“How wonderful!” cried Betty, interested. “I wish I knew more about it. I draw a little. We have an art course in school, you know, but I like music best—just play the violin some. Then I like athletics, not so much the competitive games, you know, but swimming and skating and riding, that is I’m going to have lessons in that next year. I can ride in the country, though. Are you in college?”
“Yes, but it may be a waste of time for me to finish. We have to decide that. I am taking art on the side, but I want to go to a regular art school, and next summer, if I can raise the cash, I’m going to walk or swim to Europe and see what the big guys have done.”
Betty laughed at that statement and told “Art” that her father was always asking her when she was going to swim to Europe. This brought on more confidences, till Betty felt that she was quite well acquainted. Art Penrose was as nice as Chet, and presently she found that he knew the “Dorrance boys” and was glad to hear news from them.
The picnic dinner was more fun. They found a place with a cool spring, and made the older members of the party comfortable with seats and rugs from the cars. The boys were used to this sort of thing and as our girls were accustomed to all sorts of hikes and picnics, it was a small matter and “loads of fun” to make coffee, “hot dog” sandwiches, and have heaping plates of good things in a short but happy time, short, Art said, because it was not possible to handle their elders. They would think of such things as routes and time and how far they had to go.
Art came with his full plate to sit on a log near Betty and to talk more about his beloved art to sympathetic ears; and when they rose to go, he lifted a firm finger before her face to say, “You are going to see more of me, Betty Lee. I have to hear you play on your violin, for one thing.”
“And I must see some of your pictures,” pleasantly Betty responded. “It is awfully interesting to hear about it—very, I mean. I’m really trying to improve my English!”
“Don’t worry about your English. Has Gwen told you yet that the Penroses might possibly move to your little city?”
“‘Little city,’ indeed!” said Betty, though her smile accompanied this mild rebuke. “And we have a fine art school,” she added, hopefully.
But Arthur Penrose shook his head. “I’m going to Boston—New York—Philadelphia—Chicago—who knows? But at that I may visit my family occasionally!”
It was later that Gwendolyn said something of the same sort to Betty and Kathryn. “And I do hope that I see you girls again. I’m going to write to Carolyn once in a while now and if we should decide to move there, we’ll see to it that we live where I can attend the same high school. I certainly like what you tell about it!”