A Girl Graduate

Front matter

£.p Crlia f). __o_Ucf. RACHEL ARMSTRONG; OR, LOVE AND THE- OLOGY. A Novel. i2i_K>, $1.50; paper covers, 50 cents. A GIRL GRADUATE. A Novel. 12m©, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, Boston and New York. BY CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY AUTHOR OF " RACHEL ARMSTRONG i OR, LOVE AND THEOLOGY,"' ETC. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cfie l_o..!Si_e ?9r.ss, .ramhri&oe Copyright, 1889, Br OELIA PARKER WOOLLEY. AU rights reserved. Tkt Riverside Press, Cambridge : Printed by II. 0. Houghton and Company. TO Pg jF a%r anb l$_%r, WHOSE LIVES OF FAITHFUL DEVOTION TO THE GOOD ARE A CONSTANT PRIZED EXAMPLE TO THEIR LOVING DAUGHTER. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Schoolgirl Talk and Manners ... 11 II. Young Hearts and Heads .... 22 III. Dress Rehearsal 36 IV. White Muslin and a Diploma .... 57 V. A Summer Shower 75 VI.

The Re-action 97 VII. An Evening Drive 113 VIII. An Impetuous Lover 133 IX. A Farewell Visit 144 X. Of his Day and Generation . . . .107 XI. Two Women 189 XII. A Rude Surprise 203 XIII. Some Steps Retraced 218 XIV. Progressing Events 234 XV. The Emerson Club 254 XVI. Growing Horizons 274 XVII. Passing Events 292 XVIII. Joys and Trials 316 XIX. The Engineer's Choice 333 XX. Litchfield's Celebration 354 XXI. Bacchus and Ariadne 382 XXII. At the Works 398 XXIII. A Better Understanding 418 XXIV. A Shower of Rice 444 SI

Chapter I. Schoolgirl Talk And Manners

The afternoon session of the Litchfield High School closed at two o'clock, but the members of the graduating class had been detained for a final re hearsal of the next day's closing exercises, and it was after four when seven or eight young women came trooping down the front steps, talking and laughing. They walked a short distance together, in groups of twos and threes, until they reached a corner where their paths diverged and where they stopped for a few parting words. " Maggie will have the best essay, of course," said Fanny Brown, with gay unconcern, "but I don't care ; I know three people who are going to bring bouquets for me." " Oh, dear," exclaimed Maggie, in mock distress, " and I haven't ordered one. I wonder if it's too late to go round to the conservatory now," glancing up at the town clock on the schoolhouse tower.

"Never mind, Maggie," said another, in a soothing tone, " Sidney Gale will attend to that." Maggie flushed, and tossed her head, casting a quick, covert look in the direction of another girl who had not spoken ; a dark-eyed young woman who seemed to hold herself a little aloof from her companions, standing on the edge of the group with a hesitating air, as if equally unwilling to go or to remain. She made a sudden movement as if to separate from the others, then, as if remembering herself, turned back and remained where she was. There was a short, embarrassed pause, to cover which two or three of the girls began an eager discussion of their plans for the following day, their new dresses, the prospect of fair weather, etc. " We haven't decided whether we shall wear white slippers," said one.

" Why, yes, we have," another replied, with a posi tive air. " Of course, we shall wear them ; I bought mine yesterday." This was Dora Briggs, daughter of a wealthy dealer in eggs and poultry. She had a large, over grown look, with bold black eyes, and was showily dressed. "What do you think, Maggie?" the first asked. Maggie hesitated and seemed a little embarrassed, though she tried to look indifferent as she answered that she should not wear white slippers. " Oh, dear ! " exclaimed Miss Briggs, " that just spoils everything. We ought to dress alike. Don't you think so, Laura?" addressing the dark-eyed girl. "That is what Miss Bancroft wishes," the latter replied, rather stiffly. "She said we were to make no invidious distinctions ; but if there is any one who cannot afford white slippers — " " Miss Danvers will agree to supply them," Maggie broke in, with an excited laugh.

