College girls

by Abbe Carter Goodloe

The blow had fallen very suddenly, and Miss Hungerford had found it hard to forgive what she called, in her heart, her friend’s tacit deceit and culpable silence. But, as she wrote in her reply to Mrs. Phillips’s letter, her opinions had undergone a decided change, and she felt that perhaps she had been a little hard on her friend and had not understood her feelings and the pressure brought to bear upon her, and she acknowledged that circumstances might materially alter one’s views and actions. And Miss Featherstone, who had been the most talked about girl in college during the last semestre of her junior year, and who had suffered acutely under Miss Hungerford’s indifferently concealed displeasure and surprise at her conduct, replied that now she could be truly happy in her husband and her home, and insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Stanhope should visit her in the Berkshire Hills that summer.

This they did, and though, of course, each thought her husband much the handsomer and more distinguished-looking, still they were very affectionate toward each other, and planned to be at Cowes together the next summer for the yachting.

As has been said, their estrangement happened very suddenly and came about by an unfortunate occurrence one morning in the office of the college.

Anyone who has never had the privilege of being in that office on a Monday morning, just after chapel, can have but a faint idea of pandemonium. The whole seven hundred students seem to be revolving about. There are the young women standing around, waiting to take the next train into Boston, not having been able to go on the early express because they had foolishly forgotten to get a leave of absence on the Saturday previous, and who are furtively trying not to see their friends who are not going on at all, so as to keep from having to attend to their commissions; and there is the girl who is telephoning for roses to wear at the concert that night, and those who are booking boats and tennis courts, and others reading bulletins; and when there is an extra commotion and the crowd is forced back a little to let the cords be pulled up around the desk so as to clear a space; and when the carrier comes in and tumbles the big mail-bags into the middle of it with one hand and unlocks them at apparently the same instant with the other; and when about ten young women fall upon the bags and rend their contents from them, and begin to assort and number and tie up the letters, all the time besieged by their excluded friends to give them their mail on the spot as they are going away, the noise and excitement reach a climax.

But it is all very pleasant and enlivening except the telephone bell, which rings constantly and is wearing on the nerves. It rings not only for all telephone messages but for all telegrams, for the college, being a mile or so from the telegraph station, everything is simply telephoned up to save delays, and that a long and continuous procession of small messenger boys may not be forever circulating between the college and the station.

It was this unfortunate custom of telephoning telegrams, unknown of course to the majority of outsiders, that precipitated the affair. On that particular Monday morning, when the confusion in the office was at its worst, the telephone bell suddenly rang unusually loudly and long, and the nervous Freshman on duty jumped toward it with a warning motion to the rest to keep quiet.

“Hush! it’s a telegram,” she said in a moment, and instantly there was silence, for a telegram is always dreaded where there are so many to whom it could bear ill news. She reached for a pad of paper and a pencil to take it down. From the other end came “Important. Repeat slowly as I deliver it.” The nervous Freshman said “All right,” and braced herself against the support to write.

“To Miss Violet Featherstone.” The docile Freshman repeated it and then said “Wait!” and looked around.

“If Miss Featherstone is here,” she remarked, “she can come to the telephone;” but someone volunteered the information that Miss Featherstone had left by the early train for Boston, and the telephoning proceeded.

“My darling—” the Freshman gasped a little and then repeated slowly “My darling.” There was some suppressed commotion for an instant among the crowd around the doors, and the two at the telephone went at it again.