“Of course every one here remembers the afternoon when I recited so many things before the curtain went up, that afternoon two years ago when we had to wait so long for the Idler play to begin.”
Annabel knew, naturally, that every one presentdidremember that day, and she continued: “You may recall, too, that there was much discussion afterwards about a strange girl who attended the performance—who—who threw me a very large bouquet. Well, perhaps some of you may also have heard that the girl was Loring Bradshaw in disguise, who took that way of seeing a Radcliffe play. I recognized him, of course, but for certain reasons he did not wish any one else to know that he had done this. He was a little under a cloud in college, and he thought that this wouldn’t do him any good with the Faculty. Well, the affairdidget out, and he always thought that this was the last straw that led to his suspension. He knew that I had not told, and he was sure that no man in college would have done so. Then, I happened to mention that you, Miss Herter, had spoken of it at Radcliffe, and he looked on you as the cause of his troubles with Harvard. So it happened one day that he walked home with me as I was carrying your note-book in History 100 that I had borrowed. Your name was in large letters on the cover, and he insisted on carrying the book away. I could not prevent him, for he simply took it from me. I wrote him a severe letter that night, and the book came back to me promptly the next day. He said that it had served his purpose, but I had no idea of his meaning until that newspaper article appeared. I did not care to tell people that Loring was undoubtedly responsible, and besides, just then, Miss Herter, I was perfectly willing to have it appear that you were to blame. They were certainly your notes, and I had no way of proving that Loring had concocted the article.”
There was silence when Annabel finished. Before any one else could speak, she continued: “I wish to say now that I am very sorry that I let so many hold a wrong opinion, for of course I knew that they held it. But I was annoyed about this, although I know now that Polly and Clarissa had nothing to do with the Mr. Radcliffe affair as I thought at first.”
“Thank you!” cried Polly.
“Well, I’ve realized for some time that I do not deserve to be Class President. In fact, even before Clarissa rescued me I had begun to see that I was a mean and jealous kind of a person.”
“There! there!” exclaimed Polly, rising to her feet, “we won’t allow too much humility in the President of the class. We’ve all made some mistakes of judgment, and I myself have been about the worst of all.”
“Ah!” continued Annabel, “you are too good, but I have learned more than any one else in finding out that girls can be generous to one another.”
“There!” cried Clarissa, taking her place beside Polly. “In the language of the poet, ‘Enough said.’”
Clarissa disliked scenes.
As Class Day approached, the class began to feel that the end was indeed near at hand. Thoughtful girls like Julia and Lois found a special significance in everything that they did; “for the last time” meant a great deal to them, and even the unsentimental Clarissa quoted Tennyson with an approach to correctness:
“Tears, idle tears, I know not why ye fall,—Tears from the depth of some divine despair.”
“Tears, idle tears, I know not why ye fall,—
Tears from the depth of some divine despair.”
During May the class had had many attentions paid it by the other undergraduates, as well as by different professors and their wives,—“a continuous performance,” as Polly phrased it, of farewells; and that girl would indeed have been stony-hearted who had not felt that all these things had made her parting with Cambridge a little harder. There had come a lull in these festivities during the examination season of early June, for in comparison with all other examination periods this one had an enormous importance for many Seniors. Even girls who had done well throughout their course showed an unnecessary nervousness, and were sincere in fearing that in some unexpected way they might lower their records. Few of them, perhaps, expected to fail, but those girls who had set their hearts on a degreesumma cum,magna cum, or even simplycum laude, felt that much depended on the marks of these final examinations.
But when the examinations were at an end, worry, too, departed, and few indeed were the Seniors who did not enter whole-heartedly into the pleasures of these last days.
The work of the various class committees had been completed some weeks before, and to the credit of the class all had worked together harmoniously. Even in the election of the committees most little rivalries and jealousies had disappeared, and if in all instances precisely the right girl was not in the right place, no one criticised or found fault. As Class President Annabel was Chairman of the General Committee, Ruth of the Invitation Committee, Julia was Chairman of the Committee on Class Exercises, Clarissa was chief of the Photograph Committee, and Pamela, in spite of her protestations, had a place on the Baccalaureate Committee.
So energetic had Clarissa been as Chairman of her committee and so conscientious in securing the best photographs that some of her classmates made really pathetic complaints.
