Barbara Blair Wente in the Vine Haven Seminary looked up from the cosy window seat where she was comfortably curled, studying French verbs, when she heard the door open. It was Margaret Selover, her room-mate, who entered.
“Megsy,” Babs exclaimed with real concern as she sprang to her feet and approached her friend with hands outstretched, “what has happened, dear? Are the algebra reports in and didn’t you pass, or, is it something else?”
The newcomer looked at Barbara with eyes tear-brimmed. She tried to speak but her lips quivered; then, flinging herself down upon the couch, she sobbed as though her heart would break.
Babs, deeply concerned, knelt by the side of her room-mate, and tenderly smoothing the gold-brown curls, she pleaded. “Tell me, Megsy darling, can’t I help?”
Impulsively Margaret sat up, and, putting her arms about her friend she sobbed. “Oh Babs, I can’t do it! I won’t do it! I did think that my dad loved me too much to punish me so.”
“Can’t, won’t do what?” Barbara sat on the couch and drew her room-mate comfortingly close. “Megsy, please begin at the beginning.”
Margaret put her hand in a pocket of her rose-colored sweater-coat and drew out a crumpled letter.
“It’s from some-one way out on that terrible Arizona desert,” she said, “and it informs me that my father appointed a Mr. Davis as my guardian and that the elderly gentleman, having given the matter due thought, believes that it is time for me to come to his home and take the place that my father wished me to occupy, that of a rancher’s adopted daughter.”
Barbara gazed at her friend, almost unable to comprehend. “Megsy, does this mean that you and I are to be parted? That you are to leave Vine Haven Seminary forever?”
For a brief moment Margaret sat as though stunned, but her room-mate’s words roused her to action. Springing up in a sudden tempest of anger, she tore across the room, threw open the desk and began to write rapidly.
“There!” she exclaimed a few moments later. “I have written my answer.”
“Read it,” Barbara begged, and in a hard cold voice, very unlike her own, that was merry and musical, Margaret read:
“My Dear Mr. Davis:—
“You undoubtedly have written with the kindest of motives, but the picture you present is not in the least attractive to me. A ranch house on a desolate desert twenty miles from town is not a home which I wish to enter.
“It is better for me to be honest and tell you at once that I do not care to be your adopted daughter. I have a sufficient income on which to live and I shall remain at Vine Haven Seminary until I have graduated. Soon after that I will be eighteen and you will no longer be responsible for my actions.”
Barbara listened and watched, puzzled indeed at this new Margaret. “Dear,” she said when her friend paused, evidently expecting comment, “it is very unlike you to hurt anyone. Couldn’t you add a little something that would soften the sting?”
With a shrug Margaret turned back to the desk and after a thoughtful moment, she again wrote a few lines. Then in a voice more like her own, she read:—“Since you were a close friend of my father, I regret that I must make a decision that may seem defiant, but surely you would not wish to have in your home a rebellious daughter and that is what I would be.
“Sincerely yours,
“MARGARET SELOVER.”
Without waiting for further comment, the letter was sealed and stamped.
“I hope you are doing right, dear,” Barbara said; then, almost tearfully: “If you do go so far away, Vine Haven will be more desolate to me than the desert.”
“I’m not going!” Margaret remarked conclusively, then, springing up, she added. “Three bells! Time for French class and I haven’t even looked at those verbs.”
Together they left their room and descended the wide flight of stairs. “I’ll skip ahead and put this letter in the mail pouch,” Margaret declared; then, somewhat repentantly: “Really, Babs, I am sorry to hurt the feelings of the old man. Father often told me how much he admired Mr. Davis who was many years his senior. They owned some mining property together near Bisbee. In fact, I believe that my income is derived from that same copper mine even now. Well, someday soon I’ll send him another and a kindlier letter, but there isn’t time today, and he will, of course, be watching for an answer.”
But before the other letter was written, something very unexpected happened.