surpassed by Miss Blake,--it will be remembered as her masterpiece.'"
While he was reading Mrs. Cartwright had been watching Ellen and had
decided that she had been blind the night before, for she had missed
much of the attraction in her face. Just now Ellen's eyes twinkling with
fun were fixed on the major's face, and Mrs. Cartwright watched her with
a pleased smile.
"Your masterpiece he calls it," she exclaimed, as her husband finished;
"isn't that just like a reporter? How does he know you'll never surpass
it?"
"Bless me, I don't see how she could surpass it," ejaculated the Major,
"I'll not call the fellow a false prophet yet."
"I don't believe you'll have the chance--ever," retorted Ellen. "I
haven't an idea what I said and by the time I make my next speech no one
else will remember."
"What do you mean, my dear young lady?" he asked astonished. "It was
never in the world extempore."
"That or nothing." And Ellen, sensitive to a genial change in herself,
though, perhaps but dimly conscious of it, told the whole story with so
keen a relish for the satiric elements in it, that her listeners were
delighted. Her unconcern met with no protest from companions too
unfamiliar with her ways to reproach her for not being quite herself.
Elsewhere she might not have dared to disregard the imperious demands of
what was expected of her; but here she was not coerced by any
preconceived notions of what she was likely to do.
"And it's all gone from you?" said Mrs. Cartwright.
"Yes, just as completely as if the thing had never happened. It's just
as though you had done something very clever in a dream, and found when
you tried to do the same thing after you were awake that you had
forgotten the most important part of it."
"But the fellow ought to have attended to his business better," said
Major Cartwright. "What was he there for if not to report?" He took up
the paper again. "The man's a fool. A plea for the higher education!"
"That's what it was meant for," murmured Ellen.
"It converted you, anyway," contended Mrs. Cartwright, nodding at him.
"Never heard anything so absurd," he went on disregarding them. "Where
did he get all this stuff about the practical value of the higher
education?"
"From me, I am afraid. You see when he found he couldn't have the best,
he decided to take the next best, and asked me for the notes of the
speech I intended to make. I tried very hard indeed to catch my thoughts
about Bryn Mawr and pin them down for inspection as my views on college
life. But they escaped me, I'm glad to say."
"I can't believe it of you. Why when you got through you had stirred in
me afresh the enthusiasms of years ago."
"That's not so much of a compliment as it seems, my dear," interrupted
Mrs. Cartwright. "His enthusiasm on some subjects is perennial. It needs
only the word 'college' to set him going. But come along and help me
with the roses. If we go on like this, we'll begin to think you just
made an ordinary speech after all."
"And I do want to think it my masterpiece," said Ellen, rising to follow
her. Then she turned to the Major with a humorous diffidence that hid a
feeling too strong to show itself. "Perhaps it is just as well that I
have to stand on my attainment. If it were down in black and white some
critical person would be sure to discover how much I owe to the eloquent
ears of my audience."
_Marian T. MacIntosh, '90._
_IN MAYTIME_
I
Timothy Trask was an eminently correct young man. His dress, his speech,
his manners were all the most correct of their kind. If he discovered
that anything was the proper thing to do, he always did it, even to the
extent of playing very poor golf in an irreproachable pink coat. He was
a great lover of the antique, which is in itself a very correct thing to
be at the present time, and he possessed a collection of ancient armour,
which was hung about on the walls of his wide front hallway, a grim line
of swords and battle-axes, and great round shields.
Large as this collection was, in the mind of the fastidious Timothy it
was incomplete without a certain Crusader's dagger, exposed to view in a
New York dealer's window. Timothy had stood looking at this dagger with
longing contemplation, for once unconscious of his pose before the
public gaze. His imagination had conjured up an enticing scene in which
Timothy Trask figured as the centre of an admiring throng of
acquaintances, all watching with breathless eagerness while he told the
story of the ancient dagger and pointed out its jewelled hilt and the
fine gold chains attached to each end. Then he had counted over his
railway stocks, his mortgages and government bonds, and had sadly taken
the train back to Philadelphia.
The dagger continued to fill an unobtrusive place in the New York
window, and an altogether too prominent place in the mind of poor
Timothy. All his antiques grew tiresome and commonplace in comparison
with this one little jewelled hilt. At last one evening he decided that
he must have it if it ruined him. With a sudden burst of confidence he
told the whole story to three friends in his smoking room, and announced
his intention of going to New York the next day.
