The Project Gutenberg eBook ofCollege girlsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: College girlsAuthor: Abbe Carter GoodloeIllustrator: Charles Dana GibsonRelease date: September 29, 2023 [eBook #71753]Most recently updated: December 2, 2023Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLEGE GIRLS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: College girlsAuthor: Abbe Carter GoodloeIllustrator: Charles Dana GibsonRelease date: September 29, 2023 [eBook #71753]Most recently updated: December 2, 2023Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
Title: College girls
Author: Abbe Carter GoodloeIllustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
Author: Abbe Carter Goodloe
Illustrator: Charles Dana Gibson
Release date: September 29, 2023 [eBook #71753]Most recently updated: December 2, 2023
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895
Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLEGE GIRLS ***
“IS IT THIS?"“IS IT THIS?"
ByAbbe Carter GoodloeIllustrated byCharles Dana GibsonNew YorkCharles Scribner’s Sons1895Copyright, 1895, byCharles Scribner’s SonsTROW DIRECTORYPRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANYNEW YORK
THERE was a great deal of jangling of bells, and much laughter and talk, and the chaperon, who was an assistant Greek professor, looked as if she had never heard of Aristophanes, and listened apparently with the most intense interest to a Harvard half-back eagerly explaining to her the advantages of a flying wedge; and when the College loomed in sight, with its hundreds of lights, and the sleigh drew up under the bigporte cochère, and while a handsome youth was bidding his sister, the hostess of the party, an unusually affectionate good-by, she explained to the rest how very sorry she was she could not invite them in. But the Harvard men, in a feeling sort of way, said they understood, and after much lifting of hats and more laughter, the sleigh went off, and the chaperon and her charges were left standing in the “Centre.”
She confessed then that she was extremely tired and that she did not think she ever cared again to see the “winter sports.” She thoughtthe sight afforded her that afternoon, of two nice boys, very scantily clothed and with bloody faces, banging away at each other until they could hardly stand, compared with the view of those same young gentlemen the week before at the College, immaculately dressed and with very good-looking noses and eyes, was entirely too great a strain on her. So she went off to her study and left the excited and pleased young women to stroll down the corridor to Miss Ronald’s room, to talk it over and to decide for the twentieth time that Somebody of ’94 ought to have come off winner in the fencing match, instead of Somebody else of ’93.
The room they went into was a typical college room, with its bookstands and long chairs and cushions and innumerable trophies, of which Miss Ronald was rather proud. She was a stylish girl, with New York manners and clothes, and a pretty, rather expressionless face, strongly addicted to fads, and after almost four years of college life still something of a fool. She had become popular through her own efforts and the fact that she had a brother at Harvard. If a girl really wishes to be a favorite in college she must arrange to have some male relative at a neighboring university.
The sleighing party over to Harvard for thewinter sports had been an especial success, so her guests took off their wraps and settled themselves in her chairs in a very cordial sort of way, and discussed amiably the merits of the tug-of-war, while someone made chocolate. After a while, when they had all had their say about the pole-vaulting and the running jumps, the conversation flagged a little and the room came in for its share of attention.
There was a comparative stranger among the guests—a Miss Meredith—to whom Miss Ronald could show her numerous souvenirs for the first time. She was especially glad to have them to show to this particular girl because she thought they would impress her—although it would have been a little difficult for a casual observer to understand just why, for as Miss Meredith was led around the room by her hostess, from the screen made of cotillion favors and the collection of lamp-post signs presented to her by Harvard admirers afflicted with kleptomania, over to the smoking-cap and tobacco-pouch of some smitten undergraduate, anyone could see what a handsome girl she was, and though more plainly dressed than the others, that she seemed to be thoroughly at her ease. Perhaps Miss Ronald expected her to be impressed because she had taken her up, and had first introducedher to this set and made a success of her. No one had known anything about her or her people, and she had entered shortly before as a “special student,” and therefore belonged to no particular class. She was evidently a little older than Miss Ronald and her friends, and her face was somewhat sad, and there was a thoughtful look in the eyes. She seemed to be rather haughty, too, and as if afraid she would be patronized. But Miss Ronald, whose particular craze in the beauty line was a cream complexion, gray eyes, and red-brown hair, had declared the new-comer to be lovely, and even after she had discovered that this handsome girl was not of her own social standing, that her people were unknown and unimportant, she still declared her intention of cultivating her. She had found this harder to do than she had expected, and so, as she led her around the room, she rather delighted in the belief that she was impressing this girl by the many evidences of a gay social career.
The others, who had seen all the trophies many times before, and who knew just which one of Miss Ronald’s admirers had given her the Harvard blazer, and where she had got the Yale flag and the mandolin with the tiger-head painted on it—for Miss Ronald, being a wise young lady, cultivated friends in every college—sat back andtalked among themselves and paid very little attention to what the other two were doing. They were a little startled, therefore, by a low exclamation from the girl with Miss Ronald. She had stopped before a long photograph-case filled with pictures of first violins and celebrated actors and college men—all the mute evidences of various passing fancies. Miss Ronald, who was putting away the faded remains of some “Tree-flowers” and some pictures of Hasty Pudding theatricals, looked over at the girl.
“What is it?” she said, carelessly, and then noting her pallor and the direction of her gaze she laughed in an embarrassed little way and went over to her.
