"Now, Jack, please don't be sentimental. You know how I hate it. Besides you have interrupted me just when I was convincing you that education will solve the race problem, and that is annoying." Poor Jack! Catherine little imagined what courage that interruption had taken. Nor did she realize how unheeding he had been as she rolled forth her arguments. (She had just been reading an article in The North American Review.)

"But, you know, I have been wanting to speak for..."

"I thought you knew better, too," Catherine continued a little sorrowfully, "a person of my ambitious aspirations" (Catherine lived for ambitious aspirations), "isn't going to be happy settling down into a general entertainer and housekeeper for mankind, always sweet and pretty and dainty, standing every evening on the little porch all tumbling over with honeysuckle, dressed in white with a red rose tucked in my belt (that's your ideal, isn't it?) and a hand stretched forth in undulating curves to welcome you. This way." Catherine stood up, balanced herself and nearly fell down. "No, I can't even do it. And then I'm not 'sweet and lovely.' I hate 'sweet and lovely' girls. Why, every girl who hasn't any looks, or any brains, or anything else, is considered 'sweet and lovely.'"

"I never said you were 'sweet and lovely.'"

"Oh! then you consider me horrid and disagreeable, do you? Well, that's flattering. No, I can't marry you. Such a catastrophe has never once entered my head." Catherine grew pensive. "I can't imagine anything more frightful than playing the piano, arranging flowers, and being charming, to eternity." Jack had jumped up from his seat by the piano and stalked over to the window where he stood biting his lips and beating the floor with one foot, gazing out into the black night with an impatiently reflective air. When Catherine finished, he spoke half to himself and half to the night.

"Just what Charlie Dickenson warned me would happen. 'See here, old chap,' he said, 'if you don't want to be the laughing stock of the whole club you'd better steer clear of Catherine Neville. Those college girls are chock full of notions. I suppose she does like you in a way, because you listen to her theories. But it is a ticklish business. Remember poor Harry Cockran, the trouble he had!' ... I thought she liked me. But I see now that one can't expect anything sensible from them." Catherine did not appear to listen. She was playing a series of changing chords on the piano. But the chords grew louder and louder and gradually passed into the minor key, until at the last word she spun round on the stool.

"Sensible?" she exclaimed. "That depends upon the point of view. I think we are extremely sensible. For we can be reached only through our minds, not through our emotions. Any girl can fall in love. But few have the strength of mind to see that they are needed for loftier careers. We have ideals, aims, purposes."

"Exactly. You long to be strong-minded, to take to platforms, stand up for poor oppressed womankind, and generally make a lot of trouble. Why all the men say that nothing would induce them to marry college girls. They think it's ruination of a nice, pretty, sensible girl to send her to college, and let her head get filled with all sorts of ideas. I tell you it ruins them with the men. But I had rather hoped you were an exception, or at least above the average."

"You men are too exasperating. You inherit from your grandfathers poor, foolish, worn-out ideas that stick in your stubborn, narrow-minded little brains. No amount of eloquence on my part could convince you of anything else. I might talk myself blue in the face, and there you would sit, placid and serene in the error of your judgment. Nothing could change you, except, perhaps, a change of grandfathers. I suppose you consider it woman's place to—bask in your radiance. Well, I sha'n't argue with you. What's the use? I hate a quarrel. Why don't you go? Don't you see that I have had enough of you? Don't you see that I am annoyed with it all?" Catherine was walking impatiently up and down the room, tearing the roses at her belt—his roses—and flinging the petals on the floor. "I hope I shall never see you again." Then, in a lower tone, "(No, I can never love him. I am thoroughly convinced of that.) What are you waiting for? No, I shan't say good-bye. I shouldn't feel it. I am thoroughly miserable. I thought you were such a good friend of mine, too. I can't be polite. I'm tired of being polite when I feel rude. I am tired of hearing all this twaddle about marrying college girls. I think you might have had more tact." Catherine rushed from the room and upstairs.

