Then as they waited by the side of the road for the car bound Cambridge-ward, Julia saw what she ought to do. During the ride she had been pondering, and had it been any one but Pamela she would have made an offer of direct help for the next college year. This would have meant so little to her, and so much to the Vermont girl. But there was something in Pamela—an independence of spirit in spite of her shrinking demeanor—that prevented her doing this. Yet now as from a clear sky she seemed to hear the echo of a speech that had actually fallen unheeded on her ears a week or two before. It was the lamentation of a friend of Mrs. Barlow’s who bewailed her young son’s deficiencies in Greek.
“It’s disgraceful that Teddy is so unwilling to study, and his father is determined to have him enter with Greek. If I had my way he’d give it up. Now I suppose that we shall have to have a tutor. It will be a nuisance to have an extra man in the house, but I suppose it can’t be helped. If it were anything but Greek I suppose that we might have a woman, but as it is, I suppose that we must make the best of it.”
As this conversation came back to her, Julia wondered that at the time she had not thought of Pamela. Possibly it was because the words had not been addressed to her directly that they had made so little impression. That very night she would write to Mrs. Hadwin, and if it was not too late, she would do her best to get the position for Pamela.
“Pamela,” she whispered, after they had taken their seats in the returning car, “Pamela, I feel almost certain that I can find something for you to do this summer. If it isn’t the thing that I have in mind this minute it will be something similar. I can’t say more at present, but I wish that you would trust me and believe me entirely your friend.”
“Thank you, of course I trust you. You have been so kind ever since the very first day. You remember my fountain pen?”
Both girls laughed at the remembrance.
“Because I’ve been so despondent this evening you mustn’t think that I am always forlorn,” said Pamela, “only it is very hard sometimes for a girl to work out things all alone, and I really have no one to advise me.”
“Sometimes I feel very lonely, too,” said Julia; and as Pamela’s hand touched hers in a mute response, she felt that they were now really going to understand each other.
That very evening Julia wrote to Mrs. Hadwin, and so strong did she make her case that before the end of the week all the arrangements had been made, and Pamela was the engaged tutor for Teddy. Her term was to last three months from the last week in June, and Pamela was to accompany the family to the seashore. The change of air was in itself likely to be good for Pamela, and Julia congratulated herself on the sudden thought that had brought this piece of good luck to her friend.
“Yet if Pamela had not been able to show such a fine record for her work in the classics, any effort of mine might have been perfectly useless.”
Had Jane Townall stayed in Cambridge until Commencement, Julia might have had more interest in the Radcliffe Class Day. But illness in her family had called Jane home as soon as her examinations ended.
“I am sorry not to get my degree from the hands of the President at Commencement, but I’m glad to escape the flurry of Class Day. I really could not afford the expense. I’m coming back, though, for my Ph.D. sometime. I’ll take that in person.”
“There’ll be no Radcliffe Ph.D. next year, nor yet the year after,” said Polly, shaking her head.
“Oh, it will be years before I return,” responded Jane cheerfully. “I must save the money first. By that time women will be receiving the Ph.D. from Harvard itself.”
“Doubt it!” cried Polly.
“Well, I’d come back cheerfully for the two years of graduate study, even without the Ph.D. at the end.”
“I’m not with you there,” interposed Clarissa, who had joined the group. “When I’ve earned a Ph.D. I’ll try to get it.”
“Then you wouldn’t have been a contented Annex graduate, with a certificate instead of a degree, stating that you had received an education the equivalent of that for which the degree of A.B. is given at Harvard College.”
“Poor things!” replied Clarissa. “No, I couldn’t have borne all that they bore. I’m not that kind of a pioneer.”
Jane had secured a fine position in an Indiana High School for the coming year, and her regrets at leaving Cambridge were mingled with pleasure at the prospect opening before her of having a fair income.
Julia and Ruth returned to Cambridge the day before Harvard Class Day. As evening came they worried about a few overhanging clouds, yet when Friday came, the girls, looking through the trees shading their window, saw that it was a regular Class Day sky, blue, cloudless, while the air coming in over the casement was warm and sultry.
“Julia,” cried Ruth at breakfast, “howcanyou be so calm? I feel as if I might be Brenda, I am so excited. I’ve always longed for a real Harvard Class Day. I was only a little girl when my cousin Augustus was a Senior, and I remember how I stood about and watched his sisters dressing for his spread. Even a year in Cambridge hasn’t destroyed the glamour surrounding the day. Yesterday, when I saw that the seats had been put up around the Tree, I felt that the curtain was about to be lifted from the show. You are too calm, Julia, you really are, and you have such a lovely dress!”
