The Infant cast herself upon the cushionless frame of a Morris armchair, and grinned at the forms on the packing-boxes around her. Her eyes roved round the disorderly room, stripped of the pretty portières, cushions, mandolins, and posters, which are as inevitably a part of a college suite as the curriculum is a part of the college itself. Even the Infant suppressed a sigh as she caught sight of the trunks outside in the corridor.
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean;
Tears from the depths of some divine despair,
Rise from the heart and gather to the eyes,
On looking at the—excelsior—on the floor,
And thinking of the days that are no more,”
she chanted.
“It’s all very well to talk in that unfeeling way, Infant,” said Knowledge, separating herself with difficulty from the embrace of the Sphinx and sitting up on the packing-box to address her chums to better advantage. “It’s very well to talk, but the fact remains that to-morrow we are all to be scattered to the four corners of the United States. And who knows whether we shall ever all be together again in our whole lives?” Knowledge forgot the dignity of her new A. B. and gulped audibly; while the Sphinx patted her on the back, and said nothing, as usual.
“Well!” retorted the Infant, rising, “if I am the youngest, I have more sense than the rest of you. I’ve kept my chafing-dish out of my trunk, and I’ve saved some sugar and alcohol and chocolate, and ‘borrowed’ some milk and butter from the table downstairs; because I knew something would be needed to revive this set, and I hadn’t the money to buy enough smelling-salts.”
The Infant ran down the corridor, and came back with her battered dish; and the girls gathered together on the dusty floor around the box, which now served as a table. Their faces, worn from the strain of the week of graduation, relaxed noticeably as the familiar odor began to float upon the air.