Bryn Mawr (Pa.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Bryn Mawr College -- Fiction; College stories, American; Women college students -- Fiction
And they did. They talked about it until the late sunlight faded, and
twilight came down on the little study; and then, in the gathering
gloom, they talked about it still, and all the more freely. The older
girl, who had tilted with windmills in her time, opened her heart to
these young Quixotes, fresh from their first fall, on the difference
between cant and college spirit; and the two freshmen, sitting in the
twilight with tingling cheeks, pledged themselves silently to the larger
vision.
As they wended their way homeward across the dusky campus, they were
very silent; when Pauline spoke once, it was only to say, "I am sorry I
called her the Cynic."
And Charlotte, watching their dark receding forms as she leaned from her
open window, hoped that she hadn't been preaching. It was the old, old
antithesis between enthusiasm and experience; and after all there was
much to be said for enthusiasm. Those two youngsters had brought
something out of their mischance, if it was only their liking for each
other. "I wish I were a freshman again," sighed Charlotte to the stars.
_Cora Armistead Hardy, '99._
_A REMINISCENCE_
We had met, after two years or so out in the "wide, wide world" of which
we had sung so dolefully, the last weeks of senior year. I discovered
that Evelyn had substituted soft "fluffs" for the stiff collars she had
clung to tenaciously through four years of college, and she admitted
that after the first shock she quite liked the new way I did my hair.
Later she also admitted that she made a practice of carrying a parasol,
or even of wearing a hat, when it was excessively sunny. Emboldened by
the confession, I ventured to produce some embroidery and went to work
as if such femininity had always been my pose. Then we talked, and
exchanged various bits of news about the members of the class who had
wandered so far since our separation.
"Wasn't it sad about Janet?" I asked at last. And then as Evelyn kept
silent, I went on, "you knew, didn't you?--She died last November just a
little while after her engagement was announced. It was typhoid fever.
I thought you knew, of course."
"Yes, I knew," said Evelyn, and went on examining the bookcase.
"I think I'll tell you about it," she exclaimed at last. "It won't do
any good. But I think I'd like to tell you. You know Janey and I were
awfully good friends while she was at college. We even thought of
rooming together, but we were both so well satisfied with our single
suites that we decided not to. We were almost like roommates, though.
Janet always saw that I was registered when I went home and I always
stole rolls for her when she was locked out from breakfast. We wore each
other's clothes indiscriminately. I have one of her handkerchiefs yet.
You know how it was. We were just awfully good friends."
"I know--Janet would do anything under the sun for any one she liked--go
on."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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