To those who knew her afterward it may seem an impossible condition of affairs, but it is nevertheless quite true that until the night of the sophomore reception she was utterly unheard of. Indeed, when her name was read to the chairman of the committee that looks up stray freshmen, yet uninvited, and compels them to come in, the chairman refused to believe that she existed.
"I don't believe there's any such person," she growled, "and if there is, there's nobody to take her. I can't make sophomores! Evangeline Potts, forsooth! What a perfectly idiotic name! Who's to take her? Where does she live? Where's the catalogue?"
"She lives on West Street," somebody volunteered, "and Bertha Kitts' freshman is sick, or her uncle is sick, or something, and Bertha says that lets her out—she never wanted to go, anyhow—and now she's not going. Couldn't she take her?"
"Not going!" the chairman complained bitterly. "If that's not like B. Kitts! Go get her, somebody, and send her after Evangeline, and tell her to hurry, too! Don't stop to argue with her, there isn't time. She'll prove that there isn't any reception, if you let her. Just get her started and then come right back. I promised to send three Bagdads over, and I can't get but two."
The messenger paused at Miss Kitts' door, sniffed scornfully at the sign which read: "Asleep! Please do not disturb under any circumstances whatever!" and entered the room abruptly. Miss Kitts was curled comfortably on the window-seat, with Plain Tales from the Hills in one hand, and The Works of Christopher Marlowe in the other. From these volumes she read alternately, and the pile of cores and seeds on the sill indicated a due regard for other than mental nutriment. At intervals she lifted her eyes from her book to watch the file of girls loaded down with the pillows, screens, and palms whose transportation forms so considerable a portion of the higher education of women. Just as the door opened Biscuits was chuckling gently at the collision of a rubber-plant with a Japanese screen and the consequent collapse of their respective bearers, who, even in their downfall, poured forth the apologies and regrets that take the place of their brothers' less considerate remarks upon similar occasions.
But her mirth was rudely checked by the messenger, who closed the Marlowe and put the Kipling under a pillow.
"Hurry up," she remarked briefly, "and find Evangeline Potts and tell her that you can't sleep at night till you take her to the sophomore reception. Nobody urged her to attend and yours is sick."
"She's not, either," returned B. Kitts, calmly. "She's quite well, and—"
"Oh, don't possum, Biscuits, but get along. Sue's nearly wild. It's her uncle, then; we know you weren't going, so we know you can take her. Can I take this couch cover along? She's on West Street, and I can't stop to discuss it, but we depend on you. Now do hurry up; it's three already."
Biscuits freed her mind to the heap of pillows in the middle of the floor, for there was no one else to hear her. Then, still grumbling, she put on her golf cape and walked over to West Street. In a pessimistic frame of mind she selected the most unattractive house, and on inquiring if Miss Evangeline Potts lived there and ascertaining that she did, she astonished the slatternly maid by a heartfelt ejaculation of "Sherlock Holmes!"—adding, with resignation, "Is she in?" She was in, and her guest climbed two flights of stairs and knocked at her door.