Smith College Stories Part 6

_MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR_

III

MISS BIDDLE OF BRYN MAWR

"I wouldn't have minded so much," explained Katherine, dolefully, and not without the suspicion of a sob, "if it wasn't that I'd asked Miss Hartwell and Miss Ackley! I shall die of embarra.s.sment--I shall! Oh!

why couldn't Henrietta Biddle have waited a week before she went to Europe?"

Her room-mate, Miss Grace Farwell, sank despairingly on the pile of red floor-cus.h.i.+ons under the window. "Oh, Kitten! you didn't ask them?

Not really?" she gasped, staring incredulously at the tangled head that peered over the screen behind which Katherine was splas.h.i.+ly conducting her toilet operations.

"But I did! I think they're simply grand, especially Miss Hartwell, and I'll never have any chance of meeting her, I suppose, and I thought this was a beautiful one. So I met her yesterday on the campus and I walked up to her--I was horribly scared, but I don't think I showed it--and, said I, 'Oh, Miss Hartwell, you don't know me, of course, but I'm Miss Sewall, '9-, and I know Henrietta Biddle of Bryn Mawr, and she's coming to see me for two or three days, and I'm going to make a little tea for her--very informal--and I've heard her speak of you and Miss Ackley as about the only girls she knew here, and I'd love to have you meet her again!'"

Miss Farwell laughed hysterically. "And did she accept?" she inquired.

Katherine wiped her face for the third time excitedly. "Oh, yes! She was as sweet as peaches and cream! 'I shall be charmed to meet Miss Biddle again, and in your room, Miss Sewall,' she said, 'and shall I bring Miss Ackley?' Oh, Grace, she's lovely! She is the most--"

"Yes, I've no doubt," interrupted Miss Farwell, cynically; "all the handsome seniors are. But what are you going to say to her to-day?"

Katherine buried her yellow head in the towel. "I don't know! Oh, Grace! I don't know," she mourned. "And they say the freshmen are getting so uppish, anyway, and if we carry it off well, and just make a joke of it, they'll think we're awfully f-f-fres.h.!.+" Here words failed her, and she leaned heavily on the screen, which, as it was old and probably resented having been sold third-hand at a second-hand price, collapsed weakly, dragging with it the Bodenhausen Madonna, a silver rack of photographs, and a Gibson Girl drawn in very black ink on a very white ground.

"And if we are apologetic and meek," continued Miss Farwell, easily, apparently undisturbed by the confusion consequent to the downfall of a piece of furniture known to be somewhat erratic, "they'll laugh at us or be bored. We shall be known as the freshmen who invited seniors and Faculty and town-people to meet--n.o.body at all! A pretty reputation!"

"But, Grace, we couldn't help it! Such things will happen!" Katherine was pinning the Gibson Girl to the wall, in bold defiance of the matron's known views on that subject.

"Yes, of course. But they mustn't happen to freshmen!" her room-mate returned sententiously. "How many Faculty did you ask?"

"I asked Miss Parker, because she fitted Henrietta for college, at Archer Hall, and I asked Miss Williams, because she knows Henrietta's mother--Oh! Miss Williams will freeze me to death when she comes here and sees just us!--and I asked Miss Dodge, because she knows a lot of Bryn Mawr people. Then Mrs. Patton on Elm Street was a school friend of Mrs. Biddle's, and--oh! Grace, I _can't_ manage them alone! Let's tell them not to come!"

"And what shall we do with the sandwiches? And the little cakes? And the lemons that I sliced? And the tea-cups and spoons I borrowed? And that pint of extra thick cream?" Miss Farwell checked off these interesting items on her fingers, and kicked the floor-cus.h.i.+ons to point the question.

"Oh! I don't know! Isn't there any chance--"

"No, goosey, there isn't. See here!" Grace pulled down a letter with a special delivery stamp from the desk above her head, and read with emphasis:

Dear Kitten,--Just a line to say that Aunt Mary has sent for me at three days' notice to go to Paris with her for a year.

It's now or never, you know, and I've left the college, and will come back to graduate with '9-. So sorry I can't see you before I go. Had looked forward to a very interesting time, renewing my own freshman days, and all that. Please send my blue cloth suit right on to Philadelphia C. O. D. when it comes to you. I hope you hadn't gotten anything up for me.

With much love, HENRIETTA BIDDLE.

Bryn Mawr, March 5.

"I don't think there's much chance, my dear."

"No," said Katherine, sadly, and with a final pat administered to the screen, which still wobbled unsteadily. "No, I suppose there isn't.

And it's eleven o'clock. They'll be here at four! Oh! and I asked that pretty junior, Miss Pratt, you know. Henrietta knew her sister. She was in '8-."

