Smith College Stories Part 9

"Lord, no!" Martha agreed; "she wouldn't trouble a fly!"

Biscuits wandered about the room and absent-mindedly picked up a sheaf of papers.

"Themes back?" she inquired. Martha nodded.

"'Me see 'em?" Martha shrugged her shoulders in a manner to be envied of the Continent.

Biscuits opened at a poem that caught her eye, and read it. Martha's eyes were apparently fixed on _Madame Chrysantheme_, but they wandered occasionally to Biscuits' face as she read. The poem was called,--

THE LIFTING VEIL

Do you love me now?

Ah, your mouth is cold!

Yet you taught me how-- Are we growing old?

Did you love me then?

Ah, your eyes are wet!

If the memory's sweet, Why will you forget?

Could you love me still?

Hush! you shall not say!

Love is not of will-- Shall I go away?

Dare you love me now?

Let me burn my ships!

I, myself, am not so sure-- Am I worth your lips?

"Um--ah--yes," said Biscuits, "sounds something like Browning, doesn't it?"

Martha looked only politely interested.

"Do you think so?" she said impersonally.

"Yes. I like that line about the ships," added Biscuits, tentatively; "it--er--seems to--er--_imply_ so much!"

Martha looked enigmatically at the skull. "Does it?" she asked.

Biscuits caught a glimpse of a long, hastily written story, and gasped.

"Why, Martha, did you really hand _that_ in?" she demanded.

"Certainly I did," said Martha; "why not?"

"Because it's really shocking, you know," Biscuits replied. "What _did_ she say?"

Martha hesitated, but a twinkle slipped into her eye and she smiled as she replied. "Look and see," she said.

Biscuits turned to the last page, pa.s.sing many an underlined word or phrase by the way, and read in crimson ink at the bottom: _Mallock has done this better: you are getting very careless in your use of relatives._ At which Biscuits smiled wisely and rea.s.sured herself of an announcement she had made in the middle of her junior year to the effect that even among the Faculty one ran across occasional evidences of real intelligence.

"Martha," she said abruptly, "I meant what I said about Mary and Alberta--they'd make a very good pair."

"And Miss Sutton and I--" returned Martha, sardonically.

"Precisely," said Biscuits, "Miss Sutton and you. Oh, I know n.o.body has the slightest right to ask it of you and we all supposed you wouldn't, but at the same time I thought I'd just lay it before you. I firmly believe, Martha, that you are the only person in this house capable of managing Martha Sutton!"

"I?" And _Madame Chrysantheme_ dropped to the floor.

"Yes, you. Now, Martha, just look at it: you know that the girl is a perfect child--you know that she means well enough, and in her way she has a keen sense of humor. Now you are much more mature than the average girl up here and you take--er--broader views of things than most of them. You wouldn't be so shocked at the things Suttie does; you could, very gradually, you know, convey to her that her ideas of humor were just a little crude, you know, and that would strike her far more than the lectures that Alberta used to read her by the hour."

"Oh! Alberta!" Martha gasped. "Alberta was enough to drive _anybody_ to drink!"

"Just so. Well, as I told Mrs. Harrow, you were the one, but of course no one had the least right to press it. And of course, in your last year, and all that, and naturally you haven't any special interest in her, and it's all right if you won't."

Martha scowled for a moment and appeared to be reviewing her own past life, rapidly and impartially.

"It would be a good thing to have her kept out of the halls, at least," she announced, at last, irrelevantly.

"That's what I told Mrs. Harrow," said Biscuits, eagerly. "You see, Alberta _bored_ her so, Martha. She's a clever child and she likes clever people. She needs tact, and Alberta hasn't the tact of a hen.

Only, you see, Mrs. Harrow felt that in a great many ways the example--"

Martha rose and confronted her guest. "I hope you understand, Biscuits, that if I ever _did_ go into the kindergarten business I should know how to conduct myself properly. I have never for one moment tried to fit everybody to my own standards: I appreciate perfectly that things are--er--relative, and that what may be perfectly safe for me is not necessarily so for others."

Biscuits coughed and said that she had always known that, and it was for just that reason that she had hesitated to ask Martha to give up her ways and habits: habits which if harmless to the unprejudiced observer were a trifle irregular, viewed from the strictest standpoint of a college house.

"There's no particular reason why you should," she concluded, "and perhaps, anyhow, as Mrs. Harrow says--"

"Perhaps what?" snapped Martha.

"Oh, nothing! Only she doesn't believe you could do it, and of course she perfectly loathes having to make a change this way--she says it's a terrible precedent--and--"

"See here, Biscuits," said Martha, solemnly, "never mind about my habits. I suppose," magnificently, "it won't hurt me to get to bed at ten, once in a way, and it's only till June, anyhow. She _is_ a bright enough child, and as you say, she needs tact. If it keeps the house quiet and saves you dinging at 'em all the time, I can do it, I suppose. I might try studying for a change before mid-years, too."

Biscuits got up to go. "I appreciate this very much, Martha," she said gravely. "I know what it means to you, but I really think you'll do her a lot of good--I mean," at a sudden pucker of Martha's brows, "I mean, of course, that a person to whom her badness doesn't seem so very terrible will be a revelation to her."

"Oh, yes!" said Martha.

Biscuits waylaid Sutton M. on the stairs after dinner and suggested a conversation in her own cosey little single room. Sutton M.

accompanied her, suspiciously.

"Now, what do you think you're going to do?" she inquired bitterly, as Biscuits offered a shiny apple and tipped _Henry Esmond_ off the Morris chair. "Going to put me with some spook or other, I suppose--I'll leave the house first. I've had enough of that!"

"No, you won't, either," Biscuits replied. "You'll be as good as Kate is, and not make me curse the day I was elected house president. Now, Suttie, I'm going to tell you something that must not go beyond this room--beyond this room," she repeated impressively.

"Not Kate? I have to tell Kate," said Sutton M., but with an air of deepest interest. Outsiders rarely confided in the Twins.

"Well, Kate then, but n.o.body else. Promise?"

Sutton M. nodded.