Clarissa could no longer keep silent.
“An American girl”—she spoke with emphasis—“is her own best chaperon. I’ve travelled hundreds of miles alone myself. I’ve even gone to lectures alone—at night—and no one ever was rude to me. Indeed, I’d like to see any one try to be! He wouldn’t try it a second time.”
Julia and Ruth looked slightly uncomfortable during this outburst. Brenda and Edith began to giggle, and the others discreetly kept their eyes cast down.
Mrs. Blair unconsciously raised her lorgnette again.
“Why, certainly,” she said, “a young girl need not look for rudeness. I was merely thinking that she would be better with her own family.”
“Oh, but if she can’t have her own family, isn’t it the next best thing for some other person’s family to offer her a home?”
“But I do not like the idea,” said Mrs. Blair, “of your living outside of dormitories.”
“But the great charm of our life here is its independence,” said Julia politely. “You know, too, that our boarding-places must be approved by the Dean; and if we are very hard to manage, we can be reported by our landladies.”
“But do they ever do it?”
“Well, I have heard that no Radcliffe girl has ever had to be reprimanded severely. For my own part, I feel bound to behave even better here than I would at home.” In her eagerness to do her college justice, Ruth forgot that she was taking Clarissa’s side of the argument.