CHAPTER XI
APRIL 19 AND 23
Ethel Blue took no part in the historical program that Helen put on the stage of the Glen Point Orphanage on April 19th, "Patriots' Day," when Massachusetts folk celebrated the Revolutionary battle of Concord and Lexington. The reason was that she was just getting over a cold that had come upon her at the very time when the others were making ready for the performance, and had made her feel so wretched that she could do nothing outside of her school work. This was how it happened that she was sitting at the rear of the room when Edward Watkins came in, looked searchingly over the audience and then slipped into a chair beside her.
"Miss Merriam not here?" he murmured under cover of a duet that Dorothy and Della were playing on the piano.
"No."
"Do you know why she won't speak to me?"
Ethel Blue fairly trembled. What was she to say? She had been warned not to interfere in other people's affairs. Yet she did not know how to answer without telling the truth. So she said:
"I know how it began—her getting mad with you. I don't understand why."