Chapter I

The Two Little Girls who Laughed

“I don’t want to — I don’t want to — I don’t want to — go to college — go to college — go to college. I don’t want to — go to college.”

The words chanted themselves monotonously over and over in Elinor’s brain, keeping time to the clicking of the rails under the rumble of the wheels and the groaning of the train’s iron bones.

“But you have to — but you have to — but you have to — go to college. But you have to — go to college,” creaked the answer in maddening reiteration. “But you have to — but you have to — “

“Oh, conductor!” piped up an eager young voice from a seat farther down the car,” be sure to let me get off at the right station, and don’t forget my trunk. It is a large trunk covered with gray canvas and marked with my name at one end. I am a freshman, you know, and I am going to college all alone. Have you ever been there? Do you know what it looks like? Oh, can you really see it from the train? What fun!”

Elinor’s sensitive mouth lost its sulky expression in a twinkling quiver of amusement. She lifted her pretty head for a survey of the other girl, who looked rather young to be a freshman. At the minute Elinor did not reflect that her own hair was worn in a long braid and her own skirts barely reached her ankles. It seemed natural for her to be ready to enter college at the age of sixteen, because her ambitious mother had planned for this from her very birth. Undoubtedly circumstances were different with this impetuous fellow traveler whose evident delight showed that she was going to college of her own accord.

When the conductor pointed to a mass of brick buildings, like an angular blot of red on a distant green hill, with “There’s the college now!” she ran from window to window, craning her neck to catch lingering glimpses.

Shy Elinor rose impulsively — and then sat down again. Her slender fingers twisted together in the struggle of her diffidence with her desire to correct this mistake. That girl believed that she was admiring the college, when all the while the red pile was nothing but an asylum for the insane. If only Elinor were brave enough to walk clear across the aisle and announce the truth! Though it was dreadful to be a coward, it would be worse to risk a snubbing. Suppose that girl should draw herself up and stare coldly into vacancy without replying? Probably her parents as well as Elinor’s had warned her not to make acquaintances while traveling.

Here the girl clasped her hands, exclaiming, “Oh! isn’t it big and beautiful!”

This was too much. Elinor might not wish to go to college, but after all it was her mother’s alma mater; and she could not bear to see it cheated out of such an adoring sigh. Under the quick spur of indignation she sprang to her feet and was in the aisle before courage failed suddenly, and she wavered as if to pass on toward the vestibule. At that moment the girl’s face flashed around from the window — such a merry tip-tilted face with hazel eyes wet from the tingling excitement. Elinor drew a short breath and spoke first:

“That is only an asylum for insane people. The college itself is three miles back in the country.” The girl jumped up fluttering and sparkling.

“Oh!” she cried joyously, “are you a freshman too?”

Elinor replied with a swift crinkling smile that made her irregular features altogether charming. “Yes ; but I have been there to visit. My mother was graduated in one of the earliest classes, you know.”

“Then you are a real granddaughter of the college. Oh, isn’t it wonderful! To think that I have met a granddaughter the very first thing! When did you get on the car? Why didn’t you speak to me sooner? Do sit down and tell me all about everything. Have you any conditions in the entrance examinations? Do you know whether you will room in a single or a double or a parlor or a firewall? A parlor suite has three bedrooms, I’ve heard, and a firewall has four. Oh, I do hope that you and I may room together. Wouldn’t we have the greatest fun! It’s a sort of fate, don’t you think so? — our meeting this way. Have you noticed any other college girls on the train? There, the conductor is beckoning to me. This is the town where we get off. Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

Snatching up a saucy-looking red hat she darted out of the car, as the train began to slacken speed in rhythm to the slow ding-donging of the engine’s bell Elinor rescued a forgotten umbrella and a bag — real alligator^skin, she noticed — and after adding her own property followed more quietly, turning at the door for a last careful scrutiny of the empty seat. Elinor had been exceedingly well trained.