“It is no lovelier than yours, Ruth. Come to my room when you are dressed; I am very anxious to see it on you.”
The girls were now on their way upstairs, and when a half-hour later Ruth entered Julia’s room, each girl gave an exclamation of delight. A third person might have found it hard to tell which dress was the more beautiful, Julia’s white organdy, with its rows and rows of tiny lace-edged ruffles, or Ruth’s yellow muslin worn over a pale yellow slip. Ruth was a brunette with Irish blue eyes, and her yellow gown and leghorn hat with yellow crush roses was very becoming. Julia’s white hat had a pink lining, and was very becoming to her rather colorless type. “You look like a white rose just touched with pink,” exclaimed Ruth, in a rather unwonted vein of poetry.
The two girls walked in a leisurely fashion to Fay House, where, according to the arrangements made by Mrs. Barlow, Toby Gostar, Nora’s younger brother, met them to escort them to Memorial Hall. Here in the Chapel Brenda and Nora and Mrs. Barlow were waiting.
“We were so afraid that you would be late,” cried Brenda as they approached. “You know that our tickets won’t be good for anything after half-past ten. The doors are opened to the public then.”
“As it is now only quarter-past ten, Brenda, your anxiety was rather misplaced, but as we are now all here we can hasten to our seats.”
Mrs. Barlow, gathering up her voluminous skirts, marshalled her quartette to the narrow wicket gate through which so many, many thousands of persons have entered Sanders Theatre, and up the broad stairs into the great amphitheatre. Toby stayed behind to take his chances with the ticketless throng, crowding around the outer door.
“It’s like a garden,” said Ruth, gazing about on the rows of seats rising tier above tier, filled for the most part with young women and girls, whose light gowns and flower-trimmed hats gave the place the aspect of a flower garden.
There were mothers there, of course, or an occasional father; but on the whole the great interior was given up to girls, who fanned themselves and listened to the orchestra, and wondered if it wasn’t almost time for the Class to appear. Very promptly at eleven o’clock the Classdidappear, fresh from the service in Appleton Chapel and the breakfast at the President’s. The Marshals led the way, one of whom was Philip’s friend, Tom Hearst; and as the rest of the Seniors in cap and gown followed closely and took their places in the seats on the floor, every girl in the theatre tried to identify her own brother or cousin or friend.
“It does seem too bad about Philip,” and Nora leaned over toward Julia; “besides, if he hadn’t failed so, Edith would have been here. Just think of her near England at this very minute, when she ought to have been here.”
“I dare say that she is more comfortable at this very minute than we are. Only imagine how refreshing an ocean breeze would be blowing over our heads.”
“Oh, Julia, how terribly matter of fact you are!”
Julia’s feelings, however, were deeper than her jesting words implied. In the group below, as she recognized one after another of Philip’s friends, she realized how much he was losing. There is only one Class Day for each undergraduate; and although he may make up scholastic deficiencies, and get his degree with some other class, if he loses his Class Day, something has gone that can never be made up to him.
So although Julia listened to the Oration with its review of the Class history and its promises for the future, although she gazed with admiration at the fluent Poet whose lofty lines were delivered in a rather feeble voice, although she laughed at the witticisms and local hits of the Ivy Oration (without always seeing the force of the joke), her thoughts sometimes were wandering far away. Indeed, it is to be feared that the last part of the Oration was lost upon her, for when the Class rose in a body to sing the Class Ode to the air of “Fair Harvard,” she was surprised to find that the first part of the Class Day programme was ended. Of course, like many others, Nora and Brenda and Julia and Ruth lingered to scan the scattering throng for familiar faces. Naturally, too, Tom and Will and other Seniors whom they knew came up to shake hands with them, and receive their congratulations on having reached this point in their career; and naturally, too, these same young men escorted Mrs. Barlow and her charges first to the “Pudding” spread (where nothing resembling pudding was to be had, except, perhaps, the ice called frozen pudding), and then from the “Pudding” to one or two private spreads, and then—why, then before they knew it it was four o’clock, and every one was wondering if it wasn’t almost time to go to the Tree. Where had the day gone?
“Ah, here you are!” exclaimed a cheerful voice, as Nora and Julia stood on the lawn of Wadsworth House, a little tired, a little the worse for wear, holding their empty plates, and wondering how they had managed to lose sight of Mrs. Barlow and Brenda and Ruth.
