Part 1

_Copyright, 1902_, By Little, Brown, and Company. _All rights reserved._

Published October, 1902

UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

TO MRS. LOUIS AGASSIZ, THE HONORED FIRST PRESIDENT OF RADCLIFFE COLLEGE, WHO HAS HAD NO SUCCESSOR IN OFFICE, AND WHO CAN HAVE NO SUCCESSOR IN THE AFFECTION OF RADCLIFFE GRADUATES

Brenda’s Cousin at Radcliffe _A Story for Girls_

BY HELEN LEAH REED Author of “Brenda, Her School and Her Club” “Brenda’s Summer at Rockley,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1903

That the young girls for whom it is written may see in “Brenda’s Cousin” a clear picture of Radcliffe College undergraduate life is the sincere wish of the author, who hopes also that her fellow-graduates may overlook the one or two slight anachronisms necessary to a contemporary picture.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page I. New Acquaintances 1 II. The Freshman Reception 12 III. The First “Idler” 22 IV. Pamela’s Perseverance 29 V. College Callers 38 VI. Setting to Work 47 VII. All Kinds of Girls 56 VIII. The Mid-years 66 IX. Two Catastrophes 76 X. Discussions and Discussions 90 XI. Efforts to Help 100 XII. Harvard Class Day 115 XIII. Various Ambitions 130 XIV. In Disguise 143 XV. Angelina 157 XVI. Who Wrote It? 168 XVII. A Private Detective 180 XVIII. Work and Play 189 XIX. The Operetta 201 XX. Juniors 211 XXI. A Fortunate Accident 222 XXII. Annabel and Clarissa 233 XXIII. Clouds Cleared Away 243 XXIV. Seniors All 255 XXV. A Strange Meeting 268 XXVI. The House Party 280 XXVII. Nearing Class Day 293 XXVIII. Commencement—and the End 311

ILLUSTRATIONS _From Drawings by Alice Barber Stephens_

“One morning half a dozen girls clustered before the bulletin board” _Frontispiece_ “‘An American girl’—she spoke with emphasis—‘is her own best chaperon’” _Page_ 85 “Clarissa moved about the room, explaining” ″ 174 “Lois made the bandage and put it on with a professional air” ″ 225 “‘Julia,’ said Ruth the next morning, as the two sat in the conversation room” ″ 274

BRENDA’S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE

I NEW ACQUAINTANCES

A drop of ink splashed on the cover of Julia Bourne’s blue-book.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, I wasn’t thinking,” murmured an apologetic voice, as Julia glanced up in surprise. A small, pale girl standing beside her desk had evidently held her fountain pen point down with disastrous result.

“Oh, it did no great harm,” responded Julia, dexterously applying her blotter. Like the other girl, she spoke in an undertone, for silence was still the rule of the room.

“I’m thankful, however, that my book was closed,” she said to herself, as the other passed on. “A blot on an inner page might prejudice the examiner, and I shall need all his good-will.”

It was the Tuesday before the opening of college, and examinations were going on to enable some students to take off conditions imposed by the June finals, or to permit others—like Julia—to anticipate some study of the Freshman year.

Before handing in her book Julia corrected some errors, for there still lacked ten minutes of the close of the examination hour. As she sat there reading the printed questions, one by one, she was thankful for the cool day. How insufferably hot had been those two Junes when she had taken her preliminaries and her finals! Old Fay House then had swarmed with girls, lively, solemn, silent, chattering, short, tall, thin, stout, dowdy, attractive,—but why enumerate? They were as varied in aspect, and probably in disposition, as those other girls who never think of college. In comparison with the spring crowds, the girls to-day were but a handful.

Julia, glancing toward the window, caught a glimpse of the yellowing elms of Garden Street, and a soft September breeze blew across her cheek. Then her eye wandered to the photograph over the old-fashioned mantle-piece, and she thought that the class-room, except for its chairs and desks, was like the sitting-room of a private house.

Julia handed in her book promptly, but some of the others gave theirs up reluctantly, as if to say, “Oh, for ten minutes more, or even five minutes. It would make all the difference in the world to me.” One of these girls, who was tall and strong-looking, with short, curling hair, expressed her feelings emphatically.

“I don’t see,” she said, as Julia and she left the room together, “how you got through so soon. You haven’t been writing for ten minutes. Why, if we had five hours instead of two, I should still need an hour more. Weren’t you frightened to death at the preliminaries?”

“I barely survived,” replied Julia, entering into the other’s mood. “There’s an art in taking examinations that I’m only beginning to learn.”

“Well, the worst is over! Harvard, they say (and of course it’s the same with Radcliffe), is the hardest college to enter and the easiest to graduate from. That’s why I left my happy Western home. I don’t mind struggling to get in, but I want an easy time after I’ve once entered college.”

