“My letter,” said Ray, “was from the girls, all of them; they are at Ocean Beach for a week together; only four of the class missing; isn’t that doing well for so large a class?”
“Eleven girls!” Jean exclaimed. “What a babel they must make! I hope they are not all at the same boarding house! Where are the others?”
“The others? of the class? Why, Edith and Emily Prentiss are still in the East; Edith is studying music in Boston.”
“And the other two?” persisted the heedless Jean. Her sister turned grave eyes upon her.
“Don’t you remember, Jean, that Celia Roberts died only a few weeks after commencement?”
“Oh, I remember; and you are the fourth? Poor Ray! you ought to be there this minute.”
Mr. Forman rose up suddenly, his coffee still waiting. “I must go,” he said. Mrs. Forman protested anxiously; wouldn’t he let her give him a cup of hot coffee? No, he wouldn’t; he murmured something about it being later than he had realized, and hurried away.
Mrs. Forman waited until the door closed after him, then spoke in a discouraged tone: “I wish, Jean, you could learn to be a little more considerate of your father’s feelings; it is hard enough for him to be compelled to deny you all sorts of pleasures, without having it stabbed into him.”
“It was horrid of me, mommie,” said the penitent Jean. “I wish I hadn’t such an awful forgettery; but father knows that I didn’t mean a thing.”
“Where is Dick?” The mother had just awakened to his absence.