“Oh, papa!” cried Nora, for the cheerful voice belonged to Dr. Gostar. “Oh, papa, I didn’t know that you were coming out. How delightful! Are you going to the Tree? But there, I suppose that you haven’t a ticket; they’re so very hard to get.”
“Ticket!” and there was genuine merriment in Dr. Gostar’s laugh. “Why, you are forgetting who I am. I’m a graduate, and Class Day belongs partly to the graduates. At least, the Tree part of it does.”
“Oh, then we’ll see you there. What fun!”
“You’ll hear me certainly. Really, I ought to be saving myself now for the cheering. But I met Mrs. Barlow just outside; she had to go with Brenda and Ruth to Matthews for a little while. Elmer Robson was with them; there was something in his room that he was anxious to show Brenda. Mrs. Barlow felt that she could go when I promised to take you under my wing. We are to meet in Stoughton, where Will Hardon has a room looking out on the Tree.”
“But I thought that his rooms were in Holworthy?”
“So they are. But he thought that it would be pleasant for his guests to have a room to rest in before going to the Tree and near it. By the way, we have no time to spare,” looking at his watch. “If you are ready, young ladies, I shall be happy to escort you, although I’m rather surprised that you haven’t some younger cavalier.”
“Well, papa, we have had, but you see the Seniors have all gone off now to dress for the Tree, and even Toby, after he had gone with us to one or two spreads, seemed to grow restless. I suppose he thinks there’d be more fun with some of his classmates. There are a few undergraduates hanging about on the outskirts of things.”
“I hope that he hasn’t neglected you.”
“Oh, no, indeed”—Julia was the speaker—“oh, no indeed, he has been remarkably entertaining. He pointed out all kinds of amusing college personages, and cleared the way for us through several crowds, and saw that our plates were heaped with ices, and altogether has been very helpful.”
“He really has, papa,” added Nora. “You see the Seniors can pay little attention to any single person, they have so many to look after. It’s the greatest fun to see them trying to be equally attentive to half a dozen persons at once when all the time they’re dying to talk to some one person by herself. Even Will Hardon, who seldom is disturbed, was half beside himself. He hadn’t had a chance for a word with Ruth, and wherever he was to-day there were three tall, thin cousins of his from New York who wished to know about everything and to see everything, and who hardly left his side for a moment. I think that Ruth was disappointed, too.”
“Why, Nora!” and Julia shook her head in disapproval. But Dr. Gostar was too much absorbed in the scenes in the Yard to notice this speech of Nora’s.
“Why, papa, you seem to see a great many people you know.”
“I certainly do, daughter; that is one of the charms of Class Day. Presently I may run upon some old classmate whom I have not seen for twenty-five years. He is here escorting his daughters; and although my head is gray, and his may be bald, we shall rush into each other’s arms and—”
“Why, who is he, papa?” cried Nora, without realizing that she was interrupting.
“Oh, I haven’t the least idea; the particular man does not matter. It will be some one with whom I can renew my youth. Why, if it wasn’t for Class Day some of us old fellows would forget that we had ever been young.”
“Why, papa, nobody considers you old. I heard Mrs. Everlie the other day call you a perfect boy.”
“I certainly feel like one to-day, escorting two fair damsels through the College Yard.”
“Oh, listen! listen!” cried Julia, as the sound of gruff huzzas came to them.
“They have begun to cheer the buildings; you know that that is the ceremony,—a pause before each old building, and a loud cheer for it,—the Seniors’ farewell to Harvard.”
They had now almost reached Stoughton, pushing their way through the crowd. On the steps of University Hall and other buildings, rows of people were seated, who evidently were mere sight-seers, without any real connection with the Class. There were small boys and girls among them, and men and women in holiday dress, evidently sight-seers from the City. In the throng hurrying across the Yard there were now a good many undergraduates, and anxious chaperons trying to collect their charges, and pretty girls in delicate dresses hurrying toward the Tree enclosure.
From the door of Stoughton Dr. Gostar and his party hastened upstairs to the upper room which had been secured for them. It was a large, square, old-fashioned room, furnished rather more simply than those occupied by Philip and Will in Holworthy, and it was far plainer than the elegant apartments of Tom Hearst in Claverly.
As the others had not yet arrived, Julia and Nora tiptoed around, looking at the curious gray and blue steins on the mantle-piece, the fencing foils and masks on the wall, the two or three old colored prints of stage coach and sporting scenes.