"Ah," returned Miss Farwell, with a suspicious sweetness, "why didn't you ask a few more, Katherine, dear? What with the list we made out together and these last extra ones--"

"But I thought there wasn't any use having the largest double room in the house, if we couldn't have a decent-sized party in it! And think of all those darling, thin little sandwiches!--Oh well, we might just as well be sensible and carry the thing through, Gracie! But I am just as afraid as I can be: I tell you that. And Miss Williams will freeze me stiff." The yellow hair was snugly braided and wound around by now, and a neat though worried maiden sat on the couch and punched the Harvard pillow reflectively.

"Never mind her, Kitten, but just go ahead. You know Caroline Wilde said it was all right to ask her if she was Miss Biddle's mother's friend, and there wasn't time to take her all around, and you know how nice Miss Parker was about it. We can't help it, as you say, and we'll go and get the flowers as we meant to. Have you anything this hour?"

With her room-mate to back her, to quote the young lady herself, Miss Sewall felt equal to almost any social function. Terrifying as her position appeared--and strangely enough, the seniors appalled her far more than the Faculty--there was yet a certain excitement in the situation. What should she say to them? Would they be kind about it, or would they all turn around and go home? Would they think--

"Oh, nonsense!" interrupted Grace the practical, as these doubts were thrust upon her. "If they're ladies, as I suppose they are, of course they'll stay and make it just as pleasant for us as they can. They'll see how it is. Think what we'd do, ourselves, you know!"

They went down the single long street, with the shops on either side, a red-capped, golf-caped pair of friends, like nine hundred other girls, yet different from them all. And they chattered of Livy and little cakes and Trigonometry and pleated s.h.i.+rt-waists and basket-ball and Fortnightly Themes like all the others, but in their little way they were very social heroines, setting their teeth to carry by storm a position that many an older woman would have found doubtful.

They stopped at a little bakery, well down the street, to order some rolls for the girl across the hall from them, who had planned to breakfast in luxury and alone on chocolate and grape-fruit the next morning. "Miss Carter, 24 Washburn," said Grace, carelessly, when Katherine whispered, "Look at her! Isn't that funny? Why, Grace, just see her!"

"See who--whom, I mean? (only I hate to say 'whom.') Who is it, Kitten?"

Katherine was staring at the clerk, a tall, handsome girl, with ma.s.ses of heavy black hair and an erect figure. As she went down to the back of the shop again, Katherine's eyes followed her closely.

"It's that girl that used to be in the Candy Kitchen--don't you remember? I told you then that she looked so much like my friend Miss Biddle. And then the Candy Kitchen failed and I suppose she came here.

And she's just Henrietta's height, too. You know Henrietta stands very straight and frowns a little, and so did this girl when you gave Alice's number and she said, 'Thirty-four or twenty-four?' Isn't it funny that we should see her now?--Oh, dear! If only she _were_ Henrietta!"

Grace stared at the case of domestic bread and breathed quickly. "Does she really look like her, Kitten?" she said.

"Oh yes, indeed. It's quite striking. Henrietta's quite a type, you know--nothing unusual, only very dark and tall and all that. Of course there are differences, though."

"What differences?" said Grace, still looking intently at the domestic bread.

"Oh, Henrietta's eyes are brown, and this girl's are black. And Henrietta hasn't any dimple, and her hands are prettier. And Henrietta's waist isn't so small, and she hasn't nearly so much hair, I should say. But then, I haven't seen her for a year, and probably there's a greater difference than I think."

"How long is it since those seniors and the Faculty saw Henrietta?"

said Grace, staring now at a row of layer chocolate-cakes.

Her room-mate started. "Why--why, Grace, what do you mean? It's two years, Henrietta wrote, I think. And Miss Parker and Miss Williams haven't seen her for much longer than that. But--but--you don't mean anything, Grace?"

Grace faced her suddenly. "Yes," she said, "I do. You may think that because I just go right along with this thing, I don't care at all.

But I do. I'm awfully scared. I hate to think of that Miss Ackley lifting her eyebrows--the way she will! And Miss Hartwell said once when somebody asked if she knew Judge Farwell's daughter, 'Oh, dear me--I suppose so! And everybody else in her cla.s.s--theoretically! But practically I rarely observe them!' Ugh! She'll observe me to-day, I hope!"

"Yes, dear, I suppose she will. And me too. But--"

"Oh, yes! But if n.o.body knows how Miss Biddle looks, and she was going to stay at the hotel, anyway, and it would only be for two hours, and everything would be so simple--"

Katherine's cheeks grew very red and her breath came fast. "But would we dare? Would she be willing? Would it be--"

"Oh, my dear, it's only a courtesy! And everybody will think it's all right, and the thing will go beautifully, and Miss Biddle, if she has any sense of humor--"

"Yes, indeed! Henrietta would only be amused--oh, so amused! And it would be such a heavenly relief after all the worry. We could send her off on the next train--Henrietta, you know--and dress makes such a difference in a girl!"

"And I think she would if we asked her just as a favor--it wouldn't be a question of money! Oh, Katherine! I could cry for joy if she would!"