Unlucky confidence for Timothy! A look of subtle meaning passed from one
to another of the friends. One of them, in spite of warning glances from
the others, picked up a copy of the _Ledger_ from the table, and
nonchalantly pointed to a full-page account of a May-day fête, reviving
the Elizabethan plays and dances, to be given the next day at Bryn Mawr.
"Here's a lot about the learned ladies. Going to give some sort of show
or other. Elizabethan! Hm! Reading extracts from history, I suppose,
perhaps all dressed up, like a Dickens reading. It says something about
'correct costumes.' I wonder if Tim's cousin is to be in it. Look here,
Tim, when are you going to take us out to see that pretty cousin of
yours?"
"I have not seen Marion Hall since she was a child, and have no desire
to make her acquaintance," said Timothy icily.
Because Timothy was so correct, he particularly detested and disapproved
of college girls. They represented to his mind a mixture of spectacled
phenomena of learning, and of cheering, basket-ball playing New Women.
In either capacity he found them peculiarly objectionable. He often said
of them, with a fervent horror he might have expressed towards wild
Indians, "I sincerely trust it will never be my misfortune to meet one."
His feeling towards college girls was well known to these friends and it
had occurred to one of them that it would be delightful to see Timothy
at the May-day festivity, surrounded by hordes of college girls on their
native heath. The incongruity of the picture was so pleasing to the
others that the idea had been instantly seized upon, and they
determined, by some hook or crook to get Timothy to Bryn Mawr.
Now the avowed trip to New York gave them their opportunity. One of them
could meet him at the station and manage in some way to lead him astray.
The victim serenely played into their hands. When the conspirators
appeared Timothy was just in the agony of trying to hide his
near-sightedness and at the same time discover which was his gate. All
the officials seemed occupied at that moment, and he had no time to go
back to the bureau of information.
"Hello, Jenks, where are you bound for? I have just two minutes. Can you
see which is the New York gate?"
"Over there," replied Jenks, unblushingly pointing to the sign "Bryn
Mawr special," under which was a hurrying crowd in holiday attire.
Timothy noted the throng and bustle of an express, and pushed through
the gate just in time to get a seat.
II
"To the May-pole let us on,
The time is swift and will be gone!"
The blue sky, the green campus, the laughter, echoing on every side,
repeated the invitation of the song, while the sun poured gayly through
the windows, and the voices without mingled with those within. A
breakfast party was in progress on the fourth floor of Merion. It was
not the first time such a function had been held there, but this morning
the fantastic costumes of the guests, the piles of gay cheese-cloth
heaped in a corner, the swords and plumed caps lying on top of
notebooks, gave the party an unusually festive and holiday appearance.
A herald clad in yellow and white, adorned with rampant lions before and
behind, was scrambling eggs by the window-sill, and a forester in a
brown jerkin was making coffee in one of the egg-shaped coffee-pots so
apt to turn upside down when least expected. A marshal had just set fire
to her blue and red coat-of-arms, and was kneeling in front of the
divan, engaged in carefully pasting on a patch.
Every now and then a knock announced a newcomer whose costume was
greeted with laughter and eagerly examined. Presently a forester
appeared, in Lincoln green jerkin and smock. Her arms were full of
many-coloured banners, which she proceeded to hang out of the window,
flaunting an expanse of purple lions and gilded dragons upon the spring
breeze. Then she procured a plate of eggs and potatoes, and a cup of
coffee, and sat down on the floor.
"We have been indulging in a little archery practice this morning," she
said, laughing softly at the remembrance. "It is going to be very
picturesque shooting down that avenue of trees, but it is singularly
fortunate that the target is safely out of sight!"
"Don't be discouraged! Wait till you hear the heralds striving to sound
their horns," said the sword-dancer, who was sitting on a perilous
rocking-chair without a back, while her hair was being turned up beneath
her collar. "There, listen to them now!"
There came through the open window a feeble noise, ending abruptly in a
squeak, followed by shouts of laughter. Looking out they saw a herald
standing with her head thrown back and her trumpet raised to her lips,
her tall, young figure, in its white and yellow, silhouetted against the
green campus. A motley but appreciative audience paused in the task of
putting up May-pole streamers to applaud her.
