P.S.—I've torn my pants; but the professor says, "Never mind, there's more where they came from," and he looked at me kinder winkey when he said it, for you know they were made out of his old ones. This time it is really
Good-by, Morton.
Sara was so proud of these letters that she could not resist showing them to Madame Grandet and Mrs. Macon, both of whom were greatly amused.
"He has evidently gotten into Henry's good graces, as well as his old clothes!" laughed the latter. "The boy is like you, Sara, he doesn't know how brave he is."
Sara looked up quickly.
"Brave, I brave?" she asked in surprise. "I never did a really brave thing in my life!"
"Didn't you?" smiling, with a meaning look. "I thought you had done a good many."
But she made no explanation of her words, and Sara was too modest to ask what they meant.
Morton came home so brisk and rosy it was good to see him, and regaled Molly for days with the accounts of his wonderful adventures. He seemed to have quite recovered from his longings for a sea-life, and was almost as much interested in certain scientific studies as Sara herself. In fact, their autumn rambles together were pleasures whose memory lingered with both for many a year.
One morning in November, Sara saw, among the letters on the desk, a creamy square with her own name upon it, and nearly had her breath taken away upon opening it, to find it was an invitation to a dinner given by one of the faculty in honor of a distinguished scientist from abroad, who was to deliver a lecture before the students the coming week.