She was so noticeably pretty and stylish, with that thorough-bred air of
the young girl to whom life has always been something more or less of a
social event, that she attracted a great deal of attention, though, of
course, she very properly appeared to be oblivious of that fact. Even
the baggage-master, when she caught his eye, hastened toward her and
bestirred himself generally in a way that is not characteristic of
baggage-men on the Boston and Albany, or any other road. She noticed
vaguely that he seemed rather surprised when she gave him her four
trunk-checks and he assured her with elaborate politeness that the train
would stop at a certain small station without fail, to let off several
hundred young women who wished to go directly to “the College.”
When Miss Eva Hungerford, on the completion of an enthusiastic college
career, wrote to her young Philadelphia cousin, Margaret Wright, that
she ought to take a college course, it was quite in despair of really
inducing that young lady to do so, and only in the vain hope of saving
her from an early and ill-considered marriage with an extremely nice
Harvard youth, who declared that he would cheerfully forego his senior
year if her parents would give their consent.
It was therefore with both delight and surprise that, just before
starting for Europe, Miss Hungerford received a rather gloomy letter
from her young cousin, who said that with such a brilliant example
before her, and deeply impressed by the weighty arguments in her
cousin’s letter, she had told the Harvard man that she was much too
young and ignorant to marry, and fully convinced that society was a
hollow sham, she had determined to devote the next four years to those
pursuits which had raised her cousin so far above the ordinary girl. She
was even greatly interested, she said, in her preparations for the
entrance examinations which she would take at Philadelphia, and the
chances of her being admitted. Miss Hungerford was quite touched by the
little tribute to herself contained in the letter, and wrote a most
cordial answer, and rather upbraided herself for having thought so
lightly of her cousin. But her mother seemed to be distressingly
sceptical about Margaret’s heroic determination, and said she shouldn’t
wonder if some misunderstanding with the Harvard man were not at the
bottom of it. But Miss Hungerford was confident that such a lofty
purpose could have been born only of some noble sentiment, and refused
to have her faith in her young cousin shaken by such a supposition.
When Miss Wright got off the train at the pretty little station, she
found herself in the midst of a sufficiently large crowd of young women,
all of whom seemed to be aggravatingly well acquainted with each other,
and who set about in a most business-like way to get where they wanted
to go, some taking “barges” and omnibuses, others striking out easily
over the roads in the direction of the college. Being totally unfamiliar
with the place and somewhat bewildered by the number of girls, Miss
Wright thought she would simply take a carriage and get up to the
college as quickly as possible.
She never told anyone but her best friend what were her sensations on
reaching the big building and being “numbered” for an interview with one
of the assistant professors, instead of seeing the president herself, as
she had expected to do; or how hurt she felt at being totally ignored by
the vast majority of busy, rather severe-looking young women, or how
grateful she felt to a patronizing Sophomore who talked to her kindly,
if condescendingly, for a few moments and who took her through unending
corridors to her rooms. Later in the day she found two or three girls
who wore tailor-made travelling gowns and seemed ill at ease, and they
all huddled together in a corner of one of the big corridors and talked
rather helplessly to each other. They would have liked to know what the
peals on the big Japanese bell meant, and if they were expected to do
anything about it, but they were afraid to ask anyone, because they were
not sure which were the professors and which the students.
When it came her turn to see the assistant, she felt quite ready to go
home. She had made out a list of studies which she thought she would
like, but when she showed it to the professor, that astute lady very
kindly but firmly told her that it was ill-advised and made her out
another. She had wanted to study mathematical astronomy, because a
Harvard man had said a chum of his studied it and found it “immense,”
and besides she thought the name would impress her friends; but the
professor pointed out to her that she would have to take the entire
course in mathematics before she could hope to do anything with the
astronomy. It was the same way with several other things, and she
found, when the interview was over, that her list consisted mostly of
freshman studies. She was rather disheartened by this, but remembered
that Miss Hungerford had been a full freshman, and so she determined to
go to work conscientiously.
And she did work very hard, but there were a great many young women who
seemed to have had a much more thorough previous education than herself,
and though she was not in the least snobbish, she was secretly surprised
and a little bit aggrieved by their evident disregard of her superior
gowns. She might as well not even curl her hair, she thought
gloomily--most of the best students wore theirs back in a rather
uncompromising way, and she thought it might have some influence for the
better on her mind, and half-way determined to do it. But when she saw
how she looked with it straight and pulled quite back, she gave it up
for fear the Harvard man (who though so near, maintained a stony silence
and invisibility) should happen to come over to the college to see some
other girl.
