The period, always a dangerous one, the year following school life, became Doris's great concern while the school time progressed in orderly fashion under Miss Phillips's guidance. "I am keeping my hands off," Doris often confided to Martin. "It is only fair play while the children are at Dondale. You were right--Miss Phillips is a wonderful woman--I have learned to trust her absolutely. She has appreciated what I tried to do for the girls; is building on it; she will return them to me--not different, but--extended! It's the time after, David, that I am planning. That time which is the link between restraint and the finding of one's self." "I declare," Martin would reply to this, "I wonder that you ever get results, Doris; you harvest while others are sowing." But deep in us all is the current carrying on and on, and it was hurrying Doris during the years while the girls were at Dondale. There were the happy vacations, the new interests, the marvel of watching the miracle of evolution from the child to the woman. At times this was breathlessly exciting. Doris filled her private time with useful and enjoyable hours. She got into closer touch with old friends, saw and heard the best in music and drama, permitted herself the luxury of David Martin's friendship, and shared his confidences about his sister's son in the Far West--a fatherless boy who promised much but often failed in fulfilment. "Odd, isn't it, Davey," Doris sometimes said, "that you and I, having, somehow, lost what is the commonplace road for most men and women, have been called upon to assume many of the joys and sorrows of that broad highway?" "We none of us go scot free," Martin returned. "I'm grateful for every decent, common job thrown at me." And so the years passed and Doris had outlined a vague but comprehensive line of action for the immediate months following the girls' graduation from Dondale. "I am going to take them abroad," she announced to Martin; "take them over the route that Merry and I took--our last journey together. And, David, in that little Italian town they shall know--about Meredith and Thornton!" David started, but made no remark. "And when we return," Doris went on, "I am going to bring the girls out--I hate the term, I'd rather say let them out--just as Merry and I were, in this dear, old house. Mrs. Tweksbury and I have planned rather a brilliant campaign." And then came that bleak March day--Joan and Nancy were to graduate in June--when the hurrying undercurrent in Doris Fletcher's life brought her to a sharp turn in the stream. She was sitting in the pleasant old room before a freshly made fire; the fountain trickled and splashed, the birds sang, defying the outdoor gloom and chill, and a letter from Miss Phillips lay upon her lap--a letter that had made her smile then frown. She took it up and read it again.