" What a pity we are not all in the wholesale leather trade." An angry color surged over Laura Danvers' face, and she bent a displeased look on Maggie, whose blue eyes sparkled with a dangerous light as she stood there flushed and trembbng. Glances of mingled amusement and dismay were exchanged between the other members of the group, which broke up now, Laura Danvers going alone dow.n Lombard Street, the fashionable thoroughfare of the town, the others taking an opposite direction, all but Maggie and her friend Bertha Fay, who went directly ahead. Laura Danvers had not meant to be rude, but she had a fatal directness of speech, born partly of honesty, but springing more from an inward restraint that knew not how to employ tactful expression for itself. It was no unusual thing for her to be by herself.

Her cold, rather distrustful disposition kept her from entering readily into those intimate relations which girls of her age cultivate. There was a large fund of self reliance in the girl's nature, which prevented her from feeling too deeply the loss thus incurred, at the same time that it caused her to hold herself aloof from those whose companionship she would have prized, but knew not how to win. She was not so sufficient to herself, however, as not to long at times for a near friend, one she could call her very own, who should stand to her in the same relation of close admiring affection that Bertha Fay did towards Maggie Dean, an affection won, not through accidental circumstance, but solely for her own worth and merit. It was a sore trial to her, at times, to witness her classmate's popularity, not so much be cause she was jealous as because it made her own loneliness the more apparent.

Wherever she went, Maggie seemed to make a new centre for herself. Her schoolmates clustered about her desk at recess, made her chief guide and spokes man in all their plans, looked up to watch and smile at her if she crossed the room, quoted her sayings, and copied her way of doing her hair. Laura Dan vers received many attentions also, but she instinctively felt they were offered in a different spirit. She was studious, and held a commanding social position among her acquaintances, which secured her general esteem; but all this was nothing compared to the spontaneous love and admiration Maggie Dean had power to win. What was the secret of her influence ? Laura Danvers often asked herself. Was it to be found in her men tal qualities? But Laura was a better scholar than Maggie, since the latter had the habit of studying only when she felt like it.

Her quick eye would dart down the page and seize its meaning at a glance, though she often forgot it as easily, while her com panion, who worked harder for what she got, retained it longer. Yet Maggie could remember things, too, when she liked and it seemed worth while, and had a reputation for intellectual brilliancy that took the place of more solid attainments. Maggie's popularity did not lie in a mere quality of the head, nor was it because she was, in the pietistic sense of the word, "good." On the contrary, she had many faults which her best friends were obliged to admit, and which Maggie also seemed to recognize without taking pains to cure. Was it because of her apparent un consciousness, that seeming absence of all intention or desire to outshine any one else ? Certainly if it is an art to be a favorite, and yet never betray by the faintest flicker of an eyelid gratified consciousness of the same, Maggie had attained that art.

She never took advantage of her position. Nobody called her vain or self-seeking, nor would Laura Danvers per mit herself to do so. Until lately, her feeling about Maggie had lain half dormant, being but part of a growing perplexity and discontent with herself. It was not until the association of Maggie's name with that of her cousin, Sidney Gale, that this feeling had taken more tangible shape, and become one of per sonal dread and distrust. " That was very rude in you, Maggie," said Bertha, after they had gone on a few steps, " to refer to her father's business in that way." Bertha Fay was a kindly and sensible-faced girl, and the valedictorian of the class. " Not half as rude as she was to me," the other quickly rejoined. " ' Invidious distinctions ' indeed ! " "Perhaps not," was the quiet reply, "but such things do no good, and are undignified besides.

I have heard my mother say that a sharp tongue is like a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways." "Oh, it's perfectly true," groaned Maggie. "I think sometimes I should like to tear mine out. But what would you have me do? " turning impetuously to her companion, " keep still and let Laura Danvers say all manner of insulting things tome?" "If you had not answered her, she would have been ashamed of herself. As it is, you have made her dislike you more than ever." " Why should she dislike me ? " Maggie cried. " I am as good as she, and have as good manners, though mercy knows that is saying little for either one of us. It is because my father is poor, and — and a workingman." " No, Maggie, that is not all," Bertha replied. " My father is poor too." " Oh, but he is the minister." " There's another reason," Bertha went on ; " she is jealous."

