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to think that her philanthropic acumen had been at fault. But the elasticity of her spirit presently prevailed, and it was with an exculpating sense of recovery and of illumination which was almost breathless that she said to Constance:

she is a degenerate; one of those unhappy beings whom the helping hands of society are powerless to uplift because of their inherent preference for evil."

Upon her lips the word "degenerate" had the sound of the ring of fate and of "I fear that we must face the fact that modern scientific sophistication withal.

(To be concluded.)

THE GLACIER

By Florence Wilkinson

I AM the mother of rivers,
And out of my bosom of snow
Restless, tormented, and leaping
My passionate children go.

They spring from the poignant Silence
Of a white and passionless life,

Yet far below from the valleys

Comes a rumor of their strife.

They gnash their teeth in the darkness.
Of the dolomitic gorge;

They plunge from the porphyry precipice
Like a thunder-driven forge.

I sit unattainably splendid,
Folded from peak to peak.
Oh, thou last-born of my bosom,
What goest thou forth to seek?

I am white as the whiteness of dawning,
I lift a perpetual brow,

A frozen and pitiless beauty,

Yet once I was driven as thou.

I mounted to crests of anguish,
I sank to the cruel crevasse;
Yet even from this is calmness,
And lo! it has come to pass.

I was sculptured mid-sea of my passion
Millions of ages ago.

My lips are locked; I am speechless;
But I know, my child, I know.

H

By Jessie Knight Hartt

ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. ALLAN GILBERT

ER true and lawful name was Eugénie La Tour Wright, but the girls dubbed her "Jack" as soon as she came to college, and "Jack" she remained until the end of her course. Her sturdy little New England personality showed no slightest inheritance from the French ancestress after whom she had been christened. A firm little figure had Jack, and the tread of her number twoand-a-half shoes was as decided as if she had worn sixes at least. Her cheeks were round and rosy, she gazed at you with serious gray-blue eyes, and her brown hair -the great trial of her tidy existence curled in baby ringlets about her high forehead. For the rest, she was quick-tempered, uncomfortably honest, and it was a pleasing fiction in her set that she had never spoken two unnecessary words to a man in her life. Her frivolous room-mate, Camille Henderson, used to chant a verse which ran thus:

"There is a young person named Wright; When she's mad she will scratch and will bite. It is said she once ran

At the sight of a MAN (!)
And has never got over her fright."

Jack always defended herself hotly against such base insinuations. "I'm not afraid of men; I'm not!" she would asseverate, affectionately pummelling the disrespectful Camille with her small fists; "but what's the use of them? Girls are nicer."

Camille, for her part, felt no aversion to the other sex, and many there were who knew it. Young Yale instructors came from afar to worship at the shrine of her slender young beauty, the eyes of fatuous Harvard youths told her the power of her own sparkling glances, and gay "Tech" students sent violets to deck her trimly pretty gowns when the Powers That Were allowed her an occasional matinée frolic. It was generally expected that Camille, being notoriously soft-hearted, would succumb early to the wiles of some special

adorer, and would be the Class Bride-if she stayed in college long enough to take her degree. By the time of her Senior Midyears, the other girls had accepted that degree as a fact practically accomplished, and several friends among the class magnates openly planned laying out what they called "the Class Bride Appropriation' with special reference to Camille's tastes. Meanwhile, Jack felt greatly troubled in her honest little mind over Camille's prospect of passing the examinations. She pleaded with her not to receive any more callers, not to go to Harvard Vespers, or "Tech" Indoor Meets, until the Mid-years were safely over. Camille saw her own danger; she had to admit that she had been reckless all through the fall term and that much cramming would be necessary to make up for time lost in letter-writing, calls, and foot-ball games.

"Honestly, Jack, I won't accept a single invitation," she promised, to her roommate's infinite relief. "And I won't ask a single soul to call, either; I've written to put off everyone who has asked if he might come. But when a man appears without warning, as Frank Hazard did last evening -truly it would seem mean, Jack, not to see him. Just think! he'd come all the way out from Cambridge. He didn't understand something in my last letter. What could I do?"

