"Yes, but a good many others thought of it too, and we didn't get any orders--not one. Ours weren't so extra pretty and it was foolish of me to be so disappointed, but we'd worked hard getting ready and we did want a little more money so much."
They had reached Betty's door by this time, and Miss Davis hurried on, saying it was her turn to get supper and begging Betty to come and see them. "For we're very cozy, I assure you. You mustn't think we have a horrid time just because--you know why."
Betty went straight to Mary's room, which, since she had no roommate to object to disorder, had been the chief seat of the valentine industry.
"You're a nice one," cried Katherine, "staying off like this when to-day is the eleventh."
Betty sat down on Mary's couch, ruthlessly sweeping aside a mass of half finished valentines to make room. "Girls, this has got to stop," she announced abruptly.
Mary dropped her scissors and Katherine shut the rhyming dictionary with a bang.
"What is the trouble?" they asked in chorus.
Then Betty told her story, suppressing only Emily's name and mentioning all the details that had made up the point and pathos of it. "And just think!" she said at last. "She's a girl you'd both be proud to know, and she works like that. And we stepped in and took away a chance of--of ribbons and note-books and dessert for Sunday."
"May be not; perhaps hers were so homely they wouldn't have sold anyway," suggested Katherine with an attempt at jocoseness.
Mary came and sat down beside her on the couch. "Well, what's to be done about it now?" she asked soberly.
"I don't know. We can't give them orders because she took her sign down. I thought perhaps--how much have we made?"
"Fifteen dollars easily. All right; we'll send it to them."
"Of course," chimed in Katherine. "I was only joking. Shall we finish these up?"
"Yes indeed," said Mary, "they're all ordered, and the more money the better, n'est ce pas, Betty? But aren't we to know the person's name?"
Betty hesitated. "Why--no--that is if you don't mind very much. You see she sort of told me about herself because she had to, so I feel as if I oughtn't to repeat it. Do you mind?"
"Not one bit," said Katherine quickly. "And we needn't say anything at all about it, except--don't you think the girls here in the house will have to know that we're going to give away the money?"