“Grace Draper is gone, is gone.”  The words set themselves to a little tune, which lilted in my brain.  I felt as if the only obstacle to my enjoyment of our summer in the country had been removed.

How I did revel in the long, beautiful summer days!  Dicky appeared to have a great deal of leisure, in contrast to the days crowded with work, which had been his earlier in the spring.

“Each year I work like the devil in the spring so as to have the summer, June especially, comparatively free,” he exclaimed one day when I commented on the fact that he had been to his studio but twice during the week.

I had dreamed in my girlhood of vacations like the one I was enjoying, but the dream had never been fulfilled before.  Dicky had fixed up a tennis court on the, grassy stretch of lawn at the left of the house, and we played every day.  Two horses from the livery were brought around two mornings each week, and, after a few trials, I was able to take comparatively long rides with Dicky through the exquisite country surrounding Marvin.

Our motor boat trips were frequent also, although Dicky found that it was more convenient to rent one when he wished it than to enter into any ownership arrangement with any one else.

Automobile trips, in which his mother joined us, long rambles through the woods and meadows which we took alone, little dinners at the numberless shore resorts, all these made a whirl of enjoyment for me unlike anything I had ever known.

I was careful to cater to my mother-in-law’s wishes in every way I could.  Either because of my attentions or of the beautiful summer days, she was much softened in manner, so that there was no unpleasantness anywhere.

“This is the bulliest vacation I ever spent,” Dicky said one evening, after a long tramp through the woods.  It was one of the frequent chilly evenings of a Long Island summer, when a fire is most acceptable.  Katie had built a glorious fire of dry wood in the living room fireplace, and after dinner we stretched out lazily before it, Mother Graham and I in arm chairs, Dicky on a rug with cushions bestowed comfortably around him.

“I am naturally very glad to hear that,” I said, demurely, and Dicky laughed aloud.

“That’s right, take all the credit to yourself,” he said, teasingly.  Then as he saw a shadow on my face, for I never have learned to take his banter lightly, he added in a tone meant for my ear alone: 

“But you are the real reason why it’s so bully, old top.”

The very next day, Dicky and I went for a long walk.

We had nearly reached the harbor, when I saw Dicky start suddenly, gaze fixedly at some one across the road, and then lift his hat in a formal, unsmiling greeting.  My eyes followed his, and met the cool, half-quizzical ones of Grace Draper.  She was accompanied by a tall, very good-looking youth, who was bending toward her so assiduously that he did not see us at all.