"Now," said Mr. Weston, "since the ice is broken—I mean, the china—you can see how much livelier we are. During the oysters you were altogether too quiet for young people, and I wondered if this was wholly because your host is a Yale man. It's painful to me sometimes to find myself in the midst of a Harvard crowd."
"Oh, we are magnanimous, and since you've become a Bostonian, we can forgive you Yale's recent football victory," replied Fritz.
"Then I can confess that my cheering played a large part in gaining the victory. I try to be as modest as I can about it," responded Arthur Weston.
"Wait till the baseball season comes," interposed Robert Pringle, "and then you'll see another side of Yale."
"I wish we girls could have seen the game," cried Martine. "I can't see why they played it at New Haven; it was the one Saturday of the whole autumn when I had to stay in Boston."
"Why, it was New Haven's turn to have the game; you know Harvard and Yale have them on their own fields every other year," said Elinor, as if explaining something that Martine did not understand.
"Oh, indeed," began Martine, sarcastically; then, remembering that she was to a degree Elinor's hostess, she murmured in an aside to Robert, "As if I did not know that better than she."
"It's strange," continued Elinor, in a placid tone, "that I know so little of Harvard; we generally rush through Boston on our way to Bar Harbor. Once we drove round, one hot summer day in vacation, but I can only remember a Memorial Hall and some queer old brick buildings." Possibly Elinor's adjectives did not please Martine, for the latter spoke up quickly.
"They're not queer, but historic; we think everything of Harvard here in Boston."
"Oh, naturally," replied Elinor, in her most languid tone.