Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/20

 go in doubt or difficulty, who was there to give her help or advice when she should need it? She felt lost and helpless at the thought and utterly forlorn. No, she could not bear it, she would go with Aunt Susan, her choice would be for change and travel and the seeing of beautiful things instead of the long empty road of hard work that stretched before her. Her battered geometry and Latin books slipped from her knee and lay, face downward and unheeded, on the grass. She had made up her mind—almost.

The shower had cleared and the clouds were sweeping away in rolling thunderheads of gray and shining silver. The moving sunlight touched the roofs of the town and lit, at last, the slim towers of the college so that they showed white and glittering against the dark background of the trees. Usually they seemed dim and distant, Elizabeth had thought, and never, as to-day, so near, so clear, possessed of such dignity of grace and beauty. She could not quite tell what it was, curiosity, doubt, hesitation, or all three at once that made her, when she got up to go, turn into Somerset Lane instead of along the highway, and that caused her to put off again the moment of letting Aunt Susan convince her that she should go to Bermuda.

She began to feel, as she climbed the hill, a good deal of curiosity concerning this Miss Miranda of