A STRANGE MEETING
One Saturday morning after a rainy Friday, Martine looked out the window.
"How refreshing to have a fine day again. Really, when it poured yesterday I thought it would rain forever, and I had such a funny adventure, Brenda Weston, that if you hadn't been out when I came home I should have told you on the spot. Adventures are like buckwheat cakes, so much better when they are fresh from the griddle, and this was a kind of frying-pan affair."
"I am afraid I don't understand. What was it?"
"Something that happened after the Rehearsal. I slipped away from Priscilla and her aunt and there was a great crowd going down the steps yesterday, so that of course I got separated from Priscilla and her aunt."
"It seems to me that's a way you have," Brenda tried to speak severely.
"Oh, yes," sighed Martine, "Mrs. Tilworth is quite resigned now. Generally I separate myself from her only about every other week, but yesterday I wanted some soda water, and I knew she would never condescend to go into a drug shop or let Priscilla go with me. However, when I was once in the street the rain was falling in such torrents that I made a beeline for a Crosstown car that I saw coming. I had had some trouble in getting away from Mrs. Tilworth, for she kept not only her eagle eye, but her arm on me as long as she could; she meant to bring me home in a cab, but after all I managed to wriggle away. I don't know why I thought I ought to run for my car, but I did, and so did another girl, only the trouble was, that she was coming from the opposite direction. Of course you can see what happened. I didn't mean to knock her down, for she was shorter than I and we were both furious."
"Because she was shorter than you?"
"Oh, I don't see now why we were both so mad, only she knocked my hat off, that one with the light blue feathers, and it went sailing down the asphalt, and my umbrella jabbed into her face. 'You're terribly clumsy; I should think you might see what you're doing. You might have put my eye out,' I heard her say in the savagest kind of a tone. Just then I caught sight of my hat, and all I could do was to laugh and laugh, and she thought I was laughing at her, and turned her back on me in a regular frigid Boston way, holding her handkerchief to her eye."
"How could so much happen while two people were getting on a car?"
"Getting on a car! Naturally we missed the car. It didn't wait for us to settle matters. I suppose that was partly what made her so cross. But I wish you could have seen my hat when finally I picked it up."
"I'm glad I didn't, if it was ruined. I have some responsibility for your clothes. No wonder Mrs. Tilworth tries to keep her eye on you!"
"She has to try pretty hard, I can assure you," retorted Martine.
"You should take things more seriously," rejoined Brenda. "In future please come home at least as far as Copley Square with her and Priscilla, but now—yes, now let us go in and look at the table." And with her hand in Brenda's arm, Martine led the way to the dining-room. The sight that met her eye there was indeed well worth seeing. The polished surface of the round mahogany table shone like a mirror. Covers were laid for nine and the centrepiece and doilies were embroidered in yellow. In a tall green glass in the middle were some large yellow chrysanthemums. The bonbons were in little gilded baskets and the china had yellow blossoms on a white ground.
With housewifely pride Brenda adjusted the blinds. "Yes," she said, "I think that everything will go just as it should. Elinor Naylor, you see, is a sister of one of Arthur's best college friends. I should like to have asked her to dine, but the cousin she is staying with has an engagement for her this evening, and as Arthur will be away next week, a luncheon was the best thing I could manage."
"Oh, it's just the thing," cried Martine; "dinners are so stiff. With the boys coming in to take us out to Cambridge, a luncheon will be far jollier than any dinner."
"I hope so," replied Brenda, "and I wonder what this Elinor Naylor is like. She was out when I called, but she writes a beautiful note, and from what I have heard, I imagine that she is rather stately and elegant. But dear me, it's nearly twelve, and with luncheon at one we shall really have to hurry." So with a few last touches to the table Brenda and Martine went to their rooms, and long before one, Brenda, with some trepidation, was waiting in the library for the arrival of her special guest. The Harvard boys, however, were the first to arrive—Fritz Tomkins, and Martine's brother Lucian, and Robert Pringle, Lucian's classmate. Next came Priscilla and Amy, the former somewhat abashed at hearing the laughter from the little library, and wondering if she could be late, until Amy reassured her. Priscilla bore some good-natured chaffing from her host, who seeing her glance at her watch, could not forbear teasing her.
