“ She had had to fight poverty for herself and him, and for him disease and evil. The cheerful letters that had come to Ellen now and then, had brought her little satisfaction, they were so impersonal. It had been in vain that Edith reminded her that Marjorie had always been impersonal, reticent. Putting herself into everything she did and said was her way of talking about herself. It had been in vain too that Edith contended that Marjorie's enthusiasm for righteousness and humorous freshness of mind were her safeguard against old age. ”

“ Clothilde and one or two others present were Catholics. Lilian choked and stopped.
"Shall we not sing?" suggested Helen. Clothilde started the hymn. There was no more speaking. Lilian was the first to leave the meeting. She went out with unseeing eyes and hot cheeks, alone. There are times when even the kindest hearts are cold, and for the moment there could be nothing but alienation from one who had found tongue against the college spirit—for they felt that the attack was really against this vague, shadowy, stern, beloved thing of many hues and many forms—the spirit of the college. ”

“ But if anybody has the power of doing something really great, for the world's sake, don't preach versatility to that person. There are few enough of us that can add to the sum of knowledge."
"That's a part of what I mean, Anne," struck in Marjorie eagerly. "There are few of us that can do that, but there are quantities of people who will never be able to do more than grind, and who yet abstract themselves from the world of actual life as though they were hermit geniuses. I say they have no right to do it, and that they owe as much to their fellows as to their own brains. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now as she sat in the bright kimono and watched the little flame curl and die and half heard the sound of gayety outside her door, Oxford was no longer her dream city. The bored dweller in towns who echoes the praise of rural life and poses a martyr to the weariness endured in the city, may smile at her for a foolish maiden, yet true it was that now she longed for nothing more vague and unknown, nothing more romantic and delightful than simply New York. ”

“ Kate, if she had not been thrown with such girls as Marjorie, Eleanor, and her own roommate, Dorothy Van Dyke, might have turned out pure grind; but the constant contact with the good friends had bred in her a wholesome sense of the value of a well-rounded college experience. Now, in senior year, although she had at times to be forcibly dragged from work by the frivolous Dorothy, she was heard to deliver herself spontaneously of the opinion that people ought to play daily,—afternoon tea with the six, after a long tramp or basket-ball being preferred as the form that play was to take. ”

“ One day, after we came back to town I was reading, not thinking of anything but the book—Janey least of all. Nothing in that book could have reminded me of her. I read it over afterwards to see. I looked up all of a sudden, thinking of Janet—thinking of her as if I had been with her an hour before. I dropped the book and felt as if I had just seen her, standing at the door in a familiar kimono, and heard her addressing me for the first time by that ridiculous nickname that she had just invented. I had heard through some people from her town that she was going to be married soon. ”

“ Curtains and costumes went to the property-room, the faded forest hid its head in a corner, the borrowed chairs and rugs and rubber-plants found themselves grouped in something like order, and the rescue party sank at last upon a mattress in the alcove to wipe its heated brow, and survey results.
"There is less damage done than you would think," observed Katharine Holland; she was a girl of that ineffectual type that must always appeal to some one, and she now turned her long brown face and mournful eyes towards Shirley. ”

“ Esther lay back in her chair, admiring the tarnished frame of a quaint oval mirror that reflected a really admirable Japanese water-colour of Hilda's. She was glad the study would be unchanged another year, and quiet. She thought, too, with a little shudder of the hot bad air of crowded rooms, the loud noise of voices, the indecorous bustle of a life made up of many acquaintances.
"I am going to Spain this summer to look at some Arabic manuscripts," she said at length. "You'd better come too. If we cross cheaply and don't travel we can live on nothing. ”

“ Sara smiled absent-mindedly, and then as though pondering, without a shade of remonstrance in her manner, said, "Augusta has the keenest insight into everyday subjects, and the most wonderful grasp of them that I have ever known. I never dare to be amused at Augusta. I can do nothing but admire her. But now, Nell," she continued, drawing her chair nearer the window where Ellen was sitting, "tell me about yourself. You are always doing interesting things. [Pg 21] Certainly the world ought to be convinced of the value of college education by the work of such women as you and Augusta." ”

“ Ellen continued, "I have to think how my words will affect Bryn Mawr, and also how they will strike my audience."
"Don't forget yourself," said Edith. "You've a way of leaving a bit of yourself behind when you get to work."
"Oh, it will come to you, don't fear," broke in Evelyn. "You do all that sort of thing so well, you'll be sure to make a hit. You couldn't help it talking about Bryn Mawr. If only I could do it. My four years there made life worth living."
"Come now, Evelyn," said Edith teasingly, "it will never do for you to say things like that, and you just engaged. ”