“Sometimes, when I think that I am going to have an hour of leisure, an hour when I may sink in the depths of my easy-chair and refresh myself with Meredith,—George, not Owen,—there comes a gentle tapping at the door, and I rise to receive a note reminding me that I am part of a group that is to be photographed under the broiling noon sun, and that I am especially requested to wear a pleasanter expression than usual. I belong to so many groups,” concluded Polly sadly, “that my Senior May has been one long noonday glare of sittings before the camera. When there was nothing else happening, some amateur was taking a snap-shot, to add me to her album of Radcliffe views. I cannot tell you how many times I have been caught in unconscious attitudes, crossing the tennis court, or leaning against a tree, or seated on the steps. I always try to look my best at such times, because—”
“You spoke ofunconsciousattitudes,” commented a listening Junior.
“Hush, child! When you are a Senior you will understand things better,” replied the irrepressible Polly; “and to prevent further criticism, I will give you a specimen of my most unconscious smile,” and the younger girl accepted Polly’s latest photograph—a full length in cap and gown.
“My time for teasing you, Polly, will come to-morrow,” said the Junior, “for you may be my vis-à-vis in a canoe, and if you are not careful I may tip you—just a little way—into the river.”
But Polly refused to be frightened by this mild threat, and when the canoe set out it was Polly who held the paddle. This excursion on the river was the form into which the Juniors offered their hospitality to the departing class, and a merry time they had with a picnic supper spread in a grove on the river bank.
The Sophomores invited the Seniors to a dramatic performance in the open air, after which—for almost the last time as undergraduates—the guests were treated to the familiar fudge and college ice. If the fudge was over-sweet and the ice over-watery, nobody criticised the feast. Indeed, the affair was considered remarkably successful, since the Sophomores were thought to have been extremely clever in having discovered that the Radcliffe grounds were large enough for such festivity. All the audience, to be sure, except the Seniors, had sat pretty closely together on rugs and shawls spread on the grass. But the Seniors in their camp chairs were not crowded; and though the setting of the mimic stage was rather Shakespearian in its simplicity, it sufficed for the little play. For the whole action was supposed to take place on the links where two golfers engaged in some sentimental sparring, and a caddie and a country maid furnished the burlesque element.
Of all the events of that last month none was more enjoyable than the reception given by the Athletic Association to the Senior basket ball team, as a special acknowledgment of its prowess in gaining the championship. For Clarissa and her nine had not only vanquished the younger classes, but had won certain victories over outside colleges that had almost turned the heads of the athletically inclined. Indeed, some of those girls who seldom set foot in the Gymnasium except when obliged to exercise went to this reception to honor the team. For it was the proud boast of the athletes that no girl on the team would have a degree graded lower thancum laude, and thus the outside world would see that mental and physical exercise could go on at the same time. As for Clarissa—well, every one knew that she showed marked ability in everything that she undertook, and no one, not even Annabel, grudged her her honors. To her undoubtedly belonged the chief credit for the glory that came to the class in bearing away the banner of championship. This was more than a compensation for their losses in the tennis tournament.
“Few classes,” said Polly proudly, “will go out in a greater blaze of glory. With Clarissa getting us the championship, and Pamela winning that two hundred and fifty dollar thesis prize, all eyes will be turned upon us.”
“They always are turned on the graduating class,” responded Julia, to whom she spoke. “But it’s delightful, is it not, that these special honors have come through girls to whom some of us were not inclined to pay much attention in our Freshman year.”
“‘Some of us’ is good,” rejoined Polly, “when we remember that you always had unlimited confidence in the two heroines.”
“I always liked them,” said Julia quietly, “as I saw that others must when they knew them better.”
To picture the scene in the Gymnasium demands the painter’s brush rather than the pen, for it was no formal reception such as any group of girls could give in any house. Far from it! Though the day was fairly warm, the star athletes did their best for the entertainment of their guests. They performed feats that made the blood of some of the uninitiated run cold. They went up and down ladders, and climbed ropes, and swung on rings, and leaped over bars, and showed enormous agility, if they undertook no difficult tests of strength.
Those girls who were not in the R. A. A. stood about in their light muslin gowns, and clapped and cheered a steady approval; and the others in their picturesque gymnasium suits clapped and cheered even more loudly. They did not shriek, not they, when Clarissa at the apex of a pyramidal arrangement of ladders seemed about to fall. They knew that she was safe, and Clarissa was soon ready for her triumphant descent.