"Yes," he said, "I can read the workings of a guilty conscience. Here we've been waiting for you this long time. The goose is burning up in the oven—"
"There isn't any goose in the house, Arthur, except you," protested Brenda.
"I am so sorry," began Priscilla, apologetically. "It was because Amy—"
"Don't throw the blame on another," protested Mr. Weston, solemnly.
"I don't mean to blame her. We both thought it was earlier, and besides," fortified by a glance at her watch, Priscilla spoke with more decision, "my watch says 'a quarter before one.'"
"That's what our clock says too," interposed Brenda, kindly. "Arthur was only teasing. Our guest, evidently, does not mean to be too early."
"If she's like her brother, she's a punctilious person and will arrive promptly at five minutes before one."
Strange to say, the longer hand had just marked five minutes of one when Angelina announced "Miss Elinor Naylor." A minute or two later the young lady entered the room, and after the other introductions had been made, Martine's turn came last.
As she greeted all the others, Miss Elinor Naylor had extended her hand very cordially, but when Brenda led Martine to her, her arm fell automatically to her side. Martine at the same time reddened deeply, and it was not often that Martine was so perceptibly embarrassed. Each girl, however, said a polite word or two, and in a few moments all went out to the little dining-room.
After they were seated, the conversation at first was not general, and I am afraid that anyone who had overheard the words exchanged between any two speakers might have called what was said rather commonplace. In a short time, however, some question arose regarding a recent Yale victory, and at once Arthur and Fritz plunged into an ardent discussion in which, soon, all took part.
"Oh, of course," said Arthur; "it's more than six to one. I know you are all against me. I can't even depend on Brenda, and so, Miss Naylor, I must turn to you as my one supporter in this controversy."
"You can depend on me," replied the guest; "whatever a Yale man says is bound to be true."
"The real Yale spirit," commented Martine. "I didn't know that girls had it as well as their brothers."
There was an unamiable tinge in Martine's tone that Brenda, too much occupied with things more important, did not notice. The more observant Arthur, however, had seen that Martine and Elinor had had little to say to each other, although they had been placed at table where they could easily have said more.
"You two young things," he said at last, "by which I mean our visitors from Chicago and Philadelphia, look at each other as if you had met before and were afraid to speak until you had found the clew to the previous meeting. Is that the case?"
Elinor was silent, but after a second Martine replied,
"No, not exactly; that is—" Then Martine came to a pause suddenly and answered some question that Robert Pringle, on her right hand, had asked her. Any embarrassment that she or Elinor might have felt was speedily ended by something with which they personally had nothing to do.
Now it happened that although Maggie had returned to her post of duty in Brenda's household, the latter had decided that things would move more smoothly with two waitresses, and so Angelina had been called in to assist at the little luncheon. All would have gone on well had not a spirit of emulation taken possession of the two helpers, so that each seemed anxious to reach Elinor first. Twice, as they entered through the swing door, one almost abreast of the other, although Brenda had previously given them their directions, they both started to serve the special guest with her oysters, and only Brenda's warning glance prevented Maggie's plate from being placed on top of the one that Angelina had already set before Elinor. This incident ruffled the spirits of the two waitresses, and when they entered with their cups of bouillon, each was determined to reach Elinor before the other. The result of their exertions might have been more disastrous. As it was, Elinor did not suffer, though Martine, looking up suddenly, expected to see Maggie's cup splash over Elinor's light gown. Luckily—for Elinor—Maggie lost her nerve soon enough to drop her bouillon cup to the floor, and though the crash of china and the splash of liquid on the polished floor startled all at the table, Elinor escaped a drenching.