Out on the station platform she spied a gleam of red at the baggage-room entrance, and hastened past the line of clamorous cabmen to reach the fly-away little freshman. She found that young lady almost shedding tears over the thrilling occupation of searching her purse and exploring her pockets — (she had three in her jacket, two in her skirt, and one very plump with banknotes in her silk petticoat — in pursuit of her trunk-check. At last she discovered it pinned under her belt.

“There!” she produced it triumphantly, ” I knew I had put it safe somewhere. Won’t it feel like home to see that old trunk again — only it’s new, of course. Please send it right away. It’s gray canvas. Don’t mix it up with the rest. Are you sure you will recognize it? I’m perfectly crazy to unpack. There’s jam in it and a chocolate cake and everything. Do rush it out to the insane asylum as fast as you possibly can!”

The baggageman stared, and Elinor touched her arm. ” You mean the college, not the asylum.”

“Oh, my goodness me!” gasped the little freshman, her eagerness changing to alarm, “did I say asylum? Don’t let them do it. Stop it, somebody! All my clothes and things! I’m going to the college — to the college, do you understand? Send my trunk to the college.”

“All right, miss,” answered the man with an appearance of respectful gravity, but Elinor had caught the glimmer of a smile and hurriedly drew her companion out of his range of vision. Of course he lumped all college girls in together and thought one just as likely to lose her head as another. It was horrid to be made ridiculous in that way. When a girl went to college she simply buried her identity in the crowd.

“It is nicer to cry than to laugh,” said Elinor as the two flitted through the waiting-room and passed out into the warm September sunshine, where dust was blowing miniature whirlwinds at the street corners, “because while tears never won an enemy yet in the world, I do believe I could hate a person for a certain kind of a laugh.”

“Could you? How funny! I never hated anybody in my life except villains in books. They’re the most exasperating — Oh look! Is that our car with those girls filing in? We’ll surely get left. Let’s run for it.” The little freshman seized Elinor’s hand and dashed along the sidewalk, bumping into the more leisurely pedestrians in her path. She sent two suit cases twirling against their owners, one cane clattering into the gutter, and a shower of “beg pardons,” echoing in her wake ; but she caught the car.

During the clanging journey through the sleepy town to the suburbs, Elinor began to feel self-conscious under critical glances from the other passengers who were laughing and talking as fast as their tongues could move. Even the obviously new students who sat here and there anxiously erect and mute stared at her with somewhat more painful intentness than at the rest. Indeed Elinor’s face was extraordinary in a tantalizing way. It was extraordinary because it was almost beautiful in spite of the irregularity of its delicate outline; and it was tantalizing because of the fact that it barely escaped being beautiful. Perhaps the marred effect was due to the drooping of her mouth in repose or else to the expression of her level eyebrows which had a trick of drawing rebelliously together. Or possibly, after all, the fault lay in the shape of her nose, which certainly was not Grecian.

As Elinor became more and more uncomfortable under this alert, interested inspection from so many strangers, she fell to wondering if there was anything wrong with her hat or her hair or her collar. Suppose that there was a streak of soot on her cheek or her nose? Such things did happen. At the disturbing suspicion she rapidly closed one eye so as to obtain a view of her nose. Yes, there surely was a darkish speck on the tip; whether a cinder or merely a freckle, she could not determine. Now for a glimpse from the other side! The closed eye whisked open and the open eye flew shut. Then suddenly, straight as a shot, Elinor looked across the aisle full into a pair of amused dark eyes.

How perfectly dreadful! That girl opposite had seen her wink and was laughing at her. Flushing to her forehead, Elinor turned to gaze fixedly through the front window. She could never, never forget the mortification of it. A granddaughter of the college to be observed blinking at her own nose before a whole carful of students! And it was not a very intellectual nose, either.

“Something just strikes me as funny,” chuckled the little freshman in her ear, “what if I had gone to the insane asylum?”

Elinor regarded her gravely. What a silly scatterbrain she was to be choking into her handkerchief and shaking the seat because of such a foolish idea! The red hat was actually dancing up and down over the bubbling mirth. Anyhow it was not an insane asylum ; it was an asylum for the insane. And that horrid, horrid person across the aisle was staring again.

