Father looked quite sad and vexed-- "_Sarah, my child,_" he said, "_what next?_"
Any one to whom this seems a futile and non-humorous piece of verse needs only to hear Lucilla"s delivery of it, and catch the almost imperceptible shade of displeasure and surprise that touched her slender eyebrows at the last line, to realize that all similar exhibitions must seem forever crude beside it.
They begged Marjory to sing and got her a guitar. As it had slowly dawned on her that most of the girls in the room played something, and that at least one third of them belonged to one or another of the musical clubs besides the many other organizations they carried, and thought nothing whatever of it--or concealed it if they did--her estimate of a hitherto much prized accomplishment had steadily decreased. She sang a little serenade for them, however, more tremulously than she had been wont to sing for a crowd of young people, and took an unreasoning and disproportionate amount of pleasure in their hearty applause. She sang again, and when Miss Cornelia Burt, who turned out to be the dark girl she had watched at Kingsley"s and recognized, thanked her particularly and told her with a smile that she should "come up" and sing that with the Glee Club, Marjory remembered that she was a prominent senior, and found her heart beating a little faster when her friend Miss Twitch.e.l.l, also prominent, repeated the suggestion. It could not be, she asked herself a moment afterwards, that _she_ was proud to have them notice her?
There were more stunts, for the Amiable Parent could not have enough of what Nan called Dodo"s Anglo-Saxon att.i.tudes. Only the bell brought a stop to the proceedings, which had grown more and more hilarious, ending with a toast in ginger ale, to the delighted hero of the feast:
Oh, _here"s_ to Nannie"s _Dad_, drink him _down_!
Oh, _here"s_ to Nannie"s _Dad_, drink him _down_!
Oh, _here"s_ to Nannie"s _Dad_, He"s the _best_ she could have _had_, Drink him _down_, drink him _down_, drink him _down_, down, _down_!
Nan and he and Marjory went out into the cool, dark campus, and they marched to "Balm of Gilead" all the way to Marjory"s boarding-house.
She watched them from her window, tramping arm-in-arm down to the hotel, where Nan was to stay the night with him. Nan had explained that while of course it would be a trial to her to be obliged to select her own breakfast, still her relative had desired it, and she had as usual bidden him "her own convenience count as nil."
Marjory undressed slowly, humming the tune they had marched to and surveying the plain boarding-house bed-room. It seemed lonely after the Lawrence, and there was no dashing about in the halls, nor glimpses of fudge-parties and rarebits and laughing, busy people through half-shut doors.
"Still, that Miss Burt was off the campus," she murmured as she braided her hair; and as she set the alarm-clock somebody had loaned her--for she took an early train--and climbed into bed, she explained to an imaginary aunt that people on the temporary list with no campus application whatever often "got on" miraculously--Lucilla had done that, and Caroline!
THE EIGHTH STORY
_THE EVOLUTION of EVANGELINE_
VIII
THE EVOLUTION OF EVANGELINE
To those who knew her afterward it may seem an impossible condition of affairs, but it is nevertheless quite true that until the night of the soph.o.m.ore reception she was utterly unheard of. Indeed, when her name was read to the chairman of the committee that looks up stray freshmen, yet uninvited, and compels them to come in, the chairman refused to believe that she existed.
"I don"t believe there"s any such person," she growled, "and if there is, there"s n.o.body to take her. I can"t _make_ soph.o.m.ores! Evangeline Potts, forsooth! What a perfectly idiotic name! Who"s to take her?
Where does she live? Where"s the catalogue?"
"She lives on West Street," somebody volunteered, "and Bertha Kitts"
freshman is sick, or her uncle is sick, or something, and Bertha says that lets _her_ out--she never wanted to go, anyhow--and now she"s not going. Couldn"t she take her?"
"Not going!" the chairman complained bitterly. "If that"s not like B.
Kitts! Go get her, somebody, and send her after Evangeline, and tell her to hurry, too! Don"t stop to argue with her, there isn"t time.
She"ll prove that there isn"t any reception, if you let her. Just get her started and then come right back. I promised to send three Bagdads over, and I can"t get but two."
The messenger paused at Miss Kitts" door, sniffed scornfully at the sign which read: "Asleep! Please do not disturb under any circ.u.mstances whatever!" and entered the room abruptly. Miss Kitts was curled comfortably on the window-seat, with _Plain Tales from the Hills_ in one hand, and _The Works of Christopher Marlowe_ in the other. From these volumes she read alternately, and the pile of cores and seeds on the sill indicated a due regard for other than mental nutriment. At intervals she lifted her eyes from her book to watch the file of girls loaded down with the pillows, screens, and palms whose transportation forms so considerable a portion of the higher education of women. Just as the door opened Biscuits was chuckling gently at the collision of a rubber-plant with a j.a.panese screen and the consequent collapse of their respective bearers, who, even in their downfall, poured forth the apologies and regrets that take the place of their brothers" less considerate remarks upon similar occasions.
But her mirth was rudely checked by the messenger, who closed the Marlowe and put the Kipling under a pillow.
