"I'll take it," said Betty decisively. "And I'll wear it and the hat, too, please; you can wrap up my old one."

Bob was silent until the transaction had been completed and they were out of the shop.

"You wait here and I'll see about getting a car to take us along the Drive," he said then.

"You're--you're not mad at me, are you Bob?" faltered Betty, putting an appealing hand on his arm. "I haven't had any fun with clothes all summer long."

"No, I'm not mad. But I think you're an awful chump," replied Bob with his characteristic frankness.

Before the drive was over, Betty was inclined to agree with him.

The car was an open one, and while the day was warm and sunny, there was a lively breeze blowing straight off the lake. The veil persisted in blowing first into Betty's eyes, then into Bob's, and interfered to an amazing degree with their enjoyment of the scenery. Finally, as they rounded a curve and caught the full breath of the breeze, the veil blew away entirely.

"Let it go," said Betty resignedly. "It's cost me six dollars to learn I don't want to wear a veil."

Bob privately decided he liked her much better without the flimsy net affair, but he wisely determined not to air his opinion. There was no use, he told himself, in "rubbing it in."

They had lunch in a cozy little tea-room and went back to the train like seasoned travelers. Bob was an ideal companion for such journeys, for he never lost his head and never missed connections, while nervous haste was unknown to him.

"Won't I be glad to see the Littells!" exclaimed Betty, watching the porter make up their berths.

"So shall I," agreed Bob. "Did you ever know such hospitable people, asking a whole raft of us to spend the week at Fairfields? How many did Bobby write would be there?"

"Let's see," said Betty, checking off on her fingers. "There'll be Bobby and Louise, of course; and Esther who is too young to go away to school, but who will want to do everything we do; Libbie Littell and another Vermont girl we don't know--Frances Martin; you and I; and the five boys Mr. Littell wrote you about--the Tucker twins, Timothy Derby, Sydney Cooke and Winifred Marion Brown. Twelve of us! Won't it be fun! I do wish the Guerin girls could be there, but we'll see them at the school."

"I'd like to see that Winifred Marion chap," declared Bob. "A boy with a girl's name has his troubles cut out for him, I should say."

"Lots of 'em have girls' names--in history," contributed Betty absently.

"What time do we get into Washington, Bob?"

"Around five, probably six p.m., for we're likely to be a bit late,"

replied Bob. "Let's go to bed now, Betty, and get an early start in the morning."

The day spent on the train was uneventful, and, contrary to Bob's expectations, they were on time at every station. Betty's heart beat faster as the hands of her little wrist watch pointed to 5:45 and the pa.s.sengers began to gather up their wraps. The porter came through and brushed them thoroughly and Betty adjusted her new hat carefully.

The long train slid into the Union Station. With what different emotions both Bob and Betty had seen the beautiful, brilliantly lighted building on the occasion of their first trip to Washington! Then each had been without a friend in the great city, and now they were to be welcomed by a host.

Betty's cheeks flushed rose-red, but her lovely eyes filled with a sudden rush of tears.

"I'm so happy!" she whispered to the bewildered Bob.

"Want my handkerchief?" he asked anxiously, at which Betty tried not to laugh.

CHAPTER VII

FUN AT FAIRFIELDS

The long platform was crowded. Betty followed Bob, who carried their bags. She tried to peer ahead, but the moving forms blocked her view.

Just after they pa.s.sed through the gate, some one caught her.

"Betty, you lamb! I never was so glad to see any one in my life!"

cried a gay voice, and Bobby Littell hugged her close in one of her rare caresses.

Bob Henderson held out his hand as soon as Bobby released Betty. He liked this straightforward, brusque girl who so evidently adored Betty.

"Why, Bob, you've grown a foot!" was Bobby Littell's greeting to him.

Bob modestly disclaimed any such record, and then Louise and Esther, who had swooped upon Betty, turned to shake hands with him.

"The rest of the crowd is out in the car," said Bobby carelessly.

Outside the station, in the open plaza, a handsome closed car awaited them. The gray-haired chauffeur, cap in hand, stood back as a procession of boys and girls advanced upon Bob and Betty and their escort.

"Oh, Betty, dear!" Short, plump Libbie Littell, who had relinquished her claim to the name of "Betty" in Betty Gordon's favor some time ago, hurled herself upon her friend. "To think we're going to the same school!"

"Well, Frances is going, too," said Bobby practically. "She might like to be introduced, you know. Betty, this is Frances Martin, a Vermont girl who is out after all the Latin prizes."

Frances smiled a slow, sweet smile, and, behind thick gla.s.ses, her dark near-sighted eyes said that she was very glad to know Betty Gordon.

"Now the boys!" announced the irrepressible Bobby, apparently taking Bob's introduction to Frances for granted. "The boys will please line up and I'll indicate them."

The five lads obediently came forward and ranged themselves in a row.

"From left to right," chanted Bobby, "we have the Tucker twins, Tommy and Teddy, W. M. Brown, who asks his friends to use his initials and punches those who refuse, Timothy Derby who reads poetry and Sydney Cooke who ought to--" and Bobby completed her speech with a wicked grin, for she had managed to hit several weaknesses.

"As an introducer," she announced calmly to Carter, the personification of propriety's horror, "I think I do rather well."

They stowed themselves into the limousine somehow, the girls settled more or less comfortably on the seats, the boys squeezed in between, hanging on the running board, and spilling over into Carter's domain.

Bob liked the five boys at once, and they seemed to accept him as one of them. If he had had a little fear that he would feel diffident and unboyish among lads of his own age, it vanished at the first contact.

"Betty, you sweet child, how we have missed you!" cried Mrs. Littell, standing on the lowest step under the porte-cochere as the car swept up the drive of Fairfields, as the Littell's home was called.

Behind her waited Mr. Littell, fully recovered from the injury to his foot which had made him an invalid during Betty's previous visit.

From Carter, who had beamingly greeted her at the station, to the pretty parlor maid who smiled as Betty entered her room to find her turning down the bed covers, there was not a servant who did not remember Betty and seem glad to see her.

"It is so good to have you two here again," Mr. Littell had said.

"I never knew such people," Betty repeated to herself twenty times that evening. "How lovely they are to Bob and me!"

Mrs. Littell, who was happiest when entertaining young people, had put the six boys on the third floor in three connecting rooms. The girls were on the second floor, and Esther, the youngest, who had strenuously fought to be allowed to go to Shadyside with her two sisters, was almost beside herself with the effort to be in all the rooms at once and hear what every one was saying.

"I'm so glad your uncle let you come," said Bobby, as they waited for Betty to change into a light house frock for dinner. "I don't know much about this school, except that mother went to school with the princ.i.p.al."