“‘Most grave and reverend seniors,’” repeated Grace, slipping in between her two friends, her hand on an arm of each.
Kathleen’s sharp black eyes grew tender with the love she bore Grace. “Yes,” came her soft answer, “Patience and I are seniors at last. We’ve reached Senior Lane, and I hope to leave some milestones as we pass through it. Dear as the others have been, I’d like to rise to greater heights this year. I don’t know just what I’d like to do,” she flushed and laughed at her own enthusiasm, “but I’d like to do something worth while.”
“So would I,” murmured Evelyn Ward.
“I want to be friends with every one, and not be conditioned,” was Mary Reynolds’ modest petition.
“I don’t know just what sort of milestones I’d like to leave. Only decorative ones, of course. I wish to keep my lane free from weeds and ugly, jagged rocks.” This from Patience.
“You might begin at once and leave a milestone at Vinton’s, for being a willing, little reveler,” suggested Emma with meaning.
“Come on, girls,” rallied Kathleen. “We must show Emma just how willing we are. Allow me, my dear Miss Dean,” she offered her arm to Emma, and they paraded down the hall, out the door and down the steps with great ceremony. Mary, Grace, Patience and Evelyn followed. Patience walked with Evelyn, while Grace and Mary brought up the rear.
“Oh, Miss Harlowe,” began Mary, with intense earnestness, “you haven’t any idea of how much Kathleen—she likes me to call her Kathleen—has done for me this summer. I knew last spring that I must earn my living through the summer, in some way, but I never dreamed that it would be in such a nice way.”
“I am anxious to hear all about it,” returned Grace. “When you wrote me that Kathleen had secured work for you on her paper I was so pleased.”
“Yes, I was the assistant on the woman’s page,” related Mary. “Of course my work wasn’t so very important. It was mostly clipping things from other papers, but I used to write the paragraph under the fashion drawings, and sometimes I went out to the big department stores to look for interesting new fads and fashions for women. Three times I wrote short articles, so you see I actually appeared in print. Kathleen made me take half of her room, and so my board wasn’t very expensive. My salary was fifteen dollars a week. I have enough new clothes to last me all winter, and I’ve saved eighty-five dollars. That will help pay my tuition this year, and Kathleen is sure she can sell some children’s stories I’ve written. Wouldn’t it be glorious, Miss Harlowe, if some day I’d become a writer?” Mary’s eyes shone with the distant prospect of future honors.