CHAPTER XXIV
STILL NO NEWS
It was raining that Thursday morning and nobody was pleased. Therecitation rooms were dark and gloomy on rainy days and all plans for apleasant afternoon outdoors were spoiled. Naturally the girls hated theidea of being confined to the veranda when prairie, grove and meadowwere so much more inviting. The morning had seemed long and poky,lessons had proved uncommonly monotonous, there was nothing at allinteresting for lunch and study hour had dragged; but at last, here wasSallie with the mail bag. Everybody but Henrietta brightenedperceptibly. Henrietta looked as if she were trying--without very muchsuccess--to brace herself for a trying ordeal.
Mabel, however, looked cheerfully expectant. Nowadays there was alwaysat least one letter a week for Mabel from Germany, and when it cameMabel always felt quite distinguished; she was the _only_ girl whoreceived letters from a foreign land. She felt especially elatedwhenever Miss Wilson, the very stiffest of the Seniors, begged for thestamps to send to her brother who was making a collection. On thisparticular day, there were letters for most of the Lakeville girls andfor Mabel too; but all four of them were casting anxious glances inHenrietta's direction. They had acquired the habit. Their hearts werewrung by her obvious suffering and by the courage with which she enduredit. This long suspense was really getting to be hard on _all_ of them.
"Miss Henrietta Bedford," called Sallie.
Henrietta, pale and trembling, forced herself to step to the platform,received her letter, carried it to the window and nervously tore itopen. Jean had followed her quietly and stood waiting to comfort her incase of need. After a moment or two, Henrietta pointed silently to theopening words and Jean read: "Still no news of your dear father."
Presently Jean and Henrietta left the room and the sympathetic eyes ofthe other girls followed them to the doorway.
"That's worse than losing a relative by sudden death," said EleanorPratt, soberly.
"Yes," agreed Elisabeth Wilson. "This suspense must be perfectlyharrowing--in fact, I can _see_ it is. Poor kid! I'm so sorry for her Idon't know what to do."
"There isn't anything one _can_ do," said Beatrice Holmes. "I've watchedher every day at mail time and it's just pitiful to see how she hates toopen her letters."
The mail distributed, some of the girls went to their respective roomsto remove from their persons the ink stains, chalk dust and othervisible signs of a busy session in school. Others flocked to the verandato stroll back and forth like caged lions grumbling in captivity.
"This is a beastly rain," said little Jane Pool. "The ground is justsoaked."
"'It isn't raining rain, today,'" quoted Grace Allen, "'it's raining--'"
"Water," said unpoetical Mabel.
"Violets," concluded Grace.
"Water," insisted Mabel.
"Violets," said Grace.
"Both wrong," said Debbie Clark. "It's roses. We've _had_ violets."
"I don't see any of those, either," said Mabel, crossly. "It's justplain water. I can't even go to look at my pig."
"You ought to sit beside him with an umbrella," teased Debbie. "He maybe getting drowned."
"He's all right," assured always-comforting Sallie. "Charles moved himinto the barn--he knew it was going to rain. Hello, Maude, why sopensive? What mischief are you cooking up now?"
"That's just the trouble," complained Maude. "Nothing _will_ cook. I'vebeen trying hard to think of something awfully wicked to do to cheerpoor Henrietta up. The trouble is, when I really _want_ to be bad Ican't do it. _My_ badness always breaks out of its own accord when Ileast expect it; just when I'm really _trying_ to be good. When it'sreally necessary for me to be wicked, as it is right now, I surpriseeverybody--and especially dear Miss Woodruff--by being too good to betrue. A regular angel child!"
"Still," offered Hazel, "you managed to start something yesterday. Ithought I'd _die_ when I looked out the window and saw all you girlsturning somersaults on the lawn."
"What was that?" asked Isabelle. "I must have missed something."
"You missed a lot," assured Maude. "Charles left a large heap of stuffhe had clipped from the hedges and the grass he had raked up aftergalloping around all the morning with his lawn mower, in a lovely bigpile right in front of the office windows. Well, the minute I saw ityesterday afternoon, I forgot that I was a boarding school 'Younglady'--I was back in my childhood--I was a girl again."
