on Ellen's mind by this conversation was really disturbing. Up to this point she had no doubts about the value of college life, but now she wondered if there were not more to be said against it than for it. Was it not responsible for the selfishness and affectation of Bertha Christie? She looked at the clock on a near-by steeple and saw that she was already late for her engagement with Edith. In her annoyance at her wasted effort she was not sorry to think that at her next stopping-place she might dismiss business from her thoughts and enjoy the consolation and diversion she was sure to find.
It was significant of her attitude that, although she had meant all along to drop in on Edith, on her way home, and knew besides that she was certain to find one or two more of her college friends, she had no thought of them in connection with her speech. She had unconsciously drifted into imagining, as did all outsiders, that Augusta Coles and Bertha Christie were the types and her own friends the anomalies among college women. Her friendships and her activities were no longer brought into contact. So long as Ellen was looking for companionship, she still showed herself capable of appreciating wisdom as well as cleverness, good sense as well as originality; but just so soon as she desired enlightenment, she forgot that her own friends might hold opinions worthy of consideration, and singled out the eccentric or visionary among her acquaintances. In doing so she was not consciously seeking singularity, she was rather showing her instinctive reverence for experience. Having become something of a doctrinaire, she went for her instruction to those more advanced than herself.
Had Edith Warrington been true to what seemed to Ellen the best in her, she might have been set among the sages, but Edith had voluntarily forfeited all right to be considered really earnest, for after she had determined to devote her life to study, she had been turned aside by a mere trifle. In the second year of her post-graduate study, she had had a call from an old lady whom she had always found most entertaining and had been bored with the random gossip so delightful hitherto.
"It's the last straw," she said, in talking to one of her friends of the occurrence, "when Mrs. Astruther bores me there's something the matter. I've noticed an indifference to everything but my work growing upon me of late, but have ignored it. This shock has brought me to my senses and shows me that I prefer people to things." She was urged not to generalize too hastily, by the friends who were eager to see her fulfil her promise as a scholar. She had now been married about five years, and, because the memory of her scholarship was still fresh, she was spoken of as one lost past recovery; for, though she never lost her student ways, she was no longer called a student.
When Ellen came within sight of the house, she heard some one tap on the pane and on looking up saw Edith signalling to her not to ring.
"Here you are at last, Nell," was her greeting. "I was looking for you. What kept you so late? Some old committee?"
"Oh, I'm dead tired. I have had a miserable afternoon."
"You poor thing! Come along and be amused. Louise and Evelyn are here. They're having a heated discussion about matrimony. It's a bit personal and very funny."
"Louise and Evelyn? It must be absurd."
"Yes, they think they're talking on broad general principles, but they're just talking about Dick Fisher and Mr. Brandon."
"You know him?" asked Ellen. "I've never met him and since Evelyn's engagement was announced I've been curious about him."
"Oh, he is a very nice fellow—really charming."
"But not good enough for Evelyn, I'm sure."
"They never are, are they, Nell?" and Edith turned with an amused smile.
"No, not even Mr. Warrington," laughed Ellen. "I don't agree about him yet."
When they reached the little study, Ellen nodded to the two girls sitting near the window and flung herself into an easy chair by the tea table, glad to rest her mind with a counter distraction. She knew the disputants well and felt as much at home with them as with Edith.
Louise Fisher had been her room-mate at college, distinguished for her common sense and independent ways and a warm advocate of the business career for women, all women married or single. Many a satirical picture had Ellen drawn in those days, of Louise's ideal of domestic happiness. But Louise had become engaged before she graduated, to a man immeasurably her superior in mental ability, and she had settled down to echoing his opinions. Ellen often wondered if no ghosts sat opposite to Louise at the breakfast table; but she could not disturb her by any amount of banter.
Evelyn Ames, the other disputant, had been an enigma at college. She had attracted many on first acquaintance; but had baffled them at the point where acquaintance ripens into intimacy. No one dared call herself Evelyn's friend, except such as were content with the formal graciousness of her ways. And yet she had been a force in college life, had shown both courage and enthusiasm at critical moments.
She had recently announced her engagement, and was naïve in her disclosures of her own feelings in the present discussion. She was thoroughly at her ease with her companions; for since she had left college, she had surprised many, whom she had before held at a distance, into very real friendships, taking them unawares by her affection for Bryn Mawr and its associations. These three had discovered that her inaptitude for fellowship at college was the result of a former starvation of her affections. The daughter of a widow, a woman of small means, of cold nature and social ambition, Evelyn had not been allowed to find out the softer side of her nature, till she had been sent to Bryn Mawr by a rich and domineering relative.
When Edith and Ellen joined them, Louise was saying, "The only way is to try to divert his mind from his work."
"But that doesn't seem to me at all the nicest way," said Evelyn. "I think you ought to be able to help a man in his work."
"At that rate," said Edith, as she poured out a cup of tea, "Ellen should marry a public man and help him write his——"
"Yes," sniffed Louise contemptuously, "like Mrs. Jones, Dick says——"
"Oh, Nell," and Evelyn turned quickly to Ellen, "somebody told me about the speech you're to make. What a splendid chance you've got."
"I don't know about that," answered Ellen, "it's the hardest thing I ever had to do. I can't for the life of me——"
"But just think," interrupted Evelyn, "it means Bryn Mawr. That's what we think of when we think of college. Oh! I wish I could just for once say what I think of the dear place. But I never can talk about it in a sensible way."
"Just as well," put in Edith, "it's one of the things it doesn't pay to be sensible about."
"Edith, what do you mean?" interjected Louise, "when you speak in public you can't talk twaddle. Dick says, common sense is the only thing that holds people."
"He's faithful to his opinions anyway," answered Edith with a friendly nod, "you've just as much as ever."
"But, Nell," asked Evelyn, leaning forward in her interest, "what are you going to say?"
"That's what I don't know. I've gone from pillar to post trying to find out and——"
"No wonder you're weary," said Edith, "wasting your time that way. Why on earth didn't you ask us? Please tell us where you did go."
"Oh, to several places," answered Ellen evasively. "I never thought of bothering you people, you have so many outside things to attend to."
"Yes
