BETTY LEE, SENIOR
by
HARRIET PYNE GROVE
The World Syndicate Publishing Co.
Cleveland, Ohio—New York City
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1931
The World Syndicate Publishing Co.
Printed in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
I VACATION DAYS
II A GOLDFISH IN THE OCEAN
III A MERRY WHIRL OF GOOD TIMES
IV THE STORM
V A SURPRISING RESCUE
VI VACATION’S LAST FLING
VII SENIORS!
VIII ONE OF THOSE A-D PARTIES
IX THE SENIORS ENTERTAIN
X THE COVETED HONOR
XI AN INTIMATE VIEW FOR JANET
XII VALENTINES
XIII HEARTS AND MASKS
XIV AN EXCHANGE OF HEARTS
XV ONCE MORE BASKETBALL
XVI A PAUSE IN ROMANCE
XVII SHARING JOY
XVIII CONCERNING LOST LETTERS
XIX OF A NUMBER OF THINGS
XX TROPHIES
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BETTY LEE, SENIOR
FOREWORD
While settings and activities for this Betty Lee High School
Series have been freely taken from a real city high school, the
characters are entirely fictitious. It is hoped, however, that
they may to some degree present the life and ambitions of the
very attractive girls whom it has been the author’s pleasure to
meet there.
CHAPTER I
VACATION DAYS
Betty Lee’s vacation before her senior year cannot be passed over with
only casual mention, for it was the “best yet” as declared by Betty and
her two closest chums, Kathryn Allen and Carolyn Gwynne. After the last
exciting activities of June days as juniors and the pleasing freedom
from examinations won by good scholarship, the three girls found
themselves, with others of their class, equipped with cards that
certified completion of the junior work. Before them stretched long
weeks when, Betty said, they “didn’t have to know anything,” and that
state of mind obviously gave them all great pleasure.
Up in the girls’ gym, almost vacant now, they took a last swing and
jump, as they happened to have reason to pass through; and Betty and
Carolyn performed a few funny steps to express their happy state of mind
before they finally left halls to which they would be just as glad to
return in the fall.
However, Betty was expecting to swim in “something beside pools and
rivers.” She gave a little skip as they ran down the walk toward the
Gwynne car, which this time was waiting for them. “I can’t believe it,
Carolyn! ‘Are I’ really going with you to the seashore? I never saw the
ocean but once, when I went East with Father, you know. I said
appropriately, ‘Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean roll,’ but it
wasn’t dark blue a bit. It happened to be a perfectly horrid gray
morning. It was wonderful, all the same.”
“Oh, but you ought to see it sometimes, Betty! I hope we’ll have good
weather, no cold ‘nor’easters’ or anything. But I’m as excited as can be
myself. Think of it, Betty—a perfectly new cottage in a different place
this time. Daddy had such a good chance to sell the old one and we may
buy this if we like it. But we’re renting it for the summer.”
“It doesn’t seem right that we should just _visit you_,” said Kathryn.
“Listen! We’ve had that out before, Gypsy Allen. I’m to have my own room
and I can have whomever I want—_all summer_. I expect to keep it full!
That’s my reward for being a good girl and getting my lessons, in spite
of, well, you know how hard it is to get ’em.”
“We do!” said Kathryn and Betty, “_una cum voce_.”
“So,” continued Carolyn, “why shouldn’t _I_ have the girls I like best
as long as I can induce—them—to—stay?” Carolyn uttered formally the
last part of her sentence, with her head in the air and a high and
mighty look.
The girls giggled as they settled themselves in the car. “Drive around
to Kathryn’s and Betty’s first, please,” said Carolyn to the Gwynne
chauffeur, “then home.”
Betty had not had a chance to call up home since Carolyn had invited her
and Kathryn “to come out and celebrate.” Both she and Kathryn wanted to
get rid of certificates and books, not to mention certain other articles
that seemed to persist in staying in lockers. Carelessness or forgetting
had nothing to do with that, of course.
“Do you like clams and chowders and things, Betty Lee?” asked Carolyn,
after the last stop and delivery of goods, with pleasant permissions to
stay at Carolyn’s.
