Betty's Happy Year

IV

AN ACCEPTABLE VALENTINE

The McGuires had lived for more than a month in their pleasant home on Commonwealth Avenue, and Betty had begun to feel at home there.

The house was only rented for the winter, and Denniston Hall was temporarily closed until the summer-time, when they expected to go back there. The whole arrangement had been made in order that Betty might attend school in Boston, and she was a day-pupil in Miss Whittier’s school for girls, which was quite near her home.

The school was very much to Betty’s liking. She had started in under very pleasant auspices, as she had become acquainted with two or three of the girls before she went. She soon made friends with the others, and, as school hours lasted only from nine o’clock till one, she had the advantage of being most of the time in her own home.

The house, completely furnished, had been rented from some friends of Mrs. McGuire’s who were traveling abroad, but Betty had had some of her favorite belongings sent up from Denniston.

Good-natured Pete had taken Betty’s list and had carefully packed and forwarded every item on it, and then, after securely locking up the house, had followed the family to Boston, and was installed there as general utility-man, and a very valuable one at that.

Grandma Jean and little Polly were also there, and Jack, who had entered the Institute of Technology, was delighted with his new opportunities for progress in his studies.

Mrs. McGuire had wisely concluded not to make very desperate efforts to improve Betty’s “manners,” but to trust to the general influences of a well-ordered school and well-bred companions.

And so Betty was happy in her new school life, and was rapidly making firm friends among the pupils there.

Indeed, given a fair start, she could not fail to be a general favorite, for her warm-hearted unselfishness and her cheerful good nature were unfailing, and she was always ready to do a favor or to enter into a plan with enthusiasm.

Though friendly with the others, Betty liked Jeanette Porter and Dorothy Bates best of all the girls, and this trio were often together, both in and out of school hours.

Jeanette was a slender, rather delicate, girl, with a sweet countenance and large, serious eyes. Dorothy was a gay, roly-poly sort of a being, who was always smiling, and irrepressibly inclined to mischief. But they both loved Betty, and she was fond of them, and never a cross word marred the happiness of their intimacy. Sometimes, if Jeanette seemed too sober-faced, the other two would tease her a bit or play a merry joke on her, but always in a spirit of harmless fun, and when their victim could no longer keep from smiling at their foolery, they declared themselves satisfied.

But one day, as they walked home from school together, Jeanette was really troubled about something, and though she tried to conceal it, she was on the very verge of tears.

“What’s the matter, Jeanie?” said Betty, tucking her arm through her friend’s, while Dorothy walked on her other side.

“Nothing, Betty,” said Jeanette, not crossly, but decidedly. “Please don’t ask me about it.”

“Indeed we will ask you about it!” declared Dorothy. “You just must tell us what’s up, because we’re your trusties and trues – aren’t we, Betty?”

“Of course we are! What’s up, Jeanette? Anybody been scolding you?”

“No, it isn’t that. Oh, girls, I don’t want to tell you!”

“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Now, you just out with it, Miss Secret-Keeper, and pretty quick, too!”

“Oh, well, it’s nothing, anyhow,” said Jeanette, with a heightened color; “it’s only that I can’t go to the reception.”

“Not go to the reception!” cried Betty and Dorothy together. “Why not?”

“Well, because – because I can’t have a new dress.”

“Oh, is that all?” said Betty. “Why, I’ll give you a new dress.”

To Betty’s amazement, Jeanette turned to her with a look she never forgot.

“How dare you say such a thing, Betty McGuire? If you weren’t one of my best friends, I’d never forgive you!”

“I didn’t mean any harm,” stammered Betty, quite crushed by Jeanette’s offended look.

“Of course she didn’t,” chimed in Dorothy; “in fact, she didn’t mean it at all.”

Betty was about to speak, but Dorothy pinched her arm to be silent, and went on herself.

“You don’t need a new dress, Jeanette. Your white muslin with the lace yoke is a very pretty dress?”

“It was; but it’s just been done up, and it went all to pieces. It’s so old, you know. Mother said she didn’t believe it would stand washing again. So I can’t go, and I told Miss Whittier to-day that I wouldn’t select a piece.”

“Oh, what a shame!” cried Betty; “and you recite so well, too. Can’t you wear some other dress?”

“No, I have nothing fit for an evening affair, and Mother says I can’t have a new one. So I’m not going.”

