Douglas smothered a little sigh. This was no time to think of self or to repine about her private ambitions, but somehow the thought would creep in that this meant good-by to college for her. She had planned to take examinations for Bryn Mawr early in June and was confident of passing. She had her father’s ability to stick to a thing until it was accomplished, and no matter how distasteful a subject was to her, she mastered it. This was her graduating year at school. Now all joy of the approaching commencement was gone. She was sorry that her dress was already bought, and in looking over the check book, she had found it was paid for, too. Forty dollars for one dress and that of material that had at the best but little wearing quality! Beautiful, of course, but when a family had been spending money as freely as this family had always done, what business had one of them with a forty dollar white dress with no wear to it when the balance in the bank showed only eighty-three dollars and fifty-nine cents?
A sharp ringing of the front door bell interrupted Douglas’s musings and made all of the sisters conscious of their red eyes and noses.
“Who under Heaven? It is nine o’clock!”
“Cousin Lizzie Somerville, of course. She always rings like the house was on fire.”
It was Miss Elizabeth Somerville, a second cousin of their father. She came into the library in rather unseemly haste for one of her usual dignity.
“Where is your father?” she demanded, without the ceremony of greeting the girls. “I must see him immediately. Your mother, too, of course, if she wants to come down, but I must see your father.”
“But he is gone!”
“Gone where? When will he return?”
“In about two months,” said Helen coolly. Helen was especially gifted in tackling Cousin Lizzie, who was of an overbearing nature that needed handling. “He and Mother have gone to Bermuda.”
“Bermuda in the summer! Nonsense! Tell me when I can see him, as it is of the greatest importance. I should think you could see that I am in trouble and not stand there teasing me,” and since it was to be a day of tears, Cousin Lizzie burst out crying, too.