Jack Livingston heard the door at the top of the stairs shut, not quite gently.

Catherine Neville was a junior at Bryn Mawr. Most people considered her proud because of a certain haughty reserved exterior, but her intimate friends who had pierced the reserve knew her to possess a really genial nature, and on occasions to become quite mellow and entertaining. But it was only with a favoured few that she descended to jocosity. She was conceited, too. There is no doubt about it, but who that ever amounts to anything isn't? at least just a little bit. Perhaps she was spoiled. But if that was the case, it was scarcely her fault, because she was an only child, and had always been pampered and praised and led to consider herself a really remarkable young person. As a small child her mother had looked upon her as a budding genius, and had cherished and retailed to forcedly enthusiastic friends her various idiosyncracies—undoubted signs of genius. But when she grew a little older, and scorned dolls and "The Five Little Peppers," things had gone too far. "A little genius is all very well, but a great deal is so conspicuous," Mrs. Neville used to say. (The Nevilles belonged to a very old Philadelphia family.) The last straw in a long line of disappointments came, however, when Catherine announced her intention of going to college. "A daughter of the Nevilles in college! Preposterous! It is all very well for a girl who has her own living to make. But a Neville!" And Mrs. Neville and Mrs. Neville's friends held up their hands in indignant, old-fashioned horror. Catherine had also indelicate aspirations toward a career. But she kept these to herself until she was safely launched upon her freshman year. Even then her plans were very misty. She thought perhaps she would consent to being considered a second Mrs. Browning, or possibly a George Eliot. It was a dreadful blow to Mr. and Mrs. Neville when Catherine passed all her examinations. Up to that time they had kept themselves happy with the thought that Catherine might fail. Of course Catherine was very clever, but they had always heard that it took a monstrosity to pass the Bryn Mawr entrance examinations. Mr. and Mrs. Neville were especially vexed because their plans had all been upset, and they had formed such delightful ones, too. She was to have a "coming out" tea in November, followed by a series of dinners, culminating in a ball early in January—with a possible wedding at Easter. What more could a girl wish? But Catherine was undoubtedly peculiar. She refused to be trotted out at teas and put through her paces at the Monday evening dancing class. She said that dinners bored her, and balls were a frightful nuisance, and she didn't want to be married off. And so it was that Catherine never "came out," but passed into that atmosphere of social depravity and advanced ideas that old-fashioned conventionality has associated with a woman's college.

Is it to be wondered at that Catherine had lost her self-control just a little bit this evening? College with her was a very tender subject. Nevertheless as she stood upstairs with her head near the crack of the slammed door waiting to hear the front door latch, she felt desperately ashamed of herself. But how could she be expected to give up the pet dreams of her youth—all at once and for a man? She didn't like him much, anyway, and she still longed for her career. In fact she quite expected it and such an emergency as falling in love had never once entered her mind. Of course she had seen a great deal of Jack, but he had never been anything to her, at all. Yet he was quite nice, infinitely nicer than the rest of the men. They bored her. The conceited little idiots thought every girl they saw in love with them, and that all they had to do was to sit and be adored. But Jack somehow was different. He had so much more to him. He was so big and fine, so noble looking. He had such good-looking shoulders. Somehow she liked to see them around. She might have stood him for his shoulders, at least, until the end of the Christmas vacation. But it did make her furious to hear men run down college girls and say that they didn't want to marry them. Just as if the college girls were pining for them! Men would be much nicer if they didn't consider themselves charmers. "Still it will be frightfully dull now for the last few days at home," Catherine thought as she fixed her hair. She was used to seeing him about. And now no one would ask her to go skating. She didn't want to go skating with any one else. And they used to have such interesting talks together too! Well, it was all over now. She might as well go to sleep. So she snuggled up in the down comfortable and said she would make her mind a blank. But there was always a little something there, edging her on to the forbidden subject with most annoying insistence. Jack was always mixed up in her thoughts, and she kept wondering if he really cared for her. Of course it was nothing to her. But it is nice to be liked, and somehow it worried Catherine dreadfully to think that perhaps he didn't care for her. "Oh, but he must care or he never would have spoken as he did," Catherine exclaimed out loud. And then, frightened at her own voice, she muffled her head in the bedclothes.