“Is it this?” she said, taking a half-hidden photograph from among the jumble of pictures and holding it up to the view of all.
It was the photograph of a young man, a successful man, whose name had become suddenly famous and whose personality was as potent as his talents. He was not handsome, but his fine face was more attractive than a handsome one would have been. There was a look of determination in the firmly closed lips and square-cut jaw, and an indefinable air of the man of the world about the face which rendered it extremely fascinating. On the lower edge of thepicture was written his name, in a strong, bold hand that corresponded with the look on the face.
“My latest craze,” said Miss Ronald, smiling rather nervously and coloring a little as she still held the picture up. There was a slight and awkward pause, and then half a dozen hands reached for it. There was not a girl in the room who had not heard of this man and wished she knew him, and who had not read his last book and the latest newspaper paragraphs about him. But their interest had been of the secretly admiring order, and they all felt this girl was going a little too far, that it was not just the thing to have his picture—the picture of a man she did not know. And as she looked around and met the gray eyes of the girl beside her she felt impelled to explain her position as if in answer to the unspoken scorn in them. She was embarrassed and rather angry that it had all happened. She could laugh at the first-violins and the opera-tenors and the English actor—they had only been silly fancies—but this one was different. Without knowing this man she had felt an intense interest in him and his face had fascinated her, and she had persuaded herself that he was her ideal and that she could easily care for him. She suddenly realized howchildish she had been and the ridiculousness of it all, and it angered her.
“Of course I know it isn’t nice to have his picture—in this way—” she began defiantly, “but I know his cousin—it was from him that I got this photograph—and he has promised to introduce us next winter.” She seemed to forget her momentary embarrassment and looked very much elated. “Won’t that be exciting? I shan’t know in the least what to say to him. Think of meeting the most fascinating man in New York!”
“Be sure you recognize him,” murmured one of the girls, gloomily, from the depths of a steamer-chair. “I met him last winter. I had never seen a photograph of him then, and not knowing he wastheone, I talked to him for half an hour. When I found out after he had gone who he was, I couldn’t get over my stupidity. My mother was angry with me, I can tell you!”
Each one knew something about him, or knew someone who knew him, or the artist who illustrated his stories, or the people with whom he had just gone abroad, or into what thousandth his last book had got. They all thought him a hero and fascinatingly handsome, and they declared with the sentimental candor of the very young girl, that they would never marry unlessthey could marry a man like that—a man who had accomplished great things and had a future before him, and who was so clever and interesting and distinguished-looking.
The girl who had had the singular good fortune to meet him was besieged with questions as to his looks and manner of talking, and personal preferences, to all of which she answered with a fine disregard for facts and a volubility out of all proportion to her knowledge. They wondered whether his play—he had just written one, and the newspapers were saying a great deal about its forthcoming production—would be as interesting as his stories, and they all hoped it would be given in New York during the Christmas holidays, and they declared that they would not miss it for anything.
Only one girl sat silent, her gray eyes bright with scorn—she let them talk on. Their opinions about his looks, and whether he was conceited or only properly sensible of his successes, and whether the report was true that he was going to Japan in the spring, seemed indifferent to her. She sat white and unsmiling through all their girlish enthusiasm and sentimental talk about this unknown god and their ideals and their expectations for the future—and when the photograph, which had been passed fromhand to hand, reached her, she let it fall idly in her lap as though she could not bear to touch it. As it lay there, a hard look came into her face. When she glanced up, she found Miss Ronald gazing at her with a curious, petulant expression.
Suddenly she got up and a look of determination was upon her face and in her eyes. Their talk was all very childish and silly, but she could see that beneath their half-laughing manner there was a touch of seriousness. This man, with his fine face and his successes and personal magnetism, had exercised a strange fascination over them, and most of all over the pretty, sentimental girl looking with such a puzzled expression at her.
After all, this girl had been good to her. She would do what she could. She stood tall and straight against the curtains of the window facing the rest and breathing quickly.
“Yes—I know of him,” she said, answering their unspoken inquiry. “You think you know him through his books and the reviews and newspaper notices of him.” Her voice was ringing now and she touched the picture lightly and scornfully with her finger.
“I know him better than that. I know things of him that will not be told in newspaper paragraphs and book reviews.” She paused and her face grew whiter. “You read his stories, and because they are the best of their kind, the most correct, the most interesting, because his men are the men you like to know, men who are always as they should be to men, because there is an atmosphere of refinement and elegance and pleasing conventionality about them—you think they must be the reflex of himself. O yes! I know—the very last story—you have all read it—who could be more magnificent and correct thanRoscommon? And you thinkhimlike his hero! There is not one of you but would feel flattered at his attentions, you might easily fall in love with him—I dare say you would scarcely refuse him—and yet”—she broke off suddenly.
“There was a girl,” she began after a moment’s hesitation, in a tone from which all the excitement had died, “a friend of mine, and she loved him. Perhaps you do not know that before he became famous he lived in a small Western town—she lived there too. They grew up together, and she was as proud of him—well, you know probably just how proud a girl can be of a boy who has played with her and scolded her and tyrannized over her and protected her and afterward loved her. For hedidlove her. He told her so a thousand times and he showed it
SHE STOPPED AND HER FACE GREW WHITERSHE STOPPED AND HER FACE GREW WHITER
to her in a thousand ways. And she loved him! I cannot tell you what he was to her.” They were all looking curiously at her white face and she tried to speak still more calmly.
