"And are you going to keep up the visitation for the rest of time?"
"There will be only two or three Sundays more before I go home," said Janet apologetically. "I might as well go till then. After that, I shall be beyond your jibes, Miss Waite. Home will seem like heaven for there the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."
[CHAPTER XVI]
CRUSHED ILLUSIONS
JANET sat on the floor disconsolately gazing at a broken plaster cast which she had just unearthed from a box of her belongings sent from Hopper Hall to her new rooms some squares away. This senior year, she and Teddy had determined should give them more freedom.
Cordelia and Lee had followed their example, and all four were established in one of the many houses offering apartments to students. Charity Shepherd and Grace Breitner still clung to the familiar dormitory. Fay Wingate and Juliet Fuller with the rest of the last year's seniors had "passed out into the wide, wide world." Rosalie, who had spent her college days with an aunt in the town, was now at home in a distant city.
"What a lugubrious countenance," said Teddy, turning to look at Janet. "One would suppose that not only was a trumpery cast broken, but your heart as well."
"Oh, it isn't the cast altogether," said Janet; "it is what it typifies: shattered hopes, crushed illusions, friendships broken."
"Shattered nonsense," said Teddy scornfully. "What a way for a senior to talk. You're homesick, that's what's the matter with you. You are sighing for old Hopper Hall; you want the bureau drawers that would stick, and the closet door that wouldn't shut. You want giggling freshmen to look down upon and haughty seniors to look up to. You haven't yet become adapted to your new conditions."
"No, that isn't it, though I do miss Fay and Grace and, most of all, little Polly. I shall miss my dear child more than any one; that's what I mean by crushed illusions, Ted."