wrote mother not to
worry about clothes, because most of the others were from the country,
or small towns, and getting ready to teach, and lots of them didn't
have NEARLY as many or as pretty dresses as she did. She told about
the big building, the classes, the professors, and of going to public
recitals where some of the pupils who knew enough played; and she was
working her fingers almost to the bone, so she could next year. She
told of people she met, and how one of the teachers took a number of
girls in his class to see a great picture gallery. She wrote pages
about a young Chicago lawyer she met there, and only a few lines about
the pictures, so father said as that was the best collection of art
work in Chicago, it was easy enough to see that Shelley had been far
more impressed with the man than she had been with the pictures.
Mother said she didn't see how he could say a thing like that about the
child. Of course she couldn't tell in a letter about hundreds of
pictures, but it was easy enough to tell all about a man.

Father got sort of spunky at that, and he said it was mighty little
that mattered most, that could be told about a Chicago lawyer; and
mother had better caution Shelley to think more about her work, and
write less of the man. Mother said that would stop the child's
confidences completely and she'd think all the time about the man, and
never mention him again, so she wouldn't know what WAS going on. She
said she was glad Shelley had found pleasing, refined friends, and
she'd encourage her all she could in cultivating them; but of course
she'd caution her to be careful, and she'd tell her what the danger
was, and after that Shelley wrote and wrote. Mother didn't always read
the letters to us, but she answered every one she got that same night.
Sometimes she pushed the pen so she jabbed the paper, and often she
smiled or laughed softly.

I liked Thanksgiving. We always had a house full of company, and they
didn't stay until we were tired of them, as they did at Christmas, and
there was as much to eat; the only difference was that there were no
presents. It wasn't nearly so much work to fix for one day as it was
for a week; so it wasn't so hard on mother and Candace, and father
didn't have to spend much money. We were wearing all our clothes from
last fall that we could, and our coats from last winter to help out,
but we didn't care. We had a lot of fun, and we wanted Sally and
Shelley to h