Molly Brown's Senior Days

MOLLY BROWN'S SENIOR DAYS BY NELL SPEED AUTHOR OF MOLLY BROWN'S FRESHMAN DAYS, MOLLY BROWN'S SOPHOMORE DAYS, MOLLY BROWN'S JUNIOR DAYS, ETC., ETC. WITH FOUR HALF-TONE ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES L. WRENN NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1913 by HURST & COMPANY
Summer still lingered in the land when Wellington College opened her gates one morning in September. Frequent heavy rains had freshened the thirsty fields and meadows, and autumn had not yet touched the foliage with scarlet and gold. The breeze that fluttered the curtains at the windows of No. 5 Quadrangle was as soft and humid as a breath of May. It was as if spring was in the air and the note of things awakening, pushing up through the damp earth to catch the warm rays of the sun. It was Nature's last effort before she entered into her long sleep.
Molly Brown, standing by the open window, gazed thoughtfully across the campus. Snatches of song and laughter, fragments of conversation and the tinkle of the mandolin floated up to her from the darkness. It was like an oft-told but ever delightful story to her now.
Shall I ever be glad to leave it all? she asked herself. Wellington and the girls and the hard work and the play?
How were they to bear parting, the old crowd, after four years of intimate association? Did Judy love it as she did, or would she not rather feel like a bird loosed from a cage when at last the gates were opened and she could fly away. But Molly felt sure that Nance would feel the pangs of homesickness for Wellington when the good old days were over.
All these half-melancholy thoughts crowded through Molly's mind while Judy thrummed the guitar and Nance, busy soul, arranged the books on the new white book shelves.
Presently the other girls would come trailing in, the old guard, to talk over the events of that busy first day: Margaret Wakefield, bursting with opinions about politics and woman's suffrage; pretty Jessie Lynch, and the Williams sisters whose dark lustrous eyes seemed to see beyond the outer crust of things. Last of all, after a discreet interval, would come a soft, deprecating tap at the door, and Otoyo Sen, most charming of little Japanese ladies, with a beaming, apologetic smile, would glide into the room on her marshmallow soled slippers.