While the others were so engaged, the forester came and sat down on the
floor by the marshal, and watched her put the finishing touches to the
damaged costume.
"Will you do something for me?" she asked, a trifle shyly.
"With pleasure," said the marshal, outlining her coat-of-arms with black
paint.
"Don't say you will so quickly. I had a letter from some one, the other
day, saying he was coming to May-day. I wrote him that I didn't want
him, but--I am afraid he will come anyway, and I don't want to see him."
"Oh!" said the marshal, looking up.
"I can't make up my mind," said the other girl. "I wish I could, but I
can't, and I simply won't see him till I do."
"Oh!" said the marshal again. "I suppose you want me to keep him out of
your way?"
"If you only would," assented the forester, with a pleading gaze.
"But my dear young innocence, there are going to be a few thousand
people here, more or less. How am I to find one unattached young man?"
"Oh, I only mean, in case you happen to hear of his asking for me.
People will come to you, you know. Don't have him too much on your
mind."
"I will try not to," said the marshal, dryly. "If you will hear my
advice, I think you had better see him for yourself, and settle it, yes
or no, one way or other."
"You don't know how hard it is," murmured the forester, with a little
sigh.
The marshal rose to her feet with a grim expression, which indicated
that she would like the chance of settling it. And with an inward remark
upon the nuisance of having men mixed up with college functions, she
went to the oval mirror and put on her coat-of-arms.
"The rehearsal is at ten," she announced. "Now, please be on time, every
one, so that it need not take _quite_ the whole morning to form the
procession. Don't forget the cloaks for the band, Elizabeth,--and do all
of you remember that _no one_ is to wear patent leather shoes!"
She seized her marshal's staff and departed.
III
When Timothy arrived at the Bryn Mawr station, that afternoon, he found
himself in the centre of a dense crowd, which was surging up the road.
He had no liking for crowds, and avoided them on all occasions. It
annoyed him intensely to be surrounded by indiscriminate numbers of
chattering people, pushing against him, and pressing him along with
them. In spite of his efforts to maintain his usual dignified carriage,
he was swept along at a fairly rapid pace, through a gateway, and up a
long path to the side of a low stone arch; through which appeared a
vista of gleaming white road and green trees.
At Haverford when the familiar Cricket Club came in sight, Timothy had
come to a sudden realization of the trick his friends had played him.
And when every one trooped out of the train at Bryn Mawr, he had decided
to yield to curiosity and make the best of a bad situation. But it was
in no genial mood that he approached the college. And now he almost
wished he had taken the next train back, to vent his anger on those
three friends.
He was sandwiched in between two stout ladies, one of whom poked him in
the neck with her parasol, while the other explained the details of
Mary's costume, just completed the day before, by the maternal
sewing-machine. Timothy correctly protected his necktie from the
parasol's advances. Taking out his eyeglass, he assumed his most extreme
expression of bored indifference, hoping to indicate to every one around
him that he, at least, was not here willingly for a day's holiday, and
anticipated no diversion whatever from anything forthcoming. The thought
of himself, Timothy Trask, inside a woman's college, waiting by the
roadside for a circus procession, was enough to make him grit his teeth,
and swear at the three idiots who had been instrumental in sending him
there.
Suddenly a hush fell upon the expectant crowd. With a blast upon their
shining trumpets, eight heralds appeared in Pembroke archway, dressed in
white and gold, with the Pembroke coat-of-arms emblazoned upon their
breasts. Behind came lumbering along four oxen, great, patient beasts,
decked out with leaves and branches, dragging the May-pole. Some mighty
forest-giant had been sacrificed to these revels. It was painted white,
and festooned with garlands. A line of flower girls trooped along on
either side, flowers in their arms, on their short gay-coloured skirts,
and adorning their wide hats.
Laughter rippled down the line of spectators, as through the archway
came nine donkies, one behind another, solemnly bearing the famous _Nine
Worthies_ of Old English pageant. Odds, my life, we find ourselves in
high company! Here is Julius Cæsar, clad in scarlet, with a truly Roman
nose, and behind him King Solomon, in all his purple glory, while Sir
Godfrey de Bouillon, that virtuous knight, brings up the rear on a most
restive steed. Next, mounted on a high cart, came the maidens of Spring,
fighting their old battle with grey-coated Winter. That is right, pelt
him with flowers, and cover his snowballs. He has no place to-day.
