![\"\"](\"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/bulletin_board.png\")
Three days of this sufficed to bring forth a placard upon the bulletin board :<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The attention of the college authorities has been called to the fact that some of our students have been asking strangers both within and without the college grounds to give them rides, or to allow them to fasten their sleds to wagons or sleighs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The students are reminded that requests of this kind, though made for the sake of a frolic, are quite as much out of order when there is sleighing as when there is none, and that in making them they are exposing themselves and the college to very unpleasant but not unjustifiable criticism.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I wonder what Lydia says to this,” commented Elinor, pausing on her way to the library when she found Myra, with her pad propped against a pillar, busily copying the notice for her memorabilia scrapbook. “I think it is just about right, tactful and dignified and true.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“She said, ‘Boarding school!'” replied Myra with a comical little snort of imitation contempt, “she said it sort of languidly as if she were getting worn out trying to raise the standard all by herself. This kind of thing makes me weary too,” added the young lady, heaving a tumultuous sigh of utter exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But, Myra, now honestly don’t you think punging was a mistake? I haven’t dared to mention it in letters home. Fancy our begging rides anywhere else!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s the unconventional freedom of undergraduate life,” began Myra, ready as ever for a logical dispute, “it’s the principle of \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Girls, I am going punging this afternoon,” sounded Lydia’s voice distinct and vibrant behind them, “would you like to go with me?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two seniors standing near regarded her curiously. Her head in its becoming toque was held well back in a strikingly self-estimable pose, as Myra called it. Her chin was lifted at its most resolute angle. In the depths of her dark eyes smouldered the steady fires of unconquerable rebellion against oppression. Myra saw them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Crackie!” she muttered softly, torn between admiration and prudent memories of her freshman year, “what if you should meet Prexie?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The determined chin went up a few inches higher. “Are we babies \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Oh, no, no!” Myra hastened to reassure her, “but we belong to this college and bear its name, and people certainly criticize it for what we do. Don’t you remember all those horrid newspaper jokes about chewing gum and sliding down the banisters? It’s a question of reputation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Good-bye,” Lydia flung back over her shoulder, “sorry you won’t go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I did my best,” said Myra virtuously and then stepped over to a window to send a longing gaze after the valiant figure stalking away down the snowy path. “Wouldn’t it be fun to go punging in such a splendid storm! Jingle-bells, jingle-bells \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elinor patted her elbow. “You were all right. It does make a difference whether a person is a member of an institution or is just herself alone. We have to show respect for the rights of ownership. Didn’t you read that novel where the heroine began to take better care of her lovely hair after she was married and realized that she belonged to somebody else, hair and everything. She was responsible to him.” Elinor paused for a reflective moment before adding with sudden energy, “I hate responsibility.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Same here.” Myra heaved a sigh. ” I never felt so when I was only a freshman, Nobody expected anything of us, but now \u2014 ” the blank was eloquent, “I suppose that the best we can do, being sophomores, is to put on our rubber boots and go to meet Lydia the next hour.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next hour saw the two girls, wearing gymnasium suits under their pretty cravenette coats, trudging along the snowy road. They seemed shut in alone together from all the world by a wall of soft white flakes falling ceaselessly. Myra ploughed through the drifts and turned up her face to watch the myriads of specks fluttering down endlessly from the boundless gray sky above. They melted in cool kisses on brow and cheek and chin. Elinor chose to walk in the wheel-ruts and hold her long coat just high enough to hinder the flakes from floating into the tops of her boots. She had not much reserve strength and tired quickly under such conditions. She grew silent and plodded on more and more slowly as the snow deepened underfoot. At last she cried for mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Myra, I can’t go a yard farther. How do you manage to be so brisk and lively at this time of year with the examinations coming next week?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I never hurt myself studying,” she answered with an extra joyous hop into the middle of a fluff-filled ditch, “neither did my mother; that’s one reason. Very well, we’ll start back, if you say so. I dare say Lady Lydia can take care of herself. Ah!” she cocked her head to listen, “quick, Elinor, jump out of the way. There’s a sleigh coming fast.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elinor sprang aside barely in time as from the blind chaos of snow-flakes around them a horse pushed into their tiny world, trotted with swift muffled hoofbeats across their field of vision, and vanished with the sleigh behind him into the vastness beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was Lydia,” gasped Myra, “on the seat \u2014 with a baby in her arms.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The man looked like a farmer,” said Elinor, shaking the icy drops from her lashes, “they’re going toward the town. She’ll be late for dinner.