"I was sure of it," said Murray Hill triumphantly. "You resemble him
so strongly. Please don't consider me as a stranger a minute longer,
for Max and I are like brothers. Indeed, I owe my life to him. Last
summer I was out there on a surveying expedition, and I took typhoid
in a little out-of-the-way place where good nursing was not to be had
for love or money. Your brother attended me and he managed to pull me
through. He never left me day or night until I was out of danger, and
he worked like a Trojan for me."
"Dear old Max," said Grace, her brown eyes shining with pride and
pleasure. "That is so like him. He is such a dear brother and I
haven't seen him for four years. To see somebody who knows him so well
is next best thing to seeing himself."
"He is an awfully fine fellow," said Mr. Hill heartily, "and I'm
delighted to have met the 'little sister' he used to talk so much
about. I want you to come ever and meet my mother and sister. They
have heard me talk so much about Max that they think almost as much
of him as I do, and they will be glad to meet his sister."
Mrs. Hill, a handsome, dignified lady who was one of the chaperones of
the prom, received Grace warmly, while Beatrice Hill, an extremely
pretty, smartly gowned girl, made her feel at home immediately.
"You came with Sid, didn't you?" she whispered. "Sid is so sly--he
never tells us whom he is going to take anywhere. But when I saw you
come in with him I knew I was going to like you, you looked so jolly.
And you're really the sister of that splendid Dr. Seeley who saved
Murray's life last summer? And to think you've been at Payzant nearly
a whole term and we never knew it!"
"Well, how have you enjoyed our prom, Miss Seeley?" asked Sid, as they
walked home together under the arching elms of the college campus.
"Oh! it was splendid," said Grace enthusiastically. "Everybody was so
nice. And then to meet someone who could tell me so much about Max! I
must write them home all about it before I sleep, just to calm my head
a bit. Mother and the girls will be so interested, and I must send Lou
and Mab a carnation apiece for their scrapbooks."
"Give me one back, please," said Sid. And Grace with a little blush,
did so.
That night, while Grace was slipping the stems of her carnations and
putting them into water, three little bits of conversation were being
carried on which it is necessary to report in order to round up this
story neatly and properly, as all stories should be rounded up.
In the first place, Beatrice Hill was saying to Sidney, "Oh, Sid, that
Miss Seeley you had at the prom is a lovely girl. I don't know when
I've met anyone I liked so much. She was so jolly and friendly and she
didn't put on learned airs at all, as so many of those Payzant girls
do. I asked her all about herself and she told me, and all about her
mother and sisters and home and the lovely times they had together,
and how hard they worked to send her to college too, and how she
taught school in vacations and 'roomed' herself to help along. Isn't
it so brave and plucky of her! I know we are going to be great
friends."
"I hope so," said Sidney briefly, "because I have an idea that she and
I are going to be very good friends too."
And Sidney went upstairs and put away a single white carnation very
carefully.
In the second place, Mrs. Hill was saying to her eldest son, "I liked
that Miss Seeley very much. She seemed a very sweet girl."
And, finally, Agnes Walters and Edna Hayden were discussing the matter
in great mystification in their room.
"I can't understand it at all," said Agnes slowly. "Sid Hill took her
to the prom and he must have sent her those carnations too. She could
never have afforded them herself. And did you see the fuss his people
made over her? I heard Beatrice telling her that she was coming to
call on her tomorrow, and Mrs. Hill said she must look upon
'Beechlawn' as her second home while she was at Payzant. If the Hills
are going to take her up we'll have to be nice to her."
"I suppose," said Edna conclusively, "the truth of the matter is that
Sid Hill meant to ask her anyway. I dare say he asked her long ago,
and she would know our invitation was a fraud. So the joke is on
ourselves, after all."
But, as you and I know, that, with the exception of the last sentence,
was not the truth of the matter at all.