"Oh, ten! A _hundred_! I didn't know anyone _could_ live so fast all at one time!" agreed Sidney solemnly. "Sometimes I think I'm just dreaming and will wake up and find that nothing's happened. I won't mind going home now for I'll have so much to think about!" "Going home?" gasped Aunt Achsa. "Why--why--" Dugald Allan, coming from Lavender's room, interrupted them. "I beg to report that your millionaire nephew is resting quietly and is in fine shape." Sidney noticed with a little glow of feeling how quickly Mr. Dugald's eyes sought Trude's. And she thought Trude cruel to look away! Miss Vine persuaded Aunt Achsa to go to bed and then said good-night herself. Her "ten years" had left her fatigued. Dugald Allan walked as far as the lane with her then came back, remembering suddenly that he was carrying two letters in his pocket. "In the excitement I nearly forgot them," he apologized. He drew them out. Both were for Trude and had been forwarded by special delivery from Long Island. One was from Vick and one from Issy. "Oh, open them quickly," begged Sidney. Trude's hand trembled as she held Issy's envelope. "I'm--almost afraid to. I _know_ it's silly--but so much has happened today that--I don't think--I could bear--anything more!" CHAPTER XXV NO ONE LAUGHS LAST Trude read Issy's letter aloud, not noticing in her high pitch of anxiety that Dugald Allan had lingered. "--I am going to tell something now concerning which I have given no hint in my former letters. It's something that means so much to me that I have not dared write about it until it was decided. And now it is decided. Professor Deering has asked me to stay on with him as his secretary. And I have accepted. The salary will not be so very big though it will seem big to me and I am happy among books and bookish people and working right here in the college will give me opportunities I never had before.