Although everyone knew that there had been an accident, everyone tried to look unconcerned. Maggie, crestfallen, gathered up the pieces; Angelina, with her head high, as if such a catastrophe could never occur to her, went back to the kitchen for other cups—and only Martine giggled.
"Your best Dresden," murmured Amy to Brenda. The latter shook her head. Arthur glanced at her approvingly.
"And mistress of herself, though china fall," and at the hackneyed quotation, all smiled. Then the luncheon went on for two courses with only one waitress, for Maggie had betaken herself to her sure refuge, a flood of tears, and she returned only with the salad.
"Now," said Mr. Weston, "since the ice is broken—I mean, the china—you can see how much livelier we are. During the oysters you were altogether too quiet for young people, and I wondered if this was wholly because your host is a Yale man. It's painful to me sometimes to find myself in the midst of a Harvard crowd."
"Oh, we are magnanimous, and since you've become a Bostonian, we can forgive you Yale's recent football victory," replied Fritz.
"Then I can confess that my cheering played a large part in gaining the victory. I try to be as modest as I can about it," responded Arthur Weston.
"Wait till the baseball season comes," interposed Robert Pringle, "and then you'll see another side of Yale."
"I wish we girls could have seen the game," cried Martine. "I can't see why they played it at New Haven; it was the one Saturday of the whole autumn when I had to stay in Boston."
"Why, it was New Haven's turn to have the game; you know Harvard and Yale have them on their own fields every other year," said Elinor, as if explaining something that Martine did not understand.
"Oh, indeed," began Martine, sarcastically; then, remembering that she was to a degree Elinor's hostess, she murmured in an aside to Robert, "As if I did not know that better than she."
"It's strange," continued Elinor, in a placid tone, "that I know so little of Harvard; we generally rush through Boston on our way to Bar Harbor. Once we drove round, one hot summer day in vacation, but I can only remember a Memorial Hall and some queer old brick buildings." Possibly Elinor's adjectives did not please Martine, for the latter spoke up quickly.
"They're not queer, but historic; we think everything of Harvard here in Boston."
"Oh, naturally," replied Elinor, in her most languid tone.
"So say we all of us," cried Robert Pringle, while Amy and Fritz, who had been carrying on an animated discussion, looked up quickly. "What's wrong?" asked Fritz, innocently.
"Nothing, nothing," and Brenda, hastening to change the subject, asked suddenly, "Did you bring your automobile, Lucian?"
"Of course. I only wish I could take you all to Cambridge in it."
"Who's going in which?" asked Amy a little later, as they stood at the door, before which were Lucian's automobile and Robert Pringle's dogcart.
"Oh, the automobile for me!" cried Martine, impulsively.
"Will you go in the automobile?" asked Lucian politely, turning toward Elinor.
"Yes, indeed, I should like to, thank you," replied the guest.
"Priscilla is coming in the dogcart with me," said Mr. Weston.
"Then I think I'll drive with Priscilla," added Martine.
"Such affection!" exclaimed Amy. "To give up the automobile because you prefer Priscilla's company!"
"It isn't that I like Rome more, but Cæsar less," rejoined Martine, garbling her quotation and looking toward the automobile, where Elinor had already taken her seat.
Amy understood, and decided to give Martine a bit of advice at the first opportunity; for the present she and Brenda, with Fritz and Lucian, went in the automobile with Elinor, while Arthur and Robert Pringle accompanied Martine and Priscilla. The automobile speeded out through the Avenue across a corner of Brighton, that Elinor might have a good view of Soldiers Field. The dogcart proceeded over Harvard Bridge, and Martine tried to make Priscilla take a wager as to which vehicle would first reach the College Yard.
When at last, however, they drew up before the Johnston Gate, Lucian and his party were waiting there, having left the automobile at the garage.
