Molly Brown's College Friends — Reading Companion

Molly had been married almost four years on that day in March when he was assisting in the imposing rite of hanging curtains in the guest chamber, and she was still as wonderful to him as she had been on that day they had walked through the Forest of Fontainebleau and he had confessed his love. She was the same charming girl who had lingered too long in the cloisters and been locked in to be rescued by him on her first day at college, now so many years ago.

Indeed, Molly Brown has changed very little since last we saw her. Little Mildred is walking and talking and singing little tunes and saying Mother Goose rhymes. She even knows her letters upside down and no other way, having learned them from blocks, presumably standing on her curly head as she acquired the knowledge.

There is another baby in the nursery now: little Dodo, whose real name is George, a remarkably satisfactory infant who sleeps when he should and wakes in a good humor, taking the proper nourishment at the proper hours and going back to sleep. Molly had learned the great secret of young motherhood from her first born: not to take parenthood too solemnly and seriously, and to realize that Mother Nature is the very best mother of all and babies thrive most when left as much as possible to her all-wise and tender care.

Nance Oldham, Molly's old friend and roommate at college, was coming at last to make her long promised visit to the Greens. Little wonder that Molly feared she would be changed! Nance's path in life had not been strewn with roses. No doubt my readers will remember that Mrs. Oldham, her mother, was a clever woman, lecturer, suffrage agitator, anything but a homemaker. When Nance finished college she had gone back to Vermont and dutifully kept house for her neglected father, although her secret ambition was to teach. Mr. Oldham had been so happy in having a home of his own that Nance had felt fully repaid for her sacrifice. Her mother, too, had at last realized the delights of home, when someone else had the trouble of keeping it, and had spent much more time with her family than she had for many years.

A lingering illness had attacked Mr. Oldham and after two years of tender nursing on the part of his daughter and futile ineffectual attempts at tenderness on the part of his wife, the poor man had passed away. Then it was that Nance's friends had felt that her career might begin, but Mrs. Oldham had suddenly decided that she could not live without the husband who had been ever patient with her vagaries and she had gone into a slow decline. More nursing and self-denial for the patient Nance!

She was an orphan now and although she was in reality little more than a girl she felt old and settled, that the little youth she had ever had, had left her years ago. Molly had written her immediately on hearing of Mrs. Oldham's death, declaring that she and her Edwin were ready and eager for the long-deferred visit. "I say 'visit,'" wrote Molly, "but I want you to make your home with us. Little Mildred calls you Aunt Nance and Dodo will call you the same as soon as he can talk."

The guest chamber was now in perfect order. The fresh curtains hung as straight as a learned professor of English could hang them, the bureau scarf and table cover were smooth and spotless, and on the window sill blossomed a pot of sweet violets sent by Mrs. McLean from her own greenhouse.

"I wonder about Nance and Andy McLean," said Molly, as she and her husband were walking to the station to meet their guest.

"Wonder what about them?"

"Wonder if they will ever marry!"

"Pooh! I fancy it was just a schoolgirl affair. They don't often amount to much."

"Schoolgirl affairs can be right serious, as you of all others should know!"

"Thank goodness, some of them!" said Edwin devoutly.

"I reckon Nance will be in deep mourning," sighed Molly. "I hate mourning,--I mean long veils and crepe trimmings."

"So do I,--a relic of barbarism!"

"I'll give up my literary club for a while. I know Nance will not feel like seeing a lot of young people."

Professor Green said nothing but he felt it was rather hard on Wellington that any of its pleasures should be curtailed because of the death of a lady in Vermont. But Molly must do what she thought best. He hoped their guest would not put too long a face on life and would not prove inconsolable.