“Why, what’s the trouble?” asked Polly, who had been standing near the window. “Has anybody had the bad taste to commit a murder, or burglary, or some other crime? I see that you have a yellowish journal there.”
The two, absorbed in their paper, did not reply, and Polly drew near them until she could read the headlines: “Is a College Education Worth While for Girls?” “Lowering of the Standard by a University Professor to meet the Demands of Woman.”
“Dear me!” cried Polly, “this does look interesting.”
“Yes,” responded Annabel, “read further and you will find it more so. You can take the paper for a few minutes. I’m glad that I happened to buy one in the Square when I came out from town.”
Polly sat down with the newspaper. Under the large headlines were others in smaller type that showed that the professor to whom reference was made was a Harvard professor, and then she began to read. Surely there was something very familiar in what followed. It purported to be the transcript of a few pages from the history note-book of a student at Radcliffe. It was all very familiar. Why, of course! Clarissa’s notes! No one who had ever gazed upon them could mistake the style. She remembered having read this very lecture last year when preparing for her examinations. Clarissa was always generous in lending her note-books, and Polly had had the use of this for a day or two. But what had seemed only funny within the covers of a note-book seemed very impertinent thus exposed to the gaze of every one who cared to buy a penny paper. Reading further, Polly learned that the article was copied from an obscure magazine to which the Radcliffe notes had been sent with a plaintive inquiry whether such lectures could greatly benefit woman.
“Poor Professor Z!” sighed Polly. “He certainly lectures in this style sometimes. For my own part, I used to enjoy the colloquialisms, and he used to give us so much besides that it isn’t fair to pillory him.”
“What do you think of Clarissa now?” asked Elizabeth Darcy.
“Clarissa?” repeated Polly. “What has she to do with it?”
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “Most of us have seen Clarissa’s note-books; if she didn’t write this, who did?”
“I won’t say that this is not Clarissa’s style, I won’t even say that these are not her notes; but I will say that she didn’t print them.”