“Hm, hm,” cried Nora, “whoever he is, the classics do not occupy all his time. Just look at those membership certificates; he seems to belong to every athletic society in the college. And his books, where are his books?”
“Why, here,” cried Julia, “on this shelf behind the door. There are a whole dozen of them;” and Nora, stepping forward, read off their titles, which proved, by the way, to be the titles almost entirely of college text-books.
“But, my dear, you mustn’t expect them all to be book worms; it takes every kind of individual to make up a college, just as in the outside world,” remonstrated Dr. Gostar in answer to Nora’s gibes at the non-literary taste of the owner of this room.
Before more could be said, Mrs. Barlow and Ruth and Brenda appeared, attended by Toby and another undergraduate, who was introduced as the owner of the room. The latter was a mild-mannered, young-looking Junior, not at all the athletic individual—at least in appearance—whom the girls had pictured from the trophies and other adornments of the room.
“There, Mrs. Barlow, I hand my charges over to you,” and Dr. Gostar hurried off to join the Alumni around the Tree. In a few minutes Mrs. Barlow and the others followed, leaving the room in Stoughton to some other guests of Will’s, who were to watch the Tree exercises from the windows.
Already the throng in the Yard was crowding toward the Tree enclosure, and the ticket holders had hard work to thread their way among curious by-standers. Within the enclosure the sun beat down hotly, except in one corner where the brick walls of the neighboring buildings cast a shade. Following the boys, Mrs. Barlow and the girls scrambled up over the rough wooden benches,—“just like circus seats,” said Nora,—and at last, a little out of breath, and with many apologies to those whom they disturbed in their progress, they reached their own places.
Now, although Brenda and her friends did not then realize it, these Tree exercises were to have a peculiar interest from being almost the last under the walls of Stoughton. The space was too limited for the thousands who felt that they had a right to be spectators, and already plans were making for a change of place and a somewhat different performance.
As the Alumni came in, taking position some distance from the Tree, the girls caught sight of Dr. Gostar and two or three sedate Bostonians of his age seating themselves on the grass, and looking as cheerful and merry as the youngest undergraduate there. The Alumni had marched within the enclosure with a band of music at the head, and then had followed the Freshmen, with the Sophomores second and the Juniors last. Each formed a separate circle around the Tree, and when the signal was given all rose and cheered lustily for every college official from the President to John the Orangeman. The Chief Marshal, a tall, handsome fellow, led the cheering, and at last at a given signal the students in each circle, joining hands, whirled at a mad rate around the Tree. When they had sung the Class Ode, the Marshal threw his hat against the Tree, and then the wild scramble for the flowers began. It was difficult for those who knew them best to recognize their especial Seniors in the shocking bad clothes and old hats that they wore. But many a mother, when she discovered her boy, was sure that he must come away with broken limbs, if he escaped alive from the wild scrimmage. They pommeled one another, formed themselves into human ladders, flung one another off from the sides of the Tree. Yet strange to say, no one received serious injury, and the few who reached the glowing wreath were loudly cheered, even by those who thought the whole affair rather brutal. Those who stripped the wreath from the Tree flung the fragments down among their classmates, and in the end nearly every one had a flower or two as a memento. As Tom and Will pressed through the crowd with fairly large bouquets—at least they could be seen by Brenda and her friends—the girls wondered if any of the trophies should pass to them. While they stood for a moment waiting a chance to pass down to the Yard, Mrs. Barlow pointed out one distinguished person after another among the spectators at the Tree, including the British Minister, the Secretary of the Navy, the Governor of New York, and innumerable literary and professional men of note. Many of them undoubtedly were there as relatives of Seniors, and some probably found it a distinction to be the father of a boy who was the idol of his class for this thing or that,—athletics and social graces sometimes ranking ahead of scholarship.
When Will and Tom reached Mrs. Barlow’s group their flowers were rather impartially distributed among the four, and the boys hurried on to array themselves in proper Senior garb. They all met again at the Beck spread, and from that they went to one or two smaller teas, sitting in windows that overlooked the quadrangle until the Yard had been illuminated.
“Fairyland only faintly describes it,” said Julia, looking at the wonderful labyrinth of lanterns and colored lights shining above the crowds in gay attire threading the paths, or seated on the grass.
