ought to have her in Alpha, Miss Henderson.' She gave me a look that
simply withered me. 'My dear Miss Pattison,' said she, in that
twenty-mile-away tone, 'I am not in the habit of suggesting candidates
for either of the societies: I must have made myself far from clear to
you.' And I apologized. But it's what she meant, all the same!"
"Of course it is. Well, I suppose she's right. It isn't everybody
would have dared to do that much. I respect her for it myself. You are
to launch her socially, I am to--"
"Neal Burt, I think you ought to be ashamed! Didn't Miss Henderson
tell you how Winifred Hastings admired you?"
"Yes. She said that I was the only girl in the college whose
friendship--Oh, dear! I wish she had gone to Vassar, that girl!
Heavens! It's half-past three! I must go this minute. Well, Patsy,
we're honored, in a way. I don't think Miss Henderson would talk to
every one as she has to us, do you?"
"No," said Patsy, gravely, "I don't. You know, Neal, just as I was
going, she said, 'Of course you realize, Miss Pattison, that only you
and I and Miss Burt have seen this story?' 'I understand,' said I.
'Perhaps I have done this because I understand Miss Hastings better
than she thinks,' she said. 'I--I was a little like her, myself, once,
Miss Pattison!'"
"Yes," said Neal, "she told me that."
"I don't see why Miss Henderson doesn't take her up herself, if she
understands her so terribly well," scowled Patsy. "She looks just like
the kind of girl to be devoted to one person and all that, you know.
Miss Henderson could go for walks with her and--"
"Too much sense!" said Neal, briefly. "She wants to get her in with
the girls. That sort of thing would kill her with the girls, and she
knows it."
"Oh, bother! Look at B. Kitts--she's a great friend of Miss
Henderson's, and look at yourself!"
"Not at all," Neal returned decidedly. "Biscuits was in with your set
long before she got to know Miss Henderson, and I knew Marion Hunter
at home before she came up here. It's all very well to chum with the
Faculty if you're in with the girls, too, but otherwise--as my friend
Claude says, Nay, nay, Pauline! Besides, Miss Henderson doesn't go in
for that sort of thing anyhow--she's too clever."
"Oh, well, I suppose it _is_ best for us to do it. I guess she's right
enough," said Patsy, rising as she spoke, "and I suppose we can do it
as well as anybody, for that matter."
They mounted the stone steps and came out into a light that dazzled
them. "There she is!" said Patsy softly, as a tall girl, plainly
dressed, walked quickly by them. Her face was strangely set, her mouth
almost hard, her eyes looked at them with an expression that would
have been defiant but for something that softened them as they met
Neal's. She bowed to her, hardly noticing Patsy's "Good afternoon,
Miss Hastings!" and hurried off to the back campus. Behind were two
freshmen loaded with pillows. "Isn't that Miss Hastings?" said one.
"Yes. She's going to leave college."
"Oh! Well, we can lose her better than some others I could mention,"
said the prettier and better dressed of the two. Then, catching sight
of Patsy and Neal, she stopped and blushed a little. "Did--did you get
my note, Miss Burt? Will you come?" she asked prettily. Neal smiled.
"Why, yes, I shall be pleased--at four on Saturday, I think you said?"
And then as the two moved on she added, "I heard you say something
about Miss Hastings: is it true she's going to leave?"
"Yes," said the other freshman, importantly. "Immediately, she told
Mrs. White. I'm in the house with her. I think she said next week.
She's disappointed in college, I guess. Well, I should think she would
be. She--"
"I trust the college has given her no reason to be," said Neal,
gravely. "I sometimes think her attitude--if that should happen to be
her attitude--somewhat justifiable." And before the freshman could
recover, Miss Burt and her friend were halfway across the campus.
Patsy sighed with admiration. "Oh, Cornelia, how I reverence you!" she
said. "I couldn't do that to save my soul. No. Once I tried it, and
the freshman laughed at me. I slunk away--positively slunk."
But Neal did not laugh. "I can't see what to do," she half whispered,
as if to herself. "Next week--next week! Why then, why then, it's all
over with her. She's thrown up the sponge!"
Patsy peered into Cornelia's face and caught her breath. "Why, Neal,
do you care? Do you really care?" she said. Neal looked at her
defiantly through wet lashes. "Yes, I do care. I think it's horrible.
