The intimacy with Aubrey and Natalie begun on her entrance to the Adelphi, continued through all their mutual course and at last the time came when they, too, were to be graduated; strangely enough, Aubrey with first honors and our heroine with none. She wrote home:—
“Dear Mother:
“You’re going to be dreadfully disappointed in me, I know, and I wish, I wish I could make it otherwise. But I can’t. I think all that feverish energy of the first year was but a ‘spurt,’ as rowers say. It came from shame. But as soon as I had picked up enough to keep even with the girls of my own age I couldn’t tear ahead and climb any more of that ‘bean-stalk’ dear Miss Montaigne used to talk about. Poor thing! She feels a deal worse about my stupidity than I do. She thought she had found a genius to instruct when she first took hold of my brains, but she made a mistake.
“I can sing—a little. I can fiddle, or violin, enough to make it pleasant for the ‘boys’ when I get home. I can sew a seam and I’ve never forgotten Aunt Sally’s parting injunction to ‘keep my stockings mended.’ I can set a table, I can entertain a guest, I’ve been through the cooking class and can do an omelet or a Welsh rarebit to a turn. I’ve studied banking and economy till I think, I hope, I can take care of a good deal of your business; or, at least, can see that nobody carries it on badly.
“I can trim a bonnet, I can make a gown, and I can wash fine laces. Aubrey says she doesn’t see what Madame’s pupils need of such ‘accomplishments,’ but Madame, who is wise, says one never can tell what one may or may not need to know. Anyway, it was her place to give us an all around education and she’s done her best for us.
“I can speak French and German well enough to act as interpreter on our trip abroad, and I’ve hammered enough Latin into my head to understand Botany and a bit of mineralogy. But I don’t yet see how long it would take Mr. A, working so many hours a day to be as smart as Mr. B, working some other time. Arithmetic isn’t my strong point.
“In brief, dearest mother, you’ll find your girl is just a plain, home-loving, people-loving, glad-to-be-alive-and-a-link-in-the-chain sort of creature; and thus forewarned you’re not to be so greatly, greatly disappointed, if you please. I’m not a ‘star,’ as you were; not even that bottom-of-the-class-one I sometimes aspired to be.
“Your room is all ready. You are to stay right here at the Adelphi while you are in town. Madame, my second mother, will hear of no other arrangement; and, dear, she has promised she will accept your invitation to go home with us to Sobrante and stay all summer.
“Last evening we went to a sort of farewell reception at the ‘Adelphi Home for Children,’ our blessed sanctuary for the little ones over on Avenue A. As I looked at that great building, with all its fine appointments, its comfort and its hosts of happy babies, I got—as I used to say when I was a baby myself—‘all chokey up.’ And I sighted backward along the ‘chain’ to that far-away afternoon when Buster laid its corner stone, so to speak. Knocking down one little maid from Avenue A was the real beginning of things.
“You’ll be in time for Sophy’s graduation, too. She is so strong and well now, and such an ideal nurse. They’re going to miss her dreadfully at St. Luke’s which has been her home so long. The Superintendent told me there was nobody who could manage a fractious patient with the skill and tenderness of our dear Sophy. She’s the real honor girl of our family. It seems to me there isn’t anything in the realm of nursing that she hasn’t conquered. The head surgeon says she could even perform one of those fearful ‘operations’ if necessary, though I hope it never will be.