"Well," quoth Jack, standing very firmly on her feet as she toasted a bit of chocolate over the study lamp, "I guess I'd know how to deal with a man who took advantage like that. I'd fix him!" and she popped the chocolate into her mouth so promptly that it burned her tongue. "Ouch!" she added, quite irrelevantly, and darted to the thick-bodied water pitcher for a cooling draught.

Camille giggled, as people often did at Jack's most serious mishaps. They were apt to be caused by some childish precipitancy quite at variance with her reputation as the best mathematician in college and the coolest experimenter in the chemistry department.

As the girls snapped off the electric lights in the study that evening, preparatory to a session of "cramming" in the bedroom (whose transomless condition rendered it safe from prying Faculty), Camille returned for a second to the subject of callers. "I think I'll let you tackle the next unforeseen incident who turns up of an evening," she suggested lightly. "It would be larks to see what you'd do with him."

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"You wait!" advised Jack. And then she settled herself cross-legged on her little white bed, pencil in mouth, to perform miracles with logarithms, looking the while like a small girl prepared for the conquest of Wentworth's Primary Arithmetic. When Jack's hair was braided in a little curlyended pigtail down her back, her most serious expression failed to convince you that she was really more than six. In two minutes she had forgotten all about "those Harvard geese, as she disparagingly termed Camille's strenuous followers. That was Friday. The next Monday evening she was suddenly reminded of her boasts, and of her room-mate's jesting appeal to her powers of dissuasion. Camille was at the Library, "reading up" several English masterpieces which she was supposed to have perused some weeks before, and Jack sat in the glow of the lamp, glancing over a French exercise until it should be time to "run over" to the Chapel for a concert. She had been to a class dancing party that afternoon, and was arrayed in an unusually becoming gown left over from the summer before-a flowered organdie with crisp lace-edged ruffles and floating ribbons of rose pink. Camille had designed the dress with special reference to Jack's childlike prettiness, and sometimes, under protest, Jack could be induced to wear it. Quite characteristically, no thought of her dainty attire entered her mind when she answered the maid's tap at the door, received the card of "Mr. Forrest for Miss Henderson," and said with swift decision, "I will see Mr. Forrest."

Then she departed, forgetting to put out the lamp; and as she went by way of the stairs, she arrived at the reception-room door ahead of the maid, who had patronized the elevator. While she plodded down the long flights, she tried to recall what Camille had told her of this Mr. Forrest. She seemed to remember that he was a recent

Harvard graduate, and that he had some minor editorial position on a Boston magazine-or was it a newspaper? Half way down the last corridor it struck her that he was not one of those who came oftenest, and perhaps he hardly deserved the curt dismissal she was about to give him on Camille's behalf.

For an instant her sturdy little heart failed her. She really was afraid of young men, and perhaps the demands of friendship would have been met if she had simply sent word by the maid that Miss Henderson was not at home. Then she bethought herself that no man had a right to demand a whole evening of a busy girl's time, without first finding out if she could receive him. It was a room-mate's duty to show the presumptuous youth his place, and to make him apologize for his thoughtlessness. So little Jack mentally girded herself for the fray, and passed on.

A second she stood poised on the threshold of the wide reception-room door. Mr. Evan Forrest turned from inspecting a huge framed photograph of "The Ruins of the Roman Forum," to see her little beruffled figure, her rose-pink ribbons, and her baby curls, against the uncompromising, grim background of the brick-arched entrance hall, with its shiny wooden floor and its glare of unshaded electric bulbs. Perhaps something butterfly-like about her rosy gown brought a warm touch of summer into the wintry bareness around him. Perhaps the childlike curves of her cheeks and the bigness of her blue eyes appealed to him. At any rate, when Jack came forward and said, "Mr. Forrest?" in a voice which real shyness had softened, Mr. Forrest smiled as if he liked what he saw.

For himself, he was a clean-cut, wellbred-looking young man, with little to distinguish him from the hundreds of other well-bred, clean-cut youths whom his Alma Mater turns out every June. His eyes and hair were dark; he had a good forehead, firm lips, and a sizable chin. If she had had time to think about it, Jack might have liked his looks very decidedly, in spite of his being a man. But she plunged into her mission at once, seeing out of the corner of her eye that the maid had started to enter the room, but had withdrawn to her little table by the door.

