“Besides,” added Julia, “many Radcliffe girls live at home in Boston, or Cambridge, or the suburbs, coming to the college only for lectures, so that we ought not to be under more restrictions than they.”
“I did not mean to start so serious a discussion,” said Mrs. Blair. “I’m glad to see your piano here, Julia; music is so womanly an accomplishment;” and Mrs. Blair sipped her tea with satisfaction. “You make a good cup of tea, too.”
“Then you can report that we are fairly feminine?”
“Yes, indeed, Julia. But come, girls, we promised to look in on Philip toward five o’clock.”
While Brenda and Edith were saying their last words Pamela in her corner sat unnoticed with the Tanagra figure in her lap. Clarissa, meanwhile, talked to Mrs. Blair with surprising ease.
Mrs. Blair was accustomed to deference even from her special friends, and it seemed strange to have this young person meet her on impersonal grounds, and talk to her merely as any girl might to any woman. Mrs. Blair looked at Clarissa intently, without the lorgnette. She had always heard that there was something queer about college girls. Here was one of the species close at hand, and those other girls in the corner, who had had so little to say to her. They were all rather badly dressed, at least one could see that their gowns were not tailor-made. Julia, of course, was not an ordinary college girl. She was Mr. Barlow’s niece who had chosen to go to college, and it did seem a pity that she had to know all kinds of people. These were the thoughts flitting through Mrs. Blair’s mind as she stood there waiting for Brenda and Edith. As they stood there the handle of her umbrella became entangled in her lorgnette chain. “Permit me,” said Clarissa, trying to help her. But after a little effort a sudden jerk sent the umbrella against the brass fender, and a bit of the delicate ivory carving was broken.
“Now, it’s of no consequence,” protested Mrs. Blair, as Clarissa apologized for her carelessness. Then with a farewell that was as cordial for Clarissa as for the others, Mrs. Blair, with her furs and rustling skirts and polished manner, had departed, and the room seemed large and quiet again.
“After all,” sighed Clarissa, “there is something in a society manner, for I suppose that’s what you’d call Mrs. Blair’s pleasant way of saying things that she doesn’t exactly mean. Though I must have seemed a clumsy creature, she almost made me believe that I’d done right in breaking that bit of ivory. It’s the first time I’ve seen a grande dame at close range, and it’s refreshing—for a change. Dear me!” and Clarissa turned to Pamela, “nursing a doll? I hadn’t noticed before just what you were doing.”
Pamela reddened under this chaffing, for at Clarissa’s words Miss Burlap, of Kansas, and Miss Creighton, of Maine, turned their eyes toward her.
“It’s a Tanagra figure,” said Pamela; “it belongs to Miss Bourne.”