“You’re from the West?” queried Julia.

“Oh, yes, from ‘the wild and woolly West’ as you call it here. I took my preliminaries in Chicago, although my home’s farther off. Our colleges are just as good as any East, at least Pa says so. But I said ‘the best isn’t too good for me, and if Harvard’s the best of all for men, why Radcliffe must be the best for women.’ As soon as I’d thought it out I made up my mind to come here. I couldn’t have done better, could I?”

“Why, Radcliffe has a pretty good standing in this part of the world.”

“You don’t speak with enthusiasm.”

“Oh, I was only thinking that a good education can be obtained in a Western college. I’ve lived in the West myself,” she explained.

“Let me embrace you,” cried the Western girl, impulsively, fortunately without suiting the action to the word.

“You see it makes me tired the way people here pretend not to know anything about the West; but I honestly believe that you realize where Kansas is, and that St. Louis and Chicago are a few miles apart, and that the Mississippi is east of the Rocky Mountains.”

“Oh, you could probably give me points in Western geography.”

“Perhaps, but let me introduce myself. My name is Clarissa Herter, and my home is Kansas. My age is a little more than it ought to be—for a Freshman—for I’ve wasted a year at college elsewhere.”

Julia smiled at this frank inventory, and she felt that she could do no less than tell Clarissa something about herself.

“So you’re an orphan!” cried Clarissa, “and you’ve lived with relatives for two years or more. Well, you must have had a pretty good disposition to stand all the wear and tear. There’s nothing so hard as living with relatives—except one’s parents. As to your personal appearance, it suits me right down to the ground—don’t look at your boots,” she added. “I include them in the list.”

Just then a proctor approaching introduced to the two the timid girl who had blotted Julia’s book.

“I asked for the introduction,” said the newcomer, whose name was Northcote, “because I wished to apologize for my carelessness.”

“Now, really,” responded Julia, “the blot did no harm.”

“But if it had gone through the cover?”

“Oh, that would have been nothing.”

“But I fear that I did more mischief than you think. There’s a little ink spot on the side breadth of your skirt, and I’m sure that it came from my pen.”

“Oh,” cried Julia, looking where Pamela pointed, “that spot may have come from my own pen; and besides, the gown has seen its best days.”

“Well, I’m very sorry,” continued Miss Northcote.

In the meantime Clarissa had risen from the low, red couch, on which they had been sitting. “You must be a New Englander.”

“I’m from Vermont.”

“I thought so,” cried Clarissa. “You have a well-developed conscience. You seem to be apologizing for something that perhaps you didn’t do.”

“Let us go upstairs to the library,” interposed Julia, noticing that Miss Northcote was made uncomfortable by Clarissa’s badinage.

“Isn’t it pleasant! I had no idea it was so homelike!” exclaimed Julia on the threshold of the library.

“Do you mean you haven’t been here before? Why, I explored the whole building from top to bottom last June. I didn’t wait for a special invitation,” cried Clarissa.

“It was so warm then!” Julia felt almost bound to apologize.

The room that they had entered justified the term “homelike” to the fullest extent. It had none of the stiffness of a college hall, although shelves of books were everywhere, always invitingly within reach. The deep-mullioned windows, the high mantle-piece and broad fireplace all had a decided charm. From the window that Julia approached, through the elms that shaded Fay House, there was a glimpse of the Soldiers’ Monument on the Common, and nearer at hand the time-scarred Washington Elm. After looking into one or two smaller rooms filled with books, Clarissa suggested that they go into the open air.

“There must be something of the gypsy in my blood, for I begrudge every minute spent indoors at this season. Clarissa! Clarissa!” she cried dramatically, “you must out and walk.”

“Is your name Clarissa?” asked the Vermont girl.

“Why not? Doesn’t it suit me?”

“Well, it’s strange,” responded the other, “for I am called Pamela.”

“How odd! Why, people may begin to call us ‘the heroines,’ unless we show them that we’re made of stronger stuff than Richardson admired.”

“Poor Richardson! How he would be horrified to see us modern girls going to college! You must belong to sentimental families to have those names.”

“I was named for my aunt,” explained Pamela with dignity.

“Well, I’m afraid that my mother took ‘Clarissa’ from a novel,” admitted the Western girl.

After leaving Fay House, the two others walked with Julia toward Brattle Street. They had gone but a short distance when Clarissa exclaimed with surprise that it was nearly one o’clock.

“My luncheon is at half-past one,” said Julia, “but perhaps yours is earlier.”

“Yes, at my boarding-house we are very plebeian. At one o’clock we have dinner, not luncheon, while you, I dare say, have dinner at half-past six.”

“Of course,” replied Julia, while Clarissa, echoing “of course,” added, “Then you must be a regular swell. But I thought that I’d feel better to find a boarding-place in Cambridge, where their manners and customs are like ours at home.”