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myra wondered all the way back to the college, but Elinor was too much exhausted to contribute conjectures. Her mind was divided between the hope of finding a dry place where she might sit down to rest and the vision of her mother’s disappointment if she should happen to fail in the impending examinations. When at last she dragged herself into the study and sank upon the couch, she was too tired to think of going to dinner. Consequently she was the sole occupant of the room when Lydia entered, flushed and bright-eyed, erect and energetic, with her most conspicuous air of executive ability rampant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What! Are you under the weather again? Elinor, I am certainly disappointed in the way you carry your work this year. There is no need for anybody to be sick if the proper care is taken. Are you sure that you could not conquer this weakness if you tried conscientiously? I am positive that in many cases it is a mere matter of will-power. Loot at me. Have you ever known me to fall ill?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elinor said nothing for a minute, except perhaps two or three words very low in confidence to the pillow at her side. Then she gathered her faculties together and half sat up. “I’m only tired from tramping through the snow with Myra. We saw you pass in a sleigh. Did you have any adventures while punging? Myra had her nose glued to the window for an hour before she went to dinner. There she comes now. They must have had rice-pudding for dessert, and she willingly sacrifices it to her anxiety for you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myra dashed in. “I knew you had come. I felt the frost still eddying in the alleyway. Oh, Lydia, where was it? How was it? What was it? When was it? Who was the baby? Did you get kidnapped? Did you pung? Did you have a runaway? Did you get dinner in town? I’m simply crazy to hear all about everything. Did Prexie see you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I don’t know, I assure you. Do you imagine that I watched the sidewalks, especially as they were invisible in the storm. I rode out into the country several miles in a wood-sled, and stopped at a farmhouse to warm my hands. The farmer’s wife and five children were feverish and had sore throats and other interesting symptoms. I advised him to buy a chest of homeopathic remedies and engage a nurse, as scarlet fever is all over town. He harnessed up, and I brought the baby in for his sister to keep till the others get well. I promised to send her a pamphlet on the care of children. Such ignorant persons do not know the first laws of health. If they would pay attention to proper air and food and exercise and bathing, their systems would never become devitalized enough to afford a foothold for germs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But, Lydia,” objected Ruth, who had strolled in during this speech and noticed an exasperated twitch of Elinor’s fingers, “even the best informed people cannot always prevent disease. Consider all the worn-out doctors and dyspeptic professors. Some girls are not started out with robust constitutions in their babyhood. Others overstep the limits before they are aware. I used to think that I was made of iron and could work indefinitely until I found out otherwise. Even you ought not to take unnecessary risks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lydia smiled condescendingly. “You thought<\/em> you were made of iron; I am<\/em> made of iron.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, cr \u2014 r \u2014” began Myra and suddenly broke off her expletive in the middle, from disgust at its feebleness before Lydia’s splendid self-confidence, “oh, you are,” she subsided weakly, “well, there’s the gong for Chapel. Let’s run along.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before following the two others she darted back to drop a kiss on Elinor’s ear and caught a petulant little cry, “Wouldn’t I be glad to see her knocked out just once!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as fate decreed, it was Elinor herself who was knocked out by the strain of examinations, and spent a day or so in bed. At noon of the second day Lydia drew Ruth into the hall and threatened to send for the doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There’s nothing the matter except last week’s examinations,” remonstrated Ruth from the heights \u2014 or depths \u2014 of her own experience, “she’ll be around to-morrow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lydia leaned against the wall in a limp posture markedly different from her customary brisk erectness. She brushed her hand across her brow with a weary motion that struck Ruth’s surprised attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Girls are so foolish about allowing slight emergencies to upset their equilibrium. College should teach them poise, balance, common-sense. Three seniors are down with scarlet fever, and some freshmen have been sent home. Elinor ought to be more prudent.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra in the doorway opened her eyes at the sound of a fretful note in the mellow tones. “I am never ill, and yet I take examinations and carry the ordinary amount of work and this extra bother over the Trig play is enough to make a wooden head whirl round and round.” She half raised her hand toward her forehead, but lowered it quickly at a restraining recollection of her principles. “It is a mere question of will-power. I don’t give up when I have an ache or a pain, for the sake of being petted and coddled and fed on steak and toast.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t think you’re nice, one bit!” sputtered Myra, headlong to the defence, “just because you’re strong and well and everything, you haven’t any sympathy or understanding or anything. It would do you good to catch scarlet fever or something, and I just wish you would, so there!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lydia accepted this in such peculiar silence \u2014 not her ordinary regardlessness of inferior planets, but rather dazed and dumb, as if she barely comprehended the hurrying words \u2014 that Myra veered even more swiftly than usual to contrition. “I wish you weren’t so provoking,” she grumbled, “but Elinor doesn’t collapse for fun \u2014 not by a j \u2014 jug \u2014\u2014 not by a carafe-ful!