“Oh, mine is from Jack!” cried Mary joyfully.  “But how queer,” she added in a disappointed tone, when she had torn open the envelope.  “There are only six lines.”  Then exclaiming, “I wish you’d listen to this!” She read aloud: 

“Mamma thinks that your clothes may be somewhat shabby by this time, so here’s a little something to get some fine feathers with which to make yourself a fine bird.  You will find check to cover remainder of year’s expenses waiting for you on your return to school.  Glad you are having such a grand time.  Keep it up, little pard.—­Jack.”

If Mary had not been so carried away with her good fortune, and so immediately engrossed in discussing the best way to spend the check she would have noticed that the envelope in Betty’s lap was exactly like the one in her own, and that the same hand had addressed them both.  Betty’s first impulse was to read her letter aloud.  It was so unusually breezy and amusing.  But remembering that she had never happened to mention her correspondence with Jack to Mary, and that her surprise over it might lead her to say something before Henrietta that would be embarrassing, she dropped it into her shopping bag as soon as she had read it, and said nothing about it.

That is how it happened to be with her when she accompanied Mary that afternoon on her joyful quest of “fine feathers.”  They went to many places, and at last found a dress which suited her and Joyce exactly.  Some slight alteration was needed, and while the two were in the fitting room, Betty passed the time by taking out the letter for a second reading.  A glance at the post-mark showed that it had been delayed somewhere on the road.  It should have reached her the day that she left Warwick Hall.  It had been forwarded from there.  She had grown so accustomed to his weekly letter that she missed it when it did not come, and had wondered for several days why he had failed to write.  Now she confessed to herself that she was glad the fault was with some postal clerk, and that Jack had not forgotten.  She turned to the last page.

“I don’t know why I should be telling you all this.  I hope it does not bore you.  I usually wait till my hopes and plans work out into something practical before I mention them; but lately everything has gone so well that I can’t help being sanguine over these new plans, and it makes their achievement seem nearer to talk them over with you.  It certainly is good to be young and strong and feel your muscle is equal to the strain put upon it.  This old world looks just about all right to me this morning.”

When Mary came dancing out of the fitting room a few minutes later her first remark was so nearly an echo of Jack’s that Betty smiled at the coincidence.

“Oh, isn’t this a good old world?  Everybody is so obliging.  They are going to make a special rush order of altering my dress, and send it out by special messenger early in the morning, so that I can have it to take out to Eugenia’s.  I’m holding fast to my new spring hat, though.  I can’t risk that to any messenger boy.  Phil will just have to let me take it in the automobile with us.”