And like one so anxious to learn something that he dreads to know, she was hesitating. Finally she thrust a nail file under the much befingered envelope flap and took out the page of old-fashioned, heavily lined paper. She read: “Dear Friend, Wear goin’ away, gotta go. I’ll tell you later. I didn’t steal the boat, and can’t tell you that either just now. Thank you, Nickolas Marcusi Junior.”
“He didn’t steal the boat! I knew he didn’t,” she rejoiced. “Oh, I am so glad——”
Again and again she read the scrawled, badly spelled lines. But he didn’t steal the boat and that was all she cared about.
Instinctively she went over to her dressing table, pulled out the small drawer in which she kept all her best beloved letters, and was about to place Nicky’s welcome news in there, when she looked again at the dirty smudges upon the paper.
“But it’s precious,” she decided, taking a clean plain envelope from her own box and slipping the other into it. Then she placed the newest addition to her important collection in with the others.
What a weight had suddenly been lifted from her heart! She had not realized it was so heavy until it was gone, and now she felt so different, so happy, so light hearted! She would almost have told Dora the news, only, of course, Dora would not have understood it.
But she must tell Cara at once. Down to the telephone she flew, and in a way that only she and Cara could have understood, she promptly managed to transmit the wonderful news.
“And I must go over to Miss Davis just as soon as we can after lunch,” she panted. “I knew he didn’t,” she repeated again, guarding her words so that no other listener than Cara could have understood them.
“I never thought so either,” Cara was answering. “Yes, I’ll call for you early. Good-bye, I’m awfully glad.”
But the girls were so rejoiced to receive those scant, scrawled words, that they had not realized how little they could really mean to any one but themselves. Nicky said he hadn’t stolen the boat and that was enough for Barbara, but who else would believe him? Would Miss Davis?