zzy buds of the Jap ivy to see just how soon they can hope to build
in the vines. Do you object to the ivy buds looking so very much like
snipped woollen rags? If you do, I'm sure it's you, here in my place,
for when I come up to town in your personality it sets my teeth on edge.
In fact, that's the worst thing about Boston now--the fuzzy ivy buds;
there's so much ivy! When you can forget the buds, there are a great
many things to make you happy. I feel quite as if we were spending the
summer in town and I feel very adventurous and very virtuous, like
some sort of self-righteous bohemian. You don't know how I look down
on people who have gone out of town. I consider them very selfish
and heartless; I don't know why, exactly. But when we have a good
marrow-freezing northeasterly storm, and the newspapers come out with
their ironical congratulations to the tax-dodgers at the Shore, I feel
that Providence is on my side, and I'm getting my reward, even in this
world." Bessie suddenly laughed. "I see by your expression of fixed
inattention, Molly, that you're thinking of Mr. Durgin!"

Mary gave a start of protest, but she was too honest to deny the fact
outright, and Bessie ran on:

"No, we don't sit on a bench in the Common, or even in the Garden, or on
the walk in Commonwealth Avenue. If we come to it later, as the season
advances, I shall make him stay quite at the other end of the bench, and
not put his hand along the top. You needn't be afraid, Molly; all the
proprieties shall be religiously observed. Perhaps I shall ask Aunt
Louisa to let us sit out on her front steps, when the evenings get
warmer; but I assure you it's much more comfortable in-doors yet, even
in town, though you'll hardly, believe it at the Shore. Shall you come
up to Class Day?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mary began, with a sigh of the baffled hope and the
inextinguishable expectation which the mention of Class Day stirs in the
heart of every Boston girl past twenty.

"Yes!" said Bessie, with a sigh burlesqued from Mary's. "That is what
we all say, and it is certainly the most maddening of human festivals.
I suppose, if we were quite left to ourselves, we shouldn't go; but
we seem never to be, quite. After every Class Day I say to myself that
nothing on earth could induce me to go to another; but when it comes
round again, I find myself grasping at any straw of a pretext. I'm
pretending now that I've a tender obligation to go because it's his
Class Day