College girls

“MISS ROSE”

For the first month she passed comparatively unnoticed. In the wild confusion of setting up household gods and arranging schedules, hopeless as Chinese puzzles, of finding out where the Greek instructors can see you professionally, and when the art school is open, and why you cannot take books from the library, and when the elevator runs, anyone less remarkable-looking than an American Indian or the Queen of the Sandwich Islands is apt to be overlooked. But after the preliminary scuffle is over and there is a lull in the storm, and one begins to remember vaguely having seen that dress or face before somewhere, and when one no longer turns up at the history or art rooms instead of the chemical laboratories, and when one ceases to take the assistant professor of physics for the girl who sat next to you in the trigonometry recitation—then the individual comes in for her share of attention.

“Miss Rose” possibly got more than her share. Curious young women soon began to nudge each other, and ask in whispers who she was. And just at first there were covert smiles and a little cruelly good-natured joking, and the inevitable feeble punning on her name and withered looks. There were some who said she could not be more than forty-five, but they were in the minority, and even the more generously inclined could not deny that her face was very old and wrinkled and tired-looking, and that her hair was fast getting gray around the temples, though her eyes still retained a brilliancy quite feverish, and an eager, unsatisfied sort of look that struck some of the more imaginative as pathetic. As a freshman she seemed indeed to be hopelessly out of place—though not so much so, perhaps, as the little Chicago beauty who was so much more interested in her gowns and looks than in her work, that at the beginning of her second semestre she went home with an attack of pneumonia, brought on by having been left out in the cold after an examination in conic sections.

That type, however, is not uncommon, while “Miss Rose” was especially puzzling. They could not quite understand her, and there were even some among the august body of ridiculous freshmen who somewhat resented her entrance into their ranks, and wondered rather discontentedly why she did not join the great body of “T-specs” to which she so evidently belonged.

But it was characteristic of this woman that she preferred to begin at the beginning and work her way up—to take the regular systematic grind and discipline of the freshman’s lot—to matriculating in an elective course where she could get through easily enough if she were so inclined. She saw no incongruity in her position; she rarely seemed to notice the difference between herself and the younger, quicker intellects around her, and she worked with an enthusiasm and persistence that put most of the young women to shame. That she had taught was evident—in what little out-of-the-way Western town, or sleepy Southern one, no one knew; but sometimes there were amusing little scenes between herself and the professor, when the old habit of school-room tyranny which she had once exercised herself was strong upon her, and she lapsed unconsciously into the didactic manner of her former life. And sometimes she became discouraged when the long lack of strict mental discipline irked her, and when she saw in a glimpse how far she was behind the girl of nineteen beside her, and how hopeless was the struggle she was making against youth and training. There were moments when she realized that she had begun too late, that the time she had lost was lost irretrievably. But the reaction would quickly come and she would work away with renewed energy, and they were very patient with her and would lend her a helping hand where a younger student would have been let most severely alone, to sink or swim after the approved method.

But if her mathematics and chemistry and Tacitus left much to be desired, there was one field in which she shone resplendently. “No one could touch her”—as one young woman slangly but enthusiastically remarked—“when it came to the Bible.” There she was in her glory, and her vast knowledge of the wars of Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and her appalling familiarity with Shamgar and the prophets, and the meaning of the Urim and Thummim, and other such things, was the envy and despair of the younger and less biblically inclined. And if at times she was a trifle too prolix and had to be stopped in her flow of information, there was very genuine regret on the part of the less well informed.

And in time she came to make a great many friends. Her peculiar ways no longer struck them as comical, and if anyone had dared make reference to the plainness of her gowns or the strict economies she practised to get through, that person would have very soon discovered her mistake; and they pretended not to know that she would not join any of the societies because of the dues, and that she did her own laundry on Monday afternoons. Indeed, she was so kindly disposed and so cheerful and helpful, and seemed so interested in all the class projects and even in the sports, at which of course she could only look on, that little by little she came to be a great favorite, and the one to whom the rest naturally turned when there was any hitch or especial need for advice. And then, of course, as she was not to be thought of in the light of a possible candidate for president or vice-president or captain of the crew, or any of the other desirable high-places, those misguided young women who did have such literary, social, or athletic aspirations would go to her and confide their hopes and fears, and in some strange way they would all feel very much more comfortable and happy in their minds after such confessions. And so she got to be a sort of class institution in a very short while, and the captains of different stylish but rather un-nautical freshman crews vied with each other in invitations to “come over the lake” with them, and the president of the Tennis Association sent her a special and entirely superfluous invitation to the spring tournament on the club’s finest paper, and the senior editor of the college magazine, whose sister was a freshman, was made to ask her for a short article on the “Study of the Bible,” and at the concerts and receptions many young women, kindly and socially disposed, would introduce her to their brothers and other male relations who had been enticed out, before taking them on to see the lake, or a certain famous walk, or the Art Building, or the Gymnasium.

