at his side, that flushed and happy girl was asked to choose three lassies to follow her in the march while Donald chose their partners.
Then Dora’s curiosity was satisfied concerning the content of the boxes.