“I liked everything we tried at New York,” replied Betty, “and I know
that I’ll just adore all the sea food.”
“You’re going to get it,” Carolyn leaned back against the cushions and
stretched forward her stylishly shod toes. “We have beach parties and
everything.”
That sounded delightful. Betty had never heard of a beach party. Yet,
she supposed she must have read of them in stories. But this was
different. She was going to be in one. “And I haven’t told you one
delicious secret!”
“Oh, tell us, Carolyn!” Kathryn spoke beseechingly.
Carolyn laughed and looked mysterious. “I haven’t decided whether to
keep it a secret and surprise you, or to tell you now.”
“Tell us now,” urged beaming Kathryn.
“Maybe it would be more of a thrill if she surprised us,” Betty
suggested, smilingly regarding Carolyn and wondering what the surprise
or secret might be.
“Well,” Carolyn drawled, “I’ll have to make up my mind about it. The
trouble is, you might find out about it some other way, and then I’d
miss the fun of seeing you surprised.”
“That gives us our cue for going right up in the air over whatever it
is, Betty—to please Carolyn!” But Kathryn was regarding Carolyn
affectionately as she said this.
“Suppose you give us a hint of what it is and let us guess,” said Betty.
Carolyn shook her head negatively. “Spoil it all. Maybe I’ll announce it
later. We are going to have our lunch inside, find the coolest spot in
the house to talk over our plans and decide what to take and so on, as
you wanted to do, Betty, and then have our dinner _a la_ picnic under
the trees by the fountain, nothing but cool lemonade and ice cream!”
It was a hot day, but Betty knew there would be more on the menu than
lemonade and ice cream, which would probably be included in their lunch.
Oh, it was always so _nice_ at Carolyn’s!
In Carolyn’s own room after lunch the girls took off frocks and shoes
and lay on the bed to plan for their month together at the seashore. Not
that it was the only topic of conversation, for school affairs were too
recently over for dismissal. Lucia Coletti’s departure for Italy with
her father and mother was one interesting subject.
“Yes,” said Betty, “they were awfully rushed at the last, you know, but
Lucia called me up, just before they were driving to the station, to say
another goodbye. I would have gone to the station with her, only under
the circumstances it didn’t seem appropriate. You know how it is, and
Lucia and I had had our final visit before.”
“Don’t you go and think more of Lucia than you do of us,” reminded
Kathryn with, a grin.
“Couldn’t,” laughed Betty, “but Lucia is a fine girl just the same; and
she had to have some friends, didn’t she?”
“Yes, more than she wanted of some sorts,” wisely said Carolyn.
“They naturally would have a good deal of attention,” said Betty. “I was
the first girl Lucia knew. But Lucia will not forget any of us. The
countess is prettier than ever and they are all so perfectly happy to be
together again. The count rather wanted to go back before, but Lucia
persuaded them to wait till she could finish her work. It was a good
thing she didn’t have to stay for the examinations.”
“Do you have any idea, Betty, that she will come back for her senior
year?”
“Not in the least,” said Betty, to whom the recent romantic situation at
the Murchison home had appealed greatly. “Lucia would like to finish the
course here, and I think Countess Coletti would like to have her do it.
But Lucia was too excited about going back home to think much about
returning. She promised to write and I gave her all the addresses, and
dates, I would have this summer.”
Neither Kathryn nor Carolyn would ever ask Betty questions that would
pry into Lucia’s secrets, though Betty knew that there had been a great
deal of comment over the count’s long absence in travel and the fact
that the countess had remained in America with Lucia for so long. Betty
herself would never betray Lucia’s worried confidences, and now it was
so easy to speak of the happy reunion that she had herself seen and to
pass over anything else she might know. Betty had learned by this time
not to tell everything she knew to everybody.
But she frankly went on to say that she, too, had a piece of news which
she could tell now. “It’s a real happy one, girls. Mr. Murchison has
gone East with them and they will go to some place in Connecticut for
his wedding! He is marrying somebody that he has known for a long time
and they are all going abroad together. That is why Father has to be
very busy this summer and has a lot on his hands.”