To have her beaten like this!--I have to go now. Be sure to come to
Alpha to-night!"
"When Cornelia leaves, she leaves sudden," said Kate Sutton, from the
window. "Coming up?"
Patsy stamped slowly up the two flights, and rummaged in a very mussy
window-box for a silk waist. Her room-mate listened for some
expression of grief or joy to give the tone to conversation, but none
came; so she began on her own account.
"Martha says," indicating her twin, who was polishing the silver
things with alcohol and a preparation fondly believed by her to be
whiting, but which incessant use had reduced to a dirty gritty gum,
"Martha says she knows who's going in to-night."
"Oh, indeed?"
"Yes. She says it's Eleanor Huntington and Leila Droch. She knows for
certain."
"Great penetration she has--they've never been mentioned," returned
the senior, absent-mindedly, grabbing under the chiffonier for missing
hair-pins.
A shriek of triumph from the twins brought her to her knees.
"Aha! I told you they weren't in it! Perhaps you'll believe me again!
Perhaps I can't find out a thing or two!"
The twins shook hands delightedly, and Patsy, irritated at her slip,
grabbed again for the hair-pins, incidentally discovering a silver
shoe-horn and a fountain pen.
"Very clever you are--very," she remarked coldly. "Quite unusual, and
so young, too. No wonder your parents are worried!"
This was a bitter cut, for the twins were industriously engaged in
living down the report that the Registrar had in their freshman year
received a note from Mrs. Sutton imploring her to curb if necessary
their passion for study, which invariably brought on nervous
headaches. This was peculiarly interesting to their friends, who had
never remarked any undue application on their part and were, of
course, proportionately eager to caution them against it. They
squirmed visibly now and changed their tone abruptly.
"They say that Frances Wilde was terribly disappointed about making
Alpha--she'd much rather have got Phi Kappa," said Kate, with a
mixture of malice and humility.
Patsy was silent. Martha grinned and took up the conversation.
"But her heart would have been broken if she hadn't gotten in this
year," she returned amiably.
Patsy turned and glared at them, one arm in the silk waist.
"What utter nonsense!" she broke out. "As if it made any matter, one
way or the other! As if it made two cents' worth of difference! You
know perfectly well that it's no test at all--making a society. Look
at the girls who are in! It's a farce, as Neal says--" She stopped and
scowled at them defiantly. The twins gasped. This from a society girl
to them, as yet unelect! Even for a conversation with the Sutton
twins, with whom, owing to their own contagious example, truth was
bound to fly out sooner or later, this was unusual. It was odd enough
to discuss the societies at all with perfectly eligible sophomores who
might reasonably expect to enter one or another sometime and who were
nevertheless yet uncalled; but the twins discussed everything with
everybody, utterly regardless of etiquette, tradition, or propriety,
and their upper-classroom-mates had long ago given up any ideas of
reserve and discipline they might have held.
Martha gasped but promptly replied. "That's all very well for Cornelia
Burt," she said, with the famous Sutton grin. "Anybody who made the
Alpha in the first five and was known well enough to have been
especially wanted in Phi Kappa and even begged to refuse--"
"How did you know that, Martha Sutton?"
"Oh! how did I? The President confided it to me one day when he was
calling. As I say, Neal Burt and you can afford to talk; you can say
it's a bore and all that and make fun of the meetings--"
"I don't!"
"You do! I heard you growling about it to Neal. And Bertha Kitts said
she'd about as soon conduct a class prayer-meeting as Phi--Oh, not to
me, naturally, but I know the girl who heard the girl she said it to!
Heard her tell about it, I mean.
"It's all very well for you, but you'd feel differently if you were
out! It's just like being a junior usher. There are plenty of spooks
in, but there aren't many bright girls out. Everybody knows that lots
of the society girls are pushed in by their friends and pulled in for
heaven knows what--certainly not brains! But, just the same, you know
well enough that you can count on one hand all the girls in the
college that you'd think ought to be in and aren't. You don't know
anything about it, for you were sure of it and everybody knew it, but
the ones that aren't, they're the ones that worry! Why, I know
sophomores to-day that will cry all night if they don't get their
notes and their flowers and their front seat in chapel Monday!"
"Oh, nonsense!"
"Oh, nonsense, indeed! Won't they, Katie?"
"Sure!" returned her sister, placidly.
"I guess Alison Greer will cry all right, if she's not in!"