But some of the girls in light gownsdidexclaim at the critical moment in tones loud enough to have frightened a timid gymnast, and some thought it a pity that Clarissa should have to work so hard when she was really the guest of honor, and some thought that she was making a needless display of her prowess. Yet as Clarissa poised herself at the top of the ladder before starting down, a mighty cheer went up from the whole throng, and Clarissa, with beaming eyes and flushed cheeks, waved them her appreciation of their appreciation before beginning the descent.
After the banner had been duly presented, after the team had made its acknowledgment, after every one who could make a speech had said the proper thing, the R. A. A. returned to everyday costume, and the three or four hundred girls wandered about the grounds until summoned to college ice in the Auditorium.
For Julia the spring had an added charm from the fact that Philip took so much interest in everything. Though working for his degree, he was constantly planning little parties of eight or a dozen to see this or that baseball game or the spring athletic meets. Whoever the others might be, Julia was always of the party.
“I have not known so much of Harvard doings in all my four years,” she said one day as they set out for a Princeton game, “and I feel foolishly frivolous in my old age.” There was no sign of old age in the bright-eyed girl who waved the Harvard flag, even up to the moment of Princeton’s victory. The general excitement, and the fact that it was a Princeton game, reminded Julia of that other Princeton game more than five years before when Harvard was victorious at football, and when Philip had shown himself just a little bored by having to escort a “parcel of girls.”
Thus with some pleasant diversions lightening the unescapable hard work of the examination period, the spring passed away, and the Monday before Class Day found the whole class ready to enjoy the happenings of the week. To Julia early that Monday morning came a note from Philip saying that his degree was assured, and that he had nothing to trouble him now except the fear that she might not get hers. Julia smiled as she read the friendly little note, and thought how greatly Philip had changed from the Philip of old.
The first event of the day was a luncheon given by the former Secretary of the Annex and Regent of Radcliffe and his wife, at their Cambridge house. To them more than to any others was due the credit of planning the collegiate work for women that had finally resulted in establishing Radcliffe College. The Secretary was always ready to answer the many questions asked by the eager girls about the small beginnings of the college, and to the more thoughtful it was a wonderfully interesting story.
After the luncheon Annabel was called upon for a speech, and she was followed by half a dozen others, each of whom were ready-witted in responding to the impromptu toasts.
From the luncheon they went on to a reception at Craigie House. The poet’s daughter had also been one of the founders of the college, and the girls or classes honored with an invitation to Craigie House were always envied by the others.
Clarissa and Pamela, on this afternoon of the class reception, in a spirit of veneration, went almost on tiptoe into the study, now looking just as Longfellow left it almost twenty years ago. There near a window overlooking the Charles they saw the high writing desk at which he wrote standing, with some of his quill pens lying on it. They noted the great orange tree in the other window that had grown from a seed planted by Longfellow. The portraits of Hawthorne and Emerson, and the little water-color sketch of the village blacksmith’s shop, all came in for their share of attention. But perhaps most interesting of all was the portrait of the poet himself, in his fur-trimmed coat, painted by his son, on an easel near the fireplace. The class wandered from the quaintly furnished room known as Martha Washington’s parlor to the large drawing-room back of the study, with its many art treasures gathered in Europe. They strolled over the broad lawn, and each girl felt that this reception at the Longfellow House was something that no other event of Commencement week could surpass.
Their own Class Day was the Wednesday before that of Harvard, and in the intervening day or two the class had little time to spare. The invitations had been out since the end of May, and all the preparations had been carefully made.
The literary exercises took place in the forenoon, with only the class as audience. “Thankful enough we ought to be,” said Ruth, “that cut and dried speeches in a hall have not yet been adopted by Radcliffe. It would be so hard to have to explain our jokes even to our sympathetic friends and relatives, and there would always be some present who would think undignified any alleged witticisms that we might offer.”
Sure, therefore, of a friendly audience, Annabel gave the Class History, and Polly the Class Prophecy. Ruth had written the words of a Class Song for which Julia had composed the music. There was a Class Poem by Estelle Ambler, a girl whose verses had lately appeared in several of the magazines, and it was rumored that Clarissa was to make an original contribution to the programme which no one was to know about until the last moment.
Annabel’s History was even cleverer than her classmates had expected. She reviewed brightly the various events of the undergraduate years, scholastic and athletic, with the usual gentle gibes at History I and English 22, and the trials offered by Junior forensics and daily themes; and she made all laugh by the originality of her class statistics.