Elinor bit her lip in the struggle for self-control. Through the long journey from home the monotonous chant of the clicking rails had aggravated her resentful shrinking from the new life. This present humiliation, irritated by weariness, dust, and heat, was pushing her to the edge of serenity. She knew that she had reached the point where she must choose between laughing and crying.

“Isn’t it a j-j-joke!” stuttered the little freshman, “the baggageman’s jaw dropped open and his eyes popped out of his head. He was su-su-surprised. Wouldn’t the sophomores h-h-howl!”

With a swift quivering sigh of nervousness Elinor bowed her face on her hands and began to laugh helplessly. She laughed till the tears came and her throat ached and everybody else in the car was smiling in sympathy with the two convulsed freshmen. She laughed till the person opposite bent forward to ask in a cheerful deep voice : “What is the joke, anyhow? Do tell us all about it.”

Elinor sobered on the instant which was exactly what the speaker had intended, for she considered hysterical mirth unwholesome.

“I beg your pardon,” responded the granddaughter with her haughtiest air, though her hands were clenched to keep from trembling. She was never haughty to others except when she felt intensely embarrassed. That was the instinctive weapon of her diffidence. On this occasion it seemed to answer its purpose, for the person opposite settled back in her seat and directed her attention to a neighbor. Elinor, who could see unexpectedly well out of the corner of her eye, acknowledged to herself that this patronizing individual was remarkably handsome. Her eyes were dark and velvety and annoyingly frank, as Elinor had already noticed. Her nose was as perfect as a statue’s, with no sign of a freckle. Her mouth was clean-cut, resolute, and perhaps a hint self-satisfied. She carried her fine head above her broad shoulders with an effect of gracious erectness. Elinor was certain that she must be a senior at the very least.

When the car had whizzed past a long hedge and swept around a curve to stop before the heavy arch of the Lodge gates, the passengers thronged out in a flutter of excitement. Even the talkative old students gripped their umbrellas unnecessarily tight, and some of them swallowed once or twice for no reason whatever. Nobody loitered. While Elinor was hurrying on after the others down the evergreen-lined avenue that led to the main building, she was aware of someone skipping beside her and trying to squeeze her free hand.

“I like you,” said the little freshman, “because you can laugh. Let’s be special friends. My name is Myra Dickinson. What’s yours? “

“Elinor Offitt,” answered that young lady drawing away her hand with a cool sweet air of aloofness, “it has been pleasant to meet you, Miss Dickinson.”

Miss Dickinson opened her eyes and her mouth, too, for one astonished moment. Then Elinor, glancing sideways, caught a glimpse of a burning cheek half averted. Her first impulse was to soothe the wounded pride of this over-friendly child, for she could not bear to hurt anybody. Second thoughts justified her attitude with the insistent memory of her mother’s warning not to make acquaintances hurriedly. Among eight hundred girls from all over the country she must be fastidious in choosing, because the best college friendships endure through life. Of course she would try to be courteous, but she would not encourage intimacy till she knew more about this freshman. Doubtless it might have been wiser if she had not spoken to her on the train. In that case, at least, she would not have disgraced herself by laughing so unreasonably in the street car.

“I will show you the way,” said Elinor ; and Myra followed silently into the vestibule where girls were passing in and out, with a little run here and a little shriek there, now and then kissing and falling on each other’s neck in greeting. After registering at the dean’s office, they were directed to the elevator and carried to the third floor, where they took their places in the line of students waiting at the door of the lady principal’s office.

Here Elinor managed to lose her companion as if by accident. A professor, whom she had met while visiting the college with her mother the previous year, chanced to be passing in the corridor. Through taking advantage of the excuse furnished by rising to speak, Elinor changed her position on the row of benches. In this manner it happened that Myra had gone to her allotted room before Elinor emerged from her later interview with the principal.

