Book Three The Joy of Sunshine Chapter 2 A Looking Over By The Pack

Jan. 2.

If women are not meant to study, Prof. Darmstetter should be pleased with me. Instead of working up my laboratory notebooks, I have sat until midnight, dreaming.

"Go to bed early and get your beauty sleep," says Aunt, but I push open the window and lean upon the sash and let the cold air blow over me. I'd like to dance a thousand miles in the moonlight; I'm so young, and so strong, and such glorious things are coming!

To-morrow I shall have a foretaste of the future; I shall know what other people--not John and my relatives--think of me. Ah, there's only one thing they can think! To-morrow'll be the beginning of the world to me.

To-morrow! To-morrow! Aunt Frank has sent out cards for an "At Home." And it's to-morrow!

Oh, I'm glad I came here! I revel in the new home.

I like the house; it looks so big and solid. I like my cousins--quiet little creatures. They wait upon me, anticipate my smallest wish, and defer to my opinions as if I were a white star queen dropped from the ether; all but Boy, and even he respects me because I can construe Caesar.

I like my Aunt--devoted to clubs and committees, though she's forgotten them now in her eagerness to introduce me. Ah, to-morrow! Blessed to- morrow! And I like Aunt Marcia Baker. I wonder if, when I am older, I too shall be serene and stately, with a face that seems to have outlived sorrow; I can hardly believe now that I shall care to live at all when people's eyes have ceased to follow my beauty. When for me there are no more to-morrows.