Mary also was a little disappointed. She had rather looked forward to
meeting Mr. Smith. He was her friend's father, of course, and that of
itself made him an interesting personality, but there was something
more--a sort of mystery about him, inspired in her mind by the
photograph which Crawford had shown her, which made her curious. The man
in the photograph resembled Crawford, of course, but she had the feeling
that he resembled someone else even more--someone she had known or whose
picture she had seen. She was sorry she was not to meet him.
Commencement was a wonderful time. Mary was introduced to dozens of
young fellows, attended spreads and sings and proms, danced a great
deal, was asked to dance ever so much more, chatted and laughed and
enjoyed herself as a healthy, happy, and pretty girl should enjoy a
college commencement. And on the following Tuesday she and Miss Pease,
looking down from the steamer's deck, waved their handkerchiefs to Mrs.
Wyeth and Zoeth and Captain Shadrach and Crawford who, standing on the
wharf, waved theirs in return as the big ship moved slowly out of the
dock and turned her nose toward Minot's Light and the open sea. For the
first time since Hamilton and Company put up a sign both partners had
come to Boston together.
“Annabel's keepin' store,” explained Shadrach, “and Isaiah's helpin'.
It'll be the blind leadin' the blind, I cal'late, but we don't care, do
we, Zoeth? We made up our mind we'd see you off, Mary-'Gusta, if we had
to swim to Provincetown and send up sky-rockets from Race P'int to let
you know we was there. Don't forget what I told you: If you should get
as fur as Leghorn be sure and hunt up that ship-chandler name of Peroti.
Ask him if he remembers Shad Gould that he knew in '65. If he ain't dead
I bet you he'll remember.”
So Mary-'Gusta sailed away and for ten marvelous weeks daydreams came
true and attic make-believes turned to realities. War had not yet come
to sow its seed of steel and fire and reap its harvest of blood and
death upon the fair valleys and hills of France, and the travelers
journeyed leisurely from village to cathedral town and from the Seine
to the Loire. They spent three weeks in Switzerland and two in Italy,
returning for the final week to London where, under Miss Pease's expert
guidance, Mary visited the shops, the big ones on Regent and Oxford
Streets and the smaller, equally fascinating--and more expensive--ones
on Bond Street and Piccadilly, buying presents and remembrances for the
folks at home. And, at last, came the day when, leaning upon the rail,
she saw the misty headlands of Ireland sink beneath the horizon and
realized that her wonderful holiday was over and that she was homeward
bound.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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