Grace Harlowes Golden Summer | Page 7

is going back to Haven Home," said Kathleen West softly.
"You're a very lucky Loyalheart," was J. Elfreda Briggs' brisk comment. "Not every one who goes adventuring into strange lands finds the home of her chee-ildhood an interesting place to settle down in. Now take Fairview, for instance. I wouldn't go trotting back there on a cut-rate excursion, let alone making a pilgrimage to the sacred, I mean scared, spot. That's the way it looks, you know; as though it had once tried to grow and then been frightened out of it. I never was so glad in all my life as when Pa said we'd kiss that town good-bye. I could see that I'd never make my everlasting fortune there as a lawyer."
"You mean lawyeress, according to the Dean vocabulary," reminded Arline Thayer with a giggle.
"What is life without Emma Dean?" smiled Anne Nesbit. "I wish she were here to-night."
"I wrote her, asking her to pay me a visit while you girls were here," stated Arline, "but she wrote back voluminous and ridiculous thanks and said the reunion was about as much as she could manage."
"That reminds me," broke in Elfreda, in business-like tones, "where are we going to hold the reunion this year and at what time? Not much of July is left us. August will scud by like a flash and then--Well, Grace can tell you why September won't be a strictly popular time for a reunion. Sara and Julia Emerson want us to have it at their camp in the Adirondacks. That's rather a long distance for Emma to come. You know she lives farther away than the rest of us. Why can't you come down to Wildwood again? I am nothing if not hospitable."
"But it's my turn, now, J. Elfreda," protested Arline. "Why can't you come here?"
"What's the use in taking turns?" propounded Elfreda sturdily. "I am an extremely selfish person who never bothers about such little things as mere 'taking turns.' Now that four of you girls have your faces set toward wedding rings, it's high time something was done to console me. There! Resist that argument if you can. Am I a credit to my profession, or am I not?"
"You are," chorused five laughing voices.
Several days had elapsed since Grace Harlowe had accompanied Tom Gray and his aunt on the mysterious mission that had brought her Haven Home. Following that memorable morning, the delightful events of which had offered such signal proof of the adoration of her dear ones, Grace had moved about as one lost in a maze of quiet happiness. Every now and then her mind would halt suddenly in the perusal of the blessings that were hers to wonder almost wistfully if it were not all too beautiful, too dear, to last.
Sometimes she marveled that, after so long and persistently keeping love out of her busy life, she should have at length come into its purest realization. Once the very thought of it had irked and distressed her. Now she experienced a sense of deep surprise that she had been so blind. Her Golden Summer had indeed descended upon her in all its radiant glory. She rejoiced in the long peaceful mornings spent with her mother on the vine-clad veranda, or in the clematis-wreathed summer house at the end of the garden. They were busy mornings, too, filled with the joy of preparing the countless dainty odds and ends, so necessary to her trousseau. Their hands never idle, they talked long and earnestly of the things which lay nearest their hearts, and a strange peace, which Grace's naturally restless temperament had never before known, enveloped her like a mantle.
Though anxious to meet her friends again in New York City, Grace had sighed with genuine regret at leaving this new-found peace and departing from Oakdale on the most momentous shopping tour she had ever before set out to make. She and her mother had gone directly to the home of the Nesbits, where a most cordial welcome awaited them. Two days had passed since their arrival. It was now the evening of the second day and the five girls whose fortunes had been so firmly linked together at Overton College, by a series of happenings grave and gay, were paying a brief, overnight visit to Arline Thayer at her home in East Orange.
"Thank you." Elfreda bowed at the unanimous response. "As an esteemed representative of the law and a forlorn bachelor girl, I really think my plea deserves some small consideration. I might also add that I could see you were all anxious to come to Wildwood. I appreciate your delicate opposition." Elfreda grinned boyishly. "Now that we've decided where, we'd better decide when the reunion is to be."
"We didn't decide where, did we?" tantalized Miriam. "We only decided that you were