Bryn Mawr (Pa.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Bryn Mawr College -- Fiction; College stories, American; Women college students -- Fiction
"Curiosity, after all, is the only insatiable emotion," said Esther out
of her experience, and there were always more little bricks: one might
even in time when one had read all the rest, go and dig some up with
one's own hands.
_Georgiana Goddard King, '96._
_STUDIES IN COLLEGE COLOUR_
The great bell clangs out through the morning air--through the
snowflakes that thicken it, sending its summons over the white-crusted
campus. The slippery walks are crowded with black figures moving towards
Taylor Hall, single, in groups of twos and threes, wrapped close with
shawls and hoods, half of them umbrellaless. Voices fall as they enter
and amid friendly jostling around the bulletin board and in the
cloak-room whispered greetings are exchanged. Then upstairs to the
silent chapel, with its white windows made whiter by the frost; a
stillness seeming to fold it round. The black mortar-boards nod their
tassels in cheery greeting; subdued talk between neighbours fills the
room with a low hum. A sudden hush; the talk stops; the heads are still;
a moment's pause and the service has begun. All are together for once in
the day, with no distinctions of class or grade. All are alike children,
and children of Bryn Mawr. At the close of the prayer another moment's
silence. Then a sudden movement. The bell clangs out again. A general
rush to classes, to the office, to one's room. The day has begun.
* * * * *
The sunlight is streaming in through the broad windows. It dances among
the leaves of the red geraniums on the window-sill and falls upon the
carpet in bright spots and bands. The bookcase and the two shelves of
the little mahogany desk are crowded with a confusion of much worn,
many-coloured volumes. Over the Dresden inkstand and disordered files of
papers and pencils a small brass dragon mounts guard. Dainty cups shine
on the white tea-table, which bears for its motto the words of the March
Hare:
"_It's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the tea things between
whiles._"
On the Turkish scarf which drapes the mantel stands a ginger-jar full of
yellow roses. Across the rocking-chair is thrown a college gown, while
tennis balls and rackets strew the floor. The divan is filled with
flowered cushions innumerable, and half-buried among them is the
mistress of all this colour and confusion. She is reading "The
Republic."
* * * * *
It was a warm afternoon in May. The shadows were lengthening on the
campus, and the air had all the stillness of midsummer. On the grass
near the gravel walk a robin was hopping and pecking. Two black-gowned
figures had just passed slowly by, and now all was still again. A
sparrow who had been hovering for several minutes over head alighted
close by the robin.
"Ah!" said the robin, "could you but fancy what you have lost! Two
seniors conversing together. Did you not perceive them?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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