Julia was loath to leave the scene even for a glimpse of the dancers in Memorial and the Gymnasium. When an opportunity therefore came for her to go back to the rooms in Holworthy under Toby’s protection, she was glad enough to go. She was a little tired now, and did not sit in the window, and when Toby seemed restless, she advised him to go back to Memorial, as she would be perfectly comfortable in the easy-chair that he had drawn up for her. She added that she would not be at all lonely.
Hardly had Toby left her when a familiar voice fell on her ear.
“Toby told me that you were in here, Julia, but where are you?”
Julia rose from the easy-chair, the deep back of which hid her from view.
“Why, Philip! How in the world do you happen to be here? I thought—”
“No, I haven’t actually left this part of the world. I’ve been down to the shore for a day or two getting my things together. I’m off to-night by the midnight train. But I couldn’t resist a glance at Class Day. Besides,” a trifle less defiantly, “I thought that I might see you, Julia.”
“Oh, yes,” replied Julia, “we’re all here, Ruth and Brenda and Nora; they’ll be coming back from Memorial after a while.”
“Oh, I’ll be out of the way before that. I made Toby swear not to say a word about me. No, I didn’t expect really to see any one, though I hoped that I might run across you.”
“I’m awfully sorry that things have gone badly with you, but next year—”
“No, I’m not coming back next year, nor am I going to cry about spilled milk. What’s the good? Nobody really cares what becomes of a fellow. Of course a family is mortified when he doesn’t get his degree, and I’ve had it heavy enough from my father for the money he’s had to put up for me. But you are a sensible girl, Julia, and I’ve wanted to tell you that in many ways you’ve done me a lot of good. Sometime, perhaps, I may show you that I’ve profited by some of your advice.”
“I’ve never given you any real advice.”
“Indeed you have. Of course I’ve had it from other people, too. But you’ve said some things that really have made an impression. But there, what’s the use of talking? Sometime you’ll see that I’m not as black as I’m painted. So now I must be off, for I’ve some things to attend to in the Square, and I don’t want the others to find me here. There’d be such a beastly lot of explaining,” and so with a sudden farewell, Philip hurried out of the room. Julia, looking from the window, followed him for a moment until he was lost in the crowd. At this moment the Glee Club, stationed on the green, sang “Fair Harvard,” and Julia wondered if the pathetic music struck Philip’s ears with the sadness with which it fell on hers.
Not long after this Mrs. Barlow and the girls appeared. The latter were by no means ready to go home, tired though they were after their long day. But Mrs. Barlow was firm; and in spite of the protests of Tom and Will and one or two others, they left the Yard before half-past ten.
The summer passed quickly away, as vacations have a fashion of doing, even when one is young, and Julia and Ruth and Polly and Clarissa and Lois and all the other college friends met again in October, well and happy. Polly had been at Atlantic City, Clarissa had joined her family at the White Mountains, Pamela had been on the South Shore with her pupil, Nora had spent the summer in Maine. Lois alone of this group of friends had had practically no change of scene; she had stayed in Newton all summer, and yet she returned to college looking as bright as any of the others. Julia’s summer does not form properly a part of her Radcliffe days, and yet it is only fair to say that Julia’s summer had been somewhat different from what might have been prophesied in June. The first weeks had been spent in attendance on her Aunt Anna, who had fallen ill with a slow fever in the early spring. When she was better the doctor had ordered a complete change of air, with the result that Mr. and Mrs. Barlow and the two girls had made a tour of the British Provinces. Coming back to college from so many points of the compass, the Sophomores all had naturally much to tell. They registered themselves promptly on the first Thursday of the term; they chose their electives and changed their minds as often as the authorities would permit. They studied the notices on the bulletin board and the schedule of recitations, and advised one another in tones much more confident than a year ago. They did their part at the Freshman reception to make the incoming class feel perfectly at home, and they began to develop a class spirit. Now “class spirit” is something which had only just begun to develop at Radcliffe, and indeed at this time some of the upper class girls, absorbed in their work, were disinclined to believe that it had an existence. Different things were contributing to this class feeling. One was the increasing interest in athletics. Each class had its basket ball team and its own athletes, or gymnasts as perhaps we ought to say, in whose triumphs it took a genuine pride. Clarissa had come to the front as one of the best athletes of her class, and the Sophomores with her help expected to lead in the spring meet. Julia, too, found herself suddenly conspicuous from a very simple thing, or at least it seemed simple to her. She had always had some talent for musical composition, and had studied Composition before entering Radcliffe. But the course in Harmony under the distinguished head of the Music Department had been a revelation to her, and she had begun to venture on little flights of her own. One of her songs, a setting of William Watson’s, “Tell me not now,” Polly had picked up as it lay in manuscript on her desk. Now Polly had a sweet, bird-like voice, and she rushed to the piano and trilled off:
“Tell me not now, if love for loveThou canst return,Now while around us and aboveDay’s flambeaux burn.Not in clear noon, with speech as clear,Thy heart avow,For every gossip wind to hear;Tell me not now.”