“We are 1,378 years old,” she read from her manuscript, “2,942 feet high, and we weigh a little less than four tons. During our four college years we have studied 26,134,720 minutes, and at Mrs. Agassiz’ Wednesday afternoons we have drunk in all about 7,000 cups of tea. During our four years we have used about 260 pints or 32.5 gallons of ink, and 5,636,250 pages of theme paper, which would cover about 5,000,000 square inches. The actual time spent in writing examinations has been just 96 days, of 24 hours each. For this work 5,240 blue-books have been necessary, and 320 quarts of Mrs. Hogan’s beef tea. In listening to lectures we have spent 30,000 hours, or 1,800,000 minutes. The Secretary knows that we have been eager searchers for knowledge, for at the lowest estimate we have asked her 2,470 questions, to which she has returned 2,470 patient and obliging answers. Now that we are about to depart to the four corners of the earth, we shall never forget old Radcliffe, nor the blue-books, even though we forget what filled them. We shall always remember the honored President and the Dean and the Secretary, and all who have smoothed our path here for us, and we shall never forget that we shall always belong to the Class of 189— of Radcliffe College.”
A Class Poem can never be very original, but Estelle Ambler offered one that was extremely smooth and pleasing, and to the point. Polly followed it with a Prophecy, in which she imagined all kinds of things likely to happen to the rest of the class. “Prophecies contrary to fact,” many of them might have been called, for Polly foretold the early marriage of several of those girls who were the least devoted to society and the most devoted to study, while for Annabel and Ruth and Clarissa she prophesied many long years of toil as teachers or professors in school or college. Business careers were foretold for the unpractical, and those girls gifted with a sense of humor had a chance, in Polly’s gentle satire, to see themselves as others had seen them; and they all smiled at her concluding words, which she said embodied the sentiments of most of those inclined to give advice to college girls that the main advantage of a college education for a woman is that it fits her, or ought to fit her, “to take up the duties and responsibilities of a household, that by bringing her accurately trained mind to bear upon the practical details of life, and exercising the acquired acumen of her mind, she can make homes happier than they ever were before, and—” The final words were lost in the applause that greeted this familiar commonplace; and Polly, acknowledging a wreath of roses laid at her feet, bowed gracefully as she descended from the Auditorium stage.
There was a hum of expectation as Clarissa followed Polly on the stage, carrying a large, stiff-looking roll. Unfolding it, she announced that she had been made Class Attorney, and that to her had been intrusted the making of the Class Will, which she would now read.
The things that she bequeathed were chiefly the common property of the class, such as “the superior smile when some underclass girl asks a question that cannot be answered;” to the incoming Freshman class the “privilege of profiting by the advice which their Senior advisers will give upon every occasion;” and last, though not least, in the minds of some, “the privilege of collecting on the slightest provocation sums of money, great or small, in exchange for tickets to entertainments, or without such consideration, to support divers good causes in Boston and Cambridge, especially those connected with settlement and college work; and the less ready money any girl is supposed to have, the more urgent shall be the appeals.”
To the Sophomores among other things were given the right of assuming “the nonchalant title of Junior,” and “the faculty and right of saying to Seniors who are loath to depart this college life, ‘Oh, well, we have a whole year more,’ in a way that makes a year sound an eternity.”
The Senior rights in various college officials and in certain college properties were likewise bequeathed, and the mock solemnity of the whole thing brought the programme to a close with a chorus of laughter. Then after the class had sung Julia’s Class Song, there was an informal half-hour of choruses and solos, and then a great hurrying homeward, that each girl might have an hour of rest before the grand climax of the day.
For some of the class, however, there could be no rest, as many, besides those on the committees, were anxious to do their part in helping. But beautiful though the decorations of Fay House were, they paled into insignificance before the outdoor glories, for clever brains and skilful hands had made the most of the opportunities afforded by the limited area of the grounds. There were lines of lanterns between the trees, and a wonderful pagoda that seemed to be constructed of lanterns; there were tables on the lawns, laden with refreshments, and each Senior shook hands with dozens of persons and answered scores of questions, and had little opportunity to talk with the person she most wished to talk with, and walked ten miles more or less showing each of her special guests the points of interest in and around the college buildings. Each Senior, too, looked her very best in her simple white gown, and the crowds of Harvard students who were in attendance testified that socially at least Radcliffe was in no way unpopular with the older college. So weary were the Seniors as the evening advanced that they had little strength left to dance in the new Gymnasium. But the undergraduates and their other guests made up for their own lack in this respect.