“Well, after a time his ambition—for he was very ambitious and very talented—made him restless. He wanted to go East—he thought he would succeed. She let him go freely, willingly. His success was hers, he said. Everything he was to do was for her, and she let him go, and she told him then that he could be free. But he was very angry. He said that he would never have thought of going but to be better worthy of her. He succeeded—you know—the world knows how well he has succeeded, and the world likes success, and what wonder that he forgot her. She was handsome—at least her friends told her so—but she was not like the girls he knows now. She was not rich, and she had never been used to the life of luxury and worldliness to which he had so quickly accustomed himself. But,” she went on, protestingly, as if in reply to some unspoken argument or some doubt that had assailed her, “she could have been all he wished her. She was quick and good to look at, and well-bred. She could have easily learned the world’s ways—the ways that have become so vital to him.”
She stopped, and then went on with an air of careful impartiality, as if trying to be just, to look at both sides of the question, and her beautiful face grew whiter with the effort.
“But, of course, she was not like the girls he had met. He used to write to her at first how disgusted he was when those elegant young ladies would pet him and make much of him and use him and his time as they did everything else in their beautiful, idle lives. He did not like it, he said; and then I suppose it amused him, and then fascinated him. They would not let him alone. They wanted him to put them in his stories, and he had to go to their dinners and to the opera with them. He said they wanted someone to ‘show off’; and at first he resented it, but little by little he came to like it and to find it the life he had needed and longed for, and to forget and despise the simpler one he had known in his youth——”
She stopped again and pulled nervously at the silk fringe of the curtain, and looked at the strained faces of the girls as if asking them whether she had been just in her way of putting the thing. And then she hurried on.
“And so she released him. He had not been back in two years—not since he had first gone away, and she knew it would be easier to do it
“THEY WANTED HIM TO PUT THEM IN HIS STORIES{15}”“THEY WANTED HIM TO PUT THEM IN HIS STORIES”
before she saw him again. And so when she heard of his success and how popular he was, and that he was the most talked about of all the younger authors, she wrote him that she could not be his wife. But she loved him, and she let him see it in the letter. She bent her pride that far—and she was a proud girl! She told herself over and over that he was not worthy of her—that success had made a failure of him, but she loved him still and she let him see it. She determined to give him and herself that chance. If he still loved her he would know from that letter that she, too, loved him. Well, his answer—she told me that his answer was very cold and short. That if she wished to give him up he knew she must have some good reason.”
Someone stirred uneasily, and gave a breathless sort of gasp.
“That was hard,” she went on. She was speaking now in an impassive sort of way. “But that was not the hardest. She saw him again. It was not long ago——” She stopped and put one hand to her throat. “She had gone away. She desired to become what he had wished she was, although she could never be anything to him again, and she was succeeding, and thought that perhaps she would forget and be happy. But he found out where she was, and went toher. Something had gone wrong with him. You remember—he was reported to be engaged to a young girl very well known in society—the daughter of a senator, and a great beauty. Well, there was some mistake. He came straight to my friend and told her that he did not know what he had been doing, that she was the only girl he had ever loved and he asked her forgiveness. He told her that his life would be worthless and ruined, that his success would mean less than nothing to him if she did not love him, and he implored her to be what she had once been to him and to marry him.”
Miss Ronald looked up quickly, and the petulant expression in her eyes had given place to a look of disdain.
“What did she say then?” she asked.
The girl shook her head, mournfully.
“She could not,” she said, simply. “She would have given her soul to have been able to say yes, but she could not!”
When the door had quite closed behind her, they sat silent and hushed. Suddenly Miss Ronald walked over to the window, and picking up the photograph where it had fallen, face downward, she tore it into little bits.
ALLARDYCE felt both aggrieved and bored when he found that his sister had gone off with a walking-party and was not likely to return for an hour or two. He had this unwelcome bit of news from the young woman in cap and gown who had come from the office into the reception-room and was standing before him, glancing every now and then from his face to the card she held, with a severely kind look out of her gray eyes.
“I telegraphed her I was in Boston and would be out,” remarked Allardyce, in an injured tone.
“Yes,” assented the young woman, “Miss Allardyce had left word in the office that she was expecting her brother, but that as he had not come by the 2.30 or 3.10 train, she had concluded he was detained in Boston, and that if he did arrive later he was to wait.” She added that he would be obliged to do so in any case, as there was no express back to Boston for two hours, and that if he would like to see the college while he waited she would send someone to take him over it.
But Allardyce seemed so doubtful as to whether he cared to become better acquainted with the architecture of the college, and so disappointed about it all, that the kindly senior felt sorry for him and suggested sympathetically that he “might amuse himself by strolling through the grounds.” She could not have been over twenty, but she had all the seriousness and responsibility of an undergraduate, and Allardyce suddenly felt very young and foolish in her presence and wondered hotly how old she thought he was, and why she hadn’t told him to “run out and play.” He decided that her idea was a good one, however, so he took his hat and stick and wandered down the south corridor to the piazza. Standing there he could see the lake and the many private boats lying in the bend of the shore, each fastened to its little dock, and beyond, the boat-house with the class practice-barges, slim and long, just visible in the cool darkness beneath. He thought it all looked very inviting, and there was a rustic bench under a big tree half-way down the hill where he could smoke and get a still better view of the water.