At Miss Whittier’s school a reception was given each winter, and always a very important event. The parents and friends of the pupils were invited, and elaborate preparations were made for the occasion. The girls wore their prettiest frocks, and a program of entertainment was given in which the pupils who excelled in singing or declamation took part.

Usually this reception was held on the date of some poet’s birthday, and this year the 27th of February, Longfellow’s birthday, had been chosen.

It was now the 10th, but the intervening time was none too long in which to prepare for the great event.

Betty, Jeanette, and Dorothy were all among the ones chosen to recite from the poet’s works, and a prize would be rewarded to the one who best deserved it.

Each contestant was allowed to make her own selection, and already Betty was practising on “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” while Dorothy had chosen “The Skeleton in Armor.”

These decisions were profound secrets among the school-girls, only Miss Whittier being supposed to know what each girl was to recite. But of course our three little friends told each other in the strictest confidence, and when Jeanette announced her intention of staying away from the reception, both Betty and Dorothy were astounded.

But argumenting and coaxing were in vain, and when Jeanette turned in at her own gate, the other two said good-by and went on toward their homes.

“Whatever made Jeanette so angry when I offered to give her a dress?” exclaimed Betty as soon as she and Dorothy were alone.

“Why, you goose, of course she wouldn’t accept a dress from anybody! You ought to have known that the mere mention of such a thing would offend her!”

“But I don’t see why. I’d love to give it to her.”

“It would hurt her pride too much. Don’t you see, the Porters are not at all well off, – I don’t mean quite poor, but I mean they have to scrimp to get along, – but they’re fearfully proud. Jeanette would be quite willing to say she couldn’t afford a new frock, but she’d die before she’d let any one give her one.”

“Well, I think that’s silly. Just because I happen to have more money than she has, is the very reason I ought to give her a dress.”

“It does seem so,” admitted Dorothy, “but it isn’t so, and don’t you ever propose it to her again, for it won’t be a bit of good, and it only makes her angry.”

“Well, I won’t, then, but won’t it be horrid not to have Jeanette at the reception? It takes all the fun out of it for us, I think.”

“Yes, I think so, too; and look here, Betty, don’t you tell anybody the reason why Jeanette’s not coming. She told us, of course, but she knew we wouldn’t tell.”

“Didn’t she tell Miss Whittier?”

“Of course not, silly. Though most likely Miss Whittier guessed.”

“But you said Jeanette would just as lief tell it.”

“Well, she might tell it to us, not to any one else. I declare, Betty, you don’t seem to have any gumption about some things!”

“No,” said Betty, rather meekly, for she was often bothered by her lack of “gumption” about matters which were new to her experience.

On reaching her own home, she went straight to her mother with the story.

Mrs. McGuire sat reading in the pleasant library, and looked up with a loving smile as Betty entered rather abruptly.

“And will you tell me, Mother,” she concluded, after she had poured out her indignation, “why Jeanette should get so angry at what I said?”

“You can’t understand, deary,” said her mother, smoothing Betty’s tangled dark curls, “that peculiar pride which revolts at accepting anything of money value from anybody outside one’s own family. It is, perhaps, especially a New England trait, and your own Irish heart is so big it leaves no room for the Puritan instincts which are also yours by inheritance. But Dorothy is right, dear, and you must not repeat your offer to Jeanette, though I, too, am sorry that it is not possible.”

“But, Mother, if I could think of some way to give her a dress without letting her know where it came from, wouldn’t that do?”

“Hardly, dear. She would know at once that you had sent it, and would, of course, be offended.”

“Oh, dear! I think people are just silly.”

“That may be, but you can’t make the world different in a moment. Come to luncheon now, and tell me all about your own plans for the reception.”

“All right; but, Mother, I’m going to find some way for Jeanette to go to it, too. I don’t know how yet, but you see if I can’t fix it somehow!”

“Very well, Betty; but don’t do anything without consulting me.”

“No, I won’t, and I haven’t thought of anything yet, but I’m sure I shall.”

All the rest of that day, Betty thought hard, but it was not until after she had gone to bed at night that an idea flashed upon her. Such a beautiful idea! She wondered that she hadn’t thought of it sooner!

She felt she must discuss it with her mother at once, for if it wouldn’t do, she wanted to think up something else. But surely it would do! Such a grand idea must be all right!

She jumped up and put on her blue kimono, and poking her bare feet into little bedroom slippers of blue quilted satin, she ran out into the hall and called over the banister:

“Mother, are you alone? May I come down?”

