It seemed a very natural thing that Betty should accompany Countess Coletti and Lucia to church. Mr. Murchison came in later, Horace having returned for him, Betty supposed. Like a little mouse Betty sat quietly between the countess and Lucia to listen to the service. Mathilde Finn, whose church membership was unknown to Betty, sat a few seats in the rear and Betty hoped that Mathilde was not too jealous or that she herself would not appear too complacent over her entertainment. With some of the girls as they were, about notice from the “nobility,” it was impossible not to feel self-conscious at times. But Betty had none of that toadying quality in her and was rather inclined to the other extreme, of letting the “society” people go more than their half way if they wanted her company. She knew the sort of people her father and mother admired and numbered among their friends, people who were in character and ideals, and it must be confessed that Betty liked “folks that were smart!” By that Betty meant those who had certain qualities of mind, irrespective of clothes, or money, or, indeed, opportunity; for leaders do not always come out of the schools and colleges.

At first Betty could not sing the hymns for listening to the countess. But she soon piped away, sweetly, too, in a sort of duet with Lucia, whose voice was contralto. “I’ll sing with you when we go carolling,” whispered Lucia, with a bright glance, as she took the hymn-book which they had been sharing.

Betty was ashamed to think afterwards how little of the sermon she heard, after the first of it. The preacher was a little prosy compared to her own pastor; and Betty’s thoughts would wander to what Lucia had told her, to Count and Countess Coletti, and with a remorseful feeling to the “Sevillas,” who had moved without her knowledge. One moment she felt that it made no difference and that they probably were not in the least connected with Ramon; the next minute she was sure that they were related and had something to do with the mystery that surrounded the “Don.”

She thought of various things that Lucia could do, to bring her father—and knew that she could do none of them. But finally the response and the words of the Scripture, quoted or read by the minister, or held in the messages of the Christmas hymns that had been chosen, had their effect on Betty. It would all come right. Why not take it all to the heavenly Father in prayer, as the preacher suggested, and leave it there, so far as worry was concerned?

That afternoon Betty went up with Lucia to see Grandmother Ferris again, at Countess Coletti’s suggestion. “She asked for ‘Mary’ this morning,” said the countess. The girls found Mrs. Ferris in bed, the two dolls in a light single bed not far away.

She looked very white and weak, but held out a welcoming hand. Then she put her finger to her lips to caution them. “Speak gently,” said she. “‘Willie’ and ‘Josie’ have just gone to sleep.” She called Betty “Mary” again and spoke of her hair. “Mary, you always had such pretty hair!”

The girls remained only a short time and Lucia had tears in her eyes as they went out into the hall. “It’s a good thing that I happened to join the Lyon ‘Y,’” said Lucia, “and bought those dolls.”

“I wonder if things just ‘happen,’” suggested Betty.

The crimson car deposited Betty, with her baggage, at the Lee home, late in the afternoon. Doris, in a fine humor, was just helping her mother set out their light Sunday evening supper. Betty had wondered how Doris would be and had determined not to do any “raving” about her good time, for fear Doris might think she was “crowing” or “gloating” over it; for Doris was a little difficult at times; and it was not unnatural that she should wish to share her elder sister’s happy times. But Doris herself asked to hear “all about the life of the nobility.”

“I suppose you had a gorgeous time, Betty,” said she.

“Oh, yes, and so many girls came Saturday afternoon and we’re having the prettiest dolls fixed for the Toy Show. I can scarcely tell you fast enough. When we sit down at the table, I can tell all the details you’d like to know.”

But Doris was full of her own plans and told Betty how her mother was letting her “stay all night” with Stacia Barnett, a recent friend, whom Doris was admiring at present with all her freshman heart. There was to be a freshman party that afternoon, a Christmas party, near the Barnett home; so Doris was to go home with Stacia and stay that Friday night and perhaps over Sunday, the Sunday before Christmas. “I am going carolling, too,” said Doris.

“That is fine,” said Betty, though she did not admire Stacia particularly and wondered at the choice of Doris in being as intimate as the two girls were at present. Doris rattled on, to Betty’s relief, and Betty’s experience was put into the background, which was just as well.

Later Mrs. Lee came to Betty to ask her what she thought about her permitting Doris to go with Stacia for such a visit. “Doris tells me that Stacia is such a fine girl; and you were not here to tell me anything about her.” Mrs. Lee looked thoughtful. “You know I do not approve of week-end visits as a rule, except with older girls. But Doris was so insistent and reminded me that you were having ‘everything you wanted’—so for the sake of peace I yielded. I always want you children to do what you want to do, if it is good for you.”

“I know you do, and you’re the dearest mother in the world!” warmly said Betty, giving her mother a hug. They were sitting on the edge of Betty’s bed for a mother and daughter chat.