Patsy bit her lip and tapped her foot nervously. Then she shrugged her
shoulders and opened the door, turning to remark, "You don't seem to
be wasted away, either of you!"
"Oh, we! We're all right!" replied Martha, comfortably. "We never
expected it sophomore year, anyhow. Nothing proddy about us, you know.
Too many clever girls in the sophomore class, you see. But we expect
to amble in next year, we do. And violets from you. And supper at
Boyden's. Oh, yes! Don't you worry about us, Miss Pattison, we're all
right!"
Miss Pattison sighed: sighs usually ended one's conversations with the
twins, for nothing else so well expressed one's attitude.
"It's a pity you're so shrinking," she contented herself with
observing. "I'm afraid you'll never come forward sufficiently to be
known well by either society!" And she went down to get her mail.
II
There was a full meeting of the Alpha that Saturday night. The
vice-president was lobbying energetically in behalf of a sophomore
friend who would prove the crown and glory of the society, if all her
upper-class patroness said of her could possibly be true. There was
but one place open for the rest of the term, for the society had grown
unusually that year, and some conservative seniors had pressed hard on
the old tradition that sixty was a suitable and necessary limit, and
put a motion through to that effect, and every possible junior had
been elected long ago. So the vice-president was distinctly hopeful.
Amid the buzz and clamor of fifty-odd voices, the president slapped
the table sharply. "_Will_ the meeting please come to order!" she
cried. A little rustle, and the handsome secretary arose. "The regular
meeting of the Alpha Society was held--" and the report went on.
"Are there any objections to this report?" asked the president,
briskly. "Yes. It's far too long," muttered Suzanne Endicott,
flippantly. The president looked at her reproachfully, and added, "If
not, we will proceed to the election of new members--I mean the new
member. As you probably know, there is but one place left, according
to the recent amendment, and I think that we will vote as usual on the
three that are before us, and elect the one having the most
affirmative ballots. Are there any objections to this method?" There
were none. The vice-president glanced appealingly at the girl she was
not quite sure of and smiled encouragingly at the sophomore she had
successfully intimidated. The secretary rose again. "The names to be
voted on this evening are Alison Greer, '9-, Katharine Sutton, '9-,
Marion Dustin, '9-," she announced. "I may add that Miss Sutton has
the highest marks from the society, and that if we don't take her this
time there is very little doubt that Phi Kappa Psi will. They'll be
afraid to risk another meeting."
"That's true," said somebody, as the buzzing began again. "We're
carrying this point a little too far. I declare, it's harder to decide
on the people that aren't prods than anybody would imagine. We know we
want 'em sometime, but we put it off so long--"
"Kate Sutton's awfully bright! I think she should have been here
before. I've been trembling for fear we'd lose her by waiting so
long--"
"Still, Marion is _such_ a dear, and it's pretty late for a girl
that's been known so well for so long, without getting in, it seems to
me," said the vice-president, skilfully. "Why didn't she get in before
if she was so bright?"
"And there's Martha, too. They're just alike. I think Martha's a
little brighter, if anything. Shall we have to take 'em both?"
"No. The girls all say to give her to Phi Kappa, and tell 'em apart by
the pins!"
"Like babies!"
"How silly!"
"To be perfectly frank, Miss Leslie, I must say I don't think so.
Alison is an awfully dear girl, and all that, but I hardly think she
represents the element we hope to get into Alpha. I'm sorry to say so,
but--"
"The voting has begun," said the president. "Will you hurry, please?"
"Miss President," said Cornelia Burt, rising abruptly, "may I speak to
the society before the voting?"
"Certainly, Miss Burt," said the president. There was an instant hush,
and the girls stood clustered about the ballot-table in their pretty,
light dresses--a charming sight, Neal thought vaguely, as she hunted
for the words to say.
"I know perfectly well that what I am about to propose is quite
unconstitutional," she began, and to her own ears her voice seemed far
off. How many there were, and how surprised and attentive they looked!
They were no fools, as she had said. They represented the cleverest
element in the college, on the whole, and they had, naturally enough,
their own designs and inclinations--why should they be turned from
them in a moment?
"I know that no girl is eligible for voting upon until she has been
read two meetings before, and been properly put up for membership, and
all that," said Neal, quietly, with her eyes fixed on Patsy's, who
tried to evade them. Poor Patsy. She wanted Kate to get the society in
her sophomore year! "But I am in possession of certain facts that seem
to me to warrant the breaking through the constitution, if such a
thing can ever be done."