“ They defied college spirit, mocked at common sense and still do. And the world sets them down as types! Bertha Christie with her menagerie of intimates intolerant of the commonplace! I could pity them if people like you didn't make them of so much importance."
"Intolerant, maybe I am," in answer to a feeble protest from Ellen, "I'm rather proud of being intolerant of a set of sophisticated hermit-crabs, a few puling nuns who've gone to school to the melancholy Jacques. No wonder I hear queer things about Bryn Mawr when you go to them for ideas and pass by Edith and Evelyn and a host of others. ”

“ Charlotte raised her eyebrows enquiringly, but was perhaps not surprised by what she heard; she may have already reflected that defeat, always hard to bear, comes in its most unbearable form when it makes its victims ridiculous. Shirley and Pauline, having been baulked by very small means in a project of mighty import, had a galling sense of the absurdity of their position, and were bitterly ready to turn on their ungrateful classmates. Therefore Charlotte had the satisfaction of seeing them come over to her point of view with exaggerated enthusiasm. ”

“ But, though the instinct for much intercourse with one's kind and the superabundance of animal spirits may close to their possessors the gates within which the still scholar lives, yet even such may truly care for those quiet places and look almost with reverence on the things which there stand first. In this fashion Isabel regarded the work in which Anita was already noteworthy—in their small world—and in which it was possible that she might stand above the rank and file even in the world of research outside, if the promise of these first years should be fulfilled. ”

“ Marian's dark face reddened. "I am learning a few things in college," was the slow answer. "One is to value something beside pure intellect, and to estimate people at more than the amount of grey matter they happen to possess."
This was quite true. Marian's face-about was a matter of great astonishment to the few who had known her at all well when she entered. Most of them traced the change to her friendship with Marjorie, but no one, least of all Marian herself, suspected that design on the part of the senior had brought it about. ”

“ 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 [Pg 282] 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. ”

“ And while a more selfish person might have shown a nice discrimination in the choice of duties, Ellen, in her gracious readiness to be of service, accepted as obligations all the greatnesses thrust upon her. Constantly importuned for utterances, she felt bound to answer all requests for opinions, till at last, her sense of humour grew weak in conflict with her strenuousness, she had become an oracle on all matters that were or ought to be of interest to women. ”

“ The girls, most of them neatly and prettily dressed, were gathered near the piano, while a few young men, with very smooth hair and rather conspicuous ties, stood in stiff self-consciousness near the door.
"Young men of good character are invited in once a month," whispered Miss Hardy.
A half-grown girl, in heavy shoes, a crumpled red dress, with a soiled ribbon knotted around her neck, crossed the room and stood in front of Lilian. Her open scrutiny was beginning to be embarrassing when Helen came in. ”

“ But they are outsiders," he continued musingly, almost as though he had forgotten the existence of the girl to whom he was talking, "they see only the outward show, they are forever shut out from a share in that spirit that is the immortal part of the university, that persists in spite of change." ”

“ Her thoroughness in work was largely temperamental. She still looked upon her opportunities in college simply as means to greater efficiency in the missionary work she had been chosen to do—work that was in fact the propagation of certain peculiar theories. To her simple thinking, it was a sacrifice of herself to make the world better. Her anxiety over the approaching examinations was great.
The next morning she would gladly have gone to the library immediately after breakfast, but it was characteristic of her that she went instead for a two mile walk which she did not in the least enjoy. ”

“ Marian Coale was one of that minority whose ideal is only knowledge, not wisdom. She bade fair to become a bookworm—of high order, it is true, but yet a bookworm, and a bookworm, as a factor in life, is, by common consent, less desirable, admirable, and useful than a woman.
Marjorie's attack upon her theories, coming as it did from so well recognized a student, was from the right quarter, and was well-timed to give the freshman a new outlook even in her first year. "I hope I didn't inculcate too much frivolity," said Marjorie as she was telling Eleanor of this rencontre. ”

“ In the discussion of so weighty a matter both were important. Then, almost as an inspiration, it seemed to her, came the thought of Katherine Brewster, also a Bryn Mawrtyr, also interested in woman.
"She is certainly just the person," said Ellen, and she was soon standing on the Brewsters' doorstep. A very systematic maid opened the door and showed Ellen to a small room at the end of the hall. Katherine's quarters had always met with her approval,—the little room in which she waited, communicating as she remembered with a larger room beyond, had about it an air of business and privacy. ”

“ Everywhere one may see that bewildering mixture of history and aspiration."
"We can't help feeling a little proud that after so few years of existence it should begin to be impressive as well as beautiful," said Ellen, who hardly welcomed the return to the subject that had engrossed her thoughts so long, though she could not resist the enthusiasm of one familiar with the English universities.
"Of course, in this country one never wonders at rapidity of growth, but I must confess that æsthetic charm does not always accompany it. That delightful president of yours has secured both." ”