"As we're going to explore these unknown regions on foot," said Lucian, "we can't allow you to drive haughtily around. There's a boy, Robert, to take your trap over to the stable. And so," he added, after Martine and Priscilla had alighted, "the elephant now goes round, the band begins to play; in other words, let the procession move in through the great gate. It was given by a Chicago man," he concluded. "That's why I'm proud to have you see it."
After the gate had received its share of admiration, "Here are your 'queer old brick buildings,' Miss Naylor," cried Fritz. "Every brick has a history, but I can't show you the college pump. It was blown up by anarchists, who probably meant to blow up one of the buildings."
"How shocking!" said the sympathetic Elinor.
"That they did not blow up the buildings?"
"Oh, no, but that they should behave so badly. I trust they were punished."
"Oh, they were blown up too."
"Really?"
Although Elinor gazed directly at Fritz, there was no suspicion in her calm blue eye.
"Doesn't she remind you of my cousin, Edith Blair?" whispered Martine to Amy.
"I can't say that they look much alike."
"Oh, Amy, please don't be literal, too. I mean she believes everything Fritz says, and between him and Mr. Weston she'll have a hard time."
"And a strange opinion of Harvard," added Brenda, who had joined the two speakers.
As the majority of the party, including Elinor, were now out of hearing, Brenda thought this a good time to ask Martine to explain her prejudice against Elinor, "who seems a pleasant and dignified girl," she concluded.
"Yes, that's it; she's too dignified for her size, she ought to be bright and jolly and—"
"But remember, please, that she's among strangers. You can't dislike her simply because she's quiet and dignified, so you might as well confess."
"Well, then," replied Martine, "if I must, I must; but you'll understand, when I tell you that she's the girl who knocked my hat off."
Amy looked puzzled and Brenda smiled as she responded, "Oh, the girl whom you tried to knock down with your umbrella. I suppose that is what has made that scratch on her face. No wonder she is on her dignity with you."
"I shouldn't have cared," retorted Martine, "if she hadn't refused to shake hands with me to-day. Surely everyone must have noticed that, and it's she who ought to apologize for destroying my third best hat."
Then, as she recalled the sight of the hat with the pale blue feathers sliding along on the asphalt, Martine laughed heartily, and from that moment, in her mind, all was peace between her and Elinor.
"I didn't mean to get so far ahead," explained Lucian, as the others came up to the spot where he and Fritz were standing with Elinor. "But Miss Naylor is delighted with Holden."
"Yes," murmured Elinor, "it is the cunningest little building! I should like to pick it up and carry it off as a souvenir. It's too bad that it isn't the very oldest of all the buildings now standing."
"No, Massachusetts has that honor, but Holden is the first to take its name from an English benefactor," said Fritz.
"It seems too bad that nothing remains of the original Harvard, but the fire of 1764 swept them all away. Massachusetts is older than that, and so are one or two others now standing. The old buildings are not particularly beautiful," Robert Pringle apologized.
"But they look like New England," interrupted Martine, "so practical and business-like and angular; that's why I like them."
"There must be some interesting stories connected with them," said Elinor, sentimentally.
"Oh, yes, stories, quantities of them. What would you like to hear?" asked Fritz, with an eagerness that showed he was ready to manufacture any tale or legend that Elinor might desire.
"Did the college go on during the Revolution?" asked Elinor. "I know Washington had his headquarters in Cambridge."
"The library was sent up to Andover for safety, and the students to the Concord Reformatory."
"Oh, Fritz," protested Amy, "if you are not careful, Miss Naylor will believe you."
"Why not?" asked Fritz, innocently. "It's history that they were sent to Concord, and why not to the Reformatory? They must have needed it, if they were like some of the present students, and they would have been sent there surely had Concord possessed a reformatory in those benighted years."
Upon this Lucian insisted that Miss Naylor must accept him only as her Harvard guide; otherwise she would get an utterly wrong impression.