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You certainly are improving,” laughed Ruth; but Lydia did not seem to notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The afternoon stretched out endless and dark before her. Wearily she plodded from one recitation to another. She did not skip even the hour in the gymnasium, though the task of putting on her suit and tying the sailor’s knot at her throat loomed up in anticipation as a tremendous exertion. During dinner when the others commented on her lack of appetite, she felt a burning of the eyes, and rose hastily to withdraw before the senseless blush could spread higher into sight. While plodding slowly up to her room, she heard steps following, and summoned all her forces to move with characteristic buoyancy. Each foot dragged as if weighted with a pound of lead. How heavy her head was! Was it really bending first to one side, then to the other? The corridor reached on and on, the rubber matting apparently rising in gray waves that tumbled like the ocean. She feared that she might stumble over the next billow, for her feet grew heavier and heavier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then somebody’s arm slid around her; and she leaned back, conscious only of the blessedness of being supported. Ruth’s fragile strength failed under the burden ; and Lydia sank gradually to the floor. Sitting there in a relaxed heap she looked up mistily at the anxious face bending above her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I can’t get up,” she moaned; “I don’t even want to try. Oh, what is the matter with me?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Myra heard that Lydia had been taken to the scarlet fever ward in the infirmary, even while her eyes were yet rounded in awed sympathy, she rushed away to beg a can of tar from the janitor. Upon being set to simmer in her best fudge-pan, it caught fire promptly and was flung blazing out of the window, while a black column of smoke rolled through the transom into the corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What would Lydia say?” asked Elinor, leaning out to see where the tar was casting up a final flicker from its dark spot on the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “She would say,” began Myra, and interrupted herself to put her head out of the door in response to a hail of knocks. “No, it isn’t a fire. It’s tar \u2014 a disinfectant \u2014 reasonable precautions, and so forth. Ruth, dear, kind, sweet Ruth, please write a sign about that tar and pin it outside, will you? I’m getting hoarse already. She would say that it isn’t any of the faculty’s business anyhow; but I know I shall be called up to explain to-morrow. The ceiling does look rather sooty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Poor Lydia!” murmured Elinor, and paused, smitten by the idea that this was a novel epithet for superior Miss Howard; “it means six weeks in the infirmary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “And losing all the fun of Trig Ceremonies and Valentine’s Day and Washington’s Birthday and the Third Hall Play and Easter and concerts and \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n “And her work,” put in Ruth, soberly, thankful that she as well had not been taken captive by some mischievous-minded germ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “She’ll know how it feels now,” said Elinor ; and then glanced up guiltily from under her lashes to see if the others had noticed the unexpected little ring of exultation in her voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n February 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My Dear Lydia Howard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good morning again, and the world goes wagging on, with everything delightful except for that vacant room across the hall. Miss Ewers inquired after you very particularly to-day, and said that she missed your influence in the class-room. The other girls, you know, resent her bluntness; they say that she treats them like chairs: draws them out and then sits on them. Her theory is that they should be taught not to regard criticism of their work as a personal insult. Yesterday when Elinor made a vague recitation based on impressions and opinions instead of facts, Miss Ewers rebuked her method rather sharply and then launched into a general lecture on the worthlessness of surface knowledge. Elinor listened attentively, though she seemed a little pale. She even smiled a bit while we were pressing through the door afterward, but I saw her lip twitch once or twice, and she hurried ahead of us down the corridor. She is too sensitive for this rough world. She must have been the kind of a child that suffers if her mother forgets to smile. Everything used to hurt me, too, but I have been trying for many years now to teach myself not to care. It takes a deal of philosophizing, the main tenet of which would be of no value to Elinor because she has a different aim in life. My aim, you know, is to learn how to give adequate expression to impressions. And so even the impressions that bite most deeply are welcome after the first sting is over. Elinor has no such compensation. Her only recompense for the excess of pain is the corresponding intensity of power to enjoy. Her headaches are always worse than Myra’s; but Myra has far less capacity to win happiness from music, for instance. Myra says she simply loves music when she can have a nice soft pillow behind her head in a corner of a pew in the gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Holloa, Lydia!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything is all right except that we miss you heaps, especially at the table. Ruth sits in your place and does pretty well until an idea strikes her in the middle of serving a dish. Then she drops the spoon, rises, and walks out in dazed and lofty silence, while Elinor or somebody picks it up and goes on ladling out the oysters or ice cream or whatever it happens to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven’t much time to write now, because Valentine’s Day is coming and the senior who receives the most will be given a prize for popularity. Ruth’s going to write some poetry for me to send. Elinor says it is silly to talk about feelings, but then I don’t believe she ever really admired a person away above her in an upper class \u2014 particularly when you aren’t well enough acquainted to do things for her or say you like her except in poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good-bye, Lydia! There’s the bell, and I haven’t looked at my literature yet. Elinor tells me that it takes two hours to read a play of Shakespeare’s. Just watch me scamper through one in the next forty minutes. People make me tired by being afraid of superficiality. I think it is like consistency, which Emerson says is the ‘hobgoblin of little minds,’ you remember. I love Emerson \u2014 I have read three of his essays besides that one we analyzed when we were freshmen. The one on Gifts<\/em> is fine, and quotations from it will be splendid to send with valentine flowers. To return to superficiality, what is the surface of a thing for if it is not to protect the interior? If it had been meant that we should dig and dive below