It was about the middle of the winter semestre that it happened, and of course it was Clara Arnold who knew about it first. Miss Arnold had liked “Miss Rose” from the beginning. She had taken a fancy to the hard-working woman, who had returned it with wondering admiration for the handsome, clever girl. And so Miss Arnold got into the habit of stopping for her occasionally to walk or drive, and it was when she went for her to go on one of those expeditions, that she discovered the trouble. She found “Miss Rose” sitting before her desk with a crumpled newspaper in her hand, and a dazed, hopeless expression on her face which cut the girl to the heart. Her things were scattered about the room, on the bed and chairs, an open trunk half-filled stood in one corner. Miss Arnold stared around in amazement.

“The bank’s broken,” said “Miss Rose” simply, in answer to her questioning glance, and pointed dully to the paper. “I might have known that little bank couldn’t hold out when so many big ones have gone under this year,” she went on, half speaking to herself.

Miss Arnold picked up the paper and read an article on the first page marked around with a blue pencil. She did not understand the technicalities, but she made out that the “City Bank” of a small town in Idaho had been forced to close, and that depositors would not get more than five or ten cents on the dollar.

“Every cent I’ve saved up was in that bank!” The woman turned herself slowly in her chair and laid her face down on the desk with her arms above her head. She spoke in muffled tones into which a strange bitterness had crept.

“I’ve worked all my life—ever since I was twenty—to get enough money to come to college on. I had barely enough to stay here at all—and now—” she stopped suddenly, breathing hard. “I haven’t been here a year yet,” she broke out at last.

“Well, I’ll have to go back to teaching. Great heavens! I thought I’d finished with that!”

Miss Arnold seated herself on a clear corner of the bed.

“Look here, ‘Miss Rose,’” she said, excitedly, “of course you aren’t going to stop college now, when you’re doing so well and—and we all like you so much and—and you’re just beginning your course.” She stumbled on—“Has everything gone?—can’t you do something?”

“Miss Rose” looked up slowly—“Everything,” she said grimly, and then, with the pathetically resigned air of one who has been used to misfortunes and has learned to accept them quietly, “I’ve worked all my life, I suppose I can go at it again.” She looked around her. “I’ll be gone this time to-morrow, and then I won’t feel so badly;”—she put her head down on the desk again.

Miss Arnold looked thoughtfully at her for a few minutes and then, with a sudden movement, she got up and went out, closing the door softly behind her.

It was about nine o’clock that evening and “Miss Rose” had almost finished packing. She was feeling particularly disheartened and was taking the books from the cases one by one in a very mournful way, when she heard footsteps and a subdued but very excited whispering outside her door. She got up languidly and threaded her way among the books and cushions and odd articles of clothing heaped up on the floor. As she opened the door, the light from her student-lamp fell upon the very red face of a freshman propelled apparently into the room by the two or three others behind her, who seemed to have a wild desire to efface themselves entirely.

“Miss Rose,” gasped the blushing freshman in the van, “here—here is a letter for you. We’ve just had a class meeting—” she looked nervously at the others who were edging away.

There was an indistinct chorus from them which sounded like “hope you’ll accept,” and then they retreated with as much dignity as possible, but in great haste.

“Miss Rose” opened the letter and gave a little cry as a check for a good round sum drawn on the class treasurer fell to the floor. And then she sat weakly down on the bed and cried a little from pure happiness as she read it all over.

“The class of ’9—have just heard of ‘Miss Rose’s’ financial embarrassment occasioned by the failure of the —— City Bank, and being most unwilling to lose so valuable and appreciated a member, beg that she will accept the enclosed and continue with the class until the end of the year.”

A SHORT STUDY IN EVOLUTION

When the heterogeneous mass of humanity which makes up a big college is got together and in close relation for ten months at a time, there is bound to be action and reaction. When New York society girls and missionaries’ daughters from India, and Boston Latin-school girls and native Japanese, and Westerners and Georgians and Australians and “Teacher Specials,” and very young preparatory-school girls, are all mixed up together, it inevitably happens that there is some friction and many unexpected and interesting results. One of these is that it not infrequently happens that a young woman leaves college an entirely different person from the girl who took her entrance examinations, and sometimes the change is for the better and sometimes for the worse, or it may be unimportant and relate only to the way she has got to wearing her hair, or the amount of extra money she considers necessary. At any rate, a noticeable change of some sort always operates in a girl during her four or five years’ stay at a college, and when she goes home “for good” her friends will criticise her from their different points of view, and will be sure to tell her whether she is improved or not.

