As Phil clasped the slim hand and bent upon her a look of undisguised admiration while he murmured the joy he experienced at her home-coming, her beautiful blue eyes were searching his face with a grave and steady gaze.
What did she find there to make the blush fade slowly out of her cheeks—to cause her to release the hand he had taken, after the briefest possible clasp, and the shadow of disappointment to creep into the earnest azure eyes?
“This is a long looked-for moment, Mollie, and I hope that you are glad to be with us again,” Phil observed, throwing a note of tenderness into his words that spoke volumes.
“Yes, thank you. I am glad to be at home once more,” Mollie returned in calm, even tones. “I did not quite realize how delightful it would be until we sailed into New York harbor and I began to see so much that was familiar all around us. Truly, I believe there is no place like America to an American. And so you have finished your college course to-day,” she continued, drawing herself up a little haughtily at his persistent stare of admiration. “No doubt you are very proud of your degree, and now your friends will expect great things of you in the future.”
“What do you mean by ‘great things’?” Philip smilingly questioned.
“Oh, that in return for the advantages you have enjoyed you will choose some business or profession and turn your knowledge to good account.”
“Do you think it the duty of every man to devote himself to some business or profession?”
“Yes, I do,” returned Miss Heatherford, with emphasis.
“Even if he possesses an independent fortune?”
“Yes,” she persisted, “I feel that, no matter how rich a man may be, he should have some definite object in life.”
“How about a woman?” queried Philip, with a mischievous glance into her thoughtful blue eyes.
“Oh, I intended to make no distinction. I should have said everybody,” the girl replied.
“Have you marked out your future career, Mollie?” inquired the young man in the same spirit as before. “I suppose you have been pursuing your studies during your absence.”
“Well, I have been doing some honest work in that line during the last four years,” she gravely returned; “but, as to my future, I have not quite made up my mind what I am best fitted for. I want to do something. I could teach elocution and rhetoric, both of which, you know, I have always enjoyed very much, and perhaps some other thing,” she added modestly.