Dolly flushed. “Tell Fred the whole story, dear, you can trust your brother.”
So Dolly told it, and whatever Fred thought, he kept to himself, merely promising not to mention the affair to anyone. Mrs. Alden sent the girls off to bed at an early hour, for, as Beth said, they must be awake at a most unearthly time. The boys set their alarm clock in order to be up to see the girls off. They, themselves, were not obliged to go until a later train.
“We have had just a beautiful time, Mrs. Alden,” Beth declared that evening. “I can’t tell how much it has meant to me. I want Dolly to go home with me as soon as you can spare her, but I suppose you will want her at Christmas?”
“Perhaps we could arrange a compromise,” Mrs. Alden returned smilingly; “you might stop here for a week, and then we might agree to loan you Dolly for the remaining time.”
“I do wish you would. I would be more glad than I can tell you. I am going to consider that point settled, and I thank you a thousand times. Dolly, I want to tell you something about that room-mate of mine when we get upstairs. I’ve meant to do it all vacation, and our jolly times have just crowded it out of my head.”
CHAPTER VI
But it was not until they were on the train the next day, that an opportunity came for Beth to tell her story. There had been a jolly, sleepy crowd that had eaten the early breakfast and then gone down to the station. The boys had supplied them well with magazines, flowers and boxes of candy. To Mary Sutherland it was all like a new world–the handsome house, the elegant furnishings, the plenty and comfort that pervaded the whole atmosphere, and while that part was nothing at all new to Beth, she, too, felt as if she were in a new world, for it was a world in which the home-atmosphere was sweet and wholesome, blessed as it was with love and mutual forbearance.
The good-byes were all said at last, and Dolly had to wink hard to keep back the tears. “Do you remember how homesick I was in September, Beth, and how you came to the rescue like a good angel? What should I have done without you? It will be only a month now until the Christmas holidays, and I certainly ought to be able to stand it four weeks without getting lonesome.”
“You should have seen what a forlorn object she was, Mary,” interrupted Beth. “She sat on the edge of her bed looking as if she had not a friend in all the world.”