Constance would take a couple of years of post-graduate work before going into the College Settlement. Several of the others expected to be back for one year at least, Hope Brereton, Hazel Browne, Ada Willing and Florence Smith. Some of the others, too, perhaps, but neither Dolly nor Beth felt that they could be spared longer from home. Beth knew how much her stepmother and the children looked forward to the next year, and so, although she did wish at times that she might be back at Westover for some special work in mathematics, she did not entertain the thought seriously, for the boys really needed her, and her father said that they were lonesome at home without her. She would help to make her home as pleasant as she could, and she would do some earnest work with her music. Without doubt there would be enough to keep her busy! She would find plenty of duties when she came to look for them.
Dolly knew that her father and mother felt that they had spared her as long as they could. Fred would still be away for several years, for he had decided to take a thorough course in electrical engineering in Boston. Dick Martin was studying medicine there, so that the two saw considerable of each other.
Mary Sutherland was hoping for a place in the preparatory department the next year, so that she could teach, and yet do extra work in the line of biology.
“Why, Mary Sutherland,” Dolly exclaimed, when Mary first confided this plan to her, “I should think that you knew all there was to be known about that subject now.”
Mary stared at her friend in honest horror. “I could never know all about it, Dolly, if I should live as long as Methuselah and study day and night. I don’t know enough to try and teach anything about it yet, but sometime I hope I may.”
“Fred can’t hope to compete with biology, so far as Mary is concerned,” Dolly told herself emphatically, for by this time she acknowledged that Dick Martin had been correct, and that Fred’s interest in Mary was more than a friendly one. It seemed strange enough to Dolly that this was so, for Mary was not pretty, and she had none of the little accomplishments which usually attract young men. Now, if it had only been Beth! and Dolly sighed dismally. It would have been so lovely to have Beth for a sister; of course, she liked Mary, but she could never care as much for her, or for anyone else, as for Beth.
While all of the girls were anxious to be at home, they dreaded the leaving of college and the breaking up of the ties which had bound them so closely for four years. It seemed as if time had never rushed on as swiftly as during those last months. Class Day and Commencement were upon them almost before they realized it. Dolly had made a very dignified, impartial president, and the class was delighted at its own good judgment in selecting her.
The Chronicle had flourished under Margaret’s management; it had contained more bright and witty things than ever before, and Beth heard some of the juniors groaning over their patent inability to keep the magazine, during the ensuing year, up to its present standard of merit.
Beth repeated the remark with much delight to Margaret. “It has been a great success, girls, and we owe it all to Margaret. She has put soul and life into it. In fact, I think we can be proud of our record all the way through college; we have the largest class ever graduated; we certainly have some of the brightest students that were ever within these walls, we have the most unique entertainments of any class, and the Chronicle has never been as good as it is this year.”
“How we apples do swim!” said Dolly mockingly.