. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 TEN STORIES BY 
 JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 MCM 
 
Copyright, 1 900, by Charles Scribner s Sons 
 
 D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston 
 
T0 my Mother, who sent me to college, 
 I offer these impressions of it. 
 
 J. D. D. 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IF these simple tales serve to deepen in the 
 slightest degree the rapidly growing con 
 viction that the college girl is very much like 
 any other girl that this likeness is, indeed, 
 one of her most striking characteristics the 
 author will consider their existence abundantly 
 justified. 
 
 J. D. D. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 The Emotions of a Sub-guard I 
 
 II 
 
 A Case of Interference 37 
 
 III 
 
 Miss Biddle of Bryn Mawr 67 
 
 IV 
 
 Biscuits ex Machina 85 
 
 V 
 
 The Education of Elizabeth 123 
 
 VI 
 
 A Family Affair 151 
 
 VII 
 
 A Few Diversions 205 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Evolution of Evangeline 247 
 
 IX 
 
 At Commencement 279 
 
 X 
 
 The End of It 321 
 
THE FIRST STORY 
 
 THE EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
I 
 
 THE EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 f ^HEODORA pushed through the 
 
 I yellow and purple crowd, a sea of 
 
 I flags and ribbons and great paper 
 
 * flowers, caught a glimpse of the red 
 
 and green river that flowed steadily in at the 
 
 other door, and felt her heart contract. What 
 
 a lot of girls ! And the freshmen were always 
 
 beaten 
 
 " Excuse me, but I cant move ! You 11 have 
 to wait," said some one. Theodora realized that 
 she was crowding, and apologized. A tall girl 
 with a purple stick moved by the great line 
 that stretched from the gymnasium to the 
 middle of the campus, and looked keenly at 
 Theodora. "How did you get here?" she 
 asked. "You must go to the end we re not 
 letting any one slip in at the front. The jam 
 is bad enough as it is." 
 
 Theodora blushed. " I m I m on the Sub- 
 team," she murmured, "and I m late. I " 
 
 "Oh!" said the junior. "Wh/did you 
 come in here ? You go in the other door. Just 
 pass right in here, though," and Theodora, 
 quite crimson with the consciousness of a hun 
 dred eyes, pulled her mackintosh about her 
 and slipped in ahead of them all. 
 
 c i ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Oh, here 9 s to Ninety-ye/tow, 
 And her praise we ll ever tell oh y 
 Drink her down^ drink her down y drink her 
 down, down! 
 
 the line called after her, and her mouth trem 
 bled with excitement. She could just hear the 
 other line: 
 
 Oh, here s to Ninety-green, 
 She s the finest ever seen ! 
 
 and then the door slammed and she was up 
 stairs on the big empty floor. A member of the 
 decorating committee nodded at her from the 
 gallery. "Pretty, isn t it?" she called down. 
 "Beautiful!" said Theodora, earnestly. 
 One half of the gallery her half was all 
 trimmed with yellow and purple. Great yel 
 low chrysanthemums flowered on every pillar, 
 and enormous purple shields with yellow nu 
 merals lined the wall. Crossed banners and 
 flags filled in the intervals, and from the mid 
 dle beam depended a great purple butterfly 
 with yellow wings, flapping defiance at a red 
 and green insecl of indistinguishable species 
 that decorated the other side. A bevy of ushers 
 in white duck, with boutonnieres of English 
 violets or single American beauties, took their 
 places and began to pin on crepe paper sun- 
 
 [a] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 bonnets of yellow or green, chattering and 
 watching the clock. A tall senior, with a red 
 silk waist and a green scarf across her breast, 
 was arranging a box near the centre of the 
 sophomore side and practising maintaining 
 her balance on it while she waved a red baton. 
 She was the leader of the Glee Club, and she 
 would lead the sophomore songs. Theodora 
 heard a confused scuffle on the stairs, and in a 
 few seconds the galleries were crowded with 
 the rivers of color that poured from the en 
 trance doors. It seemed that they were full 
 now, but she knew that twice as many more 
 would crowd in. She walked quickly to the 
 room at the end of the hall and opened the 
 door. Beneath and all around her was the hum 
 and rumble of countless feet and voices, but in 
 the room all was still. The Subs lounged in the 
 window-seats and tried to act as if it was n t 
 likely to be any affair of theirs : one little yel 
 low-haired girl confided flippantly to her 
 neighbor that she d "only accepted the po 
 sition so as to be able to sit on the platform 
 and be sure of a good place." The Team were 
 sitting on the floor staring at their captain, 
 who was talking earnestly in a low voice 
 giving directions apparently. The juniors who 
 coached them opened the door and grinned 
 
 [3] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 cheerfully. They attached great purple stream 
 ers to their shirt-waists, and addressed them 
 selves to the freshmen generally. 
 
 "Your songs are great! That Alabama 
 Coon* one was awfully good ! You make twice 
 the noise that they do !" 
 
 The Team brightened up. " I think they re 
 pretty good," the captain said, with an at 
 tempt at a conversational tone. "Er when 
 do we begin ?" 
 
 "The Subs can go out now," said one of 
 the coaches, opening the door importantly. 
 " Now, girls, remember not to wear yourselves 
 out with kicking and screaming. You re right 
 under the President, and he 11 have a fit if you 
 kick against the platform. Miss Kassan says 
 that this must be a quiet game ! She will not 
 have that howling ! It s her particular request, 
 she says. Now,goon. And if anything happens 
 to Grace, Julia Wilson takes her place, and 
 look out for Alison Greer she pounds awfully. 
 Keep as still as you can ! " 
 
 They trotted out and ranged themselves on 
 the platform, and when Theodora got to the 
 point of lifting her eyes from the floor to gaze 
 down at the sophomore Subs across the hall 
 in front of another audience, the freshmen 
 were off in another song. To her excited eyes 
 
 [4] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 there were thousands of them, brilliant in pur 
 ple and yellow, and shouting to be heard of 
 her parents in Pennsylvania. A junior in yel 
 low led them with a great purple stick, and 
 they chanted, to a splendid march tune that 
 made even the members of the Faculty keep 
 time on the platform, their hymn to victory. 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the yellow is on top ! 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the purple cannot drop / 
 
 We are Ninety-yellow and our fame shall never stop, 
 
 Rah, rah, rah, for the freshmen! 
 
 They sang so well and so loud and strong, 
 shouting out the words so plainly and keep 
 ing such splendid time, that as the verse and 
 chorus died away audience and sophomores 
 alike clapped them vigorously, much to their 
 delight and pride. Theodora looked up for 
 the first time and saw as in a dream individ 
 ual faces and clothes. They were packed in 
 the running-gallery till the smallest of babies 
 would have been sorely tried to find a crevice 
 to rest in. A fringe of skirts and boots hung 
 from the edge, where the wearers sat pressed 
 against the bars with their feet hanging over. 
 They blotted out the windows and sat out on 
 the great beams, dangling their banners into 
 space. She could not see the Faculty behind 
 
 [5] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 her, but she knew they were adorned with 
 rosettes, and that the favored ones carried 
 flowers the air where she sat was sweet with 
 violets. A group of ushers escorted a small 
 and nervous lady to the platform : on the way 
 she threw back her cape and the sophomores 
 caught sight of the green bow at her throat. 
 
 Oh, here 5 to Susan Beam, 
 She is wearing of the green, 
 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down! 
 
 they sang cheerfully. 
 
 Just behind her a tall, commanding woman 
 stalked somewhat consciously, decked with 
 yellow streamers and daffodils. The junior 
 leader consulted a list in her hand, frantically 
 whispered some words to the allies around 
 her box, and the freshmen started up their 
 tribute. 
 
 Oh, here s to Kath rine Storrs, 
 
 Aught but yellow she abhors, 
 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down! 
 
 Miss Storrs endeavored to convey with her 
 glance, dignity, amusement, toleration of 
 harmless sport, and a repudiation of the per 
 sonality involved in the song; but it is to be 
 [6] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 doubted if even she was satisfied with the re 
 sult. Theodora wished she had seen the Presi 
 dent come in. She had been told how he 
 walked solemnly across the hall, mounted the 
 platform, unbuttoned his overcoat, and dis 
 played two gorgeous rosettes of the conflict 
 ing colors his official and exclusive privilege. 
 And she had heard from the Team s retreat 
 the thunder of applause that greeted this tra 
 ditional rite. She wondered whether he cared 
 who won: whether he realized what it was to 
 play against a team that had beaten in its 
 freshman year. 
 
 A burst of applause and laughter inter 
 rupted her meditations. She felt herself blush 
 ing was it the Team? No: the sophomore 
 Subs were escorting to the middle of the floor 
 a child of five or six dressed in brightest em 
 erald green : a child with a mane of the most 
 remarkable brick-red hair in the world. She 
 wore it in the fashion of Alice in Wonderland, 
 and it grew redder and redder the longer one 
 looked at it. She held a red ribbon of pre 
 cisely the same shade in her hand, and at the 
 middle of the floor the sophomores suddenly 
 burst away from her and ran quickly to their 
 seats, revealing at the end of the ribbon an 
 enormous and lifelike green frog. The child 
 
 [7] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 stood for a moment twisting her little green 
 legs undecidedly, and then, overcome with 
 embarrassment at the appreciation she had 
 evoked, shook her flaming locks over her 
 face, and dragging the frog with her, some 
 times on its side, sometimes on its head, fled 
 to the sophomores, who bore her off in tri 
 umph. 
 
 "They got her in Williamsburgh," said 
 somebody; "they Ve been hunting for weeks 
 for a red-haired child, and that frog was from 
 the drug store oh, my dear, how perfectly 
 darling!" 
 
 Alone and unabashed the freshman mas 
 cot took the floor. He was perhaps four years 
 old and the color of a cake of chocolate. His 
 costume was canary yellow a perfect little 
 jockey suit, with a purple band on his arm 
 adorned with Ninety-yellow s class numerals. 
 He dragged by a twisted cord of purple and 
 yellow a most startling plum-colored terrier, 
 of a shade that never was on land or sea, with 
 a tendency to trip his master up at every step. 
 In the exact middle of the floor the mascot 
 paused, rolled his eyes till they seemed in 
 danger of leaving their sockets, and then at a 
 shrill whistle from the balcony pulled his yel 
 low cap from his woolly head and made a deep 
 
 [8] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 and courtly bow to his patrons. But the storm 
 of applause was more than he had been pre 
 pared for, and with a wild look about the hall 
 and a frantic tug at the cord he dragged the 
 purple and protesting animal to a corner of 
 the room, where a grinning elder sister was 
 stationed for his comfort. 
 
 Theodora s heart beat high : theirs was the 
 best ! Everybody was laughing and exclaim 
 ing and questioning; the very sophomores 
 were shrieking at the efforts of the terrier to 
 drag the little darkey out again; one member 
 of the Faculty had laughed himself into some 
 thing very like hysteria and giggled weakly 
 at every twitch of the idiotic purple legs. 
 
 "It was Diamond Dyes," Theodora heard 
 a freshman just above call out excitedly, "and 
 Esther Armstrong thought of it. They dyed 
 him every day for a week " 
 
 The mascot and the dog had trotted up 
 again, and as they ran back and the animal 
 gave a more than ordinarily vicious dart, the 
 poor little boy, yielding suddenly, sat down 
 with exquisite precision on his companion, 
 and with distended eyes wailed aloud for his 
 relative, who disentangled him with difficulty 
 and bore him away, his cap over his ear and his 
 little chocolate hands clutching her neck. In 
 
 [9] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 the comparative silence that followed the gale 
 of laughter some bustle and conference was 
 noticed on the sophomore side, and suddenly 
 the leader rose, lifting her green and red stick, 
 and the front line of sophomores and seniors 
 intoned with great distinctness this thrilling 
 doggerel : 
 
 I never saw a purple pup : 
 
 I never hoped to see one : 
 But now my mind is quite made up 
 
 I d rather see than be one ! 
 
 This was received favorably, and the gal 
 lery congratulated the improvisatrice, while 
 Theodora wondered if that detracted at all 
 from the glory of the freshmen ! The chat 
 tering began again, and she drummed ner 
 vously with her heels against the platform, 
 while the Centre, sitting next her, prophesied 
 gloomily that Grace Farwell felt awfully blue, 
 and that Miss Kassan had said they were 
 really almost too slight as a team the soph 
 omores were so tall and big. Harriet Foster 
 had said that she was perfectly certain she d 
 sprain her ankle then who would guard 
 Martha Sutton ? It was all very well for Caro 
 line Wilde to say not to worry about that 
 she had n t been able to guard her last year ! 
 [ 10] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 She was just like a machine. Her arm went 
 up and the ball went in; that was all there 
 was to it. And Kate was as bad. They might 
 just as well make up their minds 
 
 "Oh, hush !" cried Theodora, her eyes full 
 of nervous tears; "if you can t talk any other 
 way, just keep still !" 
 
 "Very well," said the Centre, huffily, and 
 then the chattering died away as Miss Kassan 
 made mysterious marks on the floor, and the 
 coaches took their places with halves of lemon 
 and glasses of water in their hands. A door 
 opened, and in a dead hush the sophomore 
 team trotted in, two and two, the Suttons 
 leading, bouncing the big ball before them. 
 There was such a silence that the thudding 
 feet seemed to echo and ring through the hall, 
 and only when Martha suddenly tossed it be 
 hind her at nothing and Kate from some cor 
 ner walked over and caught it did the red and 
 green burst forth in a long-drawn single shout: 
 "Ninety-gre-e-e-e-e-n !" 
 
 Miss Kassan looked apprehensive, but no 
 Rah, rah, rah! followed; only, 
 
 Here s to Sutton M. and K. 
 And they ll surely win the day, 
 Drink em down, drink em down, drink em down y 
 down, down ! 
 
 C " ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Theodora set her teeth. "Humph! Will 
 they?" she muttered savagely. 
 
 "Here they come !" cried the Centre, and 
 they ran in, the big yellow numerals gleam 
 ing effectively against their dark suits, their 
 braids bobbing behind them. Grace Farwell 
 was quite pale, with one little spot of red in 
 each cheek, but Harriet Foster was crimson 
 with excitement, and the thick braids of au 
 burn hair that fell over her breast bumped 
 up and down as she breathed. The thunder 
 of recognition died away, and they tossed the 
 ball about nervously, with an eye on Miss 
 Kassan, who handed a ball to her assistant 
 and took her place on the line to watch fouls. 
 
 "All ready !"said the assistant. There was 
 a shuffling about, a confusion in the centre, a 
 concentration of eyes. Harriet Foster took 
 her place by Martha Sutton and sucked in her 
 under lip; Grace lined up with Kate in the 
 centre, clasping and unclasping her hands. 
 Near her stood a tall slim girl with green nu 
 merals on her sleeve. Her soft dark hair was 
 coiled lightly into a Greek knot it seemed 
 that the slightest hasty movement must shake 
 it over her sloping shoulders. It grew into a 
 clean-cut widow s peak low on her smooth 
 white forehead ; below straight, fine brows two 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB^GUARD 
 
 great, sad, gray eyes, wide apart, wondered at 
 life ; her oval face was absolutely colorless and 
 threw out the little scarlet mouth that drooped 
 softly at the corners. Her hands lightly folded 
 before her, she swayed a little and looked 
 dreamily over the heads of the others; she 
 seemed as incongruous as a Madonna at a 
 bull-fight. 
 
 "Who is that lovely girl in the middle ?" 
 said some one behind Theodora. 
 
 "That is a Miss Greer," was the reply. 
 "She is one of the best " 
 
 "Play!" called the assistant, and the big 
 ball flew out of her hands into Kate Sutton s. 
 Kate gave an indescribable twist of her shoul 
 der, the ball rose in the air, passed over an 
 utterly irrelevant scuffle in the centre, and 
 landed in Martha s hands. Martha balanced it 
 a moment and threw it into the exacl middle 
 of the basket, while the sophomores howled 
 and pounded and the freshmen looked blankly 
 at one another. They had not been accustomed 
 to such simple and efficacious methods. 
 
 "One to nothing!" said the assistant, 
 quietly. "Play!" 
 
 Theodora caught her breath. She dared not 
 look at Grace, but she stared hard at Harriet. 
 What was Harriet thinking? Not that she 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 could have done anything Martha was two 
 inches taller and had the ball tight in her hands 
 two seconds after the assistant had tossed it 
 Ah, what was that ? 
 
 The ball had reached the floor and Grace 
 had somehow gotten it. She threw it to Vir 
 ginia Wheeler, whose hands were just grazing 
 it when something shot like a flash of light 
 ning upon her. She fell back and some one 
 slapped the ball from between her very fin 
 ger-nails up, up into the air, where Kate caught 
 it, and a few short, sharp, instantaneous passes 
 got it into Martha s relentless hands. When 
 it dropped into the basket Alison Greer was 
 looking beyond the tumult, across the gallery, 
 into the sky white and unruffled. Theodora 
 winked and tried to think that some one else 
 had swooped down from her place six seconds 
 before. 
 
 The sophomores were shouting yet. Some 
 one said: "That s as pretty a piece of team 
 work as you 11 often see, is n t it ? Those twins 
 have eyes in the backs of their heads." 
 
 " Two to nothing play ! "said the assistant. 
 
 Theodora did not see the next goal won. 
 Through a mist she stared into the gallery. 
 Her eye caught a face she knew, and she won 
 dered angrily how Miss Carew could smile so 
 
 [ H] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 nonchalantly it was her own class ! From the 
 plume in her exquisite toque to the tip of her 
 patent leather toe she looked the visiting lady 
 of leisure. The little lace handkerchief dan 
 gling from her hand hadagreen silk monogram 
 in the corner how dared she wear green? She 
 nodded at a senior, across the game, and fanned 
 herself. The freshmen broke into a roar of de 
 light that ended in a long-drawn A-a-a-a-hl 
 There was a scuffle, a little cry, a flash from 
 Alison Greer s corner, and the assistant s 
 "Three to nothing play!" was drowned in 
 the sophomore shouts. 
 
 "You see the freshmen have no chance, 
 really," said some one behind, calmly, and as 
 if it made little matter at best. "They are ter 
 ribly scared, of course, and they Ve never had 
 the training of a big game. The sophomores 
 have been all through this before they don t 
 mind the crowd. And then, they beat last year, 
 and that gives them a tremendous confidence. 
 They re so much bigger, too " 
 
 Theodora turned and stared at her. She was 
 very pretty; she had a bunch of violets as big 
 as her head pinned to her dress, and her hands 
 were full of daffodils. That was like the Fac 
 ulty ! To take their flowers and talk that way ! 
 "Horrid thing ! Horrid thing !" she muttered, 
 
 [ 15] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 and the Centre, looking angrily at Miss Greer, 
 assented. 
 
 "She s a perfect tiger ! Look at her eyes ! 
 She knocked Virginia right over you 
 could n t stop her with a steam-engine Oh ! 
 Oh ! Oh! Ninety-yellow! Rah, rah-a-a-a-ah!" 
 
 Right out of their hands it had slipped*, and 
 the two girls slid across the floor, fell, reached 
 out, missed it, and gritted their teeth as the Cen 
 tres, with a long-practised manoeuvre, passed 
 it rapidly from hand to hand to Martha, whose 
 long arm slid it imperturbably into the basket. 
 
 "That Guard doesn t accomplish much, 5 
 said somebody. 
 
 "Good heavens, how can she ? Look at the 
 girl ! She lays it in like like that," was the 
 answer, as the assistant called, " Five to noth 
 ingplay I" 
 
 Theodora looked up at the purple and yel 
 low gallery. The freshmen stared as if hyp 
 notized at their steady misfortune, their faces 
 flushed, their mouths tremulous: when the 
 players ran to suck the half-lemon or kneeled 
 to tighten their shoes, their class-mates held 
 breath till they returned; when Grace got the 
 ball or Virginia pushed it aside, they started a 
 cheer that faded into a sigh as Alison Greer 
 drove everything before her or Kate sent that 
 [ 16] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 terrible Sutton throw to her sister. Theodora 
 suddenly started. Just before the ball left Kate, 
 she threwup her left hand with the palm slightly 
 spread, and some instind: moved Theodora to 
 glance at Martha. Her left hand went up in 
 stantly as if to throw back a braid, but it 
 waved toward the right, and while Harriet 
 braced herself for a jump the ball flew into 
 the air far off to the right and the instinctive 
 motion toward Martha left the way clear for 
 one of Alison Greer s rushes and sudden, bird- 
 like throws. In a moment Martha had it, and 
 as Harriet bent forward to guard, and the ball 
 toppled unsteadily on the edge of the basket 
 and fell off, in the midst of the hubbub and 
 scuffle some one pushed heavily on Harriet, 
 four hands grasped the ball firmly, somebody 
 called, "Foul, foul !" and as five panting girls 
 hurled themselves against the wall and the as 
 sistant tossed up where it fell, to make sure 
 of fair play, Harriet dropped with her foot be 
 neath her and did not get up. Martha put the 
 ball in from an amazing distance, and in the 
 storm of applause no one noticed the fresh 
 man Guard, till the cry of, "Six to nothing 
 play!" found her still sitting there. 
 
 The ball was dropped, and they ran up to 
 her. Two doctors hurried out; she half rose, 
 
 [ 17] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 fell back and bit her lip. The freshmen 
 craned out over the gallery, the sophomores 
 shook their heads; "Too bad, too bad!" they 
 murmured. Two freshmen made a chair, lifted 
 Harriet quickly and ran out with her, the doc 
 tors followed, and in the dead hush they heard 
 her voice as the door closed. 
 
 "I m so sorry, girls go right on don t 
 wait " 
 
 "Plucky girl," said a man s voice. "It s a 
 shame!" 
 
 The freshmen looked very blue; the team 
 stood about in groups; the sophomores waited 
 politely at one side. Martha went over to 
 Grace and held her hand out: "I m terribly 
 sorry," she said earnestly, "it s too bad. They 
 say your Subs are very good, though." 
 
 Grace nodded, and ran over to the coaches, 
 who walked aside with her for a moment, talk 
 ing earnestly. Presently they came over to the 
 platform and the Centre nudged Theodora 
 enviously. "Go on!" she whispered. "Grace 
 wants you !" 
 
 Theodora gasped. "Not me not me!" 
 she objected feebly. "Me guard Martha 
 Sutton!" 
 
 " Go on ! " said somebody, and they pushed 
 her out. 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 "Come on, Theodora hurry up, now!" 
 
 The people seemed to swim before her; for 
 one dreadful moment she longed for her home 
 as she had never longed before. Her knees 
 shook and the clapping of the class sounded 
 faraway. With her eyes on the floor she moved 
 out ; halfway to the centre Virginia Wheeler 
 stepped to meet her and put her arm over 
 Theodora s shoulder. 
 
 "Don t be scared, Theo," she said, "don t 
 be scared, but help us out heaven knows 
 we need it !" 
 
 "Watch Martha don t take your eyes off 
 her !" whispered the coach as she handed the 
 lemon to the new Guard. 
 
 As in a dream Theodora passed to the 
 lower basket. Martha patted her on the shoul 
 der. " Hello ! " she said in a bluff, friendly way, 
 and then the assistant called, "Six to nothing, 
 play!" and threw the ball. It dropped in the 
 middle, and there was a terrible scrimmage for 
 at least four minutes, while the people swayed 
 and sighed and clapped and screamed, for the 
 freshmen were getting terribly excited and 
 rapidly losing their self-control, as it became 
 evident that their team was struggling des 
 perately and making one of the longest rights 
 on record for the ball they were determined 
 
 [ 19] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 to have. It was almost in the basket, it tot 
 tered on the edge, it fell, and Kate Sutton 
 caught it how, no one knew, for it was no 
 where near her. The freshmen were shriek 
 ing with rage, the sophomores clapping with 
 triumph. Every eye in the hall was fixed on 
 Kate Sutton every eye but Theodora s. 
 
 She watched Martha, and saw above her head 
 that long brown hand wave ever so slightly to 
 the left as she tossed her hair back. She braced 
 herself, and just as Martha made a dash to the 
 right, Theodora let her go and flew to the left. 
 She went too far, but even as Martha dashed 
 up behind her and put up her hands, Theo 
 dora jumped, caught the ball with her left hand 
 and with her right hit it a ringing blow that 
 sent it straight over to the other basket. It 
 hit Alison Greer s head as she rushed toward 
 it, and while she was raising her hand Grace 
 Farwell snatched it from her shoulder, glanced 
 desperately at the Home, who had lost them 
 two balls, and bounded across, throwing the 
 ball before her. The roar of delight from the 
 freshmen was literally deafening, and as Grace 
 put it into the basket it seemed to Theodora 
 that the roof would surely drop. 
 
 "Six to one and the first half s up," said 
 somebody, and Theodora was pushed along 
 
 [20] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 with the Team her team into the sanc 
 tum of their rest. But as they neared the door, 
 the applause became a song, and before she 
 quite understood what the verse was, it rang 
 out above her head: 
 
 Here s to Theodora. Root y 
 She s our dandy substitoot, 
 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down! 
 
 Any one who has never been a subject of 
 song to some hundreds of young women can 
 not perhaps understand why the mention of 
 one s name in flattering doggerel should be 
 so distinctly and immediately affecting. But 
 any one who has had that experience knows 
 the little contraction of the heart, the sudden 
 hot tightening of the eyelids, the confused, 
 excited desire to be worthy of all that trust 
 and admiration. It is to be doubted if Theo 
 dora ever again felt so ideally, impersonally 
 devoted to any cause, so pathetically eager to 
 "make them proud of her." 
 
 In the little room the Team dropped on the 
 floor and panted. The coaches bustled in with 
 water, shook the hand of the new Guard and 
 told her to lie flat and not talk. A strong odor 
 of spirits filled the room, and Theodora, turn- 
 [ai ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ing her head languidly for she felt very tired 
 all at once saw that one of the juniors was 
 rubbing somebody with whiskey. Grace was 
 nursing an elbow and excitedly asking every 
 body to sit on Alison Greer : " She works her el 
 bow right into you ! She runs you right down " 
 
 "There, there!" said one of the juniors, 
 "never mind, never mind, Gracie ! She s a 
 slugger, if you like, but you ve got to beat 
 her ! Don t be afraid of her." 
 
 "It s no good," said the Home that had 
 missed two balls, "we re too " 
 
 " That s enough of that," interrupted the 
 coach who was fanning Virginia Wheeler. 
 "You re playing finely, girls. Now all you ve 
 got to do is to make up your five goals. Don t 
 you see how low you ve kept it down? You 
 did some fine centre work. Last year it was 
 eight to something the first half. You tried 
 to put it in standing right under the basket, 
 Mary stand off and take your time." 
 
 They trotted out to the music of the soph 
 omore prize song. It was a legacy from the 
 seniors, who had themselves inherited it. It 
 leaped out at them a mocking, dancing, de 
 risive little tune to which everybody kept 
 time. 
 
 It was repeated indefinitely, and at every 
 
 [22] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 repetition it went faster and more furious, and 
 strangers who had not heard it laughed louder 
 and louder. 
 
 Grace smiled grimly. The Team remem 
 bered her words just before the door opened. 
 
 " Girls, it is n t likely that we 11 win, but we 
 can give ^em something to beat ! " 
 
 And as the ball went back and forth and 
 could not get free of the centre, the sopho 
 mores realized that they had "something to 
 beat." The freshmen had somehow lost their 
 fear; they smiled up at their friends and grinned 
 cheerfully at their losses, which is far better 
 than to try to look unconscious. A little bow- 
 legged girl with a large nose and red knuckles 
 accomplished wonders in the centre, and won 
 them their second basket by stooping abruptly 
 and rolling the ball straight between Kate Sut- 
 ton s feet to Grace, who sat upon it and threw 
 it so hard at Alison Greer that it bounded 
 out of her hands and was promptly caught by 
 Virginia Wheeler and put into the basket. 
 This feat of Grace s was due entirely to her 
 having quite lost her head, but it passed as the 
 most daring of manoeuvres, and received such 
 wild applause that Miss Kassan very nearly 
 stopped the game. 
 
 " What shall I do ? This is terrible. I never 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 heard such noise as the freshmen are making ! " 
 she mourned, with an apprehensive glance at 
 the platform. At that moment the ball soared 
 high, fell, was sent up again, and caught by a 
 phenomenal leap on the part of the little bow- 
 legged girl, who got it into the basket before 
 the Home knew what was happening. The 
 war broke out again, and Miss Kassan beheld 
 two members of the Faculty pounding with 
 their canes on the platform. 
 
 " Did you see her jump ? George! That was 
 a good one ! Did you see that, Robbins ? " 
 
 But Robbins was standing up in his interest 
 and cheering under his breath as Martha Sut- 
 ton snatched a ball clearly intended for some 
 one else, quietly put it in the basket, and smiled 
 politely at her enthusiastic friends. 
 
 " Lord ! What a Fullback she d make ! " he 
 muttered, as Alison charged down into the 
 centre. The lavender shadows under her eyes 
 were deep violet now; her mouth was pressed 
 to a scarlet line; her eyes were fixed on the 
 ball like gray stars. People seemed to melt 
 away before her: she never turned to right or 
 left. 
 
 Theodora saw nothing, heard nothing but 
 the slap of hands on the ball, the quick breaths 
 that slipped past her cheek. She knew that the 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 score was nine to five now; a little later it was 
 nine to six. She caught the eye of thegirl in the 
 toque: she was standing now, her cheeks very 
 red, and the little lace handkerchief was torn 
 to shreds in her hands. 
 
 ic Does she really care ? " thought Theo 
 dora, as she jumped and twisted and doubled. 
 Back on the senior side sat Susan Jackson, 
 her eyes wide, her lips parted; Cornelia Burt 
 was breathing on her hands and chafing them 
 softly. "Nine to seven play ! " called the as 
 sistant. 
 
 Harriet sat near the fireplace, her bandaged 
 foot on a bench before her, her hands twist 
 ing and untwisting in her lap. 
 
 Here s to Harriet Foster , 
 And we re sorry that we lost her, 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down! 
 
 sang the freshmen. Would Harriet have done 
 better ? Would she have Ah ! 
 
 " Ten to seven play ! " 
 
 And they were so near, too ! They were 
 playing well Grace and Virginia were great 
 they could have done something if that 
 stupid Home Oh ! 
 
 Theodora leaped, missed the ball, but 
 
 [25] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 danced up in front of Martha and warded off 
 the girl who slipped in to help her. Martha 
 uttered an impatient exclamation and scowled. 
 The freshmen howled and kicked against the 
 gallery, and as the freshman Home woke out 
 of an apparent lethargy and put the ball in 
 neatly Theodora clapped and cheered with 
 the rest. 
 
 " Ten to eight play ! " 
 
 There was a scuffle, a fall, and a hot dis 
 cussion. Two girls grasped the ball, and the 
 captains hesitated. Miss Kassan ran up, and 
 in the little lull Theodora heard from the 
 platform : 
 
 " Oh, give it to the freshmen ! They de 
 serve it!" 
 
 "No, Miss Greer had it!" 
 
 "She knocked the girl off it, if that s 
 what " A rebellious howl from the yellow 
 gallery as Miss Greer bore off the ball, and 
 a man s voice: 
 
 "Oh, nonsense ! If you don t want em to 
 howl, don t let em play ! The idea to get 
 em all worked up and then say: No, young 
 ladies, control yourselves! How idiotic! I 
 don t blame em I d howl myself Jiminy 
 crickets ! Look at that girl ! Good work ! Good 
 work ! " 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 "Eleven to eight play !" 
 
 "Good old Suttie ! Good girl! Ninety- 
 gre-e-e-en !" 
 
 Theodora s mouth was dry, and she ran 
 to the coach for a lemon. The junior s hand 
 shook, and her voice was husky from shouting. 
 
 " It s grand it s grand ! " she said quickly. 
 "Martha s mad as a hatter ! See her braid !" 
 
 Martha had twisted her pale brown pigtail 
 tightly round her neck, and was calling with 
 little indistinct noises to her sister. Adah Levy 
 was talking to herself steadily and whispering, 
 "Hurry now, hurry now, hurry now!" as she 
 doubled and bent and worried the freshman 
 Home out of her senses. Grace Farwell was 
 everywhere at once, and was still only when 
 she fell backwards with a bang that sickened 
 the visiting mothers, and brought the fresh 
 men s hearts into their mouths. A great gasp 
 travelled up the gallery, and the doctor left her 
 seat, but before she reached the players Grace 
 was up, tossed her head, blinked rapidly, and 
 with an unsteady little smile took her place 
 by Alison Greer. And then the applause that 
 had gone before was mild in comparison with 
 the thunder from both galleries, and Miss 
 Kassan looked at her watch uneasily and 
 moved forward. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Now everybody was standing up, and the 
 men were pushing forward, and only the gasps 
 and bursts of applause and little cries of dis 
 appointment disturbed the stillness the 
 steady roar had stopped. 
 
 Theodora knew nothing, saw nothing: she 
 only played. Her back ached, and her throat 
 was dry ; Martha s elbow moved like the piston 
 of a steam-engine; her arm, when Theodora 
 pressed against it, was like a stiff bar; she tow 
 ered above her Guard. It was only a question 
 of a few, few minutes could they make it 
 "eleven to nine"? 
 
 She must have asked the question, for 
 Martha gasped, "No, you won t!" at her, 
 and her heart sank as Miss Kassan moved 
 closer. The ball neared their basket; the little 
 bow-legged girl ducked under Alison s nose 
 and emerged with it from a chaos of swaying 
 Centres, tossed it to Grace, who dashed to the 
 basket 
 
 "Time s up!" 
 
 The freshmen shrieked, the Team yelled 
 to its captain: "Put it in ! put it in !" The 
 sophomore Guards had not heard Miss Kas 
 san, and Grace poised the ball. A yell from 
 the freshmen and she deliberately dropped 
 it. 
 
 [28] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 "Time s up," she said, with a little break 
 in her voice, and as Miss Kassan hurried for 
 ward to stop the play she gave her the ball. 
 Through the tumult a bass voice was heard: 
 "I say, you know, that was pretty decent! 
 I m not sure I d have done that myself!" 
 
 And as the assistant and Miss Kassan re 
 tired to compare fouls, and the noise grew 
 louder and louder, the freshman team, with 
 drawn near the platform, heard a young pro 
 fessor, not so many years distant from his own 
 alma mater, enthusiastically assuring any one 
 who cared to hear, that "That girl was a dead 
 game sport, now !" 
 
 For a moment the feeling against Grace 
 had been bitter the basket was so near ! But 
 as the sophomores were openly commend 
 ing her, and as Miss Kassan was heard to say 
 that the Team had played in splendid form 
 and had given a fine example of "the self-con 
 trol that the game was supposed to teach," 
 they thought better of their captain with every 
 minute. 
 
 "Eleven to eight, in favor of Ninety-green 
 fouls even !" said Miss Kassan, and the 
 storm broke from the gallery. But before it 
 reached the floor, almost, Martha was ener 
 getically beating time, and above the miscel- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 laneous babble rose the strong, steady cheer 
 of the sophomores: 
 
 Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! Ninety-ye-e-e-e-llow ! 
 
 "Quick, girls! quick!" cried Grace, for 
 Miss Kassan was running toward them with 
 determination in her eye. 
 
 Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! Ninety-gre-e-e-e-n ! 
 
 Then it was all a wild, confused tumult. 
 Theodora had no distinct impressions; peo 
 ple kissed her and shook her hand, and Kathie 
 Sewall carried Grace off to a swarm of girls 
 who devoured her, but not before Martha, 
 breathless from a rapid ride around the floor 
 on the unsteady shoulders of her loyal team, 
 had solemnly extended her hot brown hand 
 to the freshman captain and said, with sin 
 cere respect, "That was as good a freshman 
 game as ever was played, Miss Farwell 
 we re mighty proud of ourselves ! Your cen 
 tre work was simply great ! And and of 
 course we know that that last goal was was 
 practically yours ! " 
 
 Theodora had expected to feel so ashamed 
 
 [30] 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 and sad and somehow she was so proud and 
 happy ! The sophomores last year had locked 
 themselves in for one hour and expressed 
 their feelings; but the freshmen could only 
 realize that theirs was the closest score known 
 for years, and that they had made it against 
 the best team the college had ever seen; that 
 Martha had said that in fifteen minutes more, 
 at the rate they were playing, nobody knew 
 what might have happened; that Miss Kassan 
 had said that except in the matter of noise she 
 had been very proud of them; and that Pro 
 fessor Robbins had called their captain a 
 Dead Game Sport ! 
 
 It would not have been etiquette to carry 
 Grace about the hall, but they managed [to 
 convey to her their feelings, which were far 
 from perfunctory, and in their enthusiasm 
 they went so far as to obey the Council s ear 
 nest request that the decorations should re 
 main untouched. They cheered Theodora and 
 Virginia and Harriet and the bow-legged girl 
 till you would have supposed them victorious; 
 and when Harriet told Grace, with a little 
 gulp, that it was all up with her, for her 
 mother had said that a second sprained ankle 
 meant no more basket-ball, the little sympa 
 thetic crowd brightened, and all eyes turned 
 
 [31 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 to Theodora, who breathed hard and tried to 
 seem not to notice. Could it be ? Would she 
 ever run out bouncing the ball in that wait 
 ing hush? . . . 
 
 They were out of the Gym now, and only 
 the ushers bonnets, the green and yellow 
 flowers that the Council had not controlled, 
 the crumpled, printed sheets of basket-ball 
 songs, and the little mascots posing for their 
 pictures on the campus made the day differ 
 ent from any other. 
 
 "Come and lie down," said somebody, re 
 garding Theodora with a marked respect. 
 "You ll want to get rested before the din 
 ner, you know." 
 
 And as Theodora stared at her and half 
 turned to run after Grace, whom Kathie Sew- 
 all was quietly leading off, the girl she was 
 in the house with her held her back. 
 
 "I d let Grace alone, if I were you," she 
 said. "She s pretty well used up; she hurt 
 her elbow quite badly, but she would n t say 
 anything, and Dr. Leach says she 11 have to 
 keep perfectly quiet if she wants to be at the 
 dinner wants to ! the idea ! But she said of 
 course you were to come. They say they re 
 going to take some of the Gym decorations 
 down. What ! Why, the idea! Of course 
 
EMOTIONS OF A SUB-GUARD 
 
 you 11 go ! You re sure to make the Team, 
 anyhow, for that matter ! I tell you, Theo 
 dora, we re proud of you ! It was n t any joke 
 to step in there and guard Martha Sutton 
 with a score of six to nothing!" 
 
 Theodora paused at the steps, her mackin 
 tosh half off, her hair tangled about her crim 
 son cheeks, her sleeve dusty from that last 
 mad slide. 
 
 "No," she said, with a wave of reminis 
 cence of that sick shaking of her knees, that 
 shrinking from a million critical eyes. "No, 
 it was n t any joke not in the least !" 
 
 And she climbed up the stairs to a burst 
 of applause from the freshmen in the house 
 and the shrill cry of her room-mate: 
 
 "Come on, Theo ! I Ve got a bath-tub 
 for you !" 
 
 [33 ] 
 
THE SECOND STORY 
 
 A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
II 
 
 A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 ""W ^W" THAT I want to know/ said 
 
 % /% / the chairman of the committee, 
 ^y ^ wearily," is just this. Are we go 
 ing to give the Lady of Lyons, 
 or are we not ? I have a music lesson at four 
 and a tea at five, and while your sprightly and 
 interesting conversation is ever pleasing to 
 me" 
 
 "Oh, Neal, don t ! Think of something for 
 us ! Don t you want us to give it?" 
 
 "I think it s too love-making. And no one 
 up here makes love. The girls will howl at 
 that garden scene. You must get something 
 where they can be funny." 
 
 " But, Neal, dear, you can make beautiful 
 love!" 
 
 "Certainly I can, but I can t make it alone, 
 can I? And Margaret Ellis is a stick a per 
 fect stick. But then, have it ! I see you re bent 
 on it. Only I tell you one thing it will take 
 more rehearsing than the girls will want to 
 give. And I shan t do one word of it publicly 
 till I think that we have rehearsed enough 
 together. So that s all I ve got to say till 
 Wednesday, and I must go !" 
 
 The door opened shut; and before the 
 
 [37] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 committee had time for comment or criticism, 
 their chairman had departed. 
 
 "Neal s a trifle cross/ suggested Patsy, 
 mildly. "Something s the matter with her," 
 said Julia Leslie. "She got a note from Miss 
 Henderson this afternoon, and I think she s 
 going to see her now. Oh, I have n t the 
 vaguest idea What? No, I know it s not 
 about her work. Neal s all straight with that 
 department. Well, I think I 11 go over to the 
 Gym and hunt out a suit. Who has the key 
 to the property box now?" 
 
 The little group dissolved rapidly and No. 1 8 
 resumed its wonted quiet. "There s nothing 
 like having a society girl for a room-mate, is 
 there, Patsy?" said the resident Sutton twin, 
 opening the door. She and her sister were dis 
 tinguishable by their room-mates alone, and 
 they had been separated with a view to pre 
 venting embarrassing confusion, as they were 
 incredibly alike. " Could n t I make the Alpha 
 on the strength of having vacated this hearth 
 and home eighteen times by aclual count for 
 its old committees?" 
 
 " I ve put you up five times, Kate, love, but 
 they think your hair s too straight. Could n t 
 you curl it ? " 
 
 Kate sniffed scornfully. " I ve always known 
 
 [38] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 that the literary societies had some such sys 
 tem of selection," she said to the bureau. 
 "Now, in an idle moment of relaxation, the 
 secret is out ! Patsy, I scorn the Alpha, and the 
 Phi Kappa likewise." 
 
 "I scorn the Phi Kappa myself, theoreti 
 cally," said Patsy. 
 
 "Do you think they 11 take in that queer 
 junior, you know, that looks so tall till you 
 get close to her, and then it s the way she 
 walks ? " 
 
 "Dear child, your vivid description some 
 how fails to bring her to my mind." 
 
 " Why don t you want her in Alpha ? But be 
 careful you don t wait too long ! You re both 
 leaving me till late in the year, you know, and 
 then, ten to one, the other one gets me !" 
 
 "A little violet beside a mossy stone is a 
 poor comparison, Katharine, but at the mo 
 ment I think of no other. I am glad you grasp 
 the situation so clearly, though." 
 
 " But, truly, I wonder why they don t take 
 that girl is n t her name Hastings ? into 
 Phi Kappa ? She writes awfully well, they say, 
 and I guess she recites well enough." 
 
 The other Sutton twin sauntered in, and 
 appearing as usual to grasp the entire conver 
 sation from the beginning, rolled her sister off 
 
 [39] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 the couch, filled her vacant place, and entered 
 the discussion. 
 
 " But, my dear child, you know she won t 
 make either society ! She s too indifferent 
 she does n t care enough. And she s off the 
 campus, and she does n t go out anywhere, 
 and she is always alone, and that speaks for 
 itself" 
 
 "Oh, I m tired of talking about her ! Stop 
 it, Kate, and get some crackers, that s a dear ! 
 Or I 11 get them myself," and Patsy was in 
 the hall. 
 
 Kate shook her head wisely at the bureau. 
 "Something s in the air," she said softly. 
 "Patsy is bothered. So is Neal. And there 
 are plenty of crackers on the window-seat !" 
 
 Miss Margaret Sewall Pattison sauntered 
 slowly down the stairs. For one whose heart 
 was set on crackers she seemed strangely in 
 different to the hungry girls standing about 
 the pantry with fountain pens and ledure 
 books and racquets and hammocks under 
 their arms. She walked by them and out of 
 the door, stood a moment irresolutely on the 
 porch, and then, as she caught sight of Cor 
 nelia Burt coming out of the dormitory just 
 beyond, she hurried out to meet her. 
 
 "Busy this hour, Neal?" she said. 
 
 [40] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 "No," said Cornelia, briefly. "Where shall 
 
 ?> j 
 
 VY^ & VX . 
 
 "We can go to the property box and get 
 some clothes," said Patsy, "and talk it over 
 there." 
 
 In the cellar of the gymnasium it was cool 
 and dim. The beams rose high above their 
 heads, and a musty smell of tarlatan and mus 
 lin and cheese-cloth filled the air. Patsy sat 
 on an old flower-stand, and pushed Cornelia 
 down on a Greek altar that lay on its side with 
 a faded smilax wreath still clinging to it. 
 
 " What did she say to you, Neal ? " she asked. 
 
 Neal looked at the floor. "She was lovely, 
 but I did n t half appreciate it. I was so both 
 ered and vexed. Pat, I did n t know the 
 Faculty ever did this sort of thing, did you ?" 
 
 " I don t believe they often do," said Patsy. 
 "Did she read that thing to you, too ?" 
 
 "Yes. Patsy, that s a remarkable thing. 
 Do you know, when I went there I thought 
 she was going to call me down for taking off 
 the Faculty in that last Open Alpha. The 
 girls say she hates that sort of thing. You 
 know she always says just what she thinks. 
 And she said, c l want to read you a little 
 story, Miss Burt, that happened to come into 
 my hands, and that has haunted me since." 1 
 
 [41 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "How do you suppose she got hold of it ?" 
 queried Patsy. 
 
 "I don t know, I m sure. I certainly 
 should n t pick her out to exhibit my themes 
 to ! I never saw them together." 
 
 "I think I saw them walking once well, 
 go on !" 
 
 " For the Monthly? said I. 
 
 " No, said she. C I think the author would 
 not consent to its publication. And then she 
 read it to me. Pat, if that girl has suffered as 
 much as that, I don t see how she stays here." 
 
 "She s too proud to do anything else," 
 said Patsy. "Go on." 
 
 "Then Miss Henderson said: C I needn t 
 tell you the value of this thing from a literary 
 point of view, Miss Burt. 
 
 " c No, said I, you needn t. 
 
 " Very well, said she; c then I 11 tell you 
 something else. Every word of it is true/ 
 
 " I m sorry, said I." 
 
 "Oh, Neal ! I cried when she read it to 
 me ! I blubbered like a baby. And she was 
 so nice about it. But I hated her, almost, for 
 disturbing me so." 
 
 "Precisely. So I said: c And what have you 
 read this to me for, Miss Henderson? And 
 then she told me that the girl in the story was 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 Winifred Hastings. She has always lived with 
 older people and been a great pet and sort of 
 prodigy, you know, and was expelled to do 
 great things here, and found herself lonely, 
 and was proud and did n t make friends, and 
 got farther away from the college instead of 
 nearer to it, and all that. And I said, C I sup 
 pose she s not the only one, Miss Hender 
 son/ And she looked at me so queerly. 
 c Mephistopheles said that/ said she/ 
 
 "Oh ! Neal ! How could you ? I why are 
 you so cold and " 
 
 " Unsympathetic ? I don t know. We all 
 have the defects of our qualities, I suppose. 
 Miss Henderson was quite still for a moment, 
 looking at me. I felt like a fly on a pin. c Why 
 do you try so hard to be cruel, Miss Burt? 
 said she, finally. c I think you have an immense 
 capacity for suffering and for sympathy. Is it 
 because you are afraid to give way to it ? And 
 I said, Exactly so, Miss Henderson. I never 
 go to the door when the tramps come. 
 