Catherine's thoughts wandered off to her freshman year and that afternoon early in spring when she had received the telegram from her father—

"Mr. Livingston will call at eight o'clock.

"W. D. Neville."

Catherine had read it slowly for the second time and wondered who on earth "Mr. Livingston" was and what she had done that deserved this punishment. She finally decided that Mr. Livingston was a friend of her father's, some nice old gentleman who took an interest in the higher education of women, and wanted to be taken around the college. "Night's a bad time," she reflected, and speculated happily on the chances of $10,000 toward the library building. Nevertheless she did not feel quite comfortable until she was safely at dinner with the doors closed. One never knows what elderly men interested in the higher education of women may do. They are always so intensely interested. He might come out in time for dinner, just for the beneficial experience of seeing how this strange product of the human race eats, and whether or not, as has been said, it lives exclusively on fish. "He is probably of a deeply enquiring nature and will want statistics," Catherine mused. "I must review mine. Let me see. There are sixty-seven 'grads,' one hundred and nine freshmen, and——" But, alas! these were all she knew. Well, she could at least explain the "Group System." A complexity of that sort would be something for the old gentleman to gloat over. She knew it quite well now. She had just had some lessons on it from the sophomore next door. And then, of course, there was the seventeen per cent. statistic. How stupid in her to forget that! She had heard it often enough, at least twice a month since she entered. "Yes, that will make a very good beginning," and Catherine sprinkled her beef so vigorously with salt that she was forced to send for a second supply.

Dinner had just reached the salad stage, when the maid whispered to Catherine, in mysterious tones, that there was a gentleman in the hall who wished to see her. "Mr. Livingston!" she gasped, and rushed out. "How fortunate that dinner is almost over! But perhaps the poor man is starving. Oh! but I can't have him in. I'll be hard-hearted. I'll hope that he had a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk at Broad Street Station. But what a strange man for father to send!" Catherine thought as she cordially grasped the hand of a beery object in the dark corner of the hall. "I beg yir pardin, miss, but I'm Jim Maloney, and me wife as does yir laundree is very poor, en has siven childrin en wants to be paid." The man held toward her a soiled, rumpled half sheet of lined paper. "One dollar and twenty-nine cents," Catherine read between the blots, and remarked to herself that there were only five children last week. But supposing there had been twins, she ran singing upstairs and munificently raised the amount to one dollar and thirty cents. "The dollar and a quarter is easy, but four cents is such a difficult amount!" she said, excusing her extravagance, while taking her seat at the dinner table again. "One always has to hunt through all one's coat pockets, stamp boxes, and various trays and receptacles on the bureau, and do at least fifty cents' worth of nervous worry and scurry, perhaps even then not finding the four cents." Catherine was happy again, for she still had forty minutes of liberty, ample time in which mentally to run through a possible conversation with an inquisitive elderly gentleman and arrange all her material in paragraphs with a suitable introduction and conclusion. She felt as if she were going to make an address, and had a wild desire to begin. "Esteemed elderly gentleman, it gives me great pleasure to expound to you this evening the—etc." But of course that would never do.

At exactly five minutes after eight Mr. Livingston's card was handed to Catherine. "Elderly and investigating gentlemen are exasperatingly prompt," she murmured. "He has evidently taken the 7:15 train from the city and has killed time about the campus or been lost for ten minutes," she thought, as she glided downstairs, settling the bow of her ribbon collar primly in front. "Yes, Mr. Livingston," she rehearsed, "the freshman class contains one hundred and seven girls, average age, eighteen; average height, five feet five inches; average weight—— Oh, dear me! I've forgotten my average weight, and that was to have led to such interesting discussions of the comparative amount of nutriment in the different preferred foods."

