CHAPTER V

SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS


She did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watch
Pauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's body. Mrs.
Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and Sylvia was
her favorite companion. At first they went generally over the asphalt
and in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" of
the "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took them
principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young trees
of the State University campus. They often made an excuse of fetching
Professor Marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the faculty
committees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly
occupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen,
he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait long
half-hours in front of the Main Building.

Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best,
which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now,
she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at
whom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. The University work
had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants,
recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, were
present in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the Main
Building with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. These