“I’m not going to be silly and cry again, Betty, but I shall probably want to talk to you about this some more. Here are some of my father’s letters. I keep them in my desk, you see. See how fat they are? He tells me about the hunts and the going through that queer country and everything that he thinks would interest me and help me to learn about it. Sometimes he puts in little things that I know he thinks my mother may read.”
Betty took in her hands a letter that Lucia handed her. It was, of course, written in Italian and very “fat,” as Lucia said. “I don’t think that you were silly to cry, Lucia. I don’t see how you can help feeling as you do. Your father must be a very interesting man and your mother is certainly a gifted woman.”
“Mother was studying music in Milan when she met my father, you know.”
Some slight progress had been made in lessons, but the girls retired earlier than Betty had supposed they would, for when the maid came in after rapping, upon some little errand of Lucia’s clothing, Lucia told her that she was tired and would go to bed very soon. Betty was only too glad to do the same thing and the girls soon said goodnight. In a comfortable bed, under white blankets and a silken comforter, as Betty noticed, she soon fell to sleep. It was nice to have a maid fussing around to do things for you, to open your window just the right amount, arranging a little screen of some sort, to see that your clothing was placed properly. But maids weren’t mothers!
Breakfast the girls had alone, as they rose earlier than either the countess or Mr. Murchison. Lucia told Betty that it was unusually early for her on a Saturday morning, but if they did “Christmas shopping,” they were wise to have a good start, as the stores would be full of people. Moreover, the countess herself would want the chauffeur to drive her down later in the day.
“Mother will sleep till noon, I suppose,” said Lucia, “because I think everybody stayed late last night. Uncle will drive his coupe down town, and we can have Horace and the big car all morning.”
The plans for shopping were made. Betty informed Lucia that for a president of Lyon “Y” she knew little about the usual plans for Christmas, but that the committee had asked her to buy certain things. Both girls had also personal shopping to do and it was like shopping with a fairy godmother to go with Lucia. She insisted on paying from her own purse for the materials Betty had been asked to buy. She bought half a dozen more dolls because she thought them “cute.” These were dressed. Betty still felt dubious about what the committee would think, but after all wouldn’t some “kiddie” love them!
It was a rather delirious morning for Betty. If she had not had a list, she would have been too excited to think properly, she said. When she told Lucia that the Lyon “Y” had adopted a family and related the story of the Thanksgiving baskets, Lucia began to buy toys “regardless,” Betty told her.
“Oh, let’s make them think old Santa just had a spill of toys from his old sleigh!” said Lucia, as happy as Betty, looking into the gayly decked windows, or descending into the store basements where the toys were displayed.
Betty had “always” intended to go back to see what was the result with the “Sevillas,” but there was so much to do at school with lessons and tests and other duties and at home in preparation for the holidays that she had not “had a minute” to spare, it seemed. Her father was unusually busy, too; and when she spoke to him about the coincidence of the names and referred to the odd parenthesis in Ramon Balinsky’s letter, he had only said that it “might be well to look into it.”