Pamela had invited Miss Batson and all the young ladies who boarded with her, and probably no guests enjoyed the day more than they. Besides her own family and some of her younger Newton friends, Lois invited Miss Ambrose, and those who were in the secret of Miss Ambrose’s aspirations could see that through her interest in Lois her own youth had been renewed. There was a rumor that she and Lois were to go to Europe that summer, and whether that was true or not, any one seeing them together could perceive that the feeling between them was stronger than that of mere friendliness. Clarissa’s father and mother had come on from Kansas, and several of her friends and relatives from the West. Annabel’s father, a New York politician, was so pleased that his daughter had retained the Presidency of the class that he was anxious to do all kinds of pleasant things for her constituents, and had finally arranged a mammoth pop concert party for Saturday evening. Julia, like the other Boston girls, had many guests, but the Bostonians were better able to entertain themselves than those who came from a distance.
Julia, for example, felt little responsibility for her uncle and aunt. They had many friends on the grounds, as had Nora and Edith and the rest of their party. She caught glimpses of Brenda constantly flitting about in her firefly fashion, with Arthur Weston in attendance. It was an open secret that Brenda’s engagement to Arthur was to come out before Commencement, and those who knew them the best had already offered the young people their congratulations. Many of the class, too, knew that Ruth and Will Hardon were also on the verge of having their engagement announced, and an observer might have thought that there was something more than good comradeship in the devotion with which Philip followed Julia from place to place. Julia had used not only the invitations to which she was entitled as a member of the class, but she had been able to secure many in addition from girls who did not need all their own allotment. She was able, therefore, to invite not only her former classmates at Miss Crawdon’s, but the teachers, too. Miss South was there in the light mourning that she wore for Madame Dulaunay. Those who knew her were wondering what she would do with the great house that her grandmother had left her, which it would be hard to keep up on a comparatively small income.
Of all those whom Julia had known best at Miss Crawdon’s school, Belle alone was missing. By this it need not be understood that any one really missed her, for Belle, since she had been sent to New York to boarding-school, had really dropped out of the little set in which she had once been a leading member. In vacations some of her new friends visited her or she visited them, and she laughed at the ways of her Boston contemporaries as “far behind the time.” She and Brenda always kept up a correspondence, and her letters, though wholly about herself, were always entertaining. She had already left Boston to stay with friends at Mount Desert.
“But why Radcliffe College?” asked one of Polly’s guests, her cousin from New York.
“Yes, where did you get that name?” asked another cousin, walking with her.
“Why, from Lady Anne Moulson, of course,” responded Polly, not at all unwilling to tell the story. “From Lady Anne Moulson, who was once Anne Radcliffe, and who founded the first scholarship at Harvard. The fact was unearthed just as the poor little nameless Annex was ready to appear out as a regular institution, and so she was christened Radcliffe College. Some did not care for the name, and would have preferred Longfellow College or something else local, but on the whole it seemed the best that could have been chosen.”
“I trust that Lady Moulson deserved the posthumous fame that has come to her, for certainly your college will give her name undying glory,” said one of the cousins gallantly in true Southern fashion, though he modified his praise slightly lest Polly should think that he wholly approved of a college education for girls.
To show herself impartial, Julia carried Tom Hearst’s flowers as well as Philip’s on Class Day. But it was Philip with whom she walked about the grounds after her duties as hostess were over, and Philip with whom she promised to go to Memorial Hall on the evening of Harvard Class Day, and Philip who was to be her escort at the Yale game the succeeding Saturday. Yet though they had many little conversations, and although what they said was largely personal, it must be admitted that there was not a word of sentiment in it all,—of sentiment, at least, as it is understood in its more romantic sense. They did talk, however, a great deal about their plans for the immediate future. Philip had decided to regard his father’s wishes, by taking his two years in the Law School, hoping that his previous reading and some special effort would take him through in less than three years. Julia confided to him certain ideas that she and Miss South hoped to carry out in the form of a training school for girls of the Angelina type. Philip’s face clouded when she told him that she should sail for Europe in July, with her uncle and aunt and Brenda and Miss South.
“But you’ll be back in the autumn?” urged Philip.
“Oh, possibly.”
“But I’m depending on you for advice and that kind of thing.”
“Edith is a better adviser than I.”
“Ah, but Edith isn’t a college graduate.”
“Nor am I yet,” and Julia would give Philip no further satisfaction. Instead she wandered off, with a hasty good-bye to Philip, explaining only that as one of the hostesses of the day, she must look after her other guests.