Maggie lifted her eyebrows, and tried to look as if she did not understand ; but her eyes fell before the clear, direct gaze of her companion. " Why do you let Sidney Gale walk home with you every night from school ? " Bertha continued, reprovingly. " Every night ! " Maggie repeated, in pretended as tonishment. Then, in a lighter tone, " I didn't know that Sidney Gale was Laura Danvers' property." " They are engaged to be married." " I'm not so sure of that," Maggie replied. She spoke with the air of one who could impart weighty secrets on some subjects if she chose. " It amounts to the same thing. Their fathers were partners ; Mr. Danvers has helped his nephew a great deal. Mrs. Danvers talks as if it were all settled; he visits her regularly, and " — " Who visits whom regularly ? " Maggie interposed, mischievously.

" Mind your pronouns, my dear." " You know what I mean," Bertha replied, smiling a little, but refusing to leave her ground. " Besides, — now, you'll not be angry with me, Maggie, if I speak plainly," dropping her voice to a more serious tone, and taking her friend's arm. " I couldn't be angry with you if I tried," the other answered, affectionately. Nevertheless, her manner betrayed a little nervous apprehension. "It is only this, Maggie. If — if Mr. Gale wants to walk home with you, why doesn't he come to the schoolhouse, as he does to meet his cousin sometimes, and not wait to join you on some back street? " " Bertha Fay, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live," Maggie exclaimed, withdrawing herself from her friend, her face ablaze with indignation and wounded pride. " I was afraid you would be angry," Bertha said, but not seeming in the least alarmed by the threat she had heard.

" Just because a young man happens to overtake a girl once or twice," Maggie began again, in a voice that threatened to give way at every word, " when he has — has business that way, people must talk like that. And to think that you too, Bertha" — here her breath came faster and her features began to work convulsively. "I never would have believed it, never ! " and she broke down in a fit of hysterical crying. "Hush, Maggie, I didn't mean that. I only wanted to warn you. Do hush, Maggie ; some one will see us." This last appeal had its effect, and Maggie, her breast still heaving, began slowly drying her eyes, sobbing out, in a grieved, helpless tone, that she had never heard of anything so unjust and untrue in her life, and that she hadn't a friend in the world. " Now, Maggie, you know that isn't true," Bertha answered, in her straightforward fashion.

" Every body likes and admires you, and you know there isn't a girl in town I love so well." " But you don't re — respect me," Maggie replied, in a childish tone, that made the other smile. " I do respect you, and that is why I want you to appear always at your best and stop flirting with an engaged man." " You don't know that he is engaged," Maggie said, with a return of her old manner. " Everybody says so." " That's nothing. Everybody says some other people are engaged too." " You mean yourself and Henry Parsons ? " Bertha asked, quickly. "Is it true, Maggie?" bending round to catch her friend's eye, which was obstinately fixed on the distant horizon. " I am so glad if it is. Papa and mamma like him so much. He is a model young man, I should think." A pleased light shone in Maggie's eyes, but she still held them apart from her companion's. "Model young men are apt to be tiresome," she said, lightly.

" Oh, for shame, Maggie ; when he has always worked so hard and done everything for himself, with no bad habits either. Such a young man is worth a dozen Sidney Gales." Maggie was just sensible enough of the justice of this rebuke to feel irritated by it. " If you think so highly of him, why don't you set your cap for him yourself?" Bertha looked dis pleased. " There, now," exclaimed the other, in quick remorse. " What makes me say coarse, silly things like that, I wonder? I believe there are two people inside me. One is a hateful little imp, always making me do something wrong or foolish. That's my true self, I'm afraid," with a rueful smile. " The other's an angel ; that's you," taking her friend's arm and squeezing it penitentially against her side. " It is true, Bertha," more seriously.