"Let me tell you," he began, "about the squirrels. Really, they are of more consequence than most other dwellers in the Yard. They will eat anything, from mushrooms to pâté de foie gras, and although it's rather expensive, we try to give them whatever they demand. The tree trunks here are probably filled with treasures that they have hidden away; some of them even are fond of books, and I heard of one who had an intimate acquaintance with Greek roots. No nuts are too hard for them to crack; they are real philosophers, and here," he cried as he threw some acorns on the grass, "they are so tame one doesn't have even to throw salt on their tails to catch them."
Upon this, with a deft movement, he picked up a bushy-tailed gray squirrel that had been attracted by the bait he had thrown down, and as he held it toward Elinor, "Here," he exclaimed, "if you wish a souvenir of Harvard, is the real thing," and extending his arm, he pressed the little creature's head against Elinor's cheek. Then, to everyone's surprise, Elinor Naylor, the dignified Miss Elinor Naylor of Philadelphia, screamed loudly, and turning her back on Lucian, ran up to Martine, who happened to be nearest her, and laid her head on Martine's arm, crying loudly, "Take it away, take it away, it's just like a big rat."
Lucian, decidedly crestfallen at this little episode, let the squirrel whisk itself away, while he walked up to Elinor to offer his apologies. In his heart he was saying, "Thank heaven that Martine has some nerve," and Martine herself, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, at once became the champion of the girl she had recently been criticising.
Elinor accepted Lucian's apologies very graciously. "I know that I am foolish," she said, "but I never have liked those little creepy animals; they all seem to be like rats and mice, except at a distance."
"You were certainly very thoughtless, Lucian." Martine spoke in a tone of deep reproof, and during the remainder of their walk she had Elinor hanging on her arm.
The suite of rooms occupied by Lucian and Robert Pringle was in a dormitory outside the Yard, in the neighborhood of the old ballground, Jarvis Field. To reach it the party went across the Memorial Delta, past the statue of John Harvard—concerning which the boys had various strange tales to tell—and along a quiet street on which were several other dormitories.
"How delightful! This suite is much more attractive than Joe's rooms at Yale, as I remember them," cried Elinor.
"Yes," sighed Arthur Weston, "Joe and I were not sybarites. We went in for hard work, plain living, and high thinking," and he looked reproachfully toward Lucian and Robert.
"We work too, I can assure you," insisted Robert. "Of course we had to furnish up a little."
"Work! I should say so," added Lucian. "Don't judge us by our surroundings."
"We'll try not to," retorted Martine, "for this tea-table is almost too ladylike for two tall boys like you."
"Oh, when we're alone we never look at the tea-table. We fold it up and keep it in the closet. To-day we brought it out only for you girls," and Lucian bowed profoundly to his guests.
"I think that your belongings are rather frivolous," and Brenda took the little silver tea caddy in her hand.
"Oh, I picked that up in Holland; it's a mere trifle," cried Robert.
"These things are wasted on boys," added Martine, examining the little coffee spoons that lay on the tray.
Amy, walking round the room, gazed critically at the two or three water-color sketches and the fine photographs hanging on the walls, and she thought that the easy-chairs, the broad divan, and all the other handsome belongings were really too elaborate for the rooms of boys under twenty.
"But there's one good thing," she said aloud; "you have plenty of books, Lucian, and you have made an excellent choice in many cases."
"Yes," replied Lucian, "thanks to Fritz, our library has made a good beginning; he took it in hand last spring, and what do you think? Fritz says that if it hadn't been for you, he couldn't have helped us half as well. So, Miss Amy Redmond, when you praise our library, indirectly you praise yourself."
Before their hour in Lucian's room was over, few things in the sitting-room had escaped the scrutiny of the three younger girls. They handled the steins on the mantelpiece, read the certificates of membership in various clubs and athletic societies, and admired the photographs of all, and finally Martine struck up a few chords on the piano, which Lucian and Robert recognizing, accompanied with a jolly college song. At Lucian's request Priscilla made tea, and although, while the water was boiling, she wondered whether she would remember just what proportion of tea should be used for each cup of water, she passed through the ordeal successfully and was highly praised for her skill.
