Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/284



May, 1905.

Neale had never, so to speak, received any letters in his life until his parents had gone off to Rio; but since then letters had filled what personal life he had found time for. It was surprising how much more freely people spoke out in the written word than in talk. The weekly bulletins from Mother, and Father's occasional letters gave him more of a feeling of intercourse with his parents than he had ever known when they lived under the same roof. And he was sure that in no other way could he ever have come to look into the dear integrity of Martha's heart as he had in the letters which had come to him from all over Europe, where she had been wandering with her father during his sabbatical year of freedom.

In the April after his graduation, Martha had written from England that she was hurrying the end of her travel-year so that she could be home to take a Palisading walk with him on May sixteenth. May sixteenth was the date of their last walk together on the Palisades, the walk which had ended in the sweet, wordless understanding between them. Her frank recognition of it as an anniversary to be remembered showed how far along the year of separation and frequent letter-writing had brought them.

He was thinking of Martha, the wonderful Martha her letters had revealed, as he waited for her on May sixteenth in the parlor of her father's apartment. He found it almost impossible to listen to what Professor Wentworth was saying, and tried in vain to answer the traveler's questions about Columbia news. The Wentworths had been in Norway and Spain and England and Greece, while Neale had not been out of New York; but he knew no more of Columbia than they.