“Oh, is it for me?” was the happy cry.

“Yes, frame, picture, nail to hang it on and all.  Lloyd sent it with her love.  The day the photographs came home, she found that funny slip of paper with all the questions on it Jack was to ask.  And you wanted so especially to know just how the Princess looked and how she was wearing her hair and all that, that she said, ’I believe I’ll send one of these to Mary.  She’ll admire it whether any one else does or not.’”

“Tell me about her,” begged Mary, propping the frame up in front of her that she might watch the beloved face while she listened.

Nothing loath, Betty sat down and began to talk of the gay summer just gone, of the picnics and the barn parties, the moonlight drives, the rainy days at the Log Cabin, the many knights who came a-riding by to pay court to the fair daughter of the house.  Then she told of her own good times and the disappointment when her manuscript had been returned, and the reason for her coming to Warwick Hall to teach.

“I have come to serve my apprenticeship,” she explained.  “The old Colonel advised me to.  He said I must live awhile—­have some experiences that go deeper than the carefree existence I have been living, before I can write anything worth while.  I am sure he is right.”

When Mary had heard all that Betty could remember to tell, she took her departure, carrying the picture and the nail on which to hang it.  She wanted to show it to Ethelinda, she was so proud of it, but heroically refrained.  Early as it was Ethelinda was undressing.

Mary had intended to do many things before bed-time, write in her journal, mend the rip in her skirt, start a letter to Jack, and maybe make some break in the wall of reserve which Ethelinda still kept persistently between them.  But when she saw the preparations for retiring she hesitated, perplexed.

“She’s tired from her long journey,” she thought, “so maybe I ought not to sit up and keep the light burning.  Maybe she’ll appreciate it if I go to bed, too.  I can lie and think even if I’m not sleepy.”

The rip in the skirt had to be mended, however, or she would not be presentable in the morning.  It was a small one, and she did not sit down to the task, but in order that she might work faster stood up and took short hurried stitches.  Next, taking off her shoe to use the heel as a hammer, she drove the nail in the wall over the side of her bed, and hung the picture where she could see it the last thing at night and the first in the morning.  Then, retiring behind her screen, she made her preparations for the night.  They were completed long before Ethelinda’s, and climbing into bed she lay looking at the new picture, glad for this opportunity to gaze at it to her heart’s content.

It made her think of so many things that she loved to recall—­little incidents of her visit to The Locusts; and the smiling lips seemed to be saying, “Don’t you remember” in such a friendly companionable way that she whispered to herself, “Oh, you dear!  If you were only here this year, what an angel of a chum you would make!”