Had either of them heard the directions he was giving Betsy at that moment, they would have edited their praise. Helen Maynard and both the young men were occupying a section opposite, showing one another card tricks, and Mrs. Nixon and Mrs. Bruce with quiet minds discussed their summer wardrobes, and the Fairport Inn. By a strange coincidence the subjects being discussed by Betsy and Mr. Derwent were precisely the same. CHAPTER XIX MRS. BRUCE’S HEADACHE “BE it ever so humble,” said Mrs. Bruce, “there’s no place like home!” She was standing again on the veranda of her summer cottage, where Betsy was airing and beating pillows. “Pretty good place,” agreed Betsy. “I’m glad I ain’t goin’ to see a trunk for months; but—” she hesitated unwontedly, and then continued, “I’d like to go to Boston for a couple o’ days, Mrs. Bruce, if you can spare me.” “Dear me, when we’ve just arrived?” “The cook’s all right, and you’ve got Mr. Irving and his friend both here—” “A lot of good they are,” retorted Mrs. Bruce. “They’ve lived with Captain Salter ever since we came.” Betsy said nothing. Mrs. Bruce had the uncomfortable realization which seized her at times that, although her None-such went through the form of asking her permission, she would in fact do exactly what she thought best. “It’s such a queer thing for you to want to do, Betsy,” she continued, “to go back into the heart of the city immediately. Of course Mrs. Nixon felt obliged to stay a few days with Miss Maynard, to order some gowns—” “Do you want to send her any word?” “Yes, I promised to look at the rooms at the inn and see what they had.” “Can’t I do that for you?” asked Betsy. “Why, yes, I wish you would.” “I can go this afternoon just as well as not,” remarked Betsy quietly. “Don’t it beat all, the way things come round all right if you just don’t fidget?” she thought. The middle of the afternoon found her on the way to the pretty inn, set on a slight rise of ground above the river. Mr. Beebe, the proprietor, was a Fairport man, an old friend of Betsy’s, whose provincial ideas had for years been in process of changing and forming by contact with the summer people for whom he catered; and what had once been a barn-like structure known as the Fairport Hotel, now showed as a modern inn, with verandas and a pretense to fashion. Mr. Beebe welcomed Betsy with effusion, rallied her on her travels and her worldly experience, and at last settled down to listen to her business. When finally she arose to go, he remarked:— “Well, seems if there wasn’t any end to the new-fangled notions a feller’s got to listen to and adopt to keep up with the times. I haven’t forgot how clever you were to my wife when she was sick a couple o’ years ago, and I don’t like to turn down anything you ask of me.”