So he settled himself quite comfortably, lit acigarette, and looked gloomily out over the lake. He assured himself bitterly that after having been abroad for so many years, and after having inconvenienced himself by taking a boat to Boston instead of a Cunarder to New York—his natural destination—in order to see his sister, that she was extremely unkind not to have waited for him. He was deep in the mental composition of a most reproachful note to her when he discovered that by closing his eyes a little and looking intently at the Italian Gardens on the opposite side of the water, he could easily fancy himself at a little place he knew on Lake Maggiore. This afforded him amusement for a while, but it soon palled on him, and he was beginning to wonder moodily how he was ever to get through two hours of the afternoon, when he saw a young girl come out of the boat-house with a pair of sculls and make her way to one of the little boats. She leaned over it, and Allardyce could see that she was trying to fit a key into the padlock which fastened the boat to its dock, and that after several attempts to undo it she looked rather hopelessly at the lock and heavy chain. He went quickly down the hill and along the shore. He was suddenly extremely glad that he was in America, where he could be permitted to speak to and help a girl,even if a total stranger, without having his assistance interpreted as an insult.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his hat. “Can I be of any help?”
The girl looked up a little startled, but when she saw the tall, good-looking youth, she smiled in a relieved sort of way and rose quickly from her knees.
“Indeed, yes,” she said, without any embarrassment. “I can’t unlock this; perhaps you can.”
Allardyce took the key, and kneeling down fitted it in its place and turned it with very little effort. The girl looked rather ruefully at him as he jumped up.
“Thank you,” she said in a politely distant way. “I don’t see why I could not have done that. I am very strong in my hands, too.”
Allardyce smiled indulgently. All girls were under the impression that they were strong. At any rate this one was tremendously pretty, he decided—much prettier than the stately senior he had encountered up at the college, and he was glad there were no cap and gown this time. He was aware, of course, that he ought to lift his hat and move on, and not stand there staring at her, but his previous solicitude had made him feel sociable.
“Perhaps you will let me put the oars in for you,” he suggested. He was rather alarmed after he had spoken, but when he glanced at the girl to see how she had taken his further self-invited assistance he found her looking at him in a very friendly way. All at once he felt quite elated and at his ease. It had been a long while since he had had much to do with American girls, and he concluded that all that had been said about their charming freedom and cordiality of manner had not been exaggerated. But when he had put the sculls in the boat it occurred to him that it would not do to presume too far on that freedom and cordiality, and that if he was not to depart immediately—and he felt no inclination to do so—he must offer some sort of explanation of himself.
“I am waiting for my sister,” he remarked genially.
“Oh! your sister,” echoed the girl.
“Yes—Miss Allardyce. Perhaps you are in the same class,” he hazarded.
She looked at him for a moment in a slightly surprised way, and then out across the water, and Allardyce saw, as she turned her head away from him, that she was smiling.
“No,” she said slowly, “but I know her quite well.”
“Ah! I’m glad of that,” said the young man, boldly and cheerfully. “Now I feel quite as if I had been properly introduced! ‘Les amis de nos amis,’ you know!”
The girl smiled back at him. “I am Miss Brent. By the way, your sister has the distinction of being the only Allardyce in college. It’s a rather unusual name.”
“Yes,” assented Allardyce, delightedly. “Scotch, you know.” And then in a sudden burst of confidence—“My people were Scotch and French. I have been educated abroad and have come home for the law course at the University. Awfully glad to be in America again, too, for, after all, I am an American through and through.” He pulled himself up sharply in some confusion and amusement at his unusual loquacity.
But the girl before him did not seem to find it strange, and was quite interested and politely attentive.
“And where is your sister?” she demanded.
“Oh, that’s the essential, and I forgot to mention it,” he replied, laughing a little and digging his stick into the soft earth. “She’s gone off walking!” and then he went on insinuatingly and plaintively—“And I don’t know a soul here—never was here before in my life—andthere’s no train to Boston, and I have to wait two hours for her!”
The young woman smiled sympathetically. “That’s too bad,” she said, and then she looked doubtfully at Allardyce. He seemed very young and to be having a rather bad time of it, and there is an unwritten law at the college which constitutes every member of it the natural protector and entertainer of lost or bored strangers.
“I am going across the lake for water-lilies,” she went on after a little hesitation. “If you care to come you may, and pull me about while I gather them. It is hard work to do it alone.”
“You are very kind,” said Allardyce promptly, “and it is very nice of you to put it that way. It will be a great favor to me to let me go.”
He rowed her across the water in the direction of the Italian Gardens, and they found a good deal to say to each other, and she seemed very unaffected and friendly, although Allardyce fancied once or twice that when she replied to some of his remarks her voice trembled in an odd way as if she were secretly amused. But he thought her delightful, and he was very much obliged to her for taking him off his hands in this way, though he could not help feeling some surprise at her invitation. Of course he couldnot imagine such a thing happening to him on the Continent. No French or German girl would have the chance or enoughsavoir faireto treat him as this girl was treating him. He told her all this in more veiled terms when they had reached the water-lilies, and he had turned around in his seat and was carefully balancing the boat while she pulled the dripping, long-stemmed flowers. Miss Brent laughed outright at his remarks, and Allardyce laughed good-naturedly too, although what he had said did not strike him as being at all amusing. But he was glad that she was so easily diverted. He reflected that perhaps her invitation had not been entirely disinterested—that she considered it as stupid to go out rowing alone, as he did to wander around the college without his sister—and that as she had been kind enough to save him from a solitary afternoon, it was his part to be as amusing and entertaining as possible.
