"Why, my dear, I bought them by lamplight! and, besides, it was an auction and I was excited."
"Yes," said Barbara, and took a long breath. "I know how that is."
Down in town two commercial travelers, one of whom we have met before, took an after-breakfast saunter.
"She was coming," said the one we remember, "to New England. I didn't know where or for what, and I don't know yet; but when my house said, 'Old boy, we'd like to promote you, just say what you want!' says I, 'Let the salary stand as it is, only change my district; gimme New England!'"
"That's the college," he continued, as they came up into Elm Street. "Those are the students, just coming out of the chapel: 'sweet girl graduates,' as Shakespeare calls them."
He clutched his companion's arm. Their eyes rested on one of the dispersing throng, who came last and alone, with a slow step and manifestly under some burdensome preoccupation, through the high iron gateway of the campus. She passed them with drooping eyelashes and walked in the same tardy pace before them. Presently she turned from the sidewalk, crossed a small grassplot, and stood on the doorstep with her hand on the latch while they went by.
"Her?" said the one who thought he had quoted Shakespeare, "of course it's her; who else could it be? Ah, hmm! 'so near and yet so far!' Tom, I believe in heaven when I look at that girl—heaven and holiness! I read Taylor's 'Holy Living' when a boy!"
Presently they returned and passed again. She was still standing at the door. A few steps away the speaker looked over his shoulder and moaned:
"Not a glimpse of me does she get! There, she's gone in; but sure's you live she didn't want to!" They walked on. In front of their hotel he clutched his companion again. A young man of commanding figure stood near, deeply immersed in a telegram. The drummer whispered an oath of surprise.