When the boys indiscreetly offered Elinor her choice among the sights they might see before their return to the city, Elinor too promptly chose the Botanic Garden. In spite of their sophomorific air of worldly wisdom, Robert and Lucian could not quite conceal their dismay at this suggestion, especially as she expressed a desire to see the Shakespeare garden, of which they knew nothing.
"In that case I fear that you will have to lose the glass flowers, as the garden is in just the opposite direction," said Lucian, politely.
"The glass flowers!" cried Elinor, perceiving that her former suggestion had not been received with favor. "Why, of course I would much rather see the glass flowers." And so the whole party set out toward the great museum.
"Not to throw cold water on the efforts of Lucian to guide you to the best that Cambridge offers," said Fritz, "I must tell you that a visit to the glass flowers is almost commonplace. They share with tourists from afar the attraction of Bunker Hill; in the minds of many not to have seen the glass flowers is not to have seen Cambridge. If you wish to be original, pass them by."
"Thank you," replied Elinor; "but really I never have cared especially to be original."
Later, after Elinor had seen not only the glass flowers but many of the other treasures in the great museum, she admitted that even Yale had little better to offer. From the museum the party went on to Memorial Hall.
"It's a pity that you cannot wait a little longer, it would be such fun to see the students at dinner," sighed Martine, for whom human nature always had more interest than tablets and pictures.
"I should love to stay, but I promised to be at my cousin's before six. Yet there is so much to see here in Memorial, these windows and portraits are so fascinating, that it's very hard to go away without studying them all more carefully."
Elinor had barely time for a glance at the portraits and the stained glass windows in the great hall.
"It's the finest hall I ever saw," said the girl from Philadelphia; "I like everything about it except—"
"Except what? This is an age of improvements, and if you'll just mention what you have in mind, so far as Lucian and I can carry out your suggestion it shall be accomplished," and Robert Pringle bowed low to Elinor. Elinor seemed so embarrassed by this mock courtesy that Martine hastened to her rescue. The older members of the party were out of hearing.
"You are as great a tease now as Lucian. I could mention dozens of things that could be done to improve Memorial Hall, handsome as it is." Martine cast about in her mind for something to strengthen her assertion. Up to this moment she had never realized any special imperfection in the great building. But now—
"For example!" she exclaimed emphatically, "just look at these dining-tables in a hall like this. It's casting your pearls before swine. They ought to be taken away."
"Well, I'm glad that Robert and I board at a club table. I should hate to be included in your group of swine, whom you wish to have taken away—"
"Oh, Lucian!"
It was now Elinor's turn to come to Martine's rescue.
"Why, that is just what I meant. I think that the tables ought to be taken away. It seems a pity that Memorial Hall should be a mere dining-room. I should like to see it quite clear of them."
"Then you must come here Class Day. Can't you wait for ours? I'll show you Memorial Hall as it should be—filled with youth and beauty dancing, and not a tablecloth in sight."
"Oh, it doesn't seem the place for dancing either," and Elinor gazed solemnly at one of the class windows, on which were portrayed Epaminondas and Sir Philip Sidney, as examples of valor.
"You must remember, Miss Naylor, that in the long waits between courses, the undergraduates who board here have a fine chance to study these windows, with their lessons of patriotism and valor. This food for reflection goes a long way toward making them forget the real nature of the food served here—"
"Come, come, Robert! Remember you are talking to a Yale girl, and not an ingenuous Harvard maiden. We must not have derogatory reports get abroad."
But Elinor and Martine had no intention of wasting their time listening to Robert's nonsense, and were now pushing through the doors into the transept.
"The real Memorial is here," said Elinor, reverently, passing from one tablet to another, on which were inscribed the names of those Harvard men who fell in the Civil War.
