“Then I’m going to nominate Eleanor Watson,” declared Madeline. “She’s never had a thing from the class, and she’s by far the best speaker we have except Emily Davis.”
“And Emily will be class-day orator of course,” added Betty. “Oh, Madeline, I’m so glad you thought of Eleanor. Won’t it be splendid to have a ‘Merry Heart’ for toastmistress?”
Madeline nodded carelessly. She was thinking more about a letter from home, with news that her father and mother were to sail at once for Italy, than about matters of class policy. She loved the Italian sea and the warm southern sunshine; and the dear old “out-at-elbows” villa on the heights above Sorrento was the nearest thing she had known to a home. Father had told her to come along if she liked—ever since she could remember she had been allowed to make her own decisions. But then, as Babbie had said, there was only one 19—, and with plenty of “passed up” courses to her credit she could work as little as she pleased this year and never go to a class-meeting after to-day.
“Let’s stop for the B’s,” she suggested, as they went out into the September sunshine. “Bob hates meetings as much as I do. I’m not going to be the only one to be disciplined.”
Before they had reached the Westcott, the B’s shouted to them from their hammocks in the apple-orchard, which they reluctantly abandoned to go to the meeting. Bob had just had an exciting runaway—her annual spills were a source of great amusement to her friends and of greater terror to her doting parents—and she was so eager to recount her adventures and display her bruises, that nothing more was said about Madeline’s plan for Eleanor.
The class-meeting was large and exciting. The election of a senior president is as thrilling an event at Harding as the coronation of a Czar of all the Russias to the world at large. It was a foregone conclusion that Marie Howard would be the unanimous choice of the class, but until the act was fairly consummated—and indeed until Marie had been dined at Cuyler’s and overwhelmed with violets to the satisfaction of her many friends—the excitement would not abate. There was a pleasant uncertainty about the other class officers. Six avowed candidates for the treasurership quarreled good naturedly over their respective qualifications for the position, each one in her secret soul intending to withdraw in favor of her dearest friend among the other five. In another corner of the room an agitated group discussed the best disposition of the ten thousand dollar fund.
“I don’t think we ought to dispose of it hastily,” Christy Mason was saying. “It’s a lot of money and we ought to consider very carefully before we decide.”
“Besides,” added Emily Davis flippantly, “as long as we delay our decision, we shall continue to be persons of importance in the eyes of the faculty. It’s comical to see how deferential they all are. I took dinner at the Burton Sunday, and afterward Miss Raymond invited a few of us into her room for coffee. She didn’t mention the money,—she’s too clever for that,—but she talked a lot about the constant need for new books in her department. ‘You can’t run an English department properly unless you can give your pupils access to the newest books’—that was the burden of her refrain. Marion Lustig was quite impressed. I think she means to propose endowing an English department library fund.”
“Dr. Hinsdale wants books for his department, and a lot of psychological journals—all about ghosts and mediums—that college professors look up about, you know,” Nita Reese ended somewhat vaguely.
“And Miss Kent is hoping we’ll give the whole sum to her to spend for another telescope,” added Babe, whose specialty, if one might dignify her unscholarly enthusiasms by that name, was astronomy.