Not to leave Pamela out of the conversation, Julia asked her if she had found a boarding-place, and Pamela replied that she had not yet decided on a house. She might have added that all the rooms that thus far she had seen were beyond her slender purse. Before they reached Julia’s door, Pamela bade the others good-bye.

“She’s almost too good, isn’t she?” was Clarissa’s comment as Pamela disappeared in the distance.

“I like her,” returned Julia, begging the question.

“Oh, so do I; with that neat little figure, and those melancholy gray eyes, she is my very idea of a Puritan maiden. You are something like one yourself,” she concluded, “and I hope that you’ll let me call on you occasionally.”

“Why, of course, and I will call on you, too, if I may.”

Thus with the feeling that each had made a friend, the two Freshmen parted, both looking forward with interest to the college year.

Julia went to Rockley that same Tuesday afternoon, and was warmly welcomed by Brenda at the station. The younger girl, it is true, teased her cousin about being a Freshman, yet at the same time she showed so much affection, despite her teasing, that she hardly seemed the same Brenda who not long before had found in every act of Julia’s some cause for dissatisfaction.

Rockley was the summer place of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Barlow, the uncle and aunt with whom, for two years, Julia Bourne had made her home. It was on the seashore, little more than twenty miles from Boston, and Julia had passed two happy vacations there. She had gone to live with her uncle and aunt soon after her father’s death, and had completed her preparation for college at Miss Crawdon’s school, the same school that Brenda and her intimate friends attended. Brenda, Edith, Nora, and Belle were inseparables, while Julia had been more intimate with Ruth Roberts, the Roxbury girl who was now her room-mate at Cambridge.

The Barlows were to stay at Rockley until late October, and Mrs. Barlow regretted that Julia must spend that beautiful autumn month in Cambridge. She remarked at dinner that Julia looked pale, and said that she and Brenda had decided that this resulted from examinations.

“Why, you can’t imagine how weak _I_ feel,” Brenda had added, “after an examination. You know that Miss Crawdon makes us have them, though few of us are going to college.”

“It pleases me,” Mr. Barlow had interposed, “that you and your friends should get even this indirect advantage from Radcliffe. In time the average private schoolgirl may have an equal chance with boys.”

“Why, papa, you never have wished me to go to college.”

“No, my dear, but I often have thought that you suffered at school—”

“Yes, papa, I _have_ suffered at school, often.”

“My idea of suffering probably differs from yours. I mean that you suffer from a lack of thoroughness. Thoroughness is the first essential of college preparation.”

“Why, papa, girls can fit for college at Miss Crawdon’s. Julia and Ruth and several others prepared for the examinations. But let us change the subject,” said Brenda, adding, “What are those Radcliffe girls like? Are they very queer?”

“Why, no indeed,” replied Julia loyally. Yet even as she spoke she had a vision of Pamela and Clarissa, to whom Brenda might apply her adjective, although to each in a different way.

“After all,” interposed Mr. Barlow, “thirty-five years ago who would have imagined girls in college? Why, even twenty years ago a man would have been thought foolish to prophesy that within his lifetime girls would be admitted to full Harvard privileges.”

“Oh, but papa, it isn’t really the same as Harvard. The boys say that it is quite different.”

“Then it’s a difference without much distinction. Professor Dummer the other day told me that Harvard and Radcliffe students have identical examinations in all subjects, as well as the same courses of study. But I will grant that in athletics and that kind of thing they haven’t the same chance as Harvard boys.”

At this moment the long glass door was pushed open, and Philip stood within the room. The whole family greeted him heartily, for they had not seen him since his return from Europe. He told them that his mother and Edith had decided to stay a month longer abroad, and that he was spending a day or two on his yacht in Marblehead Harbor.

“On Thursday I must be in Cambridge, and after that the ‘Balloon’ goes out of commission for the season.”

The young people soon went out on the piazza, where they made themselves comfortable with cushions and wraps.

“It’s a great thing to be young,” said Mr. Barlow, as their laughter rippled through the open window. Two girls from a neighboring cottage had joined them, and with them was their brother, also a Harvard undergraduate. They had more in common with Brenda than with Julia, and thus the latter was free to answer Philip’s many questions about Radcliffe.

Although two or three years Julia’s senior, Philip had of late acquired the habit of turning to her for advice. To himself he admitted that her level-headedness had more than once saved him from making a fool of himself. Philip Blair had just escaped being spoiled after the fashion of most only sons with plenty of money. His parents had always been so ready to consider his wishes that he had come to think the quick gratification of his tastes a necessity. Because he was good-looking and had agreeable manners, older men and women were apt to flatter him, and his schoolmates fed his vanity in their eagerness for his friendship. Without being really weak, Philip was easily influenced; and though in school he never had been in disgrace, more than once he had been near suspension from college. A certain indolence made it hard to shake off his undesirable associates. But even the slow-thinking Edith had discovered that Philip had a real regard for Julia’s opinion.