"What did you do?" demanded Isabelle.
"You mean, how _many_ did I do."
"You didn't _really_ turn somersaults!"
"I _did_, and I loved it. And that was too much for Victoria. She didsome, too--just lovely ones. So did Cora and Jane and Bettie--nearly allthe West Corridor girls. All they needed was little Maude to startthem."
"You'd have thought they weren't more than six years old," said Hazel.
"What _did_ Miss Woodruff say?"
"She _was_ going to stop them," returned Hazel, "but Doctor Rhodes andMrs. Henry and Miss Blossom came out on the porch and clapped theirhands and Doctor Rhodes said he'd give a prize for the girl that coulddo the best handspring. He offered a quarter, and who do you think gotit!"
"Victoria Webster, of course."
"Dead wrong. It was Eleanor Pratt."
"What! Not _Miss Pratt_!"
"Yes. Fancy a Senior doing a handspring! She rushed right down and did aperfectly lovely one and Doctor Rhodes presented her with the quarter.The other two would have tried it next; but just then Charles came withthe wagon to pick the stuff up and he was none too pleased at finding itall over the place so we helped him load the wagon. Next time he cutsthe grass he's going to make us a perfectly grand pile. He said he'dbring us up some of that long stuff from the meadow and we can have aregular party. It beats gym all hollow."
"I'm going in," said Isabelle, "it's too wet out here."
"So am I," said Hazel.
"And I have to dust the drawing room," said Sallie. "All those picturesof former graduating classes; all those proud Seniors in their whitefrocks. It's particularly harrowing just now because I haven't a decentrag to wear myself."
Presently the porch was deserted and the bored girls went to their ownrooms.
One of Sallie's many duties at Highland Hall was to answer the doorbellat such times as the two neat maids were busy in the kitchen. Sallie hadjust dusted the class of 1897 and was beginning on the frame of class1898, when the doorbell rang. It had taken her almost an hour to getthat far because she had found a new interest in the pictures. She wasexamining the frocks and wishing that _she_ might have tucks like theseor ruffles like those or sleeves like some other one.
Ten minutes later, Sallie, very demure in the white apron that Mrs.Rhodes compelled her to wear when she opened the big front door tochance visitors, rapped at the door of room number twenty. Marjoryopened it.
"A gentleman in the library to see Miss Henrietta Bedford," announcedSallie, sedately. But Sallie's eyes were dancing and she was a littlebreathless as if she had been running--as indeed she had--all the long wayfrom the front door.
"A gentleman!" exclaimed Henrietta. "I don't _know_ any gentleman. Doyou mean Doctor Rhodes?"
"I do not," returned Sallie. "But don't be frightened--there isn'tanything about this to frighten you."
"Some one from Lakeville? Not Mr. Black?"
"No. You must come down and see for yourself. I was told to bring you."
"I believe you and Maude have been up to some trick. You're just foolingme. There _couldn't_ be a gentleman in the library to see me."
"But there _is_," declared Sallie. "You'll just hate yourself if youdon't hurry. Do start. I want to see you moving before I deliver thisSpecial Delivery letter to Isabelle--two cent stamps aren't swift enoughfor Clarence."
Henrietta laid her hairbrush down deliberately and started leisurelytoward the door.
"Come on, Marjory," said she, "I ought to have a chaperon if therereally is a gentleman, but I'm pretty sure it's Maude--she loves to dressup and play jokes on us. She m
ight as well have two victims."
"Do you suppose," queried Marjory, in an awe-stricken whisper, when thepair had reached the top of the last long flight of stairs, "that it'sthat silly Theolog that wrote you a note after he saw you at theconcert? There really _is_ a hat on the hat rack."
"That's what I'm wondering," admitted Henrietta. "The silly goose makeseyes at me every Sunday. But surely he wouldn't have the nerve to _call_here. If that's who it is, I shall walk right back upstairs. I _know_it's _some_ joke. Sallie's eyes were just dancing. Just at first I wasfrightened but I could see by Sallie's face that it wasn't anythingdreadful."
"You go ahead," said Marjory. "If it really is _your_ visitor--"
Girls of Highland Hall: Further Adventures of the Dandelion Cottagers Page 25
