The urgency of this discovery mastered any more personal feelings. They scattered to their rooms, in a wild endeavour to achieve the well-groomed appearance that Miss Dampier was unfeeling enough to demand, in all circumstances. A junior, still in the flush of hero-worship that surrounds tennis championships, hailed the twins as they reached their door.
“Letter for you in the rack. Shall I get it for you?”
“Oh, do, there’s a good kid!” Jo gasped, struggling with buttons as she ran. “Give it to us at tea—we haven’t time to sneeze!”
The letter lay between them throughout tea, while they gallantly tried to obey Ellen Webster’s whispered injunction at the door—“Assume an appetite, though you have it not!” Luckily, the night was hot enough to cause a general disinclination for food, and no one in authority paid any special attention to the lack of interest in the meal manifested by the bathing party. Jean and Jo cast longing glances at their letter, wishing that the time of release would come, and set them free to read it.
It was a rather thick letter, addressed in their father’s firm writing in the style in which he always addressed them—“Miss J. Weston.” Mother might give them the individual Jean or Josephine, or lump them together as “The Misses Weston,” but Father held that these distinctions, with twins, were merely waste of time, since anything he had to say was sure to be said to both. A letter from him was rather a rarity, and the twins puzzled a little over it as tea dragged slowly on.
“Queer that Father should write, when we’ll be home in three days,” Jo said. “I wonder what he’s writing about.”
“Thank goodness, there’s Miss Dampier standing up for grace, so we can cut off and read it,” Jean answered, getting to her feet. The School rose, and after grace was said, filed out of the long room. As the twins passed Miss Dampier, she beckoned to them.
“You have had your father’s letter?” she asked. They fancied her face was rather grave.
“We got it just before tea,” Jean answered. “We haven’t had time to read it yet.”
“I heard from him, also,” the Head remarked. “Come and see me in the study when you have read yours.”