e situation presented by an attempt to
imitate the conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet--she
had gone over the whole question so often--what a desert of awkwardness
and learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt!
How often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was
precisely because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms
and relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free
from the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of
the others! And yet its very success came from begging the question,
after all.

She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate
crept through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous
accompaniment on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps
and jarring falls suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for
their first appearance in public. The German assistant set her teeth.

"Before I die," she announced to her image in the glass, "I propose to
inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she _does_ pile her furniture in
a heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical
explanation of that horrible disturbance."

The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with
lines under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for
the prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively
adjusted side-combs, her soft, dark waves.

"They have time for it, evidently," she mused, "and after all it is
certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!"

And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the
chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the
result.

"Now," she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, "I'll
take a walk, I think--a real walk." And till dinner-time she tramped
some of the old roads of her college days--more girlish than those days
had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before.

The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and
she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing
in the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of
conversation:

"Doesn't she look well with her hair low? Quite stunning, I think."

"Yes, indeed. If only she wouldn't dress so old! It makes her look
older than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully
becoming."

"Yes, I hate her