" You are my walking conscience. I would give anything to be the same quiet, dignified, every-day -alike kind of girl you are," ending with a sigh. "Well, if people were all alike, the world would be a dull place," was Bertha's practical reply. "It is just because you are so bright and quick, so different every way from me, that I like you — only I can't bear to see " — "There, there," Maggie interrupted, raising her hand to check this return to a disagreeable subject. "Don't say another word. I'll do anything you ask." They had reached the corner, where they said their good-byes and separated. Each had gone on but a few steps when Bertha turned and called her friend, and they slowly retraced their way towards each other. "It's only about those slippers," she explained, apologetically. " I have a pair that I've outgrown ; I'm getting to be such a monster — " shrugging her plump shoulders, " and if you can wear them" — " It's not that," said Maggie, quickly, but with no hint of resentment.

" I could have the slippers if I said so, but Sister Helen has made such a fuss about them. She says graduation day is getting to be nothing but a season of display ; that the girls care only about their new dresses." " Mamma says about the same thing. She didn't quite approve of the slippers, either ; but she says I had better wear them if the rest do." " Now, that isn't like Helen at all," said Maggie. " She would say that if the others wore them, that was a good reason why I shouldn't. She thinks I ought to stand up for the principle, but it is pretty hard standing up for a principle when " — "When it isn't yours," the other finished, with a laugh. " Well, I don't believe it will make any difference. People are not coming there to look at our shoes." "Oh, yes, they are," Maggie said, with hardened conviction.

" What do you suppose they are coming for — to listen to our essays? Well, to yours per haps — but mine is nothing but a string of nonsense. I don't see how you ever did it, Bertha. Ten pages of blank verse. It would have killed me." "Oh, I didn't find it so hard. It wasn't as if I had had to make it rhyme, and papa helped me, you know." "I guess he didn't help you much," the other rejoined, bending forward and kissing her. "You're too honest for that. Good-bye." And they again parted. Bertha Fay had only a few steps further to go before she reached the rectory. She was a young woman of quiet tastes and unstriking appearance, whose unadventurous spirit was likely to reap neither the gains nor penalties of a restless disposition like her friend's ; and which might in time, assisted by certain physical tendencies, settle into moral lassi tude.

Though Maggie had called Bertha her " walking conscience," it was chiefly in recognition of that nicer sense of propriety in which she had been bred, and which Maggie would have liked the credit of possessing also. Neither of these young women had yet encountered any task or duty requiring the severe application of principle and a study of human motive, and the character of each was still under the shaping hand of circumstance.

Chapter II. Young Hearts And Heads

Maggie turned the corner and walked rapidly on her way. Her home was half a mile distant on a side street that ran through the village across the railroad tracks into the rich farming region beyond. It was a small frame house standing on a slight elevation just above the banks of the "Race," a narrow stream, running parallel to the railroad, built in the early settlement of the town to afford motive power to two or three flouring mills. When Maggie spoke of her father as poor, it was in a relative sense. Thomas Dean had worked on the road as engineer several years, and was now foreman of the locomotive works located in the village. An intelligent machinist and a man of sober, industrious habits, he had been able, aided by the management of a capable wife, to save enough from his earnings to buy a home and lay up a few hundred dollars in the bank.

When she was a child, her father's shop had been to Maggie a place of marvellous interest and delight; and many a runaway visit had she paid to it, to watch the big bellows, and fill her white apron with all manner of curious things, bits of sooty iron and shining black cinders, returning home covered with grime and coal-dust, to be punished with a swift un dressing and putting to bed. Mrs. Dean, though she had married a man who was never free from it, abhorred dirt. An immaculate cleanliness reigned in her house from cellar to attic, suggesting the constant use of the scrubbing brush ; yet there was nothing of the household drudge in Mrs. Dean's appearance. On the contrary, she wore the complacent air of one whose tasks are all per formed and who has earned the leisure she enjoys. Less efficient housekeepers were apt to observe that Mrs. Dean's work seemed always done, no matter what time of the day or week you happened in there.