“Mamma and I are very glad that Philip likes to talk to a sensible girl like Julia, for we were afraid that his head might be turned, with so many silly girls always running after him.” Philip’s college friends—those whom he asked to dine with him sometimes, or took to call on Edith’s friends—were afraid of Julia.

Hearing that she was fitted for college, they could not understand how Philip had the courage to talk with her, or even to dance with her. They supposed that he was polite to her simply because she was a friend of Edith’s. “Not that she isn’t a nice-looking girl, but she must be frightfully strong-minded to think of going to college.”

Knowing the Harvard sentiment toward Radcliffe, therefore, Julia was prepared for more or less teasing from Philip, and yet as she bade him good-bye she was pleased to be able to remind him that he had said hardly a thing to discourage her about her college career.

II THE FRESHMAN RECEPTION

When Julia approached Fay House on Thursday, the opening of the term, there were girls on the steps, girls in the halls, girls besieging the Secretary’s office with questions; old students stood about discussing all kinds of things, from their summer experiences to their proposed courses of study. But the Freshmen were less often in groups. In single file they waited their turn at the office, or sat in the conversation room, catching scraps of wisdom from the lips of the older girls who passed by.

“Oh, last year I had five and a half courses, but I’ve promised papa to be more sensible and limit myself to four, so as to have some time for other things.”

This from a serious-looking girl, and then from another more frivolous, “Well, I tried to forget everything this summer, except how to have a good time. It was delightful not to have even a theme or a forensic on my mind. I was a walking encyclopedia last June, but now I feel absolutely empty-headed.”

“What in the world,” came from another group, “possessed you to take Pol. Econ. this year? I thought you were trying for honors in classics.”

“So I am,” in a rather melancholy tone; “but I’m tired of having nothing but Greek and Latin. My future bread and butter may depend on them, as I’m to be a teacher of the classics, but I’m indulging in Pol. Econ. as a luxury.”

“A luxury! Well, you’ll pay for it.”

Julia, seated at the reading table, was not only amused by these bits of conversation, but was interested in watching the passing girls.

“Isn’t it great?” cried Ruth, joining her. “It’s a little like the first day at school, and yet it’s different. Who is that queer-looking girl, she’s actually bowing to you,” with an intonation of disapproval; “why, you don’t know her, do you?”

“Yes, I met her yesterday. She’s a Freshman from the West.”

Clarissa now reached them, grasping Julia’s hand with a hearty “Well, I _am_ glad to see you!”

“Have you chosen your electives yet?” asked Julia, after a minute or two. “Aren’t they bewildering?”

“It isn’t the elective, I’ve been told,” responded Clarissa, “but the man who gives them that makes the difference. The younger the instructor, the worse his marks. He thinks that he shows his own importance by making ‘A’ and ‘B’ marks few and far between. I’m going in for all the starred courses I can get, for then there’ll be more chance of my having real professors to teach me.”

Ruth hurried Julia away from Clarissa to an appointment with a history professor. He had wished to talk with them before consenting to their entering his class. He was pleased to find them so interested, adding, as he gave his consent:

“You must be prepared for hard work, as Freshmen are rarely permitted to take this course. I hope that you read Latin at sight, for you may have to make researches in some old books.”

Then he bowed and left them, and Ruth looked at Julia, and the latter, understanding the question that Ruth would ask, replied, “Of course I’ll help you;” while Ruth, whose Latin was weaker than Julia’s, responded, “You always were a dear.”

Julia and Ruth had arranged to board in the same house, having separate bedrooms, but sharing a large study. This was a square, corner room, with three windows. One looked down on a bit of old-fashioned garden, and the other two gave a view of some of the stately houses on Brattle Street. Their landlady, or hostess, as she liked to be called, was the widow of a Harvard instructor, who, besides a widow and two children, had left a slim little book on the Greek accusative. Mrs. Colton always had the book in plain sight on her library table, and she believed that had her husband lived he would have been one of the most distinguished of the faculty. She had long refused to open her house to Annex, or Radcliffe, students. Like many other conservative people, she did not approve of the presence of women students in Cambridge, and she did not care to encourage the new woman’s college by taking its students to board. But when the new Harvard dormitories made it harder for her to get the right kind of students to take her rooms, she began to think about the possibilities of Radcliffe. When she happened to hear that Mrs. Robert Barlow was looking for a home for her niece, she immediately sent word that she would be very glad to have her consider her rooms. She saw that it would give her house prestige to have Julia and Ruth her first Radcliffe boarders. Mrs. Barlow and the girls were well pleased with the rooms, especially as Mrs. Colton was to take no other boarders.