“I think that’s all nonsense,” said Mary Emma, “but I won’t tell anyhow. I promised Gwen I wouldn’t. And isn’t Gwen Penrose an addition to the class and our crowd! Everybody that meets her likes her so far.”
“Gwen is nice, Mary Emma, and you must meet her brothers. One is a real artist already. They’re just getting settled now. And what do you think? We may move, the first of the month to a whole house instead of an apartment. Father and Mother are looking, to decide now. It is a terrible undertaking, but it will be wonderful to have more room. If we do, I’m going to have a party first thing!”
But Betty wondered, on her way home, how in the world, with all the people knowing about it that did, “the facts were to be kept from Mrs. Sevilla and Ramona Rose.” That was what Ramon had called his sister, Betty remembered.
CHAPTER VIII
ONE OF THOSE A-D PARTIES
“It will probably not reach them very soon, Betty,” comfortably said Mrs. Lee when Betty expressed her concern over “the way Gwen was telling the girls” about Ramon. “Moreover, that is a risk that Ramon runs, not you, by his request and not sending them word himself. Other people can only try to be considerate. So far as I am concerned, I should prefer to know all about my children, to bear the trouble with them if necessary. Never keep anything from me with the idea of sparing me, Betty!”
“All right, Mamma. We’ll probably need you too badly to do any stunts of the sort!”
Betty was soon in the midst of Lucia Coletti’s letter, running excitedly to find her mother again after she had finished reading it. “Why, Mother, she is coming! Isn’t that great? And moreover she said that she might get here before the letter.
“See—it’s mailed at Milan. They were in Switzerland for the hot weather, but when they decided to have Lucia come to finish her senior year at Lyon High, she and her mother ‘ran down to Milan’ to their ‘palazso’ for some things Lucia wanted and Lucia might just go right on and sail as soon as she was all packed up. It all depended on what reservations or accommodations or whatever you call it they could get on a steamer. That also made it uncertain what route she’s coming by, whether from Naples or Cherbourg or what. Here, read it Mother. It’s a short one. She has stacks of things to tell me, she says.”
Mrs. Lee smilingly read the brief letter, enclosed in a noticeable envelope, very elegant, Betty said, and having the “family crest” or some “Italian sign” on it. It amused Betty’s mother to hear her running comments as she read and she handed back the letter with the remark that Lucia had “not neglected to acquire some of the American vocabulary.”
“Certainly,” said senior Betty. “And she thinks about it when she writes to me!”