It seemed as if Pembroke Arch were a gateway to the past, and jovial Old
England were pouring through it.
Now came the ring of horses' hoofs upon the stone paving. Make way,
there, for Maid Marian, the Queen of the May, with Robin Hood, that
gallant and sturdy rogue, riding by her side! There followed all his
merry men, come from the shades of Sherwood to join in the revels, for
what true yoeman will not trip a measure with a pretty maid, when the
sun shines on May-day? Behind came the fool, in motley red and yellow,
bells upon his two long ears, bells upon every point of his skirt and
cape, bells upon the sceptre which he shook above his head. Happy fool,
with light feet and lighter heart! Treading close on his heels the
Hobby-horse was showing his paces. For the most part he walked along,
sedately enough, saving his breath to curvet and prance, later on, in
the _Revesby Sword Plaie_.
With music and laughter the pageant moved on, a train of shepherds with
softly bleating sheep, milkmaids, peddlers, ballad-mongers, and last of
all, mounted upon a float, a strange company indeed. They were dressed
in classic Grecian folds prepared to act in _The Excellent Pastoral of
The Arraignment of Paris_. Cupid is proverbially abroad on May-day, but
here he stood, in actual guise, and Pan, too, playing his pipes, and
stately Minerva, with her snaky shield.
The pageant wound in and out, around the grey stone buildings, a long
thread of living colour. Before Timothy well knew what he was doing, he
found himself pressing eagerly on with the crowd to the May-pole green.
The flower-crowned pole was loosed from behind the patient oxen, and
borne upon eager shoulders to the centre of the green. It was raised
aloft in the air, tottered for an instant, a great cheer went up, and it
sank into its socket. Then struck up the fiddles and pipes, the dancers
hastened to their May-poles, and holding aloft the gay streamers began
the dance with a bow and a courtesy.
"All fair lasses have lads to attend 'em,
Jolly, brave dancers who can amend 'em."
They wound the coloured ribbons about the four poles, while the rest of
the merrymakers danced at will and to the lilt of the gay tunes, in twos
and threes, as their fancy led them.
Timothy watched two flower-girls, tripping a measure with a forester,
smiling at him over their shoulders, and finally giving him each a hand
and dancing away into the crowd. He felt his pulses beat the time as
they had never done in a ballroom. It was the open air, and the gay
costumes, and the spirit of Old England, which had somehow taken
possession of him. Here was nothing but sunshine and feasting and
dancing all day; and after sundown, rest under a hawthorn bush. Timothy
even longed to give a hand to that dainty shepherdess and join in the
dance.
"Come together, come, sweet lass,
Let us trip it on the grass."
Presently the music ceased and the dancers scattered to their separate
plays. Timothy suddenly bethought him of his cousin. For the moment his
desire to claim acquaintance with an Old Englander got the better of his
hatred of college girls, and he asked one of the nearest groups where he
might find Miss Hall. A tall marshal standing near heard the question,
and turned around with a start.
"Did you ask for Miss Hall?" she said. "I will be glad to direct you if
you will come with me."
Now Timothy was unaccustomed to having young women, with golden hair,
and shining, eager eyes, hold out their hands to him, and say, "Come
with me!" He was so taken by surprise that with a mumbled, "Much
obliged, I'm sure," he followed her meekly through the crowd towards
Dalton Hall.
"It is most unusual," he told himself with misgiving, "for her to
address me, a complete stranger, in this way. It must be the policy of
the college to propitiate outsiders. I wonder if she would do it to
every one."
Then, quite irrelevantly, he wondered if he had on his most becoming
shape of collar. For some reason he felt very tolerant towards this
girl's naïve eagerness.
Presently she turned back to him, and said: "Would you not like to come
over here and see _The Ladie of the Maie_? It is such a pretty little
play."
"After all," thought Timothy, "no one knows me here."
