There seemed to be many things mysterious lately about her aunt, but Gloria was determined that no unforeseen circumstance should come between her and her father’s commission to the foreign port. From a small beginning Edward Doane had quickly made his worth known to the big firm he was employed by, and now the chance long hoped for had come, right alongside of the opportunity to accept it.
Gloria’s education was to be assured, and with it that special care expected from such circumstances as a first class boarding school afforded. Because of the pronounced peculiarities of Gloria’s Aunt Harriet, her father had not interfered with any matters concerning his wife’s relatives, and even the loved Aunt Lottie had been very gently refused when she had asked him to act as one of the two executors of her estate.
Gloria did not know of the request. She only knew that her Aunt Harriet and some strange man had been put in charge, and she was too delicately sensitive about the whole situation to ask any direct questions.
There had been unexpected delays about the settlement, but these Gloria condoned with the assurance to her father that with Aunt Harriet and Hazel everything would be all right, and so she insisted he was to finish up all his business and leave the details of hers to those just mentioned.
The few passengers on the jerky trolley were taking their leave of each other as the trip to Sandford lengthened, but Gloria had to ride to the Green, then transfer to Oakley. The misty rain was collecting stringy little drops when she alighted behind a rattling old farm wagon, and when it passed and she emerged from her hiding place, she almost ran into the arms of a girl crossing toward her.
“Oh, hello, Gloria!” greeted the girl with the wonderful smile. “Whatever are you doing out here?”
“Hello, Trix,” called back Gloria, succumbing to the ready grasp of her friend’s hand upon her arm. “I’m bound for Aunt Harriet’s—”
“Oh, of course,” interrupted Trix Travers. “Thought maybe you were out for the postponed tennis match. It isn’t. Did you ever see such a mean day?”
The two were upon the sidewalk now, Trix affably abandoning her evident way to the north while she traveled south with Gloria. She was older than Gloria but had that encompassing way about her that always swept folks off their feet and into her graces. Even the tennis racket under her arm had no cause to complain that it was being disappointed in a possible victory, for Trixy held it fondly and found no fault herself. The girls chatted as they walked, Trixy told Gloria of her cousin Hazel’s try “in the tournament” and hinted of her ambitions to make the team at “her school,” but Gloria was prudently impersonal, and only said how fine tennis was, and how she wished the girls at Barbend would get up a club.
“You babes,” teased Trixy, “better be playing bean-bag. It’s safer.” Her sally was a compliment, the smile and tone completely belying her words.