Elinor’s escort was an important small sophomore with a perky black bow adding inches to her chubby height. On the way up the flight of stairs to the fourth floor, she chatted kindly about various features of the college life. The freshman in her charge did not betray by a moment’s inattention that this was stale news to her, for she had been reared in an atmosphere of college reminiscence. Mrs. Offitt, exceptional in her generation because of her education, had always cherished the distinction jealously. Her daughter’s distaste for the same privilege was due partly to a reaction against this trace of intellectual arrogance. Elinor felt oddly humiliated when people commented admiringly upon her unusual advantages in heredity, training, and opportunities. Such praise seemed somehow to expose her defenceless before criticism; for to whom much is given, from her much shall be expected. And this rebellious young granddaughter was incurably diffident

Elinor had been told that she was to share with three other freshmen a firewall suite, which consisted of a study with four bedrooms adjoining it. The sophomore hastened on, her topknot flapping, and swung open the door. There sat Myra perched on the edge of a wooden rocker, her bag and umbrella still clutched in both warm hands.

“Oh, Elinor Offitt!” she exclaimed, springing up in delight before a painful memory sent her backing awkwardly into her seat again, “won’t it be f-fu-fun! I mean, it will be pleasant to room here, Miss Offitt.

Elinor’s thoughts flew to and fro between her mother’s warning and the situation confronting her. It would undoubtedly be difficult to hold herself in frosty isolation from her roommates. If they should turn out to be congenial, that would be so much gained; if they should prove otherwise, they would inevitably drift apart. In such a community it was safe to trust to the natural attraction of like to like in character and breeding. Elinor had keen intuitions, and almost unconsciously she recognized that in spite of the difference in temperament Myra belonged to her kind, so to speak.

“I’m very glad indeed, Myra,” she said.

Myra’s face dimpled joyfully over the sudden splintering of egg-shell formality. She jumped up, tossing her possessions hither and thither.

“Let’s look at the bedrooms. Somebody else is here before us,” and she pointed to a shabby valise and a gloria silk umbrella standing modestly in a dim comer behind one of the straight chairs. The sophomore had vanished on duty bent.

“Yes, I suppose there’ll have to be four of us,” answered Elinor with a pang of regret at the memory of her exquisite nest at home. Even with unconflicting tastes and a limitless choice of rugs, pictures, curtains, arid books, this bare study could never be made faultlessly dainty.

Myra, however, appeared radiantly untouched by despondency over the inartistic prospect. She was calling enthusiastically from the interior of the smallest darkest bedroom : “Elinor, this is the dearest little room! It has a window opening upon the corridor, and you can watch everybody that goes by. If you’re thirsty or want to go anywhere, you can climb out without walking around through the study. Isn’t that convenient!”

Elinor caught sight of a limp jacket hanging under a cheap sailor hat in the wardrobe. ” The first girl has chosen this room,” she said, “and really it is the worst of the four, because the other inside bedroom is larger and the two outside ones have windows to let in light and air. I wonder what kind of a girl she is.”

“Funny girl, I think,” chirped Myra, “to take a back seat like that.”

Elinor hesitated. “I don’t know. I fancy it would be easier to choose the worst than the best, don’t you think so? Not because you believe you ought to,” she added hurriedly in dread that she might seem to be posing as a model, “but because it would feel uncomfortable to take the best of your own accord.”

“Um-m, yes, I dare say,” assented Myra as she slowly twirled about on her heels before toppling against the narrow bed, “still, maybe, I could bear it for a spell. Anyhow if you intend to arrange affairs on that plan, I wish I hadn’t come so soon. The last girl of all will have the best chance. I was the second, and therefore I nobly pre-empt the other inside cubby-hole.” She set her bag over the threshold, and seized Elinor’s suit case to deposit in the smaller outside room. “Now we’re ready for number four. I wonder if she’ll object.”

“She’s coming now,” whispered Elinor, bending forward in a listening attitude as steps turned from the corridor into the firewall alleyway. The small sophomore ushered the fourth freshman into the study. “Miss Lydia Howard, this is Miss Offitt and this is Miss Dickinson.”

It was the person who had sat opposite in the car.

