“Yes?” smiled Bob, thinking how the girl’s face changed as she talked.  “Go on, Betty.”

“Well, Louise is going, too, and they think Libbie will come down from Vermont.  Dear old Libbie—­I wonder if she is as incurably romantic as ever!”

Betty’s fingers had worked mechanically while she spoke, and now she had her parcel undone.

“Why, Bob Henderson!” she gasped, as she drew out a handsome white box tied with pale blue ribbons and encased in waxed paper.

“I hope they’re not stale,” said Bob diffidently.

Betty slit the waxed paper and took off the box lid, revealing a perfectly packed box of expensive chocolates.

“They’re beautiful,” she declared.  “But I never dreamed you would send East for ’em simply because I happened to say I was hungry for good candy.  Um—­um—­taste one quick, Bob.”

Bob took a caramel and pronounced it not “half bad.”

“Uncle Dick’s gone somewhere with Dave Thorne,” announced Betty, biting into another candy.  “He didn’t know when he would get back, and I’m supposed to ride to the Watterby farm for lunch.  It must be after eleven now.”

“Miss Betty!” Lee Chang’s voice was persuasive.  “Miss Betty, that apple tart he all baked done now.”

“Apple tart?” shouted Bob.  “Show me, Lee Chang!  I’d rather have a corner of your pie than all the candy in New York.”

“Him for Miss Betty,” said the Chinaman gravely.

“But you don’t care if I give Bob some, do you?” returned Betty coaxingly.  “See, Lee Chang, Bob gave me these.  You take some, and we’ll eat the tart on our way home.”

Lee Chang’s wish was fulfilled when he placed the flaky tart in Betty’s hands, and he took a candy or two (which he privately considered rather poor stuff) and watched the girl no longer.  From now on till dinner time Lee Chang’s whole attention would be concentrated on the preparation of an excellent dinner for the men who worked that section of the oil fields.

“I don’t believe I can ride and eat this, after all,” decided Betty.  “Let’s sit down on the grass and finish it; Clover hasn’t finished her lunch, either.”

The little bay horse and the tall, shambling white were amiably straying up and down the narrow borders of the road, never getting very far away.

“You haven’t said a single word about my going to boarding school, Bob,” Betty said, dropping down comfortably on the dusty grass and breaking the tart across into two nearly even pieces.  “There—­take your pie.  Don’t you think I’ll have fun with the Littell girls?”

“You’ll have a lark, but I’m not so sure about the teachers,” declared Bob enthusiastically, an odd little smile quivering on his lips.  “With you and Bobby Littell about, I doubt if the school knows a dull moment.”

“Bobby is so funny,” dimpled Betty.  “She writes that if Libbie comes, her aunt expects Bobby to look after her.  Wait a minute and I’ll read you that part—­” Betty took a letter from the pocket of her blouse.  “Listen—­