As they reached the car, Julia, with her arm in Pamela’s, said rather brusquely, “You haven’t failed in your finals, have you?”
“Why, no! But why do you ask?” Pamela’s tone was one of extreme surprise.
“Oh, I wished to startle you into telling me what troubles you.”
“Perhaps I am foolish,” responded Pamela, “but I’ve been wondering whether it’s really worth while to go on. Perhaps I oughtn’t to come back next year.”
“I suppose you haven’t had a mark below ‘B.’”
“I’ve had only one ‘B.’”
“And everything else was an ‘A’?”
“Yes,” she replied, “but I am afraid that you think me very conceited to tell you.”
“Not when I asked you. Well, if the trouble isn’t marks, it must be money. I should think that you might tell me just what it is. You do not look as well as you did when you entered, and you were not exactly robust then.”
“I suppose it’s partly the hot weather,” responded Pamela, sighing. “Then, besides, I’m pretty tired of Miss Batson and her household. I’m glad that she is going to close her house this summer. Otherwise I might be tempted to stay on—to save expense. She’s going to take the first vacation she has had in years, and visit some relations in the West, and she has been able to rent her house for three months.”