“I am ashamed of myself, Nance, but I do get kind of tired of everybody’s taking the stand that Professor Green is so old. He is the best man friend I ever had, and—and——” But Nance kissed her fondly, and she did not have to go on with her sentence, which was lucky, as she did not know how she was going to finish it without committing herself.
Kent had to fly back to Louisville to work at his chosen profession and try to learn how to do water color renderings of the architectural elevations; Judy back to New York to dig at her charcoal drawings and dream of swimming in color, with Kent striking out beside her; Dodo again at Johns Hopkins, learning much about medicine and how to “turkey trot” with a broken sofa; young Andy and Mr. Seshu at Harvard, studying the laws of their country, for was not Mr. Seshu fast becoming an American? They had their dreams, too, these two young men. Andy was looking forward to the day when he would not have to stop talking to Nance just at the most interesting turn of the argument, but could stay right along with her forever and ever,—and sure he was that they would never talk out! Mr. Seshu’s dreams—but, after all, what do we know of his dreams? Certain we are that he looked favorably on the little Miss Sen, and that honorable Father Sen and honorable Father Seshu had a long and satisfactory talk in the shop in Boston with the beautiful Japanese prints hanging all around them, representing in themselves money enough to make the prospective young couple very wealthy.
Mr. Oldham went back to Vermont, also dreaming that the day might come when his little Nance would keep house for him, and he could leave the hated boarding house, and have a real home. Richard Blount returned to New York, dreaming, too, and his dream was of the beautiful mountain girl with the dignity and poise of a queen, eyes like the clear brown pools of autumn and a purposeful look on her young face that showed even a casual observer that she had a mission in life.
Mid-year examinations came and went. Melissa and Otoyo came through without a scratch, which made Molly rejoice as though it had been her own ordeal.
Domestic Science grew more thrilling; so interesting, indeed, that Molly could not decide for a whole day whether she would rather be a scientific cook or a great literary success. But a note from a magazine editor accepting her “Basket Funeral” and asking for more similar stories decided her in favor of literature. And on the same day, too, Professor Edwin Green said to her, “Please, Miss Molly, don’t learn how to cook so well that you forget how to make popovers. I am afraid all of these scientific rules you are learning will upset the natural-born knowledge that you already possess, and your spontaneous genius will be choked by an academic style of cooking that would be truly deplorable.”
Molly laughingly confided in the professor that she would not give one of Aunt Mary’s hot turnovers for all of Miss Morse’s scientifically made bread.
“I know her bread is perfect, but it lacks a certain taste and life, and is to the real thing what a marble statue is to flesh and blood. Judy described it, in speaking of the food at a lunchroom for self-supporting women that she occasionally goes to in New York, as being ‘too chaste.’”
“That is exactly it, too chaste,” agreed Professor Green.
“Of course, cooking is a small part of what we learn in Domestic Science,—food values, economic housekeeping, etc. It really is a very broad and far-reaching science.”
They were in the professor’s study, where Molly had come to tell him the good news about her story, and to ask his advice concerning what other of her character sketches she should send to the magazine. She was wearing her cap and gown, as she was just returning from a formal college function. When the young man greeted her, he had quickly rolled up something, looking a little shamefaced. But as they talked, he rolled and unrolled and finally determined to show the papers to her.