She sprang up and gave him another pat upon the shoulder.  “He’ll be getting here in a few minutes, I suspect.  Father telephoned that he and Paula were going to bring him down as soon as his rehearsal was over.  I’m going up now to try to make my peace with Aunt Lucile.”

After lunch she told the family that she had matters to talk over with Tony and meant to take him for a walk.  His father and mother expected them to drop in at their house about five and the intervening two hours would give them just about time to “cover the ground.”  She was openly laughing at her own pretense at being matter-of-fact.

It was pretty hot for walking, her father thought.  Why not let Pete drive them around a while in the car?  Or take the small car and drive herself?  But she was feeling pedestrian, she said, and, anyhow, the topic she had in mind couldn’t be discussed in a motor-car.  They’d go to Lincoln Park and stroll around in the shade.

“And if we get tired,” she added with a flicker, in response to her aunt’s movement of protest, “we can squeeze in among the other couples on some grassy bank.—­Oh, Aunt Lucile, don’t mind!  We won’t do anything—­disgraceful.”

“You see what a cat I am,” she told March as they set out.  “I make her squirm without meaning to, and then, when she squirms, I scratch.  Now talk to me until I can get in good humor with myself again.”

“I’ve two or three things to tell you,” he said.  “I saw Sylvia Stannard this morning.  She came to rehearsal with the little Williamson girl, and carried me off bodily for a talk.  She’s had a long letter from Graham.

“He’s quite well,” he went on swiftly, ignoring the gasp she gave, “and doesn’t want to be, as he says, fussed over.”

“Where is he?” she asked.  “I’ll write him a letter, of course.  Only you’ll have to tell me what to say.”

“He’s visiting a friend—­a college classmate—­on Long Island.  And he’s already had a job offered him by his friend’s father, in an engineering office.  He’s a pretty good engineer, I believe.  He thinks he’ll accept it.  Anyhow, he is definitely not coming back to Hickory Hill.  Sylvia attaches some significance to the fact that his friend also has a pretty sister, but that’s just the cynicism of youth, I suspect.”

This last suggestion silenced her—­with another gasp, as perhaps he had meant it to do.  He added, presently: 

“As for writing, I’ve already done that myself.”

“You!” she exclaimed.  “Where’s the letter?”

“It’s already despatched.  I wrote it as soon as the rehearsal was over.  But I’ll tell you what I said in it.  I told him I supposed he had heard of our engagement, but that I knew you wished him to be told of it personally.  You were very fond of him, I said, and the only thing that clouded your happiness was a fear that he might not be able to share it.  I assured him that I was completely in your confidence and knew that you had been through a period of very severe nervous stress, verging upon a nervous breakdown, but that I believed you were on the way to a speedy recovery.  And I ended by saying that I believed a line from him to you, setting some of your misgivings at rest, would hasten it.  And I was his most cordially.”