Sally sometimes had the feeling that through these letters of her mother’s she knew Enid Barr better than anyone had ever known her. And she loved her with a passionate devotion, which sometimes frightened her with its intensity. Gazing at David’s picture, clipped from the college newspaper, she wondered, with a cruel pain banding her heart, if this almost idolatrous love for her mother would ultimately force her to give up David. If it should ever come to a choice between those two well-beloved, what should she do? Sometimes she agonized over the fear that David might have ceased to love her, might have found another girl, might even be married. Sometimes her hands shook so as they spread out the flat-folded sheets of the college newspaper and of the Capital City _Press_ that she had to clasp them tightly until the spasm of fear subsided. And each time the relief was so great that she sang and laughed and danced like a joy-crazy person. The other girls jeered at her good-naturedly because she was always singing, “I’ll be loving you—always!” But she did not care. It was her song—and David’s. She followed, with that obedience so deeply implanted in her, every phase of the program which Enid and Courtney Barr had mapped out for her. She went to the girls’ camp in New Hampshire and returned to school in Virginia that fall strong and tanned and boyish-looking, and was able to report to Enid that she could swim beautifully if not swiftly, could ride gracefully, could hold her own decently in a hard game of tennis, could play golf well enough not to be conspicuous on the links. During her last term at the finishing school she obediently paid a great deal of attention to her dancing, to drawing room deportment, and to her own beautiful young body, learning to groom it expertly. And during the Christmas and Easter vacations she netted three proposals of marriage, from brothers of classmates in whose homes she visited. She learned, somehow, to say “no” so tactfully that her suitors were almost as flattered by her refusals as they would have been if she had accepted them. Enid and Courtney Barr came down from New York to see her graduate, and with them they brought the news of her legal adoption. “A surprise, too!” Enid chanted, swinging her daughter’s hands excitedly. “Court and I are going to take you to Europe with us this summer, and keep you away from New York until almost time for you to make your debut.” “Europe!” Sally was dazed. Her first thought was that Europe was so far away from Capital City and David. He was getting his diploma now, just as she was getting hers—“Oh, Mother, you haven’t forgotten your promise, have you?” Enid frowned slightly, abashed by Sally’s lack of enthusiasm. “Promise, darling?” “That I could invite David to my coming-out party? Mother, I’ve lived for two years on that promise!” she cried desperately, as the frown of annoyance and anger deepened on her mother’s exquisite, proud little face.