In response to the “Yes, Betty dear; what is it?” she ran down-stairs, and, flinging a sofa-cushion on the floor, nestled against her mother’s knee.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I’ve thought of the beautifullest plan to give Jeanette a dress and not offend her! Oh, do approve of it, Mother, please do! It’s such a good plan!”

“Tell me about it, Betty, so that I can enjoy it, too.”

“Well, you see, Mother, to-day’s the tenth. So next Saturday’s the fourteenth – Valentine’s Day, you know. Now, I want to get a lovely dress for Jeanette, and make it into a valentine, and send it to her! Don’t you see, nobody could get angry at a valentine, and you can’t put your name to it, and so she’d have to keep it!”

Betty looked so radiant over her plan that Mrs. McGuire hadn’t the heart to disapprove of it, though she felt a little dubious about its wisdom.

“Let me think it over,” she said quietly.

“But remember, Mother, I mean to make it like a real valentine. Put it in a box, you know, and lace paper around it, and sort of hearts and darts and things, and a verse, a lovely, loving verse. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Yes; that effect would greatly help it, for valentines nowadays often contain a lace handkerchief or bonbons or something by way of a gift. Your plan seems to grow on me, Betty.”

“Oh, Mother, how lovely you are!” Betty jumped up from her low seat to give her mother a most enthusiastic squeeze, and then, big girl though she was, stayed cuddled in her arms while they continued the conversation.

“How can you get a dress to fit her, my child?”

“I thought about that. But if we just buy one all ready-made, you know, about my size, I’m sure it will be about right for her. And Mrs. Porter can take it in or let it out, or whatever it needs. A soft, white kind of a one, I mean.”

“Chiffon?”

“Yes, with lace here and there, and cunning little ribbon bows, and knots of velvet, or something fancy-like for evening.”

“Well, we’ll go together to select it.”

“To-morrow afternoon, after school?”

“Yes, or next day. Of course you won’t send it until Saturday?”

“No; but we have to fix it up valentine-y, you know, so we’d better go to-morrow. Then we must write the verse. Mother, won’t you make up the verse? I don’t want a ‘Roses red, violets blue’ sort of a one.”

“Very well; skip back to bed, and I’ll see what I can do in the poetry line.”

“Oh, you dear Mother! You are so sweet!” And with a final, rather smothering embrace, Betty said good night, and ran back to her bed to dream of valentines and Longfellow and Jeanette, all in a grand jumble.

It was hard next day to say nothing of her plan to Dorothy, but Mrs. McGuire had decided if it were to be successful it must be kept absolutely secret. So not even Jack was told about it, and, after luncheon, Mrs. McGuire and Betty started off to buy the frock. Mrs. McGuire had slight misgivings about it all, but she determined to try the experiment, for it was the only way that the thing could possibly be accomplished, and she felt very sorry for Jeanette. After looking at several pretty, girlish dresses, they decided upon a lovely one of cream-white chiffon, made over white silk. It had a soft lace bertha, bordered with a wreath of tiny pink rosebuds. It was a simple, dainty little gown, but very effective, and Betty agreed that it would suit Jeanette perfectly.

The saleswoman was asked to provide an especially nice box, and Betty examined it herself, to be sure that the corners were unbroken.

Then, with explicit directions about careful packing and wrapping and speedy sending of it home, they went away.

“Of course, Mother, I must send Jeanette another valentine, too; a real one, you know, so she won’t suspect about the dress. And, anyway, I want to buy at least twenty other valentines to send. Will you go with me?”

So they went to another shop, and Betty bought valentines for a few school-girls and other friends she had made in Boston; for Jack and Polly and Grandma Jean, and for some of her Greenborough friends.

Nor were Pete and Ellen forgotten, for Betty well knew how they would prize valentines from her. And so engrossing was the selection of all these that the afternoon slipped away, and when they reached home, to their great joy the new dress had already arrived.

Behind the locked doors of her mother’s room, Betty carefully lifted the lovely thing from its tissue-papers, and exclaimed with delight at its beauty. It looked even prettier than it had in the shop, and Betty was sure her plan would be a fine success.

“I hope so,” said Mrs. McGuire; “at any rate, we’ll try it, and if it doesn’t turn out as well as we hope, I’ll take the matter in charge, and go and see Mrs. Porter about it.”

The next afternoon Betty devoted to fixing what she called the “valentine-y” part of it.

The big box was of fine white pasteboard, of a watered design, with gilt edges, and the firm’s name in gilt letters on the cover.

