“Oh, she was awfully confused. Miss French asked her to come to her and Miss Neff’s room and spend the evening. She went. Miss French made cocoa, and nobly drank some with Miss Oliver. She said she supposed it would give her the headache all over again. Her headache had stopped magically when she heard Miss Oliver playing. She surprised it out of her system, maybe,” Robin said, laughing. “Anyhow she didn’t have a new headache, which was a reward of virtue for being nice to Miss Oliver.”
“Has anyone at Craig Hall been mean to her?” Muriel inquired rather threateningly.
“No; only the house has so many more sophs and juniors than freshies,” Robin explained. “The juniors there are rather a smug self-satisfied lot, it seems, and Miss Oliver says she knows the Craig Hall sophs think her awfully stupid. She’s not used to being among a lot of girls. She hardly knows how to talk about the things that interest them. She was educated at home by her father and two older brothers. Her father is a noted ornithologist. One of her brothers is a geologist and the other is curator of a New York museum. Her father has given her the very best musical advantages, but he insists that she shall put college before even her music.”
“The Olivers must be a decidedly interesting family,” was Kathie’s opinion.
“Miss Oliver’s mother died when Miss Oliver was a child. Her name is Candace Oliver. Isn’t that a nice name?” Robin asked animatedly.
There was a murmur of agreement.
“Have you heard her play, Robin?” asked Miss Remson from her throne. The manager of Wayland Hall was not a bit less interested in the “find” than were the others.
“Twice, Miss Remson. I can’t find words to describe her playing. You must hear her. She is so obliging about playing. She loves to please. She was too timid to touch the piano with a crowd of girls in the house. She stayed at home purposely the other night for the opportunity to play a little. I told her about my piano in my room, and advised her to have one put in hers. She has a single, second story back. She said, ‘no,’ her father would not like her to do so. That shows what an honorable little person she is,” Robin concluded with approval.
“To change the subject for only a minute, today is not the first time I have heard ‘smug’ and ‘self-satisfied’ applied to the junior class. Such conditions don’t help democracy along. I speak of it now because Robin has mentioned it, too. A crowd of “comfies,” who are either too lazy or else too well pleased with themselves to care what happens to the other Hamilton students are as detrimental to democracy as are snobs.” Leila advanced this opinion with considerable emphasis.
“The juniors were enthusiastic enough about the Beauty contest,” commented Muriel Harding. “I’m not disputing your opinion, Leila. They made a lot of fuss over it, I suppose, because it happened to appeal to them. If you consider the junies smug and self-satisfied, then they must be. I never knew you to make a mistake, Irish Oracle, in going straight to the root of a matter.”