When Miss Eva Hungerford returned for her senior year at college, having been greatly disappointed in one of her friends, she determined to make no new ones, but to work very hard and keep a great deal to herself. She succeeded so well in her efforts that, after she had been there three months, she became aware that she knew absolutely none of the new students. They were an indistinguishable mass to her, with the exception of two or three noticeably pretty, and about the same number of extremely homely young women whose physique rendered them conspicuous. To her uninterested gaze the large majority seemed to be distressingly like all previous freshman classes, and endowed with the same modest amount of good looks and intellectual foreheads.

But in college life it is a strange fact that while upper classes find it rather difficult to become acquainted among the lower ones, owing, of course, to the unwritten code which prevents a senior from appearing interested in any but those of her own class, yet the incoming students are allowed and take every opportunity of ingratiating themselves with upper-class girls, without injury to their dignity. But Miss Hungerford, who had surrounded herself with quite an impenetrable air of seniority, and who was so extremely handsome and distant-looking, by her appearance and bearing had exercised a rather chilling influence on young aspirants for an introduction, and was secretly very much looked up to and feared.

She was not entirely unconscious of the effect she produced, and was therefore decidedly surprised one day to receive a call from a freshman who lived only a few doors from her, but of whose existence she had not been aware. She thought the child—she was very young, not more than sixteen—uninteresting, and that it was an evidence of extremely bad taste, and unconventionality on her part to call in that unprovoked way. But she was very polite to her uninvited guest, and asked her the usual questions, and the girl, who was very naïve, replied with a loquacity quite trying to her hostess.

Miss Hungerford was rather indignant after her visitor had gone, and wondered why she had had to be interrupted in an analytical study of “Prometheus Unbound,” to listen to a child tell her that she had never been out of Iowa before, and that her mother had not wanted her to come to college, but that her father had always said she should have “a higher education,” and so, after presumably much domestic wrangling, she was there. Miss Hungerford could not remember much else of what the young girl had told her, having listened rather absently to her replies, but she had a distinct impression that her visitor was not at all good-looking, with only a fine pair of eyes to redeem her pale face, and that her clothes were atrocious, and that she was

gauche and decidedly of a social class that Miss Hungerford was not in the habit of mingling with away from college. For even in a very democratic college there are social grades, and although it is the thing to meet in a most friendly way at all class functions, still, a narrow line of distinction may be perceived on social occasions.

Altogether Miss Hungerford felt rather aggrieved and hoped she would not be bothered again. But she was. Miss Betty Harmon, of Sioux City, Ia., had had a fearful struggle with her timidity and retiring nature, when she called on Miss Hungerford, and having gained a victory over herself, she had no intention of resigning the benefits. So she would smile first when they met in the corridors, and was not above showing how much she appreciated a few words from Miss Hungerford in praise of her tennis serve, and that young woman was even uncomfortably conscious that her youthful admirer had more than once followed her to the library, where, under pretence of reading, she had stolen furtive glances at her. Later there were notes, and roses, and requests to go boating.

Miss Hungerford strongly objected to such proceedings, not only because she did not wish to be rendered ridiculous by an insignificant freshman from Iowa, but also because she was a very sensible girl, and entirely disapproved of the “eclectic affinity” business, and she had no intention of allowing the young girl’s admiration for herself to develop into that abnormal sort of attraction that exists between girls in so many schools and colleges.

The temptation to exalt some upper-class girl into an ideal and lavish upon her an affection which in society would naturally fall to the lot of some very unideal boy, or man, is one of the greatest ordeals a college girl goes through, and one who successfully resists all inducements to become a “divinity student,” or who gets out of the entanglement without damage to herself, is as successfully “proven” as was Lieutenant Ouless after his little affair with Private Ortheris. Even the least romantic girl is apt to find unexpected possibilities in her nature in the way of romantic devotion, so that it was not surprising that Miss Betty Harmon, unimaginative and unsentimental as she was, should have admired so extravagantly as handsome and interesting a girl as Eva Hungerford. The crude Western girl found something extremely attractive in the senior—grace, a social ease and distinction, and that indefinable magnetism which a wealthy, consciously beautiful girl possesses.

