– ?”
“But Gerald and Aurora Blank have a nice new car, and they have offered to pilot our little party across the state.”
“Then I forgive them all their sins!” cried Dorothy. “Somehow, I disliked them when we first met; and you know, dear auntie, they were rude and overbearing during the early days on the houseboat.”
“But before the end of the trip, through a series of incidents which go a long way toward making good men and women out of our boys and girls, they learned to be gentle to everybody,” Aunt Betty responded, a reminiscent note in her voice. “I remember, we discussed it at the time.”
“I must say they got over their priggishness quickly when they once saw the error of their ways,” said Dorothy.
“Yes. Gerald is growing into a fine young man, now. You know his father failed in business, so that he was forced to sell the houseboat, and that Uncle Seth bought it for you? Well, Gerald has entered into his father’s affairs with an indomitable spirit, and has, I am told, become quite an assistance to him, as well as an inspiration to him to retrieve his lost fortunes. The Blanks have grown quite prosperous again, and Mr. Blank gave the auto to Gerald and Aurora a few weeks since to do with as they please.”
“I’m glad to hear of Gerald’s success. No doubt he and Jim will get along better this time – for, of course, Jim is to be included in our party?”
“Indeed we should never go a mile out of Baltimore without him!” sniffed Aunt Betty. “It was expressly stipulated that he was to go. Besides Jim, Gerald, Aurora, and ourselves, there will be no one but Ephraim, unless you care to invite your old chum, Molly Breckenridge?”
“Oh, auntie, why do you suggest the impossible?” Dorothy’s face went again from gay to grave. “Dear Molly is in California with her father, who is ill, and they may not return for months.”
“I’d forgotten you had not heard. Molly returned east with her father some two weeks since, hence may be reached any time at her old address.”
“That’s the best news I have heard since you told me I was to study under Herr Deichenberg,” Dorothy declared. “I’ll write Molly to-day, and if she comes, she shall have a reception at Bellvieu fit for a queen.”
Molly and Dorothy had first met during Dorothy’s schooldays at the Misses Rhinelanders’ boarding academy in Newburgh, where they had been the life of the school. Their acquaintance had ripened into more than friendship when, together, they traveled through Nova Scotia, and later met for another good time on the western ranch of the railroad king, Daniel Ford. More than any of her other girl friends Dorothy liked Molly, hence the news that she had returned east, and that she might invite her to share the outing in the South Mountains, caused Dorothy’s eyes to glow with a deep satisfaction.
“And now that we have discussed so thoroughly our prospective outing,” said Aunt Betty, “we may change the subject. It remains for me to arrange an early meeting for you with Herr Deichenberg. The Herr has a little studio in a quiet part of the city which he rarely leaves. It is quite possible, however, that I can induce him to come to Bellvieu for your first meeting, though I am sure he will insist that all your labors be performed in his own comfortable domicile, where he, naturally, feels perfectly at home.
“I visited the studio some weeks ago – shortly after I received your Uncle Seth’s letter, in fact. The Herr received me cordially, and said he would be delighted to take a pupil so highly recommended as Miss Dorothy Elisabeth Somerset-Calvert.”
“To which I duly make my little bow,” replied the girl, dropping a graceful curtsey she had learned from Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon.
“My dear Dorothy, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen you do. As Ephraim would express it, it is ‘puffectly harmonious.’ Indeed, you have improved since going to Canada, and it pleases me immensely.”
Aunt Betty’s admiration for her great-niece was so thoroughly genuine that Dorothy could not refrain from giving her another hug.
“There, there, dear; you overwhelm me. I am glad to be able to pay you an honest compliment. I have no doubt you have acquired other virtues of which I am at present in ignorance.”
“Aunt Betty, you’re getting to be a perfect flatterer. And what about the vices I may have acquired?”
Aunt Betty smiled.
“They are, I am sure, greatly in the minority – in fact, nothing but what any healthy, mischievous girl acquires at a modern boarding school. Now, in my younger days, the schoolmasters and mistresses were very strict. Disobedience to the slightest rule meant severe punishment, and was really the means of keeping pent up within one certain things from which the system were better rid. But I must go now and dress. When you have rested and completed your toilet, pass by my room and we’ll go on the lawn together.”
With a final kiss Aunt Betty disappeared down the hall, leaving Dorothy alone with her thoughts.
“Dear old auntie,” she murmured. “Her chief desire, apparently, is for my welfare. I can never in this world repay her kindness – never!”
Then, seized with a sudden inspiration, she sat down at her writing desk by the big window, overlooking the arbor and side garden, and indicted the following letter to her chum:
“My Darling Molly:
“Heavy, heavy hangs over your head! You are severely penalized for not writing me of your return. But to surprise your friends was always one of your greatest delights, you sly little minx! So I am not holding it up against you. I’ll even the score with you some day in a way you little imagine.
“Well, well, well, you just can’t guess what I have to tell you! And I’m glad you can’t, for that would take away the pleasure of the telling. Aunt Betty has planned a fine outing for me in the South Mountains, which, as you know, form a spur of the Blue Ridge range in Western Maryland. We are to be gone several weeks, during which time who can say what glorious adventures we will have?
“You are going with us. I want your acceptance of the invitation by return mail, Lady Breckenridge, and I shall take pleasure in providing a brave knight for your escort in the person of one Gerald Blank, in whose automobile we are to make the trip. He has a new seven-passenger car given him by his father, and, in the vulgar parlance of the day, we are going to ‘make things hum.’ It is only some sixty miles to the mountains, and we expect to be out only one night between Baltimore and our destination. Besides yourself, Aunt Betty and I, there will be only Gerald, Aurora, his sister, Jim Barlow, and Ephraim, who will be camp cook, and general man-of-all-work.
“Now write me, dear girlie, and say that you will arrive immediately, for I am just dying with anxiety to see you, and to clasp you in my arms. Jim is already here, having traveled to Canada with Ephy to bring me safely home. As if a girl of my mature age couldn’t travel alone! However, it was one of Aunt Betty’s whims, she being in too ill health to come herself, so I suppose it is all right. Dear auntie will improve I feel sure – now that I am back. That may sound conceited, but I assure you it was not meant to. We are just wrapped up in each other – that’s all. The outing will do her good, and will, I am sure, restore in a measure her shattered health.
“And oh, I forgot to tell you! I am to have violin lessons after my vacation from the famous Herr Deichenberg, Baltimore’s finest musician, whom Aunt Betty had especially engaged before my return. No one can better appreciate than you just what this means to me. My greatest ambition has been to become a fine violinist, and