Just at this moment Catherine reached the door of the reception-room, gave her belt a last little twitch straight and walked in. From the least brilliantly lighted corner of the room arose a tall, broad-shouldered man of twenty-five. Poor fellow! He had shrunk there from pursuing pairs of eyes! "Dear me, it isn't the inquisitive, elderly gentleman after all," Catherine pouted disappointedly as she and Mr. Livingston took their seats at the extreme ends of a long sofa. "Now, my plans are all upset." Catherine wanted to say, "Who are you, anyway? Why aren't you inquisitive and elderly? That type is so interesting!" But that didn't seem polite, and he looked harmless, so she spoke of the weather, and the walk from the station, the ride out in the train, and the people one sees in Broad Street Station, and hoped that time would unfold the mystery. Just then the top of a head and two eyes rose perpendicularly above the window-sill in front of them, remained stationary for a few seconds, and then sank slowly, followed by a suppressed giggle and the sound of fleeing footsteps. They both saw the eyes, and both being interested in proceedings outdoors, forgot for a moment the absence of conversation.

"Yes, Mr. Livingston," Catherine finally droned forth absent-mindedly. "There are one hundred and seven in the freshman class, average age, eighteen, average height, five feet five inches, average weight, two hundred and eighty pounds, and only seventeen per cent. will marry! At least——"

"How extraordinary!" interrupted Mr. Livingston, while Catherine awoke with a start and wondered if a little fresh air would not be beneficial to both of them. Another pair of eyes arose above the window-sill. There was a second pause and Mr. Livingston said that he thought it would be delightful to look at the grounds. They waited a moment just to satisfy the curiosity of a third pair of eyes and then wandered out on to the campus. It was deliciously balmy, but as it was nine o'clock on a moonless night their horizon was limited. Still by peering industriously they could distinguish a few dark objects that Catherine explained to be trees, and by means of her descriptive powers (she never knew she had any until that night), Mr. Livingston was enabled to enjoy the distant prospect of Rosemont and the rolling hills beyond. When they returned to the reception-room, Catherine felt quite recovered from her little attack of absent-mindedness and hoped that the air had been equally beneficial to her uncommunicative visitor. "I have been talking too much," she thought as she watched the careful descent of eyes number four. "Poor Mr. Livingston has not had a chance to enlighten me on the subject of his personal history. I must be silent." A fifth pair of eyes appeared at the window, and the silence was unbroken for such a long time that Catherine in desperation launched forth upon Political Economy theories. (Political Economy and History were her majors, and she always turned to them in times of need.)

And so it continued all evening. Catherine was still ignorant of her visitor's history, but she had counted twenty-seven pairs of eyes. She wondered if Mr. Livingston's and her count agreed. She had counted hers on her fingers, but had a dreadful feeling that she had made a mistake of a hand somewhere and was five too many. Mr. Livingston looked mathematical. She longed to ask him how many he had seen. Finally the witching hour of ten arrived. There was a scampering of footsteps through the hall and a long tolling of Taylor bell. A maid wandered uneasily up and down before the reception-room door. Catherine knew it was time to put the lights out, but somehow said nothing, for she had noticed certain symptoms of uneasiness in her visitor, and felt they were about to culminate in the "good-bye" that had been worrying him since half-past nine. They did culminate, at twenty minutes after ten, when he at length departed. Catherine wondered why men stay two hours and a quarter when they come for a half-hour call. Perhaps they think that they don't appear to be enjoying themselves if they leave before their two hours and a quarter is up. The substance of the letter that Catherine had mailed to her father that night briefly stated would read: "Who on earth is Mr. Livingston? Please restrain him from calling again."

Gradually Catherine returned to the present. She didn't see how Jack could care very much. Then she bounced over on to the cold side of the bed and held her eyes tight shut. Still her thoughts rambled on.

