Summer advanced with her languid days, and the great event of the year
in Dartmoor--class day--came and passed.
Last year her only interest in the parade had been that of a stranger
seeing for the first time a novel spectacle; but this year things were
different. She and Molly now knew many of the students; knew them in an
orthodox, well-regulated manner, and met them in both private and church
parlors. Morton sometimes brought them home at evening as well, and
occasionally the girls went with one of them to a concert or lecture.
Mrs. Macon often had the sisters to assist at her receptions, and
occasional dinners also; and thus, without being society girls at all,
in a certain sense they yet did see a good deal of the social life in
Dartmoor in one way and another.
Professor and Madame Grandet meanwhile were far away, the former having
joined a governmental party bound for South America, while the latter
had gone to Chicago to be with her nephew during her husband's absence.
She and Sara had agreed to keep up an occasional correspondence; and it
was impossible that these things could be kept out of the letters, when
they occupied so much of her time and attention.
One evening the madame and Robert returned from a drive to Washington
Park, by way of beautiful Michigan Avenue and Drexel Boulevard, and as
they were re-entering their private sitting-room in the house where they
boarded that lady espied a missive slipped into the edge of her door,
and gave a little cry of pleasure as she tore off its end and drew forth
the closely-written sheet.
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