Betty’s merely said:
“My Christmas thought is with you now and always, dear Princess. Trust me and love me if you can. You may not approve of what I am doing, but some day I shall try to explain it to you. I can’t ask you to write me unless you will send the letter to Mother and she will forward it. Do nothing rash, dear Princess, Betty, friend, while I am not near to look after you. Your always devoted Polly.”
With a little laugh that was not altogether a cheerful one, Betty also turned this letter over to Mollie. The two girls were in Betty’s bedroom with no one else present.
“Like Polly, wasn’t it, to tell me not to do anything rash when she was not around to run things?” Betty said with a shrug of her shoulders and a little arching of her delicate brows.
Mollie looked at her admiringly. Betty had not seemed altogether as she used to be in the first few days after her arrival, but recently, with the coming of the holidays and the arrival of their old friends, she certainly was as pretty as ever. Now she had on an ancient blue silk dressing gown which was an especial favorite and her red-brown hair was loose over her shoulders. The two friends were resting after a strenuous day. In a few hours Esther was to give her first real dinner party and they had all been working together toward the great event.
“But why should Polly warn you against rashness under any circumstances?” Mollie returned, after having glanced over the note. “You are not given to doing foolish things as she is. I suppose because Polly is so dreadfully rash herself she believes the same of other people.”
There was no answer at first except that the Princess settled herself more deeply in her big Morris chair. Mollie was lying on the bed near by. Then she laughed again.
“Oh, you need not be so sure of my good sense, Mavourneen, as Polly used to call you. I may not be rash in the same way that old Pollykins is, perhaps because I have not the same courage, yet I may not be so far away from it as you think. Only I wish Polly found my society as necessary to her happiness as hers is to mine. I simply dread the thought of a Christmas without her, and yet she is probably having a perfectly blissful time somewhere with never a thought of us.”
Hearing a sudden knock at their door at this instant Mollie tumbled off the bed to answer it. Yet not before she had time to reply, “I am not so sure Polly is as happy as you think.” Then the little maid standing outside in the hall thrust into her arms four boxes of flowers.
Nearly breathless with excitement Mollie immediately dropped them all into her friend’s lap.