“Oh, I haven’t the least idea; the particular man does not matter. It will be some one with whom I can renew my youth. Why, if it wasn’t for Class Day some of us old fellows would forget that we had ever been young.”
“Why, papa, nobody considers you old. I heard Mrs. Everlie the other day call you a perfect boy.”
“I certainly feel like one to-day, escorting two fair damsels through the College Yard.”
“Oh, listen! listen!” cried Julia, as the sound of gruff huzzas came to them.
“They have begun to cheer the buildings; you know that that is the ceremony,—a pause before each old building, and a loud cheer for it,—the Seniors’ farewell to Harvard.”
They had now almost reached Stoughton, pushing their way through the crowd. On the steps of University Hall and other buildings, rows of people were seated, who evidently were mere sight-seers, without any real connection with the Class. There were small boys and girls among them, and men and women in holiday dress, evidently sight-seers from the City. In the throng hurrying across the Yard there were now a good many undergraduates, and anxious chaperons trying to collect their charges, and pretty girls in delicate dresses hurrying toward the Tree enclosure.
From the door of Stoughton Dr. Gostar and his party hastened upstairs to the upper room which had been secured for them. It was a large, square, old-fashioned room, furnished rather more simply than those occupied by Philip and Will in Holworthy, and it was far plainer than the elegant apartments of Tom Hearst in Claverly.
As the others had not yet arrived, Julia and Nora tiptoed around, looking at the curious gray and blue steins on the mantle-piece, the fencing foils and masks on the wall, the two or three old colored prints of stage coach and sporting scenes.
“Hm, hm,” cried Nora, “whoever he is, the classics do not occupy all his time. Just look at those membership certificates; he seems to belong to every athletic society in the college. And his books, where are his books?”
“Why, here,” cried Julia, “on this shelf behind the door. There are a whole dozen of them;” and Nora, stepping forward, read off their titles, which proved, by the way, to be the titles almost entirely of college text-books.