STILL NO NEWS
It was raining that Thursday morning and nobody was pleased. The
recitation rooms were dark and gloomy on rainy days and all plans for a
pleasant afternoon outdoors were spoiled. Naturally the girls hated the
idea of being confined to the veranda when prairie, grove and meadow
were so much more inviting. The morning had seemed long and poky,
lessons had proved uncommonly monotonous, there was nothing at all
interesting for lunch and study hour had dragged; but at last, here was
Sallie with the mail bag. Everybody but Henrietta brightened
perceptibly. Henrietta looked as if she were trying—without very much
success—to brace herself for a trying ordeal.
Mabel, however, looked cheerfully expectant. Nowadays there was always
at least one letter a week for Mabel from Germany, and when it came
Mabel always felt quite distinguished; she was the _only_ girl who
received letters from a foreign land. She felt especially elated
whenever Miss Wilson, the very stiffest of the Seniors, begged for the
stamps to send to her brother who was making a collection. On this
particular day, there were letters for most of the Lakeville girls and
for Mabel too; but all four of them were casting anxious glances in
Henrietta’s direction. They had acquired the habit. Their hearts were
wrung by her obvious suffering and by the courage with which she endured
it. 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 it
open. Jean had followed her quietly and stood waiting to comfort her in
case of need. After a moment or two, Henrietta pointed silently to the
opening words and Jean read: “Still no news of your dear father.”
Presently Jean and Henrietta left the room and the sympathetic eyes of
the other girls followed them to the doorway.
“That’s worse than losing a relative by sudden death,” said Eleanor
Pratt, soberly.
“Yes,” agreed Elisabeth Wilson. “This suspense must be perfectly
harrowing—in fact, I can _see_ it is. Poor kid! I’m so sorry for her I
don’t know what to do.”
“There isn’t anything one _can_ do,” said Beatrice Holmes. “I’ve watched
her every day at mail time and it’s just pitiful to see how she hates to
open her letters.”
The mail distributed, some of the girls went to their respective rooms
to remove from their persons the ink stains, chalk dust and other
visible signs of a busy session in school. Others flocked to the veranda
to stroll back and forth like caged lions grumbling in captivity.
“This is a beastly rain,” said little Jane Pool. “The ground is just
soaked.”
“‘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 just
plain water. I can’t even go to look at my pig.”
“You ought to sit beside him with an umbrella,” teased Debbie. “He may
be getting drowned.”
“He’s all right,” assured always-comforting Sallie. “Charles moved him
into the barn—he knew it was going to rain. Hello, Maude, why so
pensive? What mischief are you cooking up now?”
“That’s just the trouble,” complained Maude. “Nothing _will_ cook. I’ve
been trying hard to think of something awfully wicked to do to cheer
poor Henrietta up. The trouble is, when I really _want_ to be bad I
can’t do it. _My_ badness always breaks out of its own accord when I
least expect it; just when I’m really _trying_ to be good. When it’s
really necessary for me to be wicked, as it is right now, I surprise
everybody—and especially dear Miss Woodruff—by being too good to be
true. A regular angel child!”
“Still,” offered Hazel, “you managed to start something yesterday. I
thought I’d _die_ when I looked out the window and saw all you girls
turning 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 stuff
he had clipped from the hedges and the grass he had raked up after
galloping around all the morning with his lawn mower, in a lovely big
pile right in front of the office windows. Well, the minute I saw it
yesterday afternoon, I forgot that I was a boarding school ‘Young
lady’—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 did
some, too—just lovely ones. So did Cora and Jane and Bettie—nearly all
the West Corridor girls. All they needed was little Maude to start
them.”
“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 and
Mrs. Henry and Miss Blossom came out on the porch and clapped their
hands and Doctor Rhodes said he’d give a prize for the girl that could
do the best handspring. He offered a quarter, and who do you think got
it!”
“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 a
perfectly lovely one and Doctor Rhodes presented her with the quarter.
The other two would have tried it next; but just then Charles came with
the wagon to pick the stuff up and he was none too pleased at finding it
all over the place so we helped him load the wagon. Next time he cuts
the grass he’s going to make us a perfectly grand pile. He said he’d
bring us up some of that long stuff from the meadow and we can have a
regular 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 pictures
of former graduating classes; all those proud Seniors in their white
frocks. It’s particularly harrowing just now because I haven’t a decent
rag to wear myself.”
Presently the porch was deserted and the bored girls went to their own
rooms.
One of Sallie’s many duties at Highland Hall was to answer the doorbell
at such times as the two neat maids were busy in the kitchen. Sallie had
just dusted the class of 1897 and was beginning on the frame of class
1898, when the doorbell rang. It had taken her almost an hour to get
that far because she had found a new interest in the pictures. She was
examining the frocks and wishing that _she_ might have tucks like these
or 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 to
chance visitors, rapped at the door of room number twenty. Marjory
opened it.
“A gentleman in the library to see Miss Henrietta Bedford,” announced
Sallie, sedately. But Sallie’s eyes were dancing and she was a little
breathless as if she had been running—as indeed she had—all the long way
from the front door.
“A gentleman!” exclaimed Henrietta. “I don’t _know_ any gentleman. Do
you mean Doctor Rhodes?”
“I do not,” returned Sallie. “But don’t be frightened—there isn’t
anything 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 fooling
me. There _couldn’t_ be a gentleman in the library to see me.”
“But there _is_,” declared Sallie. “You’ll just hate yourself if you
don’t hurry. Do start. I want to see you moving before I deliver this
Special Delivery letter to Isabelle—two cent stamps aren’t swift enough
for Clarence.”
Henrietta laid her hairbrush down deliberately and started leisurely
toward the door.
“Come on, Marjory,” said she, “I ought to have a chaperon if there
really is a gentleman, but I’m pretty sure it’s Maude—she loves to dress
up and play jokes on us. She might as well have two victims.”
“Do you suppose,” queried Marjory, in an awe-stricken whisper, when the
pair had reached the top of the last long flight of stairs, “that it’s
that silly Theolog that wrote you a note after he saw you at the
concert? There really _is_ a hat on the hat rack.”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” admitted Henrietta. “The silly goose makes
eyes 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 was
frightened but I could see by Sallie’s face that it wasn’t anything
dreadful.”
“You go ahead,” said Marjory. “If it really is _your_ visitor—”