He followed her submissively to the very front row of spectators, and
sat down on the grass, a thing he had not done before for at least ten
years. While they watched, the marshal explained that these shepherds
and shepherdesses were all grave seniors, and in one more month would be
Bachelors of Arts in fur-trimmed hoods. She told him all the old oral
jokes, and Timothy, to whom they were quite new, was much diverted. In
return he raked up his almost forgotten college tales. They were not
new to the marshal, but she appreciated them so sweetly that Timothy
thought they must be even more amusing than he had fancied.
The shepherds departed with their flocks of white, softly-bleating
sheep, but before the audience had time to wish them back, a gay,
rollicking ditty struck up, and the chimney-sweeps came running in,
Jack-o'-the-Green leading. They joined hands and danced around him in a
circle, still to the same rollicking measure, while Jack-o'-the-Green,
peering through his covering of branches and leaves, bowed to each one
in turn. The music stopped with a quick chord, the chimney-sweeps
dropped to their knees and pointed their brooms at the figure in the
middle. Then the music began again, and with their brooms in front of
them, they ran out.
Timothy and his guide stood up, and moved onward with the crowd. He
began to feel that there was no immediate necessity of finding Marian
Hall. He could just as well take a later train back to town. The marshal
was very courteous, and he did not wish to appear rude by leaving her
too unceremoniously. He even wished something would happen to detain
him.
"I want to take you to the _Saint George Plaie_," said his guide. "It is
very funny, and the grads. do it with a great deal of spirit."
Timothy's heart beat fast as he suddenly realized that the marshal was
purposely lengthening her task, that she was no more anxious to find
Miss Hall than he was. Yet she had known him but half an hour! It made
him feel strangely humble.
"Do you know," he said, "I have not even been introduced to you?"
"Let me introduce myself," said the girl, gaily. "Sir Marshal, at your
service."
"And I am Sir Lancelot," he declared, modestly, "just returned from the
Crusades, and glad to be back in merry England."
"Then, fair Sir Knight," said the marshal, "let me guide you to where
Saint George is slaying the unbeliever in sport, as you have so often
slain him in reality."
With more of such agreeable foolery, they made their way to where Saint
George was indeed slaying every one around him, to the diversion of the
spectators. For years afterwards the thought of the Dragon, with rainbow
snaky locks, writhing in the throes of death, would bring to Timothy a
smile of retrospective amusement.
It was a staging fit for _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Pembroke was in
the background, its grey walls overhung with ivy. A green elm spread its
branches on one side of the open space, and on the other was a
cherry-tree, a mass of pink blossoms, its soft petals carpeting the
grass beneath.
There was no further question of finding Marian Hall. Sir Knight and his
guide wandered about everywhere, and Timothy's friends would surely have
doubted their eyes, could they have seen him taking in everything with
the air of a happy child, while he stated his theories on Old English
dances, and masques, and costumes.
At last he said: "Where is that fellow, Robin Hood, whom I saw in the
procession? He must be shooting his arrows somewhere about the green."
"I believe he is," said the marshal, without enthusiasm, adding to
herself, "How vexatious if I cannot keep him away from there. He will
see her, of course, and my day's work will have gone for nothing."
"I should like to see him immensely," observed Timothy.
"It is a long walk," objected the marshal.
"Not _too_ long, surely," said Timothy, with a glance, adding
persuasively, "I should hate to go alone."
"I should hate to have you," cried the marshal, with unmistakable
sincerity.
"Ah!" said Timothy, intoxication mounting to his brain. He wanted to
grasp some one by the hand and tell him what an altogether pleasing and
agreeable world this was. "Ah!" he said again, "we will go together."
The marshal flushed and murmured, "Idiot!" Then she grew pinker than
ever with vexation, while Timothy watched her confusion with an
agreeable thrill.
"If he _will_ go," thought the marshal, "I must certainly go too, to see
that he doesn't get within speaking distance."
So they walked on, past Taylor Hall, and across the May-pole green, down
to the hill below Radnor, where Robin Hood's men were holding forth. The
crowd of people surged and eddied past them. All the wide expanse of
campus was covered with moving throngs, and dotted with the brilliant
May-day dresses. Banners of purple and gold and crimson were flaming
from every window.
"I have stepped right out of America," remarked Timothy. "This place
must be rather like a May-day fête, even on ordinary occasions."
"I hope not," thought the marshal, wearily.