Philip, following her, soon found himself in a group of which the central figure was Pamela. The two had not met since the spring following the sugar episode, and altogether had seen each other but two or three times. Yet now the recognition was mutual, and both had instantly the same thought, that each had greatly improved during the intervening three years. He lingered to talk to Pamela, and he had no chance to talk to Julia until later in the evening.
Although Philip felt dissatisfied, Julia had really given him more time than most Seniors had given to any one person on that busy, busy Class Day. Yet he kept his eye on her, and whenever he could induce her to leave her other guests, he would get her to walk with him over the building or through the grounds, on the pretext that there were many things that he wished to have explained about Radcliffe ways. Together Julia and Philip watched the gay throng of dancers in the Auditorium, and in an interval when the latter laughed at the crowded condition of the floor, Julia repeated the rumor that the next Senior class would dance in the great Gymnasium, as those in authority had already given their consent to this plan.
“That will be the proper thing, because—”
“Hush!” cried Julia, “the Glee Club is going to sing;” and as she spoke, to the air of “Fair Harvard” floated the words:
“Now a song for our Radcliffe, so young and so fair,With the light of the dawn in her eyes,With the garlands of May in her beautiful hair,Blest child of the true and the wise.”
“Now a song for our Radcliffe, so young and so fair,
With the light of the dawn in her eyes,
With the garlands of May in her beautiful hair,
Blest child of the true and the wise.”
As the song finished, Mrs. Barlow approached Julia, to remind her that the hour was late, and that the two carriages were already waiting,—one to take the Barlow party back to Boston, and one to convey Julia and Ruth to Mrs. Colton’s.
As Julia and Ruth drove homeward, the former gave a sigh of relief.
“Aren’t you glad it’s over?” asked Ruth.
“Partly glad and partly sorry,” responded her friend. “It has been tiring, of course, but then so pleasant.”
“Yes, and to-morrow when we are rested, we shall be sorry that Class Day is past.”
“I am sorry now,” returned Julia, “for it marks the beginning of the end.”
As Julia sat in church on Baccalaureate Sunday she felt sadder than on any occasion since the class had begun to take its farewell of Cambridge and of college life, for now they were together for the last time before Commencement as the Senior class in cap and gown.
The last day was near at hand, and after that final assembling in Sanders Theatre, it was unlikely that these threescore girls would ever be all together again in the same place. Impressive though the sermon was, more than once Julia had to recall her thoughts from wandering in a review of the past four years. Had she herself made the best use of her time? Was there not some girl among the Seniors to whom she might have been more helpful than she had been—in ways intangible if not material? Had she herself drawn all the inspiration she might have drawn from her classmates? She had learned much from her intimates, but had she been sufficiently appreciative of some of the others or responsive to them? Thoughts like these so mingled themselves with her impressions of the sermon that she left the church in a state of abstraction.
Questions such as Julia had asked herself can never receive a definite answer. The wisest of us makes many mistakes, and the most foolish would be plunged in constant despair if she had to call herself to account at every step. To do her best is the most that can be asked of any girl, and if only she tries to learn from her errors, whatever her past faults, she can turn hopefully to the future.
Julia, fortunately, had comparatively little occasion for self-reproach; for if she had made the very most of her opportunities at Radcliffe—if she had left nothing undone that should have been done—she would have been the only one of her kind. Thoughts like these of Julia’s presented themselves to nearly every girl in the class—from Pamela the over-conscientious to careless Polly. Even the self-sufficient Annabel talked in a less self-satisfied manner, as she walked homeward from church accompanied by two or three of her best friends.
The three days intervening between Class Day and Baccalaureate Sunday had been very full. Friday had been Harvard Class Day, and there wasn’t a girl in the class who did not know at least one Harvard Senior. It was the first Class Day for Julia since the year of Philip’s failure, and the things that she did seemed a repetition of the happenings of that other year. There was but one marked change: the Tree exercises had been given up, and a less strenuous performance went on around the John Harvard statue on the delta. Confetti took the place of flowers, and the whole affair was carried on in the most gentlemanly way. Yet Julia, like many others, thought with regret of the old struggle around the Tree—regret that it was to be no more. Philip, although he realized better than any one else that this was not his real Class Day, yet managed to get a great deal of fun out of it. Tom Hearst and some of his former classmates, now about to be graduated from the Law School, gave a small tea in the early evening, and it proved a reunion of the group of young people who had been together so much at Rockley and in Boston. Brenda’s engagement had come out that very day, and she and Arthur Weston received the congratulations showered on them in a fashion that amused every one. They were surprised that their friends were not surprised.