“My, what a disappointment to several people here!” exclaimed Kathryn.
“Oh, I oughtn’t to say that, I suppose.”
“I gathered, from what Lucia said, that her mother is real pleased with
her brother’s choice and knows the lady. And it is fixed all right for
Rose Sevilla and her mother to stay just as they are at Murchison’s.
Rose is awfully busy with new draperies and things that the countess
ordered for her brother; and her mother actually looks younger and talks
about when Ramon comes back.”
“Is there any news of him at all?”
“Not a bit, but they have a little hope now. It just makes me sick that
I didn’t find out about them in time to send him word before he left
Detroit! But he’ll turn up some time, I hope—unless the ‘villain’ finds
him and does something terrible. They didn’t tell the mother about the
villain’s having tried to find out from Father.”
Under the trees, not far from the fountain, in the midst of all the
attractions of the lovely Gwynne estate, the three girls at a little
table had their dinner alone, “_a la_ picnic,” as Carolyn had said, and
cool salad, an ice, lemonade and fruit did compose a good and refreshing
part of it.
The girls dawdled over their meal and wondered why they felt so “lazy.”
“It’s the weather, girls,” said Carolyn. “I’m glad we’re through
school—though I believe I’ve said that several times. But don’t expect
me to be original!”
“It’s not only the weather, Carolyn. We’re just sort of let down about
everything. I imagine that the sea air will revive us, won’t it?”
“Yes, Gypsy, if we need reviving by that time.”
Conversation ran on by fits and starts. Daylight began to fade and
little fireflies flashed their lanterns here and there in the shrubbery
or the lower branches of the trees. It was decided that nothing was “so
rare as a day in June” if this one _had_ been rather too warm, and
finally Kathryn inquired if Carolyn had made up her mind in regard to
the great surprise.
“Sure enough, girls!” cried Carolyn. “I believe I _have_ made up my
mind! I’ll tell you!”
Betty assumed a thrilled expression, clasped her hands together
tragically and leaned forward in pretended suspense, not so deeply
pretended, either, for she knew that any surprise so regarded by Carolyn
Gwynne would be “nice.”
“Don’t be silly,” laughed Carolyn, while Kathryn clutched her black hair
with one hand and held the other to her heart.
“It’s about some very splendid people who are going to be in a
cottage—oh, not so very far away. The cottages are scattered up there,
you know.”
Kathryn put both hands to her head now. “Let me think, Carolyn! Who said
she was going to the coast?”
“Never mind thinking, Gypsy. It might be dangerous. You know how
unaccustomed exercise——”
Carolyn was obliged to break off as laughing Kathryn leaned over to
threaten violence.
But at last the news was told. “The Waites have taken a cottage there
and Marcella is going up about the time we do, I think.”
“How fine!” cried Kathryn. “Betty—‘the Pirate of Penzance!’”
But Betty was already thinking of that romantic youth, Marcia Waite’s
brother. “Will the Pirate be on hand?” she asked, after her first
pleased exclamation at the news.
“Very likely,” impressively said Carolyn.
“He will not mean much in our young lives, Kathryn,” continued Betty,
“if he _was_ awfully nice to us at Marcella’s party and other places. He
is all grown up and at _just the age_ when they have terrible cases in
college.”
“Who knows?” sang Carolyn, “but he seemed to like you, Betty. However,
I’d advise you to stick to our friend Chet. There aren’t any boys nicer
than the Dorrance boys.”
Betty assented to that but added that when Chet went into the university
the next year there would probably be an end of good times with him. “It
will be a case of saying farewell, and Chet will be the one to do it,
you see. But it will be simply grand to have Marcella there, somebody we
know; and she will be having company, too, I suppose. Honestly, Carolyn,
I can scarcely wait to go!”
“That wasn’t intended as a pun, I suppose, since there’s no point in it.
But the Waites will be waiting, all right. They go some time next week,
perhaps a day or two before, according to what Marcella said. She said
she would telephone.”
“Then there is one thing more; but I’m not going to tell this.”
“_Another_ secret! Carolyn?”
“Another secret!”