 " Neither did I, once, said she, but I 
 found it was a singularly useless plan. You ve 
 got to, some time, Miss Burt. 
 
 " That s what I ve always been afraid of, 
 but I m putting it off as long as I can, said I. 
 
 "And then she told me that this was the 
 
 [43 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 first time that she had done anything of this 
 kind for a long while. c I don t believe in help 
 ing people to their places, as a rule/ she said. 
 They usually get what they deserve, I fancy. 
 But this is a peculiar case. You suppose she 
 is not the only one, Miss Burt ? I hope there 
 are very few like her. I have never known of 
 a girl of her ability to lose everything that she 
 has lost. There are girls who are queer and 
 erratic and somewhat solitary and perhaps dis 
 contented, but they get into a prominence of 
 their own and you call it a "divine discon 
 tent," and make them geniuses, and they get 
 a good deal out of it, after all. There are girls 
 who are queer and quick-tempered, but good 
 students, and devoted to a few warm friends, 
 and their general unpopularity doesn t trouble 
 them particularly. There are the social leaders, 
 who don t particularly suffer if they don t get 
 into a society, who are popular everywhere, 
 and get the good time they came for. But 
 Winifred Hastings has somehow missed all 
 these. She got started wrong, and she s gone 
 from bad to worse. She is not solitary by na 
 ture, and yet she is more alone than the girls 
 who like solitude, even. She is not naturally 
 reserved, and yet she is considered more so 
 than almost any girl in college. I believe her 
 
 [44] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 to have great executive ability. I consider her 
 one of the distinctly literary girls in her class, 
 and if there is anything in essentially "bad 
 luck," I do honestly believe that she is the 
 victim of it. Her characteristics are so balanced 
 and opposed to each other that she can t help 
 herself, and she does things that make her 
 seem what she is not. Her real self is in this 
 story. You can see the pathos of that ! 
 
 Neal drew a long breath. "Did she say that 
 to you?" she concluded. 
 
 "No, not exactly. She told me that she was 
 speaking to me as one of the social influences 
 of the college. I felt like a cross between Ma 
 dame de Stael and Ward McAllister, you 
 know. And then she spoke of the power we 
 have, the girls like me, and how a little help 
 oh, Neal ! it does mean a good deal, though ! 
 I can t make people take this girl up, all 
 alone ! The girls are n t " 
 
 "They are ! They re the merest sheep ! If 
 you do it, they 11 all follow you. That is, if 
 she s really worth anything. Of course, they 
 are n t fools." 
 
 "She sat on me awfully, though, Neal ! I 
 said, c I suppose you think we ought to have 
 her in Alpha, Miss Henderson. She gave 
 me a look that simply withered me. My dear 
 
 [ 45 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Miss Pattison, said she, in that twenty-mile- 
 away tone, c I am not in the habit of suggest 
 ing candidates for either of the societies: I 
 must have made myself far from clear to you. 
 And I apologized. But it s what she meant, 
 all the same!" 
 
 " Of course it is. Well, I suppose she s 
 right. It is n t everybody would have dared 
 to do that much. I respect her for it myself. 
 You are to launch her socially, I am to " 
 
 "Neal Burt, I think you ought to be 
 ashamed ! Did n t Miss Henderson tell you 
 how Winifred Hastings admired you ? " 
 
 "Yes. She said that I was the only girl in the 
 college whose friendship Oh, dear! I wish 
 she had gone to Vassar, that girl ! Heavens ! 
 It s half-past three ! I must go this minute. 
 Well, Patsy, we re honored, in a way. I don t 
 think Miss Henderson would talk to every 
 one as she has to us, do you ? " 
 
 "No," said Patsy, gravely, "I don t. You 
 know, Neal, just as I was going, she said, Of 
 course you realize, Miss Pattison, that only 
 you and I and Miss Burt have seen this story ? 
 C I understand, said I. Perhaps I have done 
 this because I understand Miss Hastings bet 
 ter than she thinks, she said. c I I was a lit 
 tle like her, myself, once, Miss Pattison ! 
 
 [46] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 "Yes," said Neal, "she told me that." 
 
 " I don t see why Miss Henderson doesn t 
 take her up herself, if she understands her so 
 terribly well," scowled Patsy. "She looks just 
 like the kind of girl to be devoted to one per 
 son and all that, you know. Miss Henderson 
 could go for walks with her and " 
 
 " Too much sense ! " said Neal, briefly. 
 "She wants to get her in with the girls. That 
 sort of thing would kill her with the girls, and 
 she knows it." 
 
 "Oh, bother! Look at B. Kitts she s a 
 great friend of Miss Henderson s, and look 
 at yourself! " 
 
 " Not at all," Neal returned decidedly. 
 " Biscuits was in with your set long before she 
 got to know Miss Henderson, and I knew 
 Marion Hunter at home before she came up 
 here. It s all very well to chum with the Fac 
 ulty if you re in with the girls, too, but other 
 wise as my friend Claude says, Nay, nay, 
 Pauline! Besides, Miss Henderson doesn t 
 go in for that sort of thing anyhow she J s 
 too clever." 
 
 " Oh, well, I suppose it is best for us to do 
 it. I guess she s right enough," said Patsy, 
 rising as she spoke, "and I suppose we can 
 do it as well as anybody, for that matter." 
 [47 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 They mounted the stone steps and came 
 out into a light that dazzled them. "There 
 she is !" said Patsy softly, as a tall girl, plainly 
 dressed, walked quickly by them. Her face 
 was strangely set, her mouth almost hard, her 
 eyes looked at them with an expression that 
 would have been defiant but for something 
 that softened them as they met Neal s. She 
 bowed to her, hardly noticing Patsy s "Good 
 afternoon, Miss Hastings ! " and hurried off 
 to the back campus. Behind were two fresh 
 men loaded with pillows. "Isn t that Miss 
 Hastings ? " said one. 
 
 " Yes. She s going to leave college." 
 
 " Oh ! Well, we can lose her better than 
 some others I could mention," said the pret 
 tier and better dressed of the two. Then, 
 catching sight of Patsy and Neal, she stopped 
 and blushed a little. " Did did you get my 
 note, Miss Burt ? Will you come ? " she asked 
 prettily. Neal smiled. 
 
 " Why, yes, I shall be pleased at four on 
 Saturday, I think you said ? " And then as 
 the two moved on she added, "I heard you 
 say something about Miss Hastings: is it true 
 she s going to leave ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the other freshman, impor 
 tantly. "Immediately, she told Mrs. White. 
 
 [48 ] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 I m in the house with her. I think she said 
 next week. She s disappointed in college, I 
 guess. Well, I should think she would be. 
 She" 
 
 " I trust the college has given her no reason 
 to be," said Neal, gravely. "I sometimes think 
 her attitude if that should happen to be her 
 attitude somewhat justifiable." And before 
 the freshman could recover, Miss Burt and 
 her friend were halfway across the campus. 
 
 Patsy sighed with admiration. " Oh, Corne 
 lia, how I reverenceyou ! " she said. " I could n t 
 do that to save my soul. No. Once I tried it, 
 and the freshman laughed at me. I slunk 
 away positively slunk." 
 
 But Neal did not laugh. "I can t see what 
 to do," she half whispered, as if to herself. 
 "Next week next week! Why then, why 
 then, it s all over with her. She s thrown up 
 the sponge ! " 
 
 Patsy peered into Cornelia s face and caught 
 her breath. "Why, Neal, do you care? Do 
 you really care ? " she said. Neal looked at 
 her defiantly through wet lashes. "Yes, I do 
 care. I think it s horrible. To have her beaten 
 like this ! I have to go now. Be sure to come 
 to Alpha to-night ! " 
 
 " When Cornelia leaves, she leaves sudden, 
 
 [49] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 said Kate Sutton, from the window. "Coming 
 up?" 
 
 Patsy stamped slowly up the two flights, 
 and rummaged in a very mussy window-box 
 for a silk waist. Her room-mate listened for 
 some expression of grief or joy togive the tone 
 to conversation, but none came; so she began 
 on her own account. 
 
 " Martha says," indicating her twin, who 
 was polishing the silver things with alcohol 
 and a preparation fondly believed by her to be 
 whiting, but which incessant use had reduced 
 to a dirty gritty gum, "Martha says she knows 
 who s going in to-night." 
 
 "Oh, indeed?" 
 
 "Yes. She says it s Eleanor Huntington 
 and Leila Droch. She knows for certain." 
 
 " Great penetration she has they Ve never 
 been mentioned," returned the senior, absent- 
 mindedly, grabbing under the chiffonier for 
 missing hair-pins. 
 
 A shriek of triumph from the twins brought 
 her to her knees. 
 
 "Aha! I told you they were n t in it! Per 
 haps you 11 believe me again ! Perhaps I can t 
 find out a thing or two!" 
 
 The twins shook hands delightedly, and 
 Patsy, irritated at her slip, grabbed again for 
 [ 50 ] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 the hair-pins, incidentally discovering a silver 
 shoe-horn and a fountain pen. 
 
 "Very clever you are very, "she remarked 
 coldly. "Quite unusual, and so young, too. No 
 wonder your parents are worried!" 
 
 This was a bitter cut, for the twins were in 
 dustriously engaged in living down the report 
 that the Registrar had in their freshman year 
 received a note from Mrs. Sutton imploring 
 her to curb if necessary their passion for study, 
 which invariably brought on nervous head 
 aches. This was peculiarly interesting to their 
 friends, who had never remarked any undue 
 application on their part and were, of course, 
 proportionately eager to caution them against 
 it. They squirmed visibly now and changed 
 their tone abruptly. 
 
 "They say that Frances Wilde was terribly 
 disappointed about making Alpha she d 
 much rather have got Phi Kappa," said Kate, 
 with a mixture of malice and humility. 
 
 Patsy was silent. Martha grinned and took 
 up the conversation. 
 
 " But her heart would have been broken if 
 she had n t gotten in this year," she returned 
 amiably. 
 
 Patsy turned and glared at them, one arm 
 in the silk waist. 
 
 c 51 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "What utter nonsense!" she broke out. 
 "As if it made any matter, one way or the 
 other! As if it made two cents worth of differ 
 ence ! You know perfectly well that it s no 
 test at all making a society. Look at the 
 girls who are in! It s a farce, as Neal says " 
 She stopped and scowled at them defiantly. 
 The twins gasped. This from a society girl to 
 them, as yet uncled! Even for a conversation 
 with the Sutton twins, with whom, owing to 
 their own contagious example, truth was bound 
 to fly out sooner or later, this was unusual. It 
 was odd enough to discuss the societies at all 
 with perfectly eligible sophomores who might 
 reasonably expect to enter one or another some 
 time and who were nevertheless yet uncalled; 
 but the twins discussed every thing with every 
 body, utterly regardless of etiquette, tradition, 
 or propriety, and their upper-classroom-mates 
 had long ago given up any ideas of reserve and 
 discipline they might have held. 
 
 Martha gasped but promptly replied. 
 "That s all very well for Cornelia Burt," she 
 said, with the famous Sutton grin. "Anybody 
 who made the Alpha in the first five and was 
 known well enough to have been especially 
 wanted in Phi Kappa and even begged to re 
 fuse " 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 " How did you know that, Martha Sutton ? " 
 
 "Oh! how did I? The President confided 
 it to me one day when he was calling. As I say, 
 Neal Burt and you can afford to talk; you can 
 say it s a bore and all that and make fun of the 
 meetings " 
 
 "I don t!" 
 
 "You do! I heard you growling about it to 
 Neal. And Bertha Kitts said she d about as 
 soon conduct a class prayer-meeting as Phi 
 Oh, not to me, naturally, but I know the girl 
 who heard the girl she said it to ! Heard her 
 tell about it, I mean. 
 
 "It s all very well for you, but you d feel dif 
 ferently if you were out! It s just like being 
 a junior usher. There are plenty of spooks 
 in, but there are n t many bright girls out. 
 Everybody knows that lots of the society girls 
 are pushed in by their friends and pulled in 
 for heaven knows what certainly not brains ! 
 But, just the same, you know well enough that 
 you can count on one hand all the girls in the 
 college that you d think ought to be in and 
 are n t. You don t know anything about it, for 
 you were sure of it and everybody knew it, 
 but the ones that are n t, they re the ones that 
 worry ! Why, I know sophomores to-day that 
 will cry all night if they don t get their notes 
 
 [53] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 and their flowers and their front seat in chapel 
 Monday!" 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" 
 
 "Oh,nonsense,indeed!Won tthey, Katie?" 
 
 "Sure!" returned her sister, placidly. 
 
 " I guess Alison Greer will cry all right, if 
 she s not in!" 
 
 Patsy bit her lip and tapped her foot ner 
 vously. Then she shrugged her shoulders and 
 opened the door, turning to remark, "You 
 don t seem to be wasted away, either of you!" 
 
 " Oh, we ! We re all right ! " replied Martha, 
 comfortably. "We never expected it sopho 
 more year, anyhow. Nothing proddy about 
 us, you know. Too many clever girls in the 
 sophomore class, you see. But we exped: to 
 amble in next year, we do. And violets from 
 you. And supper at Boyden s. Oh, yes ! Don t 
 you worry about us, Miss Pattison, we re all 
 right!" 
 
 Miss Pattison sighed: sighs usually ended 
 one s conversations with the twins, for nothing 
 else so well expressed one s attitude. 
 
 "It s a pity you re so shrinking," she con 
 tented herself with observing. " I m afraid 
 you 11 never come forward sufficiently to be 
 known well by either society !" And she went 
 down to get her mail. 
 
 [54] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 ii 
 
 THERE was a full meeting of the Alpha 
 that Saturday night. The vice-president 
 was lobbying energetically in behalf of a soph 
 omore friend who would prove the crown and 
 glory of the society, if all her upper-class pa 
 troness said of her could possibly be true. 
 There was but one place open for the rest of 
 the term, for the society had grown unusually 
 that year, and some conservative seniors had 
 pressed hard on the old tradition that sixty was 
 a suitable and necessary limit, and put a mo 
 tion through to that effect, and every possible 
 junior had been elected long ago. So the vice- 
 president was distinctly hopeful. Amid the 
 buzz and clamor of fifty-odd voices, the presi 
 dent slapped the table sharply. "Will the 
 meeting please come to order !" she cried. A 
 little rustle, and the handsome secretary arose. 
 "The regular meeting of the Alpha Society 
 was held " and the report went on. 
 
 "Are there any objections to this report?" 
 asked the president, briskly. "Yes. It s fartoo 
 long," muttered Suzanne Endicott, flippantly. 
 The president looked at her reproachfully, 
 and added, "If not, we will proceed to the 
 election of new members I mean the new 
 member. As you probably know, there is but 
 
 [55] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 one place left, according to the recent amend 
 ment, and I think that we will vote as usual 
 on the three that are before us, and elect the 
 one having the most affirmative ballots. Are 
 there any objections to this method?" There 
 were none. The vice-president glanced ap- 
 pealingly at the girl she was not quite sure of 
 and smiled encouragingly at the sophomore 
 she had successfully intimidated. The secre 
 tary rose again. "The names to be voted on 
 this evening are Alison Greer, 9, Kath 
 arine Sutton, 9, Marion Dustin, "9," she 
 announced. "I may add that Miss Sutton has 
 the highest marks from the society, and that 
 if we don t take her this time there is very 
 little doubt that Phi Kappa Psi will. They 11 
 be afraid to risk another meeting." 
 
 "That s true," said somebody, as the buzz 
 ing began again. "We re carrying this point 
 a little too far. I declare, it s harder to decide 
 on the people that are n t prods than anybody 
 would imagine. We know we want em some 
 time, but we put it off so long " 
 
 "Kate Sutton s awfully bright ! I think she 
 should have been here before. I ve been 
 trembling for fear we d lose her by waiting 
 so long " 
 
 "Still, Marion is such a dear, and it s pretty 
 
 [56] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 late for a girl that s been known so well for 
 so long, without getting in, it seems to me," 
 said the vice-president, skilfully. "Why 
 did n t she get in before if she was so bright ?" 
 
 "And there s Martha, too. They re just 
 alike. I think Martha s a little brighter, if 
 anything. Shall we have to take em both ? " 
 
 "No. The girls all say to give her to Phi 
 Kappa, and tell em apart by the pins !" 
 
 "Like babies!" 
 
 "How silly!" 
 
 "To be perfectly frank, Miss Leslie, I 
 must say I don t think so. Alison is an aw 
 fully dear girl, and all that, but I hardly think 
 she represents the element we hope to get into 
 Alpha. I m sorry to say so, but " 
 
 "The voting has begun," said the presi 
 dent. "Will you hurry, please?" 
 
 " Miss President," said Cornelia Burt, ris 
 ing abruptly, "may I speak to the society be 
 fore the voting?" 
 
 "Certainly, Miss Burt," said the presi 
 dent. There was an instant hush, and the girls 
 stood clustered about the ballot-table in their 
 pretty, light dresses a charming sight, Neal 
 thought vaguely, as she hunted for the words 
 to say. 
 
 "I know perfectly well that what I am about 
 
 [57] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 to propose is quite unconstitutional," she be 
 gan, and to her own ears her voice seemed far 
 off. How many there were, and how surprised 
 and attentive they looked ! They were no fools, 
 as she had said. They represented the clever 
 est element in the college, on the whole, and 
 they had, naturally enough, their own designs 
 and inclinations why should they be turned 
 from them in a moment ? 
 
 "I know that no girl is eligible for voting 
 upon until she has been read two meetings 
 before, and been properly put up for mem 
 bership, and all that," said Neal, quietly, with 
 her eyes fixed on Patsy s, who tried to evade 
 them. Poor Patsy. She wanted Kate to get the 
 society in her sophomore year ! " But I am 
 in possession of certain facts that seem to me 
 to warrant the breaking through the consti 
 tution, if such a thing can ever be done." 
 
 The silence had become intense. An omi 
 nous look of surprise deepened on the girls 
 faces, and the president looked doubtfully at 
 the secretary. 
 
 " I think I am quite justified in believing 
 that I have not the reputation of a sentimental 
 person," said Cornelia. She had herself well 
 in hand, now. The opposition that she felt 
 nerved her to her customary self-possession. 
 
 [58] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 A little grin swept around the room. She was, 
 apparently, quite justified. 
 
 "I have been in the Alpha as long as any 
 one here/ said Neal, quietly still, "and in 
 all this time I have never proposed any one 
 for membership in it. I have voted whenever 
 I knew anything about the person in ques 
 tion, and I have never blackballed but once. I 
 think I may say I have done my share of 
 work for the society " 
 
 There was a unanimous murmur of deep 
 and unqualified assent. "You have done more 
 than your share/ said the president, promptly. 
 
 "I mention these things," said Neal, "in 
 order that you may see that I recognize the 
 need of some apology for what I am about to 
 propose. I want to propose the name of Wini 
 fred Hastings to-night, and have her voted 
 on with the rest. If it is a possible thing, I want 
 her elected. That she would be elected with 
 out any doubt, I am certain, if only I could 
 put the facts of the case properly before you. 
 That she must be elected, now, to-night, is 
 absolutely necessary, for by another meeting 
 she will have left the college left it for the 
 lack of just such recognition as membership 
 in the society will give her." 
 
 Cornelia Burt was a born orator. Never 
 
 [59] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 was she so happy as when she felt an audi 
 ence, however small, given over to her, eyes 
 and ears, for the moment. She stood straight 
 as a reed, and looked easily over their faces, 
 holding by very force of personality their at 
 tention. She spoke without the slightest hesi 
 tation, yet perfectly simply and after no set 
 form. Insensibly the girls around her felt con 
 viction in her very presence: they agreed with 
 her against their will, while she was speak 
 ing. 
 
 "Before I go any farther, I want to tell 
 you that Miss Hastings is no friend of mine," 
 said Neal. "I hardly know her. Only lately 
 I have learned the circumstances that led me 
 to take this stepo I feel that I must do this 
 thing. I feel that we are letting go from the 
 college a girl whose failure in life, if she fails, 
 will be in our hands. We can elect these others 
 later: Winifred Hastings leaves the college 
 next week. And, speaking as editor of the 
 college paper, I must say that she carries with 
 her some of the best literary material in the 
 college. You ask me why we have never seen 
 it I tell you, because she is a girl who needs 
 encouragement, and she has never had it. She 
 can do her best only when it is called for. 
 Some of you may think you know her may 
 
 [60] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 think that she is proud and solitary and dis 
 agreeable: she is not. This is the real girl !" 
 
 And, stepping farther into the circle, Cor 
 nelia, by an effort of memory she has never 
 equalled since, told them, with the simplest 
 eloquence, the pathetic story of Winifred 
 Hastings life, as she had written it. She did 
 not comment she only related. Her keen 
 literary appreciation had caught the most ef 
 fective parts, and she had the dramatic sense 
 to which every successful speaker owes so 
 much. Under her touch the haughty, solitary 
 figure of a scarcely known girl melted away 
 before them, and they saw a baffled, eager, 
 hungry soul that had fought desperately, and 
 was going silently away beaten. 
 
 Cornelia Burt had made speeches before, 
 and she made them afterward, to larger and 
 more excited college audiences, but she never 
 held so many hearts in her hand as she did 
 that night. She was not a particularly unself 
 ish girl, but no one who heard her then ever 
 called her egotistic afterward. Her whole na 
 ture was thrown with all its force into this 
 fight for it was a fight. 
 
 Perhaps there is nowhere an audience less 
 sentimental and more critical than a group of 
 clever college girls. They see clearly for the 
 [61 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 most part, and, like all clever youth, somewhat 
 cruelly. They objecT; to being ruled by any 
 but their chosen, and however they admired 
 her, Cornelia was not their chosen leader. It 
 was not because her speech was able, but be 
 cause it was so evident that she believed her 
 self only the means of preventing a calamity 
 that she was striving with all her soul to 
 avert, that she impressed them so deeply. 
 
 For she did impress them. When she ended, 
 it was very quiet in the room. " I have broken 
 a confidence in telling this," she said. "The 
 girl herself would rather die than have you 
 know it, I m sure, and now I feel afraid. 
 It has been a bold stroke; if I have lost, I 
 shall never forgive myself. But oh ! I cannot 
 have her go !" 
 
 She sat down quickly and stared into her 
 lap. The spell of her voice was gone, the girls 
 looked at each other, and a tall, keen-eyed 
 girl with glasses got up. " I wish to say," she 
 said, "that while Miss Burt s story is terribly 
 convincing, still this may be a little exagger 
 ated, and, at any rate, think of the precedent ! 
 If this should be done very often " 
 
 "But it won t be !" cried some one with -a 
 somewhat husky voice, and Patsy rudely in 
 terrupted the speaker. Dear Patsy ! She 
 
 [62] 
 
A CASE OF INTERFERENCE 
 
 crushed her handkerchief in her hand and 
 said good-by to Kate: she would have liked 
 to put her pin in Kate s shirt-waist, and now 
 now Phi Kappa would get her! When Patsy 
 spoke, it was with the voice of eleven, for she 
 carried at least ten of the leading set in the 
 Alpha with her. 
 
 " I think we are all very glad to realize that 
 there won t be many such cases most peo 
 ple have compensations we ought to be will 
 ing to break the constitution again for such 
 a thing, anyhow and, Miss President, I 
 move that Miss Hastings be voted upon by 
 acclamation !" 
 
 "I second the motion," said the vice-presi 
 dent, quickly. 
 
 "It is moved and seconded that Miss Has 
 tings be voted upon by acclamation," said the 
 president. "All in favor " 
 
 "Miss Hastings has yet to be proposed," 
 said some one, after the vote. 
 
 The president looked at Cornelia. 
 
 "I propose Winifred Hastings, 9, as a 
 member of the Alpha Society," said Cornelia, 
 with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes. She 
 dared not look at them. Were they going 
 to punish her? She heard the motion an 
 nounced, she heard the name put up. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "All in favor please signify by rising/ said 
 the president, and only when the Alpha rose 
 in a body did Cornelia lift her eyes. 
 
 They were all looking at her, and she stepped 
 a little back. 
 
 "I cannot thank you," she said, so low that 
 they leaned forward to hear. "It was no affair 
 of mine, as I said. But I think you we 
 shall never regret this election." And then 
 they applauded so loudly that the freshmen 
 on the campus could not forbear peeping un 
 der the blinds to see what they were doing. 
 They saw only the president, however, as she 
 stepped back to the table and said with an air 
 of relief for, after all, emotion is very wear 
 ing "We will now proceed to the literary 
 programme of the evening!" 
 
 "But Neal, dear," said Patsy, as they set 
 tled themselves to listen, "do you think she ll 
 stay ? (Oh, Neal ! I m so proud of you !)" 
 
 " Shut up, Patsy ! " said Neal, rudely. Then, 
 as she thought of what Miss Henderson had 
 told her of Winifred Hastings: "You are the 
 only girl whose friendship" she blushed. 
 Then, assuming a bored expression, she looked 
 at the girl who was reading. " I fear there s 
 no doubt she will!" said Cornelia Burt. 
 
THE THIRD STORY 
 
 MISS BIDDLE OF BRTN MAWR 
 
Ill 
 
 MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 " "W" WOULD N T have minded so much," 
 explained Katherine, dolefully, and not 
 I without the suspicion of a sob, "if it 
 -^ was n t that I d asked Miss Hartwell 
 and Miss Ackley! I shall die of embarrass 
 ment I shall! Oh! why could n t Henrietta 
 Riddle have waited a week before she went 
 to Europe?" 
 
 Her room-mate, Miss Grace Farwell, sank 
 despairingly on the pile of red floor-cushions 
 under the window. "Oh, Kitten! you didn t 
 ask them? Not really?" she gasped, staring 
 incredulously at the tangled head that peered 
 over the screen behind which Katherine was 
 splashily conducting her toilet operations. 
 
 "But I did ! I think they re simply grand, 
 especially Miss Hartwell, and I 11 never have 
 any chance of meeting her, I suppose, and I 
 thought this was a beautiful one. So I met her 
 yesterday on the campus and I walked up to 
 her I was horribly scared, but I don t think 
 I showed it and, said I, c Oh, Miss Hartwell, 
 you don t know me, of course, but I m Miss 
 Sewall, 9-, and I know Henrietta Biddle of 
 Bryn Mawr, and she s coming to see me for 
 two or three days, and I m going to make a 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 little tea for her very informal and I Ve 
 heard her speak of you and Miss Ackley as 
 about the only girls she knew here, and I d 
 love to have you meet her again!" 
 
 Miss Farwell laughed hysterically. "And 
 did she accept?" she inquired. 
 
 Katherine wiped her face for the third time 
 excitedly. "Oh, yes ! She was as sweet as peaches 
 and cream! C I shall be charmed to meet Miss 
 Biddle again, and in your room, Miss Sewall, 
 she said, and shall I bring Miss Ackley?* Oh, 
 Grace, she s lovely! She is the most " 
 
 "Yes, I Ve no doubt," interrupted Miss 
 Farwell, cynically; "all the handsome seniors 
 are. But what are you going to say to her to 
 day?" 
 
 Katherine buried her yellow head in the 
 towel. "I don t know! Oh, Grace! I don t 
 know," she mourned. "And they say the 
 freshmen are getting so uppish, anyway, and 
 if we carry it off well, and just make a joke of 
 it, they 11 think we re awfully f-f-fresh ! " Here 
 words failed her, and she leaned heavily on the 
 screen, which, as it was old and probably re 
 sented having been sold third-hand at a sec 
 ond-hand price, collapsed weakly, dragging 
 with it the Bodenhausen Madonna, a silver 
 rack of photographs, and a Gibson Girl drawn 
 [68] 
 
MISS RIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 in very black ink on a very white ground. 
 
 "And if we are apologetic and meek," con 
 tinued Miss Farwell, easily, apparently undis 
 turbed by the confusion consequent to the 
 downfall of a piece of furniture known to be 
 somewhat erratic, "they ll laugh at us or be 
 bored. We shall be known as the freshmen 
 who invited seniors and Faculty and town- 
 people to meet nobody at all ! A pretty repu 
 tation!" 
 
 "But, Grace, we couldn t help it! Such 
 things will happen !" Katherine was pinning 
 the Gibson Girl to the wall, in bold defiance 
 of the matron s known views on that subject. 
 
 "Yes, of course. But they must n t happen 
 to freshmen !" her room-mate returned sen- 
 tentiously. " How many Faculty did you ask ? " 
 
 "I asked Miss Parker, because she fitted 
 Henrietta for college, at Archer Hall, and I 
 asked Miss Williams, because she knows 
 Henrietta s mother Oh ! Miss Williams 
 will freeze me to death when she comes here 
 and sees just us ! and I asked Miss Dodge, 
 because she knows a lot of Bryn Mawr peo 
 ple. Then Mrs. Patton on Elm Street was a 
 school friend of Mrs. Biddle s, and oh ! 
 Grace, I cant manage them alone ! Let s tell 
 them not to come !" 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "And what shall we do with the sand 
 wiches ? And the little cakes ? And the lem 
 ons that I sliced ? And the tea-cups and 
 spoons I borrowed ? And that pint of extra 
 thick cream ?" Miss Farwell checked off these 
 interesting items on her fingers, and kicked 
 the floor-cushions to point the question. 
 
 "Oh! I don t know! Isn t there any 
 chance " 
 
 "No, goosey, there is n t. See here !" Grace 
 pulled down a letter with a special delivery* 
 stamp from the desk above her head, and 
 read with emphasis: 
 
 DEAR Kitten, Just a line to say that Aunt 
 Mary has sent for me at three days notice to 
 go to Paris with her for a year. It V now or never, 
 you know, and I *ve left the college, and will come 
 back to graduate with 9. So sorry I cant see 
 you before I go. Had looked forward to a very 
 interesting time, renewing my own freshman 
 days, and all that. Please send my blue cloth suit 
 right on to Philadelphia C. O. D. when it comes 
 to you. I hope you had nt gotten anything up for 
 me. With much love, 
 
 Bryn Mawr, March 5. HENRIETTA BlDDLE. 
 
 " I don t think there s much chance, my 
 dear." 
 
MISS RIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 "No," said Katherine, sadly, and with a 
 final pat administered to the screen, which still 
 wobbled unsteadily. "No, I suppose there 
 is n t. And it s eleven o clock. They 11 be 
 here at four ! Oh ! and I asked that pretty 
 junior, Miss Pratt, you know. Henrietta 
 knew her sister. She was in 8-." 
 
 "Ah," returned Miss Farwell, with a sus 
 picious sweetness, "why did n t you ask a few 
 more, Katherine, dear ? What with the list we 
 made out together and these last extra ones " 
 
 "But I thought there was n t any use hav 
 ing the largest double room in the house, if 
 we could n t have a decent-sized party in it ! 
 And think of all those darling, thin little sand 
 wiches ! Oh well, we might just as well be 
 sensible and carry the thing through, Gracie ! 
 But I am just as afraid as I can be : I tell you 
 that. And Miss Williams will freeze me stiff." 
 The yellow hair was snugly braided and wound 
 around by now, and a neat though worried 
 maiden sat on the couch and punched the 
 Harvard pillow reflectively. 
 
 " Never mind her, Kitten, but just go ahead. 
 You know Caroline Wilde said it was all right 
 to ask her if she was Miss Biddle s mother s 
 friend, and there was n t time to take her all 
 around, and you know how nice Miss Parker 
 
 [71 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 was about it. We can t help it, as you say, and 
 we 11 go and get the flowers as we meant to. 
 Have you anything this hour?" 
 
 With her room-mate to back her, to quote 
 the young lady herself, Miss Sewall felt equal 
 to almost any social function. Terrifying as her 
 position appeared and strangely enough, the 
 seniors appalled her far more than the Faculty 
 there was yet a certain excitement in the situ 
 ation. What should she say to them ? Would 
 they be kind about it, or would they all turn 
 around and go home? Would they think 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" interrupted Grace the 
 practical, as these doubts were thrust upon 
 her. "If they re ladies, as I suppose they 
 are, of course they 11 stay and make it just as 
 pleasant for us as they can. They 11 see how 
 it is. Think what we d do, ourselves, you 
 know!" 
 
 They went down the single long street, with 
 the shops on either side, a red-capped, golf- 
 caped pair of friends, like nine hundred other 
 girls, yet different from them all. And they 
 chattered of Livy and little cakes and Trigo 
 nometry and pleated shirt-waists and basket 
 ball and Fortnightly Themes like all the 
 others, but in their little way they were very 
 social heroines, setting their teeth to carry by 
 
MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 storm a position that many an older woman 
 would have found doubtful. 
 
 They stopped at a little bakery, well down 
 the street, to order some rolls for the girl 
 across the hall from them, who had planned 
 to breakfast in luxury and alone on chocolate 
 and grape-fruit the next morning. " Miss Car 
 ter, 24 Washburn," said Grace, carelessly, 
 when Katherine whispered, "Look at her! 
 Isn t that funny ? Why, Grace, just see her !" 
 
 "See who whom, I mean ? (only I hate to 
 say c whom. ) Who is it, Kitten?" 
 
 Katherine was staring at the clerk, a tall, 
 handsome girl, with masses of heavy black 
 hair and an erect figure. As she went down 
 to the back of the shop again, Katherine s 
 eyes followed her closely. 
 
 "It s that girl that used to be in the Candy 
 Kitchen don t you remember? I told you 
 then that she looked so much like my friend 
 Miss Biddle. And then the Candy Kitchen 
 failed and I suppose she came here. And she s 
 just Henrietta s height, too. You know Hen 
 rietta stands very straight and frowns a little, 
 and so did this girl when you gave Alice s num 
 ber and she said/ Thirty-four or twenty-four? 
 Is n t it funny that we should see her now ? 
 Oh, dear ! If only she were Henrietta !" 
 
 .[73 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Grace stared at the case of domestic bread 
 and breathed quickly. "Does she really look 
 like her, Kitten?" she said. 
 
 "Oh yes, indeed. It s quite striking. Hen 
 rietta s quite a type, you know nothing un 
 usual, only very dark and tall and all that. Of 
 course there are differences, though." 
 
 "What differences ?" said Grace, still look 
 ing intently at the domestic bread. 
 
 "Oh, Henrietta s eyes are brown, and this 
 girl s are black. And Henrietta has n t any 
 dimple, and her hands are prettier. And Hen 
 rietta s waist is n t so small, and she has n t 
 nearly so much hair, I should say. But then, 
 I have n t seen her for a year, and probably 
 there s a greater difference than I think." 
 
 "How long is it since those seniors and the 
 Faculty saw Henrietta?" said Grace, staring 
 now at a row of layer chocolate-cakes. 
 
 Her room-mate started. "Why why, 
 Grace, what do you mean ? It s two years, 
 Henrietta wrote, I think. And Miss Parker 
 and Miss Williams have n t seen her for much 
 longer than that. But but you don t mean 
 anything, Grace?" 
 
 Grace faced her suddenly. "Yes," she said, 
 "I do. You may think that because I just go 
 right along with this thing, I don t care at all. 
 
 [74]. 
 
MISS RIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 But I do. I m awfully scared. I hate to think 
 of that Miss Ackley lifting her eyebrows the 
 way she will ! And Miss Hartwell said once 
 when somebody asked if she knew Judge Far- 
 well s daughter, c Oh, dear me I suppose so ! 
 And everybody else in her class theoreti 
 cally ! But practically I rarely observe them ! 
 Ugh ! She 11 observe me to-day, I hope !" 
 
 "Yes, dear, I suppose she will. And me too. 
 But" 
 
 "Oh, yes ! But if nobody knows how Miss 
 Biddle looks, and she was going to stay at the 
 hotel, anyway, and it would only be for two 
 hours, and everything would be so simple " 
 
 Katherine s cheeks grew very red and her 
 breath came fast. " But would we dare ? Would 
 she be willing? Would it be " 
 
 "Oh, my dear, it s only a courtesy ! And 
 everybody will think it s all right, and the 
 thing will go beautifully, and Miss Biddle, if 
 she has any sense of humor " 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! Henrietta would only be 
 amused oh, so amused ! And it would be 
 such a heavenly relief after all the worry. We 
 could send her off on the next train Hen 
 rietta, you know and dress makes such a 
 difference in a girl !" 
 
 "And I think she would if we asked her 
 
 [75 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 just as a favor it would n t be a question of 
 money ! Oh, Katherine ! I could cry for joy 
 if she would !" 
 
 "She d like to, if she has any fun in her 
 it would be a game with some point to it ! And 
 will you ask her, or shall I ? " 
 
 They were half in joke and half in earnest : 
 it was a real crisis to them. They were only 
 freshmen, and they had invited the seniors 
 and the Faculty. And two of the most promi 
 nent seniors ! Whom they had n t known at 
 all ! They had a sense of humor, but they were 
 proud, too, and they had a woman s horror of 
 an unsuccessful social function. They felt that 
 they were doomed to endless joking at the 
 hands of the whole college, and this apprehen 
 sion, though probably exaggerated, nerved 
 them to their coup d etat. 
 
 Grace walked down the shop. "I will ask 
 her," she said. 
 
 Katherine stood with her back turned and 
 tried not to hear. Suppose the girl should be 
 insulted ? Suppose she should be afraid ? Now 
 that there was a faint hope of success, she real 
 ized how frightened and discouraged she had 
 been. For it would be a success, she saw that. 
 Nobody would have had Miss Biddle to talk 
 with for more than a few minutes any how, they 
 
 [76] 
 
MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 had asked such a crowd. And yet she would 
 have been the centre of the whole affair. 
 
 " Katherine," said a voice behind her, "let 
 me introduce Miss Brooks, who has consented 
 to help us !" 
 
 Katherine held out her hands to the girl. 
 "Oh, thank you ! thank you !" she said. 
 
 The girl laughed. "I think it s queer," she 
 said, "but if you are in such a fix, I d just as 
 lief help you as not. Only I shall give you 
 away I shan t know what to say." 
 
 Grace glanced at Katherine. Then she 
 proved her right to all the praise she afterward 
 accepted from her grateful room-mate. "That 
 will be very easy/ she said sweetly. "Miss 
 Biddle, whom you will will represent, speaks 
 very rarely: she s not at all talkative ! " 
 
 Katherine gasped. "Oh, no!" she said 
 eagerly, "she s very statuesque, you know, 
 and keeps very still and straight, and just looks 
 in your eyes and makes you thinkshe s talking. 
 She says ( Really ? and c Fancy, now ! and f I 
 expect you re very jolly here, and then she 
 smiles. You could do that." 
 
 "Yes, I could do that," said the girl. 
 
 "Can you come to the hotel right after din 
 ner? " said Grace, competently, " and we 11 cram 
 you for an houror so on Miss Biddle s affairs." 
 [77 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 The girl laughed. " Why, yes/ she said, " I 
 guess I can get off." 
 
 So they left her smiling at them from the 
 domestic bread, and at two o clock they car 
 ried Miss Henrietta Riddle s dress-suit case to 
 the hotel and took Miss Brooks to her room. 
 And they sat her on a sofa and told her what 
 they knew of her alma mater and her relatives 
 and her character generally. And she amazed 
 them by a very comprehensive grasp of the 
 whole affair and an aptitude for mimicry that 
 would have gotten her a star part in the senior 
 dramatics. With a few corrections she spoke 
 very good English, and "as she d only have 
 to answer questions, anyhow, she need n t talk 
 long at a time," they told each other. 
 
 She put up her heavy hair in a twisted crown 
 on her head, and they put the blue cloth gown 
 on her, and covered the place in the front, 
 where it did n t fit, with a beautiful fichu that 
 Henrietta had apparently been led of Provi 
 dence to tuck in the dress-suit case. And she 
 rode up in a carriage with them, very much 
 excited, but with a beautiful color and glowing 
 eyes, and a smile that brought out the dimple 
 that Henrietta never had. 
 
 They showed her the room and the sand 
 wiches and the tea, and they got into their 
 
 [78 ] 
 
MISS RIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 clothes, not speaking, except when a great box 
 with three bunches of English violets was left 
 at their doorwith Grace s card. Then Katherine 
 said, "You dear thing ! " And Miss Brooks 
 smiled as they pinned hers on and said softly, 
 "Fancy, now ! " 
 
 And then they were n t afraid for her any 
 more. 
 
 When the pretty Miss Pratt came, a little 
 after four, with Miss Williams, she smiled 
 with pleasure at the room, all flowers and tea 
 and well-dressed girls, with a tall, handsome 
 brunette in a blue gown with a beautiful lace 
 bib smiling gently on a crowd of worshippers, 
 and saying little soft sentences that meant any 
 thing that was polite and self-possessed. 
 
 Close by her was her friend Miss Sewall, 
 of the freshman class, who sweetly answered 
 half the questions about Bryn Mawr that Miss 
 Biddle could n t find time to answer, and 
 steered people away who insisted on talking 
 with her too long. Miss Farwell, also of the 
 freshman class, assisted her room-mate in re 
 ceiving, and passed many kinds of pleasant 
 food, laughing a great deal at what everybody 
 said and chatting amicably and unabashed 
 with the two seniors of honor, who openly 
 raved over Miss Biddle of Bryn Mawr. 
 
 [79] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 As soon as Katherine had said, " May I pre 
 sent Miss Hartwell Miss Ackley ? " they 
 took their stand by the stately stranger and 
 talked to her as much as was consistent with 
 propriety. 
 
 "Is n t she perfectly charming ! " they said 
 to Miss Parker, and "Yes, indeed," replied 
 that lady, "I should have known Netta any 
 where. She is just what I had thought she 
 would be ! " 
 
 And Miss Williams, far from freezing the 
 pretty hostess, patted her shoulder kindly. 
 "Henrietta is quite worth coming to see," she 
 said with her best and most exquisite manner. 
 " I have heard of the Bry n Mawr style, and now 
 I am convinced. I wish all our girls had such 
 dignity such a feeling for the right word ! " 
 
 And they had the grace to blush. They 
 knew who had taught Henrietta Biddle Brooks 
 that right word ! 
 
 At six o clock Miss Biddle had to take the 
 Philadelphia express. She had only stopped 
 over for the tea. And so the girls of the house 
 could not admire her over the supper-table. 
 But they probably appreciated her more. For 
 after all, as they decided in talking her over 
 later, it was n t so much what she said, as the 
 way she looked when she said it ! 
 [80] 
 
MISS RIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR 
 
 But only a dress-suit case marked H. L. B. 
 took the Philadelphia express that night, and 
 a tall, red-cheeked girl in a mussy checked suit 
 left the hotel with a bunch of violets in her 
 hand and a reminiscent smile on her lips. 
 
 "We simply can t thank you; we haven t 
 any words. You Ve helped us give the nicest 
 party two freshmen ever gave, if it is any 
 pleasure to you to know that," said Katherine. 
 "And now you re only not to speak of it." 
 
 "Oh, no! I shan t speak of it," said the 
 girl. "You need n t be afraid. Nobody that 
 I d tell would believe me, very much, any 
 how. I m glad I could help you, and I had 
 a lovely time lovely ! " 
 
 She smiled at them: the slow, sweet smile 
 of Henrietta Biddle,late of BrynMawr. "You 
 College ladies are certainly queer but you re 
 smart ! " said Miss Brooks of the bakery. 
 
 [81 ] 
 
THE FOURTH STORY 
 
 BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
IV 
 BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 B. S. KITTS this was the signature 
 she had affixed in a neat clerical back 
 hand to all her written papers since 
 the beginning of freshman year; and 
 she had of course been called Biscuits as soon 
 as she had found her own particular little set of 
 girls and settled down to that peculiar form of 
 intimacy which living in barracks, however ad 
 vantageously organized, necessitates. She had 
 a sallow irregular face, fine brown eyes sur 
 rounded with tiny wrinkles, a taste for Thack 
 eray, and a keen sense of humor. It was the 
 last which was subsequently responsible for 
 this story about her. 
 
 She was quite unnoticed for two or three 
 years, which is a very good thing for a girl. 
 During that time she quietly took soundings 
 and laid in material, presumably, for those sa 
 tiric characterizations which were the terror of 
 her undergraduate enemies and the concealed 
 discomfort of those in high places. During her 
 junior year she began to be considered terri 
 bly clever, and though she was never what is 
 known as a Prominent Senior, she had her lit 
 tle triumphs here and there, and in the matter 
 of written papers she was a source of great com- 
 
 [85] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 fort to those whom custom compels to demand 
 such tributes. 
 
 She was the kind of girl who, though well 
 known in her own class, is quite unobserved 
 of the lower classes, and this, if it deprived her 
 of the admirations and attentions bestowed on 
 the prominent, saved her the many worries and 
 wearinesses incident to trying to please every 
 body at once the business of the over-popu 
 lar. She had a great deal of time, which may 
 seem absurd, but which is really quite possible 
 if one keeps positively offcommittees, is neither 
 musical nor athletic, and shuns courses involv 
 ing laboratory work. It is of great assistance 
 also in this connection to elect English Lit 
 erature copiously, when one has read most of 
 the works in question and can send home for 
 the reference books, thus saving an immense 
 amount of fruitless loitering about crowded 
 libraries. 
 
 Biscuits employed the time thus gained in 
 a fashion apparently purposeless. She loafed 
 about and observed, with Vanity Fair under 
 one arm and an apple in the other hand. She 
 was never the subject or the object of a violent 
 friendship; she was one of five or six clever 
 girls who hung together consistently after 
 sophomore year, bickering amicably and in- 
 [86] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 dulging in mutual contumely when together, 
 defending one another promptly when apart. 
 The house president spoke of them bitterly 
 as blase and critical; the lady-in-charge re 
 marked suspiciously the unusual chance which 
 invariably seated them together at the end 
 of the table at the regular drawing for seats; 
 the collector for missions found them sceptical 
 and inclined to ribaldry if pushed too far; but 
 the Phi Kappa banked heavily on their united 
 efforts, and more than usually idiotic class 
 meetings meekly bowed to what they them 
 selves scornfully referred to afterward as " their 
 ordinary horse-sense." 
 