the surface, why were we created with skins? I call it prying. I have also another profound thought: if it had been meant that we should provide for the future, the future would have been revealed to us. But I can’t see ahead into the next hour, can I? Maybe Miss Ewers will lecture instead of asking us to discuss the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The size of a hole left by a Person of Public Spirit when she goes into retirement almost persuades me to serve on a committee the next time I am invited. More girls than I can name have been asking after you. Ruth is taking very complete notes in English, and I do the same in history and Latin, so that you will not have much difficulty in making up what you have lost. Myra proposed that we send you a box of candy for a valentine, because once a boy sent her one and she appreciated it Ruth was appalled. “But Lydia is sick! “she cried, “and you weren’t, were you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “No,” answered Myra thoughtfully; “that is, not until afterwards.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish that you were able to hear and see the art lectures now being given twice a week, though you will have another chance year after next, I believe. Some day I intend to own copies of several of the pictures that were thrown on the sheet by the lantern, but at present I am in love with sculpture. I want a Victory Tying Her Sandal.<\/em> You may have noticed the bas-relief on the wall near Niobe in the Art Gallery. Myra jeers at my taste; she says that my favorite Venus has no arms, my adorable Winged Victory has no head, and this last pet has no hands, no head, and only a portion of a foot, \u2014 that she has nothing except lines of drapery. But oh, Lydia! Those lines! I could look at them all day. The other thing I want most just now is a large carbon photograph of the head of Hermes. The Greek professor has one in her room, \u2014 and, Lydia, I want one like it. It is a comfort to talk to a person who cannot answer back for fear of carrying contagion. See! Aren’t you pleased to catch a glimpse of the silver lining already?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is Ruth’s turn to write, but she has gone to town in a frightful snow-storm, and Elinor is worried cranky, and I have three more poems to compose before to-night. I wonder if there is any other rhyme for sweet besides beat, cheat, cleat, deplete, eat, defeat, meet, feet \u2014 Dear, dear! are there twenty-seven letters in the alphabet? Do you think it would be too sentimental to say something about her hair? Ruth showed me verses about ‘curling golden tendrils of her hair,’ and ‘swift laughter’s curved surprise’ and ‘frost-ferns fair,’ and so forth. I told her that she would need to change it, because my senior has smooth black hair, not crinkly like Elinor’s. Maybe Ruth was thinking of Elinor when she composed that valentine. It sounds like that. The storm is worse than ever and makes the room so dark that I must stop writing. A girl has just come in to groan over her disappointment in not going home to-night to attend a tea where she was to have met a famous sculptor. All the trains are hours late, and it won’t be safe for her to start. I wish Ruth would come. Maybe the trolley line is snowed up. Elinor is talking to the girl about marble, and so on. I don’t like cold white things; I like color. My senior has the loveliest rosy cheeks and snapping dark eyes. Elinor is walking up and down and staring out of the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it you who sent me that lovely, lovely valentine? It must have been you. I don’t know how, but perhaps you had the nurse write to your mother to buy it for me. The package came by express this very day \u2014 St. Valentine’s Day. My beautiful, beautiful Victory, forever bending to tie her sandal, before me always! And Hermes the beautiful upon my wall! I hate to leave them, even for an ice-cream dinner. You should see me hurry back after each absence. Lydia, I love you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 15. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am sorry Myra worried you about the storm. I was safe enough. You see, I had an errand in New York, and took the earliest train without notifying the girls. They thought I merely went to town. The snow delayed my return, especially as I was late in starting back, as the search for the Victory and Hermes took longer than I had expected. The other day I noticed how intensely Elinor admired the relief and the photograph. For a long time I have been hoping and wondering what I could do to please her. She has always seemed to me so rare and fine and precious that the sight of her and the thought of her are unending delight. I have wanted so much to express it somehow or other. And she is pleased. I never before saw her so happy in anything. She appears to believe that they are valentine gifts from you. Don’t let her find out that I sent them until she thinks of it for herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dearest Old Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The honors are out, and what do you suppose? My senior is on the list! She’s the one to whom I introduced my freshmen at the reception last fall, and she said, “I believe I know these young ladies, but may I ask who you are?” You see, I had assumed that she did not possess a memory for faces and so would take it for granted that she had met me and then forgotten about it. I have liked her ever since, because sincerity is my chosen trait \u2014 at least, it is just at present. I admire different qualities at different times, according to circumstances. I sent her eleven valentines to help her get the most in the class, but another senior received five more. I was so provoked, for I might have copied out a dozen sonnets from Ward’s English Poets just as easily as not, and that would have been all right if I added quotation marks. Last Sunday evening I sat beside her in chapel and sang out of the same hymn book. She has the loveliest gruffest voice I ever heard!