Brenda's cousin at Radcliffe

by Helen Leah Reed

After the banner had been duly presented, after the team had made its acknowledgment, after every one who could make a speech had said the proper thing, the R. A. A. returned to everyday costume, and the three or four hundred girls wandered about the grounds until summoned to college ice in the Auditorium.

For Julia the spring had an added charm from the fact that Philip took so much interest in everything. Though working for his degree, he was constantly planning little parties of eight or a dozen to see this or that baseball game or the spring athletic meets. Whoever the others might be, Julia was always of the party.

“I have not known so much of Harvard doings in all my four years,” she said one day as they set out for a Princeton game, “and I feel foolishly frivolous in my old age.” There was no sign of old age in the bright-eyed girl who waved the Harvard flag, even up to the moment of Princeton’s victory. The general excitement, and the fact that it was a Princeton game, reminded Julia of that other Princeton game more than five years before when Harvard was victorious at football, and when Philip had shown himself just a little bored by having to escort a “parcel of girls.”

Thus with some pleasant diversions lightening the unescapable hard work of the examination period, the spring passed away, and the Monday before Class Day found the whole class ready to enjoy the happenings of the week. To Julia early that Monday morning came a note from Philip saying that his degree was assured, and that he had nothing to trouble him now except the fear that she might not get hers. Julia smiled as she read the friendly little note, and thought how greatly Philip had changed from the Philip of old.

The first event of the day was a luncheon given by the former Secretary of the Annex and Regent of Radcliffe and his wife, at their Cambridge house. To them more than to any others was due the credit of planning the collegiate work for women that had finally resulted in establishing Radcliffe College. The Secretary was always ready to answer the many questions asked by the eager girls about the small beginnings of the college, and to the more thoughtful it was a wonderfully interesting story.

After the luncheon Annabel was called upon for a speech, and she was followed by half a dozen others, each of whom were ready-witted in responding to the impromptu toasts.

From the luncheon they went on to a reception at Craigie House. The poet’s daughter had also been one of the founders of the college, and the girls or classes honored with an invitation to Craigie House were always envied by the others.

Clarissa and Pamela, on this afternoon of the class reception, in a spirit of veneration, went almost on tiptoe into the study, now looking just as Longfellow left it almost twenty years ago. There near a window overlooking the Charles they saw the high writing desk at which he wrote standing, with some of his quill pens lying on it. They noted the great orange tree in the other window that had grown from a seed planted by Longfellow. The portraits of Hawthorne and Emerson, and the little water-color sketch of the village blacksmith’s shop, all came in for their share of attention. But perhaps most interesting of all was the portrait of the poet himself, in his fur-trimmed coat, painted by his son, on an easel near the fireplace. The class wandered from the quaintly furnished room known as Martha Washington’s parlor to the large drawing-room back of the study, with its many art treasures gathered in Europe. They strolled over the broad lawn, and each girl felt that this reception at the Longfellow House was something that no other event of Commencement week could surpass.

Their own Class Day was the Wednesday before that of Harvard, and in the intervening day or two the class had little time to spare. The invitations had been out since the end of May, and all the preparations had been carefully made.

The literary exercises took place in the forenoon, with only the class as audience. “Thankful enough we ought to be,” said Ruth, “that cut and dried speeches in a hall have not yet been adopted by Radcliffe. It would be so hard to have to explain our jokes even to our sympathetic friends and relatives, and there would always be some present who would think undignified any alleged witticisms that we might offer.”