“Robbie Belle, Robbie Belle, you lazybones! The night watchman has knocked twice already. Get up, get up this instant! We’re going to hear Grand Opera to-day! O-o-ooh!”
Robbie Belle lifted her head to listen. “Berta Abbott, you’ve got a chill. I hear you shivering. Hurry into your clothes this minute. I’ll bring you the quinine.”
Quinine! Berta shivering from excitement laughed softly to herself. Dear old Robbie Belle! Quinine on this wonderful day! Listen! That was the twittering of swallows under the eaves. A squirrel peered in at her window, his bright eyes twinkling. It was too bad that he did not enjoy music. But perhaps he did after all. Hark! that was a robin. And listen! There sounded the full-throated whistle of a brown thrush. The world was ringing with music—beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! And she was going to hear Grand Opera to-day! That had been her most precious dream next to coming to college. To come to college and to hear Grand Opera too!
“My cup runneth over! My cup runneth over,” she chanted softly to herself, while from Robbie Belle’s room rose a faint noise of deliberate dressing, subdued splashing, slow steps, a rustling that was almost methodical in its rhythm.
“Berta,” she announced, appearing with hat set straight and firm over her smooth dark hair, her coat over one arm, her umbrella neatly strapped, “I think I shall carry my Horace, for it is a two-hours’ ride, and to-day is Saturday and after Sunday comes Monday.”
Berta clapped her hands over her ears, “Go away, go away to your breakfast, miserable creature! Horace! that worldly wise old Roman! With the river before your eyes, the beautiful river in May!”
“The next ode begins, ‘O Fons Bandusiæ!’—a fountain, you understand,” protested Robbie Belle in injured tones, “he loved the country. I wanted to read it aloud to you and get in my practice on scansion that way. I am learning to do it quite well. Listen! ‘Splendidior vitro-o-o,’” she declaimed, dragging out the syllables to lugubrious length.
“Dear Robbie Belle,” murmured Berta pleasantly, “if you breathe one line of that stuff on this journey I shall throw you into the river myself—cheerfully.” She nodded vigorous approval of her own sentiments, and her contrary hair seized the opportunity to tumble down again in resentment of impatient fingers. “Oh, Robbie Belle, come and twist this up for me, won’t you? We shall be late for the train. I don’t believe we care for breakfast anyhow.”
“Not care for breakfast!” Robbie Belle shut her mouth determinedly. She walked over to the wardrobe, pinned Berta’s hat securely on the fly-away hair, caught up her jacket, tucked the tickets into her own pocket, and sternly marched her scatter-brained friend out of the room and down the corridor.
“It’s gone to her head,” she muttered sadly as if communing with herself, “the idea of music has gone to her head. I must address her soothingly. Yes, yes, we’re going—we’re going soon, don’t worry. But we’re a-going clothed and in our right mind—mine at least, and fed.”