The silence had become intense. An ominous look of surprise deepened
on the girls' faces, and the president looked doubtfully at the
secretary.
"I think I am quite justified in believing that I have not the
reputation of a sentimental person," said Cornelia. She had herself
well in hand, now. The opposition that she felt nerved her to her
customary self-possession. A little grin swept around the room. She
was, apparently, quite justified.
"I have been in the Alpha as long as any one here," said Neal, quietly
still, "and in all this time I have never proposed any one for
membership in it. I have voted whenever I knew anything about the
person in question, and I have never blackballed but once. I think I
may say I have done my share of work for the society--"
There was a unanimous murmur of deep and unqualified assent. "You have
done more than your share," said the president, promptly.
"I mention these things," said Neal, "in order that you may see that I
recognize the need of some apology for what I am about to propose. I
want to propose the name of Winifred Hastings to-night, and have her
voted on with the rest. If it is a possible thing, I want her elected.
That she would be elected without any doubt, I am certain, if only I
could put the facts of the case properly before you. That she must be
elected, now, to-night, is absolutely necessary, for by another
meeting she will have left the college--left it for the lack of just
such recognition as membership in the society will give her."
Cornelia Burt was a born orator. Never was she so happy as when she
felt an audience, however small, given over to her, eyes and ears, for
the moment. She stood straight as a reed, and looked easily over their
faces, holding by very force of personality their attention. She spoke
without the slightest hesitation, yet perfectly simply and after no
set form. Insensibly the girls around her felt conviction in her very
presence: they agreed with her against their will, while she was
speaking.
"Before I go any farther, I want to tell you that Miss Hastings is no
friend of mine," said Neal. "I hardly know her. Only lately I have
learned the circumstances that led me to take this step. I feel that I
must do this thing. I feel that we are letting go from the college a
girl whose failure in life, if she fails, will be in our hands. We can
elect these others later: Winifred Hastings leaves the college next
week. And, speaking as editor of the college paper, I must say that
she carries with her some of the best literary material in the
college. You ask me why we have never seen it--I tell you, because she
is a girl who needs encouragement, and she has never had it. She can
do her best only when it is called for. Some of you may think you know
her--may think that she is proud and solitary and disagreeable: she
is not. _This_ is the real girl!"
And, stepping farther into the circle, Cornelia, by an effort of
memory she has never equalled since, told them, with the simplest
eloquence, the pathetic story of Winifred Hastings' life, as she had
written it. She did not comment--she only related. Her keen literary
appreciation had caught the most effective parts, and she had the
dramatic sense to which every successful speaker owes so much. Under
her touch the haughty, solitary figure of a scarcely known girl melted
away before them, and they saw a baffled, eager, hungry soul that had
fought desperately, and was going silently away--beaten.
Cornelia Burt had made speeches before, and she made them afterward,
to larger and more excited college audiences, but she never held so
many hearts in her hand as she did that night. She was not a
particularly unselfish girl, but no one who heard her then ever called
her egotistic afterward. Her whole nature was thrown with all its
force into this fight--for it was a fight.
Perhaps there is nowhere an audience less sentimental and more
critical than a group of clever college girls. They see clearly for
the most part, and, like all clever youth, somewhat cruelly. They
object to being ruled by any but their chosen, and however they
admired her, Cornelia was not their chosen leader. It was not because
her speech was able, but because it was so evident that she believed
herself only the means of preventing a calamity that she was striving
with all her soul to avert, that she impressed them so deeply.
For she did impress them. When she ended, it was very quiet in the
room. "I have broken a confidence in telling this," she said. "The
girl herself would rather die than have you know it, I'm sure, and
now--I feel afraid. It has been a bold stroke; if I have lost, I shall
never forgive myself. But oh! I _cannot_ have her go!"
She sat down quickly and stared into her lap. The spell of her voice
was gone, the girls looked at each other, and a tall, keen-eyed girl
with glasses got up. "I wish to say," she said, "that while Miss
Burt's story is terribly convincing, still this may be a little
exaggerated, and, at any rate, think of the precedent! If this should
be done very often--"
"But it won't be!" cried some one with a somewhat husky voice, and
Patsy rudely interrupted the speaker. Dear Patsy! She crushed her
handkerchief in her hand and said good-by to Kate: she would have
liked to put her pin in Kate's shirt-waist, and now--now Phi Kappa
would get her! When Patsy spoke, it was with the voice of eleven, for
she carried at least ten of the leading set in the Alpha with her.
