"Oh," Tina returned, and then she and Angel whispered together. Finally the little girl came over toward the closed door.
"I wish you would not be lonesome just now, mother," she murmured, "just when we are most dreadfully busy. If you will only go away for a little while and then come back, why, Angel and I will love to play with you."
"I am afraid I won't be here after a while," Betty answered and then walked slowly away. It was absurd for her to feel wounded by such a trifle, and yet recently it had looked as though Bettina preferred Angelique's company to hers. What a useless person she was growing to be! Well, at least she and Meg were going to a Suffrage meeting that afternoon! She had not intended going, but the baby was asleep and Anthony would not be home for hours. Perhaps after the talk ended she might drive by and get Anthony to return with her. She had not thought him looking very well that morning.
CHAPTER XVI
A Talk That Was Not an Explanation
THE Suffrage meeting was fairly interesting, but then both Meg and Betty had been believers in equal rights for men and women ever since their Camp Fire days and there were few new arguments to be heard on the subject.
When they came out from the crowded hall, however, it was still too early to call for Anthony. There could be no hope of getting hold of him before half-past five o'clock. So it was Meg Emmet's suggestion that she and Betty stop by and see her father for a few moments. Professor Everett had a slight cold and his daughter was a little uneasy about him.
They found the old gentleman in his library sipping hot tea and re-reading a letter from his son, Horace, whom Betty could not ever think of by any more serious name than "Bumps." She always saw a vision of the small boy dragging around at his sister Meg's heels and tumbling over every object in their way. However, "Bumps" had grown up to be a very clever fellow and had a better record at college than his brother John ever had. The young man was to graduate in law at Cornell in the coming spring. The present letter was to say, however, that he expected to spend Christmas in Concord with his father. He had been doing some tutoring at Cornell and had earned the money for his trip himself.