"Hurry up," she remarked briefly, "and find Evangeline Potts and tell her that you can"t sleep at night till you take her to the soph.o.m.ore reception. n.o.body urged her to attend and yours is sick."
"She"s not, either," returned B. Kitts, calmly. "She"s quite well, and--"
"Oh, don"t possum, Biscuits, but get along. Sue"s nearly wild. It"s her uncle, then; we know you weren"t going, so we know you can take her. Can I take this couch cover along? She"s on West Street, and I can"t stop to discuss it, but we depend on you. Now _do_ hurry up; it"s three already."
Biscuits freed her mind to the heap of pillows in the middle of the floor, for there was no one else to hear her. Then, still grumbling, she put on her golf cape and walked over to West Street. In a pessimistic frame of mind she selected the most unattractive house, and on inquiring if Miss Evangeline Potts lived there and ascertaining that she did, she astonished the slatternly maid by a heartfelt e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of "Sherlock Holmes!"--adding, with resignation, "Is she in?" She was in, and her guest climbed two flights of stairs and knocked at her door.
Although Evangeline Potts was not fully dressed and her room in consequent disorder, she did not appear at all embarra.s.sed, but finished b.u.t.toning her shirt-waist and attached her collar with calm deliberation. She was a large, tall girl, with ma.s.ses of auburn hair strained back unbecomingly from a very freckled face and heaped in tight coils on the top of her head. Her eyes were a rich red-brown; they struck you as lovely at first, till after a while you discovered that they were like gla.s.s or running water, always the same and absolutely expressionless. She had large hands and feet and a wide, slow smile, and she was dressed in unmitigatedly bad taste, with sleeves two years behind the style and a skirt that could have had nothing to do with it at any date.
"I came to--to see if you had been--if you were going to the soph.o.m.ore reception," said Biscuits. "I"m Miss Kitts, Ninety-red, and--and I"ve n.o.body to go with me and--and I shall be glad--"
Biscuits was frankly embarra.s.sed. She was a clever girl, and clever girls of her age are invariably conscious and more or less sensitive.
She knew how she would have felt if she had been a freshman and a "left over": she would have resented such an eleventh-hour invitation and shown it, possibly. But if Evangeline Potts bore any resentment it was not apparent.
"No," she said quietly, "I haven"t been asked and I"d just as lieve go with you."
"Oh, that"s very nice!" returned Biscuits, cheerfully, "then that"s settled. And what color is your gown? I should like to send you some flowers."
"I"m not sure what I _will_ wear," said Evangeline; "what will you?"
"My dress is pink," and Biscuits carefully kept her surprise out of the answer. Miss Potts did not look like the kind of girl to possess more than one evening gown.
"How is it made?" Evangeline pursued. She was not curious, and yet she was not talking vaguely to cover any embarra.s.sment: she merely desired information.
"Oh, it"s quite plain," and Biscuits rose to go; she was a little bored and there was nothing in Miss Potts" room to give any clew to her apparently pointless character. Biscuits prided herself on her ability to get at people through their belongings, and graded her friends as possessors of Baby Stuart, the Barye Lion, a Botticelli Madonna, or the imp of Lincoln Cathedral.
But Evangeline did not rise. "I mean, is it low neck and short sleeves?" she insisted; and as Biscuits nodded, she added, "Does everybody wear them?"
"Why, yes," said Biscuits, hastily; and then, "That is, a great many do. It"s not at all necessary, though: you"ll see plenty of girls without. Any light organdie will do perfectly."
"I don"t think I"ll go, then," remarked Evangeline, calmly; "my dress wouldn"t do."
She was not in the least apologetic or pathetic or vexed: she merely stated a fact, and it occurred to Biscuits, who was somewhat susceptible to personality, that she meant precisely what she said.
Although absence from the reception was just what Biscuits had previously planned, she did not care to please herself at this price, and though Evangeline Potts was the last person she would have selected for her companion, and visions of the pretty little freshman she had had in mind on filling out her programme flashed before her with irritating clearness, she smiled encouragement and remonstrated cheerfully.
"Oh, nonsense! Why, anything will do, I tell you! You don"t need evening dress! One of my friends last year had all her clothes ruined by a pipe or something that burst in the closet and she went in white duck. And she was one of the best-dressed girls in the cla.s.s, really--"
"Yes, but I"m not," interrupted Evangeline, "and that"s different. I"m just as much obliged to you for asking me, Miss Kitts, but I haven"t any evening dress and I shouldn"t go without one."
It was characteristic of Biscuits that she attempted no further argument. She knew that Evangeline Potts would not go unless she had an evening dress, and it seemed, somehow, imperative that she should go. She realized, too, that borrowing was out of the question.
"Why don"t you cut one of your dresses out?" she suggested after a moment. "Suzanne Endicott did that once when she was unexpectedly asked to a dance and hadn"t any low waist with her."
"I can"t sew," Evangeline replied, "and I shouldn"t know how to cut it."
In proportion as she seemed convinced of the impossibility of going, Biscuits waxed more eager to change her determination.
"See here," she said suddenly, "if I get Suzanne over here, will you let _her_ cut one of your dresses out? I think she would; she"s awfully clever about that sort of thing and she"s very obliging, sometimes."