“As you say,” she began, “the daughter, Eleanor, would be an ideal guest pupil if I can persuade her proud mother to permit her to come to us.” Then, for a moment, the principal sat gazing out of the window against which, in the light from the room, the beating snow could be seen.
“Virginia,” she said at last, “you may be excused from your morning classes. I would like to have you accompany me to the old Burgess place. Then, while I am visiting with Eleanora, the mother, perhaps you can persuade the daughter that we would be glad indeed to have her with us as a guest pupil.”
Mrs. Martin had risen and Virg did also. “Oh, how glad the girls will be,” she said. “They have all promised to keep the identity of the guest pupil a secret. I am sure Eleanor will be very happy, if she will come.” Then hesitatingly. “Mrs. Martin, do you think that my name should be taken from the Honor Roll because of——”
The principal interrupted her with an unexpected caress. “Dear girl,” she said tenderly, “I wish I could put your name on twice.” Then she was gone and there were tears in the eyes of the girl. Just such a caress would an own mother have given a daughter with whom she was pleased.
CHAPTER VIII
AN EARLY MORNING VISIT
The other girls belonging to the Adventure Club were filled with envy, when, on the following morning, Virginia told them that she was not to attend the classes, but instead was to be driven in the teacher’s sleigh (which was of Russian design with a fur robe hanging over the high-back seat) to the old house which they had visited on the day previous.
But they were agreed that their president was the most fitting member to accompany so important a personage as the principal of Vine Haven, and they all flocked into her room, to help her dress for the occasion. Sally, as a token of her undying devotion, brought in her beautiful white fur boa and muff and begged Virginia to wear them. “They’ll keep you so warm and will remind you of me. Mrs. Martin won’t mind your borrowing them, I am sure.”
“Thank you, ever so much, dear. They are just lovely. I have never had furs. You see, we don’t need them in Arizona, for, though it is very cold early in the morning and in the late afternoon, even in February it is pleasant and warm during the middle of the day.”
When at last Virg had been well bundled, with the aid of loving hands, she impulsively gave them all a French kiss, as Madame La Fleur had taught them to do, which was a mere touch of the lips on first one cheek and then on the other. At the door she turned to laughingly call. “One might think that I was starting for Arizona, instead of merely to the village of Vine Haven.”
Then, when a chorus of merry good-byes had followed her as she tripped down the broad front stairs she found herself wondering if she wished she were starting for her beloved desert home. “Only four months more,” she assured herself when she felt the clutch of homesickness that the merest thought of them all so far away, brought to her heart.