“Tell me not now, if love for love
Thou canst return,
Now while around us and above
Day’s flambeaux burn.
Not in clear noon, with speech as clear,
Thy heart avow,
For every gossip wind to hear;
Tell me not now.”
Julia herself, as she listened, found her own music more interesting than she had imagined it. Polly, when she had finished, turned around with an amused expression:
“Well, well, I am perfectly surprised that you are so sentimental, Julia Bourne.”
“Oh, nonsense!” responded Julia, “but you sing it like an angel.”
“Yes,” said Polly, “this time I’ll accept the compliment without protest, for with your leave (or without it) I’m going to sing this at the next Idler. I’ve been asked to sing something, and I’ll take care to let every one know that you are the composer of this sentimental ode. You! the stern person who used to frown on me last spring when I wanted to go to Riverside on canoe expeditions that meant asolitude à deux. Ah, Julia, this song shows that you are human like the rest of us;” and Polly held high above her head the manuscript that Julia tried to seize.
Thus Julia made her first appearance before her fellow-students as a composer, for Polly sang “Tell me not now” with great effect that Friday afternoon; and Julia, who hitherto had had comparatively few acquaintances outside of her special set, now found herself an object of interest to the whole club.
“The next thing,” said Ruth, with genuine pride in Julia’s triumph, “the next thing we’ll have you composing an operetta.”
“Nonsense!” cried Julia. “An operetta! I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not? Three or four operettas have been composed and given by Radcliffe girls with great success. Why, I came out with my mother the year ‘A Copper Complication’ was given, and I never saw anything more entertaining in my life. What one girl can accomplish another can, I mean if she has the same kind of talent. Why, there have been several Radcliffe operettas—‘Princess Perfection,’ ‘A Copper Complication.’”
The urgings of Polly and Ruth, however, might not have led Julia to take up the work had not the Emmanuel Society needed funds. It had committed itself to assist in maintaining a reading-room at the North End for working girls, and its expenses had been heavier than the first estimates. In no way could money be so readily raised as through an operetta, and as Julia was especially interested in this Society, she at last consented to see what she could do.
“For any one with talent like yours it isn’t so very hard,” said Polly persuasively. “Ruth and I will help you with the book, and then you must have some good soprano solos—for me—and some manly contralto solos, probably for Clarissa, if we can only get her to take them; and then there must be a soubrette song or two—we’ll find the soubrette, and there must be a man’s funny part, like Charles River, the ‘winter man’ in ‘A Copper Complication,’” and Polly spun round the room, singing:
“Now since men are always busy in this lovely summer time,I get my little innings when I can,As I wanted to offset a bit the summer girl’s éclat,I call myself a winter man.I drive out, I dine out at functions divine,At parties I dance with the belle of the ball.It is in the winter I have my good time.”
“Now since men are always busy in this lovely summer time,
I get my little innings when I can,
As I wanted to offset a bit the summer girl’s éclat,
I call myself a winter man.
I drive out, I dine out at functions divine,
At parties I dance with the belle of the ball.
It is in the winter I have my good time.”
“Oh, no indeed!” interrupted Ruth. “Julia’s opera will have no frivolous Charles River. Her hero, I’m sure, will be a most serious person with high purpose.”
“And a low voice, that is, low for an alto,” cried the irrepressible Polly.
“There,” said Julia, smiling, “as my part is to be so small, I need not have hesitated about undertaking it. You are arranging for the words and the speakers, and the music is only—”
“Now, Julia, ofcoursethemusic’sthe thing, the chief thing, but there’s a certain type of song that’s taking, and we have to think what will best suit our prima donnas, when once we have secured them. You have no idea how shy they are. I shouldn’t care to be the business manager of this affair,” and Polly flung herself on the couch, while the others laughed at her affected melancholy.
