place, in
the mountains, perhaps. In the winter, we shall have to board in the
city. Mother can't be worried any longer; she must have what she
wants."

Miss Kirkbright glanced round the pretty parlor, as yet undisturbed;
at all that, with such labor, Sylvie had arranged into a home a year
ago.

"What a care for you, dear! What will you do with everything?"

"We are going to store some of our furniture, and sell some. Dot
Ingraham is to take my plants for me till we come back to Boston;
then I shall have them in our rooms. I hope the gas won't kill
them."

Rodney Sherrett said nothing after the first greeting for some
minutes. He only sat and listened, with a sober shadow in his
handsome eyes. All this was so different from anything he had
anticipated.

By and by, in a little pause, he told her that he had come out to
ask her for Class Day.

"I wouldn't just send a card for the spread," said he. "Aunt
Euphrasia wants you to go with her. I'm in the Reward of Merit list,
you see; I've earned my good time; been grinding awfully all winter.
I've even got a part for Commencement. Only a translation; and it
probably won't be called; but wouldn't you like to hear it, if it
were?"

"O, I wish I could!" said Sylvie, replying in earnest good faith to
the question he asked quizzically for a cover to his real eagerness
in letting her know. "I _wish_ I could! But we shall be gone."

"Not before Class Day?"

"Yes; just about then. I'm so sorry."

Rod Sherrett looked very much as if he thought he had "ground" for
nothing.

Then they talked about Lebanon, and the new Vermont Springs; perhaps
Mrs. Argenter would go to some of them in July. Miss Kirkbright told
Sylvie of a dear little place she had found last year, in the edge
of the White Mountain country; "among the great rolling hills that
lead you up and up," she said, "through whole counties of wonderful
wild beauty; the sacred places of simple living that can never be
crowded and profaned. It is a nook to hide away in when one gets
discouraged with the world. It consoles you with seeing how great
and safe the world is, after all; how the cities are only dots that
men have made upon it; picnicking here and there, as it were, with
their gross works and pleasures, and making a little rubbish which
the Lord could clean all away, if He wanted, with one breath, out of
his grand, pure heights."

All the while Sylvie and Rodney had their own young disappointed
thoughts.