“I should have come in to see you anyhow either to-day or to-morrow, even if you hadn’t sent word by Tommy, Mr. Meadowcroft,” she said. “I wanted—to ask you something.”
“That’s mighty good of you,” he declared, not dreaming the nature of her request.
Betty colored in happy confusion. That was a singular way of looking at things! She proceeded in perfect confidence.
“Tommy said he told you all about Rose,” she began, “and how Rose wants to go to high school with the rest of us. But without knowing Rose, you could never, never guess, Mr. Meadowcroft, how very, very much she wants to go. She would almost rather—well, not be alive at all, if she has to stay at home—and she could do it easily—I mean she could study and catch up. But her mother won’t let her. She won’t listen when Rose tries to talk to her about it. She’s scared to death. She thinks—O, that all sorts of awful things would happen.”
Meadowcroft frowned. To himself he said that evidently Mrs. Harrow was stupid and foolish. To Betty he said that if the lady didn’t wish her daughter to go to school, she should teach her herself or have her taught at home.
“O, but, Mr. Meadowcroft, Rose would hate that!” the girl protested. “She wants it all—the going and coming and being with the others, you see, just as much as the studies. She wants—why, just as you told me, you know. She wants to be a school-girl among school-girls.”
He smiled.
“Her father thinks just as her mother does,” Betty went on. “Mrs. Harrow really just lives for Rose, and if only she wasn’t so afraid something would happen, I think she’d give in and let her go. If someone older would talk to her, she might see that it wouldn’t be really dangerous, and—O, Mr. Meadowcroft, if you would ask her, she would do it in a minute! Would it be too much trouble? Would you be willing to?”
Her cheeks were very pink, her eyes softly bright, her lips parted eagerly. Meadowcroft stared at her a moment as if he hadn’t understood. Then he frowned.
“My dear child, is it possible you don’t know that I never go anywhere?” he asked. “I haven’t called anywhere—I haven’t been into a private house for twenty years.”