"Mr. Bradford told me some news this morning," said Miss Lavinia, walking admiringly about the table as she spoke. "He is Professor Bradford, of the University, not merely the women's college now, or rather will be at the beginning of the next term."
"That is pleasant news. I wonder how old Professor Jameson happened to step out, and why none of the Rockcliffe girls have written me about it."
"He did not tell me any details; said that they would keep until to-night. We met him in the street this morning, immediately after we left you," and Miss Lavinia gave a brief account of our shopping.
"That sounds quite like him. All his air castles seemed to be built about his mother and the old farm at Pine Ridge. He has often told me how easy it would be to get back the house to the colonial style, with wide fireplaces, that it was originally, and he always had longings to be in a position to coax his mother to come to Northbridge for the winter, and keep a little apartment for him. Perhaps he will be able to do both now."
Sylvia spoke with keen but quite impersonal interest, and looking at her I began to wonder if here might not, after all, be the comrade type of woman in whose existence I never before believed,—feminine, sympathetic, buoyant, yet capable of absolutely rational and unemotional friendship with a man within ten years of her own age. But after all it is common enough to find the first half of such a friendship, it is the unit that is difficult; and I had then had no opportunity of seeing the two together.
We went upstairs together, and lingered by the fire in Miss Lavinia's sitting room before going to make ready for dinner. The thaw of the morning was again locked by ice, and it was quite a nippy night for the season. I, revelled mentally in the fact that my dinner waist was crimson in colour, and abbreviated only in the way of elbow sleeves, and the pretty low corn-coloured crêpe bodice that I saw Lucy unpacking from Sylvia's suit case quite made me shiver.
The only light in Miss Lavinia's den, other than the fire, was a low lamp, with a soft-hued amber shade, so that the room seemed to draw close about one like protecting arms, country fashion, instead of seeking to turn one out, which is the feeling that so many of the stately apartments in the great city houses give me.
When I am indoors I want space to move and breathe in, of course, but I like to feel intrenched; and only when I open the door and step outside, do I wish to give myself up to space, for Nature is the only one who really knows how to handle vastness without overdoing it.
As we sat there in silence I watched the play of firelight on Sylvia's face, and the same thought seemed to cross it as she closed her eyes and nestled back in Miss Lavinia's funny little fat sewing chair, that was like a squab done in upholstery. Then, as the clock struck six, she started, rubbed her eyes, and crossed the hall to her room half in a dream.
"She is as like her Grandmother Latham when I first saw her, as a girl of twenty-one can be like a woman of fifty," said Miss Lavinia, from the lounge close at my elbow. "Not in colouring or feature, but in poise and gesture. The Lathams were of Massachusetts stock, and have, I imagine, a good deal of the Plymouth Rock mixture in their back-bones. Her father has the reputation, in fact, of being all rock, if not quite of the Plymouth variety. Well, I think she will need it, poor child; that is, if any of the rumours that are beginning to float in the air settle to the ground."