 One of the members of this little group was 
 Martha Augusta Williams. Sometimes she re 
 tired from it and devoted herself to solitude, 
 barely replying to questions and obscurely 
 intimating that to ennui such as hers the prat 
 tle of the immature and inexperienced could 
 hardly be supposed even by themselves to be 
 endurable ; sometimes she returned to it with 
 the air of one willing to impart to such a body 
 the mellow cynicism of a tolerant if fatigued 
 femme du monde. In the intervals of her retire 
 ment she wrote furiously at long-due themes, 
 which took the form of Richard Harding 
 Davis stories she did them very well or 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 modern and morbid verses of a nature to dis 
 turb the more conservative of those who heard 
 them. At any expression of disturbance Mar 
 tha would elaborately suppress a three-vol 
 ume smile and murmur something about 
 "meat for babes;" a performance which de 
 lighted her friends especially Biscuits be 
 yond measure. Her shelves bristled with yellow 
 French novels, and on her bureau a great ivory 
 skull with a Japanese paper snake carelessly 
 twined through it impressed stray freshmen 
 tremendously. She cut classes elaborately and 
 let her work drop ostentatiously in the middle 
 of the term, appearing at mid-years with ringed 
 eyes and an air of toleration strained to the 
 breaking point. She slept till nine and wan 
 dered lazily to coffee and toast at Boyden s 
 an hour later, at least three times a week, with 
 an air that would have done credit to one of 
 Ouida s noblemen. 
 
 And yet, in spite of all this, Martha was not 
 happy. The disapproval of the lady-in-charge, 
 the suspicions of the freshmen, the periodical 
 discussions with members of the Faculty, who 
 "regretted to be obliged to mark," etc., "when 
 they realized perfectly that she was capable/ 
 etc., all these alleviated her trouble a little, 
 but the fads remained that her own particu- 
 [88] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 lar set would never treat her seriously, and 
 that her name was Martha Augusta Williams. 
 Fancy feeling such feelings, and thinking such 
 thoughts, and bearing the name of Martha 
 Augusta Williams ! It is, to say the least, dis 
 piriting. And nobody had ever called her any 
 thing else. Harriet Williams was called, indif 
 ferently, Billie and Willie and Sillie. Martha 
 Underhill took her choice of Mattie, Nancy, 
 and Sister. A girl whose name was Anna Au 
 gusta Something had been hailed as Gustavus 
 Adolphus from her freshman year on; but 
 below her most daring flights of fiction must 
 ever appear those three ordinary, not to say 
 stodgy, names. That alone would have soured 
 a temper not too inclined to regard life with 
 favor. 
 
 Martha might have lived down the name, 
 but she was assured that never while Bertha 
 Kitts remained alive would she be able to ap 
 pear really wickedly interesting. For Biscuits 
 would tell the Story. Tell it with variations 
 and lights and shades and explanations adapted 
 to the audience. And it never seemed to pall. 
 Yet it was simple horribly simple. 
 
 Martha had invited a select body of sopho 
 mores to go with her to the palm-reader s. 
 There were two clever ones, who vastly ad- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 mired her Richard Harding Davis tales, two 
 curious ones, who openly begged for her opin 
 ions and thrilled at her epigrams on Love 
 and Life and Experience, and, in an evil hour, 
 the Sutton twins, whom she admitted into the 
 occasion partly to impress them, and partly 
 so that if anything really fascinating should 
 come to light, Kate Sutton could impart it to 
 her room-mate, Patsy Pattison. 
 
 When they were assembled in the palm- 
 reader s parlor, Martha gravely motioned the 
 others to go before her, and they took their 
 innocent turns before the little velvet cush 
 ion. The Twins were admirably struck off in 
 a few phrases, to the delight of their friends, 
 and the palm-reader s reputation firmly estab 
 lished. In the case of one of the curious girls, 
 peculiar and private events were hinted at 
 that greatly impressed her, for "how could 
 she have known that, girls?" The clever girls 
 were comforted with fame and large "scrib 
 bler s crosses," also wealthy marriages and so 
 cial careers, but they looked enviously at 
 Martha, nevertheless, and she smiled mater 
 nally on them, as was right. There remained 
 only the other quiet little girl, and she mod 
 estly suggested waiting till another day, "so 
 there 11 be lots of time for yours, Miss Will- 
 
 [90] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 iams;" but Martha smiled kindly and waved 
 her to the seat, suggesting that hers might 
 not be a long session, with an amused glance 
 at the empty, little pink palm. 
 
 The palm-reader turned and twisted and 
 patted and asked her age, and finally an 
 nounced that it was a remarkable hand. The 
 dying interest revived, and even Martha s 
 , eyebrows went up with amazement as the seer 
 spoke darkly of immense influence; tact to 
 the nth degree; unusual amount of experience, 
 or at the least, "intuitional discoveries;" two 
 great artistic means of expression; previous 
 affairs of the heart, and an inborn capacity for 
 ruling the destinies of others marked re 
 semblance to the hands of Cleopatra and Sara 
 Bernhardt. It was hands like that that moved 
 the world, she said. The sophomores regarded 
 their friend with interest and awe, noted that 
 she blushed deeply at portions of the revela 
 tion, recollected her Sunday afternoon impro 
 visations at the piano and her request for a 
 more advanced course in harmony, and at 
 tached a hitherto unfelt importance to her 
 heavy mails. 
 
 Martha may have regretted her politeness, 
 but she smothered her surprise, sank, with an 
 abstracted air, upon the chair before the cush- 
 
 [91 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ion, and with a face from which all emotion 
 had been withdrawn and eyes which defied 
 any wildest revelation to disturb their settled 
 ennui, awaited the event. The palm-reader 
 glanced at the back of the slim hand, noted 
 the face, touched the finger tips. 
 
 "How old are you, please?" she asked. 
 Martha wearily announced that she was 
 twenty-one. She was conscious of its being 
 a terribly ordinary age. The palm-reader 
 nodded. "Ah !" she said easily. "Well, come 
 to me again in a year or two. I can t really 
 tell much now." 
 
 Martha gasped at her. "You can t tell 
 much!" 
 
 The palm-reader took her hand again. 
 "There s nothing much to tell!" she ex 
 plained. "The hand isn t really developed 
 yet it s the opposite from the last young 
 lady s, you might say." 
 
 She became conscious of a cold silence 
 through the room, and added a few details. 
 "There s a good general ability ; no particular 
 line of talent, I should say; orderly, regular 
 habits; a very kind heart; I can t see any 
 events in particular; you Ve led a very quiet 
 life, I should say; fond of reading; I shouldn t 
 say you d met many people or travelled 
 
 [92 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 much" she scrutinized the hand more 
 closely "you 11 probably develop a strong 
 religious feeling " 
 
 She stopped and smiled deprecatingly. "It 
 is really impossible to say very much," she 
 said, "just now. It s what we call an imma 
 ture hand !" 
 
 For months after that Martha woke in the 
 night and tried to forget the nightmare of a 
 terrible figure that led her to an amphitheatre 
 of grinning enemies, and leered at her : // V 
 what we call an Immature Hand I She could 
 have suppressed the others, but the Sutton 
 twins were beyond earthly and human sup 
 pression. It seemed to her that she never met 
 them or passed them in a corridor without 
 hearing their jovial assurance: "Oh, Martha 
 Williams is all right ! Why, the idea ! She s 
 as kind a girl as ever lived she s nothing 
 like that story. Gracious, no ! She s never 
 been to Paris she lives in Portland. Why, 
 her father s a Sunday School Superintendent! 
 Oh, bother ! She s as good as Alberta May, 
 every bit ! She has a strong religious " and 
 somebody passed on, assured heavens, per 
 haps admiring her character ! At such times 
 Martha would read furiously in her French 
 novels or regard the skull pensively or sit up 
 
 [93 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 all night, which annoyed her room-mate and 
 the lady-in-charge. Her room-mate was an 
 absolutely unimportant person, and does not 
 come into the story at all. 
 
 It is now time to revert to the Twins. 
 When they appeared in the house, two sol 
 emn-eyed, pigtailed imps from Buffalo, they 
 were packed away together in a double room 
 on the third floor, and except for their amaz 
 ing resemblance, were absolutely unnoted. The 
 matron uneasily fancied a certain undue dis 
 turbance on the third floor, the evening of 
 their arrival, but on going to that level she 
 found all as still as the grave, and immedi 
 ately went back downstairs. It is only due to 
 her, however, to say that she never again 
 made such an error. From that time on any 
 abnormal quiet in the house was to her as the 
 trumpet to the war-horse; and she mounted 
 unerringly to the all-too-certain scene of ac 
 tion. Their plans for the first year were rather 
 crude, though astonishingly effective at the 
 time. It was they who invented the paper bag 
 of water dropped from the fourth floor to 
 burst far below, and waken the house with 
 the most ghastly hollow explosion; it was 
 they who let a pair of scissors down two flights 
 to tap against the pane of an unfortunate en- 
 
 [94] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 emy in the senior class, and send her into con 
 vulsions of nervous and, as they said, guilty 
 fear. It was they who stuck new caramels to 
 their door-knob, and oblivious to the ma 
 tron s admonitions of the hour, waited till in 
 exasperation she seized the knob, when they 
 met her disgust with soap and apologies; it was 
 they who left the gas brightly burning and the 
 door temptingly ajar at i o. 1 5, so that the long- 
 suffering woman pounced upon them with 
 just recrimination, only to find her stored-up 
 wrath directed against two night-gowned fig 
 ures bowed over their little white beds, as it 
 were two Infant Samuels. It is doubtful if a 
 devotional exercise ever before or since has 
 roused such mingled feelings in the bosom of 
 the chance spectator. 
 
 It was they who beyond a shadow of doubt 
 won the basket-ball game for the freshmen 
 an unprecedented viclory by their marvel 
 lous intuition of each other s intentions and 
 their manner of being everywhere at once and 
 playing into each other s hands with an un 
 canny certainty. This gave them position and 
 weight among their mates, which they duly ap 
 preciated. They were the recognized jesters of 
 the class, and their merry, homely faces were 
 sure of answering grins wherever they appeared. 
 
 [95] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 When they returned sophomore year more 
 alike than ever, with happy plans for the best 
 double room on the second floor, they were 
 met by quite another kind of grin: its owner, 
 Mrs. Harrow, would have perhaps described 
 it as firm and pleasant the Twins referred 
 to it bitterly as hypocritical and disgusting. 
 
 "No, Martha, no. It s no use to coax me 
 I can t have it. I cannot go through an 
 other such year. If you wish to remain in the 
 house, you must separate. You can have No. 10 
 with Alberta Bunting, and Kate can go in with 
 Margaret she says she is perfectly willing, 
 rather than give up the room, and Helen is 
 not coming back till next year. Now, I don t 
 want to have to argue about it; I think you 
 are better apart." 
 
 No one ever accused Mrs. Harrow of tact. 
 Her placid firmness was almost the most ex 
 asperating thing about her. Her decisions, if 
 apparently somewhat feather-beddish, ranked, 
 nevertheless, with those of the Medes and 
 Persians, and the Twins walked haughtily 
 away beaten but defiant. 
 
 Of course it never occurred to them to leave 
 the house, and Kate, after a time, grew quite 
 contented, for Miss Pattison was eminently 
 pleasant and tadful, kept the room in beauti- 
 
 [96] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 ful order, and spent a great deal of time in the 
 Dewey with her sister, an instructor in the col 
 lege, and her great friend Cornelia Burt, who 
 was off the campus. This left the room to the 
 Twins, who were almost as much together as 
 of yore. But Martha was in quite another case. 
 In her the insult of a dictated separation 
 rankled continually, and her hitherto mild 
 contempt for Mrs. Harrow deepened into a 
 positively appalling enmity. Circumstances 
 unfortunately assisted her feeling, for beyond 
 a doubt Alberta May Bunting was not adapted 
 to her new room-mate. 
 
 She was a wholesome, kindly creature, with 
 high principles and no particular waist-line. 
 She drank a great deal of milk, and was a 
 source of great relief to her teachers, her reci 
 tations being practically perfect. From her 
 sophomore year she had been wildly, if sol 
 idly, addicted to zoology, and to her, after 
 hours spent in the successful chase of the 
 doomed insect, the grasshopper was literally 
 a burden, for she slew him by the basketful. 
 She rendered the surrounding territory frog- 
 less in her zeal for laboratory practice, and in 
 her senior year it was rumored that stray cats 
 fled at her approach: "She ll cut me up in 
 my sleep," said Martha, gloomily, "and soak 
 
 [97 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 me in formaline in the bath-tub the idiot !" 
 For, although the "h Arrow-that-fly eth-by- 
 day-and-the-terror-that-walketh-by-night,"as 
 Martha Williams, in a burst of inspiration, 
 had named her, could not, of course, have 
 known it, Sutton M., as she was most com 
 monly called, loathed and despised bugs, rep 
 tiles, and crawling and dismembered things 
 generally, more than aught else beside. She 
 regarded an interest in such things as an in 
 dication of mild insanity, and as a character 
 istic of Alberta May s such a predilection as 
 sumed the proportions of a malignant in 
 sult. 
 
 "It s bad enough to have her drink milk 
 like a cow, and eat graham crackers like a 
 like a steam-engine" she confided to her sym 
 pathetic sister, "and smell like a whole bio 
 logical laboratory, and glower at me, and bob 
 ble her head like a China image whenever I 
 open my mouth, and call me Mottha, which 
 I despise, and say, c Why, the ideal Why, 
 Mottha, the idea I What do you mean, Mot 
 tha ? without putting little bottles of Things 
 all around, and my having to upset them. 
 My gym suit made me sick to put on for a 
 week because I upset some nasty little claws all 
 pickled in something per cent, alcohol on the 
 
 [98 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 sleeve, and I kept thinking the legs were walk 
 ing on me ugh ! they were leggy claws !" 
 
 The h Arrow-that-flyeth-by-day had fondly 
 hoped that Alberta would "do Martha Sut- 
 ton a world of good," because of her exem 
 plary, regular habits and her calm, sensible 
 nature, but this consummation, though de 
 voutly to be wished, was fated never to be 
 witnessed. Everyone heard the wails and gibes 
 of Sutton M., but to few or none were the 
 woes of Alberta May made known. But that 
 she must have had them, her attitude at the 
 time of the crisis conclusively proved. 
 
 The Twins, in the course of their myste 
 rious loitering, overheard a somewhat senti 
 mental discussion between Evelyn Lyon and 
 an extremely stiff and correct young man from 
 Amherst, as to whether chivalry and openly 
 expressed devotion to the fair were not dis 
 appearing from the earth. "Men like shirt 
 waists and golf-shoes," Evelyn had been heard 
 to murmur, with a glance at her fluffy chiffon 
 and bronze slippers, and the senior had pro 
 tested that they did not, and that emotion, if 
 controlled, was as deep as in the balcony-sere 
 nade days. "In fact," said he, finally, " Esta- 
 brook and I will serenade you Wednesday 
 night." 
 
 [99] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "You would never dare," said Evelyn, with 
 a glance at his eye-glasses and collar, which 
 for height and circumference might have been 
 a cuff. "You d be afraid the girls would 
 laugh." The senior looked nettled. "Expect 
 us at ten on Wednesday next," said he. "It 
 won t necessarily be the Glee and Banjo Club, 
 you understand, but it will be a real, old-fash 
 ioned serenade." Then, as Evelyn smiled ma 
 liciously, he added, "Only you must appear 
 at the casement, and throw flowers, you know 
 that s what they did." Evelyn frowned, but 
 agreed. "At the end of the song, I will," she 
 said, with visions of the night-watchman hast 
 ing to the scene. 
 
 The Twins were unaccountably strolling 
 about as the senior left the house, and won 
 dered with great distinctness and repetition 
 why on earth Evelyn should say she d be in 
 14 at the front when of course she d be in 
 the East corner on the first floor. "She has 
 some game up," shrieked Martha, and Kate 
 called back, "Of course she has some one 
 will be awfully left, that s all !" 
 
 The senior listened, grinned, muttered that 
 women told everything they knew, and went 
 his way. On next Wednesday night, the entire 
 house being congregated in the hall near 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA" 
 
 No. 14, where Evelyn, not to be found want 
 ing in case they should get through a verse, was 
 sorting carnations, a husky burst of song en 
 livened the East corner, a mandolin and a 
 guitar having raced through a confused prel 
 ude under the spur of a youth hopping with 
 nervousness and sputtering as he punched 
 the mandolin-player: "Hang it all, Pete, get 
 along, get along ! He 11 be here in a minute 
 whoop it up, can t you ?" 
 
 A muffled baritone began, standing so close 
 to the window with a light in it that its owner 
 could have touched the sill with his shoulder: 
 
 Last night the nightingale waked me, 
 Last night when all was 
 
 The shade went up, the window followed, 
 and the eyes of the musicians beheld, below 
 an audience of house-maids, the only people 
 at present on that side of the house, an enor 
 mous woman, with gray hair in curling-kids, 
 and a blanket-wrapper which added to her 
 size, grasping a lamp in her hand and regard 
 ing them with a mingling of amazement, irri 
 tation, and authority that caused their blood 
 to curdle and their voices to cease. Pattering 
 feet, a lantern turned on them, and a voice: 
 " Ere, ere, what you doing? H all h off the 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 campus after ten get along, now!" com 
 pleted their confusion, and they left, with an 
 attempt at dignity and a slowness which they 
 had occasion to curse; for as they passed the 
 front of the house, from out of the air above 
 their heads, apparently, two sweet and boyish 
 voices, a first and second soprano, lifted up 
 to the fresh October sky an ancient and beau 
 tiful hymn: 
 
 Sometimes a light sur/>r/ses 
 The Christian while he sings y 
 It is 
 
 A window banged forcibly, and the min 
 strels stood upon no order but fled to their 
 carriage and rattled out of town. 
 
 Evelyn Lyon, with set teeth and artistically 
 loosened hair, rushed down the hall behind 
 Martha Sutton, who made the room she was 
 aiming for, slammed the door, realized that the 
 key was lost, and dragged the first piece of fur 
 niture that came to hand against it. This was 
 Alberta May s desk, and upon it were the col 
 lected results of her vacation work at Wood s 
 Holl. Six jars upset under the impact of Eve 
 lyn s weight, a dozen mounted cross-sections 
 jingled in the dark, a pint bottle of ink soaked 
 a thick and beautifully illustrated note-book; 
 and as the Terror- that- walketh-by- night 
 
 I02 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 headed Evelyn to her door and mounted a 
 flight to quell the rising tumult, Sutton M., 
 with a hysterical sob, for she was tingling with 
 a delicious excitement, huddled the desk back 
 into the corner, hoped hone of the bugs were 
 around the floor, and dropped into bed, won 
 dering how ever Alberta May could sleep 
 through such a night. 
 
 And now though perhaps you may have 
 imagined that there was never going to be any 
 story now we are coming to it, and though 
 it is short, all the characters appear. Alberta 
 May, with an ugly brick-red flush, told Sut 
 ton M. that she need never speak to her again, 
 for no answer would be forthcoming, and that 
 she must have her things out of the room be 
 fore night. Martha was really horribly fright 
 ened, and begged to be allowed to copy the 
 note-book and hire some one to make the 
 slides and re-pickle the scattered Things; but 
 Alberta May merely shook her head, replied 
 that she accepted apologies but could not speak 
 again, and kept her word, for she never noticed 
 Martha from then till the lid of June. 
 
 The h Arrow-that-flyeth-by-daygave Mar 
 tha an address that reduced her to a pulp, and 
 having sent the Twins off to cry in each other s 
 arms till dinner-time and got the doclor for 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Evelyn, who had sprained her ankle in the 
 rush, she sat down to a cup of tea and coun 
 cil. 
 
 To her entered Biscuits, and they talked 
 of odds and ends till Mrs. Harrow had grown 
 a little calm. The girls in the house accused 
 Biscuits of a hypocritical and unnatural inter 
 est in the h Arrow: Biscuits denied this, alleg 
 ing that she was merely ordinarily courteous 
 and saw no occasion for treating her like a 
 dog, which somewhat strong language was 
 addressed with intention to a few of her friends 
 who certainly did not display any undue con 
 sideration in their manner to the lady in ques 
 tion. She was wont to add calmly that she saw 
 no sense in having those in authority hate you 
 when a little politeness would so easily pre 
 vent it. And many times had she successfully 
 interceded for the offender and gained seats 
 for guests and obtained the parlor for danc 
 ing purposes on nights not mentioned in the 
 bond. On these accounts she made an unusu 
 ally fine house president in her senior year,and 
 though as a sophomore she had been but sus 
 piciously regarded by that officer, she made 
 as firm a bond as is perhaps possible between 
 powers so hostile as those with which she 
 struggled. 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 To-day she listened sympathetically as Mrs. 
 Harrow held forth, concluding with, 
 
 "Now, Bertha, something must be done. I 
 hate dreadfully to make a change, so early in 
 the year, too, but Alberta is decided, and says 
 that she will leave the house to-morrow unless 
 Martha leaves to-night. And Alberta is per 
 fectly justified : nobody could be expected to 
 put up with it. I don t know whom to put her 
 with: she certainly can t be trusted with her 
 friends, and I can t feel that I have any right 
 to put her anywhere else. I hate to have to 
 admit that I can t manage them Miss Rob 
 erts insists that they re fine girls and will out 
 grow it all, and I have great respect for her 
 opinion, and yet think of that disgraceful 
 performance last night ! It would have done 
 credit to a boarding-school ! I was so dis 
 gusted " 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and I Ve talked to them, 
 Mrs. Harrow, and told them just how the 
 house feels about it, but don t you think that it 
 was rather boarding-schoolish in Evelyn ? She 
 started it all, you know." 
 
 "Oh, well, of course. Evelyn shouldn t 
 have but then she is a good, quiet girl, and 
 Oh, not that I would excuse her ! " 
 
 "Certainly not," said Biscuits, briskly. This 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 was good management on her part, for Evelyn 
 had one friend in the house to the Twins ten, 
 though a favorite with Mrs. Harrow. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Harrow, I Ve got an idea, and 
 truly, I think it would work," she added per 
 suasively. When she had unfolded the idea, the 
 lady-in-charge could hardly believe her ears. 
 
 "Why, Bertha Kitts, you must be crazy ! 
 Nothing could induce me to think of it for 
 a moment nothing ! It would be the worst 
 possible influence ! " 
 
 Biscuits argued gently. Her three years of 
 consistent good sense and politeness stood in 
 her favor, and though Mrs. Harrow had no 
 sense of humor whatever, she was enabled to 
 perceive a certain poetic justice in the plan set 
 before her. 
 
 "You know, Mrs. Harrow," she concluded, 
 " that at bottom they re both nice girls ! They re 
 awfully irritating at times, and of course you 
 feel that they Ve both occasioned a great deal 
 of trouble; but they re both honorable, and 
 I m sure it will be all right: truly, I d be 
 willing to take the responsibility if I can get 
 them to consent to it!" 
 
 " Very well," said Mrs. Harrow, unwillingly, 
 " you know them both better than I do, Bertha, 
 of course, and it certainly could n t be any 
 
 [ 1 06 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 worse than it is! But at the first outbreak I 
 shall take the matter into my own hands, and 
 act very severely, if necessary !" 
 
 Biscuits went directly upstairs and sought 
 out Martha Williams, who lounged on the 
 couch with Loti in her hand and a bag of 
 chocolate peppermints in her lap. Her room 
 mate, observing that Biscuits glanced at the 
 clock as she entered, murmured something 
 about getting a History note-book and oblig 
 ingly disappeared. 
 
 "That s a good harmless creature," ob 
 served Biscuits, approvingly. 
 
 "Yes, she s in very good training," the 
 creature s room-mate returned. "Have a pep 
 permint?" 
 
 "Pity she can t room with Alberta May," 
 said Biscuits, lightly; "she d give her no trou 
 ble!" 
 
 " Lord, no ! " Martha agreed; " she would n t 
 trouble a fly!" 
 
 Biscuits wandered about the room and ab 
 sent-mindedly picked up a sheaf of papers. 
 
 "Themes back?" she inquired. Martha 
 nodded. 
 
 " Me see em?" Martha shrugged her 
 shoulders in a manner to be envied of the 
 Continent. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Biscuits opened at a poem that caught her 
 eye, and read it. Martha s eyes were apparently 
 fixed on Madame Chrysantheme, but they wan 
 dered occasionally to .Biscuits face as she read. 
 The poem was called, 
 
 THE LIFTING VEIL 
 Do you love me now ? 
 Ah, your mouth is cold ! 
 Yet you taught me how 
 Are we growing old ? 
 
 Did you love me then ? 
 Ah, your eyes are wet ! 
 If the memory s sweet, 
 Why will you forget ? 
 
 Could you love me still ? 
 Hush ! you shall not say ! 
 Love is not of will 
 Shall I go away ? 
 
 Dare you love me now ? 
 Let me burn my ships ! 
 I, myself, am not so sure 
 Am I worth your lips ? 
 
 Um ah yes," said Biscuits, "sounds 
 something like Browning, doesn t it?" 
 Martha looked only politely interested. 
 " Do you think so ? " she said impersonally. 
 [ 108 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 "Yes. I like that line about the ships/ 
 added Biscuits, tentatively; "it er seems 
 to er imply so much!" 
 
 Martha looked enigmatically at the skull. 
 "Does it?" she asked. 
 
 Biscuits caught a glimpse of a long, hastily 
 written story, and gasped. 
 
 "Why, Martha, did you really hand that 
 in?" she demanded. 
 
 " Certainly I did," said Martha; "why not ? " 
 
 "Because it s really shocking, you know," 
 Biscuits replied. "What did she say?" 
 
 Martha hesitated, but a twinkle slipped 
 into her eye and she smiled as she replied. 
 "Look and see," she said. 
 
 Biscuits turned to the last page, passing 
 many an underlined word or phrase by the 
 way, and read in crimson ink at the bottom : 
 Mallock has done this better: you are getting 
 very careless in your use of relatives. At which 
 Biscuits smiled wisely and reassured herself 
 of an announcement she had made in the mid 
 dle of her junior year to the effect that even 
 among the Faculty one ran across occasional 
 evidences of real intelligence. 
 
 "Martha," she said abruptly, "I meant 
 what I said about Mary and Alberta they d 
 make a very good pair." 
 
 [ I0 9 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "And Miss Sutton and I " returned 
 Martha, sardonically. 
 
 "Precisely," said Biscuits, "Miss Sutton 
 and you. Oh, I know nobody has the slight 
 est right to ask it of you and we all supposed 
 you would n t, but at the same time I thought 
 I d just lay it before you. I firmly believe, 
 Martha, that you are the only person in this 
 house capable of managing Martha Sutton!" 
 
 "I ?" And Madame Chrysantheme dropped 
 to the floor. 
 
 "Yes, you. Now, Martha, just look at it: 
 you know that the girl is a perfect child you 
 know that she means well enough, and in her 
 way she has a keen sense of humor. Now you 
 are much more mature than the average girl 
 up here and you take er broader views 
 of things than most of them. You would n t 
 be so shocked at the, things Suttie does; you 
 could, very gradually, you know, convey to 
 her that her ideas of humor were just a little 
 crude, you know, and that would strike her 
 far more than the lectures that Alberta used 
 to read her by the hour." 
 
 "Oh! Alberta!" Martha gasped. "Alberta 
 was enough to drive anybody to drink!" 
 
 "Just so. Well, as I told Mrs. Harrow, 
 you were the one, but of course no one had 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 the least right to press it. And of course, in 
 your last year, and all that, and naturally you 
 have n t any special interest in her, and it s 
 all right if you won t." 
 
 Martha scowled for a moment and appeared 
 to be reviewing her own past life, rapidly and 
 impartially. 
 
 " It would be a good thing to have her kept 
 out of the halls, at least," she announced, at 
 last, irrelevantly. 
 
 "That s what I told Mrs. Harrow," said 
 Biscuits, eagerly. "You see, Alberta bored her 
 so, Martha. She s a clever child and she likes 
 clever people. She needs tact, and Alberta 
 has n t the tad: of a hen. Only, you see, Mrs. 
 Harrow felt that in a great many ways the 
 example " 
 
 Martha rose and confronted her guest. " I 
 hope you understand, Biscuits, that if I ever 
 did go into the kindergarten business I should 
 know how to conduct myself properly. I have 
 never for one moment tried to fit everybody 
 to my own standards : I appreciate perfectly 
 that things are er relative, and that what 
 may be perfectly safe for me is not necessarily 
 so for others." 
 
 Biscuits coughed and said that she had al 
 ways known that, and it was for just that rea- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 son that she had hesitated to ask Martha to 
 give up her ways and habits : habits which if 
 harmless to the unprejudiced observer were a 
 trifle irregular, viewed from the strictest stand 
 point of a college house. 
 
 "There s no particular reason why you 
 should," she concluded, "and perhaps, any 
 how, as Mrs. Harrow says " 
 
 "Perhaps what?" snapped Martha. 
 
 "Oh, nothing! Only she doesn t believe 
 you could do it, and of course she perfectly 
 loathes having to make a change this way 
 she says it s a terrible precedent and " 
 
 " See here, Biscuits," said Martha, solemnly, 
 " never mind about my habits. I suppose," 
 magnificently, "it won t hurt me to get to bed 
 at ten, once in a way, and it s only till June, 
 anyhow. She is a bright enough child, and as 
 you say, she needs tact. If it keeps the house 
 quiet and saves you dinging at em all the time, 
 I can do it, I suppose. I might try studying for 
 a change before mid-years, too." 
 
 Biscuits got up to go. "I appreciate this 
 very much, Martha," she said gravely. "I 
 know what it means to you, but I really 
 think you 11 do her a lot of good I mean," 
 at a sudden pucker of Martha s brows, "I 
 mean, of course, that a person to whom her 
 
 [ *] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 badness does n t seem so very terrible will be 
 a revelation to her." 
 
 "Oh, yes!" said Martha. 
 
 Biscuits waylaid Sutton M. on the stairs 
 after dinner and suggested a conversation in 
 her own cosey little single room. Sutton M. 
 accompanied her, suspiciously. 
 
 "Now, what do you think you re going to 
 do ?" she inquired bitterly, as Biscuits offered 
 a shiny apple and tipped Henry Esmond off 
 the Morris chair. "Going to put me with 
 some spook or other, I suppose I 11 leave 
 the house first. I ve had enough of that !" 
 
 "No, you won t, either," Biscuits replied. 
 "You 11 be as good as Kate is, and not make 
 me curse the day I was elecled house presi 
 dent. Now,Suttie, I m going to tell you some 
 thing that must not go beyond this room 
 beyond this room," she repeated impressively. 
 
 "Not Kate? I have to tell Kate," said Sut 
 ton M., but with an air of deepest interest. 
 Outsiders rarely confided in the Twins. 
 
 "Well, Kate then, but nobody else. Prom 
 ise?" 
 
 Sutton M. nodded. 
 
 "I m going to do what might be greatly 
 criticised, Suttie, I m going to tell you that 
 I think it would be a very good thing for 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Martha Williams if you would quietly go in 
 and room with her and let Mary come in with 
 Alberta. Now, I Ve done no beating about the 
 bush I Ve told you out straight and plain. 
 What do you say ?" 
 
 " I say it s a fool arrangement, and that I 
 won t have a thing to do with it," said Sutton 
 M., promptly. 
 
 "All right," returned Biscuits, calmly, 
 "that s all. Is that apple green? I don t 
 mind it, but it makes some people sick." 
 
 "You know perfectly well Martha s the last 
 girl in the world we d fight night and day." 
 
 " I know she s one of the brightest girls in 
 the college, and that she s getting low in her 
 work, and it s a shame, too," said Biscuits. 
 
 "Would I make her higher?" 
 
 Sutton M. tried to be sarcastic, but she 
 showed in her manner the erFedt of the con 
 fidence. 
 
 "Yes, you would," said Biscuits. "Mary 
 Winter s just spoiling her. She s a perfect non 
 entity, and she studies like a grammar-school 
 girl it just disgusts Martha. And Mary ad 
 mires her so that Martha just rides over her 
 and gets to despise good regular studying be 
 cause Mary does it so childishly. If some one 
 could be with her who was bright and jolly 
 [ "4] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 and liked fun and had a sense of humor and 
 did good work, too, for you two do study 
 well I 11 give you that credit it would be 
 the making of her. And Mary s such an idiot. 
 She shows that Martha shocks her so much 
 that Martha just keeps it up to horrify her " 
 
 "I know," said Sutton M., wisely, "like 
 those cigarettes Martha never really liked 
 them." 
 
 "Exactly," Biscuits agreed, though with an 
 effort, for the Twins certainly knew far too 
 much. "The moment I told Martha that it 
 was n t in the least a question of morals with 
 us but entirely a matter of good taste that 
 we did n t think she was wicked at all but that 
 it was very bad for the house, and that when 
 we were all represented in the Police Gazette 
 as trotting over the campus with cigarettes in 
 our mouths, the college would get all the credit 
 and she would n t get any why, she stopped 
 right away. And considering how it irritated her 
 I think she was very nice and sensible about 
 it." 
 
 "But just because Kate and I studied, Mar 
 tha would n t, would she ?" 
 
 "Yes, I think she would. She d feel that 
 it was an example to you if she did n t. And 
 she s so bright. It s a shame she should flunk 
 
 [ "S] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 as she does. She knows we all know she could 
 get any marks she chose, so she does n t care." 
 
 Sutton M. looked thoughtful. "I think 
 her stories are fine," she remarked. "And I 
 suppose I d have to go with some spook, if 
 I don t," she added gloomily. 
 
 "Mrs. Harrow feels bad enough about the 
 change," Biscuits interposed, "and she said 
 she d act very severely next time. I persuaded 
 her that you d that is, I didn t persuade 
 her, I m afraid. Of course, she feels that if you 
 should by any chance drag Martha into your 
 kiddish nonsense, why she does n t like 
 Martha any too well, you know, and " 
 
 "Biscuits," interrupted Sutton M., hastily, 
 "if I should go in with Martha, and I must 
 say I should think anybody d be welcome to 
 her after that stick of a Mary Winter, I 
 would n t drag her into a thing truly, I 
 would n t. I d be careful ! Kate says that 
 Patsy says she s lots of fun and awfully jolly 
 and nice when you know her," she added. 
 
 Biscuits assented warmly. "And you un 
 derstand, Suttie," she continued, "that it s 
 not everybody I d speak to in this way or 
 that Martha would have. Martha s rather par 
 ticular: she understands that Alberta May is 
 a little trying, good and kind as she is. But I 
 [ "6 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 realize what a good thing it would be for Mar 
 tha to be with somebody who would n t be so 
 shocked whenever she said anything to that 
 skull." 
 
 "Oh, that skull !" said Sutton M., with a 
 wave of her brown hand. She looked up and 
 caught Biscuits eye with the sharp, uncom 
 promisingly literal Sutton twinkle. "Biscuits," 
 she demanded, "did anybody ever know of 
 anything really bad that Martha ever did 
 ever?" 
 
 "Never," said Biscuits, promptly. 
 
 Sutton M. chuckled: "That s what we al 
 ways thought," she said, and added: "Well, 
 I 11 try it, and," very solemnly, "you can trust 
 me, Biscuits I promise you." 
 
 When Biscuits went back to Martha s room 
 she missed the skull, and beheld on the newly 
 dusted bookshelves a decorous row of histori 
 cal works and an assortment of German clas 
 sics. This gratified her, for it was with the Ger 
 man department that Martha s erratic methods 
 of study most obviously clashed. Martha was 
 detaching from the wall a pleasing engraving 
 representing a long white lady with her head 
 hanging off from a couch, on which she some 
 what obtrusively reclined, an unwholesome de 
 mon perching upon her chest and a ghastly 
 
 [ 117] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 white horse peeping at her between gloomy 
 curtains. This cheerful effect was entitled 
 "The Nightmare," and as it left the wall, 
 Martha fell upon an enlargement in colored 
 chalk of one of Mr. Beardsley s most vivid 
 conceptions, and laid them away together. 
 
 "Why, Martha!" she exclaimed, "this is 
 really too much there s no reason why you 
 should take your things down !" 
 
 Martha smiled tolerantly. "Oh, it makes 
 no matter to me," she said indifferently. "I 
 know the Loti by heart, anyhow, and though 
 none of these things affecl: me in the slightest 
 way I really can t see anything in them one 
 way or the other still I frankly refuse to take 
 any responsibility. If the child should happen 
 to feel that the skull, for instance " 
 
 Biscuits grinned. "It s one less thing to 
 dust, anyway," she remarked, and left Mar 
 tha to her work of reconstruction. 
 
 She wandered in, one evening, two or three 
 weeks later, to get a German dictionary, and 
 beheld with a pardonable pride the Twins 
 gabbling their irregular verbs in whispers by 
 the lamp, while Martha, stretched on the couch 
 beneath the gas, communed with Schiller and 
 the dictionary. The Twins gave her one swift 
 ineffable glance, kicked each other under the 
 
 [ "8 ] 
 
BISCUITS EX MACHINA 
 
 table, and bent their eyes upon their gram 
 mars: Martha nodded to her, indicated the 
 Twins with one of her three-volume smiles, 
 and drawled as she handed her the dictionary, 
 "In the words of Mr. Dooley and the Cu 
 bans, c Pa-pa has lost his job, and all is now 
 happiness and a cottage-organ !" 
 
THE FIFTH STORY 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
V 
 THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 i 
 
 FROM Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 TO Miss CAROLYN SAWYER 
 
 Lowell^ Mass., Sept. 10, 189-. 
 
 MY DEAREST CAROL : The thing we 
 have both wished so much has 
 happened! Papa has finally con 
 sented to let me go to college ! It 
 has taken a long time and a great dealvi persua 
 sion, and Mamma never cared anything about it, 
 you know, herself. But I laid it before her in a 
 way that I really am ashamed of! I never thought 
 I d do anything like it ! But I had to, it seemed 
 to me. I told her that she had often spoken of 
 what a mistake Mrs. Hall made in letting Mar 
 jory come out so soon, and that I should cer 
 tainly be unwilling to stay at Mrs. Meade s an 
 other year. I m doing advanced work now, and 
 I m terribly bored. The girls all seem so very 
 young, somehow ! And I said that I could n t 
 come out till I was twenty-two, if I went to 
 college. I teased so that she gave way, but we 
 had a terrible siege with Papa. He is the dear 
 est man in the world, but just a little tiny 
 bit prejudiced, you know. He wants me to 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 finish at Mrs. Meade s and then go abroad for 
 a year or two. He wants me to do something 
 with my music. But I told him of the fine Mu 
 sic School there was at Smith, and how much 
 harder I should work there, naturally. He 
 talked a good deal about the art advantages 
 and travel and French you know what I 
 think about the terrible narrowness of a board 
 ing-school education ! It is shameful, that an 
 intellectual girl of this century should be tied 
 down to French and Music ! And how can the 
 scrappy little bit of gallery sight-seeing that 
 I should do possibly equal four years of ear 
 nest, intelligent, regular college work? He 
 said something about marriage oh, dear ! It 
 is horrible that one should have to think of 
 that ! I told him, with a great deal of dignity 
 and rather coldly, I m afraid, that my life 
 would be, I hoped, something more than the mere 
 evanescent glitter of a social butterfly ! I think 
 it really impressed him. He said, "Oh, very 
 well very well!" So I m coming, dearest, 
 and you must write me all about what books 
 I d better get and just what I d better know 
 of the college customs. I m so glad you re on 
 the campus. You know Uncle Wendell knows 
 the President very well indeed he was in 
 college with him and, somehow or other, 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 I Ve got a room in the Lawrence, though 
 we did n t expect it so soon ! I feel inspired 
 already when I think of the chapel and the big 
 Science Building and that beautiful library! 
 I Ve laid out a course of work that Miss Bev 
 erly that s the literature teacher thinks 
 very ambitious, but I am afraid she does n t 
 realize the intention of a college, which is a 
 little different, I suppose, from a boarding- 
 school^] I have planned to take sixteen hours 
 for the four years. I must say I think it s 
 rather absurd to limit a girl to that who really 
 \sperfettly able to do more. Perhaps you could 
 see the Register if that s what it is and 
 tell him I could just as well take eighteen, and 
 then I could do that other Literature. I must 
 go to try on something really, it s very hard 
 to convince Mamma that Smith is n t a sum 
 mer resort ! Good-by, dearest, we shall have 
 suchfoautiful times together I msure you ll 
 be as excited as I am. We shall for once see 
 as much of each other as we want to I wish 
 I could study with you ! I m coming up on 
 the 8. 20 Wednesday morning. 
 
 Devotedly yours, 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 C5] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ii 
 
 FROM Miss CAROLYN SAWYER 
 TO Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 
 Lake Forest, III., Sept. 17, 189-. 
 DEAR BESS: I m very glad you re com 
 ing up it s the only place in the world. I m 
 not going to be able to meet you I m com 
 ing back late this year Mrs. Harte is go 
 ing to give our crowd a house-party at Lake- 
 mere. Is n t that gay ? I met Arnold Ritch this 
 summer. Heknows you, he said. I never heard 
 you speak of him. He s perfectly smooth his 
 tennis is all right, too. For heaven s sake, don t 
 try to take sixteen hours on the campus, 
 too ! It will break you all up. You 11 get on 
 the Glee Club, probably bring up your 
 songs, by the way and you 11 want to be on 
 the Team. Have you got that blue organdie ? 
 You 11 want something about like that, pretty 
 soon. If you can help it, don t get one of those 
 Bagdad things for your couch. I m deadly 
 sick of mine. Get that portiere thing you used 
 to have on the big chair at home. It s more 
 individual. We re getting up a little dance for 
 the a6th. If you know any man you could 
 have up, you can come it will be a good 
 chance to meet some of the upper-class girls. 
 
 [ 1*6] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 We may not be able to have it, though. Don t 
 tell Kate Saunders about this, please. She d 
 ask Lockwood over from Amherst, and I Ve 
 promised Jessie Holden to ask him for her. 
 We shall probably have Sue for class presi 
 dent this year I m glad of it, too. There 
 will be a decent set of ushers. I suppose you 11 
 want me for your senior for the sophomore- 
 senior thing. I 11 keep that if you wish. I shall 
 get up by the 24th. I m in the Morris. Don t 
 forget your songs. 
 
 Yours in haste, 
 
 C. P. S. 
 
 in 
 
 FROM MRS. HENRY STOCKTON 
 TO MRS. JOHN SAWYER 
 
 Lowell, Mass., Sept. 23, 189-. 
 DEAR ELLA: In spite of great uncertainty 
 on my part and aclual unwillingness on her 
 father s, Lizzie has started for Smith. It seems 
 a large undertaking, for four years, and I must 
 say I would rather have left her at Mrs. 
 Meade s. But her heart is set on it, and it is 
 very hard to deny her. She argues so, too; 
 really, the child has great ability, I think. 
 She fairly convinced me. It has always seemed 
 to me that a girl with good social surround- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ings, a good home library, and an intellectual 
 home atmosphere does very well with four 
 years at so good a school as Mrs. M cade s, 
 and a little travel afterwards. Lizzie has quite 
 a little musical talent, too, and I should have 
 liked her to devote more attention to that. 
 Very frankly, I cannot say that I have been 
 able to see any improvement in Carrie since 
 she went away. I suppose it will wear off, but 
 when I saw her this summer she had a manner 
 that I did not like so well as her very pleas 
 ant air three no, two years ago. It seemed 
 a curious mixture of youth and decision, that 
 had, however, no maturity in it. Katharine 
 Saunders, too, seems to me so utterly irre 
 sponsible for a young woman of twenty-one, 
 and yet so almost arrogant. I expecled she 
 would know a great deal, as she studied Greek 
 before she went, but she told me that she al 
 ways skipped the Latin and Greek quotations 
 in books ! She seems to be studying nothing 
 but French and Literature and History; her 
 father could perfectly well have taught her all 
 that, and was anxious to, but she would hear 
 nothing of it. She wanted the college life, she 
 said. Ah, well, I suppose the world has moved 
 on since we read Livy at Miss Hopkins ! I 
 picked up a Virgil of Lizzie s yesterday and 
 
 [ 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 was astonished to find how it all came back. 
 We felt very learned, then, but now it is noth 
 ing. 
 
 I hope Carrie will be good to my little girl 
 and help her perhaps with her lessons not 
 that I fear Lizzie will need very much help ! 
 Miss Beverly assures me that she has never 
 trained a finer mind. Her essay on Jane Austen 
 was highly praised by Dr. Strong, the rector 
 of St. Mary s. Of course,dear Ella, you won t 
 resent my criticism of Carrie I should never 
 dream of it with any one but an old and valued 
 friend, and I shall gladly receive the same from 
 you. But Lizzie has always been all that I 
 could wish her. 
 
 Yours with love, 
 
 SARAH B. STOCKTON. 
 
 IV 
 
 FROM MR. WILLIAM B. STOCKTON 
 TO Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 
 Boston, Mass., Off. 16, 189-. 
 MY DEAR NIECE : Your mother advises me 
 of your having just entered Smith Academy. 
 I had imagined that your previous schooling 
 would have been sufficient, but doubtless your 
 parents know best. Your mother seems a lit 
 tle alarmed as to your success, but I have re- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 assured her. I trust the Stockton blood. What 
 ever your surroundings may be, you can never, 
 I am sure, set yourself a higher model than 
 your mother. I have never known her to lack 
 the right word or action under any circum 
 stances, and if you can learn that in your 
 schooling, your friends and relatives will be 
 more than satisfied. 
 
 I enclose my cheque for fifty dollars ($50), 
 in case you should have any special demand on 
 your purse not met by your regular allowance. 
 I remember many such in my own schooldays. 
 Wishing you success in your new life, I re 
 main, 
 
 Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 WILLIAM B. STOCKTON. 
 
 FROM Miss ELIZABETH CRAIGIE 
 TO Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 
 New Haven, Conn.^ Off. 21, 189-. 
 MY DEAR ELIZABETH: Sarah tells me that 
 you are going to college. I am sure I don t see 
 why, but if you do, I suppose that is enough. 
 Children are not what they used to be. It 
 seems to me that four years at Mrs. Meade s 
 should have been enough; neither your Aunt 
 Hannah nor I ever went to college, though 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 to be sure Hannah wanted to go to Mt. Hoi- 
 yoke Seminary once. I have never heard any 
 one intimate that either of us was not suffi 
 ciently educated: I wonder that you could for 
 one instant imagine such a thing ! Not that I 
 have any reason to suppose you ever did. 
 However, that is neither here nor there. Your 
 Aunt Hannah and I were intending to give 
 you Mother s high shell-comb and her garnet 
 set for Christmas. If you would prefer them 
 now for any reason, you may have them. The 
 comb is being polished and looks magnificent. 
 An absurd thing to give a girl of your age, 
 from my point of view. However, your Aunt 
 Hannah thinks it best. I trust you will be very 
 careful of your diet. It seemed to me that 
 your complexion was not what it should have 
 been when you came on this summer. I am 
 convinced that it is nothing but the miscella 
 neous eating of cake and other sweets and 
 over-education. There has been a young girl 
 here from some college I think it is Welles- 
 ley and her complexion is disgraceful. Your 
 Aunt Hannah and I never set up for beauties, 
 but we had complexions of milk and roses, if 
 I do say it. Hannah thinks that the garnets 
 are unsuitable for you, but that is absurd. 
 Mother was no older than you when she wore 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 them, and looked very well, too, I have no 
 doubt. I send you by express a box of Katy s 
 doughnuts, the kind you like, very rich, and 
 a chocolate cake. Also some salad and a loaf 
 cake, Mrs. Harding s rule. I trust you will 
 take sufficient exercise, and don t let your 
 hands grow rough this winter. Nothing shows 
 a lady so much as her hands. Would you like 
 the garnets reset, or as Mother wore them ? 
 They are quite the style now, I understand. 
 Hoping you will do well in your studies and 
 keep well, I am, 
 
 Yours lovingly, 
 
 AUNT LIZZIE. 
 
