Chapter 2 No.2

The summer vacation was over, and students, more or less reluctantly, had returned to college and academy. The professor came back in a brand-new and very becoming suit of clothes; his hair and beard had been trimmed by a fashionable barber, and his old-fashioned high "stock" exchanged for a modern scarf, in the centre of which gleamed a modern scarf-pin. He ran lightly up the steps of the academy and inquired for Miss May.

Courtesy, as his uneasy conscience told him, dictated an inquiry for Miss Eldridge also, but he compounded with conscience: he would ask to see her after he had seen Rosamond.

"Why, how very nice you look! You are really handsome!" And the dignified professor was turned about, as if he had been a graven image, by two soft little hands, which he caught in his own, and-so forth.

She was very sure now that she loved him, as in a certain sense she did. But she would not consent to an immediate marriage, nor to the building of a miniature palace for her reception. She owed it to Miss Eldridge, she said, to fulfil her engagement and not to go away just as she was beginning to be really useful. And as for a house, would it not be pleasanter to live in lodgings and be free to come and go as they would? So his wishes, as usual, were deferred to hers. The long fall evenings began, and he brought, at her request, carefully-selected "improving" books, to be interrupted, as he read, by earnest questions, such as,-

"Would you embroider this linen dress with its own color or a contrasting one, if you were me?"

Spring came again, and the professor, looking ten years younger than he had looked a year ago, brought to his "rose of all the world" a bunch of the first May roses.

"Oh, the lovely, lovely things!" she exclaimed delightedly. "You shall have two kisses for them, Paul. Where did they come from, so early in May?"

"From the south side of the wall of an old garden which I used to weed when I was a boy."

"Will you take me there? Is it near here?" she asked eagerly.

"I will take you there," he answered, "some day; but it is not near here: it is more than a hundred miles away."

"And you sent all that way for them just for me? How good, how kind you are! There, I will take two of the half-blown ones for my hat, and two for my neck, and one for your button-hole-oh, yes, you shall! Hold still till I pin it. Now just see how nice you look! And the rest I will put in this glass, and then Miss Christina can enjoy them too; she's so kind, and I can't do anything for her. Oh, that makes me think! I have to go across the river this afternoon to hunt up a dress-maker she told me about, a delightfully cheap and good one, and she said you would know if there were any way of crossing anywhere near -- Street, the bridge is so far from where I want to go. Is there?"

"Yes," he replied, "there's a rather uncertain way: an old fellow who owns a boat lives close by there, and if he's at home he will be only too glad to row you over for a few cents. It would not make your walk much longer to go round that way first and see. I have often crossed in his boat, and I like to talk with him: he's an original character."

"Oh, that is charming!" she said delightedly. "Can't you come too? You can sit and talk with him while I'm talking to the dress-maker."

"I wish I could," he answered, "but I promised to meet the president in the college library at four, and-bless me! it only wants ten minutes of it now. Try to get back by sunset, dear: the evenings are chilly yet."

"Yes, I will; I'm going right away," she said, with the deference to his least wish which so often gave him a heartache. "You'll be in this evening? Of course you will. Thank you so very, very much for the roses."

She watched him go down the steps, waving her hand to him as she closed the door, and then, with the roses still in her hat and at her throat, walked toward the river-bank, whispering a gay little song to herself. It was such a bright day! she was so glad "the winter was over and gone!" how good and kind everybody was! how grateful she ought to be!