“Ah, the two little girls who laughed! So we are to live here together. How delightful!” The plain room seemed to have become all at once a mere frame for her stately presence. After a comprehensive survey of the simple furniture she leisurely placed her luggage on the coverless center table. “And where, may I ask, is the other one?”

“I don’t know,” replied Myra in a tone amazingly subdued, while with surreptitious pats and pulls she twitched her necktie straight and smoothed her skirt.

Elinor stiffened in resentment of the condescending air ; for she was not accustomed to being patronized, and after all this person was only a freshman like the rest of them. Assuming her “society manner,” — formally sweet and polite with an effort as if drawing a deep breath in anticipation of exertion — she inquired: “Would you not care to look at the bedrooms, Miss Howard?”

“Indeed I should,” replied the cheerful voice which was too rich and full to be distinctively girlish, though its owner was little past eighteen. “May I suggest, girls, that my name is Lydia? Since we are likely to be thrown rather closely together, don’t you know, what is the use of being too conventional at first? The ideal of college life is freedom from conventionality.”

“Yes, Miss Howard — I mean, Lydia,” assented Myra obediently, while Elinor in silence scanned the tailormade costume of this latest arrival. Her clothes were conventionally correct in every detail from the eagle’s feather in her severe hat to the heavy-soled common-sense shoes. Even her shapely hands in perfectly fitting gloves were large enough to harmonize properly with her well developed height and breadth. There was absolutely nothing erratic about her.

In a few minutes Lydia reappeared after her tour of inspection, this time with a faint frown shadowing her serene low brow. “See here, girls, this won’t do at all. It is not fair of you to leave the lightest and airiest room for me. That is taking advantage of a stranger.”

Elinor glanced up quickly from the magazine which Myra had unpacked from her heterogeneous possessions. This imposing person with her superior attitude might not prove wholly antipathetic after all. Evidently they both felt the same reluctance to grasp for the best.

“Don’t you think,” began Elinor hesitatingly, “that we ought to — I mean that it might be better to wait till the other girl comes before deciding finally?”

“Certainly I do,” responded Lydia as she seated herself to consider the possibilities of the furnishings in the study, “probably we could divide the year into four parts and then change rooms every quarter. That would be the fairest way.”

Her frankly observant glance noted the imitation leather of the forlorn valise behind a chair. Apparently its owner was not over-supplied with money. However it was the girl that mattered, not the money; that was the great attraction about life in this democratic community. One reason for Lydia’s coming to college was to escape for a while from the mercenary standards of the social circle at home. To judge from their belongings, these two other roommates were daintily above want. Lydia’s tranquil gaze rested for a meditative moment upon the saucy face of the girl who was flitting from door to window, a silver-backed brush in her hand.

“See the beautiful lawn, will you? And the dear little greenhouse! And buildings peeking through the trees, and curving walks everywhere with bare headed girls hurrying over them! Just kindly look at all the girls, will you? Aren’t they simply lovely! Oh, oh, oh! I know that we are going to be too happy for anything!”

“That one,” commented Lydia to herself, “is a rattlepate.” She turned toward Elinor who was bending over the magazine at the table. Her waving hair drawn loosely back into a long braid showed the graceful contour of her head. Lydia, who had once joined a class in art, reflected that this was essentially a feminine head without any abnormal breadth or strong-minded bumps to mar its symmetry.

Conscious of the intent scrutiny, Elinor stirred uneasily and lifting her lashes smiled ever so faintly. The smile was like a glint of sunshine.

“And she,” said Lydia to herself again, with an extraordinary throb of enthusiasm, “is a dear.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Myra, who was the only one facing the door at the minute, ” ah, um-m-m, how do you do? Do you live here, too?”

On the threshold stood a tall, shabbily dressed girl with her arms full of flowers — wild asters and dusty goldenrod and ancient ragged daisies. She had an odd brown face with pixie features that seemed to change their modeling under the wind and flame of feeling.

“And that one,” said Lydia to herself yet once more as she advanced in gracious greeting, “very likely may be a genius.”