Yet in spite of this badinage, the girls of Julia’s group, as well as some others with special literary or dramatic talent, began to work for the success of the operetta. The music was left entirely to Julia; but the libretto, or “book” as they all preferred to call it, was to be a composite production. The sentimental lyrics were nearly all assigned to Ruth; the comic words for the most part grew. Girls are more considerate than boys. Their jokes are seldom “grinds” on the professors, and they are even fairly tender toward the various branches of a college curriculum. The gibes, therefore, of Radcliffe plays were more apt to be directed toward local faults, such as muddy sidewalks and dusty streets.
Yet after all, the operetta was entirely secondary to regular college work. Hardly a girl in Julia’s class sought the name of “grind,” and few deserved it. The absence of the dormitory system, the very fact that many Radcliffe students reside with their parents while attending college, makes for a normal life in which home interests and society have their place as well as study. This is as it should be, and is not to be criticised unless a girl assumes too many social duties in addition to her college obligations.
The autumn calendar was marked by several events of special significance to the Sophomores. Not the least of these was the class election, in which Julia and Ruth took more part than in that of the preceding year. There happened to be in their class about twenty girls from a large preparatory school,—a public High School,—and these girls had been a power at the Freshman elections. Indeed, so certain was their ticket to be elected that the rest of the class had put up few candidates. By this second autumn, however, the situation had changed somewhat. Girls like Julia and Ruth, who had entered with none of the advantages of a backing of comrades, were now pretty well known. The Freshman Class President proved unpopular, and had shown so little special ability that not even her personal friends favored her re-election. Several were anxious to have Clarissa a candidate, and the friends of Annabel Harmon intended to put her up. Somewhat to Julia’s surprise she found Ruth favoring Annabel. The latter had been a Special, until late in the year she had become a Freshman. Annabel was a pleasing girl, able to talk eloquently on any subject,—so eloquently that those who looked beneath the surface sometimes doubted her knowledge of the things she talked the most about. Julia, reproaching herself for unfairness, disliked having Ruth so intimate with Annabel.
Julia championed Clarissa as a candidate, because she saw that the Western girl was a born leader, and because she admired her frank, open nature.
“I object to Clarissa,” Ruth had said, “because she makes so many foolish jokes. She doesn’t seem to me to represent the class properly. Now, Annabel is always dignified, and college girls are so criticised that one who is conspicuous ought to be conventional.”
Julia perceived that Ruth was already under Annabel’s influence. She was a year or two older than the average Freshman. This was not due to lack of ability, but to her having decided rather late on a college course. She had entered at the beginning of February—just after the mid-years in the winter before Ruth and Julia entered Radcliffe. She was rather proud of having become a regular Sophomore: and indeed for a girl of Annabel’s rather indolent disposition, this was something to be proud of. Only a girl of her egotism would have aspired so early in her career to become Class President. Julia felt almost positive that Annabel could not succeed, but Annabel herself knew better. She had begun to work for the office the preceding year. What had been the meaning of the little luncheons that she had given from time to time, to which she had bidden not only her intimates, but those girls most likely to be of use to her? As she was not a Freshman then, they may not have suspected her motives; but the little luncheons, and the lending of valuable books, and the flattering letters written at just the right time, and, above all, a manner which said to each one to whom she was talking, “You really are the cleverest girl in the class, and I wish that other people had the good sense to find it out,”—all these things had done their work; and when the ballots were counted, Miss Harmon was President, and Clarissa Herter had no office. Ruth had been the only candidate for Secretary, and the office of Vice-President had gone to a Latin School girl. It couldn’t be said that there was much feeling over the election, or anything approaching dissension. Yet two or three who, like Julia, were dissatisfied felt that Annabel did not deserve so marked an honor. The sharper-sighted had seen too much of her wire pulling. Nevertheless, a little later when the Sophomores had their class luncheon, even those who did not especially like her had to admit that Annabel made a charming presiding officer, and as toast mistress (though the toasts were drunk only in cold water) she was, as the newspapers might have said, “particularly felicitous.”
Soon after the class luncheon the Sophomores gave the Freshmen a dance in the Auditorium. Although girls danced with girls and no masculine person was present (except the youth who assisted in moving the furniture), all said that they had enjoyed it as much as if it had been a co-educational affair (this was Clarissa’s general term for the occasional affairs in which Harvard and Radcliffe students mingled). Even Pamela was seen in some of the square dances, with a pretty little Freshman. The principles of the little Freshman as well as her ignorance of waltzing prevented her dancing anything but the lancers and Portland fancy. So while the others were whirling in the waltz, or leaping through some of the more modern dances, Pamela and the Freshman, in Clarissa’s words, “carried on a desperate flirtation.”