 VI 
 
 FROM Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 TO MR. ARNOLD RITCH, JR. 
 
 Lawrence House , Northampton, Mass., 
 
 Nov. i, 189-. 
 
 MY DEAR ARNOLD: It is only fair to you 
 to tell you that it can never be. No, never ! 
 When I if I did (which I can hardly be 
 lieve) allowed you to think anything else, 
 I was a mere child. Life looks very different 
 to me, now. It is quite useless to ask me I 
 must say that I am surprised that you have 
 spoken to Papa. Nor do I feel called upon 
 C 13* ] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 to give my reasons. I shall always be a very, 
 very good friend to you, however, and very, 
 very much interested in you. 
 
 In the first place, I am, or at least you are, 
 far too young. The American woman of to 
 day is younger than her grandmother. I mean, 
 of course, younger than her grandmother is 
 now. That is, than she was then. Also I doubt 
 if I could ever love you as you think you do. 
 Love me, I mean. I am not a man s woman. 
 I much prefer women. Really, Arnold, it is 
 very strange how men bore me now that I 
 have known certain women. Women are so 
 much more interesting, so much more fasci 
 nating, so much more exciting! This will prob 
 ably seem strange to you, but the modern 
 woman I am sure is rapidly getting not to need 
 men at all ! I have never seen so many beau 
 tiful red-haired girls before. One sits in front 
 of me in chapel, and the light makes an aure 
 ole of glory about her head. I wrote a theme 
 about it that is going to be in the Monthly for 
 November. 
 
 I hope that you won t feel that our dear 
 old friendship of so many years is in any way 
 changed. I shall never forget certain things 
 
 I am enjoying my work very much, though 
 it is easier than I had thought it would be, and 
 
 C 133 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 the life is different in many ways. If I did not 
 think that Miss Sawyer had probably invited 
 you, I should be very glad to have you come 
 up for the Christmas concert, but I suppose it 
 is useless to ask you. I had no idea you were 
 so fond of tennis ! 
 
 Your friend always, 
 
 ELIZABETH WOLFE STOCKTON. 
 
 VII 
 
 FROM MR. HENRY STOCKTON 
 TO Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 
 Lowell, Mass., Nov. I, 189-. 
 MY DEAR ELIZABETH : Yours received and 
 read with my usual attention and interest. 
 I am glad that your college life continues to 
 be pleasant, and that you have found so many 
 friends. I was much interested, too, in the pho 
 tograph of Miss Hunter. I find the blue prints 
 are more common than I had supposed, for I 
 had imagined that they were something quite 
 new. It is certainly very accommodating in 
 your teachers to allow themselves to be so 
 generally photographed. Your mother seemed 
 much pleased with Miss Hunter, and glad that 
 you were in the house with her and liked her 
 so much. I was surprised to see her so young 
 in appearance. I had very foolishly imagined 
 
 [ 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 the typical old style "school-marm," I sup 
 pose. But it seems that she was graduated only 
 a few years ago, herself. 
 
 Now, my dear Elizabeth, I am going to 
 speak to you very seriously. I trust that you 
 will take it in good part and remember that 
 nothing can be more to my interest than the 
 real happiness and well-being of my daughter. 
 The tone of your letters to both your mother 
 and me has seemed for some weeks unsatis 
 factory. I mean that we have found in them 
 a nervous, strained tone that troubles me ex 
 ceedingly. I cannot see why you should close 
 with such expressions as this (I copy verba 
 tim): "Too tired to write more ;" "All used 
 U p lots of Latin to do can only find time 
 for a note ;" "Tired to death because I m not 
 sleeping quite as well as usual, just now ;" et 
 cetera, et cetera. 
 
 I have been to see Mrs. Meade, and she 
 assures me that your preparation was more 
 than adequate : that your first year should 
 prove very easy for you, in Latin especially. 
 Now what does this mean ? You left us well 
 and strong, considering that you have always 
 been a delicate girl. It was for that reason, as 
 you know, that I particularly opposed your 
 going to college. 
 
 [ 135 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 But there is more. Mrs. Allen s daughter, 
 Harriet, has been at home for some days to 
 attend her sister s wedding. Your mother and 
 I naturally seized the opportunity of inquir 
 ing after you, and after some questioning from 
 us she admitted that you were not looking very 
 well. She said that you seemed tired and were 
 "going it a little too hard, perhaps." That 
 seemed to me a remarkable expression to ap 
 ply to a young girl ! My endeavors to find out 
 exactly what it meant resulted in nothing more 
 explicit than that " Bess was trying to do too 
 much." 
 
 Now, my dear girl, while we are naturally 
 only too pleased that you should be striving 
 to stand well in your classes, do not, I beg of 
 you, imagine for one moment that any intel 
 lectual advancement you may win can compen 
 sate us or you for the loss of your health. You 
 remember Cousin Will, who carried ofFsix hon 
 ors at Harvard and came home a nervous in 
 valid. I fear that the Stockton temperament 
 cannot stand the strain of too continued men 
 tal application. 
 
 I must stop now, to attend to some busi 
 ness matters, and I will add only this. Do not 
 fail to remember my definite conditions, which 
 have not altered since September. If you are 
 
 [ 136] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 not perfectly well at the Christmas holidays, 
 you must remain with us. This may seem se 
 vere, but I am convinced, your mother also, 
 that we shall be acting entirely for your good. 
 
 Yours aff., 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 VIII 
 
 FROM MR. ARNOLD RITCH, SR., 
 TO Miss MARION HUNTER 
 
 New York, N. r., Nov. 4, 189-. 
 
 MY DEAR Miss HUNTER: You may re 
 member meeting, five years ago, in Paris, in the 
 Louvre, an old American, who had the great 
 pleasure of rendering you a trifling assistance 
 in a somewhat embarrassing situation, and who 
 had the further pleasure of crossing on the 
 Etruria with you a month later. I was that 
 man, and I remember that you said that if 
 ever there should happen to be an occasion 
 for it, you would be only too happy to return 
 your imaginary debt. 
 
 If you really meant it, the occasion, strangely 
 enough, has come. I know well enough from my 
 lifelong friend, Richard Benton, whose family 
 you have so often visited, that you are an ex 
 tremely busy young woman, and I will state 
 my case briefly. I never make half-confidences, 
 
 [ 137] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 and I rely implicitly on your discretion in the 
 following clear statement. My only nephew 
 and namesake, incidentally heir, has been for 
 some time practically engaged to Miss Eliza 
 beth Stockton, the daughter of an old friend. 
 The engagement has been entirely satisfactory 
 to all parties concerned, and was actually on 
 the eve of announcement, when the young lady 
 abruptly departed for Smith College. 
 
 My nephew is, though only twenty-four, 
 unusually mature and thoroughly settled : he 
 was deeply in love with the young lady and 
 assures me that his sentiments were returned. 
 She now quietly refuses him, and greatly to 
 her parents dissatisfaction announces that she 
 intends remaining the four years and "gradu 
 ating with her class," which seems a strong 
 point with her. 
 
 Her father and I would gladly leave the 
 affair to work itself out quietly, were it not 
 for an unfortunate occurrence. Ritch, Jr. has 
 been offered an extremely good opening in a 
 Paris banking-house, which he must accept, if 
 at all, immediately, and for six years. He is 
 extremely broken up over the whole affair, 
 and says that unless Elizabeth returns to her 
 old relations with him, he will go. This will 
 be in three weeks. 
 
 [ 138 ] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 I am not so young as I was, and I cannot 
 leave America again. I can only say that if the 
 boy goes, my interest in life goes, to a great 
 extent, with him. He does not mean to be 
 selfish, but young people, you know, are 
 harder than they think, and feel deeply and, 
 for the moment, irrevocably. He says that he 
 is certain that this is merely a fad on Miss 
 Stockton s part, and that if he could see her 
 for two weeks he would prove it. I should like 
 to have him try. 
 
 This is my favor, Miss Hunter. Elizabeth 
 respecls and admires you more than any of her 
 teachers. She quotes you frequently and seems 
 influenced by you. Arnold has made me prom 
 ise that I will not ask her parents to bring her 
 home and that I will not write her. I will not. 
 But can you do anything? It is rather absurd 
 to ask you to conspire against your college, 
 to give up one of your pupils: but you have 
 a great many, and remember that I have but 
 one nephew! It is all rather a comedy, but a 
 sad one for me, if there is no change within 
 three weeks, I assure you. They are only two 
 headstrong children, but they can cause more 
 than one heartache if they keep up their ob 
 stinacy. Elizabeth has forbidden Arnold to 
 come to Northampton on the score of her 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 work, and wild horses could not drag him 
 there. 
 
 I offer no suggestion, I ask nothing defi 
 nitely, I merely wonder if you meant what you 
 said on the Etruria^ and if your woman s wit, 
 that must have managed so many young idi 
 ots, can manage these? 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 ARNOLD M. RITCH. 
 
 IX 
 
 FROM Miss MARION HUNTER 
 TO MRS. HENRY STOCKTON 
 
 Northampton, Mass., Nov. 7, 189-. 
 MY DEAR MRS. STOCKTON: As you have 
 certainly not forgotten that I assured you in 
 the early fall of my interest, professionally and 
 personally, in your daughter, you will need no 
 further explanation, nor be at all alarmed, 
 when I tell you that Elizabeth is a little over 
 worked of late. In the house with her as I am, 
 I see that she is trying to carry a little too 
 much of our unfortunately famous "social 
 life" in connection with her studies, where she 
 is unwilling to lose a high grade. She entered 
 so well prepared that she has nothing to fear 
 from a short absence, and as she tells me that 
 she does not sleep well at all of late, she will 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 have no difficulty in getting an honorable fur 
 lough. Two weeks or so of rest and freedom 
 from strain will set her up perfectly, I have no 
 doubt, and she can return with perfect safety to 
 her work, which is, I repeat, quite satisfactory. 
 Yours very cordially, 
 
 MARION HUNTER. 
 
 x 
 
 FROM MRS. HENRY STOCKTON 
 TO Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 
 (^Telegram) 
 
 Lowell, Mass., Nov. 8. 
 
 Come home immediately will arrange with 
 college and explain myself. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 XI 
 
 FROM Miss MARION HUNTER 
 TO Miss CONSTANCE JACKSON 
 
 Northampton, Mass., Nov. 10, 189-. 
 DEAR CON: I m afraid it will be impossi 
 ble for me to accept your seductive invitation 
 for Thanksgiving. We re pulling the girls up 
 a little sharply this year, and it would hardly 
 do for me to come back late. But it would be 
 good to hear a little music once more! 
 
 It was rather odd that you should have men- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 tioned that idiotic affair of mine in Paris 
 the hero of it has just written me a long letter 
 apropos of his nephew, who wants to marry 
 that little Miss Stockton, whose Harvard 
 cousin you knew so well. That portly squire 
 of dames is actually simple and straightfor 
 ward enough to suggest that I precipitate the 
 damsel into the expectant arms of his nephew 
 and heir-apparent he is used to getting his 
 own way, certainly, and he writes a rather at 
 tractive letter. I owe him much (as you know) 
 and if Elizabeth, who is a dear little thing and 
 far too nice for the crowd she s getting in 
 with you knew Carol Sawyer, didn t you? 
 has such a weak-kneed interest in college 
 as to be turned out of the way by a sight of 
 the destined young gentleman, I fancy she 
 would not have remained long with us in any 
 case. She s a pretty creature and had cunning 
 ways I shall miss her in the house. For I 
 don t believe she ll come back; she s not at 
 all strong, and her parents are much worried 
 about her health. It is more than probable 
 that the Home will prove her sphere. 
 
 Personally, I don t mind stating that I 
 would it were mine. When I consider how my 
 days are spent 
 
 You might not believe it, but they grow 
 
 [ 14* ] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 stupider and stupider. Perhaps I Ve been at 
 it a bit too long, but I never saw such papers 
 as these freshmen give one. 
 
 And they have begun singing four hymns 
 in succession on Sunday morning! It s very 
 hard why they should select Abide with Me 
 and Lead, Kindly Light for morning exercises 
 and wail them both through to the bitter end 
 every Sunday in the year is one of the local 
 mysteries. 
 
 I must get at my papers, they cover every 
 thing. Remember me to Mr. Jackson; it was 
 very kind of him to suggest it, but I must 
 wait till Christmas for the Opera, I m afraid. 
 If I should not come back next year and it 
 is more than possible that I shan t I may 
 be in Boston. I hope in that case you won t 
 have gone away. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 M. I. HUNTER. 
 
 XII 
 
 FROM Miss ELIZABETH STOCKTON 
 TO Miss CAROLYN SAWYER 
 
 Lowell, Nov. 2O. 
 
 CAROL DEAR : I am writing in a great hurry, 
 as I have an engagement at four, to tell you 
 that I have decided not to return to-day, as I 
 
 [ H3] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 intended. Will you get the key of 32 from 
 Mrs. Driscoll, as Kitty goes home over Sun 
 day, so it will be locked, and get out my mink 
 collarette and my silver toilet things and my 
 blanket wrapper, and I think there is twenty 
 dollars in my handkerchief case. I am ex 
 tremely disturbed and confused when one 
 is really responsible for anything one feels 
 very much disturbed. Of course, I don t be 
 lieve a word of it it s all folly and nonsense 
 
 but still, six years is a long time. Of course, 
 you don t know at all what I mean, dear, and 
 I m not sure I do either. I forgot to say that 
 I m probably not coming back to college this 
 year. Mamma feels very worried about my 
 health you know I didn t sleep very well 
 nights, and I used to dream about Livy. Any 
 way, she and Papa are going abroad early in 
 the spring, and really, Carol, a college edu 
 cation is n t everything. If I were going to 
 teach, you know, it would be different, but 
 you see I was almost finished at Mrs. Meade s 
 
 I was taking advanced work and it is n t 
 as if I had had only the college preparation. 
 Then, if we go abroad, I must do something 
 with my French. You know there was simply 
 no chance to practise conversation in such a 
 large class, and I was forgetting it, which Ar- 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 nold thinks would be a pity. He speaks very 
 fine French himself. Then, you see, there 11 
 be all the galleries and everything and the 
 Sistine Madonna and the cathedrals they re 
 so educative everybody admits that. It s 
 hardly to be supposed that Geometry and Livy 
 are really going to be as broadening to me as 
 a year of travel with Papa and Mamma, is it ? 
 And though I never said anything to you 
 about it, I really have felt for some time that 
 there was something a little narrow about the 
 college. They seem to think it is about all 
 there is of life, you know, with the funny lit 
 tle dances and the teas and all that. Even that 
 dear Miss Hunter is really un peu gdtee with 
 it all she thinks, I believe, that a college 
 education is all there is for anybody. She told 
 Mamma that I was n t well she wanted me 
 to keep my high grade. Oh ! Carol ! there are 
 better things than grades ! Life is a very much 
 bigger thing than the campus even ! I think, 
 dear, that one really ought to consider very 
 frankly just what we intend to do with our 
 lives if we are going to marry, we ought to 
 try to make ourselves cultivated and broad- 
 minded, and in every way worthy to be Oh, 
 Carol, dearest, I m terribly happy ! It is n t 
 settled, of course: I am utterly amazed that 
 
 [ 145 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 they all seem to think it is, but it is n t. 
 Only probably if I still feel as I do now, 
 when we get back, I shall ask you, dear, what 
 we promised each other to be my brides 
 maid the first one ! I m thinking of asking 
 Sally and Grace and Eleanor all our old set 
 at Mrs. Meade s, you know. I think that 
 pink, with a deep rose for hats and sashes, 
 would look awfully well on all of you, don t 
 you ! It seems a long time since I was in 
 Northampton: the girls seem very young and 
 terribly serious over queer little lessons or 
 else trying to play they re interested in each 
 other. Arnold says he thinks the attitude of 
 so many women is bound to be unhealthy, 
 and even in some cases a little morbid. I think 
 he is quite right, don t you ? After all, girls 
 need some one besides themselves. I always 
 thought that Mabel Towne was very bad for 
 Katharine. Will you send, too, my Shelley 
 and my selections from Keats ? The way I 
 neglected my reading real reading, you 
 know oh ! cetait ajfreux ! I m learning the 
 loveliest song Arnold is very fond of it: 
 
 Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie? 
 
 Uheure senfult, le jour succede au jour. 
 Rose ce soir, demain fletrle 
 
 Comment vis-tu, tot qui n^ as pas a" amour? 
 
 [ H6 ] 
 
THE EDUCATION OF ELIZABETH 
 
 I m going out now for a walk. I m sure 
 you 11 like Arnold I think you said you met 
 him. He does n t remember you. Remember 
 me to all the juniors I met, and if you see 
 Ethel Henderson, tell her I 11 write to her 
 when I get time. Excuse this pointed pen 
 I m learning to use it. Arnold hates a stub. 
 
 Yours always, 
 
 BETTY. 
 
THE SIXTH STORY 
 
 A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
i 
 
 VI 
 
 A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 HERE are Jacksons and Jacksons. 
 As everybody knows, many, possi 
 bly most, of those who bear that title 
 might as well have been called Jones 
 or Robinson ; on the other hand, I am told that 
 certain Massachusetts families of that name 
 will, on solicitation, admit it to be their belief 
 that Eve was a Cabot and Adam a Jackson. 
 Without asserting that she was personally con 
 vinced of this great fact, it is necessary to state 
 that Susan was of the last-named variety of 
 Jackson. She was distinctly democratic, how 
 ever, and rather strong-willed, and for both of 
 these reasons she came to college. It did not 
 entirely please the family : neither of her sis 
 ters had gone, and her brothers in particular 
 were against it. It is probable that she would 
 have been decoyed from her plan had it not 
 been that her cousin, Constance Quincy Jack 
 son, had been for a year one of the young 
 assistants who dash like meteors through the 
 catalogue and disappear mysteriously, just as 
 astronomers have begun to place them, into 
 the obscurity whence they came. 
 
 Constance, like Susan, had been persistent, 
 and was studying at Oxford before the family 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 had quite made up its mind how to regard her; 
 later, she frequented other and American in 
 stitutions of learning and bore off formidable 
 degrees therefrom, and at about that time it 
 was decided that she was remarkably brilliant, 
 and that her much commended thesis on the 
 Essential Somethingness of Something or 
 Other was quite properly to be ranked with 
 her great-grandfather s dissertation on the Im 
 mortality of the Soul. 
 
 She would do very well ; she could be relied 
 on; and entrusted to her and further armed 
 with letters of introduction to the social mag 
 nates of the vicinity which, I regret to say, 
 she neglected to present till her sophomore 
 year Susan began her career. Of the emi 
 nent success of this career, it is not the pur 
 pose of this story to treat. Beginning as fresh 
 man vice-president, she immediately identified 
 herself with the leading set of her class, and 
 in her sophomore year was already one of 
 the prominent students in the college. She 
 was one of Phi Kappa s earliest acquisitions, 
 and belonged to three or four lesser societies, 
 social and semi-educational; she had been on 
 the freshman Team; she was twice a mem 
 ber of the Council; in her senior year she was 
 literary editor of the Monthly and class presi- 
 
 c 15*1 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 dent, besides taking a prominent part in Dra 
 matics. She fulfilled all these duties most ac 
 ceptably, taking at the same time a very high 
 rank in her classes : in one department, indeed, 
 her work was pronounced practically perfect 
 by a somewhat exigent professor. And in ad 
 dition, she was well born, well bred, and well 
 dressed, and considered by her most enthu 
 siastic admirers the handsomest girl in the 
 college, though this was by no means the 
 universal opinion. 
 
 You might imagine that Miss Jackson was 
 therefore intolerably conceited, but in this you 
 would err. She took no particular credit to 
 herself for her standard of work; she had a 
 keen mind, and had been taught to concen 
 trate it, and her grandfather, her father, and 
 two uncles had successively led their classes 
 at Harvard. It seemed perfectly natural to her 
 to be told that she was the one young woman 
 on whose shoulders a golf cape looked really 
 dignified and graceful had not her grand 
 mother and her great-aunt been famed for their 
 "camel s-hair-shawl shoulders"? A somewhat 
 commanding manner and a very keen-sighted 
 social policy had given her a prominence that 
 she was conscious of having done nothing to 
 discredit; and as she had been quite accus- 
 
 [ 153 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 tomed to see those about her in positions 
 of authority, and had learned to lay just the 
 proper amount of emphasis on adverse criti 
 cism, she steered her way with a signal success 
 on the perilous sea of popularity. Her idea of 
 the four years had been to do everything there 
 was to be done as well as any one could do it, 
 and she was not a person accustomed to con 
 sider failure. 
 
 I mentioned at the beginning of this story 
 the two classes of Jacksons. Emphatically of 
 the former and unimportant variety was Elaine 
 Susan Jackson of Troy, New York. Mr. Jack 
 son kept a confectionery shop and ice cream 
 parlor, going to his business early in the morn 
 ing and returning late in the evening. This he 
 did because he was a quiet-loving man, and 
 his home was a noisy one. Mrs. Jackson was 
 a managing, dictatorial woman, with an un 
 expected sentimental vein which she nour 
 ished on love-stories and exhausted there. 
 From these books she had culled the names 
 of her daughters Elaine, Veronica, and Doris; 
 but prudence impelled her to add to these the 
 names of her husband s three sisters a tri 
 umph of maternal foresight over aesthetic taste 
 and they stood in the family Bible, Elaine 
 Susan, Veronica Sarah, and Doris Hannah. 
 
 [ 154] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 Mr. Jackson was not a sentimentalist him 
 self, and read nothing but the paper, sitting 
 placidly behind the peanut-brittle and choco 
 late mice, and relapsing sometimes into ab 
 solute idleness for hours together, deep in 
 contemplation, perhaps, possibly dozing 
 nobody ever knew. At such times he regarded 
 the entrance of customers as an unwelcome 
 intrusion and was accustomed to hurry them, 
 if juvenile, into undue precipitance of choice. 
 From this even quiet he emerged seldom but 
 effectively : when Veronica entertained the un 
 attractive young men she called "the boys," 
 later than eleven o clock, when Doris went 
 to the theatre more than twice a week, or when 
 they had purchased garments of a nature more 
 than usually unsuitable and pronounced. Then 
 Mr. Jackson spoke, and after domestic whirl 
 winds and fires the still voice of an otherwise 
 doubtful head of the family became the voice 
 of authority. 
 
 Elaine gave him no trouble of this sort. She 
 did not care for young men, and she never 
 went to the theatre. Her clothes, when she 
 had any choice in the matter, were of the plain 
 est, and she had never teased her father for 
 candy since she began to read, which was at 
 a very early age. / Say No, or the Love-letter 
 
 C 155] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Answered, was her first consciously studied 
 book, and between ten and fifteen she de 
 voured more novels than most people get 
 into a lifetime. Incidentally she read poetry 
 she got books of it for prizes at school 
 and one afternoon she sandwiched the Golden 
 Treasury between two detective stories. She 
 did not care for her mother s friends, gossip 
 ing, vulgar women, and she loathed her sis 
 ters . She had a sharp tongue, and as parental 
 discipline was of the slightest, she criticised 
 them all impartially with the result that she 
 was cordially disliked by everybody she knew 
 a feeling she returned with interest. She 
 found two or three ardent friends at school 
 and was very happy with them for a time, but 
 she was terribly exacting, and demanded an al 
 legiance so intense and unquestioning that one 
 by one they drifted away into other groups and 
 left her. 
 
 In her second year at the high school they 
 read the Idylls of the King, and she discovered 
 her name and saw in one shame-filled second 
 the idiotic bad taste of it Elaine Susan ! She 
 imagined the lily maid of Astolat behind her 
 father s counter and became so abased in 
 her own mind that the school found her more 
 haughty and disagreeable than ever. From that 
 
 [ 156 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 moment she signed her name E. Susan Jack 
 son and requested to be called Susan. This 
 met the approval of the teachers, and as the 
 schoolgirls did not hold much conversation 
 with her, the change was not a difficult one. 
 By the time she had been three years in the 
 high school she was considered by every one 
 the most brilliant student there, and the prin 
 cipal suggested college to her. This had never 
 occurred to her. Though they had never lacked 
 for necessities, Mr. Jackson s business was 
 not conducted in a manner to lead to marked 
 financial success, and though he said little 
 about his affairs, it was evident to them all 
 that matters were slowly but surely running 
 down hill. Doris and Veronica were eager to 
 leave school and spend a term at the Business 
 College, some friends of theirs having done 
 this with great success and found positions as 
 typewriters, but their father insisted on their 
 staying at school for two yearsatleast.lt would 
 be time enough to leave, he said, when they 
 had to. It was significant of the unconscious 
 attitude of the family that there had never 
 been any question of the oldest daughter s 
 leaving school: Elaine had always been real 
 bright, her mother said, and as long as books 
 was all she took any interest in, she might as 
 
 [ 157 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 well get what she could she presumed she d 
 teach. 
 
 But this acquiescent spirit changed immedi 
 ately when she learned that her husband had 
 told Elaine he would send her to college for 
 two years anyway, and as much longer as he 
 could afford. It seemed to Mrs. Jackson a 
 ridiculous and unwarranted expense, particu 
 larly as he had refused to allow the term at 
 the Business College partly on the financial 
 score. She lectured, argued, scolded; but he 
 was firm. 
 
 "I told her she should, and she shall," he 
 repeated quietly. "She says she thinks she 
 can help along after a while, and you need n t 
 worry about her paying it back she will, all 
 right, if she can. I guess she s the best of the 
 lot of us ; she s worth the other two put to 
 gether. You let Lainey alone, Hattie, she s 
 all right!" 
 
 This was during her last year at school, 
 and as she had on her own responsibility taken 
 the classical course there, finding a fascination 
 in the idea of Greek, she accomplished the 
 preparation very easily. 
 
 Her mother, bowing to the inevitable, be 
 gan to plume herself on her daughter "who 
 was fitting herself to go to Smith s College," 
 
 [ 158] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 and rose many degrees in the social scale be 
 cause of her. But their ideas of the necessary 
 preparations differed so materially, that after 
 prolonged and jarring hostilities marked by 
 much temper on both sides, the final crash 
 came, and after a battle royal Elaine took what 
 money was forthcoming and conducted her 
 affairs unchallenged from that moment. It was 
 a relief to be freed from the wearisome squab 
 bles, but she cried herself to sleep the night 
 before she left she did not perfectly know 
 why. Later she told herself that it was be 
 cause she had so little reason to cry when she 
 left home for the first time. 
 
 She went to the train alone, because the 
 girls were at school and her father at his busi 
 ness. She said good-by to her mother on the 
 porch, with the constraint that had grown to 
 characterize her attitude towards them all, but 
 her mother was suddenly seized with a spasm 
 of sentiment, and kissing her wildly, bewailed 
 the necessity that drove her firstborn from her 
 to strangers. Later the girl found it sadly char 
 acteristic of her life, that absurd scene on the 
 porch; with her heart hungry and miserable 
 for the love and confidence she had never 
 known, she endured agonies of shame and 
 irritation at the demonstration that came too 
 
 [ 159] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 late. She went away, outwardly cold, with 
 tight-pressed lips ; her mother read Cometh up 
 as a Flower, and wept hysterically that Fate 
 should have cursed her with such an unfeel 
 ing, moody child. 
 
 It is hard to determine just what incident 
 convinced Susan for she dropped the initial 
 on her registration that life had not changed, 
 for her because she was to live it in Northamp 
 ton, and that she must be alone there, as she 
 had been in Troy. Just before she left col 
 lege she decided that she had known it im 
 mediately: that from the moment when she 
 plunged into the chattering, bustling crowd in 
 the Main Hall, where everybody knew some 
 body and most people knew all the others, a 
 vague prevision of her four years loneliness 
 came to her: a pathetic certainty that she could 
 not, even with the effort she was too proud 
 to make, become in any reality a part of that 
 sparkling, absorbed, unconscious current of 
 life that rushed by her. 
 
 Sometimes she dated her disillusionment 
 for she had had her dreams: she knew them 
 only by the pathetic disappointment of the ob 
 stinate awakening from the day that she saw 
 her namesake laughing in the midst of a jolly 
 group of girls to whom she was presenting 
 [ 160] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 her father and her aunt. They were handsome, 
 well-dressed people with a distinct air, and they 
 were tolerantly amused at Sue in her new en 
 vironment and showed it in a kindly, cour 
 teous way that was much appreciated. As Su 
 san passed the group there was a great laugh, 
 and she heard Sue s voice above the rest. 
 
 "Truly, Papa, I thought you d finished! 
 You know, whenever I interrupted, Papa 
 used to make me sit absolutely still for a quar 
 ter of an hour afterward it s not so long ago 
 he stopped, either !" 
 
 Her father laughed, and patted her shoul 
 der, and Susan went on out of hearing. It was 
 only a flash ; but she saw the gracious, well- 
 ordered household, the handsome, dignified 
 people, the atmosphere of generations of good 
 breeding and scholarship, as clearly as if she 
 had visited them, and her heart swelled with 
 angry regret and a sickening certainty that all 
 the cleverness in the world could not make 
 up for the youth she had been cheated out 
 of. She thought of the bickering, squabbling 
 family table in Troy and tried to imagine her 
 father teaching Doris and Veronica not to in 
 terrupt: her cheeks burned. 
 
 In class Sue was often near her; she knew 
 that she was recognized chiefly by the fad that 
 C 161 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 she was Susan Jackson, too. On the first day, 
 when the instructor had called " Miss Jackson " 
 and they had both answered, "Miss Susan 
 Jackson," when they still replied together, and 
 finally "Miss Susan Revere Jackson, "when the 
 matter was* cleared up, Sue had looked at her 
 with interest, and after the class made some 
 little joking remark. If the other had answered 
 in the same spirit, nobody knows whether this 
 story need have been written. But Susan had 
 heard Cornelia Burt ask: "Is she related at 
 all, Sue ?" and heard Sue s answer, "Oh, dear, 
 no ! From Troy, I believe." 
 
 Now Sue meant absolutely nothing but 
 what she said, but her namesake read into the 
 words a scorn that was not there either in 
 intention or facl. Her heart was sore with a 
 hot, vague jealousy: this girl, no longer there 
 than she, had stepped so easily into a place 
 prepared, apparently, for her; she knew every 
 body, went everywhere; admired by her own 
 class and made much of by the upper-class 
 girls, she was already well known in the col 
 lege. She was a part of it all Susan only 
 watched it. And. because of this and because 
 she admired her tremendously and envied her 
 with all the force of a passionate, repressed 
 nature, the poor child answered her little re- 
 
 [ 162 j 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 mark with a curtness that was almost insolent, 
 and the manner of an offended duchess. Sue 
 flushed a little, lifted her brows, threw a swift 
 glance at Cornelia, and walked away with her. 
 Susan heard them laughing in the hall, and 
 bit her lip. 
 
 She could not know that Sue had described 
 her in a letter to her father as " a queer, haughty 
 thing, but terribly clever. Nobody seems to 
 know her I imagine she s terribly bored up 
 here. I said some footless thing or other to 
 her the other day, and she turned me down, 
 as Betty says. Did you meet Dr. Twitchell? 
 He was stopping with the Winthrops. . . ." 
 
 Susan used to wonder afterwards if it would 
 all have been different had she been on the 
 campus. I know that most college people will 
 say that it would, and it is certain that cam 
 pus life was the best thing in the world for 
 Martha Williams: nobody knows with what 
 self-conscious egotism she might have been 
 spoiled if her friends and foes had not con 
 spired to laugh it out of her. But, on the other 
 hand, those who have watched the victims of 
 that reasonless, pitiless boycotting that only 
 women can accomplish so lightly so uncon 
 sciously, do you think? know the ghastly 
 loneliness of the one who, in the very centre 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of the most crowded campus house, is more 
 solitary than the veriest island castaway. 
 
 There is no doubt that Susan needed a 
 great deal of discipline. She had been for so 
 many years superior to her surroundings, so 
 long not only the cleverest but the finest- 
 grained, most aristocratic of all those she saw 
 about her, that although she had perfectly ap 
 preciated the fact that she would probably no 
 longer be in that relative position, she had not 
 estimated the difficulty of the necessary ad 
 justment, and it is only fair to those who gave 
 her her hardest lessons of calm neglect to state 
 at once that her manner was a trifle irritating. 
 
 To begin with, she had made herself un 
 pleasantly conspicuous at the time of their 
 first freshman class-meeting by rising after 
 half an hour of unventilated and tumultuous 
 altercation, and leaving the room. Now it is 
 not the custom of popular freshmen to leave 
 their first class-meeting in this manner not 
 as if one were faint or demanded at recitation, 
 but as merely intolerably bored and not a lit 
 tle contemptuous; and the scrambling, squab 
 bling class regarded her accordingly. Susan 
 Revere Jackson was bored, too unspeakably 
 bored; but she sat indefatigably in her chair 
 in the front row, applauded nominations, dis- 
 
 C 164] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 cussed the presumably parliamentary features 
 of the occasion, smiled and agreed, differed at 
 proper intervals, and left the room vice-presi 
 dent. It is hard to know just how much en 
 thusiasm Sue really felt: Susan, to whom she 
 soon became the visible expression of all the 
 triumph and ease and distilled essence of the 
 successful college girl, used to wonder, later, 
 as older than Susan have wondered, how much 
 of her college life was ingenuous and how much 
 a perfectly conscious attitude. For long before 
 she left, Susan realized that she had greatly 
 misjudged a large proportion of the girls, 
 whom the event proved more practically wise 
 than she, and that they who fill the role of 
 "fine, all round girl" with the greatest suc 
 cess are often perfectly competent to fill others, 
 widely different. 
 
 This she did not understand at first, and 
 as a result of her ignorance she included them 
 all in her general condemnation: she found 
 them immature, boisterous, inclined to be silly ; 
 or narrow-minded and dogmatic when they 
 were less flippant. She was somewhat exacting, 
 as has been said before, and the solemn, pon 
 derous attitude of the occasional girl who wal 
 lows before the abstract Higher Education, 
 and lectures the Faculty gravely on their fail- 
 
 [ 165] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ure to conduct her to its most eminent peaks 
 during the freshman year, appealed as strongly 
 to her sense of humor as if she had not herself 
 been sadly disappointed in the somewhat re 
 stricted curriculum offered her at that period. 
 This was through no fault whatever of the 
 college, but because the girl had absolutely no 
 practical basis of expectation and knew no more 
 of the thousand implications of college life than 
 she did of normal girlhood with its loves and 
 disciplines and confidences, its tremendous lit 
 tle social experiences, its quaint emotions, and 
 indispensable hypocrisies. Her vague concep 
 tion of college life was modelled on The Prin 
 cess: she imagined graceful, gracious women, 
 enamoured of a musical, poetic, higher knowl 
 edge, deliciously rapt at the wonderful ora 
 tory of some priestess of a cult yet unknown 
 to her: a woman beautiful and passionate, 
 who should understand her vaguest dreams 
 and sympathize with her strangest sorrows as 
 no one she had yet known or seen could do. 
 She found a crowd of jostling, chattering 
 schoolgirls, unformed, unpoised; many of 
 them vulgar, many stupid, many ill-bred; 
 overflowing a damp, cold hall that smelled of 
 wet, washed floors; reciting, in a very average 
 fashion, perfectly concrete and ordinary lessons 
 [ 166.] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 from text-books only too familiar, to business 
 like, middle-aged women, rather plain than 
 otherwise, with a practical grasp of the matter 
 in hand and a marked preference for regular 
 attendance on the part of freshmen. 
 
 It was characteristic of her that what cut 
 deepest in all the disillusionment was not the 
 loss of the hope, but the shamed perception 
 of the folly of it, the realization of the depth 
 of practical ignorance it implied, the perfectly 
 conscious pathos of a life so empty of real ex 
 perience of the world as to make such na ive 
 visions possible. She did the required work 
 and kept her thoughts about it to herself, but 
 the effect of what she secretly felt to have been 
 a provincial and ridiculous mistake showed it 
 self in her manner ; and the occasional hauteur 
 of her namesake, who had inherited a very ef 
 fective stare of her own, was diffidence itself 
 compared with the reserved disdain that cov 
 ered her own smarting sensitiveness. 
 
 Girls who had tumbled about with their 
 kind from babyhood, who had found at home, 
 at church, at school a varied if simple social 
 training, resented her formality and could not 
 see that pure shyness of them, pure wonder 
 at their rough-and-ready ease of manner, their 
 amazing power of adjustment, their quick grasp 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of the situation and each other, lay at the root 
 of her jealous dignity. 
 
 So she called them " Miss," and they thought 
 her affected ; she waited for invitations that 
 she should have taken for granted, and they 
 thought her haughty ; she made no advance 
 in a place where only the very favored are 
 sought out and most must earn even the hum 
 blest recognition with honest toil and assidu 
 ous advertisement, and they quietly let her 
 alone. She was not on the campus, and as the 
 girls in the small boarding-house with her were 
 industrious and ordinary to the last degree and 
 became very early impressed with her realiza 
 tion of this fad, she saw little of them, and her 
 one opportunity of getting the campus gossip, 
 which is the college gossip, grew smaller and 
 smaller. She took solitary walks, thereby con 
 firming the impression that she preferred to be 
 alone for who need be alone among a thou 
 sand girls unless she wishes it ? 
 
 On such a walk, late in the fall, she stood 
 for some time on one of the hills that rise 
 above the town proper, looking for the hun 
 dredth time at the mountains, outlined that 
 afternoon against the dying light of a brassy, 
 green sky. The trees were bare and black about 
 her; the lights in the comfortable houses were 
 [ 168 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 flushing up the windows with a happy evening 
 red ; belated children were hurrying home; and 
 now and then groups of girls, fresh-cheeked 
 from their quick walk, swung by, in haste for 
 supper and their evening engagements. Over 
 her heart, hungry and misunderstood, there 
 poured a sudden flood of passionate longing 
 for one hour of unconscious happy comrade 
 ship with homes and girls like these ; one 
 hour of some one else s anybody else s 
 life ; one taste of dependence on another than 
 herself. It fell into rhythm and fascinating 
 phrases while she gave herself up to the 
 mood, and she made a poem of it that night. 
 In two days she was famous, for High Au 
 thority publicly placed the poem above any 
 thing yet done in the college ; it was seized 
 by the Monthly, and copied widely in the 
 various college publications ; to the editorial 
 board and the Faculty who did not have other 
 reason for knowing her, she became "the girl 
 who wrote At Autumn Dusk." It was long be 
 fore she equalled it, though almost everything 
 she did was far above a college standard; and 
 one or two people will always think it her best 
 poem, I have no doubt, in spite of more recent 
 and perhaps more striking work. 
 
 For this poem was only the beginning, it may 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 as well be admitted now, of Susan s career as a 
 genius. This degree is frequently conferred, no 
 doubt, when unmerited ; but the article is so 
 susceptible of imitation, the recipe for produc 
 ing the traditional effect so comparatively sim 
 ple, that it is to be wondered at, on the whole, 
 that the aspirants for the title should be, among 
 so many clever young women, so relatively few. 
 To a frank and recently awakened interest in 
 Shelley, Keats, Rossetti, and Co., it is only 
 necessary to add a vacant abstraction, a for- 
 getfulness of conventional meal hours sup 
 per, for choice a somewhat occult system of 
 reply to ordinary remarks, and the courage of 
 one s convictions in the matter of bursting out 
 with the irrelevant results of previous and pro 
 longed meditation irrespective of the conver 
 sation of the moment. Any one who will com 
 bine with these infallible signs of the fire from 
 heaven as much carelessness in the matter of 
 dress as her previous bringing up will allow 
 though this is naturally a variable quantity 
 and a certain unmistakable looseness of coiffure 
 was there ever a genius with taut hair? 
 heaven avert it ! may be reasonably certain 
 of recognition. It is understood, of course, that 
 with the qualifications above mentioned a taste 
 for verse and an ear for rhythm, in conjunction 
 
 C 170] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 with the frank appreciation of the poetical firm 
 also above mentioned, have produced their in 
 evitable result. 
 
 The character of the output naturally has 
 something to do with the extent of the repu 
 tation, and although Susan, the most promis 
 ing candidate for the degree then in the field, 
 had alarmingly few of the most obvious signs 
 of her rank, this was indulgently passed over, 
 and she was allowed her laurels. 
 
 But it was Sue Jackson on whom all the 
 first congratulations were heaped : roses and 
 violets, that blossom at the slightest excuse in 
 Northampton, covered the hall table in the 
 Hubbard House, where she spent her first two 
 years ; affectionate and mock-reverential notes 
 crowded the bulletin board for her; a spread 
 was actually got up and the guests invited be 
 fore the mistake was known. To do her justice 
 she would have promptly despatched the notes 
 and flowers to her defrauded namesake, but the 
 donors, whom she consulted, would have none 
 of it. 
 
 "Why, Sue ! Why, the idea ! Didn t you 
 write it? Oh, girls, what a joke ! How per 
 fectly funny ! Send em to her? Not at all. 
 Why on earth should Neal and I send that 
 girl flowers ? For that matter, she cut us dead 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 day before yesterday, on Round Hill, did n t 
 she, Pat ? And she s in our Greek, too. We 11 
 have the stuff to eat, anyhow. You re a nice 
 old thing, Sue, if you can t write c this extra 
 ordinary poem !" 
 
 Susan, who heard next to nothing of col 
 lege news, heard about this. She heard how 
 Sue had gayly responded to toasts: "The 
 Poem I did not write," "My Feelings on 
 failing to compose my Masterpiece" this 
 was Neal Hurt s, and she was very clever over 
 it and others. The only thing she did not 
 hear about was Sue s half-serious response to 
 "My gifted God-child," suggested by an up 
 per-class friend. She made a little graceful fun 
 and then added quite earnestly, "And really, 
 girls, I do think she ought to be here ! After 
 all, the Class, you know Let s take down 
 the flowers and all the fudge come on ! She 
 can t do more than squelch us !" 
 
 The very girls who had scoffed at the idea 
 before were naturally the ones to take it up im 
 mediately, and they were hastily gathering the 
 things together, when the bell rang. They 
 could not hope to get there and back before 
 ten, and most of them were already deep in 
 the matron s black list for reported lights; so 
 they gave it up, and put the flowers in the 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 tub, where a sudden frost over night struck 
 them and they perished miserably. 
 
 To Susan it was the bitterest thing of all; it 
 took the sweetness from her success; it dulled 
 the piquancy of her sudden position. She could 
 not possibly know how little it meant to Sue; 
 that it was only one of many spreads, and by 
 no means the triumphal feast she imagined; 
 that after the first they forgot why they had 
 planned it, almost. To her it was her chance 
 at life, her long-delayed birthright, and Sue 
 had taken it, too, along with everything else. 
 "She might have left me that!" it was her 
 thought for more than one unhappy night. 
 
 Before she went home in June she had 
 written a Chaucer paper that became vaguely 
 confounded in the matter of literary rank with 
 the works of its famous subject, in her class 
 mates simple minds, so great was the com 
 mendation of Another High Authority in 
 regard to its matter and style. It came out 
 in the May Monthly, in which were some 
 pretty little verses of Sue s. They were para 
 phrased from the French Sue had taken 
 any amount of French before she came up 
 and Susan spent her time at chapel in look 
 ing harder than ever at her namesake as she 
 laughed and chattered and took her part in 
 
 [ 173 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 the somewhat crudely conceived jokes that 
 seem to amuse girls so perennially. Less flex 
 ible, as she afterwards considered, less hypo 
 critical, as she irritably felt then, she marvelled 
 at the mental make-up of a girl capable of ap 
 preciating the force and pathos of De Musset s 
 best work and expressing it so accurately, and 
 able at the same time to find content in such 
 tiresome, half-grown nonsense. 
 
 When the Monthly came out, she was amazed 
 to receive a dozen copies with a hasty note: 
 
 DEAR Miss Jackson : Here are the copies you 
 wanted never mind the money. There 
 are always a lot left over since we enlarged the 
 edition. If you want more^ after we J ve sent out 
 the Alumna list^ we Y/ give them to you. 
 
 H. STUART. 
 
 It was only one of the many notes intended 
 for Sue that had been coming to her since the 
 beginning. But none of the invitations to din 
 ner, to Alpha and Phi Kappa, to walk, to ride, 
 to wheel, to eat a box from home, had the 
 effect of this one. For Sue came after her 
 Monthlies and in a ten minutes conversation 
 wrought more ruin than she would have be 
 lieved possible. 
 
 " Did you get all mine and your own, too ? " 
 
 [ 174] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 she asked laughingly. "I should send away 
 a hundred, more or less, if / did Absolutely 
 satisfactory Chaucer papers! I should be 
 that proud. . . . 
 
 "You see, Papa has to have the Monthly , 
 if there s anything of mine in it, tout de suite 
 directly now. He was wild with rage at 
 me because he learned about that little fool 
 story I had in, once before, from Cousin Con, 
 4 long afterwards/ he said it was only a 
 week! And then, other people, you know. . . . 
 
 "Did you get any of these off, before I 
 came? Because it s all right if you did I 
 don t need a dozen. Is n t it funny I don t 
 get any of your things? You must be some 
 what cloyed with my notes and stuff I should 
 think you d be bored to death. It s very wear 
 ing on me, Miss Jackson, explaining all the 
 time, c No, I m not the one! I assure you I 
 didn t write it. You ve no idea. . . . 
 
 "My cousin is on the Harvard Monthly 
 board, you know he telegraphed congratu 
 lations to me. He was that set up over it! 
 It was really very funny. . . . 
 
 "I m afraid I m keeping you were you 
 going out? Shall I tell Helen Stuart to send 
 yours down? She may think we Ve both got 
 all we want. Do you know what Alpha s go- 
 
 [ 175 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 ing to be to-night? Somebody said it was go 
 ing to be Dr. Winthrop he s my uncle, 
 you know, and I thought if it was I d go 
 down to the station. . . ." 
 
