Betty's Happy Year

“What do you most want to know?” droned out the magician, as he gravely wagged his head at her.

“Who you are!” said Betty, so suddenly that he fairly jumped.

At this the three Fates doubled up in gleeful antics, but the wizard recovered himself, and continued in slow, deep tones:

“That you may know sometime, but not now. I will now foretell your fate.”

“Do,” said Betty, wondering where she had heard that full, deep voice before.

“You have strange adventures awaiting you. You will travel by land and sea, and great good fortune shall be ever yours. In the years to come, you will meet your destiny. The stars ordain that a fitting mate shall claim you, but it will be neither of the two Fates who are now dogging your footsteps.”

At this Harry and Ralph gave forth despairing groans and pretended to pommel one another. Betty giggled, but the wizard remained grave.

“That you may know your fate,” he went on, “I give you this talisman.”

Now, Betty had no mind to be teased as Dorothy had been, and receiving the talisman from the wizard, she slipped it into her pocket.

Then, as the wizard dismissed her, she rose to take leave.

“Thou mayst not depart until thou shalt exhibit thy talisman,” said Harry Harper, striking a dramatic attitude before the door.

“Oh, yes, I mayst,” said Betty. “Avaunt thee, Fate, and let me pass, or I cast o’er thee my magic spell!”

“Already hast thou done that,” said Harry, his tone exaggeratedly sentimental.

“Let the witch pass!” interrupted Elmer Ellis, and, amid the chuckling exclamations of the three, Betty departed.

“What did you get?” “What’s your talisman?” cried those who awaited her. “Let’s see your fate!”

But Betty laughingly showed her empty hands, and could not be persuaded to admit that she had received anything. But as soon as she could get a moment unobserved, she took out her talisman to examine it.

It was a bright new cent, dated the present year.

“Oh,” said Betty to herself, “a penny! Hal Pennington! I thought I had heard that voice before! What a little witch Lena is, to keep it so secret! I never dreamed of his coming.”

Betty was glad he had come, for though they had met only a few times, they were good friends, and it was a compliment indeed that he had given her himself as a fate! Of course it was just for that evening, and Betty thought it was very jolly.

With shining eyes and rosy cheeks, she rejoined the others.

“Let’s play a joke on Betty,” said Dorothy to Jeanette, as it neared supper-time.

“How do you mean?”

“This way. Lena says we girls each have to select our partner for supper. She says she won’t have the old-fashioned way of pairing off by matched nuts or flowers or things. Each girl has to ask a boy herself. Now, of course, nobody will ask the boy she really likes best. I wouldn’t myself!”

“Well,” asked Jeanette, “what’s the joke on Betty, then? She won’t ask either Harry or Ralph, and we know she likes them best.”

“That’s just it! Of course Lena will make her choice last, as she’s hostess. Let’s fix it so Betty will be next to last, and let’s leave those two boys till the last. Then Betty will have to choose one or the other of them, and that will be a good joke on her.”

“Yes, it will! And it isn’t a mean joke, either. If there are only those two, she’ll have to select one.”

“But how can we be sure nobody else chooses either Harry or Ralph?”

“Oh, nobody will. They’ll know enough to leave them for Betty. But I’ll whisper to Constance and a few of the girls to make sure.”

The scheme worked well. Lena, in burlesque authority, ordered each fair damsel to choose the knight she most admired, to escort her to supper.

This made great fun, as each girl deliberately ignored the boy she liked best, and chose a brother or a comparative stranger. Betty had made up her mind to choose Jack, and thus evade an embarrassing decision between her two admirers.

But, as one girl after another was called, Betty began to surmise there was some joke in progress.

But Lena said to her, casually, “You and I will go last, Betty,” and so she really suspected little.

But at last no boys were left but Ralph and Harry, and, as Lena announced with twinkling eyes that Betty must make her choice, she saw at once that the girls had pre-arranged this.

It was a difficult situation. Betty had no wish to offend either boy by choosing the other, and she was decidedly in a quandary. She stood looking at them and smiling.

“It’s so hard to choose between you,” she said, provokingly, but really to gain time. Suddenly she bethought herself of the penny in her pocket! Ah, here was a way to circumvent those mischievous girls!

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a little sigh, “that I can’t choose either of you very gentlemanly appearing boys. But my Fate was foretold me, and the talisman that I have here bids me await the coming of the knight appointed for me by Destiny.”

Betty held up her bright penny with a roguish look.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Lena, who knew nothing of what Hal had said to Betty in the Room of the Fates.

“Ah, here he comes! Here’s the Bad Penny, who always turns up when he’s wanted!”

Hal was just entering the room, his first appearance except in his disguise as “Fate.” He had removed the uncomfortable wig and whiskers, but still wore the gorgeous costume.

The smile with which Betty greeted him quite took away the sting of being called a Bad Penny, and he said gaily:

“A Lucky Penny, rather, to be chosen by such a merry witch!”

So the girls were foiled in their little plot, and Lena, accepting her defeat good-naturedly, declared she had to choose both the remaining knights, and taking an arm of each, she followed the procession to the dining-room.

The feast was abundant and the guests very merry. More fortune-testing was provided in the mottoes and snapdragon, and at last the “fortune-cake” was cut.

This great confection was almost like a bride-cake, save that its frosting was red and chocolate instead of white.

It was decorated with tiny witches and black cats, which were, of course, confectionery, and candles were burning all round it.

In it had been baked a thimble, signifying spinsterhood; a gold ring, betokening matrimony; a penny, meaning wealth; a gold pen for literary fame; a button for a bachelor; and many other tiny emblems of fortune, which were arranged only one to a slice.

By dint of clever manœuvering Lena arranged that Betty should get the slice with the penny in it, and this caused a shout of laughter at Betty’s expense.

But she didn’t mind, and only glanced merrily at Hal, as she said:

“We seem to be irrevocably fated, don’t we?”