Part 15 (2/2)
”Oh, no, you haven't,” Betty a.s.sured her. ”Eleanor knows how queer Jean is, and what horrid things she says about people who won't follow her lead. None of that crowd would help about the toy-shop except Kate Denise, but every one else has been fine. And I know they haven't thought that Eleanor was trying to get anything out of them.”
Madeline sighed mournfully. ”In Bohemia people don't think that sort of thing,” she said. ”It complicates life so to have to consider it always.
Good-night, Betty.”
”Good-night,” returned Betty cheerfully. ”Don't forget that the senior 'Merry Hearts' have a tea-drinking to-morrow.”
”I'm not likely to,” laughed Madeline. ”Every one of them that I've seen has mentioned it. They're all agog with curiosity.”
”They'll be more so with joy, when I've told them the news,” declared Betty, holding her candle high above her head to light Madeline through the hall.
”Dear me! I wish there could be a cla.s.s without officers and committees and editors and commencement plays,” she told the green lizard a little later. ”Those things make such a lot of worry and hard feeling. But then I suppose it wouldn't be much of a cla.s.s, if it wasn't worth worrying about. And anyway it's almost vacation.”
CHAPTER IX
A WEDDING AND A VISIT TO BOHEMIA
Betty and Madeline went to their cla.s.s meeting on the following afternoon very much as a trembling freshman goes to her first midyears, but nothing disastrous happened.
”I fancy that Jean has taken more than Eleanor and me into her confidence,” Madeline whispered. Besides, the Blunderbuss was in her place, her placid but unyielding presence offering an effectual reminder to the girls who had been admiring Eleanor's executive ability and resourcefulness that it would be safer not to mention her name in connection with the play committee.
But before that was elected the preliminary committee, which, to quote Katherine Kittredge, had been hunting down the masterpieces of w.i.l.l.y Shakespeare ever since the middle of junior year, made its report. The members had not been able to agree unanimously on a play, so the chairman read the majority's opinion, in favor of ”As You Like It,” and then Katherine Kittredge explained the position of the minority, who wanted to be very ambitious indeed and try ”The Merchant of Venice.”
There was a spirited debate between the two sets of partisans, after which, to Katherine's infinite satisfaction, 19-- voted to give ”The Merchant of Venice” at its commencement.
Then the committee to manage the play was chosen, and Betty Wales was the only person who was much surprised when she was unanimously elected to the post of costume member.
”I on that committee!” she exclaimed in dismay. ”Why, I don't know anything about Shakespeare.”
”You will before you get through with this business,” laughed Barbara Gordon, who had been made chairman. ”The course begins to-morrow at two in my room. No cuts allowed.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I DO CARE ABOUT HAVING FRIENDS LIKE YOU,” SHE SAID.]
Betty's pleasure in this unexpected honor was rather dampened by the fact that Jean Eastman had proposed her name, making it seem almost as if she were taking sides with Eleanor's enemies. But Madeline only laughed at what she called Jean's neat little scheme for getting the last word.
”Ruth Ford was all ready to nominate you,” she said, ”but Jean dashed in ahead of her. She wanted to a.s.sure me that I hadn't silenced her for long.”
So Betty gave herself up to the happy feeling of having shown herself worthy to be trusted with part of 19--'s most momentous undertaking.
”I must write Nan to-night,” she said, ”but I don't think I shall mention the costume part. She would think I was just as frivolous as ever, and Barbara says that all the committee are expected to help with things in general.”
Whereupon she remembered her tea-drinking, and hurried home to find most of the guests already a.s.sembled, and Eleanor, who had not gone to the cla.s.s meeting but who had heard all about it from the others, waiting on the stairs to congratulate her.
”I don't care half as much about being on the committee as I do about having friends like you to say they're glad,” declared Betty, hugging Eleanor because there were a great many things that she didn't know how to say to her.
”Yes, friends are what count,” said Eleanor earnestly, ”and Betty, I think I'm going to leave Harding with a good many. At least I've made some new ones this week.”
And that was all the reference that was ever made to the way Eleanor's oldest friend at Harding had treated her.
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