“You must not consider us in the light of very young girls,” she explained. “You know this is a woman’s college.”
“That’s what is so nice,” returned Allardyce confidently. “You are girls with the brains and attainments of women. That is a very delightful combination.” He gave her an openly admiring, rather patronizing glance. He did notmean to be superior or condescending, but he reflected that in spite of her ease of manner she was yet in college, and so must be very young. He seemed to himself to be quite old and world-worn in comparison.
Miss Brent looked over at the college towering up on the other side of the lake.
“How do you like it?” she asked politely, after a moment’s silence.
“Oh, I didn’t see anything of it,” replied Allardyce easily, leaning his elbows comfortably on the unshipped oars. “I got my walking papers promptly from a young woman up there, and so I left. She rather frightened me, you know,” he ran on. “Awfully severe-looking, cap and gown, and that sort of thing. I thought if that was only an undergraduate I didn’t want to encounter any of the teachers—professors, I believe you call them—and so I fled. You do have women professors, don’t you?” he inquired with a great deal of awe.
“Yes,” said the girl.
“Well—they must be pretty awful,” he said cheerfully, after a moment’s pause.
The girl straightened up cautiously, pulling at the rubber-like stem of an immense lily.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said carelessly. She was bending over the side of the boat, and Allardyce could not see her face; but he heard the laugh in her voice again. “There! there’s aboutonnièrefor you.”
Allardyce caught the lily she swung toward him by the stem, and stuck it in his coat.
“I suppose that’s about the size of the Russian Giant’s button-hole flower,” he remarked frivolously. They were quite good friends now. Allardyce looked over at the college again.
“You must find it pretty slow up there,” he said confidentially. “Can’t imagine how you girls exist. You ought to go to a Paris boarding-school. You can have no end of fun there, you know.” He was nodding his head enthusiastically at her. “I have a cousin at one in the Avenue Marceau. Went to see her just before I sailed and it was tremendously amusing. These French girls are awful flirts! When I went away every girl in that school came to the windows and looked at me. It was rather trying, but I felt that for once I knew what popularity was!”
Miss Brent buried her face in the biggest lily of the bunch.
“And—and what did you do?” she inquired, in suppressed tones.
“Oh—I? Why I bowed and smiled at the whole lot. Must have looked rather like anidiot, now I come to think of it; and my cousin wrote me she got into no end of trouble about it. One of themaîtresseshappened to see me. But it was great fun while it lasted. And after all where is the harm of a little flirting?” he concluded, judicially.
“Where indeed?” assented the girl, with a laugh.
“That’s right—I am glad to hear you say that,” broke in Allardyce, approvingly. “There’s something wrong with a woman who doesn’t cry or flirt—it’s a part of her nature,” he went on, with the air of having made a profoundly philosophic discovery. “You know you agree with me,” he urged, insinuatingly.
She shook her head.
“Personally I don’t know,” she said; “you see I am so busy——”
“Oh! I say,” cried Allardyce, “you don’t mean you study as hard as that! Of course,” he added impartially, “it’s all very well for some girls to grind—” he stopped in alarm as the girl drew herself up slightly.
“I hope my sister doesn’t study too much,” he hastened to add, lamely.
Miss Brent put her handkerchief suddenly to her lips, which were trembling with laughter.
“I don’t think you need worry!” she said.
Allardyce was considerably mystified and a little offended.
“But she’s very bright,” added the girl, quickly; “especially in mathematics, where I see most of her; but I believe she is not a very hard student.”
“Well,” said Allardyce, jocosely; “I’ll tell you a secret. I am the hard student of the family, and that’s much better than that my sister should be, I think. I don’t approve of girls working too hard. It makes them old—takes away their freshness—especially if they go in for mathematics. Do you know I have never been able to imagine a girl mathematician anyway,” he ran on, confidentially. “Always seemed like a sort of joke. Now there was that English girl—what was her name, who was worse than a senior wrangler? Her photographs were just everywhere. I was in Cambridge that summer and they were in all the shop-windows, and I would stop and look carefully to see if they were not different from the ones I had seen the day before. For they were quite pretty you know, and I was always hoping that there was some mistake and that they had got some other young woman, entirely innocent, mixed up with her.”
There was so much genuine distress in histone that Miss Brent made an heroic attempt not to laugh.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “don’t say that—some people think I am good at mathematics myself.”
Allardyce shook his head at her. “I’m sure it’s a mistake—you are trying to impose on me,” he said, with mock severity. “At any rate I am glad my sister is guiltless of any such accusation. We are under the impression that she goes in for a good time at college—at least one would suppose so from her letters. I got one from her just before I left Paris in which she gave me a very amusing account of some blow-out here—some class function or other, and she seemed dreadfully afraid that the faculty would get hold of the details. She says you stand tremendously in awe of your faculty. Wait a minute—I’ve got the letter here somewhere,” he went on, fumbling in his pockets. “Didn’t think much of the affair considered in the light of a scrape, but she seemed to think it exciting and dangerous to the last degree. That’s where you girls are so funny—you think you are doing something immensely wrong and it is just nothing at all. I see I haven’t the letter with me; but perhaps you were in it all and know a great deal more about it than I do.”
