When Miss Eva Hungerford, on the completion of an enthusiastic college career, wrote to her young Philadelphia cousin, Margaret Wright, that she ought to take a college course, it was quite in despair of really inducing that young lady to do so, and only in the vain hope of saving her from an early and ill-considered marriage with an extremely nice Harvard youth, who declared that he would cheerfully forego his senior year if her parents would give their consent.
It was therefore with both delight and surprise that, just before starting for Europe, Miss Hungerford received a rather gloomy letter from her young cousin, who said that with such a brilliant example before her, and deeply impressed by the weighty arguments in her cousin’s letter, she had told the Harvard man that she was much too young and ignorant to marry, and fully convinced that society was a hollow sham, she had determined to devote the next four years to those pursuits which had raised her cousin so far above the ordinary girl. She was even greatly interested, she said, in her preparations for the entrance examinations which she would take at Philadelphia, and the chances of her being admitted. Miss Hungerford was quite touched by the little tribute to herself contained in the letter, and wrote a most cordial answer, and rather upbraided herself for having thought so lightly of her cousin. But her mother seemed to be distressingly sceptical about Margaret’s heroic determination, and said she shouldn’t wonder if some misunderstanding with the Harvard man were not at the bottom of it. But Miss Hungerford was confident that such a lofty purpose could have been born only of some noble sentiment, and refused to have her faith in her young cousin shaken by such a supposition.
When Miss Wright got off the train at the pretty little station, she found herself in the midst of a sufficiently large crowd of young women, all of whom seemed to be aggravatingly well acquainted with each other, and who set about in a most business-like way to get where they wanted to go, some taking “barges” and omnibuses, others striking out easily over the roads in the direction of the college. Being totally unfamiliar with the place and somewhat bewildered by the number of girls, Miss Wright thought she would simply take a carriage and get up to the college as quickly as possible.
She never told anyone but her best friend what were her sensations on reaching the big building and being “numbered” for an interview with one of the assistant professors, instead of seeing the president herself, as she had expected to do; or how hurt she felt at being totally ignored by the vast majority of busy, rather severe-looking young women, or how grateful she felt to a patronizing Sophomore who talked to her kindly, if condescendingly, for a few moments and who took her through unending corridors to her rooms. Later in the day she found two or three girls who wore tailor-made travelling gowns and seemed ill at ease, and they all huddled together in a corner of one of the big corridors and talked rather helplessly to each other. They would have liked to know what the peals on the big Japanese bell meant, and if they were expected to do anything about it, but they were afraid to ask anyone, because they were not sure which were the professors and which the students.
When it came her turn to see the assistant, she felt quite ready to go home. She had made out a list of studies which she thought she would like, but when she showed it to the professor, that astute lady very kindly but firmly told her that it was ill-advised and made her out another. She had wanted to study mathematical astronomy, because a Harvard man had said a chum of his studied it and found it “immense,” and besides she thought the name would impress her friends; but the professor pointed out to her that she would have to take the entire course in mathematics before she could hope to do anything with the astronomy. It was the same way with several other things, and she found, when the interview was over, that her list consisted mostly of freshman studies. She was rather disheartened by this, but remembered that Miss Hungerford had been a full freshman, and so she determined to go to work conscientiously.
And she did work very hard, but there were a great many young women who seemed to have had a much more thorough previous education than herself, and though she was not in the least snobbish, she was secretly surprised and a little bit aggrieved by their evident disregard of her superior gowns. She might as well not even curl her hair, she thought gloomily—most of the best students wore theirs back in a rather uncompromising way, and she thought it might have some influence for the better on her mind, and half-way determined to do it. But when she saw how she looked with it straight and pulled quite back, she gave it up for fear the Harvard man (who though so near, maintained a stony silence and invisibility) should happen to come over to the college to see some other girl.
When the winter concerts began and the young women were inviting their friends out from the “Tech” and Harvard and Amherst, and other places which to any but the college mind would seem appallingly distant, she sat resigned and alone, and wondered what her people would think if they could see her looking so sad and deserted. Her friends, she knew, would feel sorry for her, and would at last believe in her determination to go through the course.
When she had been at college about four months and was beginning to realize how little she knew, and how infinitely far off the president still seemed, and the effect of the study of chemistry on a brain unprepared for it, and was pitying herself for looking so pale and thin under her anxieties—one of the favorite concerts of the year was given. A celebrated violinist and his wife, a charming singer, were coming out. It was the last concert before the Christmas holidays, and one of the tailor-made girls with whom she had become intimate since that miserable first day had invited a lot of men out and had asked her to help entertain them. As every one knows, it is a long-established custom in that college for those young women who are so fortunate as to have a large masculine acquaintance to ask their friends to help them “take care” of the surplus male element.
Miss Wright was feeling very blue that evening and had just about made up her mind to stay at the college through the Christmas vacation, that she might spare her parents the distress of seeing her so worn and changed; so that when the tailor-made girl came to ask her to see after some of her friends for her, she thought that probably she was entitled to some recreation for the good resolution she had made. But she was now much too indifferent to men and such things to bestir herself very greatly, so she only put on her next most becoming gown and descended languidly to find the people.
Her friend saw her first and made a little dive at her through the circle of youths around her, and bore her to them with quite an air of triumph. And then, while she was trying to hear the names and remember where they came from, she suddenly saw a Harvard man coming toward her, and looking very much surprised and intensely happy, and somewhat embarrassed. She had just time to wish she had put on the other gown, when the bell for the concert sounded and everybody began to rush down the corridor. Somehow they got left behind the others, and as the place was crowded and they did not seem to care much for the celebrated violinist, who really played exceptionally well that evening, they considerately took seats against the wall behind everybody, where they could talk to their hearts’ content.