"I think we are all very glad to realize that there won't be many such
cases--most people have compensations--we ought to be willing to break
the constitution again for such a thing, anyhow--and, Miss President,
I move that Miss Hastings be voted upon by acclamation!"
"I second the motion," said the vice-president, quickly.
"It is moved and seconded that Miss Hastings be voted upon by
acclamation," said the president. "All in favor--"
"Miss Hastings has yet to be proposed," said some one, after the vote.
The president looked at Cornelia.
"I propose Winifred Hastings, '9-, as a member of the Alpha Society,"
said Cornelia, with flaming cheeks and downcast eyes. She dared not
look at them. Were they going to punish her? She heard the motion
announced, she heard the name put up.
"All in favor please signify by rising," said the president, and only
when the Alpha rose in a body did Cornelia lift her eyes.
They were all looking at her, and she stepped a little back.
"I cannot thank you," she said, so low that they leaned forward to
hear. "It was no affair of mine, as I said. But--I think
you--we--shall never regret this election." And then they applauded so
loudly that the freshmen on the campus could not forbear peeping under
the blinds to see what they were doing. They saw only the president,
however, as she stepped back to the table and said with an air of
relief--for, after all, emotion is very wearing--"We will now proceed
to the literary programme of the evening!"
"But Neal, dear," said Patsy, as they settled themselves to listen,
"do you think she'll stay? (Oh, Neal! I'm so proud of you!)"
"Shut up, Patsy!" said Neal, rudely. Then, as she thought of what Miss
Henderson had told her of Winifred Hastings: "You are the only girl
whose friendship"--she blushed. Then, assuming a bored expression, she
looked at the girl who was reading. "I fear there's no doubt she
will!" said Cornelia Burt.
THE THIRD STORY
_MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR_
III
MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR
"I wouldn't have minded so much," explained Katherine, dolefully, and
not without the suspicion of a sob, "if it wasn't that I'd asked Miss
Hartwell and Miss Ackley! I shall die of embarrassment--I shall! Oh!
why couldn't Henrietta Biddle have waited a week before she went to
Europe?"
Her room-mate, Miss Grace Farwell, sank despairingly on the pile of
red floor-cushions under the window. "Oh, Kitten! you didn't ask them?
Not really?" she gasped, staring incredulously at the tangled head
that peered over the screen behind which Katherine was splashily
conducting her toilet operations.
"But I did! I think they're simply grand, especially Miss Hartwell,
and I'll never have any chance of meeting her, I suppose, and I
thought this was a beautiful one. So I met her yesterday on the campus
and I walked up to her--I was horribly scared, but I don't think I
showed it--and, said I, 'Oh, Miss Hartwell, you don't know me, of
course, but I'm Miss Sewall, '9-, and I know Henrietta Biddle of Bryn
Mawr, and she's coming to see me for two or three days, and I'm going
to make a little tea for her--very informal--and I've heard her speak
of you and Miss Ackley as about the only girls she knew here, and I'd
love to have you meet her again!'"
Miss Farwell laughed hysterically. "And did she accept?" she inquired.
Katherine wiped her face for the third time excitedly. "Oh, yes! She
was as sweet as peaches and cream! 'I shall be charmed to meet Miss
Biddle again, and in your room, Miss Sewall,' she said, 'and shall I
bring Miss Ackley?' Oh, Grace, she's lovely! She is the most--"
"Yes, I've no doubt," interrupted Miss Farwell, cynically; "all the
handsome seniors are. But what are you going to say to her to-day?"
Katherine buried her yellow head in the towel. "I don't know! Oh,
Grace! I don't know," she mourned. "And they say the freshmen are
getting so uppish, anyway, and if we carry it off well, and just make
a joke of it, they'll think we're awfully f-f-fresh!" Here words
failed her, and she leaned heavily on the screen, which, as it was old
and probably resented having been sold third-hand at a second-hand
price, collapsed weakly, dragging with it the Bodenhausen Madonna, a
silver rack of photographs, and a Gibson Girl drawn in very black ink
on a very white ground.