Molly Brown's Junior Days. Speed Nell
just a gradual slope to a little brook at the bottom of the hill. The water seems to cool the air in summer. It never goes dry and there is a little basin in one place we used to call ‘the birds’ bath tub.’ Such birds you never imagined! They are attracted by the apples, I suppose. But there are hundreds of them. They sing from morning to night.”
“You paint a very attractive picture, Miss Brown. It must have been hard to give up this charming property.”
“But you see we haven’t given it up exactly. It’s there right against us. We can still look at it and even walk under the trees. No one minds. And see what I have for it! Nothing could ever take the place of college – not even an apple orchard.”
A sharp voice broke in on this pleasant conversation.
“Cousin Edwin, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Judith Blount appeared hastening down the walk.
The professor watched the advancing figure calmly.
“Well, now you have found me, what do you want?” he asked.
Molly detected a slight note of annoyance in his voice. She had a notion that Judith was one of the trials of his life.
“I have rewritten the short story you criticized for me last week, and I want you to look it over again.”
He took the roll of paper without a word and thrust it into his coat pocket.
Molly rose.
“I must be going,” she said. “It must be nearly six o’clock.”
Judith promptly sat down on the bench facing her cousin, who still leaned against the stone pillar.
“Don’t you think it’s a little chilly to be lingering here, Judith?” he remarked politely, as he joined Molly.
“It wasn’t too chilly for you a moment ago,” answered Judith hotly.
But she rose and walked on the other side of the professor.
“How do you like your rooms?” he asked presently.
“I hate them,” she replied, with such fierce resentment that Molly was sure that Judith was glad to have something on which to vent her angry mood. “Thank heavens, this is my last year. I detest Wellington. I have never been happy here. It’s brought shame and misfortune on me. It’s a horrid old place.”
“Oh, Judith,” protested Molly, unable to endure this libel on her beloved college.
“My dear child, you can’t blame Wellington for your misfortunes,” interposed the professor, who himself cherished a deep affection for the two gray towers.
“It is hard to live in the village instead of at college,” said Molly, feeling suddenly very sorry for the unhappy Judith.
But Judith was in no state to be sympathized with. All day she had been nursing a grievance. One of her friends in prosperity at the Beta Phi House had turned a cold shoulder on her that morning; and Judith was so enraged by the slight that her feelings were like an open sore.
She turned on Molly angrily.
“You ought to know,” she said. “You had to do it long enough.”
“Judith, Judith,” remonstrated the professor. “Can’t you understand that you gain nothing, and always lose something, by giving way like this? Denouncing and hating make the object you are working for recede. You’ll never get it that way.”
“How do you know what I’m working for?” she demanded, more quietly.
“We are all of us working for the same thing,” he answered. “Happiness. None of us proposes to get it in the same way, but all of us propose to reach the same goal. What would give me happiness no doubt would never satisfy you.”
“You don’t know that, either. What would give you happiness?” Judith asked, with some curiosity.
The professor paused a moment, then he said calmly:
“A little home of my own in a shady quiet place with plenty of old trees, where I could work in peace. I have always fancied an old orchard. There might be a brook at one end – ”
Molly smiled.
“He’s thinking of my orchard,” she thought.
“There must be hundreds of birds in my orchard,” went on the professor, “and the grass must always be thick and green, except perhaps when the drought comes and it can’t help itself – ”
The six o’clock bell boomed out.
“Have an apple,” he said, taking two red apples from his pocket and giving one to each of the girls.
Then he opened the small oak door and stood politely aside while they passed out.
CHAPTER IV.
A LITERARY EVENING
The entertainment designed to bring Miss Minerva Higgins to a true understanding of her position as a freshman took place one Friday evening in the rooms of Margaret and Jessie. It was called on the invitation “A Literary Evening,” and was to be in the nature of a spread and fudge affair. There had been two rehearsals beforehand, and the girls were now prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
Molly was loath to take part in the literary evening.
“I can’t bear to see anybody humiliated even when she ought to be,” she said, but she consented to come and to give a recitation.
Several study tables had been united for the supper, the cracks concealed by Japanese towelling contributed by Otoyo. There was no Mrs. Murphy in the Quadrangle from whom to borrow tablecloths. All the chairs from the other rooms were brought in to seat the company, who appeared grave and subdued. Most of the girls were dressed to resemble famous poets and authors. Judy was Byron; Margaret Wakefield, George Eliot; Nance, Charlotte Bronté; Edith Williams, Edgar Allan Poe; and Molly was Shelley. Shakespeare, Voltaire and Charles Dickens were in the company, and “The Duchess,” impersonated by Jessie Lynch.
The unfortunate Minerva was a little disconcerted at first when she found herself the only girl at the feast in her own character.
“Why didn’t you tell me, so that I could have come in costume, too?” she asked Margaret.
“But you had your medals,” was Margaret’s enigmatic answer.
Minerva looked puzzled. Then her gaze fell to the shining breastplate of silver and gold trophies. She had worn them all this evening. The temptation had been too great. The medals gleamed like so many solemn eyes. She wondered if the others could read what was inscribed on them, or if it would be necessary to call attention to the most choice ones: “THE HIGHEST GENERAL AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS”; “REGULAR ATTENDANCE”; “MATHEMATICS”; “THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAY”; “ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION.”
Edith opened the evening by delivering a speech in Latin which was really one of Virgil’s eclogues mixed up with whatever she could recall of Livy and Horace, and filled out occasionally with Latin prose composition. It was so excruciatingly funny that Judy sputtered in her tea and was well kicked on her shins under the table.
Minerva, however, appeared to be profoundly impressed, and the company murmured subdued approvals when, at last, the speaker took breath and sat down, gazing solemnly around her with dark, melancholy eyes very much blacked around the lids.
Margaret then delivered a learned discourse on “Poise of Body and Poise of Mind,” which was skillfully expressed in such deep and intricate language that nobody could understand what she was talking about.
“Very, very interesting, indeed,” observed Edith.
“Remarkable; wonderful; so clearly put,” came from the others.
Minerva rubbed her eyes and frowned.
Nance recited “The Raven,” translated into very bad French. This was almost more than their gravity could endure, and when she ended each verse with