But Miss Hungerford, who had no notion of getting herself talked about, and whose Eastern sensitiveness and prejudices were continually being shocked by the younger girl’s crudities, so persistently frowned down upon and ignored her under-class admirer, that even Miss Harmon’s devotion paled, and the roses and notes and boating excursions ceased. She began to perceive that the faint line of social distinction, so rarely perceptible in the college, had been drawn in her case.

During the last semestre of the year Miss Hungerford, who was very tired and busy, seemed almost oblivious of the young girl’s existence, and even forgot to smile at her when they met on the campus. And when on her Baccalaureate Sunday a box of white roses—the last mute expression of Miss Harmon’s expiring affection—was handed her without any card, she wondered who had sent them and concluded they must have been ordered by a man she knew.

Three years after leaving college Miss Hungerford married, much to her friends’ surprise, and a year after that she and her husband went abroad. Of course they went to Paris, where Mrs. Stanhope, who had spent much time there after leaving college, had a great many friends, and innumerable dinners were given to them and they enjoyed themselves very much, until it got so cold that Mrs. Stanhope said she must go to Cannes. Of course it immediately struck Stanhope, who adored his wife, that it was entirely too cold to stay in Paris, and so they went south, though their friends made a great fuss over their departure.

They stayed away much longer than they had intended, having been enticed into going to Malta by some American acquaintances, and when they got back to Paris hundreds of interesting things seemed to have happened in their absence, and a great many people and events were being talked about of which they knew nothing. But the wife of the American minister, who was an old friend, went to see Mrs. Stanhope immediately to invite her to an informal dinner the next evening, and stayed the entire afternoon, telling her of everything that had happened and who all the new people were—the New American Beauty for instance. She could not believe that her friend had not heard of nor seen the New Beauty.

“Why, haven’t you ever seen her pictures—and the notices of her?”

Mrs. Stanhope was slightly aggrieved. She knew absolutely nothing about her.

“And I am completely astonished that they aren’t talking of her at Cannes.”

Mrs. Stanhope reminded her friend that she had been immured at Malta since leaving the Riviera.

“Oh, well, of course her fame has reached there by this time. Why, all Paris is talking about her—and you know yourself”—observed that astute lady, impressively—“how much it takes to make Paris stop and look at you.” Mrs. Stanhope said “Yes,” and wanted to know who The Beauty’s people were, and where she had come from.

“Oh, I don’t know,” declared her friend. “No one seems to inquire. She is so beautiful and sufficient in herself that one does not care much for the rest. They are immensely rich—recently, I believe—though you would never know it from her manner. She is charming and thoroughly well-bred. Her father, I hear, is a typical American business man—not much en évidence, you know. He leaves that to his daughter, and she does it very well. He is a Senator—or something—from the West, and made such a name for himself at Washington that they thought he was too bright to stay there, so they sent him over here to help settle that international treaty affair—you know perhaps—I don’t, I only pretend to.”

“How did she do it?” demanded Mrs. Stanhope, in that simply comprehensive way women have when talking about another woman.

“Oh, she just started right in. Courtelais raved over her, and her father paid him twenty thousand dollars to have her painted. The Colony took her up, and the rest just followed naturally. The portrait is really charming, though she was dressed—well, I don’t think any French girl would have sat in that costume.”

“Is she really so beautiful?”

“Well—not regularly beautiful, perhaps—but charming and fascinating, and awfully clever, they say—so clever that very few people suspect her of it, and—oh! well, you can judge for yourself to-morrow evening. By the way, everyone says she is engaged already—Comte de la Tour. You used to know him, I think.” She rose to go. “He is very much in love with her, that is evident.” She thought it best to let Mrs. Stanhope have that piece of news from herself. She did not wish her friend to be taken at a disadvantage, especially in her own house.

Mrs. Stanhope felt the least bit startled. She had known the Comte de la Tour very well indeed in Paris, several years before, and he had been very much in love with her, and had appeared quite genuinely broken-hearted when she refused him. She had not seen him—he had not been in Paris when she was there during the earlier part of the season—but with the comforting faith of people who have never been in love, she had always believed that he would get over his devotion to her, though she felt a rather curious sensation on hearing that her expectations had been so fully realized, and she felt a pardonable curiosity to see the girl who had made him forget her.

She dressed very carefully for the American Minister’s the next evening, and looked a little more than her usual handsome self, when her carriage turned rapidly into the Avenue Hoche. She was somewhat late, and although the Minister and his wife were old friends, she felt worried with herself, for she had made it a rule to be punctual at all social functions, and when she entered the rooms she could see that the guests wore that rather expectant air which signifies that dinner is already slightly behind time. She hurried forward and denounced herself in polite fashion, but her hostess assured her that several others had not yet arrived, and, much relieved, she turned to speak to a bright newspaper man, an old acquaintance, who had arrived in Paris during her absence.

