“Hello, Berta!” Bea said.
“Oh, good-morning, Miss Leigh!” responded Berta, advancing with a tread the stateliness of which was somewhat impaired by a loosely flapping sole. “Did you rise early in order to prepare for the Latin test?”
Bea brushed aside the query with the contempt it deserved. “Are all those for your senior? I don’t think it’s fair for you to copy verses out of any old book, while every one of mine is original; and yet yours count exactly as much. Well, anyway, I wouldn’t send my senior anything that was ordinary and unworthy of her acceptance. How many have you?”
This ignoble curiosity was likewise ignored by Miss Berta, who proceeded with dignified slowness to drop her valentines one by one into the caldron. Bea, with lingering care, deposited her contribution on the very top. One slid over the edge, and in rescuing it she disturbed a fold of the portière. A glimpse within set her eyes to sparkling.
“Berta, there’s an open fire in the senior parlor, and it’s still red!”
“Ho,” whispered Berta, in reply to the unspoken challenge, “I’m not afraid! Let’s,” and two flowing, woolly robes glided into the warm room, with its heart of glowing coals. One bold intruder nestled in the biggest arm-chair, the other fumbled for the tongs.
“Aren’t we wicked! Robbie wouldn’t do it.” Berta cuddled deeper among the comforting cushions. “But—oh!—doesn’t it feel good in here!”
Bea poked a coal until it split into a faint blue blaze. “We’re worse than wicked. We’re cheeky,—that’s what,—coming into this room without being invited. Suppose some senior should discover us!” She paused, smitten by the terror of the new thought. “Just suppose my senior should find me here! She has a horror of anything underhanded or sly. I should die of shame!” It was a genuine groan, and Berta was too startled to laugh.
“I guess it isn’t very nice of us,” she acknowledged meekly.
“I’m going this instant.” Bea’s hand was on the portière when a rustling in the kettle caught her attention. Through a rift between the folds she spied lace ruffles about a delicate hand that was dropping envelopes down upon the others. Over the tripod a face appeared for one moment in the dim light, and then was gone. Light steps retreated swiftly, and a door closed not far away on the senior corridor. Bea had recognized her senior.