Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/224

214 (Reba had heard her) and Mrs. Remington's husband was in Philadelphia on a business trip. Mrs. Remington, Katherine had told Reba, when she inquired, was a Park before her marriage, a second cousin, or something of the sort, and always came over to the Park homestead when her husband was away on trips. Surely what Katherine's cousin did as a matter of course, Reba could rest assured was all right, for her to do.

Besides, she wanted to go—she wanted to go with all her heart—as much as Katherine wanted to go to France, she guessed. New Englanders were always denying themselves pleasure. This was her great opportunity for crawling under the edge of the curtain onto a corner of that stage which she had so yearningly gazed upon ever since she was a young girl at the summer-hotels. She went. And not only once.

It was a hot June, and a hotter July that year in Boston. Reba had volunteered early in the spring to remain at her post throughout the summer, taking her vacation, if she needed it at all, in September. Her duties were less arduous than in the winter, but the sewing-rooms were to be kept open for part of each day and there were to be one or two courses in First Aid continued through the summer for groups who had applied for the instruction. Dr. Booth had offered to teach these groups, as he explained he had to remain in town anyway, and might as well. It happened that it was after he had taken Reba to the cool place he knew about for dinner, and afterward to dance to some real music, that he so generously offered his services.

Reba was feverishly happy during the first month or