"Never mind," answered Beatrice, good-humouredly, "I once saw through one all by myself. That time I told you I was carrying a stool with me because I had to stand up."
"I often think of the way the Gifted chuckled, because you would say 'whenever a man died,'" added Ellen.
"I didn't deserve his ridicule; for I was the only person capable of understanding what he meant by his favourite 'on a mutual hand,' or of appreciating the beautiful idea of his 'tell all that you don't know about this subject.'"
"Oh, Marjorie," exclaimed Edith, "have you forgotten how you disgraced yourself just because you thought you noticed the joke introducing expression on a learned lecturer's face? You would go to the German lecture on Ulfilas, thinking it wise to make the most of all opportunities for getting up your German for your orals."
"Not a bit of it," interrupted Marjorie, "I came to myself to find the distinguished guests and the members of the Faculty gazing at me as though I were crazy, and you pinching me black and blue. And all because I had worked myself into hysterics of laughter over the Lord's Prayer in Gothic."
"Wasn't it queer in those days when everything was new?" inquired one of the audience.
"My dear child there never was a time when everything was new, and I know what I'm talking about, for I was the first freshman that ever spent a night in Bryn Mawr, and I then learned that Bryn Mawr already had a history that was venerable, customs that were inviolable. That first night I learned the Manus Bryn Mawrensium and the Maid of Bryn Mawr. I was early taught the tradition of the sacredness of the Harriton family cemetery, taken there by two sponsors, who felt the necessity of impressing us, the newcomers, with the past.
"In that stretch of woodland," here her voice took on a sentimental tone, "known as the Vaux woods, and still frequented by Bryn Mawr students, there lies nestling among the trees a secluded burying ground. Grey walls of ancient date bound it within narrow compass. The masonry sturdily defiant of time, has been mellowed by a growth of moss and lichen. To any eye a picturesque spot! In its calm but cheerful solitude, no inhospitable resting-place! You feel in a sense possessors of that place; you are aware that in some subtle manner it belongs to you; but fully to comprehend your own feelings you must hear the droll, though sentimental reminiscence of the first class of Bryn Mawr; you must picture to yourselves a group of students on the worn steps and the nervous, enthusiastic figure of that 'learned doctor,' as he walks up and down in front of them, declaiming ore rotundo and with all possible expression, the parting of Hector and Andromache. Yes, he taught us Horace," answering a question from one of the groups on the grass. "Oh, you have no such classes now. I couldn't imagine college without his Horace class."
"How we had to work in it, though," sighed Louise.
"Oh yes, but you know we always had his permission to shirk all other work that we might do his," came from Beatrice.