It was time, indeed, for Polly to make this resolve, for without intending it she had gained the ill-will of several by using her powers of mimicry too freely. “Ill-will” is perhaps too strong a word, although it takes more than the average amount of philosophy to make a girl proof against ridicule. Comparatively few persons really care to see themselves as others see them, and annoyance, if nothing stronger, is apt to be felt against the individual, whether friend or foe, who attempts to portray us as we appear to those about us.
It was now late in December, and the greater number of Freshmen had become known to the girls in the upper classes. Here and there was one who, like Pamela, had little to say to her fellow-students, and had as little to do with those in her own class as with those above her. The majority, perhaps, were like Julia and Ruth, friendly toward all with whom they came in touch, yet never forgetful of the fact that they were at Radcliffe first of all to study, and that other things must be secondary.
Clarissa was in many ways unusual. She seemed always ready for pleasure, and she spent so much time exploring the historic streets and buildings of Boston that her friends wondered how she contrived to keep up with her college work. Nevertheless, although there was no ranking in the classes at Radcliffe, and although there were no recitations to give a girl a chance to distinguish herself, Clarissa made it perfectly evident that she did not neglect her work. She asked intelligent questions in the class-room, and it was rumored that her marks in the hour examinations had been particularly good. These hour examinations, held occasionally without much warning, were tests covering a limited ground. They gave a girl a chance to recover herself, if she found that she had not been thorough in her subject, before the severe mid-years.
Some girls did not care for Clarissa. They thought her too pushing; and although partly right in this, they would have been more correct had they said that she was merely no respecter of persons. If she wished to speak to a girl she addressed her without hesitation, regardless of the fact that she had not been introduced. Strange though it may seem, some girls objected to this, preferring, as they said, “to choose their acquaintances.” Not many, however, were so foolishly formal, and Clarissa’s chief fault consisted in a certain harmless officiousness, a readiness to do things which really were within the province of some other girl. She had promptly joined the Emmanuel Society, for example, and had been a member hardly a month when she told the President of Emmanuel that she had invited Mrs. Skillington Squails, of Chicago, to speak before the Society on her approaching visit to Boston.
Now it happened that both meetings of the Society that were to be held during Mrs. Squails’ visit had been already provided with speakers whom it was impossible to put aside. Moreover, it was decidedly out of place for a new member like Clarissa to make a suggestion of this kind. There was an executive committee of the Society whose duty it was to make all arrangements regarding speakers, and Clarissa ought at least to have consulted this committee before writing to Mrs. Squails.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she said when the matter was explained to her. “But it seemed to be such a good chance to get Mrs. Squails, that I thought that I ought to secure her as soon as I heard that she was coming East. You know that she’s in great demand, and she never gets less than fifty dollars a lecture. But she knows me very well; she stayed at our house a week the last time she came down into our State, and she would have spoken before our Society for nothing to oblige me, and she’d consider it an honor to speak at Radcliffe.”
Mrs. Skillington Squails was an effective speaker, and her subject, “The Organization of Women Workers,” might have come within the scope of the Emmanuel programmes. But unfortunately, Mrs. Squails had recently been speaking on the stump for a very unpopular political party, and to invite her to address Radcliffe girls would have drawn considerable adverse criticism on the college.
The President of the Society thought it fortunate that the other speakers could not be put aside for the Chicagoan, and in the end Clarissa was spared the embarrassment of having to explain that her invitation was not official by hearing from the latter that for the time being she had given up her visit to Boston. Although the President of the Emmanuel and her committee had been very careful not to speak of this officiousness of Clarissa’s, in some way, possibly through Clarissa herself, the story had leaked out, and nearly every one who had not met her asked to have her pointed out. They were all anxious to see the audacious Western Freshman.
Polly Porson, when she heard the story, had entertained a group of girls with a mock interview between Clarissa and Ernestine Dunton, the very serious and conscientious President of the Emmanuel. She remembered that this portrayal had taken place late one afternoon in the conversation room; and although she had glanced out into the hall to make sure that there were no listeners besides those whom she had undertaken to entertain, there was the possibility that Clarissa might have passed through the hall unobserved. The thought of such a possibility made the careless Polly rather uncomfortable, and in consequence she was now especially cordial to Clarissa.