Miss Brent suddenly twisted herself around in the boat, and reached for an especially big lily.
“No—” she said, “I—I don’t think I was there. Will you pull a little on the left oar—a little more, please. It’s that lily I want!”
“There’s another thing about girls,” resumed Allardyce meditatively and kindly, when the boat had straightened back. “You seem to think it a terrible calamity, a disgrace, to get plucked in an examination. Now a man takes it philosophically. Of course, it isn’t a thing one especially cares to have happen one; but it doesn’t destroy a fellow’s interest in life, nor make him feel particularly ashamed of himself. He just goes to work with a tutor and hopes for better luck next time. That’s the best way to take it, don’t you think? But perhaps you don’t know anything about it. Ever get plucked?—I beg your pardon,” he added hastily.
But the girl did not appear at all offended.
“Oh, you mustn’t ask that,” she said, leaning back and laughing at him; “at any rate,” she added, with an air of careful consideration, “I don’t think I ever got ‘plucked’ in—mathematics. And now you must take me back.”
Allardyce gave a shudder of mock horror.“Oh, mathematics!” he said, picking up the oars.
When they were half-way across the lake Allardyce saw a young girl standing on the shore waving at them.
“Why,” he said, looking intently at the figure, “I believe it is my sister.”
Miss Brent leaned forward.
“Yes, it is your sister,” she said slowly, and she smiled a little.
Miss Allardyce kissed her brother with a great show of affection, and told him how sorry she was to have missed him. “And I am sure it was very good of you to have taken care of him,” she went on impressively and gratefully, turning to Miss Brent. But that young lady disclaimed any merit.
“We’ve had a delightful afternoon,” she declared, “and your brother has been very good to pull me about and keep the boat from tipping over, while I gathered these lilies. I am very glad to have met him. Good afternoon.”
“Charming girl!” murmured Allardyce, appreciatively, digging his stick in the earth, and leaning on it as he looked after Miss Brent.
“We had an awfully jolly time together,” he went on, to the girl beside him; “sort of water-picnic, without the picnic.”
Miss Allardyce looked sharply at her brother. Something in his manner made her anxious. “How did you meet her?” she demanded.
“Oh! that’s the best part,” said Allardyce joyously. “Wasn’t introduced at all. I offered to unlock her boat for her, and I liked her looks so much that I hated to go away, so I asked her if she was in your class, and she said ‘No,’ but that she knew you, and that I considered was introduction enough. We just went off together and had a very good time. Lucky for me that somebody took me up when my own sister went off and left me,” he added reproachfully.
Miss Allardyce shook her head impatiently. “Never mind about me.” She looked anxiously at her brother. “What did you say to her?”
“Oh! I don’t remember exactly;” he replied vaguely and cheerfully. “We talked a good deal—at leastIdid,” with a sudden realization of how he had monopolized the conversation. “About French boarding-schools and women professors and getting plucked in examinations, and I told her about that scrape you wrote me of. She hasn’t a bit of nonsense about her,” he went on enthusiastically. “She didn’t say much, but I am sure she agreed with me that girls are by nature flirts, and not mathematicians.”
Miss Allardyce gave a little gasp. “Well,” she said, with a sort of desperate calmness, “you’ve done it now! Do you know who that was you were talking to? That was the assistant-professor of mathematics. Oh! yes, I know she looks awfully young, and she is young. I suppose you think a woman has to be fifty before she knows anything. Why she only took her degree two years ago, and she was so tremendously clever that she went off and studied a year in Leipsic and then came back as instructor in mathematics, and this year when one of the assistant-professors was called suddenly to Europe, she was made assistant-professor in her place, and they say she’s been a most wonderful success. And I know she is pretty; but that doesn’t prevent her examinations from being terrors, and I didn’t get through the last one at all, and if you told her about that scrape, and that women ought not to be mathematicians——” she stopped breathlessly and in utter despair.
Allardyce whistled softly and then struck his stick sharply against the side of the little dock. “Well,” he exclaimed indignantly, “she’s most deceitfully young and pretty,” and then he turned reproachfully upon his sister. “It’s all your fault,” he said; “what did you go off walking for?”
Baltimore, October 20th.
MY DEAREST ALMA: As we have been confiding our joys and woes to each other for the last twenty-five years, it is to you I naturally write about this new trial which has come into my life. You will probably think itpeu de chose, but I assure you, my dear, that if you really and truly put yourself in my place you will realize that it is an annoyance. Henry’s child has at last written to me that she “has finished her studies for the present” (!) and is coming to America to spend the winter with us. Youmustsee, Alma, that this is slightly appalling. I have never seen her—not since she was a little thing with enormous gray eyes and a freckled nose—and I know absolutely nothing about her except what Henry wrote me from time to time, when he stopped his eternalwanderings long enough to remember he had a sister. But judging by the education he gave her—and I consider it simply deplorable—and the evident taste she had for it, and later for “the higher education of woman,” I feel distressingly positive that I cannot approve of the child. I am very sorry now that I did not make an effort to go to her when her father died in England, five years ago, but she wrote me that she had friends there who were doing everything for her, and that she was coming directly to America to enter college according to her father’s wishes, and that there was really no need to disturb myself about her. I could see, Alma, the effect of the independent, strange existence she had led, in that letter. It repelled me. Now, Eleanor, I am sure, would have been completely prostrated, the dear child!