 She had not the slightest idea that her 
 thoughtless and, to tell the truth, somewhat 
 embarrassed chatter was one succession of 
 little galling pinpricks to the other. Her fa 
 ther, who expected his daughter s little tri 
 umphs to be his own, as a matter of course; 
 her cousin at Harvard; her uncle who lectured 
 to the Alpha; her notes and flowers she 
 must know that there was the best of reasons 
 for her not getting her namesake s ! her light 
 implication that everybody went to Alpha; 
 her very expression : " No, I m not the one ! " 
 seemed to the girl s angry sensitiveness a 
 studied insult. Not the one ! As if there were 
 any one else ! She did not know how unbear 
 ably formal and curt she seemed to the other, 
 nor how strongly she gave the impression of 
 wanting to be let alone. 
 
 Sue went away to mail her Monthlies, and 
 Susan locked her door and considered at 
 length and in detail the humor of her visit 
 or s light remarks as applied to herself. She 
 fancied At Autumn Dusk zn&AStudy of Chaucer 
 demanded by an enraged father, and smiled 
 
 [ 176] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 a very unpleasant and ungirlish smile. More 
 over, it is possible that she did her father an 
 injustice here. While it is improbable that he 
 would have persisted in lending them about 
 among his friends, to his wife s open amuse 
 ment, as did Mr. Jackson of Boston, and not 
 withstanding the fad: that he would doubtless 
 have failed to appreciate them fully, he might 
 have liked to see them. Later, much later, Susan 
 was to find a number of her poems and stories 
 clipped with care from the magazines and pasted 
 into an old scrapbook, with the glowing notices 
 of her first really well-known work; the book 
 hidden under a pile of old newspapers in her 
 father s closet. She cried over them for days 
 he was dead then and published Blind 
 Hearts shortly afterward. None of her class 
 mates, most of whom gave or received that 
 exquisite sonnet-cycle for Christmas that year, 
 could have known that the roots of it struck 
 back to her freshman year at college. 
 
 After a stupid, hot vacation, in which she 
 lost touch more than ever with her people, 
 from whom she was to draw slowly apart, it 
 seemed, forever, she came back with a little, 
 unowned hope for other things: a vague idea 
 that she could start fresh. She told some 
 body, afterwards, that just as she got to un- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 derstand girls a little she lost all connection 
 with them; she did not lose connection with 
 them just then, so it must be that she did not 
 then understand them. 
 
 Indeed, what was, perhaps, her greatest 
 mistake was made at this time, and colored the 
 year for her. It happened in this way. The 
 Alpha had the first chance at the sophomores 
 that year, and for a wonder, the sophomores 
 were not only clever but possessed that in 
 tangible quality, "the Alpha spirit," in a 
 gratifying degree. The ticket for the first draw 
 ing included the two Jacksons, Cornelia Burt, 
 Elizabeth Twitchell, and to fulfil that tradi 
 tion that inevitably elects one perfectly un- 
 explainable girl, Kate Ackley, a young person 
 of many and judiciously selected friends. At 
 the very night of the election it was suddenly 
 rumored that Sue Jackson had openly de 
 clared her intention of refusing Alpha in favor 
 of the rival society, on the ground that she 
 liked Phi Kappa better and had more friends 
 there. 
 
 Now aside from the fact that this report 
 was utterly baseless, for Sue would have pre 
 ferred the Alpha, if only to go in among the 
 first five of all, it was aside from the point. 
 As some irritated seniors afterwards explained 
 
 C 178 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 with much temper and reiteration to the chid 
 den society. Alpha was sufficiently honor 
 able in the sight of the college to endure very 
 calmly rejection at the hands of any fresh 
 man whatsoever, whether or not they had any 
 certainty of the truth of the rumor. But the 
 girls were struck with the solemn necessity of 
 immediate and drastic action, and with a grati 
 fying thrill of excitement they struck off Sue s 
 name and put in Margaret Pattison s, the 
 sixth in order, whereat Phi Kappa greatly re 
 joiced and promptly elected Sue the next 
 week. 
 
 Now it is very sad that the only person who 
 seriously misunderstood this whole affair was 
 Susan Jackson of Troy. Sue very quickly 
 learned the whole matter; what her feelings 
 may have been is not certain. Phi Kappa 
 made a jubilee over her, and she became, as 
 is well known, a great light in that society. 
 Miss Pattison, by some mysterious free ma 
 sonry the girls who are "in everything" 
 seem to absorb all such matters through their 
 pores soon found out her luck, and was 
 frankly grateful for it. Alpha retained the 
 courage of her convictions and assumed a dis 
 tinctly here-I-stand-I-can-no-otherwise atti 
 tude. Phi Kappa chuckled privately and 
 
 [ 179] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 looked puzzled in public. But Susan had made 
 a great mistake, and what is worse, never 
 knew it. A little gossiping freshman in the 
 boarding-house she had moved into, who had 
 been injudiciously petted by the seniors and 
 imagined herself in everybody s confidence, 
 told Miss Jackson, with many vows of se 
 crecy, that there had never been such a time 
 in Alpha in the history of the college: they 
 had meant to have Sue- oh, of course! but 
 there had been a terrible mistake at the bal 
 loting and names had been confused, and 
 though etiquette forbade any expression of 
 their real feeling, they were nearly wild at their 
 clumsiness. 
 
 It is hardly to be wondered at that Susan 
 jumped to her conclusion. She had got so 
 many things intended for Sue why not this? 
 She knew that cleverness and even college 
 fame are not the only calls to a society, and 
 she had no real friends in either of the two 
 organizations. She could not believe that the 
 Alpha would purposely omit Sue: if they had 
 chosen both, it would have been different, but 
 as it was . . . 
 
 So she received their very earnest congratu 
 lations with a constraint that chilled them. 
 They reasoned that she was perfectly certain 
 
 C 1 8 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 of the election and took no pains to hide it, 
 and though they could not blame her for this, 
 they thought her more conceited than ever, 
 and regarded her accordingly. The poor child 
 was suffering from actual humility, however, 
 not conceit. She could not know that her 
 mark on both society lists was the highest 
 ever given; that Alpha would cheerfully have 
 sacrificed any two, or even three, of the others 
 for her; that much as they regretted Sue, they 
 wasted less sorrow over her now that they were 
 sure of the leading girl in Ninety-red. For that 
 was what they called her the girls that she 
 thought patronized her. They took her after- 
 successes almost as a matter of course. "Oh, 
 yes ! she was far and away the most brilliant 
 girl in the college !" they said. But she never 
 heard them. 
 
 The house she had moved into with an un 
 acknowledged hope of getting more in touch 
 with them was the last house she should have 
 chosen. It was filled from cellar to roof with 
 freshmen, and not only are they notoriously 
 clannish under such conditions, but there were 
 at least eight or ten of them from the same 
 prominent preparatory school, and among 
 them was their class president. It was not 
 possible for Susan to join herself to this little 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 circle of satellites, and they controlled the en 
 tire house in a very short time. So she took 
 to visiting the head of the house, a faded, 
 placid soul with a nominal authority and a 
 gentleness that moved even her worst fresh 
 men and a bad freshman combines the bru 
 tality of a boy with the finesse of a woman of 
 the world to a little shamed consideration 
 during their periodic fits of social reform. Sit 
 ting by her fire in the dusk, with the smell of 
 hot cooked chocolate drifting in from the hall, 
 and the din of the assembled tribes in the 
 president s room overhead, Susan passed long, 
 bored, miserable hours. Half listening to the 
 older woman s talk, half sunk in her thoughts, 
 she alternately chafed with rage at the idea of 
 her college life drifting out in solitary walks 
 and tired women s confidences, or took a sad 
 kind of comfort in one fire where she was 
 always welcome, one friend that loved to talk 
 to her. 
 
 For Mrs. Hudson grew very fond of her, 
 and something in the girl s own baffled, un 
 satisfied soul must have helped her to under 
 stand the stress and pathos of the tired little 
 woman s life. Few of the girls who afterwards 
 read Barbara: A Study in Discipline , would 
 have believed that the high-hearted, wonderful 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 heroine was based on Miss Jackson s study of 
 their freshman landlady. But most of Susan s 
 knowledge was gained from such unscheduled 
 courses. 
 
 In her junior year she let her work go, to 
 a great extent, and spent much time in the 
 town libraries, reading omnivorously. As a 
 matter of fact, her class work deteriorated not 
 a little, as much by reason of dangerously ex 
 tended cuts as anything else. But it all failed 
 to interest her, somehow: the detailed cam 
 paigns, the actual value of money, the soul 
 less translations, the necessarily primary char 
 acter of the beginnings of any study of modern 
 language. She felt with growing irritation that 
 she should have learned genders and verbs 
 earlier in life, and she surprised her expectant 
 teachers with poorer and poorer recitations. 
 Mademoiselle had no means of knowing that 
 though Miss Jackson stammered through the 
 subjunctive she was reading dozens of novels 
 and plays with a very fair ease; Fraulein could 
 not tell from her imperfect handling of the 
 modal auxiliaries that she had written a better 
 paper on Faust than many a six years student 
 of German, and already knew most of Heine 
 by heart. 
 
 This year she made a few friends, chiefly 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 in Phi Kappa, for some reason or other, which 
 irritated the Alpha girls a little. To do her 
 justice, she was utterly ignorant of this re 
 sult of her connection with Bertha Kitts and 
 Alida Fosdick, nor would it have resulted in 
 the case of an ordinary girl. But Susan was 
 more prominent than she ever realized, and 
 her whole connection with the others being 
 official and logical rather than social and actual, 
 her conduct and opinions were very sharply 
 criticised from a rather exacting standpoint. 
 Nor was this wholly unfair, for she was her 
 self an unsparing critic. More than one of the 
 Faculty smarted under her too successful epi 
 grams ; various aspirants for popularity and 
 power in the Alpha or the class learned to 
 dread her comments ; her few friends them 
 selves were never quite sure of her attitude 
 toward them. But she was not, for her part, 
 sure of them : it is hard to make friends in 
 one s junior year. And though she saw quite 
 a little of Biscuits and Dick and Neal Burt 
 always her constant admirer she never 
 for a moment lost the consciousness that she 
 was no friend of their friends, that she had no 
 place in those groups long since formed and 
 shaken into place. They were a little jealous of 
 her, too, and resented her selection of this girl 
 
 C 184] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 and that from among them, though they could 
 not but admit that her judgment was good. 
 
 Her sources of irritation were the same al 
 ways. Their very flexibility, the ease with which 
 those she had chosen out slipped from her to 
 their other friends (they laughed with her at 
 them, even, after the manner of girls did they 
 laugh with them at her?), filled her with a 
 hopeless jealousy. It was not their nice clothes 
 and their good times she grudged them, though 
 she wanted both : it was their connections, their 
 environments, their very disciplines. When 
 Biscuits with loud lamentations elecled Phi 
 losophy at the decree of her father ; when 
 Neal took up two courses of Economics in 
 order to help her mother with "some footless 
 syllabi in mother s literary club;" when Betty 
 Twitchell endured the gibes of her friends every 
 rainy day because " Papa won t let me wear a 
 short skirt ; he hates a woman in one I think 
 it s perfectly horrid of him, too ! Wait till I get 
 pneumonia ! As if I d c get a carriage to take 
 me from the Hatfield to College Hall !" Susan 
 would have given every rhyme in her head for 
 one year of their conventional, irresponsible 
 lives. 
 
 It was not money she longed for : Neal 
 Burt was poor enough, and made no secret 
 
 [ 185] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of "my cousin s boots, my dear, and my aunt s 
 silk waist, and Patsy s gloves that don t fit her, 
 that I have on this minute !" But Neal gave 
 her one of her worst quarter-hours, at the time 
 her mother came up. She was a pretty little 
 woman with Neal s eyes ; her simple clothes 
 had, like Neal s, a distinct air of taste and se- 
 leftion about them ; her interest in everything 
 was so pleasant, her manner so cordial and 
 charming, that she made an easy conquest of 
 the girls and Neal s friends in the Faculty 
 that came to meet her and drink tea in the 
 quiet house where Neal lived almost alone, 
 much petted by her landlady, an old family 
 friend. Mrs. Burt was interested in Economics 
 that year "the dear thing has a new fad 
 every time I go home!" and a prominent 
 professor of Economics from one of the uni 
 versities happening to be in town just then, 
 one of Neal s friends among the Powers in 
 vited mother and daughter to meet him. Mrs. 
 Burt was equally charmed and charming ; the 
 distinguished professor begged to be allowed 
 to send her a copy of his book, in which she 
 had been much interested, "and she went home 
 proud as Punch ! " in the words of her daughter. 
 Every word the kindly little woman had 
 with Susan and she had a great many, for 
 [ 186] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 Neal had interested her mother in her friend 
 brought closer home to her what had steadily 
 grown to be the consuming trouble of her life. 
 She tried to imagine her mother drinking tea 
 with a roomful of strangers ; finding the right 
 word for every one, talking with this girl about 
 her friends, with that about the last book, with 
 the other about college life in general. She 
 fancied her meeting the distinguished profes 
 sor and discussing his book so brightly and 
 saw the closet-shelves where Marie Corelli and 
 the Duchess jostled Edna Lyall : Mrs. Jack 
 son said she liked some real heavy reading 
 now and then, and Edna Lyall had a good 
 many problems in her books. She had a sick 
 ening consciousness that her mother would in 
 evitably defer to the girls, particularly to the 
 confident, well-dressed ones ; and every time 
 that Neal patted Mrs. Hurt s shoulder or 
 kissed the tip of her ear, she felt her heart 
 contract with a spasm of that terrible gnawing 
 envy that is surely reserved, with their equally 
 terrible capacity for loving, for a certain small 
 proportion of women, and women only. It is 
 a very sad thing for a girl to be ashamed of 
 her mother. 
 
 In her junior year occurred one of her great 
 est triumphs. The senior class had petitioned 
 
 [ 187] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 vainly for the privilege of giving Twelfth 
 Night as their Commencement play: the re 
 fusal, based on the obstacle presented by the 
 part of Sir Toby, and couched in the undy 
 ing phrases of the Greatest Authority "he 
 should be neither drunk, nor half drunk, nor 
 bibulous, nor rioting " impressed very deeply 
 those more susceptible to the humorous. With 
 a commendable intelligence the dramatics com 
 mittee decided that under the limitations above 
 quoted the play would lack in verisimilitude, 
 and cast about for another, but that was not 
 the end of it; for Susan, in whose hands the 
 Alpha farewell-meeting had been unreservedly 
 placed, wrote, staged, and directed the per 
 formance of an elaborate parody entitled First 
 Night, from which "the objectionable element 
 in the unfortunate William s comedy," to quote 
 the preface, was successfully and unsparingly 
 expurgated. 
 
 Not only were the most obvious situations 
 cleverly treated; not only did Sir Toby, spare 
 and ascetic, in a neat flannel wrapper, call deco 
 rously for "a stoup of thin gruel, Maria!" 
 not only did he and his self-contained friends 
 walk through a kind of posture dance with 
 killing solemnity, chanting the while a staid 
 canon in which the possibilities of "Why, 
 [ 88 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 should I drink on one day ? " were interpreted 
 with a novel and gratifying morality; not only 
 did Malvolio utterly eschew an article of ap 
 parel too likely to bring the blush of shame 
 to the cheek of the Young Person, but pains 
 takingly assume, in the eyes of the delighted 
 audience, heavy woollen stockings, a constant 
 and effectual reminder of his hidden tradi 
 tional garb : but a parody within a parody ran 
 cunningly through the piece. The trials of the 
 committee, the squabbles of the principal aft 
 ers, open hits at the Faculty, sly comments 
 on the senior class, which had been active in 
 reforms and not wholly popular innovations 
 all these were interwoven with the farce; 
 and this not in the clumsy harmless fashion 
 of most college grinds, but pointed by a keen 
 wit, a merciless satire, an easy, brilliant style 
 already well on to its now recognized maturity. 
 Most of the principal actors in the play fi 
 nally selected by the seniors, with more than 
 half of the committee, were that year, as it hap 
 pened, from Alpha, and their delight knew no 
 bounds. Susan did not act herself, but she was 
 a born manager; and the actors that cursed 
 her unsparing drill and absolute authority dur 
 ing the long rehearsal season that made it 
 the most finished affair of its kind, blessed her 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 vociferously on the great night of its produc 
 tion. It was the most perfect success of her life 
 though the girls who thought she scorned 
 her college triumphs would have laughed had 
 she told them so, later. Every point was eagerly 
 caught and wildly applauded; the stage setting, 
 the funny, clever costumes, the irresistible cari 
 catures, the wit and humor of the thing, all 
 acted with a verve and precision unusual in 
 college dramatics, where criticism is too often 
 forced to take the will for the deed, all called 
 for a tremendous and well-earned apprecia 
 tion. The author was frantically summoned 
 again and again; the seniors exhausted a con 
 gratulatory vocabulary on her. Her classmates 
 shook her hand many times apiece. 
 
 Nor did the triumph end with the night, 
 for the juniors, unable to contain their pride, 
 gave surreptitious bits of the play to chosen 
 seniors in Phi Kappa, and it was even ru 
 mored that the other society was going to 
 request a revival of the combination enter 
 tainment, now out of vogue, with a view to 
 having it repeated. This was suppressed by 
 the Powers, but it got about that one of the 
 few type-written copies of the piece had fallen 
 into the hands of an Influential Person prob 
 ably through Neal Burt, who admired it in 
 
 [ 190 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 proportion to her own far from ordinary abil 
 ity and that the Person had assembled a se- 
 lecl: gathering of her Peers for the sole purpose 
 of reading it, with unmistakably appreciative 
 comments, to them. Some members of the 
 Faculty, old Alpha girls themselves, and pres 
 ent on the occasion of its production, expressed 
 their admiration in unstinted terms, and alto 
 gether the Alpha gained a tremendous prestige. 
 This and her appointment as editor-in-chief 
 of the Monthly for her senior year marked 
 the height of Susan s prosperity. She used to 
 think, afterwards, that the play was the only 
 pure pleasure she had ever had: it was cer 
 tainly the only one that her namesake had left 
 to her unspoiled. Fate ordered it that she 
 should take off the bulletin-board with her 
 notice of editorial appointment a note hastily 
 addressed to S. Jackson, 9-. She opened it 
 mechanically. 
 
 DEAR Old Sue : It s a miserable shame ! You 
 ought to have had it! But it seems that it 
 makes no difference what we want, nor who would 
 work in best with the girls. Genius is nt every 
 thing, always but you know what I wanted! 
 
 Tour disappointed 
 
 H. S. K. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 The note was not sealed, and she folded it 
 and put it back quietly. A moment later she 
 received her congratulations, but to every 
 one s "Of course you re not surprised. Miss 
 Jackson!" she smiled strangely. Sue used the 
 phrase, fresh from her own congratulations 
 as literary editor, and the concentrated bit 
 terness of three years flashed out in the other s 
 curt answer. 
 
 "Of course you re not surprised " 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 Sue s startled flush was all the proof she 
 needed, and crushing in her hand the note that 
 had meant the highest college honor to more 
 than one of the girls who had got its like, she 
 went home to bear alone the sharpest disap 
 pointment she had yet known. 
 
 There was no one to tell her that the senior 
 editor whose initials signed the note for Sue 
 had been one of only two in Sue s favor; that 
 the board, so far from acting unwillingly un 
 der the direction of the Rhetoric department, 
 as she inferred from the note, had been prac 
 tically unanimous for her, particularly as the 
 two opposed held relatively unimportant po 
 sitions and were far from popular. She did 
 not know that the note itself was a gross 
 breach of etiquette, anyway, and that both 
 [ 19* ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 officially and socially its writer had risked the 
 gravest censure; so much so that Sue, far 
 from being pleased, was heartily ashamed of 
 it and never told a soul about it till long after 
 wards. The person who could have explained 
 most effectively to her how perfectly her elec 
 tion met the favor of everybody, herself in 
 cluded for Sue would have been as surprised 
 to find herself placed above her gifted name 
 sake as to have found herself omitted entirely 
 from the board was too chagrined at the 
 abrupt answer to her congratulations to dream 
 of mentioning the matter further. 
 
 So Susan got out her first two numbers of 
 the Monthly with none of the delighted im 
 portance of most editors. It was all spoiled 
 for her. She knew that she deserved it: it 
 was impossible for her not to realize that, so 
 far as originality and power went, nobody in 
 the class, or the college, for that matter, could 
 touch her work. It was not the position that 
 meant so much to her: she was perfectly com 
 petent to fill it easily and acceptably, and she 
 knew it. But she wanted them to think so, 
 too, and be glad to give it to her and she 
 did not believe they were. 
 
 Shortly after her success of First Night, 
 she got one of her rare letters from home. She 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 had little correspondence with them, and had 
 grown to regard their letters with dread, since 
 each one had brought unpleasant news, from 
 Doris , to announce her engagement to one of 
 "the boys," a flashy, half-disreputable fellow, 
 to her mother s, enclosing a cheque, with 
 gloomy forebodings that it might be the last, 
 and a disheartening chronicle of family affairs 
 growing daily more sordid. The sight of her 
 charaderless, uncultivated handwriting always 
 threw the girl into a gloomy, irritable mood, 
 and as she opened this one the remorse that 
 had begun to prick her more sharply of late 
 at her inability to help them, if not in the way 
 she would like, at least in the most obviously 
 necessary manner, crept over her and sad 
 dened her even before she reached the crisis 
 of the letter. It was very simple: she must 
 come home. There was no more money; there 
 had been none for some time, but her father 
 was bent on her staying, and had put it off 
 longer than he should have done. It had been 
 a foolish expense, and she might have had a 
 position long ago. There was car fare and a very 
 little over, and it was hoped that she had no 
 bills. They were going to move into an apart 
 ment over the store, and Veronica was going 
 to keep her father s books. And that was all. 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 Perhaps her mother felt sorrier than she 
 knew how to say; perhaps it was only the con 
 straint of years and lack ofsavoirfaire that made 
 the letter so cold and curt; but there it was, 
 with nothing to break the shock : no regret for 
 her, to lighten her sense of selfishness; no ap 
 peal to her, even, to help them. They could get 
 along very well; to give up the house would 
 be a great financial relief, and she would be 
 more a hindrance than otherwise. She knew 
 that: she knew that her presence would be a 
 constant irritation, her criticism, impossible 
 to conceal, a constant source of strife and es 
 trangement. It was only that they had no more 
 money for her that was all. 
 
 She walked out to the long bridge, and 
 sat down on a stone near the end of it. For 
 perhaps the first time a complete conscious 
 ness of how bitterly she loved the place came 
 to her. She, of whom many of the Faculty 
 afterwards wondered that she stayed as long 
 as she did, credited by all her acquaintances 
 with infinite boredom at its restrictions and 
 wearisome routine, dreaded to leave it as 
 she herself could hardly endure to think. 
 For three years she had taken a place, un 
 challenged, among people of a class she had 
 never known before. Unknown, unhelped, 
 
 [ 195 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 she had by sheer personality and natural 
 power made herself not only respected but 
 respected to an unusual degree. She had 
 patronized girls who would not have ac 
 knowledged her existence three years be 
 fore; whether they loved her or not, her class 
 was proud of her. Her going would be no 
 ticed oh, yes indeed ! 
 
 She rose to go home, and a little beyond 
 the bridge turned to look back : something 
 told her that she should not know that view 
 soon again. Meadow and river and softly cir 
 cling hills with the beautiful afternoon haze 
 thick on them, she stamped it on her heart 
 and with it a sudden nearing figure. Down 
 the long arch, slim and shapely against the 
 blue background of the tunnel, Sue flew 
 toward her on her wheel. Her hands swung 
 by her sides she had ridden from childhood 
 her feet were off the pedals, her perfectly 
 fitting heavy skirt hung out in graceful fluted 
 folds. Beneath her soft, trim hat her cheeks 
 glowed rose-color, her eyes shone like stars. 
 The sun caught her smooth, thick hair and 
 framed her face in a glittering halo. She sat 
 straight as a dart, her lips parted with the 
 sheer physical delight of the swooping, effort 
 less sensation she was tremendously hand- 
 
 [ 196 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 some. To the other girl she was victory incar 
 nate; the essence of ease and triumph and per 
 fect bien-etre ; her hopeless envy and despair. 
 As she flew by she spread out her hands in 
 a quick, significant gesture, half graceful and 
 high-bred half pert and of the music-hall: 
 it typified her and her friends perfectly to Su 
 san, who never forgot her as she saw her then, 
 and whose Mademoiselle Diana, much admired 
 by Sue and her family, is nobody more nor 
 less than Sue herself. 
 
 She found a letter waiting for her at home, 
 a letter that the maid explained had just been 
 brought from the house where the other Miss 
 Jackson lived it had been kept there by 
 mistake and neglected for two or three days. 
 It was hoped it was not important. She opened 
 it in the hall, read it hastily through, read it 
 again, looked at the date, and asked for a 
 time-table. The maid, suspecting bad news, 
 was officious in assistance and eagerly agreed 
 to pack her things and get a man to box the 
 books when she had gone, which would be in 
 the morning, she said, with a strange, absent- 
 minded air. She gave the girl her last fifty 
 cents, and while Maggie folded and packed, 
 she wrote a letter home. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 " T T seems foolish for me to come to Troy ; I 
 J- should only have to go right back to Boston 
 again" she said in it. "They want me to begin to 
 colleff the stories right away and do some reading 
 for them besides so I must be there. There is a 
 new magazine they have just bought, too, and I am 
 to do some work on that. It is a very good posi 
 tion and will lead to a better, they say, and I am 
 very fortunate to get it. They say very nice things 
 about my work in the "Monthly" the college 
 paper that I was elected editor of they seem to 
 have read them all. I must go on immediately. 
 Their letter was delayed, and I shall try to get 
 there to-morrow. I will let you know when I find 
 a place to stay. I hope to be able to help you soon. 
 "Hastily, -SUSAN." 
 
 She wrote a note to the Registrar and one 
 to Neal Burt, whom, in her letter of resigna 
 tion, she recommended strongly to the board 
 as her successor, overlooking the constitution, 
 which provides for the literary editor s filling 
 the first place when it falls vacant, and refus 
 ing supper, she walked out over the campus. 
 The dining-rooms were opened to the soft air; 
 the cheerful clatter of plates came out from 
 every window; she could see the maids hurry 
 ing about. She sat for an hour in one of the 
 
 [ 198 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 hammocks, and then walked about the larger 
 buildings. The last dance of the season was 
 on in the Gym; the violins rose above the 
 tramping and the confused uproar inside. 
 White-armed girls passed the windows and 
 leaned out into the cool. 
 
 "How is it? " one called up from below. 
 
 "Mortal slow, dearie, but don t say I told 
 you!" the other answered in a stage whisper 
 from above, and the music dashed into a 
 two-step. 
 
 "Be^A/El Cap-i-tan!" 
 
 It haunted Susan s dreams for nights, that 
 tune it seemed impossible that the dancers 
 hearts should not ache as hers did. She lin 
 gered, fascinated, while the violins sang it 
 over and over, and over again at the storm of 
 clapping that followed it. 
 
 "BeM^/El Cap-i-tan!" 
 
 It was a hideous, cruel tune, light and utterly 
 careless, and yet with that little sadness in it 
 that some sensitive ears find always in good 
 dance music is it because dancing must so 
 obviously end so soon ? and Susan has 
 loathed it all her life. Indeed, at a recent lunch 
 eon given in her honor by the alumnae of 
 New York, she requested that the orchestra 
 stop playing it after the first few bars these 
 
 [ 199 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 people of genius are so delightfully eccentric! 
 She left college as quietly as she had en 
 tered it ; there is no doubt that they would 
 have made her Ivy Orator, had she stayed. 
 The mail that took the notice of her lodging- 
 house to her family crossed one of Sue s to 
 her Uncle Bradford, of the well-known Bos 
 ton publishing firm. Among other things she 
 said: 
 
 I M glad you like her so well / knew you 
 would. She s really much better for the place 
 than Con. And Pm sure it was better to write to 
 her directly she does n t like any of us very well, 
 except Neal and Biscuits, and I have an idea 
 she really almost dislikes me. I knew that when 
 you saw that essay on the French and English as 
 short-story writers, you d want to give her the 
 chance. And she was the very girl to leave col 
 lege, too // is n t everybody would be so glad 
 to go just before senior year. Not but what I would, 
 fast enough, if I had her future before me Mon 
 dieu ! she s the only girl I ever thought I y d 
 rather be you should see the poem she left with 
 Neal for the " Monthly " / She turns them off over 
 night, apparently. It y s a loss to the class, of course, 
 but everybody is very glad for her she always 
 seemed so out of place up here, somehow. If one 
 [ 200 ] 
 
A FAMILY AFFAIR 
 
 does n t care for the little footless stunts, it must 
 be a terrible bore, I should think. And when she s 
 famous we can fat each other on the back and say 
 we done it -partly. With a great deal of love 
 for you and Aunt Julia, 
 
 SUE. 
 
THE SEVENTH STORY 
 
 A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
VII 
 A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 " "W" WISH you would ask her up, Nan/ 
 I said Mrs. Harte, confidentially. "I want 
 I her to see the place. So far as I can judge, 
 -*" it s the best thing for her. There isn t 
 any doubt that she s a very bright girl, but she s 
 getting thoroughly spoiled here. You see, she 
 does just as she pleases she s the only young 
 person in the family and I know we spoil 
 her terribly. Her mind is made up to come 
 out in the winter, here in Chicago, and they 11 
 refuse her nothing her father and mother." 
 "They don t seem what you d call oppress 
 ively strict with her," remarked Anne, twirl 
 ing her racquet. 
 
 "Now what I want is for her to get some 
 where where she is n t the only clever girl; to 
 see that other girls can read and talk and play 
 the guitar and wear nice clothes and order silly 
 young men about. And judging from those of 
 you that I Ve seen, you can !" 
 
 "We do our little best," said Anne, mod 
 estly. 
 
 "And I wanted her to see you all: that s 
 one reason why I planned the house-party. I 
 was so disappointed when she came so late. 
 You see, her cousin Georgiana was was un- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 fortunate. She went to Yale and Columbia and 
 goodness knows where, and she had short hair 
 and was such a frump and she wore such hide 
 ous spectacles and talked about Socialism or 
 was it Sociology ? all the time. I remember 
 she was always trying to persuade us to join 
 clubs and protest against something or other 
 it was very wearisome. So Madge got to de 
 spise the whole thing: she has always thrown 
 Georgiana at me when I mentioned college. 
 It was perfectly useless to try to make her un 
 derstand that every girl need n t be like Geor 
 giana. She s very obstinate. But she s a nice 
 girl, too, and if she can only get out of her 
 present atmosphere for four years " 
 
 "Pity she couldn t have seen Ursula, if 
 she s afraid we re all frumps," Anne sug 
 gested. 
 
 "Yes, is n t it ? But I think she stayed pur 
 posely. Now, you she says you re an ex 
 ception ; that there can t be many like you. 
 You see, Madge has a standard of her own ; she 
 says she d be ashamed to go through college 
 the way some of the boys do, with just a good 
 time and as low marks as they can safely get. 
 She says she d want to be a student if she pre 
 tended to, and yet she must have a good time, 
 and" 
 
 [ 206 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 "And she thinks it can t be done? Dear me, 
 what an error ! Well, if she 11 come up I 11 
 be very glad to have her, I m sure. I can trot 
 out our little pastimes and er omit the more 
 sociological side," said Anne, with a grin. 
 
 Mrs. Harte leaned forward eagerly. "Yes, 
 that s just what I mean ! She got enough of 
 that from Georgiana. I want her to watch 
 you " 
 
 "Sport about on the lawn? Gambol through 
 the village ? c Make the picturesque little lake 
 echo with sweet girlish gayety, as the news 
 paper gentlemen say?" 
 
 "Yes, that s it," and Mrs. Harte patted 
 Anne s broad shoulder. "That s what I mean, 
 you silly child. Just let her see that there are 
 a few diversions!" 
 
 Miss Marjory Cunningham, who was just , 
 then coming up from the lake, was a tall, 
 well-grown young woman of seventeen, with 
 a handsome, assured face and unexceptionable 
 garments. She looked fully twenty, and was 
 young enough to find satisfaction in this cir 
 cumstance. She had been brought up, in the 
 orthodox American fashion, to take a promi 
 nent part in the household, particularly in the 
 entertainment of her mother s many guests; 
 and this, added to the fact that she happened 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 to be much cleverer than the young women 
 with whom her social lot had hitherto been 
 cast, inclined her to regard any one under 
 thirty with a patronage somewhat offensive, 
 if mild. 
 
 She dropped down beside Anne as her aunt 
 left the broad piazza, and smiled politely. 
 
 "Aunt Frank says you re going to-mor 
 row," she remarked, adding a little curiously, 
 "Shall you be glad to get back?" 
 
 "East, you mean? Why, yes. You see I m 
 a week late. They ve started up the show 
 without me, so to speak, and naturally it s 
 rather hard for them to worry along. They 
 may have given me up and laid my new little 
 single room at Lucilla Bradford s feet, which 
 would more than trouble me." 
 
 "Do they allow you to come back when 
 ever you want to?" 
 
 Miss Cunningham s tone was that of an in 
 dulgent aunt toward a pet nephew on his 
 Christmas holidays, and Anne s reply was 
 framed accordingly. 
 
 "Oh, easily ! They only insist on our being 
 back for the Glee Club concert. They re just 
 bound up in that, you know. So we usually 
 make a point of it. I must say," she changed 
 her tone, "I d like to hear Carol Sawyer s 
 
 [ 208 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 explanations to Miss Roberts ! Carol has a 
 fine imagination, but she s used it so much 
 of late that she 11 have to surpass herself this 
 time to make much impression on Robbie. 
 You see I have the great good fortune to pos 
 sess an accommodating relative: the Amia 
 ble Parent is far from well, and asked me if 
 I d wait a week till he could go on, and cheer 
 his last moments smooth his pillow, as it 
 were. So, since I ve never gone away early 
 once and only come back late twice before, 
 and once with an excuse, I thought I was safe 
 to stay. And I told him that, notwithstanding 
 the fact that I was languishing among dirt 
 courts and single-piece drivers and Saturday 
 hops and and your noble family, I d stick 
 it out a week longer. Said I to the Amiable 
 Parent: 
 
 " My own convenience count as nil; 
 It is my duty, and I will !" 
 
 Next morning, when Nan came down to 
 breakfast, pink under her tan and with that 
 air that she always carried of having just come 
 out of the tub, Marjory really regretted her go 
 ing. She mentioned to her aunt that she would 
 have liked to see more of her, and that if she 
 did go to New York in the spring she should 
 surely go up to Northampton. It was not 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 only because Miss Gillatt danced and golfed 
 and drove and played tennis so well that Mar 
 jory s interest was for the first time roused in 
 a girl of her own age, nor because her clothes 
 were nice and her ways amusing; what struck 
 Miss Cunningham was her guest s entire ab 
 sence of surprise at what she utterly failed to 
 recognize as an unusual amount of interest on 
 Marjory s part. 
 
 "This is Marjory how do you do, Mar 
 jory ? " she had said easily on their first meeting, 
 and she had never cared to learn that Marjory 
 intended her own " Miss Gillatt" for a lesson 
 to forward schoolgirls. And she had taken 
 Marjory s growing attentions quite as if she 
 were accustomed to have handsome young wo 
 men talk to her and row her about and give 
 her their photographs. When she had herself 
 mentioned looking Nan up in Northampton, 
 her proposition had not evoked the grateful 
 surprise that might have been expected. 
 
 "Glad to see you any time," the future 
 hostess had returned. " Better come up in the 
 spring; it s a lot prettier." And Madge had 
 decided then and there to go, though her sug 
 gestion had been more or less perfunctory. 
 
 She would never have considered it for a 
 moment had it not been perfectly obvious that 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 the college girl did not regard herself at all in 
 the light of a possible example. Georgiana s 
 lectures on the Higher Education of Women 
 and its Ultimate EffecT: on the Sex were not to 
 be thought of in connection with this athletic 
 damsel, whose quotations, though frequent, 
 indicated a closer study of Lewis Carroll and 
 W. S. Gilbert than her alma mater s official 
 catalogue would suggest. She referred very lit 
 tle to the college and then only as the scene 
 of incidents in which she and her "young 
 friends," as she invariably called them, had 
 taken amusing or amazing parts. Marjory s 
 chief impression had been that of the jolliest 
 possible crowd of girls, who seemed to derive 
 great comfort and entertainment from one an 
 other s company, and it was a half-envious 
 desire to see if they really did this to the ex 
 tent that Anne implied, that drew her to 
 Northampton one fine day in the late spring. 
 As she stood on the station platform look 
 ing in vain for a tall girl with broad shoulders 
 and a persuasive grin, she heard her name 
 called, and turned to meet the outstretched 
 hand of a very different person. This person 
 was small and slender, with a plain, distin 
 guished little face, intelligent eyes, and a low 
 and charming voice. From the very Parisian 
 
 [21! ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 arrangement that topped her shining coils of 
 hair to the tips of her tiny shoes, she was one 
 of the most thoroughly well-dressed young 
 women Marjory had ever seen. She reminded 
 one vaguely, though not disagreeably, of Mr. 
 Wenzell s piclures, and Marjory failed ut 
 terly in a dazed attempt to correlate her and 
 Georgiana. 
 
 "You are Miss Cunningham, are you not ? 
 I am Ursula Wyckoff. Nan is so sorry, but 
 Hodgkinson Davids or Davidson Hodgkins 
 I can t remember the way has come up 
 from New York to play over the course to 
 day, and of course all the golf people have to 
 be out there. She and Caroline have been there 
 all the afternoon, and I m to bring you out a 
 little later, when they serve the tea. Is n t it 
 dreadfully warm ? Nan s next to Caroline and 
 Caroline holds the championship, so they re 
 naturally interested. I don t play at all. I was 
 so sorry to miss you at the house-party: we 
 all fell in love with your aunt. Oh, no, New 
 York, but I Ve lots of Western friends: you 
 know I ve met your aunt before, in Lon 
 don. We bought some Liberty things, and we 
 were staying at the same hotel, and they sent 
 us each other s parcels, so we got acquainted 
 picking them out. There was a lovely fan; she 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 said it was for her niece. Was it you ? I dream 
 of that fan yet." 
 
 They walked slowly up the long street, 
 Ursula chatting easily, and Marjory wonder 
 ing how many of thegirls they passed belonged 
 to the college. They paused before a drug 
 gist s window, all Huyler s and violet soap, 
 and Ursula walked by a long, shining soda 
 fountain to a room in green and white, with 
 little tables and a great palm in the centre. 
 The tables were very nearly filled, and there 
 was a cheerful clatter of tall spoons and a busi 
 nesslike bustle of clerks with trays. 
 
 "This is Kingsley s," said Ursula, with a 
 comprehensive gesture. "Will you have a 
 chocolate ice ?" While absorbing the inviting 
 and pernicious mixture, Miss Cunningham 
 looked about her with interest. In one corner 
 four girls with rumpled shirt-waists and dusty 
 golf stockings squabbled over scores, and il 
 lustrated with spoons preferred methods of 
 driving and putting. Their voices rose above 
 the level prescribed for drawing-room conver 
 sation, and they called each other strange 
 names. In another corner a tall, dark girl with 
 a grave expression talked steadily in a low 
 voice to her companion, a clever-looking crea 
 ture, whose bursts of laughter grew hysterical 
 
 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 as the dignified one continued, with a perfectly 
 impersonal manner, to reduce her to positive 
 tears of mirth. To them Ursula bowed, and 
 the narrator, politely recognizing her, went on 
 with her remarks, to an accompaniment of gur 
 gling protest from her friend. Near them a 
 porcelain blonde, gowned in a wonderful pale 
 blue stuff with a great hat covered with curly 
 plumes, ate strawberry ices with a tailor-made 
 person clothed in white pique, mystic, won 
 derful. She was all stiffness and specklessness, 
 and she looked with undisguised scorn at the 
 clamoring athletes, a white leather card-case 
 in her hand. Near one window a gypsy-faced 
 child in a big pink sunbonnet imparted mighty 
 confidences to her friend, who shook two mag 
 nificent auburn braids over her shoulders with 
 every chuckle. 
 
 "And I heard a knock at the door and of 
 course I thought it was Helen or some of the 
 girls, and I called to come in and, my dear, 
 who do you think it was? It was the express 
 man! Will you sign this book? said he, and 
 he brought the book right up to the bed and 
 I leaned on my elbow and signed it! My dear, 
 was n t that perfectly " 
 
 "Oh, well, it s awfully funny here, any 
 way. That beastly old laundry tore my lovely 
 
 [2,4] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 lace nightgown to shreds and it was new, and 
 I put in an old dressing-sacque that was all 
 in rags and I was going to throw it away, and 
 they mended it carefully before they sent it 
 back!" 
 
 As they left the room and Ursula waited 
 while the clerk looked up her soda ticket, the 
 door flew open and an impish little creature, 
 with a large, deprecating, motherly girl in her 
 wake, slipped into the shop. 
 
 "Now don t make for the back room, 
 Bertie dear, for there is n t time. We Ve got 
 lots of places to do yet ! " she called, and catch 
 ing sight of Ursula she dashed up to her. 
 
 "What do you think Alberta and I are do 
 ing? We re so bored, and we re going to stop 
 at every drug store on this side and have an 
 ice-cream soda, and the same going back on 
 the other side. Is n t that interesting? I tell 
 Alberta it s bound to be sooner or later!" 
 
 "Is that a freshman?" Marjory inquired 
 competently, and Ursula s eyes twinkled as 
 she replied gravely: 
 
 "No, that s a senior. She has fits of idiocy, 
 but in her better moments she s quite a per 
 son to know. She s in the Lawrence with me. 
 Why on earth she should go and get Alberta 
 May and drag her into degradation and dys- 
 
 [ 215 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 pepsia, nobody knows, but she always does." 
 They rested for a while in Ursula s room, 
 which was "more than enormous," as Anne 
 said it was intended for a double room 
 and furnished very delightfully. There were 
 some beautiful Copley prints and a cast or two 
 and a long low shelf of books and fascinating 
 wicker chairs with puffy cushions. There was 
 the inevitable tea-table and chafing-dish para 
 phernalia and the inevitable couch with a great 
 many Yale pillows; but there were not more 
 than a dozen photographs of girls in any one 
 place and only one Gibson girl, and she was 
 very small. There was a beautiful desk all lit 
 tered with papers and little photographs of 
 Ursula s family and her horse at home, and 
 a lot of the pretty little cluttering things one 
 picks up abroad. Marjory saw no girl with 
 such consistently fascinating clothes as Ursu 
 la s during her visit, nor did she sit in any 
 room so charming as hers, the college girl be 
 ing a generation behind her brother in this re 
 gard; but first impressions are strong, and 
 Ursula s silver brushes, her beautiful etching, 
 and the two wonderful rugs that nearly covered 
 her shining floor formed the stage setting for 
 all Marjory s subsequent imaginary dramas. 
 They went out to the links by trolley, 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 through the long quiet street, past pretty 
 lawns and pleasant houses, into the real coun 
 try of fields and scattered cottages. Marjory 
 learned how "the crowd" had vacationed to 
 gether more than once; how they were going 
 up to Carol Sawyer s place in Maine next sum 
 mer for "the time of their lives"; how, after 
 their Commencement obsequies, they were go 
 ing for two weeks to Nan at Sconset and live 
 in a house all by themselves, and then four of 
 them were going abroad together with Nan s 
 father "the dearest thing in the world"; 
 how Caroline was going to study medicine in 
 Germany and Lucilla Bradford was going to 
 be married and continue to illumine Boston, 
 and Ursula and her sister were going to stay 
 indefinitely in France or Italy with various 
 relatives. 
 
 They seemed to have a very intimate knowl 
 edge of one another s affairs, Marjory decided, 
 as they got out at the links and strolled up to 
 the tiny club-house. A straggling crowd was 
 gradually melting away there: hot, dishevelled 
 girls with heavy bags, cool and fluffy girls with 
 tea-cups, men arguing in white flannels and 
 men conversing in frock coats. Important small 
 boys professors sons and their friends from 
 the town caddied for the great man and his 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 followers, patronizing the urchins who ordi 
 narily amassed wealth from this employment, 
 and a crowd of interested golfers from the 
 town trailed about the holes, admiring, criticis 
 ing, and chattering. Here and there a crimson 
 coat shone out, some of the ladies tilted gay 
 parasols, white duck dotted the grass every 
 where. It was all very jolly and interesting, and 
 when Nan came up with a white-flannelled 
 youth and a cheerful if exhausted friend whom 
 she introduced as "one of my little mates 
 Caroline Wilde," Marjory could have thought, 
 as she sipped her tea and learned the score, that 
 she was back on the links at home. 
 
 Caroline had learned much and Nan had 
 held a reverent conversation with the cham 
 pion and was basking in the recollection of it. 
 Marjory met an ardent golfer in marvellous 
 stockings, who was with difficulty restrained 
 from illustrating, by means of his empty cup 
 and the parasol his fellow-professor was guard 
 ing, the very latest method of effecting a tre 
 mendous drive from a bad spot in the course, 
 and his friend turned out to be a classmate of 
 her brother s; and so they started from Yale, 
 which is a very good conversational starting- 
 point, and their reminiscences attracted Ur 
 sula, who, with an adoring little freshman 
 [ "8] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 Ursula was never without a freshman and 
 the Church and the Law wrangling pleasantly 
 over a lost ball, was holding her court in a near 
 corner. They drifted up, and the Church and 
 the Law were so amusing and well set up that 
 Marjory quite lost her heart to them and wished 
 they would come "West," as they persisted in 
 calling Chicago, remarking confidentially that 
 nothing seemed to upset a person from Chi 
 cago so much as that! 
 
 They rode home with the Church and the 
 Law, while the assistant in that great under 
 taking, the higher education of women, raced 
 the trolley on a Columbia Chainless, to the 
 wild delight of the passengers, who cheered 
 his futile efforts and bribed the motorman to 
 an exciting rate of speed. 
 
