all others. Not that the reserve was all on one side. Morna Woodgate had
her own secrets too. One of them, however, was extracted during their
stroll.

"May I make a personal remark?" asked Rachel, who had been admiring the
pale brown face of Morna in her turn, as they came slowly back to the
house across the lawns.

"You frighten me," said Morna, laughing. "But let me hear the worst."

"It's the ribbon on your hat," went on Rachel. "What pretty colors! Are
they your husband's school or college?"

"No," said Morna, blushing as she laughed again. "No, they're my own
college colors."

Rachel stood still on the grass.

"Have you really been at college?" said she; but her tone was so
obviously one of envy that Morna, who was delightfully sensitive about
her learning, did not even think of the short answer which she sometimes
returned to the astonished queries of the intellectually vulgar, but
admitted the impeachment with another laugh.

"Now, don't say you wouldn't have thought it of me," she added, "and
don't say you would!"

"I am far too jealous to say anything at all," Rachel answered with a
flattering stare. "And do you mean to tell me that you took a degree?"