“I am so glad to find you again,” he murmured in his drawl; “they tell me you have been to Malta. How fortunate for you! I suppose now you have been happy in an idyllic, out-of-the-world way, and have not heard a word about Brice’s accident, nor the newspaper duel, nor the New Beauty——”

“But I am not happy, and shall not be until I see your Beauty,” protested Mrs. Stanhope. “I’ve heard about her until I have an all-devouring curiosity to behold her. I haven’t even seen the portrait, or a photograph!”

He fell away from her in mock surprise and despair, and was about to reply, when the portières were drawn aside and Mrs. Stanhope saw coming into the room a very beautiful young girl, with a rather childish, mobile face, and magnificent eyes. She seemed to know everyone, and bowed and smiled right and left in an easy, bright sort of way. Mrs. Stanhope would have known this was The Beauty, even if her entrance had not been accompanied by that significant hush and rather ridiculous closing up of the men in her wake. There was a special charm about the soft contour of her face, and the heavy white satin of her gown, though rather old for such a young girl, set off her beauty admirably.

“Looks just like one of Goodrich’s girls, doesn’t she?” murmured the man at Mrs. Stanhope’s elbow. But that lady was not paying any attention to his remarks. She was looking in a puzzled fashion at the girl’s face, and wondering what there was about it so familiar.

“Isn’t she deliciously beautiful?” he insisted, “and clever! I found it out quite by accident. She’s very careful about letting people know how well informed she is. She’s been to a college somewhere,” he ran on. Mrs. Stanhope was not listening. She was still looking, in a rather abstracted way, at the young girl who was holding a little court on the other side of the room. Her hostess rustled up.

“I am going to send my husband to bring The Beauty to you,” she said, laughingly, and swept across the room. In a moment Mrs. Stanhope saw the girl take the Minister’s arm, and, followed on the other side by the Comte de la Tour, start toward her. For some inexplicable reason she felt annoyed, and half wished to avoid the introduction. The newspaper man was interested. Mrs. Stanhope had never posed as a professional beauty, and she was too noble a woman to have her head turned by flattery, but that did not alter the fact that she had been considered the handsomest woman in the American colony at Paris, and, of course, she knew it. He thought it would be interesting to see how the acknowledged beauty received the younger one.

When the two women were within a few feet of each other, and before the American Minister could say “Mrs. Stanhope,” they each gave a little cry of recognition, and it was the younger one who first regained her composure and extended her hand. She stood there, flushed and smiling, the lights falling on her dark hair and gleaming shoulders, making of her, as the newspaper man had said, one of “Goodrich’s girls.” The childish look had gone out of her eyes, and a little gleam of conscious triumph was in them. There was just a shade of coldness, almost of condescension, in her manner. While the Comte was looking from one to the other, in a rather mystified way, and the American Minister was saying, “Why, I didn’t know—I thought—” Mrs. Stanhope’s mind was running quickly back to her first meeting with the girl before her, and she could only remember, in a confused sort of way, what this girl had once been like. And so they stood for a moment—it seemed an interminably long time to the men—looking a little constrainedly at each other and smiling vaguely. But the older woman quickly recovered herself. She had no notion of being outdone

by the girl before her, and spoke brightly.

“I did not recognize you! How stupid of me! But you see the ‘Beatrice’ confused me, and then the French way everyone has of pronouncing H-a-r-m-ö-n completely put me off the track!”

She tried to be very friendly, and the young girl smiled and looked easily—the newspaper man thought almost defiantly—at her, but it was plain to the three onlookers that in some inscrutable way the meeting had been unfortunate, and they each felt relieved, in an inexplicable fashion, when dinner was announced and the snowy, gleaming length of damask and silver and wax lights stretched between the two women.

. . . . . . .

That night the Comte thought a good deal about the reception of his fiancée by the woman he had once loved, and decided that the American woman was a trifle exigeante, and wondered whether Mrs. Stanhope had really expected him never to marry.

The American Minister confided to his wife that he was disappointed in Eva Stanhope, and that she had always appeared so free from vanity and so superior to the little meannesses of women that he was very much surprised at the way she had acted.

The newspaper man, being exceedingly wise in his generation, smoked three cigars over it on the way to his hotel, and then—gave it up.

THE GENIUS OF BOWLDER BLUFF

He seemed much surprised and a little hurt when Miss Arnold shook her head, smilingly.

