“Oh, I thank you, many times I thank you,” she said, before she looked down at the robe again. It was hard to tear her eyes away from it. But at another prod from Bess, she looked down at the third package on the table near her. “Could it be——?” She opened it and pulled forth the cleverest pair of little bedroom slippers! Everything was just perfect!
Nan smiled shyly at her friends. “What could she say?” In the pause that followed, Dr. Prescott came to her rescue, moved over closer to her, and, standing between her and Bess, she spoke.
“May I have the attention of all of you, for a moment?”
Immediately, everyone was quiet, expectantly waiting.
“What was coming?” The question was in everyone’s mind. The girls looked at Dr. Beulah and then at one another, as a million answers rushed through their heads.
She smiled reassuringly into their puzzled faces, seemed about to speak, but then paused as though to choose her words carefully. Finally, she began.
“I don’t know as I have ever,” she said, “been prouder of Lakeview Hall and all it stands for than I have today, and today somehow marks a turning point in its history.
“You all know that my life has been bound up in the fortunes of this place for some years now. When I first came here, there were about twenty-five girls registered. We taught a little French, some music, fine needlework, literature, and something of the social graces. Walking was about the most strenuous of the sports for girls in those days. Hiking was unheard of, for young ladies, I mean. It was considered quite the thing to grow pale and to faint on the slightest provocation, that is, if the young lady did it gracefully.
“Nan here would have been quite out of place in that old school with her bobbed hair, her keen enjoyment of all the sports, and her interest in Professor Krenner’s class in architectural drawing.”
The girls laughed. Although the course had been listed in Lakeview Hall’s catalogue ever since Professor Krenner joined the faculty, Nan had been the first to actually elect the subject. The story of how and why she did had long ago become a campus joke as those who have read "Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall" are well aware.