Fairview, for instance. I wouldn't go trotting back there on a cut-rate
excursion, let alone making a pilgrimage to the sacred, I mean scared,
spot. That's the way it looks, you know; as though it had once tried to
grow and then been frightened out of it. I never was so glad in all my
life as when Pa said we'd kiss that town good-bye. I could see that I'd
never make my everlasting fortune there as a lawyer."

"You mean lawyeress, according to the Dean vocabulary," reminded Arline
Thayer with a giggle.

"What is life without Emma Dean?" smiled Anne Nesbit. "I wish she were
here to-night."

"I wrote her, asking her to pay me a visit while you girls were here,"
stated Arline, "but she wrote back voluminous and ridiculous thanks and
said the reunion was about as much as she could manage."

"That reminds me," broke in Elfreda, in business-like tones, "where are
we going to hold the reunion this year and at what time? Not much of
July is left us. August will scud by like a flash and then--Well, Grace
can tell you why September won't be a strictly popular time for a
reunion. Sara and Julia Emerson want us to have it at their camp in the
Adirondacks. That's rather a long distance for Emma to come. You know
she lives farther away than the rest of us. Why can't you come down to
Wildwood again? I am nothing if not hospitable."

"But it's my turn, now, J. Elfreda," protested Arline. "Why can't you
come here?"

"What's the use in taking turns?" propounded Elfreda sturdily. "I am an
extremely selfish person who never bothers about such little things as
mere 'taking turns.' Now that four of you girls have your faces set
toward wedding rings, it's high time something was done to console me.
There! Resist that argument if you can. Am I a credit to my profession,
or am I not?"

"You are," chorused five laughing voices.

Several days had elapsed since Grace Harlowe had accompanied Tom Gray
and his aunt on the mysterious mission that had brought her Haven Home.
Following that memorable morning, the delightful events of which had
offered such signal proof of the adoration of her dear ones, Grace had
moved about as one lost in a maze of quiet happiness. Every now and then
her mind would halt suddenly in the perusal of the blessings that were
hers to wonder almost wistfully if it were not all too beautiful, too
dear, to last.

Sometimes she marveled that, after so long and persistently keeping love
out of her busy life, she should