“I hate them,” she replied, with such fierce resentment that Molly was sure that Judith was glad to have something on which to vent her angry mood. “Thank heavens, this is my last year. I detest Wellington. I have never been happy here. It’s brought shame and misfortune on me. It’s a horrid old place.”
“Oh, Judith,” protested Molly, unable to endure this libel on her beloved college.
“My dear child, you can’t blame Wellington for your misfortunes,” interposed the professor, who himself cherished a deep affection for the two gray towers.
“It is hard to live in the village instead of at college,” said Molly, feeling suddenly very sorry for the unhappy Judith.
But Judith was in no state to be sympathized with. All day she had been nursing a grievance. One of her friends in prosperity at the Beta Phi House had turned a cold shoulder on her that morning; and Judith was so enraged by the slight that her feelings were like an open sore.
She turned on Molly angrily.
“You ought to know,” she said. “You had to do it long enough.”
“Judith, Judith,” remonstrated the professor. “Can’t you understand that you gain nothing, and always lose something, by giving way like this? Denouncing and hating make the object you are working for recede. You’ll never get it that way.”
“How do you know what I’m working for?” she demanded, more quietly.
“We are all of us working for the same thing,” he answered. “Happiness. None of us proposes to get it in the same way, but all of us propose to reach the same goal. What would give me happiness no doubt would never satisfy you.”