“You see, there are so many——” she began, noting his disappointed look.

“Then I s’pose you can’t find her fer me. You see,” he explained, gently, “I wrote her I wuz comin’ ter-morrer, an’ I came ter-night fur a surprise—a surprise,” he repeated, delightedly. “But I’m mighty disappointed not ter find her. This is the first time I ever wuz so fur east. But I hed to see Ellen—couldn’t stan’ it no longer. You see,” he continued, nervously, “I thought mebbe I could stay here three or four days, but last night I got a telegram from my pardner on the mountain sayin’ there wuz trouble among the boys an’ fur me ter come back. But I—I jest couldn’t go back without seein’ Ellen, so I came on ter-night fur a surprise, but I must start back right off, an’ I’m mighty disappointed not ter be seein’ her all this time. Hed no idea yer college wuz such a big place—thought I could walk right in an’ spot her,” he ran on meditatively—“I thought it wuz something like Miss Bellairs’s an’ Miss Tompkins’s an’ Miss Rand’s all rolled inter one. But Lord! it’s a sight bigger’n that! Well, I’m glad of it. I’ve thought fur years about Ellen’s havin’ a college eddication, an’ I’m glad to see it’s a real big college. Never hed no schoolin’ myself, but I jest set my heart on Ellen’s havin’ it. Why shouldn’t she? I’ve got ther money. Hed to work mighty hard fur it, but I’ve got it, an’ she wanted ter come to college, and I wanted her to come, so of course she came. I met another young woman,” he continued, smiling frankly at the girl before him; “she wasn’t so fine-lookin’ as you, but she was a very nice young woman, an’ she promised to send Ellen ter me, but she hasn’t done it!”

Miss Arnold felt a sudden interest in the old man.

“Perhaps,” she began, doubtfully, “if you could tell me what her class is, or in what building she has her rooms, I might find her.”

He looked at the young girl incredulously.

“Ain’t you never heard of her?” he demanded. “Why, everybody knew her at Miss Bellairs’s. But p’r’aps”—in a relieved sort of way—“p’r’aps you ain’t been here long. This is Ellen’s second year.”

Miss Arnold felt slightly aggrieved. “I am a Senior,” she replied, and then added courteously, “but I am sure the loss has been mine.”

She could not make this man out, quite—he was so evidently uncultivated, so rough and even uncouth, and yet there was a look of quiet power in his honest eyes, and he was so unaffectedly simple and kindly that she instinctively recognized the innate nobility of his character. She felt interested in him, but somewhat puzzled as to how to continue the conversation, and so she turned rather helplessly to her magazine.

But he came over and stood beside her, looking down wonderingly at the unfamiliar words and accents.

“Can you read all that?” he asked, doubtfully.

Miss Arnold said “Yes.”

“Jest like English?” he persisted.

She explained that she had had a French nurse when she was little, and afterward a French governess, and that she had always spoken French as she had English. He seemed to be immensely impressed by that and looked at her very intently and admiringly, and then he suddenly looked away, and said, in a changed tone:

“I never hed no French nurse fur Ellen. Lord! it wuz hard enough to get any kind in them days,” he said, regretfully. “But she’s been studyin’ French fur two years now—p’rhaps she speaks almost as good as you do by this time—she’s mighty smart.”

Miss Arnold looked up quickly at the honest, kindly face above her with the hopeful expression in the eyes, and some sudden impulse made her say, quite cheerfully and assuringly, “Oh, yes—of course.”

She was just going to add that she would go to the office and send someone to look for Miss Oldham, when a slender, rather pretty girl passed the library door, hesitated, peering through the half-light, and then came swiftly toward them.

With a cry of inexpressible tenderness and delight the old man sprang toward her.

“Ellen!” he said, “Ellen!”

She clung to him for a few moments and then drew off rather shyly and awkwardly, with a sort of mauvaise honte which struck disagreeably on Miss Arnold, and looked inquiringly and almost defiantly from her father to the girl watching them.

“This young woman,” he said, understanding her unspoken inquiry, “has been very kind to me, Ellen—we’ve been talkin’.”

Miss Arnold came forward.

“I think we ought to be friends,” she said, graciously. “I am Clara Arnold. Your father tells me this is your Sophomore year.”

The girl met her advances coldly and stiffly. She had never met Miss Arnold before, but she had known very well who she was, and she had envied her, and had almost disliked her for her good looks and her wealth and her evident superiority. She comprehended that this girl had been born to what she had longed for in a vague, impotent way, and had never known. She wished that Miss Arnold had not witnessed the meeting with her father—that Miss Arnold had not seen her father at all. And then, with the shame at her unworthy thoughts came a rush of pity and love for the man standing there, smiling so patiently and so tenderly at her. She put one hand on his arm and drew herself closer to him.