When the winter concerts began and the young women were inviting their
friends out from the “Tech” and Harvard and Amherst, and other places
which to any but the college mind would seem appallingly distant, she
sat resigned and alone, and wondered what her people would think if
they could see her looking so sad and deserted. Her friends, she knew,
would feel sorry for her, and would at last believe in her determination
to go through the course.
When she had been at college about four months and was beginning to
realize how little she knew, and how infinitely far off the president
still seemed, and the effect of the study of chemistry on a brain
unprepared for it, and was pitying herself for looking so pale and thin
under her anxieties--one of the favorite concerts of the year was given.
A celebrated violinist and his wife, a charming singer, were coming out.
It was the last concert before the Christmas holidays, and one of the
tailor-made girls with whom she had become intimate since that miserable
first day had invited a lot of men out and had asked her to help
entertain them. As every one knows, it is a long-established custom in
that college for those young women who are so fortunate as to have a
large masculine acquaintance to ask their friends to help them “take
care” of the surplus male element.
Miss Wright was feeling very blue that evening and had just about made
up her mind to stay at the college through the Christmas vacation, that
she might spare her parents the distress of seeing her so worn and
changed; so that when the tailor-made girl came to ask her to see after
some of her friends for her, she thought that probably she was entitled
to some recreation for the good resolution she had made. But she was now
much too indifferent to men and such things to bestir herself very
greatly, so she only put on her next most becoming gown and descended
languidly to find the people.
Her friend saw her first and made a little dive at her through the
circle of youths around her, and bore her to them with quite an air of
triumph. And then, while she was trying to hear the names and remember
where they came from, she suddenly saw a Harvard man coming toward her,
and looking very much surprised and intensely happy, and somewhat
embarrassed. She had just time to wish she had put on the other gown,
when the bell for the concert sounded and everybody began to rush down
the corridor. Somehow they got left behind the others, and as the place
was crowded and they did not seem to care much for the celebrated
violinist, who really played exceptionally well that evening, they
considerately took seats against the wall behind everybody, where they
could talk to their hearts’ content.
And they really must have talked quite a good deal, for when the last
bell sounded for all the visitors to go and the driver of the big
college sleigh (which was really an omnibus on runners) was shouting
himself hoarse in the “centre” and in nervous asides assuring the
excited and aggrieved passengers already assembled and waiting that they
would all be late for the last train that night if the remaining few did
not hurry up--while all of this was going on, the Harvard man was still
sitting with her on the pedestal of a plaster statue in a darkened
corner of a corridor, assuring her that they could be married just as
soon as the finals were over, and that though he was sure to be made a
marshal he would not wait for Class Day for anything which he could then
think of under the sun, and that instead of sending out invitations to a
spread in Beck, he would give his friends a delightful shock by
substituting his wedding cards for them, and while the other fellows
were working like beavers at the Tree, or filling dance cards for their
friends, or wearing themselves to shreds dancing with their friends’
friends, they could be in a boat half-way over to the other side. And
she was saying she didn’t think she would come back after Christmas so
as to have plenty of time to get her gowns and things ready, and that
she did not think she was really and truly fitted for college life;
which he interrupted to assure her that he was certain she already knew
vastly more than he did, and that he would telegraph her mother and
father about the whole thing before he slept, and that if the answer was
favorable he would send her some flowers the next day as a token. And
then when the coachman’s patience had quite given out and they heard the
sleigh go dashing away from under the _porte-cochère_, before she could
realize it he had kissed her once quickly and jumped down the steps four
at a time, and was out of the door tearing after the vanishing coach.
The next afternoon Miss Wright received an enormous box full of Mabel
Morrison roses, and her tailor-made friend, not understanding the
significance of the flowers, thought it was rather shabby on her part
not to offer her some. About the same time of day the Harvard man sent a
long and explicit telegram to the agent of the Cunard Line for the very
best stateroom on a steamer sailing on or about the 20th of the next
June, and blushed boyishly and then laughed a little at its
“previousness,” as he signed the application for “Mr. and Mrs. Roger
Pervere, New York,” six months before his wedding-day.