So she came directly to Boston, and I, being so busy with my own preparations for taking Eleanor and Margaret to Paris, simply could not arrange to go on to Boston to see her. As of course you know, we remained abroad four years, and last year, when we returned and I expected to see Helen at last, she wrote me a letter which I got just before leaving Paris, saying that she had decided to go to Oxford for a year to take a course in mathematical astronomy atthe Lady Margaret Hall. So we passed each other in mid-ocean.
Fancy, Alma! I knew when I read that letter what kind of a girl she was. One of your hard students, engrossed in books, without one thought for dress or social manners! I am afraid she will prove a severe trial. And just when Eleanor is counting on having such a gay second winter and Margaret is to début. It is a little hard, is it not, dear? Thank Heaven, I shall never have to blame myself as Henry would have to do if he were alive. At leastIhave seen to it that my daughters have had the education which will fit them to ornament society, the education that I still believe in notwithstanding all this talk of colleges for women and advancement in learning, and college settlements and extensions, and Heaven knows what besides!
Mygirls have had first, the best of training at Mrs. Meed’s, and then four years atLes Oiseaux, you know. They speak French perfectly, of course, and Margaret has even tried Italian and German. They both ride and drive well, and Eleanor plays and sings very sweetly. But what is the use of my telling you about them when you know them so well?
I only wish, Alma, you could tell me something aboutHelen! Just think, I have never evenseen a photograph of her! It is one of her fads not to have them taken, from which I argue that she is very homely, very opinionated, and very strange. Eleanor has two dozen in different poses, I am sure. The only information I have at all about Helen’s looks is from Margaret, who saw her for an hour in Brookline—it was five years ago—just before we sailed. She had run up to see a Boston friend for a few days, and of course she was very young and has probably forgotten, but she insists that Helen was rather pretty. However, I do not attach the least importance to what Margaret says, because, as you know, she is so good-natured that she always says the best of everyone; and then her tastes are sometimes really deplorable—so unlike Eleanor’s! Besides, her description of Helen does not sound like that of a pretty girl. She says she wore her hair parted and back from her face, and was slightly near-sighted. Think of it, Alma! For the hair,encore passe, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Wenzell have made that so much the fashion lately that one might forgive it; but short-sighted! Eye-glasses! Spectacles perhaps! Hard study since may have completely ruined her eyes. I greatly fear she will show up very badly beside Eleanor’s piquant beauty and Margaret’s freshness.
She writes me that she will be here in a month, so that it is time I was seriously considering what I am to do with her. Of course, with the severe education she has had, she probably dislikes society and could not be induced to go out, knowing well that she could not shine in it; but as my brother’s child she must be at least introduced properly, and she can then subside gracefully. Of course, where there are two such attractive girls in the house as Eleanor and Margaret, she cannot hope to compete in social honors with them, and will probably much prefer in any case to continue her studies or go in for charitable work, or something of that sort.
My dear Alma, I have just read over this letter and am shocked to see how much I have written about this affair. Forgive me if I have wearied you and—yes,dogive me some good advice.
Are you going to Carlsbad?
The girls are out of town for a few days, or would send love as I do.
Very affectionately yours,Marian Morrison.
P.S. They say a woman cannot write a letter without a postscript, and I believe it! Tell mewhat to do about H. How had I best introduce her to society? Don’t you think a dinner—where she could sit beside someone whom I could especially choose as suited to her—and where she would not be too muchen évidence? A dance would not do at all—I doubt if shecandance, poor girl!
M. M.
October 22d.
My Dearest Marian: How could you think me so cold-blooded as to consider such a piece of news as your letter contains “peu de chose”? I feel for you, I assure you. What a dilemma! The dear girls! how do they like the idea? Margaret, as you say, will probably not mind, but Eleanor—so exquisitely pretty and stylish! It will be rather a thorn in the flesh, I imagine. O! how I wish I had children—two such lovely girls as yours would make life a different thing for me!
Of course, the dinner. How could you think of anything else! Invite some of the professors from the University forher, and have the rest of the company of young society people, so that Eleanor and Margaret can enjoy it too.
Oh, my dear, I would like to write a long, long letter about this, but I am in such confusion and hurry! Mr. Bennett has been ordered to Wiesbaden for the winter, and we sail in a week. I wish I could be in Baltimore to help you, but it is impossible, of course. I count on your writing me all your plans, and just how Helen appears, and whether it is all as dreadful as you now fear. Address to the Langham Hotel until November 25th, after that, care Brown, Shipley, as usual. Good-by. I have a thousand things to tell you of, but must put them off until I reach London and have a moment to myself.
As ever,Devotedly yours,A. B.
P.S. Don’t look too much on the dark side of things. I knew a Philadelphia girl once—the niece of old Colonel Devereaux you know—and she was rather pretty and quite good form, though a college girl. I think, however, she had been butoneyear to college.