“I don’t believe there is any harm in letting Doris go, Mother. So far as I know, Stacia is all right. She puts a good deal of color on her face sometimes; but some nice girls do, and the freshmen have to try everything, you know. We can trust Doris to have a little sense, I suppose.”

“I’m not so sure,” smiled Mrs. Lee. “Doris is getting a little heady of late. Keep an eye on her at school, Betty. Doris is a lovely child and I want her to have helpful companions, not the kind that she has to help.”

Betty laughed at that and went on to tell her mother about Grandmother Ferris and the dolls and how good Mr. Murchison was to her. “That is something that I thought Father would like to know about the head of the firm,” finished Betty.

Perhaps it was because Betty had in mind her mother’s injunction that she happened to see Doris and Stacia in one of the halls at school as she passed from one class to another.

Doris, seeing Betty, hastened to turn her face in another direction and stepped behind Stacia. But Betty had already seen that the bright and attractive face of her younger sister was just a little too bright, with a stain of color high on her cheeks and a red on her lips that could only be from lipstick.

“Silly little piece!” thought Betty. “She’s trying to ape Stacia!” And at home that afternoon, she remarked to Doris, “Someone couldn’t see me in the hall this morning.” She gave Doris a meaning look as she said this, but her lips were pursed in an amused smile.

Doris flushed. The applied color had been washed from her face before her appearance at home. “I saw you taking me in,” she pertly said. “Don’t you tell mother, Betty. There isn’t anything wicked about ‘make-up.’”

“Is that what Stacia calls it?” asked Betty. “No, I don’t suppose there is anything wrong; Mother never said no. It’s Father and Dick that say they’ll ‘wash our faces’ if they ever see us with any on. All the same, Mother doesn’t like it.”

“If you didn’t have any more natural color than Stacia has, you’d use it too, Betty Lee!” cried Doris, still on the defensive, though Betty had made no threat whatever.

“I wonder,” said Betty. “Honestly, Doris, I always feel that I want people to like the real me, not any painted up face. But I’ll not speak of it to Mother. I know you want to have your week-end and so far as I know Stacia is a good enough girl.”

This speech seemed to annoy Doris still further.

“Oh, you think you’re so smart because you’re a junior! Mother has promised and I’d have my week-end anyhow. I’d just a little rather you wouldn’t tell Mother. I don’t know that I like lipstick myself. But it’s my own affair!”

“Yes,” said Betty, “and those things are between you and Mother, Doris. Still, you shouldn’t let Mother be in the dark about your friends. Have a good time and tell her all about it—is my advice.”

“I’m not asking for advice, thank you.”

This rebellion and withdrawing from confidence on the part of Doris was a surprise to Betty, who realized now that she might have seen it coming. Perhaps she had been too much absorbed in her own affairs, and with her own friends. She must see more of her at school, possibly. Since helping her start her freshman year, she had gone on “her own way rejoicing,” Betty acknowledged to herself. She had Carolyn and Kathryn and she wondered if she had shut Doris out too much. That must be changed, provided she could change it now. She wasn’t going to play the part of mentor. It was for her mother to rebuke, or manage, and it would be a delicate proposition to carry out her mother’s injunction to “keep an eye” on Doris.

Betty was a little puled, but the push and stir of her own life with the hard lessons and all the “extras,” as she told the family, she hardly had time to breathe! She came through some examinations on Friday, prepared Monday’s lessons on Saturday, went to Sunday school and church on Sunday and helped get the family dinner. Then she declared that she was a wreck and curled up on her bed, under a warm extra blanket, for a nap.

She had scarcely more than dozed off, she thought, though she found afterwards that she had been sleeping for two hours, when she heard a gay voice and some one coming down the hall; and here was Doris, coming in to put Betty’s over-night bag, borrowed for the occasion, down on the floor with a bump, and a voice none too gracious exclaim, “You here, Betty? I thought I was going to get a rest by myself!”

“You shall,” answered Betty, springing up, thoroughly awake now and looking at her watch. “I thought you weren’t coming home till tonight.”

“I wasn’t,” said Doris, banging the door shut. Betty winced and wondered if Mrs. Lee would not reprove Doris for that. But wise Mrs. Lee had seen the storm behind the gay manner and jolly greeting with which Doris had favored her and her father on her entrance. There was a sudden change now.

“I couldn’t stand it any longer, Betty,” said Doris. “I told Mother just now that I had a little headache from too much candy and that is the truth, but not all of it. I haven’t slept a wink, I do believe, and I’m about dead!”

Betty was off the bed by this time, helping Doris take off her coat and taking her hat from her hand. “You poor little thing! Let me get you into bed! How about some peppermint and soda or some milk of magnesia for the indigestion?” Betty half laughed as she asked this, and Doris laughed too, but quaveringly, and all at once she put her head on Betty’s shoulder and sobbed. “Mrs. Barnett gave me an aspirin for my head. I hated to take it for I never took one before and it made me feel awfully funny for a while. But I had to make some excuse for coming home and my head did ache, though not so terribly. They were just as kind as could be, or meant to be and I’ll never tell anybody but you all about it.”