The next day Catherine looked pale and wan. Her mother thought she had better stay in bed and rest because there were only four days left of the vacation and she mustn't go back to college all worn out. But Catherine thought she needed air. The house oppressed her, so she decided to go for a walk in her most becoming clothes. Jack always went to the office between nine and half-past. Perhaps she might meet him. But what could she do if she did meet him? Bow stiffly? That would not be especially satisfactory, but what else could she do? She couldn't appear sorry for what she had said last night. And yet she would like to have him find it out—indirectly. No, she wouldn't go to walk. It wouldn't look well. She would take her mother's advice after all, and go to bed.

Jack in the meantime felt like a culprit. He had spoiled everything by his inane lack of judgment. He ought to have known better. He should at least have remembered the career. It was all up with him now. But he felt sure she liked him. If he had only made a few pretty speeches, complimented her a little and broken the ice gently! He feared he had been a little abrupt. But it wasn't his fault if he couldn't talk. He meant a lot more than the other fellows who have it all at their fingers' ends. But girls never can appreciate fine men. Anything does, if it is only well-dressed. And yet Catherine had really shown a great deal of discretion. In fact she had openly preferred him to the other men. Somehow she had always evinced much pleasure in his conversation. Perhaps it was because he listened to her theories and the other men wouldn't. Oh, but it couldn't have been that! Anyway, he had enjoyed hearing her talk. He couldn't bear the chatter of most girls. Yes, she was a fine girl, always well groomed and a thoroughbred, the kind of girl with whom a man liked to be seen walking down the street. Perhaps she hadn't meant it all. He thought he ought to call again, but he didn't exactly care to go where he wasn't wanted. Still he decided to throw aside his pride and call that evening at the Nevilles, just as if nothing had happened.

But all his hopes were shattered when the maid informed him at the door that Miss Catherine could not see any one that evening. "A polite way of asking me not to call again," thought Livingston, as he hurried off. He was really annoyed now and vowed never to go near the place again. The maid forgot to tell Catherine about the call.

John Livingston had recently been admitted as junior partner into the firm of W. D. Neville & Co. His rise had been rather phenomenal. Five years ago, in the summer time, three weeks after receiving his A. B., he started out bravely to work his way up in the world from the very beginning, and having entered the steel and iron works as an ordinary labourer, he had come to be a foreman of the shops. It was then that he attracted attention by his remarkable industry and popularity among the workmen, and thus came to Mr. Neville's notice. Mr. Neville at once appreciated his clear business head and knack of getting along well with men and pushed him on, so that he passed from one position of trust to another until he was finally admitted into the firm as a junior partner.

Worldly people might have imagined that Mr. Neville had designs when he sent Jack Livingston out to call on his daughter at Bryn Mawr, and when he encouraged his coming to the Neville house, especially during the holidays. Frequently—two or three times a week—Jack was asked to dine until it became such an expected event that he always stayed to dinner without being asked. But any one who knew the family at all well would laugh at the worldly idea, for Mr. Neville well knew the fruitlessness of forming designs upon Catherine's future. In fact no one realized so well as Mr. Neville that Catherine had no time for anything except her career and that she didn't care for men. All she wanted was peace and a name for herself. Perhaps Mr. Neville was dubious about Catherine's ability to become a Mrs. Browning or a George Eliot. (He was an exceedingly practical man.) "Of course Catherine is exceptionally clever," he used to say. Nevertheless he felt or at least hoped that her mind was well balanced, and doubted the arrival of those expected bursts of genius on which she built so many castles in the air.

During the four days that remained of the Christmas vacation, Jack persistently refused to come to the Neville house to dinner. He was always busy packing or something. This was a bad sign. To be sure Jack was going to Chicago in a week, but every one knows that a man never starts his packing until eleven o'clock on the night before his departure. He goes into the first store he sees on the day of his arrival, buys all the things he has forgotten and never again mentions the subject. Therefore Mr. Neville was a little worried, but he kept quiet and reassured himself by thinking that Jack's shunning the Neville house was merely a phase in an ultimately satisfactory love affair. He did not tell Mrs. Neville his plans or his woes. He knew her too well, and never confided delicate little matters like this to her kind-hearted, bungling management. Poor Mrs. Neville! with the best intentions in the world, she always ruined everything.