 "Do you have lessons with him, really?" 
 Marjory demanded, as they left the rapidly 
 churning golf stockings behind for the mo 
 ment. Nan grinned. "Do you, Ursula?" she 
 repeated. Ursula sighed but said nothing, and 
 Nan explained that in the midst of his artless 
 prattle last week he had mentioned a written 
 lesson in the near future, based upon certain 
 reference reading. "It comes off to-morrow," 
 she added cheerfully, "and the young Lu- 
 cilla is hastily sprinting through the volumes 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 and gathering information. She sought the 
 seclusion that a cabin grants last night, and 
 when I howled at her through the keyhole 
 that we were going to Boyden s for the even 
 ing meal, she said that if she got through two 
 hundred pages and her notes by then she d 
 be along. Ursula does it bit by bit, and then 
 tells us to go to the ant, thou sluggard, but 
 little Lucy thinks she knows him better than 
 we do, and she said he would n t do it. I told 
 her, go to, he would; I saw it in his eye. So 
 Caroline started to fill her fountain pen she 
 calls it that from force of habit but what 
 she really does is to fill the room, and what 
 drips over " 
 
 "There s Lucilla!" said somebody, and 
 they got off the car and teased Lucilla a 
 small, tired person with a prim little face and 
 beautiful manners all the way down to Boy- 
 den s. A striking, sulky-looking girl with a 
 stylish golf suit that made her look like the 
 costumers plates of tailor-made athletic maid 
 ens, was holding a table for them, and she 
 turned out to be Carol Sawyer. She was the 
 first girl of "the crowd" Marjory did not like. 
 Her voice was loud and her manner a little 
 overbearing; she wore too many rings and her 
 attitude toward the college was very different 
 [ 220 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 from the harmless nonsense that in the case 
 of the other girls covered plenty of good work 
 and a real interest in it. She was evidently very 
 wealthy, and Marjory caught herself wonder 
 ing if that was why the others put up with her. 
 When they had half finished their supper 
 and a very good little supper it was a large 
 girl, almost too tall for a girl, in a mussy short 
 skirt and badly fitting shirt-waist sauntered 
 into the room. From their own table and most 
 of the others a chorus of welcome went up. 
 
 "Hello, Teddy !" "Don t hurry, Dody !" 
 "Come over here, Dodo !" "Theodora, dear 
 child, your side-comb is nearly out !" "Have 
 some berries, Ted?" 
 
 She included them all in a cheerful 
 "Hello!" and strolled up to Nan s table. 
 "This is little Theodora Bent," said Nan, 
 kindly. " She is very shy and unused to com 
 pany, but her heart " 
 
 "Her heart," little Theodora interrupted, 
 dragging a chair from somewhere and quietly 
 appropriating Ursula s creamed chicken, "is 
 not here. It is with our friend, Mrs. Austin, 
 who sits at a lonely table wondering where her 
 loved ones are to-night. I met her at the door. 
 Dorothea, said she and why she persists 
 in calling me Dorothea we shall know, per- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 haps, when the mists have cleared away 
 c Dorothea, there is hardly a Friday night that 
 you girls are in to supper. I m sure I can t 
 see why ! I said that it was strange, but it 
 just happened so. Then she insisted on know 
 ing why; so I suggested that perhaps you 
 found the noise in the dining-room trying " 
 
 "Dodo! you didn t!" 
 
 "Certainly I did. I should suppose you 
 might. Anybody who sits near you certainly 
 does ! And she said that some freshman or 
 other had been decorating the piazza all the 
 afternoon, lying in wait for me to tutor her, 
 and suggested that I ought to manage better. 
 And I told her I d tutored three hours and 
 a half to-day and I had a written lesson and 
 Phi Kappa Farewell to-morrow night, and I 
 thought that if she did n t object to the fresh 
 man I d leave her there till next week. So I 
 left her standing in the door " 
 
 "A thing she has never done before!" sang 
 Nan, softly, and they laughed long and mer 
 rily, as people laugh who are not very ancient, 
 and who have just had a good supper and are 
 the best of friends. 
 
 It was a little after that that the Glee Club 
 sang on the steps of Music Hall, while crowds 
 of girls streamed out and sat on the grass and 
 [ 222 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 wandered up and down or listened on dormi 
 tory steps. They sang sweet songs and funny 
 songs, and the audience sitting on the campus 
 clapped and clapped again. Their repertoire 
 amazed Miss Cunningham, who had been 
 firmly impressed with the idea that A Spanish 
 Cavalier and Aunt Dinah s Quilting Party were. 
 necessarily sung by the college girl to the ex 
 clusion of all other melodies. She was used 
 to them now, used to pigtails and puffs, shirt 
 waists and evening dresses, Western rolled r s 
 and Eastern broad a s, handsome matronly 
 young women, and slim, saucy little chits, soli 
 tary walkers, devoted pairs, and rollicking 
 bands. The light faded imperceptibly, turn 
 ing the ugly brick to a soft pink, bringing out 
 the pal mingling of colors that spread over 
 the smooth, green campus, with here and 
 there a girl vivid in crimson or violet. The 
 leader raised her hand and they started a 
 medley, with queer changes and funny little 
 turns. 
 
 Three blind mice ! 
 See how they run ! 
 
 They all ran after the farmer s wife 
 For she was the jewel of Asia, 
 Of Asia, 
 Of Asia 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 How happy they seemed, how well able to 
 amuse each other! 
 
 Then, as the faces on the steps grew indis 
 tinct and the little night noises grew plainer, 
 just as the Club turned to go in somebody 
 called, " Mandalayl" The crowd took it up 
 and "Mandalay!" sounded from all the 
 groups. Three or four girls with guitars 
 turned up from somewhere, and a mandolin 
 was produced from the Hubbard; a tall, slen 
 der girl stepped out a little from the rest and 
 turned upon the waiting audience the kind of 
 soft, rich voice that sounds rough and strained 
 indoors, but only a little thrilled and anxious 
 in the open air. 
 By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin eastward to 
 
 the sea, 
 
 There s a Burma girl a-settin an I know she thinks 
 o me ! 
 
 Some of the girls perched on balcony rail 
 ings; some leaned on each other s shoulders; 
 the strolling pairs and groups stopped, inter 
 locked, and listened as attentively as if they 
 did not already know it by heart; their white 
 dresses glimmered among the shrubbery. Ur 
 sula and Theodora Bent, a strange pair, Mar 
 jory thought, had dropped down on a bench, 
 the little graceful figure balanced on the back 
 [ 224 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 of the seat with one arm over the broad shoul 
 ders of her big, careless friend. Nan s merry 
 face took on the almost wistful look that music 
 always brought there, and Marjory wondered 
 if the silent, waiting group knew how soft their 
 eyes grew and how much alike they all looked 
 suddenly. 
 
 An the dawn comes up like thunder out er China 
 crost the Bay ! 
 
 A moment of silence, a burst of applause, 
 and the crowd was scurrying away as if a bell 
 had struck. The chatter rose again, the faces 
 changed, and to crown the transformation a 
 tall, dark girl with a handsome face the girl 
 they had seen at Kingsley s rose languidly 
 from the top step of the Washburn and sang 
 with a startling imitation of the first singer, 
 to a group of girls about her: 
 
 Oh, that Road to Mandalay ! 
 Must we hear it night and day ? 
 For the author d swear like thunder if he heard it 
 sung that way ! 
 
 Wild applause and a cry of, " Second verse, 
 Neal! second verse!" followed, and as they 
 walked past the Hatfield by a group of girls 
 audibly disapproving of the parody and its 
 singer, they caught the second verse: 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 For they sing it ev ry evening, and they sing it ev ry 
 
 morn ; 
 They will sing it at my fun ral was it sung when 
 
 I was born ? 
 Just as soon as I reach heaven, and they teach me 
 
 how to play, 
 Oh, I know the tune I learn on will be Road to 
 
 Mandalay ! 
 
 The juniors chuckled, and as Nan com 
 mended the abilities of the cynical senior, 
 Marjory remembered her face as it had been 
 a few minutes before, and wondered. 
 
 They took her to her boarding-house and 
 left her to get to bed, for she was tired. And 
 in the morning she went, by previous arrange 
 ment, to the Lawrence, whence Dody Bent took 
 her down to Boyden s to eggs and toast, and 
 coffee in a shining silvery pot, and said that in 
 consequence of the apparently unchanged in 
 tentions of Dr. Robbins she should necessa 
 rily be much engaged from ten until eleven 
 and the few scant minutes preceding those 
 hours, and that Misses Gillatt, Bradford, and 
 Wyckoff expelled to be similarly occupied. 
 Caroline Wilde, however, who apparently did 
 little but work in the laboratory and keep 
 out-of-doors, would be charmed to row her 
 about Paradise. 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 Accordingly, at a few minutes after nine, 
 Marjory stood at the foot of the main stair 
 case, swaying backward and forward in the 
 chapel rush, and picked out Caroline, saunter 
 ing down with a cheerful "Hello!" for every 
 body on the stairs and that air of leisure that 
 was the despair and admiration of the perpet 
 ually rushed; for she was one of the notori 
 ously busy people in the college always "at 
 everything," distressingly competent in sev 
 eral of the stiffest courses offered, the first aid 
 to the injured in any capacity, and the prop of 
 more committees than she had fingers. She 
 was always perfectly well and always wore a 
 shirt-waist, and she was one of the exceedingly 
 few people who are equally popular with stu 
 dents, Faculty, and ladies-in-charge. 
 
 She pulled Marjory about in the most 
 scientific manner over a somewhat restricted 
 body of water boasting a great deal of scenery 
 for its size, conversing at length on basket 
 ball, in which she had been twice defeated, 
 and not at all on golf and tennis, in which she 
 held the college championship. In the course 
 of her remarks it became apparent that Ur 
 sula and Dodo formed one third of "their 
 crowd," she and Nan another third, and Lu- 
 cilla and Carol Sawyer one sixth each. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Of Lucilla there seemed to be little to say: 
 she was of extensive ancestry and made the 
 best fudge in the place. She was also a good 
 person to tell things to and was always quiet 
 and polite. Dodo spoke very literally for 
 herself. She was one of the best adresses in the 
 college; she had some very bad quarter-hours 
 back of her continual nonsense; she was poor, 
 and there was something the matter all the 
 time at home. Ursula was one of the all round 
 girls of the college; she did beautiful work, 
 and wrote very well and knew a lot and her 
 clothes ! She dressed for the crowd. Nan was, 
 of course, the best girl in the world, as might 
 be seen by anybody with an eye in its head. 
 
 And Carol ? Oh, Carol was all right. You 
 had to come to know her, that was all. Peo 
 ple did n t understand Carol. Her mother died 
 when she was a baby, and she did n t like 
 her Eastern aunt, who took care of her part 
 of the time. They were really ridiculously 
 wealthy, and her father was well, her father 
 was n t very attractive. She had lived a great 
 deal in San Francisco, and in the West girls 
 do very much more as they please, you know. 
 There was n t a more generous girl on the face 
 of the earth. She was a mighty good friend to 
 her friends. People said she was being tutored 
 
 228 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 through college. It was n t so. And what if she 
 was ? Look at the men ! Her bark was worse 
 than her bite: she said more than she did. If 
 all the things she had done for people up here 
 were known but she would be horribly angry 
 if they were. 
 
 It occurred to Marjory during that morn 
 ing and afterwards, as she was handed impar 
 tially from one to the other of the six juniors 
 who constituted her entertainment commit 
 tee, that it was well to have five friends to 
 take care of your character with the world. 
 
 In the evening she went, by favor of Ursula 
 and Dodo, in the character of a distant rela 
 tive, to the entertainment proper of the Phi 
 Kappa Farewell, a play given to the seniors 
 of that honorable body by the juniors. Noth 
 ing but a detailed account of the drama could 
 worthily treat of it, and that cannot be given. 
 It was a melodrama based on the Spanish 
 War, adapted from ablood-and-thunder novel 
 into a play of five acts with three and four 
 scenes to the act. A large cast presented it, com 
 prising revolutionists, Cubans, spies, U. S. 
 Army and Navy, native population, planters, 
 New York belles, and English nobility, and 
 there were slow deaths, ghastly conspiracies, 
 horribly pathetic separations, magnificent pa- 
 [ 229 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 triotic tableaux, and a final and startling ad 
 justment that exceeded in scenic display the 
 wildest expectation of the enraptured audi 
 ence. 
 
 From the first act, in a Fifth Avenue par 
 lor, furnished with a toy piano perched on a 
 card-table and a Vision of Elegance accom 
 panying, with much execution and one finger, 
 a rival Vision who rendered My bonnie lies over 
 the ocean with dramatic fervor and a sob that 
 recalled Bernhardt, while Dodo, in irreproach 
 able evening dress and a curly mustache, de 
 votedly turned the half-inch sheet music, one 
 elbow ostentatiously leaned on the twelve-inch 
 piano; to the ecstatic finale in the Havana Ca 
 thedral, where two marvellous brides in win 
 dow-curtain-trained wedding dresses, orange 
 blossoms, and indefinite yards of white mos 
 quito netting were led to the altar by a no 
 ble naval officer and a haughty peer of the 
 realm, the entire cast in the character of bri 
 dal party performing an elaborate ballet to the 
 Lohengrin March, the procession preceded by 
 a priest two-stepping solemnly at the head, it 
 was the most astonishingly, cleverly, unspeak 
 ably idiotic performance M arj ory had ever seen. 
 Revolvers went off, victims shrieked, dons 
 and donas sneered, terrible shell-trimmed, 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 tawny-skinned natives leaped and brandished 
 and gabbled, virtue pleaded, and villainy cried 
 " Ha, ha ! " and everybody called upon Heaven 
 except the peer of the realm, who very prop 
 erly called upon England. They rolled their 
 r s and smote their chests and spoke in a vi 
 brating contralto, while at the proper places 
 the audience groaned and clapped and hissed 
 and at the end fairly thundered its applause. 
 
 Nobody who had seen the two heroines un 
 der a trusty Spanish escort travelling through 
 a mountain gorge, half of the escort placidly 
 dragging a ramping, double-breasted rocking- 
 horse cart, and the other half cavorting grace 
 fully about with a small mounted horse under 
 his arm, could ever forget the sight; nor the 
 languishing ladies in glorious Spanish cos 
 tumes tossing their trains behind and coquet 
 ting with enormous fans as they conspired in 
 dramatic and deep-chested asides to the audi 
 ence. 
 
 Ursula, Dodo, and another genius had 
 adapted this never-sufficiently-to-be-praised 
 work, and they appeared flushed and panting 
 from the wedding scene, to receive the ovation 
 prepared for them. Ursula said that to have 
 seen Martha Williams in undisguised hysteria 
 and B. S. Kitts and Susan Jackson collapsed 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 in their chairs was honor enough for her, and 
 that she would willingly have worked twice 
 as hard as she did for it. Then they went over, 
 costumes and all, to the Dewey, to eat ices and 
 go home, for the play had occupied two hours 
 or more and such a strain was naturally some 
 what enervating, as Biscuits said. 
 
 They took breakfast next morning in Ur 
 sula s room: strawberries and rich chocolate 
 and rolls and scrambled eggs. Lucilla cooked it 
 in two chafing-dishes, and Carol and Caroline 
 came over from the Morris to share it, Carol 
 in a magnificent fluffy party-cloak with a gor 
 geous crepe kimono under it, Dodo in a hide 
 ous house-jacket, and Caroline in the inevi 
 table shirt-waist. Then Ursula went to church 
 in a heavenly lavender batiste and white-rab 
 bit gloves, as Nan called them ; Lucilla accom 
 panied her in a demure little checked silk, and 
 Carol sulked in her room, wrapped in the 
 kimono. 
 
 Dodo wrote some difficult letters home, 
 and took a walk to get over them; Caroline 
 tramped out to Florence, where she conducted 
 afunny little Sunday-school in a shirt-waist; 
 Marjory and Nan strolled out to Paradise and 
 talked. They dined in state with the house and 
 its guests on the traditional Sunday turkey, 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 Nan speculating solemnly on the exhaustless 
 energy of Providence, except for whose cease 
 less intervention the race of turkeys must long 
 since have become extinct. Later they retired 
 to the parlor and sat on sofas while the after- 
 dinner Sunday music was performed an 
 apparently mechanical process where the same 
 girls offered the same things to the same au 
 dience with the same expression that they had 
 presented the Sunday before. The Marche 
 Funebre received the usual sighs of pleasure, 
 an optimistic young lady rendered the love 
 song from Samson et Dalila, and at unmistak 
 able evidences of approaching Mandalay the 
 occupants of the sofa nearest the door mur 
 mured something about letters and melted 
 away. 
 
 To vespers, referred to by the devout as 
 "the sweetest of the college services," entitled 
 by the profane "the Sunday strut," owing to 
 the toilets of the carefully selected ushers 
 and the general prevalence of millinery, Mar 
 jory did not go, for returning from a walk 
 with Lucilla,they found Miss Gillatt pinching 
 the ears of a gentleman upon whose lap she 
 sat, whose not too abundant hair she had ar 
 ranged in peculiarly foolish spirals that bobbed 
 over his ears as he responded to the introduc- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 tion, "Voila le fere aimable! II est arrive avec 
 un box enorme c esf un enfant bien gentil, nest- 
 cepas? Nous en manger ons to-morrow night, mon 
 Dieu, and for once nous aurons quelqu chose fit 
 to eat hein? A moi, Lucille il y aura une 
 chaleur excessive dans la ville ancienne ce soir!" 
 
 Le pere aimable greeted Marjory with an 
 unfeigned interest, and when to his inquiring 
 "Cunningham? Cunningham? I don t remem 
 ber Cunningham, do I, Nannie?" Nan re 
 plied easily, "Oh, no, she s not a regular in 
 mate!" Marjory felt suddenly left out and 
 undeserving, somehow, of all the joy in store. 
 
 It was worth being away from home to be 
 one of the four girls who hung upon the 
 Amiable Parent the next day as he wandered 
 happily through the campus, distributing Al- 
 legretti and admiration as he went. He beamed 
 upon them all, annexing the pretty ones re 
 gardless of expense, as his irreverent daughter 
 put it. He chartered a tally-ho, and they tooted 
 off to Chesterfield and broke the horn be 
 yond repair, convulsing him with laughter all 
 the way. Caroline cut her laboratory for it and 
 enjoyed it "with a serene and sickly suavity 
 known only to the truly virtuous," to use her 
 friends quotation; Dodo was a continuous 
 performance all the way; and at Chesterfield 
 [ 2 34 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 they ate till there was little left in the village, 
 as it had not been sufficiently forewarned of 
 their invasion. 
 
 They got back in time to dress, and here 
 Marjory s ideas sustained a distinct shock. 
 She had always perfectly understood from the 
 fiction devoted to such descriptions that it was 
 the custom of young ladies at boarding-schools 
 and colleges, when they wished to be peculiarly 
 uproarious and sinful, to gather in carefully 
 darkened apartments, robed in blanket-wrap 
 pers and nightgowns, with braided or dishev 
 elled hair, in order to eat olives and pickles 
 with hat-pins from the bottles, toasting marsh- 
 mallows at intervals, and discussing the suit 
 ability of cribs and the essential qualities of 
 really earnest friendships. But the consump 
 tion of the "box enorme" was differently or 
 ganized. If she had n t brought any evening 
 dress it did n t matter, Nan assured her, but 
 they considered the event more than worthy 
 of it, though it was n t an occasion for a Prom 
 costume by any means. 
 
 All the way down the corridor she smelled 
 it, that night at seven. It was necessarily far 
 from private envious upper-class girls not 
 invited sniffed it from afar, and the three little 
 freshmen who waited on them glowed with 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 pride and anticipation. It was in Ursula s 
 room, for Nan s was too small and the guests 
 used it for a cloak-room. Mrs. Austin greeted 
 her cordially at the door, and Marjory, who 
 had always supposed that those in authority 
 were constitutionally opposed to spreads, could 
 not realize that her wreathed smiles were gen 
 uine. She did not know that the Amiable 
 Parent had dutifully called upon Mrs. Austin 
 in all good form, openly discussed the spread, 
 and cannily presented the lady with a fasci 
 nating box of Canton ginger-buds ginger 
 being the Amiable Parent s professional in 
 terest. 
 
 When they were assembled, a baker s dozen 
 of them, the Amiable Parent grinning, as his 
 dutiful daughter expressed it, like a Cheshire 
 cat over his capacious shirt-front, Marjory 
 made their acquaintance over again from the 
 evening-dress standpoint. Against the dark 
 furniture and bookbindings their shoulders 
 shone soft and white ; their hair was piled high ; 
 they looked two or three years older. Ursula 
 in pink taffeta, with coral in her glossy dark 
 coils, was a veritable marquise ; Nan in white 
 with lavender ribbons, and a pale amethyst 
 against her throat, was transformed from a 
 jolly, active girl to a handsome young woman 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 with charmingly correct shoulders; Caroline 
 was almost pretty; Lucilla s small prim head 
 was set on the most beautiful tapering little 
 neck in the world. Only Dodo in an organdie 
 many times laundered was the same as ever, 
 bony, awkward, and the greatest fun possible; 
 while Carol s strange half-sullen face looked 
 more impassive than ever under her heavy 
 turquoise fillet. 
 
 The freshmen, shy but delighted, passed 
 them "food after food," as Dodo called it: cold 
 roast chicken, lobster salad on crisp, curly 
 lettuce, delicious thin, little bread-and-butter 
 sandwiches with the crusts off, devilled eggs, 
 stuffed olives, almonds and ginger. There was 
 a great sheet of fudge-cake, which is a two- 
 storied arrangement of solid chocolate cake 
 with a thick fudge filling and a half-inch icing, 
 a compound possible of safe consumption to 
 girls and ostriches only .There were dozens and 
 dozens of a fascinating kind of thin wafer filled 
 with nuts, and there were plates of chocolate 
 peppermints. Also there were many bottles of 
 imported ginger ale, which the freshmen pre 
 sented in graceful, curved glasses after the Ami 
 able Parent had with much chuckling pulled 
 the corks, the freshmen pitching these last 
 cheerfully down the corridor at their friends 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 who came to scoff but went away to pray. That 
 immediate amalgamation with the class of her 
 hostesses which always occurs to guests made 
 Marjory regard the pretty waitresses with up 
 per-class patronage, till it occurred to her that 
 they might be older than she, and that after 
 all. . . . 
 
 One in especial, whom the Amiable Parent 
 insisted on feeding from his own plate, was 
 very pretty and apparently very popular. But 
 why the brown-eyed, red-cheeked adorer of 
 Ursula should be Theo Root, while Miss Bent 
 was always Dodo ; why Alida Fosdick was Dick, 
 but Serena Burdick was Serena ; why Eliza 
 beth Twitchell was Twitchie, but Elizabeth 
 Mitchell was Betty ; why Ursula was always 
 Ursula, and Nan was often Jack and some 
 times Pip (it was because Captain Gadsby was 
 one of her famous parts) Marjory could not tell. 
 
 When they were through and not another 
 of all those two pounds of almonds could be 
 eaten, and the freshmen had carried off the 
 remains to dispose of them in the most ob 
 vious and economical manner, they proceeded 
 to "do stunts," to the boundless joy of the 
 Amiable Parent. Dick Fosdick, a plain, heavy- 
 eyed senior, arose, draped in a black cashmere 
 shawl, and delivered a leclure on the suffrage 
 
 [ 238 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 in a manner to cause one to pinch oneself to 
 make sure it was not a dream and she was not 
 forty-five and horrible. The Amiable Parent 
 choked to suffocation, vowed she was the 
 cleverest aclress this side the water, and called 
 for the next. Dodo, with lifted skirts and ut 
 terly unmoved features, jumping up heavily 
 and landing on both feet with turned-in toes 
 she followed the good old custom of tan 
 walking-boots with evening dress droned in 
 a monotonous nasal chant, to which her thud 
 ding feet kept time, an unholy song of no tune 
 whatever : 
 
 Oh, it s dance like a. fairy and sing like a bird y 
 And sing like a bird, 
 And sing like a bird, 
 
 It s dance like a fairy and sing like a bird y 
 Sing like a bird in June ! 
 
 Anybody who has not seen this done by a 
 solemn-looking girl of five feet seven or so, 
 who divests a naturally humorous mouth of 
 any expression whatever, and lands on the 
 floor like an inspired steam-roller, is not in a 
 position to judge of the comic quality of the 
 performance. 
 
 Nan, with much coy reluctance and very 
 Gallic gestures, rendered what was pessimisti 
 cally called her "naughty little French song." 
 [ 239 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Its burden was not discoverably pernicious, 
 however, consisting of the question, " O Jean 
 Baptiste^pourquoi?" occasionally varied by the 
 rapturous answer, "O Jean Baptiste, voila!" 
 But there was accent enough to make any 
 thing naughty, and she looked so pretty they 
 made her do it again. 
 
 Lucilla resisted many appeals, but suc 
 cumbed finally to the Amiable Parent, who 
 could wheedle the gate off its hinges, accord 
 ing to his daughter, and delivered her "one 
 and only stunt." She had performed it steadily 
 since freshman year, always with the same wild 
 success, never with a hint of its palling. Mar 
 jory wondered why they laughed so they 
 all knew it by heart and asked if anybody 
 else never did it; their amazed negative im 
 pressed her greatly. She stood before them 
 slim and straight, this daughter of a hundred 
 Bostonians, a little cold, a little bored, a little 
 displeased, apparently, and with an utterly 
 emotionless voice and a quite impersonal man 
 ner delivered the most senseless doggerel in 
 the most delicately precise enunciation: 
 Baby sat on the window ledge, 
 Mary pushed her over the edge. 
 Baby broke into bits so airy 
 Mother shook her finger at Mary. 
 [ 240 ] 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 Sarah poisoned mother s tea, 
 
 Mother died in agonee. 
 
 Father looked quite sad and vexed 
 
 "Sarah, my child," he said, "what next?" 
 
 Any one to whom this seems a futile and 
 non-humorous piece of verse needs only to 
 hear Lucilla s delivery of it, and catch the 
 almost imperceptible shade of displeasure and 
 surprise that touched her slender eyebrows at 
 the last line, to realize that all similar exhibi 
 tions must seem forever crude beside it. 
 
 They begged Marjory to sing and got her 
 a guitar. As it had slowly dawned on her that 
 most of the girls in the room played some 
 thing, and that at least one third of them be 
 longed to one or another of the musical clubs 
 besides the many other organizations they 
 carried, and thought nothing whatever of it 
 or concealed it if they did her estimate of 
 a hitherto much prized accomplishment had 
 steadily decreased. She sang a little serenade 
 for them, however, more tremulously than she 
 had been wont to sing for a crowd of young 
 people, and took an unreasoning and dispro 
 portionate amount of pleasure in their hearty 
 applause. She sang again, and when Miss Cor 
 nelia Burt, who turned out to be the dark girl 
 she had watched at Kingsley s and recognized, 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 thanked her particularly and told her with a 
 smile that she should "come up" and sing 
 that with the Glee Club, Marjory remembered 
 that she was a prominent senior, and found 
 her heart beating a little faster when her friend 
 Miss Twitchell, also prominent, repeated the 
 suggestion. It could not be, she asked herself 
 a moment afterwards, that she was proud to 
 have them notice her ? 
 
 There were more stunts, for the Amiable 
 Parent could not have enough of what Nan 
 called Dodo s Anglo-Saxon attitudes. Only 
 the bell brought a stop to the proceedings, 
 which had grown more and more hilarious, 
 ending with a toast in ginger ale, to the de 
 lighted hero of the feast : 
 Oh, here s to Nannie s Dad, drink him down! 
 Oh, here s to Nannie s Dad, drink him down! 
 Oh, here s to Nannie s Dad, 
 He s the best she could have had, 
 Drink him down, drink him down, drink him down, 
 down, down! 
 
 Nan and he and Marjory went out into the 
 cool, dark campus, and they marched to " Balm 
 of Gilead" all the way to Marjory s boarding- 
 house. She watched them from her window, 
 tramping arm-in-arm down to the hotel, where 
 Nan was to stay the night with him. Nan had 
 
A FEW DIVERSIONS 
 
 explained that while of course it would be a 
 trial to her to be obliged to select her own 
 breakfast, still her relative had desired it, and 
 she had as usual bidden him "her own con 
 venience count as nil." 
 
 Marjory undressed slowly, humming the 
 tune they had marched to and surveying the 
 plain boarding-house bed-room. It seemed 
 lonely after the Lawrence, and there was no 
 dashing about in the halls, nor glimpses of 
 fudge-parties and rarebits and laughing, busy 
 people through half-shut doors. 
 
 "Still, that Miss Burt was off the campus," 
 she murmured as she braided her hair; and 
 as she set the alarm-clock somebody had 
 loaned her for she took an early train 
 and climbed into bed, she explained to an 
 imaginary aunt that people on the temporary 
 list with no campus application whatever often 
 "got on" miraculously Lucilla had done 
 that, and Caroline ! 
 
 [ 243 ] 
 
THE EIGHTH STORY 
 
 THE EVOLUTION of EVANGELINE 
 
VIII 
 THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 f ^O those who knew her afterward it 
 1 may seem an impossible condition 
 1 of affairs, but it is nevertheless quite 
 
 -^- true that until the night of the soph 
 omore reception she was utterly unheard of. 
 Indeed, when her name was read to the chair 
 man of the committee that looks up stray 
 freshmen, yet uninvited, and compels them 
 to come in, the chairman refused to believe 
 that she existed. 
 
 "I don t believe there s any such person," 
 she growled, "and if there is, there s nobody 
 to take her. I can t make sophomores ! Evan- 
 geline Potts, forsooth ! What a perfectly idiotic 
 name! Who s to take her? Where does she 
 live? Where s the catalogue?" 
 
 "She lives on West Street," somebody vol 
 unteered, "and Bertha Kitts freshman is sick, 
 or her uncle is sick, or something, and Bertha 
 says that lets her out she never wanted to go, 
 anyhow and now she s not going. Could n t 
 she take her?" 
 
 "Not going!" the chairman complained 
 bitterly. "If that s not like B. Kitts ! Go get 
 her, somebody, and send her after Evangeline, 
 and tell her to hurry, too ! Don t stop to argue 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 with her, there is n t time. She 11 prove that 
 there is n t any reception, if you let her. Just 
 get her started and then come right back. I 
 promised to send three Bagdads over, and I 
 can t get but two." 
 
 The messenger paused at Miss Kitts door, 
 sniffed scornfully at the sign which read: 
 "Asleep ! Please do not disturb under any cir 
 cumstances whatever! * and entered the room 
 abruptly. Miss Kitts was curled comfortably 
 on the window-seat, with Plain "Tales from the 
 Hills in one hand, and The Works of Christo 
 pher Marlowe in the other. From these vol 
 umes she read alternately, and the pile of cores 
 and seeds on the sill indicated a due regard for 
 other than mental nutriment. At intervals she 
 lifted her eyes from her book to watch the file 
 of girls loaded down with the pillows, screens, 
 and palms whose transportation forms so con 
 siderable a portion of the higher education of 
 women. Just as the door opened Biscuits was 
 chuckling gently at the collision of a rubber- 
 plant with a Japanese screen and the conse 
 quent collapse of their respective bearers, who, 
 even in their downfall, poured forth the apol 
 ogies and regrets that take the place of their 
 brothers less considerate remarks upon simi 
 lar occasions. 
 
 [ 248 ] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 But her mirth was rudely checked by the 
 messenger, who closed the Marlowe and put 
 the Kipling under a pillow. 
 
 "Hurry up," she remarked briefly, "and 
 find Evangeline Potts and tell her that you 
 can t sleep at night till you take her to the 
 sophomore reception. Nobody urged her to 
 attend and yours is sick." 
 
 "She s not, either," returned B. Kitts, 
 calmly. "She s quite well, and " 
 
 " Oh, don t possum, Biscuits, but get along. 
 Sue s nearly wild. It s her uncle, then; we 
 know you were n t going, so we know you can 
 take her. Can I take this couch cover along? 
 She s on West Street, and I can t stop to dis 
 cuss it, but we depend on you. Now do hurry 
 up; it s three already." 
 
 Biscuits freed her mind to the heap of pil 
 lows in the middle of the floor, for there was 
 no one else to hear her. Then, still grumbling, 
 she put on her golf cape and walked over to 
 West Street. In a pessimistic frame of mind 
 she selected the most unattractive house, and 
 on inquiring if Miss Evangeline Potts lived 
 there and ascertaining that she did, she aston 
 ished the slatternly maid by a heartfelt ejacu 
 lation of" Sherlock Holmes ! " adding, with 
 resignation, "Is she in?" She was in, and her 
 [ 249 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 guest climbed two flights of stairs and knocked 
 at her door. 
 
 Although Evangeline Potts was not fully 
 dressed and her room in consequent disorder, 
 she did not appear at all embarrassed, but fin 
 ished buttoning her shirt-waist and attached 
 her collar with calm deliberation. She was a 
 large, tall girl, with masses of auburn hair 
 strained back unbecomingly from a very frec 
 kled face and heaped in tight coils on the top 
 of her head. Her eyes were a rich red-brown; 
 they struck you as lovely at first, till after a 
 while you discovered that they were like glass 
 or running water, always the same and abso 
 lutely expressionless. She had large hands and 
 feet and a wide, slow smile, and she was dressed 
 in unmitigatedly bad taste, with sleeves two 
 years behind the style and a skirt that could 
 have had nothing to do with it at any date. 
 
 "I came to to see if you had been if 
 you were going to the sophomore reception," 
 said Biscuits. "I m Miss Kitts, Ninety-red, 
 and and I Ve nobody to go with me and 
 and I shall be glad " 
 
 Biscuits was frankly embarrassed. She was 
 a clever girl, and clever girls of her age are 
 invariably conscious and more or less sensi 
 tive. She knew how she would have felt if she 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 had been a freshman and a "left over": she 
 would have resented such an eleventh-hour 
 invitation and shown impossibly. But if Evan- 
 geline Potts bore any resentment it was not 
 apparent. 
 
 "No/ she said quietly, "I haven t been 
 asked and I d just as lieve go with you." 
 
 "Oh, that s very nice!" returned Biscuits, 
 cheerfully, "then that s settled. And what 
 color is your gown? I should like to send 
 you some flowers." 
 
 "I m not sure what I will wear," said 
 Evangeline; "what will you?" 
 
 "My dress is pink," and Biscuits carefully 
 kept her surprise out of the answer. Miss 
 Potts did not look like the kind of girl to 
 possess more than one evening gown. 
 
 "How is it made?" Evangeline pursued. 
 She was not curious, and yet she was not talk 
 ing vaguely to cover any embarrassment: she 
 merely desired information. 
 
 "Oh, it s quite plain," and Biscuits rose to 
 go ; she was a little bored and there was noth 
 ing in Miss Potts room to give any clew to 
 her apparently pointless character. Biscuits 
 prided herself on her ability to get at people 
 through their belongings, and graded her 
 friends as possessors of Baby Stuart, the Barye 
 
 051 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Lion, a Botticelli Madonna, or the imp of 
 Lincoln Cathedral. 
 
 But Evangeline did not rise. "I mean, is 
 it low neck and short sleeves? * she insisted; 
 and as Biscuits nodded, she added, "Does 
 everybody wear them?" 
 
 " Why, yes," said Biscuits, hastily ; and then, 
 "That is, a great many do. It s not at all nec 
 essary, though : you 11 see plenty of girls with 
 out. Any light organdie will do perfectly." 
 
 "I don t think I ll go, then," remarked 
 Evangeline, calmly; "my dress would n t do." 
 
 She was not in the least apologetic or pa 
 thetic or vexed : she merely stated a fact, and 
 it occurred to Biscuits, who was somewhat 
 susceptible to personality, that she meant pre 
 cisely what she said. Although absence from 
 the reception was just what Biscuits had pre 
 viously planned, she did not care to please 
 herself at this price, and though Evangeline 
 Potts was the last person she would have se 
 lected for her companion, and visions of the 
 pretty little freshman she had had in mind on 
 filling out her programme flashed before her 
 with irritating clearness, she smiled encourage 
 ment and remonstrated cheerfully. 
 
 "Oh, nonsense ! Why, anything will do, I 
 tell you ! You don t need evening dress ! One 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 of my friends last year had all her clothes 
 ruined by a pipe or something that burst in 
 the closet and she went in white duck. And 
 she was one of the best-dressed girls in the 
 class, really " 
 
 "Yes, but I m not/ interrupted Evange 
 line, "and that s different. I m just as much 
 obliged to you for asking me. Miss Kitts, but 
 I have n t any evening dress and I should n t 
 go without one." 
 
 It was characteristic of Biscuits that she at 
 tempted no further argument. She knew that 
 Evangeline Potts would not go unless she had 
 an evening dress, and it seemed, somehow, 
 imperative that she should go. She realized, 
 too, that borrowing was out of the question. 
 
 "Why don t you cut one of your dresses 
 out?" she suggested after a moment. "Su 
 zanne Endicott did that once when she was 
 unexpectedly asked to a dance and had n t any 
 low waist with her." 
 
 "I can t sew," Evangeline replied, "and I 
 should n t know how to cut it." 
 
 In proportion as she seemed convinced of 
 the impossibility of going, Biscuits waxed 
 more eager to change her determination. 
 
 "See here," she said suddenly, "if I get 
 Suzanne over here, will you let her cut one of 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 your dresses out? I think she would; she s 
 awfully clever about that sort of thing and 
 she s very obliging, sometimes." 
 
 She was prepared for any answer but the 
 one forthcoming. 
 
 "Why, I don t care," said Evangeline, in 
 differently, "only she d better hurry, had n t 
 she?" 
 
 Biscuits was by now so impressed with the 
 vital necessity of getting Suzanne that she had 
 hardly time to wonder at her haste or her ner 
 vous fear that the young lady might not be at 
 home. She trudged up the two flights and 
 sighed with relief at the sound of Suzanne s 
 mandolin. Miss Endicott was not fond of the 
 mandolin and played it solely for the purpose 
 of annoying the senior next door, who had a 
 nasty habit of rising early to study, and mak 
 ing her bed violently, driving it into the wall 
 just opposite Suzanne s pillow. When remon 
 strated with she returned with calmness that 
 she had not been accustomed, when herself a 
 sophomore, to objecl: to the habits of seniors, 
 and that excitable young people who came to 
 college for heaven knew what, had better ac 
 quaint themselves with habits of study in 
 others, since that was their only probable 
 source of knowledge of such habits. 
 l>54] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 Henceforth it became at once Suzanne s 
 duty and pleasure to give what she modestly 
 called "little recitals from time to time/ ac 
 companied by her mandolin, which instru 
 ment maddened her neighbor beyond endu 
 rance. As Biscuits entered she was giving a 
 very dramatic rendering of the Jewel Song 
 from Faust, and to her guest s opening re 
 marks she replied only by a melodious burst 
 of laughter and the arch assurance : 
 "Non, non! Ce n est plus toll 
 Ce rfest plus ton visage ! " 
 
 Biscuits obeyed an imperative gesture and 
 held her peace till the song was over, when the 
 performer, with an inimitable grin at the wall, 
 laid down her mandolin and pointed to a chair. 
 
 " due voulez-vous, ma plus chere? Vous avez 
 Fair" 
 
 "Oh, for heaven s sake talk English, Su 
 zanne ! I want you to come over and cut out 
 Evangeline Potts evening dress. Will you ? 
 She s freckled and big, and she won t go un 
 less you do. She s got to go, too. We can t 
 leave anybody out. Will you come?" 
 
 "Mais quavez-vous donc^ ma chere Berthe? 
 Est-ce que fsuis couturiere, moi?" 
 
 "Yes," said Biscuits, obstinately, "you are, 
 and you know it. You might be able to make 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 her look like something. She s a perfect stick 
 
 now." 
 
 Suzanne shot one of her elfish glances at her 
 visitor. It was impossible to know what she 
 would do. 
 
 " Mais certainement vous avez assez de joue, 
 vous!" she suggested. Biscuits did not reply, 
 but watched the clock on the desk. 
 
 Suzanne shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Ehbien!" she said cheerfully, "me voila 
 sage, Petits-pains, sage et bien aimable ! Ou de- 
 meure-t-elle done, votre amie?" 
 
 " Bless you, Suzanne, her name s Evange- 
 line Potts ! and she " 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! Evangeline Potts ! Mais quelle 
 horreur ! Est-ce que je saurais prononcer ce nom 
 ajfreux?" babbled Suzanne, while Biscuits 
 found her golf cape and hustled her out of 
 the door. Those who relied too long or too 
 securely on Miss Endicott s moods were fre 
 quently disappointed in the end. 
 
 She had been born in San Francisco and 
 brought up, alternately, in Paris and New 
 York, by her brother, a rising young artist, 
 whose views were as broad as his handling, and 
 whose regret at parting with her was equalled 
 only by his firm determination to fulfil the 
 promise he had made their mother, long dead, 
 
 [256 ] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 to educate her properly. Only his solemn as 
 surance that she should come back every sum 
 mer if she would behave, and finally conduct 
 their joint establishment in Paris with the An 
 gora for chaperon and the silky Skye for but 
 ler, kept her from taking the first steamer back 
 from the seaport nearest the town she had 
 hated consistently since she left that scene of 
 delicious little suppers and jolly painter-peo 
 ple and nights at the play and ecstatic exhi 
 bitions when Brother was "on the line." 
 
 Now a wealthy young woman from San 
 Francisco who chooses to spend from two 
 to four years at an Eastern college is a suffi 
 ciently complicated type in herself; when she 
 has grown up in studios and done very much 
 as she pleases all her life, she affords even 
 more food for thought to the student of char 
 acter. 
 
 People who disliked Suzanne called her un 
 principled and shallow and lazy; people who 
 admired her called her brilliant and irresponsi 
 ble and lazy; people who loved her called her 
 fascinating and spoiled and lazy. She could 
 dance like a leaf in the wind; she could make 
 herself the most bewitching garments out of 
 nothing to speak of; she could create a Japan 
 ese tea-room with one parasol and two fans, 
 
 [ 257] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 and make a Persian interior from a rug, an 
 inlaid table, and a jewelled lantern; she could 
 learn anything perfectly in half the time it 
 would take anybody else to get a fair idea of 
 it, and she could, if so minded, carry insolence 
 to the point of a fine art. She was far from 
 pretty, but her clever little brown face, with 
 its strange gray eyes, compelled attention, and 
 her hair had that rare silvery tinge that is an 
 individuality in itself. She was never without 
 two or three devoted admirers, but her class 
 disliked her, and it took all their self-control 
 to bear with her to the extent that was neces 
 sary in order to profit by her special abilities. 
 She was no more to be depended upon than 
 a kitten, and her periodical bursts of rage ren 
 dered her unendurable to that large majority 
 which objeds to flaming eyes and torrents of 
 assorted abuse, to say nothing of the occa 
 sional destruction of bric-a-brac. 
 
 And yet, to the wonder of these righteous 
 critics, Suzanne kept her warm friends. There 
 was always some amiable Philistine to watch 
 her erratic movements with delighted awe, to 
 run on her errands, to listen to her amazing 
 confidences, and to stand up for her through 
 thick and thin. Though Biscuits and her little 
 circle were, even in their sophomore year, be- 
 [a 5 8] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 ginning to draw away from her, vaguely con 
 scious of a necessary parting of the ways, 
 frankly puzzled at the vagaries of this girl who 
 was half a spoiled baby, half a woman of the 
 world, at intervals the fascination of her per 
 sonality drew them back for a while, and they 
 wondered that they could have thought her 
 irresponsible and selfish at heart. 
 
 To-day, as Biscuits walked beside her, con 
 vulsed by her narration of a recent tussle with 
 the lady-in-charge "I was only putting an 
 accordion-pleated crepe-paper frieze above the 
 moulding, with thumb tacks, and if she had 
 kept out of the way pig! What do you 
 think you came to college for, Suzanne ? Cer 
 tainly not work of this sort ! c Oh, no, Mrs. 
 Wylie, of course not. I have long realized that 
 our real object in coming here was to save the 
 maids trouble ! " she almost forgave her that 
 curt refusal to have anything to do with the 
 reception decorations: "You d far better save 
 me for the Prom I 11 manage that, but I 
 won t do both, vous savez, cest un peu trop 
 fort!" she had remarked royally, and the com 
 mittee had smothered their wrath and agreed, 
 and cursed her afterwards in detail, after the 
 manner of practical young women who are far 
 from the short-sightedness of allowing their 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 emotions to interfere with their intentions. 
 Also, they do not enjoy giving needless pain 
 on the spot. This is one of the sweetest at 
 tributes of woman. 
 
 They knocked at Evangeline s door, and 
 omitting preliminary ceremonies, demanded 
 the dress. Evangeline produced a dark red 
 cashmere: Suzanne shook her head. A much 
 washed white lawn with what appeared to be 
 blue palm-leaf fans scattered over it was next 
 offered for consideration: Suzanne gasped, 
 " Mon Dieu /" A gray gingham decorated with 
 yellow spirals met her demand for "a summer 
 thing," and caused the artist to sink upon the 
 floor with a tragic groan. 
 
 "Mais, Evangeline, vous me serrez le cceurl 
 Cest horrible! C est effrayant!" 
 
 Evangeline smiled politely but offered no 
 further suggestion. 
 
 Suzanne looked at her searchingly through 
 half-closed eyes. "Have you any thing black? * 
 she demanded. 
 
 "I have a black silk," said Evangeline, and 
 she brought out a heavy, corded, ribbon- 
 trimmed affair with a pointed vest that would 
 have been highly suitable for a maiden aunt 
 who had, as Suzanne remarked, seen misfor 
 tune. Biscuits sighed, but Suzanne rose rapidly 
 [ 260 ] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 to her feet and clutched the scissors she had 
 brought with her. 
 
 "Enfin! Cay esf!" she cried. "Put it on 
 her, Biscuits!" 
 
 She persisted in utterly ignoring Evange 
 line, or, more exactly, in treating her as if she 
 had been a doll, talking to her in a pitying 
 tone that required no answer and comment 
 ing upon her deficiencies in a manner that 
 made Biscuits squirm visibly and glance apolo 
 getically at the object of such impersonal criti 
 cism. 
 
 "Perhaps Miss Potts does n t care to have 
 such a such a nice dress cut/ she suggested, 
 as Suzanne, with what seemed a perfectly care 
 less gesture, slashed at the sleeves. 
 
 "Quet malheur!" replied the artist, indif 
 ferently, and Evangeline added, " I d just as 
 lieve." 
 
 With pursed lips Suzanne snipped and 
 pinched, while Biscuits followed her every 
 motion and Evangeline silently adjusted her 
 self to each new position as Suzanne pulled 
 and pushed her arms and neck about. At 
 length with a sudden motion Suzanne stripped 
 off the detached sleeves as if they had been 
 gloves, and snatched away the top of the scant 
 middle-aged waist with a quick movement. 
 
 [ 261 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "Voila! " she said, and Biscuits gasped: for 
 Evangeline Potts was a transformed creature. 
 Her arms and neck were ivory white and as 
 soft and smooth as satin; the lovely curves of 
 her throat and shoulders could never have 
 been guessed at under the stiff black seams 
 of the waist. 
 