Doris said all this in jerks as she sat on the bed, half crying into her handkerchief and letting Betty draw off her shoes and stockings. Only a week before Betty had had another experience with tears, at Lucia’s. It made her feel happier than she had been then, to know that her prickly little sister was returning to the state of confidences.

“I can’t imagine, Doris, but the thing for you to do is to get to sleep. I’m going to fix something warm for you to drink first.”

“No, don’t. Get me the peppermint and that will fix me, and don’t let Mother know that I’m so dead!”

Usually Mother would have been the first to console, but Doris was sensitive. When Betty appeared in the living room, Mrs. Lee asked how Doris was feeling. “There is something the matter, but I thought that you might handle it.”

“Doris thinks that she hasn’t slept a wink, Mother. She probably has, for I thought I hadn’t slept and found that I had been asleep two hours. Doris says that they were very kind but she seems all tired out and I just helped her off with her clothes so that she could really go to bed. Don’t you worry. If she wakes up and wants something to eat in the night, I’ll get it for her!”

Mrs. Lee gave Betty an amused look and said, “Good child. I think you may have to give Doris a little more of your time, Betty.”

“I’ve just been wondering about that myself, Mother. I’m sorry.”

Little by little Doris told Betty about her visit. There had been a very pleasant party on Friday to which Doris had gone directly from home. Then came the evening with Stacia’s family, all kind and pleasant, Doris said, but “different.” Stacia’s mother and big sisters smoked cigarettes and Stacia “smoked some” before they went to bed and “didn’t put up the window; said it was too cold.”

“If you think Stacia paints, you ought to see her sisters, and her mother, too. They are all what Stacia calls modern, you know. I liked it at first and they are good folks, Betty—at least Stacia’s mother and father are. I don’t know about her sisters, or her brother.

“Well, the radio went all evening and we had to yell to talk above it. I was too polite at first to talk at all, but I had to. It kept on going for the late programs and with that and the smoke in the whole house and no window up, I couldn’t sleep a mite.

“I felt better in the morning and we went down town to do Christmas shopping. Stacia showed me a lovely shop and I got something nice for Mother. You mustn’t look in your bag, yet, though, for there’s something there for you, too. We had a grand lunch, and then, in the afternoon, Stacia had a little party for me. That is why I can never say a word about all this. They were so good to me! I’m going to give Stacia something nice for Christmas—wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would,” gently said Betty.

“That night at supper, dinner, I mean, they had wine, I’m sure. They did not say what it was, but it was in a wine glass and I tasted it and it was terribly bitter. I don’t see how anybody likes the stuff. Jim—that’s Stacia’s brother and such a handsome, dear sort of boy, about eighteen, I imagine—Jim drank a lot of it, till his father said real low, ‘That’s enough, Jim.’

“Then they took me to a moving picture, not down town, but in the suburb, you know. And we stayed up awfully late with the radio again and this time some more wine, only I didn’t take any, only cake. Stacia urged me to try one of her sister’s cigarettes. I believe they don’t want Stacia to smoke yet, so she didn’t do it until we went upstairs. It made me cough just to smell all the smoke, so I said ‘no, thank you, Stacia,’ and got undressed. And then—” Doris lowered her voice—“about two o’clock, I think, somebody came stumbling up the stairs, and somebody was talking to him, and helping him, I think. Stacia woke up and sat up in bed. We could see a little, for there was a light in the hall. She saw I was awake and I sat up, too.

“Then she said, ‘Oh, that’s just Jim, coming home drunk as usual.’ And she lay down again and went right to sleep! My—I’d never go right to sleep if it were Dick! And I’ve already asked Stacia to come here some time for a week-end! What shall I do about it?”

“Have her. Mother will like to do it for you. You needn’t tell her a thing, but Mother will see some things for herself, you know. We’ll give Stacia our kind of a good time and your debt will be paid. And you can keep on being nice to her at school, I should think, Doris. It’s easy enough to have other friends and stop being intimate without dropping anybody with a jolt. That wouldn’t be kind.”

“My, Betty, I’m glad you are my sister! I was afraid you’d want me not to have anything more to do with Stacia, and Stacia likes me.”

“Perhaps you can be a good influence, Doris; but it isn’t very good for you to make such a close friend of Stacia. I’m sure you will ‘use good judgment about it,’ as Mother always says.”

“My, I’m glad I belong to this family. But Stacia will think us ‘slow.’ That’s her word.”

“We’ll have a party for her and do so many nice things that she will think being ‘slow’ is the finest thing in the world! Now let’s talk about Christmas presents.”