“It doesn’t sound exactly young. When do you suppose it will happen?”
“Aunt Nan doesn’t know. Malcolm says Christmas, but she says no, she must have a year with Grandmother. So I think it will be in June—just after school is out. Webster is lovely then—all filled with daisies and buttercups and wild roses. And you’ll come on, Don—of course you will. And Priscilla will be there, and Mary and Vivian and Carver and Jack and maybe Dorothy! I want you 293 to see Dorothy. Oh, won’t it be the happiest time? I’m getting excited already!”
“The horses want to go,” said Donald. “I’ll race you to the edge of the mesa. Come on!”
Five minutes later they looked at each other, red-cheeked and radiant.
“In together, just as usual,” cried Donald. “There’s never much difference!”
“My hair makes me think of Priscilla,” said Virginia, brushing back some loose locks and re-tying her ribbon. “Wasn’t she funny this afternoon when she said good-by, her hat on one side and her hair all falling down, and her eyes full of tears? I can’t help saying all over and over how lovely it’s been. And now another year’s beginning, and in two weeks more you and I will go away to school again. I’m wondering,” she finished thoughtfully, “I’m wondering if next June, when we ride up here, you’ll say that I’m not a young lady after all.”
“You don’t feel you’re going to be—too grown-up, do you?” There was anxiety in Donald’s tone.
“No, not in the way you mean,” Virginia 294 promised him. “Not ever like Imogene or Katrina Van Rensaelar. But I am growing up! I feel it coming! It’s just as though I’d met my older self and shaken hands with her before she went away again, for, you see, she hasn’t come to stay for keeps yet. I think she came the first time when Jim went away, and then again at Easter time when Miss King talked to us at Vespers, and then this summer when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. That time she stayed longest of all.”
“I hope she won’t be a lot different from you,” said Donald. “I shouldn’t want to have to get acquainted all over again.”
“You won’t,” Virginia assured him. “Only she knows a lot more than I know, and she’s told me a great many things already. That night on the mountain she came and stayed with me while Vivian and Carver were asleep. I learned so many things that night, Don. I’m just sure she taught them to me—she and the night and the stillness.” Her voice softened. “Somehow, away up there on the mountain, life seemed such a big, wonderful thing—all full of dreams and opportunities and surprises 295 and—and comrades, all going along the same trail. Don’t you like to think of life as a trail—like the kind that leads to Lone Mountain, I mean—all full of dangers and surprises and beautiful things?”