“Father!” she said.

Miss Arnold stood looking at them, turning her clear eyes from one to the other. It interested her tremendously—the simple, kindly old man, in his rough clothes, and with his homely talk and his fatherly pride and happiness in the pretty, irresolute-looking girl beside him. It occurred to her suddenly, with a thrill of pity for herself, that she had never seen her father look at her in that way. He would have been inordinately surprised and—she felt sure—very much annoyed, if she had ever kissed his hand or laid her head on his arm as this girl was now doing. He had been an extremely kind and considerate father to her. It struck her for the first time that she had missed something—that after providing the rather pretentiously grand-looking house and grounds, and the servants and carriages and conservatories, her father had forgotten to provide something far more essential. But she was so much interested in the two before her that she did not have much time to think of herself. She concluded that she did not want to go back to the Scotch celebrity, and resolutely ignored the surprised looks of some of her friends who passed the library door and made frantic gestures for her to come forth and join them. But when they had moved away it occurred to her that she ought to leave the two together, and so she half rose to go, but the man, divining her intention, said, heartily:

“Don’t go—don’t go! Ellen’s goin’ to show me about this big college, an’ we want you to go, too.”

He was speaking to Miss Arnold, but his eyes never left the girl’s face beside him, while he gently stroked her hair as if she had been a little child.

And so they walked up and down the long library, and they showed him the Milton shield, and dragged from their recesses rare books, and pointed out the pictures and autographs of different celebrities. He seemed very much interested and very grateful to them for their trouble, and never ashamed to own how new it all was to him nor how ignorant he was, and he did not try to conceal his pride in his daughter’s education and mental superiority to himself. And when Miss Arnold realized that, she quietly effaced herself and let the younger girl do all the honors, only helping her now and then with suggestions or statistics.

“You see,” he explained, simply, after a lengthy and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, a somewhat fruitless dissertation on the splendid copy of the “Rubaiyat” lying before them—“you see I don’t know much about these things. Never hed no chance. But Ellen knows, so what’s the use of my knowin’? She can put her knowledge to use; but, Lord! I couldn’t if I hed it.

“You see it was like this,” he continued, cheerfully, turning to Miss Arnold, while the girl at his side raised her head for an instant and uttered a low exclamation of protest. “We lived out West—in a minin’ camp in Colorado—Bowlder Bluff wuz its name. Awfully lonesome place. No schools—nothin’, jest the store—my store—an’ the mines not fur off. Ellen wuz about twelve then”—he turned inquiringly to the girl, but she would not look up—“about twelve,” he continued, after a slight pause, and another gentle caress of the brown hair; “an’ I hedn’t never given a thought to wimmen’s eddication, an’ Ellen here wuz jest growin’ up not knowin’ a thing—except how I loved her an’ couldn’t bear her out of my sight” (with another caress), “when one day there came to ther camp a college chap. He wuz an English chap, an’ he wuz hard-up. But he wuz a gentleman an’ he’d been to a college—Oxford wuz the name—an’ he took a heap of notice of Ellen, an’ said she wuz mighty smart—yes, Ellen, even then we knew you wuz smart—an’ that she ought to have schoolin’ an’ not run aroun’ the camp any more. At first I didn’t pay no attention to him. But by an’ by his views did seem mighty sensible, an’ he kep’ naggin at me. He used to talk to me about it continual, an’ at night we’d sit out under the pines and talk—he with a fur-away sort of look in his eyes an’ the smoke curlin’ up from his pipe—an’ he’d tell me what eddication meant to wimmen—independence an’ happiness an’ all that, an’ he insisted fur Ellen to go to a good school. He said there wuz big colleges fur wimmen just like there wuz fur men, an’ that she ought to have a chance an’ go to one.

“An’ then he would read us a lot of stuff of evenin’s—specially poetry. Shelley in particular. And yet another chap, almost better’n Shelley. Keats wuz his name. P’rhaps you’ve read some of his poetry?” he inquired, turning politely to Miss Arnold. Something in her throat kept her from speaking, so she only lowered her head and looked away from the drawn, averted face of the girl before her. “He wuz great! All about gods an’ goddesses an’ things one don’t know much about; but then, as I take it, poetry always seems a little fur off, so it wuz kind of natural. But Shelley wuz our favorite. He used to read us somethin’ about the wind. Regularly fine—jest sturred us up, I can tell you. We knew what storms an’ dead leaves an’ ‘black rain an’ fire an’ hail’ wuz out on them lonesome mountains. An’ sometimes he’d read us other things, stories from magazines, an’ books, but it kind of made me feel lonesomer than ever.