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last night there was an informal leap-year dance in the gym. I danced once with her; and toward the end, while I was waiting around near the door, Elinor kept whispering, “Thou beautiful!” whenever I looked at her. One of the valentines was “Thou beautiful, thou carest noc that I bow at thy shrine,” and so forth. Ruth helped me with the rhymes. I warned Elinor that I would twist her nose if she said it again. She put her hand over her face and said it again just as the senior came toward us. Elinor jumped up with, “Oh, horrors! I’m sitting on her things!” She must have heard, for she was smiling at the corners of her mouth. I walked up close to Elinor and twisted her nose, and she said, “Two girls saw you. You have disgraced me!” and then we came home and mended stockings and sewed on buttons and ate fudges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor thinks a lot of that banged-up slab of plaster and the ancient old party called Hermes. Maybe I would have cared for such art myself if I had taken the classical course. It’s a queer notion of Elinor’s to believe that you caused such an original valentine to be sent to her. I don’t mean that you couldn’t do original things, but you simply wouldn’t think of them, that’s all. And then, besides, you have the scarlet fever. I am positive that Ruth did it, even if she can’t afford it. But Elinor doesn’t want to believe that, and so she won’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra has instructed me to skip feelings and thoughts in letters to our exile and tell about real live facts. She says to omit scenery also, because you can get all you want of that by looking out of the window or picking up a book of poetry. When I ask her what important historical events have taken place since the last bulletin, she replies that Fraulein has the cold of her life and all the girls are delighted over her little cough and shivers and handkerchief flourishes. They say that now she will feel some sympathy when they complain about the icy breezes that she has loved to have swirl through the class-room. Myra adds that another valuable item of news is the fact that she and Elinor went to call on Miss Ewers last night, and it took them exactly twenty-three minutes to screw up courage to knock. I can imagine how they did it, pushing each other toward the door, scurrying away, making bold little runs forward and frightened dashes back to the safety of the main corridor. It seems strange for anybody to be timid about calling on Miss Ewers. She is so sincere that the visitor can always feel the firm ground underfoot, and knows surely whether she is welcome or not. That, to my mind, is far more comfortable and truly courteous than the effusive sweetness that may hide any emotion from genuine pleasure to shrinking disgust at sight of the guest. However, Elinor, I believe, disagrees with me on this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My Dear Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pardon me for that mistake about the Victory and the Hermes. It seems that Ruth was the one who sent them. Miss Ewers told me the other evening. I have not spoken of it to Ruth yet, but I shall do so soon. I am afraid that she could ill spare the money. The doctor tells us that you will be in good shape again after the Easter vacation, and we look forward eagerly to having our Lydia with us once more,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n February 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dearest Old Trump of a Lydia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, dear! Why isn’t everybody solid and steady and serene like you? Elinor has been in a regular tantrum, though of course she tried not to show it. She is angry all the way through because Ruth gave her things that cost money when she couldn’t afford it, and Elinor says it puts her under obligations to a girl whom she doesn’t like, and Ruth had no right to do it, and it shows exceedingly poor taste and lack of judgment and positive dishonesty because a student who is going through college on borrowed money, such as a scholarship, is perfectly unjustified in making extravagant gifts. She doesn’t talk like that to Ruth naturally, because Elinor cannot bear to hurt anybody’s feelings. She was lovely to Ruth, and if I hadn’t heard her raging beforehand I might really have supposed she was glad that she had given them to her. Ruth looked so pleased that I felt the tears jump into my eyes and I ran. Elinor shouldn’t be so terribly insincere. When I told her so in private, she asked if I advised her to speak to Ruth with absolute candor, and oh, dear me! I don’t believe I do, do you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor says that if consistency is a hobgoblin, sincerity is a superstition; and if it had been intended that we should be entirely frank about everything our heads would have been created transparent with the thoughts floating around all labeled and everything. Her arguments sound sophistical and I know she is not acting right, but I am too much bothered to reason it out just now. I wish you would hurry to get well and help. Elinor was awfully anxious when we thought Ruth was lost in the storm. She seems to blame her for that, too, and everything. I never dreamed that she could be so resentful. I wish she wouldn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n As soon as Lydia was out of quarantine, she was spirited away to recuperate at home during the spring vacation. She returned after Easter to such an enthusiastic welcome that for once she was at a loss and could only beam speechlessly at the circle of affectionate faces. However, as Myra expressed it, nobody else could beam quite so satisfactorily as Lydia, words or no words. Such overwhelming attentions were embarrassing, she smiled, when the following afternoon Myra and Elinor hurried away to the woods to bring her the longest-stemmed violets from a certain shady nook. An April storm sent them wading homeward, while branches snapped and crashed around them, and level sheets of rain drove under their single umbrella.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When warm and dry in their woolly bathrobes, Myra spoke up musingly. “Elinor, she never said one syllable about the foolishness of risking a drenching and tramping two miles to find flowers exactly like those that grow right here in the swamp beyond the orchard. She is changed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I saw her open her mouth once and then shut it again,” said Elinor; “even if she is not changed herself, such indecision shows that she is able to change her mind. If Lydia vacillates \u2014”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Girls,” Ruth slipped in from the corridor, “Lydia wants to know if you won’t please take a few drops of camphor to counteract the chill.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If we won’t please<\/em> take it?” echoed Myra, “why, of course we will if she isn’t any stronger than that. It doesn’t sound like Lydia in the least. The last time she gave me sugar pills, another girl noticed the name on the bottle and warned me that belladonna dwarfs the brain. Lydia was so sarcastic! She said that because some people with naturally diminutive brains ate belladonna to make their eyes bright, that was no reason for slandering the drug. Hasn’t she corrected you yet for a solitary fault, Ruth?