CHAPTER XX
THE SECOND DEGREE
"My patience, what a world of trouble this is!" sighed Betty to herself, but aloud she said cheerily: "What's the matter with Norma?"
Norma sat up, mopping her eyes.
"Oh, Betty," she choked, "I don't believe Alice and I can come back after Christmas! They've had a fire in Glenside and a house dad owns there burned. He hasn't a cent of insurance, and the mortgagee takes the ground. So that's the rental right out of our income. Besides, grandma has had an operation on her eyes and she has to spend weeks in an expensive Philadelphia hospital. Even with the small fees the surgeons charge because of dad, the board will amount to more than he can afford to pay. Alice and I ought to be learning stenography or something useful."
"Well, now, your father would say," suggested Betty, with determined optimism, "that the Christmas vacation is too far off to make any plans about what you're going to do afterward. You know Bobby Littell has set her heart on you and Alice spending the recess with them in Wash-
