And now we will leave our girls. Their postgraduate year is over. A very happy one it has been, with little excitement but much good, hard work. Nance is to go to Vermont and rescue her long-suffering father from the boarding house, and give the poor man the taste of home life that he has never known. Mrs. Oldham cannot keep house in Vermont and make speeches, now at the International Peace Conference at The Hague, and then at a Biennial of Woman’s Clubs in San Francisco, with a stop over in New York to address the Equal Suffrage League between boat and train!
Molly is going back to Kentucky to assist at her sister’s wedding, this wedding a formal affair in a church, to suit the notions of the formidable Aunt Clay. Molly has many plots in her head to work out. Her little success with “The Basket Funeral” has fired her ambition, and she is longing for time to write more. French must be studied hard all summer if they are to go abroad, and Kent must be coached, as he is very rustyin his French and must rub up on it for lectures at the Beaux Arts. She has promised Edwin Green to write to him, and he has offered to criticize her stories, which will be a great help to her. The place of meeting in Europe has not been decided on, but Professor Green is determined that meeting there shall be.
Melissa will go back to her beloved mountains and try to give out during her well-earned vacation some of the precious knowledge she has gained in her freshman year to the less fortunate children of her county. She will in a measure repay the noble woman who has spent her life in the mountain mission work for all the care and labor she has expended on her, and will go back to Wellington for the sophomore course with her purpose stronger and deeper: to help her people and uplift them as she herself has become uplifted.
One more incident only we must record before this volume ends. After Molly got home she received by express a box wrapped in Japanesepaper, so carefully and wonderfully done up that it seemed a pity to break the fastenings. In the box was the most beautiful little stunted tree in a pot that looked as though it had come out of a museum. The tree had all the characteristics of a “gnarled oak olden,” with thick twisted branches and one limb that looked as though little children might have had a swing on it, so low did it sag. And this tiny tree, with all the dignity of a great “father of the forest,” was, pot and all, only eight inches high! With it, came the following letter:
“Will the honorably and kindly graciously Miss Brown be so stoopingly as to accept this humble gift from the father of Otoyo Sen, who has by the most graciously help of Miss Brown passed her difficulty examinations at Wellington College and now is to become the humble wife of honorable Japanese gentleman, Mr. Seshu? The honorable gentleman gave greatly praise to graciously Miss Brown for her so kindly words about humble Japanese maiden and is gratefullythat his humble wife is the friend of so kindly lady.”
With this little note, it seemed to Molly that the last ties that bound her to the precious life at Wellington and the old, complete Queen’s group had suddenly snapped. Little Otoyo had outstripped them all! She was quietly entering the school of Life, while the rest were only standing at the threshold.
Molly, knowing the serene satisfaction with which the Japanese maiden awaited the new bonds, and remembering the transforming happiness of Edith Williams in anticipation of a similar experience, thoughtfully pondered upon her own future.
She had the eye of faith but she was not a seer; and she could not travel in advance those devious paths by which Destiny was to lead her.
How she finally came to her own and fulfilled the promise of college days, it remains for “Molly Brown’s Orchard Home” to disclose.
The End.
The End.