Catherine, in the meantime, was not at all like herself. She moped, scolded, and was generally irritable and unpleasant. Her mother could not imagine what had happened. Catherine was so changed; she sat around and looked mysterious and gloomy and absolutely refused to go anywhere. To be sure she had never been riotous in her pursuit of pleasure, but still she had always gone about a good deal, and had really seemed to enjoy things in a characteristically unbending way. But now all was different. Mrs. Neville was in despair and promptly jumped to the conclusion that Catherine was suffering from nervous prostration brought on by overwork at college. Mrs. Neville had always said she would have it, and really there was nothing else that could make her act so queerly. "Catherine is so energetic," she told her friends when they came to console. (They all felt sorry for Bessie Neville. Her daughter was such a disappointment. Their own daughters all did embroidery in the morning, and went to teas with their mothers in the afternoon.) "Catherine must be in everything," she said, "and never is satisfied to do things half-way. No wonder the child has broken down. I shan't let her go back. No," and she set her mouth firmly, "health after all is the first thing to consider." Nevertheless their old family physician persuaded her that there was nothing like work for nervous prostration, so Catherine, in spite of the firmly set mouth, appeared at college just in time to register. However, she was loaded down with pills, tonics and strict injunctions to write all developments of symptoms.

Catherine was glad to get back. She had never spent such a disappointing holiday. Yet though she felt horribly mournful and wandered about with the gloomy, tragic expression of a person with a past, she hoped she could fight it down, work and forget everything. She would either have to do that or be wretched always. For she knew Jack would never come near her again. Of course she did not want to see him. She was simply annoyed at his neglect. Why, from what her mother said, it seemed as if Jack had absolutely planned his "good-bye" call at the house to miss her, and had then apologized as if he hadn't known. Well, everything had happened for the best. She was really becoming too much interested in Jack Livingston. But now she could forget it all, and work and make something out of her life.

With mid-years, a twenty-four page essay, Latin and English private reading and all sorts of unfinished odds and ends of labour, one's previous misfortunes vanish behind the rapidly accumulating wretchedness of the four weeks after the Christmas vacation. This is the period at Bryn Mawr when one wonders what on earth became of the first part of the semester, and one firmly resolves this time at least to keep good resolutions and never again be guilty of such improvident idleness; this is the period when one wakes up on bright, crisp mornings to the wretched realization that an examination is due next day in a subject of which one knows or feels that one knows absolutely nothing; this is the period when, after struggles too painful to describe, one turns up on the fatal morning pallid but resolute, armed with a pen and scraggy blotter and with Tennyson's immortal words "theirs but to do or die," ringing in one's ears; this is the period when after seizing the examination questions one thrills or congeals in proportion to the number of intimate friends, bowing acquaintances or total strangers there enrolled. Nevertheless one survives even the worst, though in a more or less battered condition, and after two weeks punctuated with these periods of violent searching thought and despairing drains on the imagination, one at length emerges into the happy serenity of the middle of February.