 Suzanne patted her arms appreciatively. "I 
 might have known it, with that hair and those 
 freckles!" she murmured. Then, calmly, to 
 Evangeline: "The trouble with your kind is, 
 you never have any eyebrows and your eye 
 lids get red, n est-ce pas?" 
 
 She went a few steps back from the mo 
 tionless figure and stood silent. 
 
 "You could twist a black scarf," suggested 
 Biscuits, hastily. Suzanne waved her hand. 
 
 "Tu me degoutes, a la fin I" she said coldly; 
 "Get your cape on!" Then, to Evangeline: 
 " Undo your hair ! " As the thick coil tumbled 
 over her shoulders, the diredress of ceremo 
 nies deliberately selected a light inner tress 
 and snipped it off. 
 
 . "Take it down town and match it in vel 
 vet if you can, in silk if you can t," she com 
 manded. "And get enough, get two, three 
 yards!" 
 
 "But will Miss Potts want to spend " 
 
 262 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 Biscuits looked doubtfully at the white-armed 
 goddess who contemplated herself quietly in 
 the glass. It was impossible to know what she 
 was thinking; she was apparently quite accus 
 tomed to strangers who dressed her in low- 
 cut evening dresses and snipped her hair and 
 spent her money. 
 
 Suzanne stamped her foot. " Va-t-en ! " she 
 cried, and then, with an irresistible mimicry 
 of Evangeline, "She Vjust as lieve!" 
 
 When Biscuits returned with a great strip 
 of tawny velvet, it was taken from her at the 
 door, and she was instructed to get from Su 
 zanne s room her make-up box and the gold 
 powder that had so unaccountably disappeared 
 after the play last week. 
 
 "They borrowed the eyebrow pencil and 
 that, the night of the dress rehearsal, and they 
 swore to bring them back beasts! What 
 have I to call my own? Rien! Never, never, 
 never will I lend anything again ! II faut faire 
 un fin^ vraiment!" 
 
 It was a long hunt for Biscuits, and more 
 than once it occurred to her that she had re 
 fused to go on the decorating committee with 
 a view to escaping just such wearisome trot 
 ting about. When she handed the box to Su 
 zanne and suggested that the result should be 
 
 C 263 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 extremely pleasing to justify such toil, the red 
 spot in the artist s either cheek and her wide- 
 opened eyes indicated the happy absorption 
 to which no effort seems worthy of mention. 
 Biscuits, not allowed to enter the room, sat 
 wearily on the stairs, longing to go home but 
 unwilling to abandon Suzanne. It was very 
 nearly six, and she was not dressed; she had 
 left the necessary perusal of The Works of 
 Christopher Marlowe till late in the day, think 
 ing to devote the evening to it; she took little 
 interest in Evangeline Potts, and she did not 
 care much for dancing. 
 
 But for the moment her resentment van 
 ished when Suzanne called her in and she be 
 held the objecl of her labors under the gaslight 
 in a carefully darkened room. Her milk-white 
 shoulders rose magnificently from folds of 
 auburn velvet that her wonderful hair re 
 peated in loose waves about her face and a 
 great mass low on her neck. Her long, round 
 arms gleamed against the black of her skirt 
 and melted into the glow of her velvet girdle. 
 In the white light her freckles paled and her 
 eyes turned wholly brown, and said myste 
 rious things that could never by any possi 
 bility have occurred to her. 
 
 "Tiens! J ai eu la main heureuse, rfest-ce 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 pas? Vous la trouvez charmante?" said Su 
 zanne, turning her about as if she had been 
 a dummy and indicating her opinion that the 
 back view was, if anything, more satisfying 
 than the front. 
 
 "You re a genius, Suzanne! She s simply 
 stunning! How did you do it?" 
 
 Suzanne smiled. " C est pas grand chose" she 
 said modestly. But she looked contentedly 
 at Evangeline and loosened her hair a little. 
 "Now remember, don t put on those hideous 
 rings," she commanded, "and don t wear any 
 thing on your head. Do you dance well?" 
 she added. 
 
 Evangeline hesitated. "I dance a little," 
 she replied, "pretty well, I guess." 
 
 Suzanne promptly encircled her waist and 
 whistled a waltz. After a few turns she stopped. 
 
 "You dance very badly," she said encour 
 agingly. "If I were you, I d sit out most of 
 them. You can say it bores you they 11 be 
 glad enough. Besides, you might get red and 
 then you d not be pretty. Now don t move 
 about much, and when Miss Kitts brings you 
 the white roses put them just where I told 
 you." 
 
 "Very well," said Evangeline, and as the 
 other two prepared to go she gave them one 
 
 [265 3 
 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of her long, slow smiles. "I m much obliged 
 to you both, I m sure," she said; "you Ve 
 been very kind." 
 
 " Adicu>mon enfant a plus tard!" and Su 
 zanne seized the door knob. She turned in 
 the door and threw a quick, piercing look 
 at her handiwork. "If you take my advice, 
 you 11 never put on that dreadful shirt-waist 
 again, tres chere" she said lightly. "You ll 
 spoil all this splendor, if you do. Give it 
 away or, no, don t! you d corrupt the taste 
 of the poor burn it up, and the others with 
 it, and get a black suit and a black silk waist 
 and wear a big white tie, if you like. And a 
 white tarn one of those pussy ones. Wear 
 one color c est plus distingue and if you 
 want a big black hat with plumes, I 11 make 
 it for you. Et maintenant, regarde-toi dans la 
 glace I" 
 
 With this invocation they left her, and Bis 
 cuits, learning that Suzanne had exhausted 
 her energy and proposed to inform her fresh 
 man that she was ill and unable to attend the 
 reception, became possessed by the idea that 
 she was responsible for this particular illus 
 tration of the artistic temperament, and went 
 without her dinner to hunt up a substitute. 
 She wasted no time in argument with Suzanne, 
 [ 266 ] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 who lay luxuriously on her couch pillows with 
 her hands under her head, and planned cos 
 tumes for Evangeline Potts all the evening, 
 but tramped angrily over the campus till quar 
 ter of seven to find an unattached sophomore, 
 forgetting that Evangeline s flowers were yet 
 to be purchased. Coming up with them in her 
 hand, a little later, she was forced to stop and 
 explain to the substitute the intricacies of Su 
 zanne s programme, breaking off abruptly to 
 beat her breast like the wedding guest, for she 
 heard the loud bassoon and fled to her room, 
 tearing her evening dress hopelessly and com 
 pleting her toilette on the stairs. The substi 
 tute suffered from a violent headache as the 
 result of her unexpected exertions, and the 
 little freshman cried herself to sleep, for she 
 had dreamed for nights of going with Suzanne, 
 whom she admired to stupefaction. 
 
 But of all this Evangeline Potts knew lit 
 tle, and, it may be, cared less. She was one of 
 the successes of the evening, and her few re 
 marks were quoted diligently. She could have 
 danced dozens of extras, had so many been 
 possible, and Biscuits was considered to have 
 displayed more than her ordinary cleverness in 
 procuring a creature so picturesque and dis 
 tinguished. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 This did not surprise her, nor did she partic 
 ularly resent being pointed out by more than 
 one freshman as "the sophomore that took that 
 stunning Miss Potts"; but her amazement 
 was undisguised, the next morning but one, 
 at the sight of Evangeline walking out from 
 chapel with a prominent junior, the glamor of 
 the evening gone, it is true, her face some 
 what heavy and undeniably freckled, but nev 
 ertheless an Evangeline transformed. From 
 her fluffy white cap to the hem of her digni 
 fied black skirt she was the realization of Su 
 zanne s parting suggestions, and the distinct 
 intention of her costume had its full effect. 
 She was far more impressive than the jolly 
 little short-skirted junior, whose curly yellow 
 hair paled beside the dark richness of Evan- 
 geline s massive coils, and Biscuits, remember 
 ing that she had called her "a perfect stick," 
 marvelled inwardly. 
 
 She went to call on her a little later, but 
 Evangeline was not in; and feeling that her 
 duty was done, Miss Kitts gave no further 
 thought to what she considered an essentially 
 uninteresting person, but devoted herself to 
 a study of the campus house into which she 
 had moved only that year. 
 
 She saw Evangeline very rarely after that, 
 [ ,68 ] 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 except at the dances and plays, where her 
 white shoulders framed in auburn velvet ap 
 peared very regularly. Once, happening to sit 
 beside her, she began a conversation, but she 
 could not remember afterward that Miss Potts 
 said anything but, "Yes, indeed," or, "Yes, I 
 think so, too." Her surprise was therefore 
 great when, on hearing the result of the sopho 
 more elections the next fall, and audibly com 
 menting on the oddity of Miss Evangeline 
 Potts in the position of sophomore president, 
 she was indignantly assured by a loyal mem 
 ber of that class that the vote was almost 
 unanimous and that she was one of the ablest 
 girls in the class. 
 
 Even this she did not consider long, for the 
 sophomore presidency is the least important 
 of the four; but when among the first five 
 sophomores to be triumphantly ushered into 
 Phi Kappa Psi she was asked to consider the 
 name of Evangeline Potts, she remonstrated. 
 
 " But she s not clever ! She s not half so 
 bright as lots we have n t got !" she objected. 
 "Why do we want her?" 
 
 "She s no prod, of course, but she s a 
 prominent girl and class president," was the 
 answer, "and she s really very strong, I think 
 they say she does fair work, and everybody 
 
 [ 269 j 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 but you wants her. Do you really disapprove 
 of her?" 
 
 "Oh, no !" said Biscuits, and watched Miss 
 Potts with interest. She received her congratu 
 lations quietly, with a manner that made one 
 wonder if they had been quite in good taste, 
 and adled altogether as if she had fully ex 
 pected to enter the society with Ursula Wyck- 
 offand Dodo Bent. The senior class president 
 took her out of chapel at the head of the file, 
 with a bunch of violets as big as her two fists 
 pinned to her belt, and Biscuits was asked to a 
 supper in her honor in the campus house she 
 had recently entered. 
 
 One of the other guests was the little fresh 
 man Biscuits had first asked to the sophomore 
 reception, herself a sophomore now, and one 
 of Phi Kappa s first five. 
 
 "Was your class surprised at the elections?" 
 asked Biscuits, glancing half unconsciously at 
 Evangeline. The sophomore smiled gently, 
 with a hardly perceptible recognition of Bis 
 cuits look. 
 
 "Oh, no," she replied; "we expedted them 
 except, perhaps, one or two." Her polite 
 little blush showed her traditional surprise at 
 her own success, and the junior gave the 
 equally traditional deprecating smile. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 "Who s the other?" she inquired bluntly. 
 The sophomore was taken off her guard and 
 glanced again at Evangeline. 
 
 "Why, some of us did n t exactly see we 
 think Alison Greer s terribly bright we 
 did n t expect and yet, I don t know! After 
 all, I think perhaps we were n t so awfully 
 surprised!" 
 
 "Now, I wonder if you really were n t, or if 
 you re lying?" thought Biscuits, and then, 
 remembering suddenly, "but that s just the 
 way we all talked last year about Evelyn 
 Lyon!" 
 
 That summer Evangeline spent in France 
 with Suzanne, who informed Biscuits before 
 they sailed that though she could n t find out 
 anything about Miss Potts parents, she had 
 learned of the existence of a well-to-do uncle 
 in New Hampshire who intended leaving quite 
 a little money to his uncommunicative niece 
 he had given her the money to go abroad. 
 
 "She planned it all out, and asked to go 
 with me, and I could n t well refuse," said 
 Suzanne, "though Brother will be wild with 
 rage he hates women who are not clever: 
 il est un pen exigeant^ monfrere." 
 
 By senior year Biscuits had very nearly lost 
 track of Suzanne, who left the campus and 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 spent most of her time sketching. Brother 
 had shown some pen-and-ink portraits of hers 
 to a great critic, who had declared that Brother 
 had by no means exhausted the family genius, 
 and Suzanne, heavily bribed, had returned to 
 her last year of durance. The day of the Jun 
 ior Prom Biscuits received a very French lit 
 tle note inviting her to "une premiere vue" 
 and with the full expectation of a pen-and-ink 
 collection, she confronted Evangeline, glori 
 ous in white satin and gold passementerie, with 
 an amber chain and a great amber comb in her 
 hair. 
 
 "Vous rappelez-vous cette premiere fois, 
 hein?" Suzanne asked, with a grin. " Ca date 
 de loin,, n y est-ce pas?" Adding cheerfully, 
 " L onc/e est mort et nous avons une jolie dot!" 
 
 Biscuits was not surprised to learn that 
 Ursula Wyckoff had moved heaven and earth 
 to get her cousin from Columbia for Evange- 
 line s escort; she had heard how Nan Gillatt 
 actually took her own brother to the Glee 
 Club concert because Evangeline preferred the 
 youth selected by Nan for herself, and she 
 remembered how she had hunted from shop to 
 shop for the velvet that matched that auburn 
 hair. It was not that Evangeline insisted: she 
 did not beg favors. But her habit of receiving 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 a proposition in silence filled one with an irre 
 sistible desire to better one s offer, and even 
 the improvement seemed poor in the calm 
 scrutiny of those red-brown eyes. 
 
 "What I can t see is, who pushes her!" 
 mused Biscuits. 
 
 "Who? who?" repeated Suzanne. "Par 
 exemple! Why, she herself, of course! Who 
 else?" 
 
 " But how? " Biscuits persisted. " Now Eve 
 lyn made up to everybody so she earned 
 her way, heaven knows! And Kate Ackley 
 was a sort of legacy her sister s reputation 
 started her and she was rushed so freshman 
 year that you could n t blame her for failing 
 to realize what a fool she really is. And the 
 Underbills coming in with the crowd they 
 did, explains them. But nobody rushes Evan- 
 geline particularly " 
 
 " C esf bien dommage!" Suzanne interrupted 
 with mock sympathy. "Seule au mondel Don t 
 be an idiot, Biscuits, we all rush her, and 
 we shall till she begins to see what a bluff 
 she s making! The beauty of Evangeline is, 
 that she fools herself maisparfaitement! She 
 really thinks she s somebody voila tout I" 
 
 "I suppose that s it," assented Biscuits, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 [ 273 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 "Ursula," Suzanne remarked oracularly, 
 "is so anxious to please that sometimes she 
 does n t, and even Susan the Great has her lit 
 tle plans mats out! But Mile. Potts does n t 
 care a sou. It s all one to her, vous savez, she 
 agrees with all ; and what s the result ? Tout le 
 monde I* admire! C est toujours comme fa!" 
 
 For some reason or other her large and 
 shapely figure was the most prominent feature 
 of Biscuits Commencement. She was a junior 
 usher, of course, and in aisles or under lan 
 terns, at Phi Kappa Farewell or Glee Club 
 promenade, her calm, heavy face and delib 
 erate movements attracted Biscuits eye. 
 
 The mob had not appealed to Miss Kitts 
 as a desirable method of dramatic debut, and 
 she was, consequently, one of the few seniors 
 in the audience on the night of her class dra 
 matics. Between the acts she wandered down 
 to the door, and caught a bit of conversation 
 among a group of ushers. 
 
 "And all Ursula s friends were in the mid 
 dle aisle, and she begged Evangeline to 
 change, but she would n t. Ursula could have 
 had a seat then, with Dick Fosdick s people, 
 and she was frightfully tired, but Evangeline 
 would n t." 
 
 "Pooh! did you expect she would?" 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE 
 
 "Oh, no! She s terribly selfish, of course, 
 but you d think, considering how nice Ursu 
 la s been to her " 
 
 "Oh, my dear ! As if that made any differ 
 ence to Evange sh, here she is ! What 
 stunning violets, Evangeline ! That J s your 
 Prom dress, is n t it ? It s terribly sweet !" 
 
 Evangeline smiled and sank into the seat 
 a little freshman promptly and adoringly va 
 cated for her, and Biscuits went back to her 
 place. 
 
 Suzanne stopped in America that summer, 
 and with the promise of five subsequent years 
 in Paris, prolonged her stay till the following 
 June. She went so far as to come up to North 
 ampton to her class reunion, assuring her 
 friends that she had forgotten a few oppro 
 brious epithets in her final anathema and had 
 returned to deliver them in person. 
 
 As they stood in the crowd on Ivy Day, 
 watching the snowy procession, the cameras 
 suddenly snapped rapidly all about them and 
 an excited voice murmured: "There she is! 
 Is n t she grand? My dear, she had eleven in 
 vitations for the junior entertainment! Mar 
 tha Sutton took her " Evangeline Potts 
 walked slowly by. 
 
 "And you ought to have seen her Com- 
 
 C 275 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 mencement flowers ! She had a bathtub full 
 literally! She wouldn t take em out and 
 the tub could n t be used " 
 
 "She s president of Phi Kapp, I hear," 
 said Biscuits. 
 
 "Oh, yes," replied Suzanne, "and on the 
 dramatics committee, you know. She has lots 
 of friends." 
 
 "I wonder why," said Biscuits, absently. 
 
 " Sais pas! They re clever girls, too. She 
 knows the pick of the class but then, she 
 always did, you know." 
 
 "I suppose she ll marry money," mused 
 Biscuits, the student of human nature. 
 
 "Dutout!" Suzanne returned, "she won t 
 care about that. It s clever people she wants 
 she always went with the clever ones: elk 
 aime les gens d esprit. She s got money enough; 
 she 11 marry some clever man who knows the 
 best people and will make her one of them 
 vous r verrez ! " 
 
 And the prophecy was fulfilled, for Evan- 
 geline very shortly married Walter Endicott, 
 the well-known artist, whose portrait of her 
 in white and gold attracted so much attention 
 at a very recent Salon. 
 
THE NINTH STORY 
 
 AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
IX 
 AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 DRAMATICS 
 
 IT is the Saturday night performance of 
 the senior play. The curtain is about to 
 rise. The aisles and back of the house are 
 packed with people struggling for seats; 
 alumna and under-class girls who have admis 
 sion tickets only, are preparing to sit on all the 
 steps; the junior ushers are hopelessly trying to 
 keep back the press. It is to be supposed that the 
 orchestra is playing, judging from the motion of 
 arms and instruments. The lights are suddenly 
 lowered and the curtain rises. The struggle for 
 seats at the back, the expostulations of the ushers, 
 and the comments of the alumna and students, 
 who have seen the play twice before and conse 
 quently do not feel the need of close attention, com 
 pletely drown the first words of the scene. 
 
 Back of house. Large and fussy mother, look 
 ing daggers at the sophomores squatting beside 
 her, giggling at the useless efforts of a small 
 worried usher to prevent a determined woman, 
 escorted by her apologetic husband, from prancing 
 down into the orchestra circle; and unimportant 
 senior. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Mother. What ? What ? Who is this, Emma ? 
 Where are we? 
 
 Emma. That s Viola, Mother. She s just 
 been shipwrecked, you know. 
 
 Mother. Oh, she s the heroine. She s the 
 best actor, then? 
 
 Emma. Dear me, no. Malvolio s way by 
 the best. And then Sir Toby and Maria 
 they re awfully good you ll see them pretty 
 soon now. I don t care for Viola much. She 
 tries to imitate Ada Rehan 
 
 Curtain drops on First Scene. 
 
 TJ" Orchestra Circle. Handsome, portly father, 
 exceptionally well set up, his wife, and head of 
 department. 
 
 Father, with enthusiasm. By Jove ! Is that 
 a girl, really? You don t say so! Well, well! 
 Sir Toby, eh? Well, well! And who s the 
 little girl? Maria? Did you ever see anything 
 much prettier than she is, Alice? 
 
 His Wife. She s very charming, certainly. 
 
 Head of Department. She s about the best 
 of them. A very clever girl. But you ought to 
 see Malvolio ! I don t care for Sir Andrew 
 
 Father. Alice, look at him! Did you ever 
 see anything so odd? Now I call that clever 
 I must say I call that clever! To think 
 
 [ 280] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 that s a girl well, well ! See him shiver, Al 
 ice! Capital, capital! Do they do this them 
 selves costumes and acting and ideas and 
 all? 
 
 Head of Department. They make the cos 
 tumes, I believe, most of them. Then they 
 have a trainer at the last. It s amazing to me, 
 but as a matter of fact their men s parts are as 
 a rule, considering the proportionate difficulty, 
 you know, much better than their women s. 
 Comedy parts, at that. I Ve never seen but 
 one woman s part really well done. 
 
 Father. Really? Now why do you suppose, 
 sir, that is so? 
 
 Head of Department. I can t say. But they re 
 very artificial women, as a rule. Overtrained, 
 perhaps. 
 
 ^f A group of last year s graduates and two ush 
 ers on the platform of the fire-escape upstairs. 
 
 First Graduate. I suppose you re nearly 
 dead, poor child? 
 
 First Usher. Heavens! I never slaved so in 
 my life! Did you see Ethel Williams mother 
 insist on going down into her seat ? I don t see 
 how people can be so rude. 
 
 First Graduate. Going better, to-night, is n t 
 it? 
 
 [281 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 First Usher. Goodness, yes! I think it s fine. 
 Don t you? Is n t Dick simply fine! There she 
 is ! C A burst of applause as Malvolio and Olivia 
 enter.) 
 
 Second Usher. Do you know, they say that 
 Kate Ackley thinks it s half for her! 
 
 Second Graduate. Not really? 
 
 Second Usher. Yes, really. She is stunning, 
 there s no doubt. 
 
 Second Graduate. Oh, yes, she s stunning. 
 Is that her own dress? 
 
 Second Usher. Yes. Her aunt gave it to her. 
 It s liberty satin. But she s a stick, just the 
 same. Do you like Viola ? 
 
 Second Graduate, parrying. She looks very 
 well. I was rather surprised she got it, though. 
 
 Second Usher. You know Mr. Clark wanted 
 her for Sir Andrew, and she would n t. He was 
 very angry, and so was the class. They don t 
 care for Ethel at all. But it was Viola or noth 
 ing. She s seen it four times and she thinks 
 she knows it all, they say. I do think she does 
 some parts very well indeed. 
 
 First Usher. Oh, Miss Underbill, is n t 
 Viola grand ? Don t you think she s fine ? 
 
 Second Graduate, sweetly. Yes, indeed. She 
 looks so cunning in that short skirt ! 
 Curtain falls on First Att. 
 
 282 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 ^[ Two fathers standing at back. 
 
 First Father , smiling affably. A great sight, 
 I assure you, sir ! All these young girls, and 
 parents, and friends a proud moment for 
 them ! And how well they do ! That one 
 that takes the part of Malvolio, now, that 
 Miss Fosdick pretty smart girl, now, is n t 
 she? 
 
 Second Father. That s my daughter, sir. 
 
 First Father. Well, well ! I expect you re 
 pretty pleased. You ought to be. 
 
 Second Father, confidentially. I tell you, sir, I 
 never believed she had it in her, never ! Her 
 mother and I were perfectly dumfounded 
 perfectly. I don t know where she got it from; 
 certainly not from me. And her mother 
 could n t take part in tableaux, even, she got 
 so nervous. 
 
 First Father. Just so, just so ! Now, I want 
 to tell you something, Mr. Mr. Fosdick. 
 These colleges for women are a great thing, 
 sir, a great thing ! You take my daughter. 
 When she came up here, she was as shy and 
 bashful and helpless as a girl that s an only 
 child could possibly be. Could n t trust her 
 self an inch alone. Never went away from 
 home alone in her life. Look at her now ! 
 She s head of this whole committee: you may 
 
 [ 283 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 have noticed their names on the back of the 
 programme. Costumes, scenery, music, lights, 
 stage properties, scene shifting all in her 
 hands, as you might say ! I slipped up to the 
 stage door, and I begged the young woman 
 there to let me step in and see her a moment. 
 Girls do it all, you know ! She was on police 
 man duty there. But she let me in and I just 
 peeked at Mary, bossing the whole job, as you 
 might say! It was "put this here" and "put 
 that there" and taking hold of the end and 
 dragging it herself, and answering this one s 
 questions and giving that one orders I tell 
 you, I could n t believe it ! Short skirt and 
 shirt-waist, note-book in her hand Lord! I 
 wished I had her up at the office with me! 
 
 Second Father. Then you re Miss Mollie 
 Vanderveer s father? 
 
 First Father. Yes, sir, James L. Vander- 
 veer. 
 
 Second Father. Pleased to meet you. Lida 
 often speaks of her. She said to her mother 
 and me to-night just as she went down to "be 
 made up," as they call it, that Mollie was a 
 brick and no mistake. It seems she s doing 
 two girls work to-night. 
 
 First Father. Yes, one of the committee is 
 sick. After all, it s a pretty hard strain, it 
 
 [ 284 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 seems to me. Mary s pretty strong, but she 
 said to me yesterday that if there had been 
 another performance 
 
 Curtain rises on Second Aft. 
 
 ^f Lobby. College physician and junior usher. 
 
 Physician. Will you just step over to the 
 drug store across the street and get me some 
 brandy quickly, please ? 
 
 Usher. Oh, certainly, Dr. Leach ! 
 
 Physician. Here, child, stop ! Put on a cloak 
 are you crazy ? 
 
 Usher. But I m quite warm, Dr. Leach ! 
 
 Physician. Put on a cloak ! With your neck 
 and arms bare ! It s damp as a well outside. 
 (Usher runs out.) 
 
 A ubiquitous member of the faculty suddenly 
 appears. What s the matter ? Anybody sick ? 
 
 Physician. Oh, no ! Not much. Miss Jack 
 son was resting in her dressing-room and 
 somebody leaned over the sill and spoke to 
 her you know she s on the ground floor. 
 She s quite nervous, and she got a little hys 
 terical slight chill. My brandy was all out, 
 so I Oh, thank you! (Usher disappears 
 breathless.) 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty, gloomily. I Ve 
 always said there should be understudies 
 
 [ 285 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 always. What will they do without their Viola? 
 It s a ridiculous risk 
 
 Physician, hastily. But Miss Jackson is all 
 right, or will be as soon as I get yes, I m 
 coming! Oh, nonsense! She s all right: 
 there s no need for an understudy, I assure 
 you! No, keep them all out! No, she has 
 enough flowers in there now ! Yes, keep peo 
 ple away from the window ! 
 
 ^[ Curtain rises on Third Scene. 
 
 Group of ushers collapsed on stairs leading to 
 gallery. 
 
 Nan. (White organdie over rose pink silk; 
 rose ribbons.) Oh, girls, I m nearly dead ! 
 
 Ursula. (Black net over elecJric blue satin; 
 silver belt and high silver comb; black gloves.) 
 There s one good thing, we re downstairs 
 to-night. Last night I got so dizzy hopping 
 up and down those steps 
 
 Leonora. (Yellow liberty silk cut very low; 
 gold fillet; somewhat striking Greek effecJ.) Oh, 
 what do you think I just did ? I was so tired I 
 stumbled just behind the orchestra circle (af 
 ter I d shooed that funny woman out of three 
 seats) and I fell almost flat ! And the nicest 
 man helped me up and made me take his seat, 
 and who do you think it was Pit was Mr. Fos- 
 [286] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 dick. He went and stood back, and I sat a 
 long time then. Was n t he ducky ? 
 
 Sally. (White dimity with green ribbons; a 
 yard or more of red-gold hair ; babyish face. ) 
 Where s your own seat, dear ? 
 
 Esther. (Pale blue silk with long rope of mock 
 pearls.) Oh, Piggy s given it to her little 
 friend, as usual ! It s a great thing to have 
 ( The door swings open, and the affors* voices are 
 heard: "There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, 
 lady!" Another usher comes out.) 
 
 Nan. How d the song go ? Better ? 
 
 Usher. Oh, grand ! They made her do the 
 second verse again. Miss Selbourne says that 
 she s the best all round clown they ve ever 
 had. 
 
 Sally. Oh, does she? I heard her tell Dr. Ly- 
 man that the plays deteriorated every year 
 (Enter another usher.) 
 
 Second Usher. Girls, you must be quiet ! That 
 woman at the back says she can t hear a 
 word 
 
 ^[ Curtain rises on Fourth Scene; applause, as 
 audience takes in stage setting. Row of enthusiastic 
 alumna in upper box. 
 
 First Alumna. (Happy mother of three ; head 
 of sewing circle ; leader of the most advanced set 
 
 C 287 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 in her college days; president of the Anti-En 
 gagement League, junior year.) Oh, girls, did 
 you ever see anything so lovely? How do they 
 manage it ? We never imagined anything like 
 it, I m perfectly willing to admit. Are n t those 
 lords and ladies fine ? Why, look at them 
 there must be forty or fifty ! And are n t the 
 costumes beautiful ? How handsome Orsino 
 is! 
 
 Second Alumna. (Rising journalist; very well 
 dressed; knows all the people of note in the audi 
 ence; affects a society manner; was known as the 
 Gloomy Genius in her college days y and never 
 talked with any one who didn t read Browning.) 
 Quite professional, really ! How that Miss 
 Jackson reminds one of Rehan! I wonder if 
 Daly sends the trainer? That little Maria, 
 now she s quite unusual. Lovely figure, 
 has n t she ? Elizabeth Quentin Twitchell. 
 Dr. Twitchell of Cambridge, I wonder ? Do 
 they set that stage alone ? 
 
 Third Alumna. (Blonde and gushing; sister 
 in the cast.) You know, that Miss Twitchell 
 was the best Viola, too, they say. Peggy tells 
 me Mr. Clark says he wished she could play 
 them both. She s very popular with the class. 
 But Miss Jackson does everything. Writes, 
 acts, plays basket-ball, beautiful class work 
 [288 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Oh, is n t that sweet ! (Clown and chorus of 
 ladies with mandolins and guitars sing to wild 
 applause.) 
 
 Fourth Alumna. ( Tall, thin, dark, and dowdy ; 
 very humble in manner; high-principled; worth 
 two millions in her own right; slaved throughout 
 her entire college course.) I don t see how any 
 body can say that girls can t do anything in the 
 world they set out to. Isn t it wonderful ? You 
 can say what you please, but it s just as Ella 
 says they do ten times what we did and do 
 it better too. I think they re prettier than they 
 used to be, don t you ? And they re just like 
 real actors I m sure it s prettier than any 
 play I ever saw ! They make such wonderful 
 men ! Would you ever know that Sir Toby was 
 a girl ? And Malvolio he s just too good for 
 anything ! 
 
 Curtain falls on Fourth Scene. 
 
 *[[ tfhere is a long wait in total darkness. The 
 audience smiles, then settles down to be amused. 
 Somebody faints and is restored with shuffling, 
 apologies, and salts. 
 
 Slender, dark-eyed, gray-haired man, with 
 non-committal expression, uncle of one of the 
 Mob; with his wife, who grows more frankly 
 puzzled as the play advances. 
 
 [ 289 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Uncle. I suppose they Ve outdone them 
 selves in this garden scene. 
 
 Aunt. Yes, Bertha says they Ve worked 
 tremendously over it. Henry, what do you 
 think of it ? 
 
 Uncle. Very ingenious, my dear. 
 
 Aunt. But Henry, their voices 
 
 Uncle. They are a little destructive to the il 
 lusion, but you hear the gentleman behind me. 
 He assures us that he thinks they are men ! 
 
 Aunt. Oh, Henry ! 
 
 Uncle. It s a pity they have n t more like 
 Maria. Viola could take a few points from her. 
 
 Aunt. But Bertha says that they adore 
 Viola. She writes, and plays basket-ball, and 
 stands high in her classes, and 
 
 Uncle. But she is n t an aftress, that s all. 
 She should n t grasp all the arts ! She s too 
 melodramatic she rants. 
 
 Aunt. Bertha says the trainer admires her 
 very much he wants her to go on the stage. 
 
 Uncle. Oh! does he? 
 
 Aunt. Did you know that even the mobs are 
 trained very carefully? Bertha says she goes to 
 rehearsals all the time. And the principal parts 
 Malvolio worked six hours with Mr. Clark 
 one day and eight the next. And Viola had 
 to do more. And the stage committee slave y 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Henry, they simply slave. Little Esther 
 Brookes is worn to a shadow not but what 
 they love to do it. 
 
 Uncle. And when did Malvolio and Viola 
 and the stage committee do their studying? 
 
 Aunt. Oh, they keep up with their work. 
 It s a point of honor with them, Bertha says. 
 Of course they can t do quite so much, I sup 
 pose 
 
 Uncle. I suppose not. 
 
 Aunt. But Bertha says that they would give 
 up anything in college sooner than that. Viola 
 and Malvolio, both of them, say that they re 
 gard it as the most valuable training they Ve 
 gotten up here. They say it s quite the equal 
 of any of their courses. 
 
 Uncle. Ah! do they? 
 
 T| Curtain rises on a very elaborate garden scene 
 of arbors and flowers ; frantic applause, doubled 
 at the entrance of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. 
 
 Group of cynical alumna on fire-escape. 
 
 First Alumna. As for that Sir Toby 
 
 Second Alumna. Hush, my dear, that may 
 be the bosom of her family forninst us ! 
 
 First Alumna, lowering her voice. I think 
 he s indecent and ridiculous. 
 
 Second Alumna. H e 11 be the pride of the class, 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 my little cousin says. They re raving over him. 
 
 First Alumna. Then they re idiots. My 
 dear, we may have had our faults, but we were 
 seldom vulgar, if we weren t remarkable! 
 
 Third Alumna. What I mind so much is that 
 all the papers are filled with that trash about 
 gracefulness and womanliness and girlish deli 
 cacy and the great gulf between us and the 
 coarse professionals, and as far as I can see, 
 we are filling in that gulf as fast as possible. 
 We seem to be striving after the very thing 
 
 First Alumna. Precisely. In a word, it s 
 Daly, not Shakespeare. And they don t see 
 that Dalyism takes money we have n t the 
 scenery and costumes for it. 
 
 Second Alumna. That horrible Sir Andrew! 
 
 Fourth Alumna. But Malvolio 
 
 First Alumna. Oh, Malvolio s all right. 
 As far as a girl can do it. The question is, can 
 a girl do it? I think she can t. 
 
 Third Alumna. And as for allowing that Miss 
 Jackson to imitate all Ada Rehan s bad points, 
 when she naturally fails of her good ones 
 
 Fourth Alumna. But, my dear, the men like 
 it. They re all pleased to death. They think 
 it s the cleverest thing they ever saw. They 
 say Viola s magnetic 
 
 Third Alumna. Hgh ! She s coarse, if that s 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 what you mean! The whole tone of the thing 
 is lowered. I think that way she afted the 
 duel scene last night was simply vulgar. But 
 the girls all howled with laughter. 
 
 Fourth Alumna. Well, if they re pleased 
 
 First Alumna. They should n t be pleased ! 
 
 Fourth Alumna. Surely, Annie, you think 
 this garden scene is funny! 
 
 First Alumna. Why, I laughed. It s a good 
 acting play. But I wish the Literature depart 
 ment had more to do with it and the trainer 
 confined himself to 
 
 Usher interrupts. If you please, I must ask 
 you to make less noise. You are disturbing 
 the people near the door! 
 
 ^f ^he curtain has fallen on the Fourth Att. A 
 group of last year s graduates standing at the 
 back in party-cloaks^ with a few of the Mob in 
 shirt-waists and make-up. 
 
 Recent Court Lady, tentatively. Did you like 
 the dance? 
 
 First Graduate. Oh, it was fine ! It was terri 
 bly pretty, Ellen, the whole thing! 
 
 Recent Court Lady , relieved. I m so glad you 
 liked it. Was n t Sue grand ! 
 
 First Graduate. Yes, indeed, but I liked 
 Malvolio so much! 
 
 [ 293 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Court Gentleman. Good old Dick ! My, don t 
 we love her! Orsino s going to do him at class 
 supper, you know. And Olivia s going to be 
 Sir Toby. 
 
 Second Graduate. How noble! Sir Toby is 
 about the best I ever saw, May. 
 
 Court Gentleman. Is n t she that? She s go 
 ing to be Viola. She squirms and twists just 
 like her 
 
 Court Lady. Oh, come on, May Lucy, and 
 get to bed! (They go out whistling airs from 
 the play and are violently suppressed by a group 
 of ushers^ whose excited remonstrances are loudly 
 criticised by a large and nervous lady in the rear y 
 greatly delighting the contingent from the Mob.) 
 
 First Graduate. Now, Katharine, just tell 
 me, perfectly impartially of course, how you 
 think it compares with ours. 
 
 Second Graduate. Well, girls, frankly I must 
 say I m a little disappointed. (Nods from the 
 others.) 
 
 Third Graduate. It s not that it s not well 
 done, for it is, but it s such a fine play it 
 ought to have been well done by anybody. 
 And for all that Sue Jackson s such a won 
 der, I must say 
 
 Fourth Graduate. Yes, exactly. She s too 
 heavy for the part, I think. 
 [ ^94 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Second Graduate. Of course Toby was fine 
 and Malvolio and Maria 
 
 Fifth Graduate. Well, then, with three fine 
 ones I should think 
 
 Second Graduate. But Olivia and Sebastian 
 and Orsino were such sticks 
 
 Fourth Graduate. Still, those third and 
 fourth and fifth scenes in the second acl: were 
 beautiful. 
 
 Second Graduate. But the others were so 
 plain. They just stacked on the good ones. 
 Still, I suppose they did the best they could. 
 Mary Vanderveer has just slaved over it. 
 
 Fifth Graduate. We know what that is ! 
 
 Second Graduate. Well, honestly, I think 
 this is a -prettier play than ours, but I do feel 
 that ours was a little better done! Here, let s 
 see Sue in this. I think she s pretty good. 
 
 The curtain has fallen on the Fifth Aft. 
 
 and ISiola come out of their dressing-room 
 to the street^ and slip out of a crowd of ushers 
 and under-class girls. A general flutter of con 
 gratulation and sympathy follows them. 
 
 Oh, Miss Jackson, it was great ! Simply 
 fine ! Susy, my child, say what you d like and 
 it s yours! Where s Lida Fosdick? Lida! 
 Dick ! She s gone long ago. Where s Toby? 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Gone, too. Somebody has some flowers for 
 her. Oh, take em up to the Wallace ! Well, 
 good-night! Wasn t it grand! Grand! 
 There s Betty ! Hi, Betty ! Oh, Miss Twitch- 
 ell, it was so 
 
 Miss fwttchett) mechanically. So glad, so 
 glad you liked it we loved to do it ! Oh, yes ! 
 Oh, dear, no ! Just a little, yes. The making- 
 up was so long. Mother thank you, thank 
 you Mother, where is the carriage? Oh, 
 thank you so much ! 
 
 Mrs. fwitchtll^ nervously. Yes, indeed, she s 
 tired to death. I m very glad, I m sure, if you 
 liked it. Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Waite? 
 Yes, here she is. Bessie, here is Mrs. Waite. 
 You see she sat in the Opera House since 
 five o clock to be made up, and only sand 
 wiches and all the strain yes, indeed. Fanny 
 looked very pretty, I thought. In the dance, 
 was n t she ? Yes, so pretty. I m sure I wish 
 Bessie had only been in the dance Oh, here s 
 the carriage, dear ! 
 
 ^[ Malvolio and Viola^ slipping quietly past the 
 crowd; make-up not off; arms on each other s 
 shoulders. 
 
 Malvolio. I suppose Dad s holding that 
 carriage somewhere. 
 
 [ 296 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Viola. Well, I can t help it. I simply can t 
 talk to everybody. 
 
 Malvolio. Do you know your speech ? 
 
 Viola. I think so. It s so short, you know. 
 I hate to have the president s speech long. 
 ( A pause.) 
 
 Malvolio. Well, it s over, Susy Revere ! 
 No more glory for little Lide and Sue ! 
 
 Viola. All over ! Well, we Ve had the time 
 of our lives, Dick ! I d I d give anything 
 to do it over again, three nights ! 
 
 Malvolio. Me too. It s a pleasant little spot 
 up here, fffuy walk to the campus in silence.) 
 
 ^[ Recent court lady and two young gentlemen, 
 brothers of her friend, the stage manager. Her 
 eyes are underlined heavily , and she has not got 
 ten the rouge quite off her cheeks. 
 
 Recent Court Lady. Oh, thank you, it would 
 be such a help ! Mollie is nearly wild, and these 
 things must be got out to-night. If you would 
 take this and this and this, and oh, Father, 
 would you please carry this tankard and the 
 cups ? And could you take those two swords ? 
 I 11 take the distaff and the mandolin. Jack, 
 have you room for the moon ? Will, here 
 are more poppies, and I promised Ada that 
 I d put that rubber-plant in her room to- 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 night. You re so good ! You re sure you 
 don t mind carrying them ? Now don t get 
 laughing, Father, and drop the cups. 
 
 ARecent Court Gentleman. Good-night, dear ! 
 I knew you d like it. Oh, I think everybody 
 seems to feel it s the best yet. Of course, last 
 year they had so much better opportunity, so 
 much easier scenery. But with four such stars 
 yes, indeed. It was so much harder to find 
 people to take oh, she did! She thinks that 
 just because it does n t all depend on one or 
 two people, it s easier ? Well, just find your 
 extra people, that s all! Did you like it? Most 
 people seemed to think it was a pretty dance. 
 Well, we rehearsed enough, heaven knows. 
 Did you know Orsino s fiance was there ? She 
 said she felt like such an idiot. Too bad Sue 
 got scared, was n t it ? Well, good-night. 
 
 ^ Steps of the Dewey House. Three ushers 
 propped against the pillars. The night watchman 
 approaches with lantern. 
 
 Watchman. Well, well, well ! Want to get 
 in ? Hi // bet yer do ! (First usher nods her 
 head.) Are yer h ushers ? Fine play, wa n t 
 it ? (Second usher nods her head.) Well, you 
 do look tired! You pretty tired, Miss Slater? 
 (Third usher murmurs something about sleeping 
 
 [ 298 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 // // noon, and second usher chuckles feebly and 
 mentions Baccalaureate. They stumble into the 
 Dewey, and the watchman shuts the door.) 
 
 ii 
 
 IVY DAY 
 
 THE sun is glaring down on the campus. A 
 crowd of parents and other relatives is surg 
 ing toward an awning near the steps of College 
 Hall-, a stream of white-dressed seniors continually 
 flows toward the Hatfield House, where a proces 
 sion is forming. Forty junior ushers struggle with 
 a rope wound with laurel, which is to encompass 
 the column of seniors. A few scattered members 
 of the Faculty and a crowd of alumnae wander 
 aimlessly about, obstructing traffic generally. 
 
 Small imperious mother, dragging large good- 
 humored father toward the awning. Hurry up, 
 Father, hurry up ! 
 
 Father. But Mother, I want to see em ! 
 
 Mother. Well, you Ve got to take your 
 choice of seeing em and not hearing a word 
 of the speech or 
 
 Father. You go right along, Mother, and 
 I 11 get there on time. I want to see Hattie 
 marching. 
 
 ^f A crowd of girls with cameras rushes up and 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 lines both sides of the walk. Two ushers sail up 
 the path, clearing a way with white-ribboned 
 sticks. The crowd becomes unmanageable, torn by 
 the desire to watch the progress of the march and 
 at the same time to secure a good place at the ex 
 ercises. People summon each other wildly from 
 various points of the campus. 
 
 A group of strolling sophomores, dodging some 
 ushers and wheedling programmes from others, 
 screws its way in a body to the best possible posi 
 tion in the front, smiling at the efforts of the dis 
 placed to reinstate themselves. 
 
 First Sophomore. There they come ! There s 
 Sue and Betty Twitchell ! My, what roses ! 
 
 Second Sophomore. Roses ? Did the ushers 
 
 Third Sophomore. Oh, goodness, Win, 
 have n t you heard that yet ? 
 
 Second Sophomore. No tell me ! 
 
 Third Sophomore. Why, Miss Tomlinson s 
 fiance sent her fifteen dozen American Beau 
 ties, and there wasn t any room for them in the 
 house, and she asked if the class would like to 
 carry them, and first they voted no and then 
 they voted yes, and some of the girls don t 
 like it, but they are doing it just the same 
 Oh, isn t Helen Estabrook s gown stunning! 
 There s Wilhelmina Hello, Will! Sue looks 
 well, don t you think ? 
 
 [ 300 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Second Sophomore. Fifteen dozen American 
 Beauties ! Great heavens ! 
 
 First Sophomore. I think it s perfectly ab 
 surd and bad taste, too. The idea ! 
 
 Third Sophomore. Well, she s not to blame, 
 is she ? They re certainly lots prettier than 
 laurel or daisies or odd flowers Oh, girls, / 
 think Louise Hunter is too silly for anything ! 
 She feels too big to live, leading the way ! I d 
 try to look a little less like a poker if I was 
 an usher ! 
 
 ^[ The Ivy Procession marches to the steps two 
 and two, each girl with an enormous American 
 Beauty in her hand. At every step the girls with 
 cameras snap and turn^ so that the sound resem 
 bles a miniature volley of cannon. There is a com 
 parative silence during their progress. 
 
 Mother and daughter standing on their seats 
 under awning, clutching at the heads of those 
 near them for support. 
 
 Mother. Who is that with Susy, dear ? 
 
 Daughter. That s the vice-president I 
 don t know her name. Sue looks pale, does n t 
 she? 
 
 Mother. And that s Bess Twitchell next 
 with the tucks. She s Ivy Orator, you know. 
 I think Sue s dress drops too much in the 
 
 [ 3 01 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 back Ah, Miss Fosdick has stepped on it ! 
 Good heavens right on that Valenciennes ! 
 
 ( She sits down abruptly.) 
 
 ^[ The procession winds slowly up and groups 
 itself on the steps. The last third stands a long 
 while before the awning and exchanges somewhat 
 conscious remarks with its friends outside the 
 rope, which the ushers endeavor to carry without 
 straining or dropping: this attempt puckers their 
 foreheads and tilts their hats. 
 
 A group of last year s graduates standing close 
 to the enclosure. 
 
 First Graduate. Stunning gowns, aren t 
 they? 
 
 Second Graduate. Awfully. Prettiest I ever 
 saw. And so different, too ! And yet they re 
 all alike organdie over silk or satin, mostly. 
 Is n t Sue Jackson s lovely? 
 
 Third Graduate. I like Esther Brookes ; 
 it s so plain, but there s not a more artistic 
 
 Fourth Graduate. How do you like Lena 
 Bergstein s? 
 
 Fifth Graduate. What s that ? 
 
 Fourth Graduate. My dear, have n t you 
 seen that? It s solid Valenciennes as far as I 
 can see. I think it s altogether too elaborate. 
 But I tell you, it s stunning, all the same! 
 
 [ 3 02 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Fifth Graduate. Ah, I see it! Poor taste, I 
 think. 
 
 Fourth Graduate. I know it. Betty Twitch- 
 ell s is so simple 
 
 First Graduate. Simple, yes ! It s imported, 
 I happen to know! 
 
