During that dreary winter Pat’s only real pleasures were her evenings at the Long House—Suzanne and David were so kind and understanding…especially David. “I always feel so comfortable with him,” thought Pat…and her letters from Hilary. One of his stimulating epistles always heartened her up. She saved them up to read in the little violet-blue hour before night came…the hour she and Rae had been used to spend in their room, talking and joking. She always slept better after a letter from Hilary. And very poorly after a letter from Rae. For Rae wrote Pat in regular turn…flippant little notes, each seeming just like another turn of the screw. They were full of college news and jokes, such as she might have written to anyone. But never a word about Silver Bush affairs…no reference to home jokes. Rae kept all that for her letters to mother and Judy. “When I see the evening star over the trees on the campus I always think of Silver Bush,” Rae wrote Judy. If Rae had only written that to her, thought Pat.

Pat sent Rae a box of goodies and Rae was quite effusive.

“No doubt it’s a youthful taste to be thinking of things to eat,” she wrote back, “but how the girls did appreciate your box. It was really awfully kind of you to think of sending it,”…“as if I were some outsider who couldn’t be expected to send her a box,” thought Pat…“I hear that Uncle Tom has had the mumps and that Tillytuck is still howling hymns to the moon in the granary. Also that Sid is still dancing attendance on May Binnie. She’ll get him yet. The Binnies never let go. Do you suppose North Glen will faint if I appear out in a bright yellow rain coat when I come home? Or one of those long slinky sophisticated evening dresses? Silver Bush must really wake up to the fact that fashions change. I had a letter from Hilary last night. It’s odd to think this is his last year in college. He has won another architectural scholarship and is going to locate in British Columbia when he is through. He thinks he will be able to get out here to see me before I leave.”

Hilary had not told Pat about any of his plans. The announcement of Mr. Wheeler’s marriage was in the paper that day. Judy viciously poked the sheet that bore it into the fire and held it down with the poker.

Two weeks later it was the end of March and Judy was getting her dye-pot ready. And Rae was coming home. Pat found herself dreading it…and broken-hearted because she was dreading it.

“What is the matter with Pat this spring?” Long Alec asked Judy. “She hasn’t seemed like herself all winter…and now she’s positively moping. Is she in love with anybody?”

Judy snorted.