So Catherine having passed through the wear and tear of mid-years had almost recovered from her attack of nervous prostration. One day she was sitting on the floor in her study chatting happily with some friends. They had finished their chocolate, and the empty cups had been pushed just wherever it was most convenient to put them and most inconvenient for them to be, when Emily Ashurst broke into the general talk with, "By the way, Catherine, I had a letter this morning from a friend of mine in Chicago, which I think will probably interest you. You know Jack Livingston, don't you?" Catherine nodded, and grew a little pinker than usual. "You know, he went to Chicago early in January on business connected with some steel works out there. Well, he was quite popular and taken around a lot and now they say he is engaged to a girl there, a Miss Lyla—oh, bother!—well she is exceedingly pretty—just the sweet, piquant marrying kind that a man adores. They say it was a most romantic affair. Sort of love at first sight. He is perfectly devoted and her friends are delighted with the match. Mr. Livingston has taken them all by storm." But Catherine was not particularly enthusiastic, so the conversation drifted on to basket ball possibilities for the spring. Catherine, however, was not in the least interested in basket ball now, though she was considered one of the most promising forwards. She felt awfully tired, and was secretly relieved when there was a general uprising from the floor and all her guests departed in a flock. Then she was left to her own unhappy thoughts and the concentration of chocolate cups in the one spot that always appealed most strongly to the naturally sympathetic disposition of the maid when she came to straighten up in the morning.

"Jack didn't care at all then," she said, and swallowed a pill. She felt that her nervous prostration was returning, and the pills were the least objectionable of the medicines. "If he had cared he never would have become engaged within six weeks," she sighed. But she didn't see why she should care. He was nothing to her. But her father would be so disappointed. He was interested in Jack and didn't approve of men under thirty getting married. And then it really was most inconsiderate after the way he had spoken to her. "I suppose I shall have to write and congratulate him. That's a bore! I never know what to say to engaged people, anyway. Yet I should like to write to him, just to show that there is no ill-feeling, and that I am really quite pleased to hear that he has at last persuaded some one to take him. I'll make the letter rather stiff and formal. Yes, I must write. But suppose he isn't engaged after all, wouldn't it seem as if I were forcing myself into a correspondence with him? No, it wouldn't appear well to write, at least, until the engagement was confirmed." Catherine glowed with newly awakened hope. She was glad she had decided not to write, for she dreaded to involve herself in any more awkward predicaments. They were so wearing on the mind.

In the meantime the day was drawing near when Catherine's story must be handed in for The Lantern. But nothing seemed to have developed. On several occasions she had sat down, well provided with white receptive sheets of paper, ready to pour out her soul. She had gnawed her pencil and looked bored for half an hour, and then had jumped up and rushed outdoors for some fresh air. Each time she had been expectant and eager to jot down the ideas she thought would crowd into her mind. (One never knows what may happen when one is actually provided with pencil and paper.) But somehow nothing had come, and she really felt now that she was altogether too wretched for ideas.

In desperation she decided to prune and nourish a little love story based on her own affair. It would amuse her, and no one need know that it was not purely imaginary. You can make things so much more real and vivid when drawing from your own feelings and experiences. Of course she would exaggerate a great deal and make it more interesting. And in her story the heroine could write a letter of congratulation to the hero in Chicago, a letter meant to be cold and formal, but into which had crept, in spite of herself, a plaintive, sorrowful strain. (Catherine thought that part quite romantic.) The hero on receipt of the letter could be very much mystified. He was not engaged and had no intentions of becoming engaged, though there had been a rumour. But reading between the lines he should see the heroine's love for him—this part of course could be entirely imaginary—pack his dress-suit case and take the first train for Philadelphia. He should then rush out to Bryn Mawr and throw himself at the heroine's feet, and all would end happily. (Catherine sighed deeply.)

The end, however, presented difficulties, for where should she have the hero throw himself at the heroine's feet? The reception-room was such a public place. (She thought of the pursuing pairs of eyes that hunt one out of the darkest corners of reception-rooms.) Finally she fixed upon the Vaux woods. It was such a picturesque spot, she knew Jack would have liked it. "Yes," she said to herself, "he must restrain his feelings until the heroine has bowed him into a portion of the Vaux woods, where they will be uninterrupted by giggles."

The story was handed in, and toward the end of May made its appearance in the pages of The Lantern.