There was never any hurry or bustle, any slipshod shoving of one day's tasks into the next. One Mon day was exactly like another, with the clothes on the line at half jxist ten, the kitchen floor still damp in spots from the weekly mopping when Thomas Dean came home to dinner, invariably served from the remains of Sunday's roast. Mrs. Dean described these methods with the word "system." She had brought up her daughters to copy her ways in the smallest particu lars, but Maggie was beginning to evince a growing restlessness under this discipline. As she grew towards young womanhood, she lost interest in the railroad shops ; and the huge volumes of smoke issu ing from the tall chimneys, together with the charred roadway beneath, afflicted her with a sense of in jury and social ill-being every time she passed them.

Maggie was just eighteen, an age when a bright and sensitive girl is quick to recognize whatever special A gikl graduate. disadvantages inhere in her position, and strong in the belief in her power to overcome them. She was one of that large and inevitable class in our American civilization which illustrates both the merits and the difficulties of our peculiar principles ; where the spec tacle of social difference, based on divergent tastes and standards, may be seen in the two generations of a single household. The daughter of plain, uneducated parents, themselves belonging to a definite sphere, who with honest pride and ambition had fitted their children to occupy a very different one, Maggie felt herself at the same time both promised and cheated of the tilings she most desired. She had looked her situation in the face many times and said to herself that, as the daughter of a working man who wore a cotton blouse six days out of the seven, she had very little chance beside a girl like Laura Danvers, the only daughter of the wealthiest citizen in town; but she added that, as a girl with ten times more brains than Laura Danvers, — that was Maggie's moderate way of putting it, — she had a right to as fair a destiny as she.

She had no feeling of special dislike towards Laura Danvers, who rather stood in her mind as the representative of certain social lines and distinctions she proudly believed herself able to overcome. It was not until lately, since her acquaintance with Sidney Gale, that the relation between the two young women had become more personal. Maggie had not tried to define her feelings towards Sidney Gale, though she stood ready to admit, in moments of serious reflection, that he was not to be compared with a steady and intelligent young man like Henry Parsons. But the persistent gravity which marked the behavior and conversation of this older acquaintance, together with the knowledge of his real feeling for her, wearied and sometimes irri tated her, making the lighter image of young Gale, with his gay, chatty talk and graceful gallantries, appear in agreeable contrast.

She had been unmis takably flattered by Gale's attentions. The knowledge that she had the power to attract one so favored and popular acted like a charm on her imagination, arousing a host of daring hopes and speculations, vaguely outlined but ardently cherished. Her friend Bertha's words had rudely dashed these hopes to the ground. Though dimly aware from the first of the equivocal nature of her new admirer's attentions, she would not before admit there was anything wrong or unbecoming in them. Now, however, she suddenly saw herself the object of that cheapened regard in others which never smites so keenly as where it reflects a shamed self-consciousness within. People were laughing and speaking lightly of her, saying that Sidney Gale was but amusing himself with her, while he reserved all serious feeling for his cousin Laura Danvers.

Maggie was a proud, high-spirited girl, and, though without social experience, too intel ligent not to understand the humiliating position in which she had placed herself. Vanity and caprice had combined to encourage a relation whose very secrecy had at first contributed an additional charm, but which now threatened to cover her with reproach. She walked rapidly down the street, her cheeks burn ing with a sense of public exposure and shame, and strong in a sudden resolve to have nothing more to do with Sidney Gale. On her way she had to pass a small, dilapidated cottage, with a group of unkempt cldldren playing in front. It was the home of Pete Harmon, one of her father's workmen, a rough and dissolute character. A young woman about Maggie's age, poorly dressed, but with touches of cheap finery about her, was lazily swinging on the front gate.

