"I didn't know you played basket-ball," the freshman had said suddenly.
"Too awkward?" asked Marjorie with a quizzical expression in her shining grey eyes. "Or a weakling—which?"
The freshman was visibly embarrassed. "I didn't mean that, you know," she stammered, "but I didn't think you belonged to the set that cares for—that sort of thing." She was gaining confidence now, and went on somewhat loftily, "It's rather a waste of time, don't you think? just as so many teas and plays and things of that sort are. I think we come here to work." She glanced at the senior stealthily as she delivered this startling opinion, and was a little annoyed to find her smiling broadly.
"Of course that's what we come here for," cried Marjorie, "but you'll find that you do your work about forty times better if you do something else as well." Then she had spent a few moments expounding her views to the serious-minded freshman, leaving her slightly bewildered and semi-convinced that there were some things she had not fathomed in her month of college life.
Marjorie had met before several girls who had gone through and out of college with similar aims; but she had not found the type a prevailing one, for, happily, at Bryn Mawr there exists not only strong adherence to the high intellectual standard, but likewise a healthy tendency towards general culture and breadth of interests. Marian Coale was one of that minority whose ideal is only knowledge, not wisdom. She bade fair to become a bookworm—of high order, it is true, but yet a bookworm, and a bookworm, as a factor in life, is, by common consent, less desirable, admirable, and useful than a woman.
Marjorie's attack upon her theories, coming as it did from so well recognized a student, was from the right quarter, and was well-timed to give the freshman a new outlook even in her first year. "I hope I didn't inculcate too much frivolity," said Marjorie as she was telling Eleanor of this rencontre. "I tried to make her see that I did not mean quite being a Jack-at-all-trades, and missing the kernel of college by running every organization to the exclusion of lectures. But I toiled to show her that the opposite sort of mistake is nearly as fatal in the end. I am hopeful of having her try to make the Glee Club, and perhaps write for the 'Philistine'! If she turns out a swan in the literary line shan't I deserve a vote of thanks from the editorial board?"
"You won't get it unless you warn Caroline Brandes beforehand that 'M. C.' signed to any copy means Marian Coale as author and Marge Conyngham as inspirer and motive power," answered Eleanor in her dry unsmiling way. "What started you ramping like a lion against the greasy grinds, Marjorie Daw?"
"I shouldn't have done it before the end of senior year anyway, Lee, and probably not then if I had not come across so very inviting a grind as Marian. You see she is one of the Coales of Hampstead, who are friends of the Dorsets, and so I have heard of her very often. There is so much possibility for all sorts of fine things in her that I can't bear to see her shutting everything but one out of her life, even though that one be books. Be a good friend to her, Lee, by showing her that even the president of Self-Government and the next European Fellow——"
Eleanor's strong hand shut off Marjorie's speech, for not even by her roommate would she suffer her chances for carrying off this, the highest of undergraduate honours, to be discussed. She now informed Marjorie that if she wished to go on telling about her schemes for Relieving Socially Indigent Freshmen, she (Lee) would listen with joy; but approaches to any other topic would be instantly punished. And so Marjorie returned to her tale.