Part 24 (1/2)
”How do you know she is?” asked Bea.
”A message came.”
”Hus.h.!.+” They slipped into a pew near the rear of the chapel. During the reading of Scripture, Lila sat gazing blankly straight before her over the rows of heads, dark and fair. As if in a dream she rose with the others for the singing of the hymn. Still as though moving in a mist, she sank again into her seat and bowed her forehead upon the pew in front.
While the rustling murmur was subsiding into a hush before the prayer, she stirred and lifting her face turned for one fleeting moment toward the wide doors at the back. Ah! She raised her head higher to watch, motionless, breathless. The doors were noiselessly swinging shut behind a girl with a queer small face atop of an ill-clad little figure. But the face instead of being crumpled in grief was alight with joy; and the little figure advanced with a lilt and a swing, as if just freed from a burden.
The message had been a message of good tidings.
Lila watched the child slip exultantly into a convenient corner. Then with a sudden, swift movement the older girl dropped full upon her knees and covered her eyes with her hands.
CHAPTER XIV
CLa.s.sMATES
Bea reached for Robbie with one arm, grasped Lila with the other, and went skipping after the rest of the seniors over the lawn to their cla.s.s tree. She dragged them under its spreading branches to the centre of the throng that had gathered in the June twilight. Berta was already there, mounted on a small platform that had been built against the trunk in preparation for the morrow's Cla.s.s Day ceremonies.
”She looks pretty decent,” whispered Bea to Robbie in order to frustrate the queer sensation in her throat at sight of the eager face laughing above them on this last evening together before the deluge of commencement guests. ”I hope the alumnae who are wandering around admire our taste in presidents.”
”Maybe,” Robbie spoke reflectively, ”they're almost as much interested in their cla.s.smates as we are in ours.”
”Um-m,” said Bea, ”why, maybe so they are. I never thought of that before. Robbie, you're my liberal education. Now, then, attention! Berta is raising her hand to mark time for the songs to be rehea.r.s.ed for to-morrow.”
But Berta's hand dropped at sound of a shout from across the campus.
”There!” she exclaimed, ”the soph.o.m.ores are coming.”
They certainly were coming, on a double-quick march, two by two, shouting for the seniors. As they approached the shouting changed to singing. When they reached the tree, they spread out and joining hands went skipping, still viva voce, around the seniors who watched them, silent and smiling.
The air was sweet with the cool, spicy breath of spruces. Lila thought that she could even smell the roses in the garden beyond the evergreens.
She lifted her face toward the soft evening sky, and her mouth grew wistful. Bea caught a glimpse of it, and immediately became voluble if not eloquent.
”This is impromptu,” she commented, generous with her least thoughts. ”I enjoy impromptus, except speeches--or that last lecture when the man couldn't read his own notes. Now my history which is to astonish the world to-morrow will doubtless glitter with extemporaneous wit which has cost me two weeks of meditation. Likewise this impromptu on the spur of the moment----”
”I think it's beautiful,” said Robbie. She was watching Berta's eyes as the last lingering strains died away. Oh, dear! why did they sing that good-bye serenade again? Berta was going to cry. Hark! A robin's twilight call rose melodiously from the heart of a shadowy spruce. In the thrill of it Robbie felt the sting of sudden tears. She turned to Bea.
”Now I know how Berta feels when she listens to music. I'm beginning to understand. But I think a robin is different from a bra.s.s band.”
”Is it now? You astonish me.” Bea squeezed her understandingly, nevertheless. ”I know. Being with Lila has taught me a lot. She is like a windharp--every touch finds a response. Berta's a violin, I guess. It takes skill to play on her. And you--oh, I believe you're a splendid big drum. You've been marking time for the rest of us all the four years. As for me, I'm only an old tin horn. You need to spend all your breath to get any music. Even then it isn't sickeningly sweet, so to speak. Still for an audience in sympathy with the performer----”
”That is what college has given us,” put in Lila who had been listening, ”it gives us sympathy. Being with different persons, you know, and loving them.”
”Oh, yes!” Robbie's sigh of intense a.s.sent left her breathless, ”loving them.”
”Now, then, girls!” Berta's hand was lifted again to beat time as the clapping for the soph.o.m.ores subsided. Then the seniors sang. They sang the songs that were to be interspersed as ill.u.s.trations in Bea's cla.s.s history. There was the elegant stanza which they had shouted all the way to the mountain lake that first October at college.
”'Rah, 'rah, 'rah! kerchoo, kerchoo!
We are freshmen-- Who are you?”
From that brilliant composition the selections ranged through four years of fun and sentiment with an occasional flight to the poetry of earnest feeling as well as many a joyous swoop into hilarious inanity.