A. B.
Baltimore, November 15th.
Dearest Alma: Your note, which was so welcome and which came so long ago, would have had an earlier answer had I not been a little sick, and so busy and worried that I have not had time or heart to write even to you. So you can imagine in what a state I am.
The girls came back to town shortly after I last wrote you, and we held a sort of family council about Helen. The dear girls were charming, and Eleanor bore it very bravely. She says she will give Helen hints about her hair, and will implore her not to wear spectacles, but rimless eye-glasses.
We are very much worried about her gowns. Of course her own taste is not to be depended upon, and I hardly fancy her income would justify her in leaving her toilette entirely with agrande couturière, even if she would dream of doing such a thing, which I very much doubt. Her father, you know, left the bulk of his fortune to found a library in Westchester. He always said he never intended to leave Helen enough to tempt anyone to marry her for her money.Poor Henry—what a strange, misguided man! But then, of course, he could not foresee that his daughter would be an ugly duckling, and strong-minded and college-bred, and all that. Oh, yes, of course he must have known about the college. But at any rate, man-like, he did not realize how unattractive Helen would be.
Well, as I say, we talked it over, and the girls agree with me that the best thing is a dinner. Eleanor was for having it a small affair. She said it would be truer kindness to Helen, but Margaret, who is very blunt sometimes, I am sorry to say, said she thought “we ought to give Helen a chance,” as she rather vulgarly expressed it, and insisted so strongly on it that we gave in, and have decided to have a dinner, and invite some of Eleanor’s friends later to a small dance. This will relieve Eleanor of some of her more pressing social obligations, and she will also be able to introduce Margaret to some of her particular set before she makes her formal début later in the season. A débutante cannot have too many friends.
And so, after talking it over, we determined to invite Professor Radnor, of the University. He is a comparatively young man—about forty-five, I judge—and though far from handsome he is considered very interesting, I believe, to thosewho understand him. He is of good family, too—one of the Radnors of Cliff Hill, you know. He and Helen can talk biology or whatever it is he professes—I really forget what it is. Then there is Colonel Gray—I shall invite him because he was an old friend of her father, and though very grumpy and disagreeable, and apt to bore one to death with his interminable war stories, still I always invite him to the house once a year, and he is to be depended upon to come; and indeed, Alma, I am so perplexed to know whom to invite that I really cannot pick and choose. Then I think I shall have the new rector at “All Souls.” He is a young man, an Englishman, and as stupid as the proverbial Britisher; very high church, and as I have not yet invited him to dinner, I think the choice ofhimrather diplomatic. It really has been too much of an exertion to get up a dinner-party for him alone, and indeed Eleanor cannot bear him, she says; but with her usual sweetness has consented to have him come if Helen and Margaret will take him off her hands. He and Helen will doubtless find much to say to each other about Dr. Bernardo, and the People’s Palace, and that sort of thing. I think with these three I can safely let the girls take care of the rest, and invite younger people whowill be congenial to them. I say younger people, for Helen must be twenty-three or four, and she will doubtless seem much older and graver. You see I shall be prepared; I know this will be an ordeal, but I mean to do the best for her that I can. I shall have everything as handsome as possible—the girls are particularly anxious about it—as Eleanor proposes asking young Claghart, the new artist, you know, who is making such a name for himself.
Helen will be here in a week. I shall send out the invitations in a day or two, so as to have no refusals—dinner engagements are already getting numerous. I shall let you know all about Helen and the dinner-party. I know you are as interested as myself in this, and that you sympathize with me. Poor Henry! to think that he should have given me a niece who has spent the best years of her life shut up in colleges, and ruining health and looks in sedentary, intellectual pursuits!
The Kinglakes were here yesterday and send their kindest regards to you. Good-by! A thousand best wishes for a happy trip.Dotell Mr. Bennett how much I hope he will be improved by Wiesbaden.
Write soon to your devoted friend,
Marian M.
My Dear Colonel: Of course it is to you, Henry’s oldest friend, that I write first to tell the charming news that his daughter Helen is coming to us in a week. She has “finished her studies for the present,” so she writes, and we are at last to see the dear child. We are delighted to have her come, and feel that she must meet you at once. You will certainly find her to your taste, as she is so highly educated and not at all like these society girls whom you justly condemn as utterly frivolous.
We have arranged a little dinner-party for Thursday, the twenty-fourth, and positively count on you to come and put us all in a good humor with one of your inimitable war stories.
Most cordially your friend,Marian V. Morrison.
Friday, November the eighteenth.
My Dear Mr. Beaufort: Will you give us the great pleasure of seeing you at dinner on Thursday evening, at half-past eight? Only severe illness has kept me from asking this favor long ago, so that I very much hope nothing will prevent your accepting now. Eleanor tells me to remind you that the Young People’s Guild has been changed toWednesdayevening, so at leastthatwill not interfere with your acceptance. If you come, virtue will not be its own reward in this case. I have a niece whom I am particularly anxious you should meet. She is intensely interested in all charities—especially London charities—and is very quiet and charming, if not exactly pretty. But I am sure you agree with me that beauty is often only a snare!
The girls particularly wish to be remembered.
Most truly yours,Marian V. Morrison.
Friday, November the eighteenth.