 Fourth Graduate. Really! I tdoes hang beau 
 tifully! Oh, they re moving: there s Sir 
 Toby. You know nobody ever heard of her 
 before, girls. Isn t that funny? Wasn t she 
 great, though? 
 
 Second Graduate. Well, they won t forget 
 her in a hurry. I think it s a mighty good 
 thing that Dramatics brings out that kind 
 of girl and gives her a place in the class. It 
 keeps two or three girls like Sue Jackson 
 and Twitchie and Mollie Van from running 
 everything. Well, going to stay here? 
 
 ^f A Ubiquitous member of the Faculty suddenly 
 dashes from her seat and pushes through the crowd, 
 which lets her out, under the impression that she 
 is faint. 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty , to a scared 
 usher. Where is Dr. Twitchell? Is he back 
 there? 
 
 Usher. I I don t know ! Is he big? 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty. Big? Big? 
 
 [303 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 What do you mean? A pretty thing to have 
 the father of the Ivy Orator have no seat ! He 
 must be found! 
 
 Usher. I I 11 go see 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty. Do you know 
 him? 
 
 Usher , helpless but optimistic. No, but I 11 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty, suddenly dash 
 ing through the crowd into a lilac clump and pro 
 ducing, to every one s amazement, a large and 
 amiable gentleman from its centre. Well, well! 
 Are you going to remain here long, Dr. 
 Twitchell? Why aren t you in your seat? 
 
 Dr. Twitchell, somewhat embarrassed at his 
 -prominent position, but beaming on every one. 
 Why, no that is, yes, indeed ! Certainly. 
 I only wanted to see Bessie march along with 
 the rest. A very pretty sight remarkably so ! 
 All in white I counted ninety couples, I 
 think. Has has she begun? Is her mother 
 
 Ubiquitous Member of Faculty. We re all in 
 the front row, and they ve not begun. The class 
 president will be making her speech in a mo 
 ment there is plenty of time, but we were a 
 little anxious ( They enter the enclosure.) 
 
 ^[ The class is crowded upon the steps and over 
 flows before and behind them. The sun is in 
 
 [ 304 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 their eyes, and they look strained and pale. Under 
 the awning a few hundred relatives fan them 
 selves, and smile expectantly. 
 
 The class president makes an indistinguish 
 able address, in which the phrases " more glad 
 than I can say," "unusual opportunity" "wom 
 en s education" "extends a hearty welcome" 
 rise above the rest, and sinks back into the crowd. 
 
 The leader of the Glee Club frowns at her 
 mates and leans forward : the class sings "Fair 
 Smith" with a great deal of contralto. The Ivy 
 Orator steps back and upward instinctively, with 
 an idea of escaping from the heads and shoulders 
 that are packed like herring about her, realizes 
 that the audience is entirely out of her reach, steps 
 down to meet them, becomes lost to view, and with 
 a despairing consciousness that nothing can better 
 the most futile position she has ever occupied, steps 
 back to her first place and shrieks out her opening 
 phrases. 
 
 Two mothers sitting on a bench just behind the 
 enclosure, looking over the campus. 
 
 First Mother. So you did n t get a seat? 
 
 Second Mother. Well, I did n t try, to tell 
 the truth. I m interested in the speech, but 
 my daughter tells me that I can see it in the 
 Monthly next fall, and as I got here so late, I 
 could n t possibly hear it from the back. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 First Mother. I was sorry to leave, for Kate 
 wanted me to hear Bessie so much; but after 
 Miss Jackson s speech I had to go the heat 
 made me rather faint. And as you say, one 
 can read it. 
 
 Second Mother. That s what every one seems 
 to think see them all walking up and down 
 here. One of the old graduates a friend of 
 my daughter s told me that this was the 
 chance for them to talk with the professors! 
 
 First Mother. Well, I suppose if they will 
 have it outdoors, very many people can t ex- 
 peel to hear. It s very hard to speak in the 
 open air. 
 
 Second Mother. Yes, indeed. What a fine- 
 looking girl that Miss Ackley is the dark 
 one did you notice her ? 
 
 First Mother. That is my daughter, so I Ve 
 noticed her quite a little! 
 
 Second Mother. Oh, indeed! I m sure I 
 did n t know 
 
 First Mother. It is n t necessary to be told 
 thatjy0# have a daughter here, Mrs. Fosdick! 
 
 Second Mother. No, everybody seems to 
 think that the resemblance is very strong in 
 deed. Is n t it pleasant to meet people so 
 strangely, and without any ceremony, like this? 
 It s a very pleasant place, anyway, is n t it? 
 
 [306] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 First Mother. Yes, indeed. It s beautiful 
 all the spring, but particularly beautiful now, 
 I think, with all the girls in their pretty 
 dresses and the general holiday effecl. 
 
 Second Mother. What I like so much is the 
 spirit of the place. When we found out from 
 things in my daughter s letters and stories 
 she would tell us in the vacations that all her 
 little set of friends were very much richer than 
 she and could afford luxuries and enjoyments 
 that she could n t, Mr. Fosdick and I were 
 quite worried for fear that she would feel hurt, 
 you know, or want to get into a style of living 
 that she could not possibly keep up. But, dear 
 me, we need n t have worried! It never made 
 the least difference, just as she assured us. 
 We were very glad to find that she was the 
 friend of some of the leading girls in the class, 
 when we saw that she went right along as she 
 had to, tutoring and selling blue prints and 
 going about just as contentedly as if her shirt 
 waists had been their organdies. Not that that 
 sort of thing ought to make any difference, but 
 sometimes it does^ you know. She was telling 
 me about Bess Twitchell s Commencement 
 dress, and Sue Jackson s, and I grew quite 
 alarmed, for I thought that perhaps that was 
 expecled, and we couldn t possibly afford any- 
 
 [ 307 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 thing like it. But, dear me, it was all the same 
 to her! She was perfectly satisfied with muslin, 
 and when I asked her if she was sure she d 
 prefer to walk with Bess, she actually made 
 me feel ashamed! Bess herself said that it 
 wasn t every one who could have the honor 
 of walking with Malvolio, and she d like to 
 see herself lose it! 
 
 First Mother. Oh, of course ! Why, I have 
 always understood, both from Kate and her 
 cousin who graduated three years ago, that 
 some of the leading girls in every class were 
 poor. The girls seemed prouder of them, if 
 anything. As you say, it s the spirit of the 
 place. Now Kate herself well, it s a little 
 thing, I suppose, but her father and I well, 
 I suppose any one would think us silly, but 
 we actually cried, we were so touched. Her 
 father gave her her dress it was really lovely. 
 Not elaborate, but it was made over beautiful 
 silk, and he gave her a handsome string of 
 those mock pearls they wear so much now, 
 you know. It was very becoming to her in 
 deed, and she was delighted with it. 
 
 Well, just three weeks ago I got a long let 
 ter from her saying that Eleanor Hunt s father 
 had lost every cent he had in the world and 
 that they were in a dreadful condition. Elea- 
 [308 ] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 nor s mother had sold her Commencement 
 gown and Eleanor was going to wear an old 
 white organdie that she d worn all the year to 
 dances and plays. She said that Eleanor was 
 feeling very bad indeed about it and especially 
 about Commencement time. They had planned 
 to walk together in all the processions they 
 are great friends. So she asked me if I thought 
 Papa would mind if she wore her old organ 
 die, too, to all the things, because Eleanor 
 seemed to feel it so. Her father offered to give 
 Eleanor onefor a Commencement present from 
 her, but she would n t have that she said 
 Eleanor would n t like it she was feeling 
 very proud about gifts, just now. 
 
 Well, her father was more pleased than I Ve 
 seen him for years. You see, Kate has always 
 thought a great deal of her clothes, and she s 
 always had a good allowance, besides lots of 
 presents from us and her aunts. And being an 
 only child, you know well, I would n t say 
 she was spoiled at all, but she certainly was a 
 little thoughtless, perhaps selfish, when she 
 came up here. Her father and I feel that it has 
 done a great deal for her. He says that he d 
 call it a good investment if she d never learned 
 anything in all the four years but just how to 
 do that one thing! 
 
 [ 309 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Second Mother. Yes, indeed ! We feel, Mr. 
 Fosdick and I, that my daughter s friends 
 have been almost as good for her as what she 
 learned, though that comes first, as she must 
 teach, now. She was always so solitary and re 
 served and never cared for the girls at home, 
 but here she has such good friends and loves 
 them all so she s grown more natural, more 
 like other girls; and we lay it all to her hav 
 ing been thrown in from the beginning with 
 such pleasant, nice girls as these. You know 
 them, I suppose Bessie and Sue and Bertha 
 Kitts 
 
 ^f Two alumna strolling between the houses and 
 the enclosure , chatting with friends and spying 
 out acquaintances. 
 
 First Alumna. Good gracious, is n t she 
 through yet ? I pity the poor girls, standing 
 all this while ! 
 
 Second Alumna. Yes, that s just it ! Arrange 
 the oration to suit the girls, do! If they re 
 tired, let them sit down ! It s absurd to criti 
 cise the one really academic exercise of the 
 whole affair entirely on the basis of the girls 
 comfort, I say ! 
 
 First Alumna. But, my dear, the poor things 
 have done so much and stood so much any- 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 how and I should think Miss Maria would 
 be tired herself. 
 
 Second Alumna. Then it s her own lookout. 
 She should have dropped one or the other. 
 They try to do too much. I can tell you that 
 we were proud enough to stand twenty min 
 utes when Ethel Richardson talked, and she 
 did n t feel that it was beneath her notice to 
 devote all her time and attention to that one 
 thing, either. We did n t make so much of 
 these universal geniuses then, but I doubt if 
 we had poorer results from the less widely 
 gifted.lt s too much strain; one simply can t 
 do everything. 
 
 First Alumna. No. They re way ahead of 
 us in lots of things, but I m glad I came 
 when I did. Don t you remember what a good 
 time we used to have spring term ? Dear old 
 last spring term ! Do you know there is n t 
 any, now ? Don t you remember how we 
 dropped ev well, a good deal, and lay in 
 the hammocks in the orchard and mooned 
 about and took a long, comprehensive fare 
 well to all our greatness ? We d made or lost 
 our reputations by then, and we just took it 
 all in and oh, I suppose we did sentimen 
 talize a little, but it all meant more to us ap 
 parently. . . . Well, it s all gone now. They 
 
 [311 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 begin on the play so early, and it s all re 
 hearsing, and then they can t let their work 
 drop, so they keep everything right up to the 
 pitch according to their story. And there are 
 six societies to our one, you know. And all 
 the houses give receptions to them right in a 
 bunch, and every one is so bored at them 
 at least Kitty says they are. But you can t 
 always tell by that, I suppose. 
 
 T| Applause from the enclosure and a general 
 scurry as the ushers crowd up to surround the 
 class , who begin their Ivy Song a piece of mu 
 sical composition something between a Gregorian 
 chant and a Strauss waltz, with a great deal of 
 modulation,in which the words "hopes and fears" 
 "coming years" "plant our vine" and "still en 
 twine occur at suitable intervals. They wander 
 away in a bunch, frantically surrounded by the 
 ushers and the chain, to another side of College 
 Hall, where the Ivy is interred. A general break 
 up then begins, the orator and the president join 
 their admiring families, and people begin to stroll 
 home, the prominent members of the class pausing 
 at every sentence to have their pitlures taken. 
 Two members of the class and one of the Faculty. 
 First Member of Class. It was the funniest 
 thing I Ve heard this year, really ! You know 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 the girls simply slave for her they slave. They 
 can t help it, you know, for she thinks that s 
 all there is in the world and if you don t have 
 your note-book made out she looks at you in 
 such a way oh, well, it makes Mollie s spine 
 cold, she says. Mollie s done splendid work 
 for her not that she does n t do it for every 
 body but she was determined to make her 
 see that she could be at all the rehearsals and 
 take the observations, too. The only thing 
 she did n t do was to go the last two or three 
 nights, but gracious, she d more than made 
 that up ! I thought I did pretty well when I 
 put in five hours of Lab., but those girls have 
 done eight and ten hours a week some weeks, 
 note-books and observations and all. Just to 
 satisfy her, you know they love to work for 
 her. And what do you think she said the last 
 time they met ? Do you know about Astron 
 omy, Mr. Brooke ? If you do, I shall spoil the 
 story for you, for I don t know the first thing. 
 But I think it was the parallax of the sun. 
 "Now, I should think you could just step out 
 between the acts," said she, calmly, "if you 
 could n t get out for all the evening, and take 
 your note-book with you, Miss Vanderveer, 
 and just take it it s a beautiful observation ! 
 And you Ve taken one, and it will be a great 
 [ 313 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 thing to tell your children that you Ve gotten 
 the parallaxes of the sun yourself!" 
 
 Second Member of Class. And when we 
 thought of Mollie dancing about there with 
 her collar undone, trying to make those idi 
 otic men understand something and being 
 everywhere at once between the adls, you 
 know, being a fairly occupied time for her 
 when we imagined her walking out of the gar 
 den scene or Orsino s house to take the what- 
 do-you-call-it of the sun (though I don t see 
 how she could take it of the sun at night it 
 must have been the moon, Ethel). 
 
 Member of Faculty. And what did Miss 
 Vanderveer say? 
 
 First Member of Class. I m sure it was the 
 sun, Teddie, Mollie said sun why, she 
 coughed and said, "I certainly will, if I get 
 time, Miss Drake!" 
 
 Member of Faculty. Great presence of mind, 
 I m sure. 
 
 ^f Group of relatives and three members of the class. 
 
 First Member. Mamma, this is Miss Twitch- 
 ell and Miss Fosdick Maria and Malvolio, 
 you know. 
 
 Mother. I am pleased to meet you both. I 
 want to tell you how much I enjoyed, etc. 
 
 [314] 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Misses Twitchell and Fosdick. We re so glad 
 if you did, etc. 
 
 Mother. I was not able to catch much of 
 your speech, but Ellen tells me we can have 
 the pleasure of reading it later. 
 
 Miss Twitchell, moving away. I m afraid 
 you will have the opportunity but I tried 
 to make it as short as I could ! 
 
 Mother. And now I suppose you re going 
 home to sleep all day ? I should think you d 
 need it. 
 
 Miss Twitchell. Oh, dear, no ! I m going to 
 the Alpha on the back campus this afternoon, 
 and I want to look in at Colloquium, and then 
 there s the Glee Club to-night, you know. 
 I Ve no more worry now, nothing to do but 
 enjoy myself. 
 
 Aunt. What is this, Ellen? The Glee Club 
 
 Ellen. Why, Aunt Grace, the Glee Club 
 promenade, don t you know ? That s when 
 the lanterns are all over, and they give a con 
 cert, and we all walk about, and it s so pretty 
 don t you remember I told you? 
 
 Aunt. Well, then, I 11 go right home and 
 take my nap, if I m to go out to-night. Are 
 you going to all these things, too, Ellen ? 
 
 Ellen. Well, practically. Only I m going to 
 Phi Kapp and Biological instead. But I am 
 
 [315] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 going to lie down I m so tired, I can t think 
 straight, and you know I m on the Banjo 
 Club, and we have to have a short rehearsal 
 
 ^[ I he crowd gradually disperses, and the campus 
 is practically deserted; men begin to put up poles 
 and wires for lanterns ; others gather and arrange 
 scattered chairs. Stray relatives hunt for each 
 other and their boarding-places or inquire with 
 interest which is the Science Building and the 
 Dewey House. Belated members of the class wan 
 der homewards or patiently seek out their fami 
 lies^ whose temporary guardians are thus relieved. 
 
 Abstracted member of the class and large ^domi 
 neering woman in black satin^ before the Morris 
 House gate. 
 
 Large Woman. This is the Hatfield, is it not? 
 
 Member of Class. Oh ! I beg your pardon ? 
 No, it s the Morris. 
 
 Large Woman. Ah ! I was told it was the 
 Hatfield. 
 
 Member of Class, simply. Well, it s not. 
 
 Large Woman. And that over there (point 
 ing to the Observatory J, that is the Lilly House? 
 
 Member of Class. No, that s the Observa 
 tory. Lilly Hall is up farther. It s just be 
 yond the Dickinson no, the Lawrence I 
 mean the Hubbard Home ! 
 
AT COMMENCEMENT 
 
 Large Woman. And where is the Hubbard 
 House ? 
 
 Member of Class. Oh, dear ! (pulls herself to 
 gether with an effort) it s up in a line, the one, 
 two, three, third from here. 
 
 Large Woman. Thank you. And I wish to 
 see the Botanical Gardens, too. Where are 
 they ? (Member of Class points out their posi 
 tion.) 
 
 Large Woman. And where is the Landscape 
 Garden ? 
 
 Member of Class, vaguely. Why, I suppose 
 it s over there, too. I don t exactly it s all 
 landscape garden, I suppose it s not big 
 
 Large Woman, severely. I was told there was 
 a fine landscape and botanical garden are 
 you a member of the college ? 
 
 Member of Class, leaning against the post. 
 Why, yes, but it s all botanical garden, for 
 that matter. ( Catches sight of a tree with a tin 
 label tied to it and points luminously at it.) That s 
 botanical, you know all the trees and shrubs ! 
 
 Large Woman, with irritation. I am quite 
 aware that it is I 
 
 Member of Class, despairingly. Oh, excuse 
 me, I mean it s it s / mean they all have 
 labels! (Large Woman stalks majestically away ; 
 Member of Class makes a few incoherent gestures 
 
 [317] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 in the air, murmurs, " I am such a fool, but I m 
 so tired ! " Throws out her hands wearily and 
 trails into the Morris House.) 
 
THE TENTH STORY 
 
 THE END OF 
 
X 
 
 THE END OF IT 
 
 f ^HERE are two methods of con- 
 i ducting a class supper. The first is 
 I something like this: you pick out 
 -^- three utterly unrelated girls who 
 never had anything to do with one another in 
 their lives, and call them the supper commit 
 tee; you pick out two clever, uninterested girls 
 and call them the toast committee; you pick 
 out an extremely busy girl who lives half a 
 mile off the campus and call her the seating 
 committee; you pick out a popular girl who is 
 supposed to be humorous because she laughs 
 at everybody s jokes and knows one comic 
 song, and call her the toast-mistress. 
 
 And this is the result of it: The supper 
 committee meets, wonders what under heaven 
 induced the president to appoint the other 
 two, finds out what caterer they had last year, 
 and after a little perfunctory argument em 
 ploys him again without further action, with 
 the result that one end of the table has five 
 kinds of ice cream and the other a horrifying 
 recurrence of lukewarm croquettes; the toast 
 committee spends a great deal of time in hunt 
 ing out extremely subtle quotations from 
 Shakespeare and Omar Khayyam, with the 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 result that no one of the toasters gets the least 
 idea of how she is expefted to elaborate her 
 theme; the seating committee is so harassed 
 by everybody that she gives up her diagram 
 in despair, and successive girls erase and sign 
 and re-erase till nobody but the three or four 
 leading sets in the class are satisfied, and they 
 are displeased because the toasters are either 
 put in a line at the head or scattered about the 
 tables, and that separates them from their im 
 mediate cliques; the toast-mistress turns out 
 to be more appreciative than constructive, and 
 worries her friends and bores her enemies be 
 yond previous conception. The main body of 
 unimportant necessary people are crowded off 
 by themselves and feel somewhat flat and 
 heavy and irritated at the noisy groups beyond 
 them; the toasts are apt to be a little sad and 
 vague because the girls don t fit them and talk 
 too much about enduring friendships, the 
 larger life, four years of stimulating rivalry, 
 and alma mater. Why they do all this at this 
 season and this alone, only the Lord who 
 made them knows. 
 
 But Ninety-yellow did not employ this 
 method. It occurred to Theodora somewhat 
 originally, perhaps, as she looked around her 
 that last Tuesday evening, that a better class 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 supper was never arranged. It can hardly be 
 asserted that it was a really good supper, for 
 it is to be doubted if a hundred and seventy- 
 five women ever sat down to a really good sup 
 per; but there was almost enough of it, and it 
 was very nearly hot. Kathie Sewall had picked 
 the supper committee well, and they knew 
 one another thoroughly enough to give it all 
 to the chairman to do and to make fun of her 
 till she was spurred on to a really noble ef 
 fort. She knew that it is always damp and cold 
 class supper night, and planned accordingly. 
 Kitty Louisa Hofs tetter managed the toasts, 
 and though Kitty Louisa was uneven and a 
 little vulgar at times, she was clever in her 
 unexpected hail-fellow-well-met way and pop 
 ular with the class for the most part. She had 
 a genius for puns of the kind that grow better 
 as they grow worse, and they were shamelessly 
 italicized in the toast-cards, which caused great 
 merriment before the toasts had begun. And 
 the seating was very well done, for the class 
 was nicely broken up and mixed about among 
 the tables till everybody was within four or 
 five of a reasonably important person. 
 
 As for the toast-mistress well, you see, 
 Theodora s opinion of her might have been 
 a trifle exaggerated, for she was Theodora s 
 [ 3^3 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 best friend. How little she had changed, Theo 
 thought, as she watched her rumple her hair 
 in the same funny, boyish way that she had 
 freshman year. Theo had seen her first in the 
 main hall, floating with the current of fresh 
 men that pushed its way almost four hundred 
 strong to meet its class officer and find out 
 that O. G. meant Old Gymnasium. That far- 
 off freshman year! Theo smelt again the clean, 
 washed floor; saw again the worried shepherds 
 herding their flocks into the scheduled stalls 
 and praying that the parents might go soon 
 and leave their darlings, if misunderstood, at 
 least unencumbered ; heard again the buzz and 
 hum of a thousand chattering, scuffling girls, 
 bubbling over with a hundred greetings for 
 each other. 
 
 "Hello, Peggy! Peggy! I say, hello 
 Peggy!" 
 
 "Oh, hello! Have a good time?" 
 
 "Grand! Did you?" 
 
 "Perfectly fine I saw Ursula and Dodo 
 and Oh, Ursula! hello! Here I am!" 
 
 "Why, Peggy Putney, you dear old thing! 
 When did you come? They say you re in 
 the Hatfield how did you get there?" 
 
 "Two ahead of me and they dropped out. 
 Miss Roberts only just told me " 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 Theodora had felt very lonesome and home 
 sick just then everybody but herself knew 
 so many people ! And then Virginia had hap 
 pened along and jostled her and begged par 
 don, and they had fallen into a conversation 
 on the relative merits of the Dewey and the 
 Hatfield. Later they had studied Livy to 
 gether and confided their difficulties to each 
 other. Virginia s mother was a Unitarian and 
 her father was an Ethical Culturist, and her 
 room-mate was a High Church Episcopalian 
 and never ate meat in Lent ! She thought Vir 
 ginia would very probably be damned, if not 
 in the next life, certainly in this, and she inti 
 mated as much. Virginia thought it was very 
 hard to live with somebody who disapproved of 
 you so much. 
 
 Theodora had been brought up to be a neat, 
 self-helpful little person, and her room-mate, 
 Edith Bliss, had never even seen her bed made 
 up and left her clothes in piles on the floor just 
 as she stepped out of them. She was horribly 
 homesick and wept quarts every Sunday af 
 ternoon, and confided to Theodora in mo 
 ments of hysterical relaxation that she thought 
 every girl owed it to herself to have soup and 
 black coffee for dinner and that she was going 
 to wire Papa to take her home immediately. 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Theo looked at her now, eagerly devour 
 ing a doubtful lobster concoclion and openly 
 congratulating herself on the olives at her left. 
 She was fond of Frankfurters now, was Edith, 
 and had recently alarmed the authorities by 
 her ingenuous scheme for annexing a night- 
 lunch cart and keeping it on the campus: it 
 would have been so nice, she said regretfully, 
 to slip out and get a Frankfurter between 
 hours ! 
 
 How pretty the Gym looked! The juniors 
 had decorated it as well as they could at odd 
 minutes, and they had lingered in a bunch as 
 the class came in to lean over the balcony and 
 sing to them. 
 
 Theodora remembered how the Gym had 
 looked the night of the sophomore reception: 
 all light and music and girls and a wonder of 
 excitement. She had never had an evening 
 dress before, and her little square-necked or 
 gandie had been dearer to her than any other 
 gown before or since. They played Rastus on 
 Parade, and she had such nice partners and 
 some of the girls were so lovely and had such 
 white, beautiful shoulders they seemed to 
 count evening dress but a slight and ordinary 
 thing. By junior year house-dances are wont 
 to pall, and seniors have been known to make 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 rabbits and read Kipling in preference; even 
 among the freshmen Theodora had found 
 some disillusioned souls who lamented the 
 absence of men and found the sophomore 
 reception slow! 
 
 Across the table an odd, distinguished-look 
 ing girl, with a clever face and dark, short 
 sighted eyes, smiled at her, and Theo s thoughts 
 flashed back to that great day when she first 
 really loved the class the day of the Big 
 Game. What a funny, snub-nosed little no 
 body Marietta Hinks had been then ! But 
 how she played ! How she dodged and dou 
 bled and bounced the ball, and how they 
 cheered her ! 
 
 Oh, here s to Mari^/ta, 
 
 For we shall not soon forget her 
 
 Well, well, how they had grown up ! Now 
 she was " Miss Root " to the little, dark-eyed 
 girl in the back seat in chapel, who smiled so 
 shyly at her when the seniors led out down 
 the middle aisle. Theo was wearing her roses 
 to-night, and as she scratched off a little note 
 to thank her she had seemed to see herself, 
 another little dark-eyed girl, sending anony 
 mous roses to Ursula Wyckoff. Dear me ! 
 would anybody ever again combine such 
 graces of mind and body as that ornament 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of Ninety-purple ? She had gone on wheel- 
 rides with Theo, and once she had asked her 
 over to wait on the juniors at a spread 
 Theo had sat up and got her light reported 
 in order to write home about it. 
 
 There are those, I understand, who disap 
 prove strongly of this attitude of Theodora s 
 happy year : dogmatic young women who have 
 not learned much about life and soured, mid 
 dle-aged women who have forgotten. I am 
 told that they would consider Theodora s 
 adoration morbid and use long words about 
 her long words about a freshman ! I have 
 always been sorry for these unfortunate peo 
 ple: their chances for reconstructing Human 
 Nature seem to me so relatively slight. 
 
 When Theo had gone home that summer 
 with hands almost as well cared for as Ursula s, 
 sleek, gathered-in locks, and a gratifying hold 
 on the irregular verbs (Ursula spoke beautiful 
 French), her mother had whimsically inquired 
 if Miss Wyckoff could not be induced to re 
 main in Northampton indefinitely and con 
 tinue her unscheduled courses ! But perhaps 
 she was a morbid mother. 
 
 Her mother ! The plates and flowers swam 
 before Theodora s misted eyes, and the sight 
 of Virginia so kind that year brought back 
 
 [328 ] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 somehow those waves of desolation that would 
 come over her again and again, in leclure 
 rooms, in her own dear room, at meals all 
 that clouded sophomore year. It was just as 
 her good fortune came through the mail to 
 her a room in the Nicest House that her 
 mother died, and rooms mattered little to 
 Theo, then. There were kindly aunts and 
 other children, and she was not needed at 
 home; so it seemed best to go on, and she 
 had come up the steps of the Nicest House, 
 a little black-dressed figure, and into the arms 
 of the Nicest Woman. 
 
 It seemed to her that there was never a 
 room so cheerful, nor pictures so lovely, nor 
 a fire so red, nor tea and bread and butter so 
 good, nor a smile so comfortable as the Nicest 
 Woman s. Mademoiselle and Fraulein and 
 Miss Roberts were sweet and kind, and the 
 girls did all they could, but it was to the Nicest 
 Woman that one came when conditions and 
 warnings were in the air or one s head ached 
 or one had eaten too much fudge or been an 
 noyed by somebody s banjo practice. When 
 the seniors of the Nicest House were eating 
 and laughing there at night, it was a gay room 
 the Nicest Woman s; but it was very dim 
 and quiet in the dusk, when Theodora slipped 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 in by herself with reddened lids, and sat on the 
 couch, and they talked of things that started 
 to be sad but somehow always turned out 
 cheerful; for when it was about the children 
 and Will at Yale little jokes were sure to 
 come up, and when Theo wondered if perhaps 
 she had n t been careless about writing home, 
 and if Mother had gotten more letters in 
 the spring, maybe the conversation always 
 changed, and she found herself feeling so glad 
 and thankful that she d gone right home in 
 June and not visited at Virginia s. 
 
 Virginia had gone into Phi Kappa that win 
 ter, and Theo had been so proud of her. She 
 was in the first five, and as she really had n t 
 expecled it at all it was quite exciting. Ade 
 laide Carew went in too, and though she went 
 about with the seniors a great deal and called 
 most of her class " Miss," she was much more 
 generally liked than in her freshman year, and 
 Virginia had got to know her better and better. 
 Through her Theo had seen more of Ade 
 laide, and she had been amazed to find out 
 how really kind-hearted and human she was 
 beneath her unapproachable ways. 
 
 But then, you never could tell girls were 
 so queer! Only last night, when they were 
 walking about under the lanterns after the 
 
 [330] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 concert, she and Virginia and Adelaide, with 
 two of the junior ushers, and the juniors, so 
 phisticated young people, had cynically sug 
 gested that perhaps they d better take them 
 selves away in order that the three might seek 
 out their Ivy and bedew it with their final tears, 
 Adelaide had coughed a little huskily and sug 
 gested that perhaps when they d planted their 
 own Ivy they would n t be feeling so gay ! 
 They had stared at her blankly, hesitated, 
 decided that coming from such a source it 
 must have been an extraordinarily acute sar 
 casm, and gone away giggling, leaving Theo 
 to wonder and Adelaide to flush and talk very 
 hard about Bar Harbor and the comfort of a 
 big room all to yourself once more. 
 
 Such a strange room-mate as Theo had had 
 that year she seemed fated to room with 
 girls who had never made up their beds. This 
 one had lived freshman year with friends in the 
 town, and had had everything done for her, 
 and when Theo asked her one day if campus 
 life was wearing on her, she had turned two 
 stormy gray eyes on her and burst out, "Oh, 
 no, Theodora, but I am so deadly tired of 
 picking up my night-gown every single morn 
 ing, I think I shall die!" 
 
 On one historic occasion, early in the year, 
 
 [331 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 Theo had happened to make up her bed for 
 her, and upon her pleased recognition of the 
 fresh linen it had come out that she had been 
 for some weeks accustomed to change her up 
 per sheet and leave the under one undisturbed 
 on the bed it had seemed more logical, she 
 said, and how was she to know ? They had 
 teased her about it till the Nicest Woman in 
 terfered and fined every girl who mentioned 
 it, and they bought Sentimental Tommy with 
 the money, and read it evenings in the Nicest 
 Woman s room after supper. 
 
 Well, well, they d sit about her fire no 
 more, as the poem said that somebody wrote 
 to go with the silver tea-ball the seniors gave 
 her when she served them their last tea. 
 They d come in no more after Alpha and 
 Phi Kapp to tell her all about it how nice 
 she had been when Theo got into Alpha ! 
 That was junior year and they took her to 
 Boyden s for supper, and her bowl and 
 pitcher were full of violets for days. Every 
 body seemed so glad, and Martha Sutton had 
 pinned her own pin on Theo s red blouse. 
 Kathie Sewall had taken her over nobody 
 dreamed that Kathie would be senior presi 
 dent then and what a hand-shaking there 
 had been ! And such a funny, clever play, with 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 butlers and burglars and lady s-maids it was 
 illustrative of American literature, she learned 
 later, but it was not a pedantic illustration. 
 
 Theodora loved plays, and she had delighted 
 in her very humble part in the House play. She 
 was a little house-maid, and said only, "Yes, 
 madam," and "No, madam," and, "Oh, sir, 
 how can you a poor girl like me !" but she 
 had a great American Beauty and two bunches 
 of violets, and she sent the programme home. 
 Next to its basket-ball decorations she remem 
 bered the Gym arranged for a play, with the 
 running-track turned into boxes and the girls 
 prettier than ever against the screens and pil 
 lows. She had been chairman of the stage-set 
 ting committee, and the Monthly had espe 
 cially commended the boudoir scene. 
 
 Were they ready for the toasts so soon ? 
 Where had the time gone? she thought, as 
 Virginia, with solemn pomp, called upon Miss 
 Farwell to respond to "Our Team." Dear old 
 Grace she stammered a little when she was 
 excited, and she was not the most fluent of 
 speakers, but they cheered her to the echo. 
 "Team ! Team ! Team !" they called, and the 
 teams, freshman and sophomore, Regulars and 
 Subs, had to stand on their chairs and be sung 
 to. As Theo balanced on a tottering seat, she 
 [ 333 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 caught sight of a crowd of girls moving to 
 ward the Gym, and as they sat down a shout 
 from below greeted them : 
 
 Oh, here s to Ninety-j///0w;, 
 And her praise we ll ever tell oh, 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down! 
 
 A cheerful, aimless creature at the bottom 
 of one of the great tables, whose one faculty 
 was for improvised doggerel, instructed her 
 neighbors rapidly, and they sent back a tune 
 ful courtesy: 
 
 Oh, here s the Junior Ushers, 
 And I tell you they are rushers ! 
 
 Theodora had "ushed," in classical phrase, 
 in her day, and the bustle of last year, so much 
 more exciting somehow than this one, came 
 back to her. Her little, white-ribboned stick 
 was packed now in fact, everything was 
 packed: she was going away for good! Some 
 one else would lounge on the window-seat in 
 her room in the Nicest House, and light the 
 cunning fire. . . . 
 
 Who was this ? Oh, this was Sallie Wilkes 
 Emory, responding to "The Faculty." Kitty 
 Louisa, whose soul knew not reverence, had 
 attached to this toast the pregnant motto, 
 
 [334] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 That we may go forward with Faculties unim 
 paired, an excerpt from one of the President s 
 best-known chapel prayers, and Sallie was de 
 veloping the theme in what she assured them 
 was a very connotative manner. Theo saw 
 them pass in review before her, those devoted 
 educators, from her dazed freshman Livy to 
 her despairing senior Philosophy that was 
 over, at least ! Theodora was not of a techni 
 cally philosophical temperament. Sallie was 
 quoting liberally from a recent famous essay 
 of her own : The Moral Law, or the End-slim 
 of Human Aftion According to Kant, apropos 
 of which she had remarked to the commenda 
 tory professor that she was glad if somebody 
 understood it ! Sallie was a great girl how 
 grand she had been in the play ! Theo had 
 been in the mob herself, having first tried 
 for every part, and had enjoyed every minute 
 of it, from the first rehearsal to the last dab 
 of make-up. She had been an attendant and 
 had n t an idea how pretty she looked, nor 
 how many people spoke of her and called 
 her graceful. 
 
 It may have been because Theo had so few 
 ideas about herself that she had so many 
 friends. And how many she had ! She took 
 great pride in them, those fine, strong, good- 
 
 [ 335 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 looking girls that hailed her from all direc 
 tions, and always wanted a dance or a row or 
 a skating afternoon with her. She wondered 
 if anybody so ordinary for Theo knew she 
 was n t clever ever had so many jolly good 
 friends. There was the Mandolin Club, now 
 all friends of hers. She got on late in junior 
 year and played in the spring concert. Her 
 father came up and said he d never seen such 
 a pretty house in his life packed from or 
 chestra circle to balcony with fluffy girls alter 
 nated with dapper, black-coated youths. He 
 gave Theo such a darling white gown for it, all 
 ruffled with white ribbon, and she had her pic 
 ture taken in it, holding the mandolin, and sent 
 it to him in a big white vellum frame covered 
 with yellow chrysanthemums, with "Smith" 
 scrawled in yellow across one corner. He kept 
 it on his desk and was tremendously proud 
 when his friends asked about it. 
 
 Here were the class histories. Theodora 
 thought she listened, but though she laughed 
 with the rest and applauded the grinds, it was 
 her own history that she was reading as face af 
 ter face recalled to her some joke or mistake or 
 good luck. Not that it was sad oh, dear, no! 
 If any member of the class of Ninety-yellow 
 dared to be sad that night there was a fine, and 
 
 [336] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 more than that, the studied coldness of the 
 class directed toward her: it was an orgy, not an 
 obsequy, as Virginia elegantly put it. Just as 
 the junior history, which is always the best/or 
 some unexplained reason perhaps because 
 of the Prom was finished, there was a loud 
 knock, and a big bunch of yellow roses from the 
 class that was having a decennial supper some 
 where was brought in by a useful sophomore. 
 They clapped it and sent some one back to 
 thank them a point of etiquette that some 
 self-centred classes have been known to omit 
 and then they remembered that Ninety- 
 green was supping at its first reunion in the 
 Old Gym, and sent over some of the table 
 flowers to them. Virginia motioned to Theo, 
 and proud of the mission and blushing a little 
 at the eyes that turned to her as she went, she 
 took them over. They clapped and sang to 
 
 her: 
 
 Oh, here s to Theodora^ 
 
 And we re very glad we sor her ! 
 
 Martha Sutton waved to her and the toast- 
 mistress thanked her for the class, and she 
 went back alone, because, being an older 
 class, Ninety-green did n t need a delegate. 
 On the way, two juniors met her, and they 
 condoled with her cheerfully : " How do you 
 
 [ 337 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 feel, Theo dear ? Is n t it kind of dreadful ? 
 Do you keep thinking it s the last time ? 
 Goodness I should!" One of them threw 
 a sympathetic arm over her shoulder and 
 looked at the moon, but Theo grinned a lit 
 tle and said that she was tired as a dog and 
 that if there was one place in the world she 
 wanted it was her room At Home. And as 
 the juniors gaped at this matter-of-fact atti 
 tude, Theodora added, pausing at the Gym 
 door, " Of course I Ve had a perfectly grand 
 time here, and all that, but I Ve been here 
 four years and that s about long enough, you 
 know. And they want me, of course, and I 
 want to come ! I think it gets a little well, 
 toward the end, you know " 
 
 But Theo was tired, and so are seniors all, 
 and until three or four generations of them 
 have learned how to do it easily, so will they be. 
 
 They were doing stunts upstairs : Clara 
 Sheldon had seen Cissie Loftus who had seen 
 Maggie Cline who sang Just tell them that you 
 saw me, and Clara, who was the most tailor- 
 made and conventional creature imaginable to 
 the outward eye, was forced by those from 
 whose farther-reaching scrutiny she was never 
 free, to imitate the imitator at all social func 
 tions that admitted song. She used stiff, ab- 
 
 [338 ] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 surd gestures and a breathy contralto that 
 never palled upon her friends. Cynthia Lov- 
 ering danced her graceful little Spanish dance 
 for them, and Leslie Guerineau told them her 
 best darkey story in her own delicious South 
 ern drawl. And then there was a murmur that 
 grew to a voice that swelled into a shout as 
 they drummed on the table and called, " We 
 want button ! We want button ! We want but 
 ton, Dutton, Dutton!" 
 
 She said no ; that she d had a toast ; that 
 they knew all her stunts by heart but they 
 hammered on her name with the regularity of 
 a machine till she got up at last with a sigh 
 and," Well, what do you want ?" They wanted 
 a temperance lecture, and she drooped her head 
 to one side, and with an ineffably sickly smile 
 and a flat nasal drawl she told them " haow 
 she d been a-driving raound your graounds, 
 and they re reel pleasantly situated, too, dears, 
 and your President, such a ^^gentlemanly man, 
 accompanied me, and pointed aout to me your 
 beeyutiful homes and I said to him, c Oh, what 
 a beeyutiful thought it is that all these hundreds 
 of young souls are a-drinking water, nothing 
 but water, all the time and every day ! 
 
 She was going to teach in a stuffy little 
 school in the wilds of Maine, and Ethel Eaton, 
 [ 339 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 who had been taught in that school, was going 
 to travel abroad for a year it was a strange 
 shuffle. 
 
 What, was it half-past eleven? Impossible ! 
 But somebody had started up their great song 
 that had been their pet one since freshman 
 year, and they were shouting it till the Gym 
 rang: 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the yellow is on top^ 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the purple cannot drop ; 
 We are Ninety-yellow and our fame shall never stop, 
 Rah, rah, rah y for the seniors! 
 
 They sang all the verses, and then the 
 watchman and the superintendent of build 
 ings, waiting like sleuth-hounds to prevent 
 any demonstration from without, gritted their 
 teeth and dashed furiously down the wrong 
 stairs as Ninety-green, who had softly assem 
 bled at the back of the Gym, having come 
 from different directions, burst into the tradi 
 tional tribute: 
 
 Oh, here 5 to Ninety-jri/few, 
 
 And her fame we ll ever tell oh! 
 
 " Ere, ere! stop that now! Miss Sutton, 
 it ain t allowed will you please to go ome 
 quietly! No, they ain t a-comin h out till you 
 go e says they ain t!" 
 [ 340 ] 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 "Oh, come now! We aren t students any 
 more! We can do what we like " 
 
 "Oh, come on, girls! Don t make a fuss; 
 we don t want to stay, anyhow!" 
 
 They sang themselves away, and the class 
 upstairs looked around the tables and thought 
 things, for it was time to go. And here I am 
 afraid I shall lose whatever friends I may have 
 gained for Theodora, for it is necessary to 
 state that none of those comprehensive, sol 
 emn moments of farewell, known to us all to 
 be the property of departing seniors, came to 
 her. She was conscious of a little vague ex 
 citement, but all the last days had been more 
 or less exciting generally less and her 
 mind was occupied with irrelevant details. 
 Had Uncle Ed remembered to change at 
 Hartford? Had Aunt Kate packed her black 
 evening dress? Would the post-office forward 
 that note to the little freshman? Could she 
 get Virginia up in time for the 9.15? Had 
 she lost the slip with the Nicest Woman s 
 address on it? And had she given Marietta 
 that senior picture yet? 
 
 There had been one moment when her 
 throat had contracted and her eyelids had 
 crinkled: it was that very evening, when An 
 nie, the cook, had beckoned to her in the hall 
 
 [341 ] 
 
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 of the Nicest House, and said: " There s 
 three o them little cakes on a plate on your 
 table. Miss The dora. I shan t be bakin em 
 agin, an I know you do be terrible fond of 
 em!" 
 
 "Thank you, Annie," she had said, and 
 shaken her hand warmly. Annie had cooked 
 fifteen years in the Nicest House, and what 
 she and her mistress did n t know about girls 
 you could put in a salt-spoon. It was n t every 
 girl that Annie liked, either. 
 
 Grace was getting up, and they stood a 
 moment irresolutely by the chairs. 
 
 "Let s make a ring, girls, and sing once 
 round, and say good-by till next year," she 
 said; and then there was a little quick shuf 
 fling, and the carefully divided sets got to 
 gether and stood as they had stood for the 
 last two or three years. Theo took tight hold 
 of Virginia and Adelaide, and they moved 
 slowly around the tables, a great circle of girls, 
 so quiet for a moment that Ninety-green, 
 singing one another home around the campus, 
 sounded as loud and clear as their own voices 
 a moment ago. They listened with a common 
 impulse as the rollicking Tommy Atkins song 
 paused awhile under the Washburn windows; 
 they had been very fond of Ninety-green. 
 
THE END OF IT 
 
 Ninety-green she is a winner, 
 Ninety-gmTz she is a star, 
 Is there anything agin her ? 
 No, we do not think there are! 
 There have been some other classes, 
 Other seniors have been seen, 
 But they cannot match the lasses 
 That are wearing of the ra? / 
 
 They smiled a little and remembered the 
 great mass of green flags and ribbons that had 
 waved to that song in last year s Rally. But 
 they did not answer with one of their own; a 
 little of the first faint conviction that the college 
 owns all her classes, the feeling that grows with 
 the years, came to them, and as the circle pressed 
 closer and closer and their steps fell into an even 
 tramp, Grace called out, "Now, girls, here s to 
 old Smith College ! " and they sent it out over 
 the campus, so strong and loud that the de 
 cennial people and the groups of Ninety-green 
 and the juniors and the belated sophomores 
 lurking about heard them and joined in: 
 Oh, here y s to old Smith College, drink her down ! 
 Oh, here 9 s to old Smith College, drink her down ! 
 Oh, here s to old Smith College, 
 For it s where we get our knowledge, 
 Drink her down, drink her down, drink her down, 
 down, down ! 
 
 [ 343 ] 
 
COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 MESSRS. CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 NEW YORK 
 
 SMITH COLLEGE STORIES 
 
 BY 
 JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM 
 
 izmo, $1.50 
 
 AN animated picture of a particularly aftive-minded 
 and picluresque community is contained in Miss 
 Daskam s volume. "Smith" may be taken as an epitome 
 of the woman s college world; and these ten stories have 
 a real value accordingly in showing what the undergrad 
 uate life of many thousands of American young women 
 really is in its varied phases, illustrating their ambitions, 
 manners, occupations, and traits. 
 
 The stories, however, show that a good deal of human 
 nature exists within college walls, and they will certainly 
 appeal as strongly to the fidlion-lover as to the sociologist, 
 being written with great cleverness and sparkle, and 
 clearly the work of a born writer of stories. 
 
 TITLES OF THE STORIES 
 
 The Emotions of a Sub -Guard 
 A Case of Interference 
 Miss Biddle of Bryn Mawr 
 Biscuits ex Machina 
 The Education of Elizabeth 
 
 A Family Affair 
 
 A Few Diversions 
 
 The Evolution of Evangeline 
 
 At Commencement 
 
 The End of It 
 
 OVER 
 
Princeton 
 
 PRINCETON STORIES 
 
 BY 
 JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS 
 
 <)th Thousand 
 izmo, $1.00 
 
 TTERE is the evanescent charm, the touch of poetry 
 1 *- and sentiment, that pervades a thousand unpoetic 
 and rather reserved young men. You will find here the 
 good fellowship depicted without any rant about it. 
 There is n t a prig in these stories, . . . that are well 
 written and well constructed, judged from the standard 
 of good American short-story writers. Droch in Life. 
 
 TpHEY breathe a spirit of commendable vigor and 
 -- manliness. Princeton men are fortunate in having 
 the life of their college so favorably presented to the 
 outside world. Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A FRESHMAN 
 
 BY 
 JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS 
 
 Illustrated, 12 mo, $1.25 
 
 THE new story of college life by the author of "Prince 
 ton Stories" is a stirring tale of experiences at col 
 lege, and has already been pronounced (by the New York 
 Evening Sun) "a better picture of college life than the 
 same author s Princeton Stories " (which is now in its 
 ninth thousand). The Independent says : "Hazing, the ups 
 and downs of athletics, manliness and boyishness happily 
 blended, escapades and adventures all tending to the 
 building up of a typical American character, brim the 
 book with genuine life." 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS, PUBLISHERS 
 153157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
"Taoiarestf- 
 
32166