Brenda's cousin at Radcliffe

by Helen Leah Reed

“I’ve had suspicions,” responded Julia, “from a letter Frances wrote me some time ago.”

“Yes, she’s always been so chummy with you since that time she thinks you saved her life. But I was surprised, and isn’t it funny that he’s a minister, at least he’s going to be? This is his last year in the Divinity School. Just imagine Frances a minister’s wife!”

“It would have been harder to imagine a year or two ago.”

“Yes, Frances has changed since that accident, and then, of course, he’s her second cousin—or third—and she can do lots of good with her money,” Brenda concluded somewhat incoherently.

Although Julia did not go to many parties, she yet had more or less enjoyment from certain phases of Boston life. Her aunt’s house was still “home,” and thither she went every Saturday. Many Radcliffe students, like their fellow-students at the University, were surprised to find that Saturday was not a holiday, and that only by a skilful arrangement of courses could one have the day free. But on Saturday afternoon, all who could went home or paid visits. At her aunt’s behest Julia often took with her one guest or another to the Beacon Street house, and often after dinner a little party went to a reading, or a lecture by some great authority, or to a musicale. Julia always regretted that Pamela could so seldom be one of her Saturday guests. But Pamela, who, in this her second year at Miss Batson’s, was less sensitive than formerly about her position, was apt to say laughingly that Sunday was her busy day, since all the young ladies were then at home.

She might have added that she never liked to miss the Sunday morning service in the little Memorial Chapel beyond the Washington Elm. There, as in other churches, seats were reserved for Radcliffe students. The music and the liturgy, so unlike the simple Congregational service to which she had been accustomed, rested and helped her, and she atoned for departing from the rigid forms of her father’s church by holding a little Bible Class at Miss Batson’s on Sunday afternoon. There in the dining-room she collected three or four small girls from the quarry district some distance away, and gave them a helping hand, and taught them many things that they could hardly have learned from books. No wonder that she could not accept Julia’s invitations! If she had had no other reasons she would have plead that she was not in touch with the young circle that gathered in Mrs. Barlow’s hospitable house. Occasionally she went there to dine on Saturday. This was usually after she had paid a visit to the Art Museum, where her beloved Tanagra figures and the Parthenon friezes still charmed her. She had had some scruples this year in electing Fine Arts, for she knew that it was considered one of the soft courses chosen by certain students more anxious to get marks than to learn. But if many other students had taken Fine Arts in Pamela’s spirit, it would soon have ceased to be a reproach. For she verified every statement in her text-book, and looked up every reference made by her professor, and some of her friends laughingly plead with her not to set the standard so high, as henceforth every student taking the course would be expected to do equally well.

Pamela was not in the operetta, for the artistic side of her nature had not been developed in the direction of music. Yet from time to time she looked in at rehearsals. She was proud of Julia’s work, for she felt as if no success could be too great for one who had been so kind to her. She was fond of Polly, too, and she had enough good sense not to be offended even when the laugh was directed against the class of girls of which she herself was a type. For though she was only one of many who were at Radcliffe for study exclusively, she felt that she could bear a little ridicule, since the butterflies themselves were sure to come in for a share.

She was interested, too, in Clarissa’s part in the operetta; and although she knew that many otherwise charitable girls had held Clarissa in suspicion since the publication of the newspaper article, she, too, like Polly, had more faith in the Western girl. She even thought of doing a little detective work herself, in a quiet way.

One mild morning in early May a group of girls stood at the foot of the side entrance to Fay House. “Get your hats! get your hats!” cried Polly, approaching the group from the house. “I’m going home for the largest hat I own, and I intend to tie it on with a veil.”

Clarissa and one or two of the other hatless girls began to ask Polly her meaning. But Polly, declining to answer, walked off with a paper, apparently a letter, held dramatically to her heart.