In the meantime Jack Livingston, on the shores of Lake Michigan, was becoming desperately tired of going to dinners and looking out for the Chicago interests of the firm. He wanted to see some one who really cared for him, some one who would ask him out to dinner, even if he did not represent W. D. Neville & Co., of Philadelphia. He wanted to be asked out, fondled and admired a little for himself. Perhaps he was homesick. At any rate he decided to shirk social duties and spend an evening quietly with the Hammersleys. There was such an air of homelikeness and happiness about their evenings. Charlie Hammersley had been an upper classman of his at college, who had married a Bryn Mawr girl a few months before. And now they had a cozy little box just within the margin of respectability of the North End. They were still at dinner when Jack arrived. So he threw himself into an armchair by the library table and reached out for a magazine. The first he threw aside; he was tired of actresses' pictures, and hated novelettes. But something prompted him to investigate the next, though it was unfamiliar. "The Lantern, Bryn Mawr," he gasped in pleasant surprise, while he ran his eye eagerly down the table of contents for a certain well-known name. Before long he was buried in Catherine's little love story.

When the Hammersleys came in from the dining-room, they found Jack standing with one arm against the mantelpiece and a far-away expression in his eyes. He started when he saw them with an, "Oh! ... awfully glad to find you in ... You see I've just dropped in to say good-bye before starting for Philadelphia, to-morrow morning."

"Philadelphia?" Mrs. Hammersley asked in surprise. "You're an old fraud. I won't believe a word of it. You know you said you never wanted to see the place again. Besides you sent word by the maid that we mustn't hurry because you had come to spend one of those old-fashioned eight-to-eleven evenings with us. Shall it be whist or hearts to-night? Lyla, you'll make a fourth? ... Let's have hearts to-night. I don't feel strong enough for whist."

"No, really, I can't. You know, I should like it above all things. But I have my trunk to pack and arrangements to make. I'm going rather suddenly. You see I've just decided." Jack wished he was not clutching The Lantern so tightly in his left hand.

At Bryn Mawr finals were over and the "'Varsity" had been picked, so that all excitement was now centred in the alumnÆ game. After years of success, the undergraduates had got into the way of looking upon this game as a walk-over. (It is hardly the fault of the alumnÆ if one or more years of leisure do not add to their agility!) But now that the alumnÆ had the last year's seniors, the champions of the college, to choose from, the under-graduates secretly trembled.

For this reason there was unusual excitement over the game, and the greater part of the college was sitting cross-legged around the basket ball field cheering excitedly, while a few rushed importantly up and down, flourishing lemons and towels. It was the beginning of the second half, and neither side had scored. The undergraduates felt weak, while the small group of alumnÆ at one corner of the field were clutching each other excitedly. Every one was too much interested in the game to notice a tall, broad shouldered man who had just joined the outskirts of the crowd and was anxiously following with his eyes every movement of the 'Varsity's most graceful forward. But two minutes of play remained, the ball seemed rooted in the alumnÆ territory and the undergraduates were pale and heaving with suppressed woe, when the alumnÆ lost the ball and it passed quickly down the field into the hands of the 'Varsity's tall, graceful forward. For one silent second she aimed, and then amid shrieks of joy the ball spun cleanly into the basket, while, with a little gasp of pain, Catherine Neville, the 'Varsity's pet forward, sank fainting upon the ground. Her ankle was badly sprained. When Catherine recovered consciousness, the tall, broad shouldered man from the outskirts of the crowd, was leaning over her, a most distressed expression in his eyes. In spite of her pain, Catherine gave a little gasp of pleasure. "He does care for me after all," she murmured under her breath. Her eyes grew dim and she felt herself going off again into unconsciousness.

Another summer had passed by and the juniors were now seniors, but one of the most popular members of the class was missing. Catherine Neville was to be married in November. As she said to one of her friends, she was satisfied, and Jack was satisfied, and they didn't see why they should wait. Anyway, Jack was awfully lonely out in Chicago, all by himself, and it was her duty to go out and cheer him up.

Catherine had decided upon her career. She had found her purpose in life.

Harriet Jean Crawford, 1902.

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