She looked at Maggie with a cool and smiling assurance. " You've kept him waiting a good while," she said, in a drawling tone, with a hint of idle malice beneath. Maggie flushed, and turned quickly towards her, a sharp retort on her lips, then, bethinking herself, and ashamed that she had let a girl like Molly Harmon see she had power to annoy her, raised her head proudly and went on her way. She could not dis miss this little incident from her mind, however, nor cover her own sense of folly and wrong-doing with angry contempt for another. The hour was late, and she passed the place where Sidney Gale usually joined her with a feeling of grateful escape. This soon changed to humiliation as she reflected that perhaps he had not been there at all, but had purposely stayed away, and was now laugh ing at her with the rest of the world.

She grew very angry, and said to herself that if she were to meet Mr. Gale that moment she would send him promptly about his business. So fully determined was she in this, she began to regret he was not there, that she might put her resolution into instant effect. The next moment, fate showed itself ready for her dealing in the shape of a good-looking young man, smartly dressed in a new summer suit, who sprang from the grass on the roadside, and came smilingly towards her. Maggie stopped short and gazed at him in undis guised dismay, mingled with a new, overpowering dread. "At last!" the young man exclaimed, as he drew near. He turned back to accompany her, while Maggie's steps fell into a slow, indecisive gait as she struggled to collect herself, and regain the courage that now seemed to exhale with every breath, and ooze from her very finger-tips.

" What made you so late ? " he went on, in an in jured tone. " I didn't know they kept the older pupils after school. I've waited nearly two hours." These words sent a little thrill of gratified vanity through his listener, despite her severe intentions. He had waited for her, then, — perhaps he really did care. But she meant not to give up her purpose, and, making a desperate effort, without pausing to think what she should say or how she should say it, she struck out blindly, speaking in a voice in which strong excitement and a strained formality were curiously blended. " Mr. Gale, I have something to say to you." He turned an inquiring face towards her, at the same time extending his hand to relieve her of the book she carried; but this she would not permit, holding it pressed tightly against her, as if to keep down the frightened beating of her heart.

" I'm all attention," he said, in his light, ironic voice, as she continued silent. But now Maggie real ized, with a new sense of shame, that she could never speak the words she had intended. What was there to say to Sidney Gale, any way ? How could she, by forbidding him her society, reveal her distrust of him, and her knowledge of the unpleasant gossip connected with their names ? After all, there was no real necessity ; for quickly the rescuing thought flashed across her that this was the last day of school, the last after noon that she might be found at a given hour walking down Taylor Street. This wavering purpose of our little heroine should not be too swiftly condemned. Maggie's instinct was better than her logic. Womanly delicacy and honor will often choose to ignore pre sumptuousness in an admirer, rather than admit a knowledge of the same by openly resenting it.

"It is nothing," she said, trying to speak in her usual manner, " I have changed my mind." He bent a curious look on her. " You changed it pretty quick, but that's a woman's privilege. What are you walking so fast for ? " She murmured something about being late, but, not wishing to appear unusual, slackened her pace, while her companion, making a second attempt to relieve her of her book, was now passively permitted to take it from her. " And so we graduate to-morrow," he began again. " What did you say the subject of your essay was ? What a pity Dean doesn't begin with a letter lower down in the alphabet. Then I could come in late and escape the bore of listening to all the rest." " Our names are not arranged in alphabetical order," said Maggie, lifting her head. " Mine comes near the end."

" Oh, then the arrangement is one of merit?" "But I guess there are others you want to hear." Maggie guessed a good deal, the art of finished dis course imparted in a three years' course in a village high school being impaired by careless native habits. " Laura Danvers' name is third on the programme," darting a significant look at the young man at her side. If there was a touch of malice in this, it passed unnoticed, Gale saying, only, in his most unconcerned manner, that he supposed he might as well see the thing through. He opened the book he was carrying, and began carelessly turning the leaves, his eyes resting, in amused scrutiny, on one of the blank pages covered with a schoolgirl's scribbled nonsense. " This is the way young ladies employ their time in school, is it? " and he read, — " ' A chance wind blew us together, The same may blow us apart.' " " Mr. Gale, give me that book."