Instinctively Sally bowed and smiled, her lips unconsciously framing the names: “President and Mrs. Wilson.”
Then as they both returned her greeting, a little prayer went up from the girl’s inner consciousness, that this great man who so desired the future peace of the world, might be able to help in bringing it to pass.
CHAPTER XVII
An Unexpected Intrusion
One morning about two weeks later Bettina Graham entered her Camp Fire guardian’s small private sitting-room bearing a note in her hand.
The sitting-room adjoined Mrs. Burton’s bed-room and was at the front of the house on the second floor. Indeed the two rooms were the choice ones of the entire house so that Mrs. Burton had objected to Miss Patricia’s not occupying them herself. The house was hers and she was also the oldest member of the household.
However, Miss Patricia had at once protested that not only were the rooms not particularly desirable, but that they were too cluttered with artistic paraphernalia for her to endure living in them. She had then established herself in a severely plain bed-room on the third floor, after having a great part of the furniture which the room had previously contained removed to other bed-rooms.
Knowing that Miss Patricia would probably not have been comfortable amid her present surroundings, afterwards Mrs. Burton allowed herself the privilege of thoroughly enjoying them.
The two rooms evidently had been designed for a woman of luxurious and exquisite taste. The walls of both rooms were of a delicate robin’s egg blue with panelings of French oak. The furniture was of French oak upholstered in the same shade of blue tapestry and the curtains were of heavy, blue satin damask.
Mrs. Burton was curled up in a large blue chair, writing a letter upon a portfolio which she balanced shakily in her lap.
“I was afraid you might be Aunt Patricia, Bettina. She would undoubtedly reproach me for writing a letter on my lap instead of upon that ornate desk in the corner so plainly intended for the purpose. Don’t tell on me, I know it is reprehensible, but I have always hated doing the right things in the right places at the right time.