The second part, which concerned the extra-college world of men and women she had in the meantime not neglected. Here, her efforts, though not confined to Mr. Ballantyne, were yet centred in him. She dated her spring, as do most Bryn Mawrtyrs, by the changes in field and tree, but in this particular year she counted time also by her progress with the "genus Ballantyne," and especially with him from whom it took its name. In the time of cherry blossoms, when the black old trunks flung over them a white splendour woven by the wind and the sun, she had broken through the outer wall of prejudice that had been so weakened by her first attack. When the wind began to whirl from the apple-trees the full-blown petals, she felt that she was actually gaining ground, and faster than she had hoped; and when finally the daisies whitened the country-side, Marjorie received proof of complete triumph. This pleasant reward for the labour of a Semester came to Marjorie one Saturday afternoon in the latter half of May. The days had been warm and, as the work piled up in its inevitable way towards the end of the year, wearisome also. Dorothy Van Dyke, to celebrate the passing of the week, persuaded Kate Murray that they two should give a "Ball" to the other five under the big cherry-tree by Pembroke West. So it came about that lemonade flowed freely there that afternoon, and every one of the seven friends returning from a shopping expedition in town, from work, or what not, was welcomed to rugs, cushions and the cool clink of ice under the hospitable boughs. Marjorie was there, of course, helping every one in her own particularly helpful way. It was restful, sitting there in the golden-green afternoon shadows, while the breath of the lilacs drifted along to them with the lazy air. The beauty of it all silenced the little group more than once, and their love for campus and halls rose breast-high--throat-high, and choked them oddly as they thought of going away. Dear grey, ivy-clad halls! curtained in April with rich, tender green that is pierced to the heart with glorious sunlight, and that undulates, rippling, in the sweet spring wind; reddened by your vines that burn, lit by the sunset, in October; standing bare, proudly silent when the shouting north wind whirls the white snow about you; roofed with silver when the high moon dapples the grey road with the soft dim shadows of your trees; stately but never cold, always beautiful and beloved; if you but set upon your children as they go forth from you (groping their way because their eyes are clouded) your hallmarks of strong intellect, high honour, broad sympathy, and quick insight--who of all _Almæ Matres_ may more truly rejoice in her noble race than Bryn Mawr? A mood of contemplation could not but soon pass with such a group. The irrepressible Dorothy shattered it now. "Here's a man coming up the walk," she announced. "Does he belong to any of you? Daughter is with him."