Bryn Mawr (Pa.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Bryn Mawr College -- Fiction; College stories, American; Women college students -- Fiction
At last Taylor bell begins to ring for chapel, and hardly has the first
stroke melted into the clanging monotone of the succeeding ones when on
all sides is displayed an unwonted eagerness for attending divine
service (not compulsory). From every hall flow long lines of students,
the black gowns of the more eager ones streaming straight out behind
them in the fresh March wind, like Alice's hair when the Red Queen ran
with her "faster! faster!" Followed by the slower comers, they hurry
into Taylor, up the staircase and into the chapel. There they scatter to
the excited though somewhat subdued groups that occupy the sections set
apart by unwritten law for different classes. In the middle front
writhes the senior class, forgetful of its usual stony impassiveness in
the face of anxiety. They are excited, for is it not one of themselves
that has been chosen? They are supported on the left by the loyal
juniors, who, because they have known the Fellow (whoever she may be)
three years, longer than any other class in college, are in turn justly
thrilled. The right flank is held by the devoted sophomore class,
excited because those from among whom the Fellow comes were once their
champions, when in freshman year they needed such. And behind the choir,
which is the rearguard of the seniors, sit the freshmen, excited because
they have never before come within hailing distance of the honour.
The clock is anxiously watched as the hands approach, oh! so slowly,
towards 8:45. Every probable, nay possible, candidate is being pierced
to the soul from all sides with glances compared to which a hawk's would
be careless and cursory. Now and again the wave of whispering and
laughter rises suddenly, until some conscience-pricked proctor silences
the throng. It begins again--a low bubbling noise that is alive with
anxious, suppressed excitement, and that threatens to engulf the
decorous Chapel in the rise of its un-religious tide.
The nervous twisting about to survey the crowd, the buzz of talk, the
ripple of laughter, cease suddenly. Then as the President and the
College Preacher, in their academic robes, enter the two upper doors and
ascend the platform, the mass rises, and led by the choir breaks into a
vigorous processional hymn. Then very quiet is the room while the words
of the strong King David are read, and it is only when the last sentence
of the prayer brings the students upright that the excitement breaks
forth again.
Across the rustle of readjustment, subduing it momentarily as a great
wind flattens the waves for an instant only to toss them the more
wildly, comes the voice of the President.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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