Over this name Betty pasted a large valentine that completely covered it.

Then, with considerable cleverness, she cut up several other pretty valentines, and of the rose garlands and doves and cupids she obtained in this way, she contrived a sort of wreath, which, when pasted into place, made a border all round the box cover.

Inside the box were two large leaves of satin paper which closed like shutters over the dress when it was folded in place. These leaves Betty decorated in similar fashion to the cover, and replaced the white tapes with narrow blue ribbons. The leaves closed together and were fastened with a large red paper heart, garlanded with flowers, and pierced by a gilt arrow.

Fastened to the heart by the arrow was the verse Betty’s mother had composed and had copied on the blank page of a real valentine. This was in an embossed envelop and was addressed “To Jeanette from St. Valentine.”

The verses which her mother wrote read thus:

“Mother, it is perfectly lovely!” cried Betty, as she read the verses. “And, don’t you see, saying ‘from St. Valentine’ is the same as saying ‘from Santa Claus,’ so I don’t think she’ll mind, do you?”

As this was about the fiftieth time Betty had asked the same question, Mrs. McGuire could only make the same reply:

“I don’t know, dear, but don’t worry about it. If she ‘minds,’ I will undertake to set the matter right again.”

Then the box was carefully wrapped in white paper, and sealed up with gilt hearts. Mrs. McGuire addressed it, and she had also written the verses, for Jeanette would have recognized Betty’s penmanship at once.

It was hard to wait for Valentine’s Day, but, as Betty had much to do getting ready her other valentines to be dispatched, the time flew quickly. Jack also had many to send, and as, except for the dress, Betty need make no secrets of hers, they spent the afternoon of the thirteenth together in the library, addressing the pretty missives.

“This is a beauty!” said Jack, holding up a lovely affair of gilt latticework, which, if you pulled a cord, burst into a mass of flowers and birds. “I think I’ll send this to Jeanette Porter. She’s one of the nicest girls we know, don’t you think so, Betty?”

“Yes, I do. She and Dorothy Bates are my dearest friends, and they’re coming over this afternoon, so let’s get theirs out of the way first.”

“All right. I’ll send this one to Dorothy. She’s a jolly girl, but Jeanette’s my choice. She’s so quiet and pretty-mannered.”

“I’m fond of Jeanette myself, Jack,” said Betty; “and – oh, here they come! Slip theirs in here, quick!”

They whisked the valentines into a table drawer, just in time to escape the eyes of the girls as they came in.

“Hello!” said Betty, gaily. “We’re addressing valentines. As there aren’t any here for you two, you may look at them all you like. I hope you’re not expecting us to send you any!”

“Oh, no!” said the visitors, laughing, for well they knew they would all send valentines to each other.

“Isn’t it jolly that Valentine’s Day comes on Saturday?” said Dorothy. “I shall sit on the lowest step of the staircase all day long to be ready to fly to the door every time the bell rings.”

“Oh, girls,” cried Betty, “wouldn’t it be fun if you’d all come over here to-morrow afternoon and bring your valentines! We can have a regular show of them!”

“All right, I’ll come,” said Dorothy, and “So will I,” said Jeanette. “Oh, what a beauty this is! Betty, I don’t see where you found such lovely ones.”

“That’s left over,” said Betty, carelessly; “you may have it, if you care for it.”

The thoughtless words were no sooner spoken than Betty’s heart stood still with a sudden fear that Jeanette would be offended again.

But, to her amazement, she replied as carelessly:

“Don’t you want it? Oh, thank you, I’d love to have it. I got mine at Morrison’s, and they’re not nearly so pretty as this one.”

Betty was bewildered.

Why was Jeanette so ready to accept a valentine, and so angered at the offer of a dress? To be sure, the valentine cost but a trifle, and the frock considerably more, but that was a matter of degree, and if it was on account of principle, Betty thought the cases were the same. But Betty gave up trying to understand these fine distinctions, and awaited results of her enterprise.

On Saturday a messenger was sent with the precious box. He was given special directions, if any one should ask him where the box came from, not to give the slightest hint.

“Trust me, ma’am!” said the boy, and taking the box carefully, he went on his errand. Then there was suspense indeed. Betty hovered near the telephone, though she had no real reason to think Jeanette would call her up. Had her mind not been distracted by the continuous arrival of valentines to herself, she could scarcely have kept from flying over to Jeanette’s house.