The Little Colonels House Party | Page 8

before she had finished cutting it open with a pin. Then she spread the letter out on her knees, drawing a long breath of pleasure as the faintest odour of violets floated up from the paper with its dainty monogram at the top.
Davy waited in silence, watching a flush spread over Betty's face as she read. Her breath came short and her heart beat fast.
"Oh, Davy," she exclaimed, in a low, wondering tone. "What do you think? It is an invitation to a house party at Locust; Lloyd Sherman's house party. Oh, it's like a lovely, lovely fairy tale with me for the princess. I've never travelled on the cars since I was old enough to remember it, and they've sent passes for me to go. I've never had any girls to play with in all my life, and now there will be two besides Lloyd; and, oh, Davy, best of all, I'll see my beautiful, beautiful godmother! I shall be there a whole month, and she knew my mamma and was her dearest friend. I haven't seen her since I was a baby, when she came to my christening, and of course I can't remember anything about that."
Davy listened to her raptures without saying anything for awhile. Then he set aside his usual custom and asked a question. "Why are you crying?" he demanded. "There's a tear running down the side of your nose."
"Is there?" asked Betty, brushing it away with the back of her hand. "I didn't know it. Maybe it's because I am so glad. It seems as if I was going back to my own family; to somebody who really belongs to you more than just fourth cousins, you know. A godmother must be the next best thing to a real mother, you see, Davy, because it's a mother that God gives you to take the place of your own, when she is gone. Oh, let's hurry home and tell Cousin Hetty."
Slipping from the window-sill to the floor, she carried the book she had been reading back to its corner in the little red bookcase, and shut it up with the musty volumes inside. Then she walked slowly down the narrow aisle of the little meeting-house, between its double rows of narrow straight-backed pews. As she reached the bench-like altar, extending in front of the pulpit, she slipped to her knees a moment. Her sunbonnet had fallen back from her tousled curls, and the late afternoon sun streamed across her shining little face.
"Thank you, God," came in a happy whisper from the depths of a glad little heart. "It's the nicest surprise you ever sent me, and I'm so much obliged."
Then Betty stood up and put on her sunbonnet. The next moment she had scrambled over the sill, pulled the window down after her, and walked down the slanting board to the ground. Catching Davy by the hand, and swinging it back and forth as they ran, she went skipping across the road regardless of the dust. Down the lane they went, between the rows of cherry-trees; across the orchard and up the path. Somehow the world had never before seemed half so beautiful to Betty as it did now. The May skies had never been quite so blue, or the afternoon sunshine so heavenly golden. She sang as she went, swinging Davy's warm little hand in hers. It was only one of Mother Goose's old melodies, but she sang it as a bird sings, for sheer gladness:
"Gay go up and gay go down, To ring the bells of London town."

CHAPTER III.
"ONE FLEW EAST."
The New York letter reached the hotel while Eugenia was out in the park with her maid, and the bell-boy brought it to her on a salver with several others, as she was stepping into the elevator to go up to her room.
"Here, take my gloves, Eliot!" she exclaimed, tossing them to the maid, and beginning to tear open the envelopes as soon as her hands were free. Eliot, a plain, middle-aged woman, with a patient face and slow gait, picked up the gloves, and followed her young mistress down the corridor.
Eugenia dashed into her sitting-room, throwing herself into a big armchair, regardless of the fact that she was crushing the roses in her pretty new hat as she leaned her head against the high back. Three of the letters which she opened so eagerly were from the girls who had been her best friends at boarding-school. She had been away from Riverdale Seminary only a week, but already she was homesick to go back. The school was a very select one, and the rules were rigid, but Eugenia had known no other home for three years.
In the great hotel where she was now, she saw her father only in the evenings, and