Of all the legacies in the world, nothing is more desirable for children to inherit than old friendships. One day when Mrs. Locke took Lillian and me shopping with her, we met a lady in one of the stores whom she introduced as Mrs. Waldon. No sooner had she been told who I am than she held out both hands to me, saying in the dearest way, "Not Barby Shirley's daughter, and half a head taller than I! Why, my dear, I was at your mother's wedding, and it seems only yesterday. Our families have been neighbors for three generations, so you see we inherited our friendship, and now here you come, walking into the same heritage."
She insisted on taking us home to lunch with her. Mrs. Locke had another engagement, but Lillian and I went. She has the dearest apartment, on the top floor with a stairway running up to a little roof garden. Her husband served in the Civil War and was a general in the Cuban war, and two of her daughters have recently married naval officers. They were living in Annapolis when that happened, so she knows all about the place. Her other daughter, Miss Catherine, has just come back from a visit down there, and she told us so much about the place and the good times she has there that we are simply wild to go. I can hardly wait for the time to come.
We have just come to our rooms from the Current Events class. If it wasn't for Miss Allen's little lecture every Friday afternoon, reviewing the happenings of the week, we'd hardly know what is going on outside of the school premises. We rarely see the papers, and it is as sweet and peaceful as a cloister, here at the Hall, with its high-hedged park around it. We forget, sometimes, the awful suffering and horrors that have been shocking the world for nearly two years. Our lessons and recreations and friendships fill our days to the brim, and crowd the other things out. While we're digging into our mathematics or playing basketball with all our might, if we think of war at all, it's in the back of our heads, like the memory of a bad dream.
But when Miss Allen tells us of some new horror as she did today, of the torpedoing of the Sussex, crowded with passengers and many Americans aboard, then we realize we are living on the edge of a smouldering volcano, which may burst into action any moment. It doesn't seem possible that our country can keep out of it much longer. I know Father thinks so. His letters are few and far between because he's so very busy, but there's always that same note of warning running through them.
"Make the most of this year at school, Georgina. Nobody knows what is coming. So get all you can out of it in the way of preparation to meet the time of testing that lies ahead for all of us."
After one of those letters I go at my lessons harder than ever, and the little school happenings, its games and rivalries and achievements, seem too trivial for words. I keep measuring them by Father and his work, and what Richard is doing so splendidly up there in Canada, and I wish there was something I could do to make them as proud of me as I am of them. If the family would only consent to my going in for a nurse's training! I'm going to talk Barby into letting me stop school this vacation, and beginning this fall to fit myself for Red Cross service.
When Richard found that Mr. Milford had told us about him being the temporary head of a family, he began mentioning his proteges now and then in a joking way. But two snapshots which he sent of them told more than all his brief descriptions. The one labelled "Granny" shows more than just a patient-faced little woman knitting in the doorway. The glimpse of cottage behind her and the neat door-yard in front shows that he has something to go back to every night that has a real touch of home about it. He boards there, so that he can keep an eye on the boys. One is five, the other seven. He said he had to give the older one, Cuthbert, a fatherly spanking one day, but it didn't seem to make any difference in the kid's feeling towards him.
They seem to be very fond of each other, judging from the second snapshot, labelled "Uncle Dick and his acrobats." The two boys were climbing up on his shoulders like little monkeys, all three in overalls and all grinning as if they enjoyed it. It seems too queer for words to think of Richard being dignified and settled down enough for anybody to look up to him as authority. But the sights he sees are enough to make him old and grave beyond his years. He has written several times of going to the station to help with a train-load of soldiers returned from the front. They are constantly coming back, crippled and blinded and maimed in all sorts of ways. He says that sights like that make him desperate to get a whack at the ones who did it. He'll soon be in shape to do something worth while, for he's learning to fly, so he can test the machines they are making.
Lillian looked at the acrobat picture rather sniffily when it came. I think she took him for just an ordinary mechanic in his working clothes. But when I told her what a Sir Gareth deed he is doing her indifference changed almost to hero-worship. She's so temperamental. Not long ago he sent another picture of himself, a large one, in the act of seating himself in the plane, ready for flight. She wanted to know if she had anything I'd be willing to trade with her for it. She'd gladly give me one of Duff in place of it.