THE SECOND DEGREE

“My patience, what a world of trouble this is!” sighed Betty to herself, but aloud she said cheerily:  “What’s the matter with Norma?”

Norma sat up, mopping her eyes.

“Oh, Betty,” she choked, “I don’t believe Alice and I can come back after Christmas!  They’ve had a fire in Glenside and a house dad owns there burned.  He hasn’t a cent of insurance, and the mortgagee takes the ground.  So that’s the rental right out of our income.  Besides, grandma has had an operation on her eyes and she has to spend weeks in an expensive Philadelphia hospital.  Even with the small fees the surgeons charge because of dad, the board will amount to more than he can afford to pay.  Alice and I ought to be learning stenography or something useful.”

“Well, now, your father would say,” suggested Betty, with determined optimism, “that the Christmas vacation is too far off to make any plans about what you’re going to do afterward.  You know Bobby Littell has set her heart on you and Alice spending the recess with them in Washington.  Anyway, lots of things can turn up before Christmas, Norma—­even the treasure!”

Norma tried to smile.

“I dream about that chasm nearly every night,” she said.  “Sometimes I think the Indians came back and got the stuff, Betty.  They’re so clever about climbing, and I know they wouldn’t easily give up.”

“Nonsense!” chided Betty.  “The treasure is there, and we’ve just got to think up a way to get it out.  At all costs you mustn’t cry yourself sick about the future—­you’ll spoil all the fun awaiting you in the weeks before Christmas.  And you know you can’t study as well when you’re depressed, and, goodness knows! one has to study at Shadyside.”

“I’ve a headache now,” confessed Norma, pushing her tumbled hair out of her eyes.  “I can’t go down to dinner—­I’m a perfect sight.  There’s the bell!”

“Just lie down and try to rest,” advised Betty, smoothing the tangled covers with a deft hand.  “I’ll bring you up some supper on a tray.  Aunt Nancy thinks you’re an angel on general principles, and she has a special soft spot in her heart for you because her mother used to cook for your grandmother.  Come on, Alice, we’ll turn the light out and let her rest her eyes.”

“I do wish some one would think up a way to get those pearls and the gold,” fretted Betty, turning restlessly on her pillow that night.  “If Norma and Alice are ever going to be well-off now is the time.  When they’re so old they can’t walk, money won’t do ’em any good!”

Which showed that Betty, for all her sound sense, was still a little girl.  Very old ladies, who can not walk, certainly need money to make them comfortable and keep them so.

The next night was Friday, and Betty welcomed the prospect of the second degree necessary to stamp the freshmen as full-fledged members of the Mysterious For.  The week had been noticeably tinged with indigo for at least two of Betty’s friends, and she hoped the initiation might take their minds from their troubles.