She was called the “sunshine” of the Seminary, and none other merited the appellation so well. Consequently she was idolized by the rest of the students and was much sought after by the gallant young men in the vicinity. After the manner of girl students who are given to violent friendships, Aurora was devoted to her room-mate in the person of a charming American girl named Margaret MacDonald, the daughter of a Western Senator.
Margaret was entirely the opposite of Aurora,—her very antithesis. She was somewhat taller, with sparkling black eyes and raven hair, of imposing dignity and carriage, but withal the equal of Aurora in the matter of natural gifts and accomplishments. She had, moreover, a captivating frivolity and aggressiveness which almost bordered on masculinity.
Perhaps it was this complete diversity of temperament and of type that engendered an intense affinity between the girls. For although diametrically differing even in their exposition of ideas, they were drawn to each other with a mysterious sympathy which attracted the attention of outsiders and furnished ample excuse for comment. Directly after their first meeting they had become inseparable companions and confidants.
As the time passed this strange attachment grew so marked and its manifestations so alarmingly flagrant that they themselves became aware of its dangerous consequences. They realized that if they gave free license to indiscreet emotional demonstrations in the class room or in public, not only would their actions not be tolerated by the College faculty and cause their expulsion from the Seminary, but they would also be subjected to unendurable ostracism by the rest of the students. But still worse was the confronting fact that they would undoubtedly become the topic of unpleasant notoriety through the publicity given by the sensational press. They had therefore the good judgment to pledge themselves to control their emotions in the presence of the class, and to exercise wide-awake circumspection in their behavior in public and towards the opposite sex.
It is needless to say that by the happy faculty of diplomacy, inherent in them, they succeeded with consummate delicacy and skill in maintaining their natural poise and normal attitude throughout the seminary course.
Like the magnetic pole the Diana Seminary had become the center of attraction for the adjacent youths, especially the Academy boys, who on all gala occasions were welcome guests at the Seminary.
The experiment of co-education had long since been proven a failure. By the well known law of electricity, that bodies similarly electrified repel each other, and bodies oppositely electrified attract, it seems that the constant familiarity and co-mingling of the two sexes in co-educational institutions at the romantic age of puberty had a somewhat similar effect and breeded contempt, blunting that keen fondness for each other which seems natural, and so was not surprising that in such institutions both sexes, when leaving college, separated more like enemies than friends and lovers.
The isolation of the sexes naturally created an intensity of affection and a desire for association, and when the two periodically came in contact caused that rapturous thrill of hearts and nascent unification of souls. This undoubtedly was the plausible explanation, at least one of the reasons, why the Seminary girls were always in demand and were participants of so many happy unions.
The only exception to the rule were Aurora and Margaret who, although in every way agreeable to the aspirants for their hearts and hands, refrained from making an alliance throughout their college course. It was piteously amusing, however, to see those gallant swains from the Academy heading for the Seminary whenever opportunity presented. Their hearts were filled with intense ardor and their lips and pubescent moustaches were pregnant with the microbes of Eros,—in a high state of fermentation—blurting out with tense anxiety the momentous query, “Wilt thou be mine?” to Aurora or Margaret, only to return vanquished by the cold decisive negative.