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “No,” replied Ruth as she tidily emptied the water out of Myra’s shoes and set them near Elinor’s beside the register, “she has not informed me even once that my hair was on the point of falling down. You know how rebellious it is without being compensatingly curly,” she added with a wistful glance at the two graceful heads bending close together over the bowl of violets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m pretty fond of Lydia myself,” murmured Myra, lifting her eyes and fixing them mournfully upon a discarded tin box under the tea-table. “Do you suppose that she brought any wafers or cake or salted almonds from home this time? I’m starving.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elinor fidgeted uneasily, disturbed by the impression that somebody ought to say something flattering in response to Ruth’s remark. Any self-depreciation always seemed to her shyly instinctive reserve as if it were an invitation for a consolatory compliment. She looked up with a smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You have an artistic head, shape and all, inside and out. I wouldn’t object to trading.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra’s surprised glance traveled from one to the other, and then, to Elinor’s unutterable relief, for Myra’s capability of candor was a thing to shudder at, she began to jeer: “Ho! trade the inside of your head for the inside of Ruth’s! That would be a bargain for one of you. As for the outside, I heard a junior say that you had the best head for doing up hair on in the whole college. Listen! The \u2014 best \u2014 head \u2014 for \u2014 doing \u2014 up \u2014 hair \u2014 on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the avenger descended upon her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The instant Ruth had gone, Myra turned upon her companion. “Elinor Offitt, what earthly excuse did you have for telling such a whopper?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well, it is artistic,” protested Elinor defensively. “Haven’t you seen pictures of peasants and all sorts of queer heads by the old masters? It doesn’t have to be beautiful.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You said you wouldn’t object to trading. And you know very well it would kill you to have such a high forehead and extraordinary features, not pretty at all except when sometimes her expression is almost beautiful. Why did you say it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Because,” she hesitated; then desperately, “oh, because it pleases her so!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My \u2014 my soul and conscience \u2014 specially conscience!” ejaculated Myra, and was silent for the pace of seven seconds before an illuminating conjecture smote words from her shocked tongue. “You’re afraid she’ll find out.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yes,” said Elinor soberly, “I am afraid she will find out. I can’t help disliking her, but it would hurt her to know it; and she has suffered so much already.” Her slender fingers were absently drawing from the bowl one violet after another and laying them with even stems along the edge of the table. “Though she never speaks about her childhood, anybody can see that it was unhappy. She was the sensitive kind \u2014 I know. When I was only three I sobbed all night long because mother slapped my hands for being naughty. It was such an awful feeling of being alone because she did not understand or love me any more. I am worried about mother this spring because she is not very well. I wonder where Ruth’s mother \u2014” Elinor paused and changed the subject abruptly. “It is none of our business anyhow, and she would tell us if she wished us to know. Myra, smell of these woodsy delicious things. They’re so different from summer flowers \u2014 daisies, for instance. By the way, have you heard from admiring friends that you may be a candidate to help carry the daisy chain on Class Day?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You may be another,” said Myra in prompt retort, “and the class will elect all six in a week or so. There are plenty of girls who wouldn’t mind marching at the head of the procession with that big fluffy rope of flowers looped over their shoulders. Our mothers will be glad. Maybe Lydia will be sophomore marshal because she can walk with an air. Do you notice how fine and white her skin is? I wish I could peel too. I wonder if scarlet fever is improving to the character as well as the complexion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning brought signs that the disease was indeed of ethical value also. While strolling nonchalantly down the hall, Myra met Lydia, who had been roused from her early dusting by the noise of thumping and pounding in the direction of the double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They’re locked in,” Myra explained carelessly. “When I was trying to make my bed Elinor kept bothering and Ruth shook my pillow out of its case, and things like that. At present they are meditating over their sins \u2014 that’s what causes the racket Here’s the key if you really want it. It doesn’t signify to me one way or the other.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment the catch was freed, the door flew open and a pillow hurtled smotheringly into Lydia’s astonished face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, pardon me!” gasped Elinor, ” we thought it was Myra” and she darted down the corridor in pursuit of that mocking young person at the staircase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Why, Lydia’s actually laughing without a single word concerning silly tricks!” exclaimed Myra after escaping demurely from the expostulations of a nervous housekeeper; “it frightens me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Last year I wondered at times if she were not too far above this little college world ever to catch the human spirit of it. Dear me! Listen! What is the pretext for this swelling tumult?