The completed invention had brought Miss Miranda’s father both fame and
fortune, even as his scientist friend had prophesied, and what was
better, had won him back to health. The first result of its success was
that the ruined walls of the old house had vanished and the big, gray,
beautiful building was going up again under the hands of an army of
workmen. Mr. Reynolds could be seen upon the lawn, superintending mildly
with Miss Miranda at his side, a very changed and happy Miss Miranda who
seemed to love watching one stone replaced above another as though each
were a miracle. When Elizabeth and David should come back for the first
vacation of their college year, the house would be under roof at least,
so that warm red tiles and sharp gable-lines would be reflected in the
pool on the lawn. There would be scarlet leaves floating in the water
then, and dry, brown grass nodding at the edge and, on quiet evenings,
there would rock upon the ripples the shining stars of Orion or the
laughing Pleiades.
That time, however, was still distant, for Betsey and David were
entering, this morning, on their first day of college. They had
journeyed from Harwood and came up from the station together, but now
stood near the great gray arch that led to the main campus, at the place
where they must part. The Scientific School, where David was to enter,
stood just across the road, showing a brick-columned entrance-way with
heavy iron gates and a hurrying throng passing out and in. The two had
been discussing the future year most earnestly when they set out, but
the talk had languished and they had fallen quite silent now. Hundreds
of people, it seemed, were hastening past them, all young, all eager,
all absorbed in their varied errands.
“I dread a little,” Betsey confessed at last; “it is so new and strange
and different. I wanted so much to come here, but now, just at the last
minute, I would be glad to go home again.”
David nodded.
“I feel the same way,” he agreed. “But I think anything big enough to be
worth while is bound to be dreaded a little too. The feeling won’t last
long. Well, the bell is ringing, we must go on, I think.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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