“I am sure that I have always complained of the way Arthur teased me,” pouted Brenda, “and I neverreallymade up my mind until—”
“When?” shouted Tom Hearst, noting with delight that Brenda was embarrassed. But Brenda refused to answer.
Ruth and Will Hardon had an equally large share of congratulations, and they would have been astonished had their friends not taken their engagement as a matter of course.
On Saturday the same group of young people went to the Yale-Harvard game on Soldier’s Field, and after they had returned home from Annabel’s concert party, Ruth and Julia were tired enough.
Kaleidoscopic visions of the past week’s festivities mingled with Julia’s more serious thoughts that Baccalaureate Sunday, as she scratched off the dates on her calendar that showed only two days remaining of college life.
But at last the eventful Tuesday had come—the Commencement that was to end the undergraduate days of the class. They had breakfasted that morning with the Dean, and had met many of their instructors at the informal reception that followed. Commencement was at half-past four o’clock, and promptly at that hour, while the orchestra in the gallery was playing, a long procession filed into Sanders Theatre. The amphitheatre was already filled with guests who had been ushered to their seats by Harvard Seniors. At the head of the procession walked the President of Harvard, and on his arm leaned the President of Radcliffe—stately and benign. Close behind were the Dean, the Secretary, the members of the Governing Board of Radcliffe and the Overseers of Harvard, with whose approval the degrees were granted.
All these took their seats on the platform, and at the left sat the Radcliffe Glee Club. The Seniors in cap and gown at the end of the procession marched to places on the floor of the theatre directly under the stage. It was hard for them to maintain their dignity without turning around, when they knew that in the balconies were so many of those with whom they would have liked to exchange a glance and a nod.
After the prayer, and the singing of “Integer Vitæ” by the Glee Club, the President of Radcliffe congratulated the class on their four years’ work, and on the special honors that had come to some of them. She told of the improving prospects of the college, and mentioned several gifts that had been made during the year. The most important news was the statement that one generous donor had given the whole sum needed to build a handsome dormitory,—the first Radcliffe dormitory,—and at this news there was loud applause.
The address that followed by the President of Harvard—a dignified and scholarly address—showed deep sympathy with the aims of college girls, many of whom had gained their degrees at the cost of certain things that most young girls might think more attractive. He called attention to the fact that the experiment of the higher education of women had lasted now for two generations, with satisfactory results. He added that the degrees about to be granted had been properly won, for they represent as hard a training as the more vigorous young men receive, and he concluded with a hope that some at least of the women graduates might show themselves possessed of the creative faculty, and add something to the world’s stock of knowledge.
“Aren’t the Seniors to take any part? Isn’t there a valedictory or something of that kind?” asked Edith of her neighbor Nora, as a little pause followed the President’s address.
“Oh, no, that isn’t the way. I suppose it’s the only college in the country where the class has no preparation for Commencement.”
“It’s much the best way,” said Mr. Blair, overhearing what the girls said. “A great deal of needless effort is wasted on useless speeches for Commencement. It’s as fatiguing to the audience as to the Seniors themselves. This way, it seems to me, is much best. It is so simple and dignified.”
“Yes, but some people are disappointed at not seeing the class celebrities,” responded Edith. “Of course we know something about Clarissa and Lois and Pamela and the others who have distinguished themselves.”
“Not to mention Julia,” interposed Nora.
“Yes, naturally; well, we know all these girls by sight, but there must be many here who have never seen them, and who would be very glad to know who’s who.”
“Well, they are all there; and if we listen, we may be able to fit the right name to the right girl.”
Of all in that great audience, perhaps no one was more disappointed than Angelina at the simplicity of the programme. Julia had had a card of invitation sent her, and she had come in a wonderful yellow hat covered with large pink flowers, and a gown of the brightest pink gingham. She had fully expected that Julia would be the centre of interest, and she was really grieved that one who had been so kind to her had not been given an opportunity at least to sing or play something from the operetta. Besides, she had a personal disappointment in the fact that she could not present to Julia the immense bouquet that she had brought with her from Shiloh. She had had the whole scene planned. In the midst of a burst of applause she would advance toward the stage, and, with a curtsy that she had been practising, fling the bouquet at Julia’s feet, at the close of her performance, whatever it was. But now Julia was no more conspicuous than the others of the class. She had neither sung nor made an oration, and Angelina herself had had no opportunity for a dramatic appearance before the audience. Her curtsy had been practised in vain; and Angelina, as she grasped the flowers, looked decidedly woe-begone.