“But Ellen here, she took to it all like a duck to water, an’ the college chap kep’ insistin’ that she ought to go to a good school, an’ that she showed ‘great natural aptitude’—them wuz his words—an’ that she might be famous some day, till at last I got regularly enthusiastic about wimmen’s eddication, an’ I jest determined not to waste any more time, an’ so I sent her to Miss Bellairs’s at Denver. She wuz all I hed, an’ Lord knows I hedn’t no particular reason to feel confidence in wimmen folks”—a sudden, curious, hard expression came into his face for a moment and then died swiftly away as he turned from Miss Arnold and looked at the girl beside him. “But I sent her, an’ she ain’t never been back to the camp, an’ she’s been all I ever hoped she’d be.”

They had passed from the faintly lighted library into the brilliant corridors, and the man, towering in rugged strength above the two girls, cast curious glances about him as they walked slowly along. Everything seemed to interest him, and when they came to the Greek recitation-rooms he insisted, with boyish eagerness, upon going in, and the big photogravures of the Acropolis and the charts of the Ægean Sea, and even a passage from the “Seven against Thebes” (copied upon the walls doubtless by some unlucky Sophomore), and which was so hopelessly unintelligible to him, seemed to fascinate him. And when they came to the physical laboratories he took a wonderful, and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, an almost pathetic interest in the spectroscopes and Ruhmkorff coils, and the batteries only half-discernable in the faintly flaring lights.

And as they strolled about he still talked of Ellen and himself and their former life, and the life that was to be—when Ellen should become famous. For little by little Miss Arnold comprehended that that was his one fixed idea. As he talked, slowly it came to her what this man was, and what his life had been—how he had centred every ambition on the girl beside him, separated her from him, at what cost only the mountain pines and the stars which had witnessed his nightly struggles with himself could tell; how he had toiled and striven for her that she might have the education he had never known. She began to understand what “going to college” had meant to this girl and this man—to this man especially. It had not meant the natural ending of a preparatory course at some school and a something to be gone through with—creditably, if possible, but also, if possible, without too great exertion and with no expectation of extraordinary results. It had had a much greater significance to them than that. It had been regarded as an event of incalculable importance, an introduction into a new world, the first distinct step upon the road to fame. It had meant to them what a titled offer means to a struggling young American beauty, or a word of approbation to an under-lieutenant from his colonel, or a successful maiden speech on the absorbing topic of the day, or any other great and wonderful happening, with greater and more wonderful possibilities hovering in the background.

She began to realize just how his hopes and his ambitions and his belief in this girl had grown and strengthened, until the present and the future held nothing for him but her happiness and advancement and success. It was a curious idea, a strange ambition for a man of his calibre to have set his whole heart upon, and as Miss Arnold looked at the girl who was to realize his hopes, a sharp misgiving arose within her and she wondered, with sudden fierce pity, why God had not given this man a son.

But Ellen seemed all he wanted. He told, in a proud, apologetic sort of way, while the girl protested with averted eyes, how she had always been “first” at “Miss Bellairs’s” and that he supposed “she stood pretty well up in her classes” at college. And Miss Arnold looked at the white, drawn face of the girl and said, quite steadily, she had no doubt but that Miss Oldham was a fine student. She was an exceptionally truthful girl, but she was proud and glad to have said that when she saw the look of happiness that kindled on the face of the man. Yet she felt some compunctions when she noted how simply and unreservedly he took her into his confidence.

And what he told her was just such a story as almost all mothers and fathers tell—of the precocious and wonderful intellect of their children and the great hopes they have of them. But with this man it was different in some way. He was so deeply in earnest and so hopeful and so tender that Miss Arnold could scarcely bear it. “Ellen” was to be a poet. Had she not written verses when she was still a girl, and had not the “college chap” and her teachers declared she had great talents? Wait—he would let Miss Arnold judge for herself. Only lately he had written to Ellen, asking her if she still remembered their lonely mountain-home, and she had sent him this. They had strolled down the corridor to one of the winding stairways at the end. He drew from his large leather purse a folded paper. The girl watched him open it with an inexpressible fear in her eyes, and when she saw what it was she started forward with a sort of gasp, and then turned away and steadied herself against the balustrade.

He spread out the paper with exaggerated care, and read, with the monotonously painful intonations of the unpractised reader: