“Well, we simply can’t go without _you_, or Bettykins either,” Doris Drexel declared.
“Yes, you can,” Gertrude replied brightly, “and Betty and I shall expect long letters from you every week telling all about the good times that you are having.”
“But what will _you_ do, Trudie, about going to school?” Bertha inquired. These two girls were always at the head of their classes and Bertha well knew that her friend did not want to have her studies interrupted.
“Father is going to teach me some of the subjects and Mother the others,” Gertrude replied. “Mother was a high school teacher before she married, and Father was graduated from the theological seminary with highest honors.”
Then, turning to the little one who was trying hard not to cry, she said kindly, “Bettykins, you may study with me, if you wish.”
“Oh, Gertrude, that would help me so much!” Betty replied gratefully, smiling through the tears that would come.
“Girls,” Adele declared brightly, “‘My bones are very good prophets,’ as Grandpa Dally used to say, and I just feel sure that before very many moons, we shall all seven of us be at Linden Hall Seminary for Young Ladies.”
Whether or no Adele was a true prophet, you shall hear.
The next day Adele wrote a long letter to Carol Lorens telling her the good news that five of the Sunny Seven were to attend the Linden Hall boarding-school, that is, if there would be room for them. Mrs. Doring had written to Madame Deriby to inquire, and eagerly the five girls awaited an answering letter.
Meanwhile little Betty Burd was trying to be brave, but it was very hard. The day after the meeting at the Secret Sanctum, she went for a long ride on her pony, and, with tears slipping down her cheeks, she scolded herself: “You just ought to be ashamed, Betty Burd, when you have _so much_ to be thankful for,” she said aloud as she rode through a little wood, where everything was peaceful and quiet, save now and then a rustle in the dry leaves when a squirrel darted across the path. “I’m not going to cry another tear!” she continued, as she whirled her pony’s head toward home. “Uncle George has done so much for me, and I don’t want him to even _guess_ how I have longed to go to boarding-school with the other girls.”