But she was too much excited to stay long in one place, and so she hurried home and went to talking to Cousin Isa, who was sewing by the west window.  And to her she poured forth praises of Albert without stint; of his immense knowledge of everything, of his goodness and his beauty and his strength, and his voice, and his eyes.

“And you’ll love him better’n you ever loved anybody,” she wound up.

And Cousin Isa said she didn’t know about that.

After all this weary waiting Albert had come.  He had not been at home for two years.  It was during his absence that his mother had married Squire Plausaby, and had moved to Minnesota.  He wanted to see everybody at home.  His sister had written him favorable accounts of his step-father; he had heard other accounts, not quite so favorable, perhaps.  He persuaded himself that like a dutiful son he wanted most to see his mother, who was really very fond of him.  But in truth he spent his spare time in thinking about Katy.  He sincerely believed that he loved his mother better than anybody in the world.  All his college cronies knew that the idol of his heart was Katy, whose daguerreotype he carried in the inside pocket of his vest, and whose letters he looked for with the eagerness of a lover.

At last he had come, and Katy had carried him off into the house in triumph, showing him—­showing is the word, I think—­showing him to her mother, whom he kissed tenderly, and to her step-father, and most triumphantly to Isa, with an air that said, “Now, isn’t he just the finest fellow in the world!” And she was not a little indignant that Isa was so quiet in her treatment of the big brother.  Couldn’t she see what a forehead and eyes he had?

And the mother, with one shade of scarlet and two of pink in her hair-ribbons, was rather proud of her son, but not satisfied.

“Why didn’t you graduate?” she queried as she poured the coffee at supper.

“Because there were so many studies in the course which were a dead waste of time.  I learned six times as much as some of the dunderheads that got sheepskins, and the professors knew it, but they do not dare to put their seal on anybody’s education unless it is mixed in exact proportions—­so much Latin, so much Greek, so much mathematics.  The professors don’t like a man to travel any road but theirs.  It is a reflection on their own education.  Why, I learned more out of some of the old German books in the library than out of all their teaching.”

“But why didn’t you graduate?  It would have sounded so nice to be able to say that you had graduated.  That’s what I sent you for, you know, and I don’t see what you got by going if you haven’t graduated.”

“Why, mother, I got an education.  I thought that was what a college was for.”

“But how will anybody know that you’re well-educated, I’d like to know, when you can’t say that you’ve graduated?” answered the mother petulantly.