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n A freshman had come scampering up the stairs and flown into another’s arms with a joyous shriek of, “No math to-day! No math!” A third appeared with, “What’s all this uproar about? You’re disturbing your neighbors.” “No algebra to-day! No algebra!” Jaws fell in surprise and hands shot up in delight. They ran on screaming, “No math! No math!” Girls popped out on every side and besieged the messenger with ecstatically incredulous questions. One student threw her book out of the window and immediately rushed down to rescue it after thus fittingly venting her emotion. Another freshman murmured that she was sorry and then precipitately retired before the avalanche of wrath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra and Elinor squeezed each other unobtrusively. “Ah, don’t we remember! It’s the lesson on the nth power of exponents. Poor things!” sighed Elinor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra clutched her elbow. “Look! Gaze! Behold! Lydia is smiling in sympathy. Smiling \u2014 in \u2014 sympathy \u2014 with \u2014 those \u2014 riotous \u2014 children! And her laundry-bag is hanging on her door-knob! See! Stare! Ogle! In short, contemplate it! Her laundry has been returned for once. That means she counted it wrong or neglected to mark some article. Mine has come back five or six times. She told me I was inexcusably heedless. She told me that last year. To-day is this year. She has made a mistake in her laundry. She is human. She isn’t perfect. Elinor Offitt, my dear young and giddy friend, I guess she’ll live.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, I hope so,” responded Elinor abstractedly. “Myra, do you realize that we are seventeen years old?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Going on eighteen,” she grieved; ” isn’t it terrible! I don’t feel old one bit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ruth tries to join in. But she doesn’t quite know how. Maybe she was always solitary and never learned to play with other children.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “She says that we behave as if we were about six and ten respectively.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Does she indeed?” Elinor drew herself up slightly. Always peculiarly susceptible to criticism, she was growing especially quick to resent the slightest hint of it from this particular quarter. She felt half unconsciously that her graciousness toward Ruth cost her enough effort to deserve unqualified admiration in return. “But then I dare say that she really is not to blame for taking college with such intense seriousness. The light touch, the delicate tasting of life, depends upon heredity and early circumstances \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Elinor,” broke in Myra unexpectedly, “at first I thought Lydia was a snob because she seemed so superior and condescending, but it was only her way. She is truly unselfish and democratic and not conceited in her heart. It is you who are snobbish. Yes, you are in spite of that charmingly diffident manner of yours. Only a genuine born snob could look down on anybody as you look down on Ruth. Is it her fault that she is different from the other girls? Such an unpardonable crime! Is it her fault that she has not been so carefully reared as you? Is it her fault \u2014 “<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Nothing is anybody’s fault,” interrupted Elinor. “There’s always some excuse for everything \u2014 heredity and environment, disposition and temperament and will. Often I sit down and wish hard for somebody whom I can blame up and down, inside and out. I do get so tired of making allowances. Lydia isn’t entirely responsible for her lack of humor. You mustn’t blame me because I was too much of a coward to let the doctor prick my finger for a drop of blood in physiology. My mother never could bear to be hurt either. You, yourself, even if you do carp so blindly at your humble friend, you are not to be condemned therefore. The atmosphere of this hyper-critical place contaminates your simple mind. And anyhow I do not look down on Ruth. I admire her ability immensely.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “How noble of you! Oh, come, Elinor, I’m tired of scolding you. And anyhow it isn’t as if Ruth didn’t have Miss Ewers to care for most. Let’s talk about what we shall wear if we are elected to carry the daisy chain.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As affairs turned out the two girls were indeed among the six sophomores chosen for this distinction. The class-meeting was held on the morning of the day appointed for their Tree Ceremonies. Elinor was on the committee which had selected the tree to be adopted that evening. She was too busy with arrangements for the exercises to notice that Myra seemed to be sharing with Ruth a mysterious secret which kept her preoccupied and alert every minute of the afternoon that she did not spend in trotting to and from the telephone office in the main building.<\/p>\n\n\n In the sweet-scented May dusk the sophomores fell into line at one of the rear doors. Half of them were men in shirtwaists, “galluses,” and big straw hats. Half were women wearing calico aprons and the same kind of hats tied in pokes and adorned with roses and ribbons. Lydia marched at the head, brandishing a long curtain-pole to the rhythm of their step, as they tramped two by two past the windows banked with faces to the tree out upon the lawn, where a lantern cast a dim circle of light from a limb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First the class president rose to make a speech. Then Ruth, who had been chosen orator of the occasion mounted a crackerbox-rostrum and delivered a nonsensical harangue, every sentence of which was snatched away in a round of cheering, clapping, groaning, and howling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra yelled with zeal and vehemence till she observed that the girl immediately in front of her glanced around smiling at each wild free burst of appreciation. Then she remained silent for a few minutes and presently discovered to her own amazement that her throat was commencing to rasp huskily. During the applause at the end she managed to writhe her way back through the crowd to Elinor, who was standing farther in the shadows. Just as she was explaining in dramatic pantomime her loss of the power of speech, she caught a whisper from a group passing on to join the procession again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Isn’t it silly! Some of the daisy-chain girls telegraphed home as soon as they were elected.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Vanitas vanitatum. Chosen for their good looks and because they can walk well. Toot, toot! Maybe they’ll have their names put in the papers exactly as the seniors do every year when the honor-list is announced. Why not? Brains and beauty \u2014”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra hastily dragged Elinor beyond hearing. “Mean old things! She wanted to be appointed herself and hinted around. Oh, well, Ruth says \u2014 Why, heigho! Hulloa, Elinor, listen! My voice has come back. It was indignation did it. Hurry! There the procession starts for the gym. We’ll get left if we hang around this tree any longer. And it is all right to telegraph the news home. Don’t you forget that. Run!