Prosperity had agreed with Pamela; she looked stronger, and her cheeks had more color than formerly. Although she still lived at Miss Batson’s, and although the loud colors of the furniture and the loud manners of the boarders still grated on her nerves, she found the work that she had to do less burdensome than in her Freshman year. The money earned by her summer of tutoring sufficed to pay more than half the tuition fee of her Sophomore year; and to keep her young pupil up to the mark, she had been engaged to go to him twice a week during the school year. Thus all her tuition fees were more than provided for. Although she had not secured the scholarship on account of the number of competitors, an allowance had been made her by the Students’ Aid Society. She could thus see that she could make both ends meet for the year, and as to the future, she felt sure that she could provide for that when the time came. Pamela, though always independent and persevering, since coming to Cambridge had acquired a hopefulness formerly unknown. To this extent, if in no other way, she had felt the broadening influence of Radcliffe,—or shall we say of the great University under whose shadow lies the woman’s college?
At the Open Idler, Pamela wore a pretty pale pink gown of soft veiling, simply made, but extremely becoming. Julia found it hard to get Pamela to accept this simple gift. She had thought at first of a subterfuge, of pretending that the gown had been made for her, and that because of the dressmaker’s mistake she had had to discard it. But on second thought she decided that frankness was the best. When she found that Pamela had decided not to go to the Idler because she had no suitable gown, she brought forward the one that she had had made.
“How pretty it is! What an exquisite color, and so simple!”
“Yes,” Julia had responded, “and it is for you! I had it made because I knew that you couldn’t possibly attend to anything so frivolous, with all that you have to do this year. If you do not wear it, it shall hang in my closet until the moths eat it. Come try it on!”
So almost before she realized what she was doing, Pamela had arrayed herself in the pretty, soft, clinging gown, and as she looked in the long mirror she hardly recognized herself. “If I could pay for it,” she murmured, “if you would let me.”
“Why, yes,” responded Julia, “certainly, in five years or twenty years, whenever you can do it as well as not, I shall be happy to let you pay for it. Of course I would rather make it a present. But if you prefer, I will accept payment for it any time after five years—not before. That will be so much clear gain for me. For if you should not take the gown it would hang in my closet until the moths had made way with it.”
“Oh, Julia, what nonsense!” And then Pamela, though seldom voluble, expressed her gratitude very warmly. Hoping to pay for it in the future, she was very glad to accept the gown; and Julia, observing Pamela so perfectly at ease,—such wonders will good clothes work,—felt more than repaid for her forethought.
This Open Idler of their Sophomore year happened to be the first one for Julia and Ruth. They had not sent many cards of invitation, but a few of their friends came out from Boston, and pushed their way through crowds of gaily gowned girls to the large room where the Sophomores received their friends. Among these were Nora and her mother.
“I’m not sure, Julia, that it is safe to bring Nora here. Already she has begun to talk about coming to college, and what I have seen here to-night makes college life seem too attractive.”
“But why ‘too attractive’?”
“Ah, Julia, I am one of those old-fashioned persons who cannot quite see the wisdom of a college education for girls. Of course I would not wish Nora to consider her education finished simply because she has left school. Indeed, I have had her continue several of her studies; but she owes something to society, and college cuts a girl off so from social life.”
“But we have social life here—and masculine society, too,” she concluded with a smile.
“Yes, indeed,” responded Mrs. Gostar, glancing around the room, in which Harvard students were almost as numerous as Radcliffe girls. Standing in corners, seated on divans, walking toward the refreshment tables, were youths and maidens enjoying one another’s society to the same extent as if in a crowded ball-room. The walls were bright with orange and white festoons,—the class colors. A touch of crimson twined across the end of the room where the year of the class was inscribed showed the connection with Harvard. Rugs on the floor, tall palms in the corners, great vases of primroses, and bands of yellow ribbon on the refreshment tables, had transformed the plain recitation room into a bower of beauty. Each class had a room to itself, similarly decorated, and there was one for the Specials. Downstairs the officers of the Idler, the Dean of the college, and the Secretary received the guests, who were introduced individually by ushers. There was a table with refreshments in the parlor; there were refreshments and an orchestra in the Auditorium; there were, as Polly said, “tête-à-têtes unlimited” in the Library and in the recitation rooms; and any one whose knowledge of Radcliffe was obtained first through an “Open Idler” would have pronounced it the most frivolous of institutions.