[WITHIN FOUR YEARS]
In the dry, warm darkness of a May evening two girls lay on the grass near the tennis-courts north of Taylor. It was in the days when the present athletic field was only a roadway and a damp hollow where dog-tooth violets grew. Radnor and Merion loomed across the campus, their few lighted windows betraying how little the spirit of study possessed the hour. All the light and brilliancy of the college seemed concentrated in Denbigh dining-room, whence, through wide open windows, came the laughter and songs of the supper the juniors were giving the seniors.
There were sound and movement, too, in the obscurity under the windows. Now and then a hand and arm, or a head, rose from the shuffling, murmuring mass, and for a brief moment came into relief against the bright oblong of the window, the hand in its withdrawal seeming always to carry with it something very like a cup or a plate, which was received below with shrieks or even some boldly distinct remarks.
One of the girls on the grass sat up suddenly, a stiffness of disapproval apparent in her attitude, even in the dim light from the library windows.
"That is all a disappointment to me." She supplemented her remark by a quick movement of one arm in the direction of Denbigh.
"Why?" The other girl turned, resting her head on her curved arm.
"To think that college girls can be so frivolous, so silly. It isn't at all what I expected before I came."