“I did mean something more like that, Babe,” Betty explained. “But I think Mary’s idea is lovely too.”
“Well, why can’t we do both?” asked Katherine.
“We certainly can,” declared Mary. “One comes under the wording of the name just as much as the other, though I fancy that Betty’s idea is more useful. The anti-snob spirit is certainly needed in this college, and I hope ‘The Merry Hearts’ will show a lot of it. Now I appoint Babe and Roberta pin committee, and Madeline special lecturer on the Bohemian spirit. You can write it up for the ‘Argus’ too, Madeline. I’m always wanting essays for my department. And now I’m happy to say that the next business of this meeting is to eat up the rabbit.”
CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNING OF GEORGIA AMES
It was a breathless Indian summer day. Every window in number ten Main Building was open, but there was never a breeze to stir the heavy air or break the spell of delicious languor that hung over the class in “English Essayists of the Nineteenth Century.” The new associate professor in English had the course. His name was John Elliot Eaton, after which he could write several mystic combinations of letters, indicating his high rank in the world of scholarship. He was lecturing this hot morning in his rapid, jerky fashion that made note-taking almost an impossibility. He did not seem to mind the weather in the least; if anything he talked faster and more eloquently than usual. Presently he came to a sudden halt, and glancing ominously at the clock made a dreaded announcement.
“You will write, please, for the remaining ten minutes, on the topic previously assigned. I will finish what I had to say at the next recitation.“
The class in English Essayists drew a deep sigh and set to work.
Dr. John Elliot Eaton was as brilliant as reports had foretold when the term opened. He was also young and handsome, and he had charming manners, though he seldom let his classes know it. Generally he sat before them as cold, relentless, and impersonal as an icicle; and the minute the gong sounded the close of the hour he became, if possible, colder and more impenetrable than before. Even Babbie Hildreth, who was supposed to be going through college “on her smile,” found it impossible to “jolly” Dr. Eaton. Why he chose to be so unbending, no one knew. One party declared that he was afraid of girls, and trying to hide it; another said that he was a woman-hater, and didn’t intend to be bored by the attentions of susceptible damsels. Why, in the latter case, he was teaching at Harding, was not evident. His riding horse, his clothes, and his air of athletic, care-free well-being indicated that he was not dependent on an associate professor’s salary. Altogether he furnished an interesting subject for research. But there was one drawback; it was impossible to know him at all outside of his classes, and there he was devoted to ten-minute tests. His pupils hoped that he would speedily outgrow this taste,—it was quite evident that he was doing his first teaching. Meanwhile they endured stoically, and loftily informed their jeering friends, who had not elected English Essayists, that the really interesting courses were never “snaps”; and besides there was one fine thing about Dr. Eaton. He almost never called the roll, and he was a perfect gentleman about cuts.