But at last the Seniors were passing in single file toward the platform to receive their degrees, and each girl as her name was called received the crimson-tied parchment from the hands of the President. Before the Seniors several Alumnæ received their M.A. But the receiving of the degrees in the presence of that great audience was not unalloyed bliss. Even Lois and Pamela withsumma cum, and Clarissa and Julia and others with theirmagnas, and Polly and Ruth withcum laude, felt a thrill of sadness as they passed down the steps in front of the dignified statue of Josiah Quincy.
Their undergraduate days were over!
That evening as Alumnæ they were cordially welcomed to an Alumnæ dinner by the older graduates, and if they felt uncomfortably warm wearing their long black gowns over their white dresses, there were compensations; for there was a satisfaction when Clarissa responded to one of the toasts to hear her speech called the wittiest ever made by a graduate, for Clarissa belonged to the whole class. Then, too, some of Polly’s songs were so enthusiastically received that it was a delight to remember that two others of the class, Julia the composer of the music and Ruth who had written the words, shared the credit with the gay singer.
At dusk the gay crowd wandered out on the lawn, where the Glee Club sang, and old friends gathered in little groups to talk over the happenings of the past year.
“In a yearweshall be old graduates,” said Ruth with a sigh; “already I begin to feel the change. It seems as if everythinghasbeen, as if—”
“Nonsense,” interposed Julia, “everything is to be. Our undergraduate days are past, and yet I doubt that any of us would really care to live them over again. We can be thankful for what we have learned here, but after all, the sooner we can take our places in the world, the better. College life at the best is selfish—”
“There—there, Julia, don’t preach! Look at Fay House. It is almost picturesque.”
As they stood at the gate, the two girls turned and gazed at the old building, whose outlines in the dusk showed dimly through the screen of elms. Lights shone from some of its upper windows, and it looked like a stately palace.
This was undoubtedly the thought in Julia’s mind as she cried, turning away, “Good-bye, Palace of Learning,” while Ruth added, “Good-bye, great Class of 189—.”
Truly, ithadbeen a great class, but its undergraduate days were over.
Little, Brown, and Company Logo
BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB
ByHelen Leah Reed. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. 12mo. Decorated cloth. $1.50
This book, the first volume of a very popular and successful series of books for girls, has received high praise. TheNew York Tribunesays it “has a tone of healthy common sense which is not always found in girls’ story books.”TheBoston Heraldsays: “Miss Reed’s girls have all the impulses and likes of real girls as their characters are developing, and her record of their thoughts and actions reads like a chapter snatched from the page of life. It is bright, genial, merry, wholesome, and full of good characterizations.”
This book, the first volume of a very popular and successful series of books for girls, has received high praise. TheNew York Tribunesays it “has a tone of healthy common sense which is not always found in girls’ story books.”
TheBoston Heraldsays: “Miss Reed’s girls have all the impulses and likes of real girls as their characters are developing, and her record of their thoughts and actions reads like a chapter snatched from the page of life. It is bright, genial, merry, wholesome, and full of good characterizations.”
BRENDA’S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY
ByHelen Leah Reed. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. l2mo. Decorated cloth. $1.20net
A charming picture of vacation life along the famous North Shore of Massachusetts.TheOutlooksays: “The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome.”“A clean, wholesome narrative, with a bright sparkle to its lines and sound moral for its girl readers,” says thePittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph.
A charming picture of vacation life along the famous North Shore of Massachusetts.
TheOutlooksays: “The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome.”
“A clean, wholesome narrative, with a bright sparkle to its lines and sound moral for its girl readers,” says thePittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph.
BRENDA’S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE
ByHelen Leah Reed. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. 12mo. Decorated cloth. $1.20net
The third and concluding “Brenda” book, in which student life at Radcliffe is described. A remarkably real and fascinating story of a college girl’s career, excelling in interest Miss Reed’s first “Brenda” book, of which theCongregationalistsaid: “Equal to the best of the recent books of school life about boys. Lively and amusing, revealing a shrewd understanding of girl nature.”
The third and concluding “Brenda” book, in which student life at Radcliffe is described. A remarkably real and fascinating story of a college girl’s career, excelling in interest Miss Reed’s first “Brenda” book, of which theCongregationalistsaid: “Equal to the best of the recent books of school life about boys. Lively and amusing, revealing a shrewd understanding of girl nature.”