“You will never understand perhaps, Angel, how much my learning to know you this winter has done for me. I was dreadfully unhappy over something myself, and perhaps I am still, but coming to visit you in Boston and then our being together down here has cheered me immensely. I know you are a great deal younger than I am, but if Polly O’Neill never writes me again or wishes to have anything more to do with me, perhaps some day you may be willing to be my very, very intimate friend. You see I have not had even a single line from Polly in months and months and I can’t even guess what on earth has become of her.”
CHAPTER XIV—A Sudden Summons
Though Billy Webster had brought with him from the village half a dozen letters and as many papers, no one of the dwellers in Sunrise cabin was able to read anything for three or four hours after his arrival.
For Betty and Mollie were having an informal luncheon. But indeed, ever since taking up their abode at the cabin several weeks before, they had never passed a single day without guests. For it was too much like old times for their Woodford friends to find the door of the little house once more hospitably open, with a log fire burning in the big fire place in the living room and the movement and laughter of girls inside the old cabin and out.
At present there were only the four of them living there together with the Ashton’s old Irish cook, Ann, as their guardian, chaperon and first aid in domestic difficulties. Later on, there would be other members of the Sunrise Hill club, who were already looking forward to spending their holidays at the cabin.
As a matter of course, Billy Webster was at present their most frequent visitor, although his calls were ordinarily short. Almost every morning he used to ride up to the cabin on horseback to see if things had gone well with his friends during the night, or to ask if there were any errands in the village which he could do or have done for them. For you may remember that the land on which the cabin stood had been bought from Billy’s father and was not far from their farm. Billy now seemed to be the only one of their former boy friends who was able to come often to the old cabin.
John Everett was at work in the broker’s office in New York City, Frank Wharton had only just returned from his honeymoon journey with Eleanor Meade, and Anthony Graham was attending a session of the New Hampshire Legislature and probably spending his week ends in visits to Meg Everett. There were other men friends, assuredly, who appeared at the cabin now and then, but they had fewer associations with the past.
Betty was looking forward to John Everett’s coming a little later; but she had begged him to wait until they were more comfortably settled and the two younger girls had grown accustomed to their new surroundings.
Today Rose Barton and Faith had driven out to the cabin for luncheon and Mrs. Crippen, Betty’s step-mother with the new small step-brother, who was an adorable red-haired baby with the pinkest of cheeks and the bluest eyes in the world. Then, soon after lunch, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wharton appeared in their up-to-date motor car, which had been Frank’s wedding gift from his father.
So it was a simple enough matter to understand why neither Betty nor Mollie had the opportunity even to glance inside the envelopes of their letters, though Mollie recognized that she had received one from her mother and Betty saw that Mrs. Wharton had also written to her. There was nothing unusual in this, for Betty and Mrs. Wharton had always remained intimate and devoted friends, just as they had been since Betty was a tiny girl and Mrs. Wharton, as Mrs. O’Neill, lived across the street from the big Ashton house.