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the gymnasium Lydia still wad mistress of ceremonies, and conducted the dancing. Even Ruth could take part in the figures which seemed to consist mainly of balancing your partner and skipping around in a circle. When they frisked through an intricate composition entitled on the spur of the moment “The girl I left behind me,” Myra saved up enough breath to exclaim that she was the girl; for she invariably started in by slipping down and sliding in an easy curve after her strong-wristed partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, they skipped in polka step around the room, taking off their big hats every time they passed the popular principal who had entered late for a glimpse of the frolic. At last with rousing cheers from hoarse throats, the provident ones stuffed their overall pockets full of surplus peanuts and stick-candy before departing. Wonderful to relate! Miss Howard did not utter one contemptuous word about administrative tyranny, although the clock marked only half-past nine when the ball was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra and Elinor were met by freshmen friends who had watched the gymnasium’s lighted windows from the quiet dormitory. They came trooping out to examine the costumes and were generously supplied with the embezzled provisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I should feel frightfully selfish if I ate it all,” Myra assured them, while Elinor taunted her, “Oho! so you’re not made of iron either, are you? Was it but one short year ago that you inquired so earnestly why I stopped before the stuff was gone? It isn’t always only darting pains, is it? Oh, no!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, wise one!” declaimed the rakish young person in blue denim, her hat flopping over one curl-hidden ear, ” also magnanimous one! I forgive thee. Restrain thy gratitude. Furthermore, let’s run back to the gym to get a pitcherful of that red lemonade for these poor famishing children.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n They were barely in time to empty the last of the precious beverage from the tallest can before the janitor extinguished the gas. Skipping back across the moon-lighted lawn, they scampered past Lydia in the lower corridor and tore by Ruth, who was slowly mounting the stairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the head of the flight they almost bumped into the messenger girl, who was hastening springily down the corridor, a yellow envelope in her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, Miss Offitt,” she called, halting at sight of them, “this is for you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the color dropped from Elinor’s face, leaving it like marble. She put one hand behind her, feeling blindly for the support of the banisters. She reached out the other for the envelope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Thank you,” she said and stood looking at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra, who had beckoned to the freshmen in mischievous joy, suddenly saw the expression in her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Elinor!” she cried sharply, “Elinor, don’t! It’s all right! It’s from your \u2014”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Mother \u2014 isn’t \u2014 well. She \u2014 isn’t strong.” Elinor’s chest was beginning to heave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Silly! Tear it open! Read it quick! It’s nothing but a reply to our telegram. Ruth and I sent her word about the daisy-chain. We knew she would be glad. It’s congratulations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh!” said Elinor, and read the telegram. She could feel the faces turned toward her. She caught her lip between her teeth; then with a quick effort she glanced up brightly. “Yes, it is from mother. She is delighted. Aren’t mothers perfectly lovely about such things! Isn’t it funny of them, and dear, to care!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ten minutes later Myra clutched her on the threshold of her bedroom. “You are angry with us. I saw it. You were frightened. It was our fault. We meant to please you.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “No,” said Elinor wearily, “you are mistaken. I am not angry with you or with Ruth. But I am ashamed. I am so ashamed!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ashamed?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yes. Didn’t you hear what those girls were saying out under the tree? We were chosen because we look well enough to walk at the head of the Class Day procession. Mother telephoned to the paper and it published the news on the front page. Everybody will think that I was so puffed up at the glorious award that I sent the telegram.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myra drew back and stared at her soberly. “Well,” she said at last, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s proper pride and all that, or else diffidence and such nice scruples, but I think myself it’s mean to be ashamed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter VII Myra’s Little Ram Elinor and Ruth had met in New York and taken the train up the river. They sat primly clasping box and bundle on the lengthwise seat near the door of the coach. “Strange that Myra did not make connections,” said Elinor, trying to keep her foot from tapping in eager…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/victoriana\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chapter IX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Valentines<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
II<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
III<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
IV<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
V<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
VI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
VII<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
VIII<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
IX<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
X<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Chapter XI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Mellowing of Lydia<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Daisy_Chain.png\")