"I am Miss Henderson's room-mate,"

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In two minutes she had forgotten all about those Harvard geese."-Page 444.

she began abruptly; "Cam - Miss Henderson can't see you this evening. She's busy at the Librarv. She

"Well," said Mr. Forrest, with a quizzical ruefulness that would have amused Jack if she had been at leisure from herself to notice it," that's my misfortune-and my fault too, I fear. A fellow oughtn't to come out here, you know, without asking permission beforehand."

Jack's rosy lips parted slightly. It astonished her to hear the very words of her intended rebuke proceeding jauntily from the lips of the culprit. The culprit himself, however, being masculine and young, chose to admire the parted lips as a tribute to his own impressiveness. "What a sweet, gentle little thing it is!" he thought, and deep in his heart he felt that he could like this girl very much if he got a chance.

VOL. XXXVI. -49

66

Aloud, he went on Of course I'm disappointed not to see Miss Hendersondoubly so, as I had presumptuously counted on her kindness to help me find Professor Wilkins. She promised to introduce me to Miss Wilkins some day, and a matter came up in the office this afternoon-I am on the staff of the Boston Weekly Dial, you know-which makes it necessary for me to have a talk with Miss Wilkins at once. Henry Fawkes has just died," he added, naming a literary man of some prominence in England.

"Oh!" breathed Jack. As a Freshman, she had been imbued with ardent admiration for Henry Fawkes, who, so the English Department had informed her-was one of the pure white lights of this generation. Jack never had been able to understand much of what he wrote, but she accepted

445

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the dicta of the English Department on all action. She had almost forgotten that she such matters; her specialty was mathe was dealing with a Man. matics, which one could admire and understand at the same time. She was very sorry that Henry Fawkes had died. Professor Wilkins would be so distressed. So she said "Oh!" again, and bit her under lip. Evan Forrest decided that she was absolutely adorable.

66

Miss Henderson once told me." he said, "that Professor Wilkins has had a good deal of correspondence, at one time and another, with Mr. Fawkes. So my Chief thought I'm only assistant subeditor, you know-he thought he'd send me out to ask the Professor if she'd be so kind as to write a short appreciation of Mr. Fawkes's personality for next Saturday's edition. I confess I don't like to beard the lioness all by myself!" he sighed, pick ing up his highly correct hat from a straight backed chair, and preparing to draw on his immaculate gloves; "but I sup pose-would you direct me to Miss Wilkins's house?" he broke off, with a glance of appeal that Jack's really soft heart was illframed to resist.

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Come to the door and I'll show you,' she said impulsively. "You see," she continued, as they crossed the bare hall and stood under the brick arch of the window by the door," Professor Wilkins lives in the village, so you'll have quite a walk from here. You take that first path to the right -there, at the end of this driveway, do you see?-by the electric light. Then turn to the left, and that path will bring you out at the college gate. Then turn tooh dear!" she burst out, looking up at him in sudden dismay, "you won't find Miss Wilkins at home this evening. She told me she was going to the concert."

But,

"What is that?" queried Mr. Forrest: "and where is it? Will she bite if I try to pull her out?"

Jack was too deeply absorbed in mental calculations to heed his pleasantries. She glanced at the clock. "I'm going to that concert myself," she said. "It's over at College Hall. It's a short one, so it doesn't

begin till eight, and we'll be early

enough to catch Miss Wilkins be

fore she gets into the Chapel. If you could wait while I get my coat and rubbers?" Her shyness had vanished at the need for prompt

The Man felt abundantly grateful, however. "You're a-" he began. Then he reflected that this wee person, however sweet, was really not an old friend. "It's awfully good of you," he amended; "I confess I was heartily scared at the prospect of hunting up a strange lady all by myself. Will your charity extend so far as introducing me after we find her?" he ventured.

"Oh, yes!" Jack smiled a pretty, flickering smile at him; "I think I can be as good as that," she said. "But Miss Wilkins doesn't bite, you know. She's the sweetest thing in the world."

Mr. Forrest's dark eyes showed plainly that he knew better. Jack certainly looked unaccountably pretty to-night-so thought two girls who passed through the hall just then, bundled up in evening wraps, on their way to the concert. Their astonishment matched that of the maid, who sat, outwardly discreet, crocheting under the swinging electric light. Nobody had ever seen

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