Brenda's Ward Part 3

"I wish we girls could have seen the game," cried Martine. "I can't see why they played it at New Haven; it was the one Sat.u.r.day of the whole autumn when I had to stay in Boston."

"Why, it was New Haven's turn to have the game; you know Harvard and Yale have them on their own fields every other year," said Elinor, as if explaining something that Martine did not understand.

"Oh, indeed," began Martine, sarcastically; then, remembering that she was to a degree Elinor's hostess, she murmured in an aside to Robert, "As if I did not know that better than she."

"It's strange," continued Elinor, in a placid tone, "that I know so little of Harvard; we generally rush through Boston on our way to Bar Harbor. Once we drove round, one hot summer day in vacation, but I can only remember a Memorial Hall and some queer old brick buildings."

Possibly Elinor's adjectives did not please Martine, for the latter spoke up quickly.

"They're not queer, but historic; we think everything of Harvard here in Boston."

"Oh, naturally," replied Elinor, in her most languid tone.

"So say we all of us," cried Robert Pringle, while Amy and Fritz, who had been carrying on an animated discussion, looked up quickly. "What's wrong?" asked Fritz, innocently.

"Nothing, nothing," and Brenda, hastening to change the subject, asked suddenly, "Did you bring your automobile, Lucian?"

"Of course. I only wish I could take you all to Cambridge in it."

"Who's going in which?" asked Amy a little later, as they stood at the door, before which were Lucian's automobile and Robert Pringle's dogcart.

"Oh, the automobile for me!" cried Martine, impulsively.

"Will you go in the automobile?" asked Lucian politely, turning toward Elinor.

"Yes, indeed, I should like to, thank you," replied the guest.

"Priscilla is coming in the dogcart with me," said Mr. Weston.

"Then I think I'll drive with Priscilla," added Martine.

"Such affection!" exclaimed Amy. "To give up the automobile because you prefer Priscilla's company!"

"It isn't that I like Rome more, but Caesar less," rejoined Martine, garbling her quotation and looking toward the automobile, where Elinor had already taken her seat.

Amy understood, and decided to give Martine a bit of advice at the first opportunity; for the present she and Brenda, with Fritz and Lucian, went in the automobile with Elinor, while Arthur and Robert Pringle accompanied Martine and Priscilla. The automobile speeded out through the Avenue across a corner of Brighton, that Elinor might have a good view of Soldiers Field. The dogcart proceeded over Harvard Bridge, and Martine tried to make Priscilla take a wager as to which vehicle would first reach the College Yard.

When at last, however, they drew up before the Johnston Gate, Lucian and his party were waiting there, having left the automobile at the garage.

"As we're going to explore these unknown regions on foot," said Lucian, "we can't allow you to drive haughtily around. There's a boy, Robert, to take your trap over to the stable. And so," he added, after Martine and Priscilla had alighted, "the elephant now goes round, the band begins to play; in other words, let the procession move in through the great gate.

It was given by a Chicago man," he concluded. "That's why I'm proud to have you see it."

After the gate had received its share of admiration, "Here are your 'queer old brick buildings,' Miss Naylor," cried Fritz. "Every brick has a history, but I can't show you the college pump. It was blown up by anarchists, who probably meant to blow up one of the buildings."

"How shocking!" said the sympathetic Elinor.

"That they did not blow up the buildings?"

"Oh, no, but that they should behave so badly. I trust they were punished."

"Oh, they were blown up too."

"Really?"

Although Elinor gazed directly at Fritz, there was no suspicion in her calm blue eye.

"Doesn't she remind you of my cousin, Edith Blair?" whispered Martine to Amy.

"I can't say that they look much alike."

"Oh, Amy, please don't be literal, too. I mean she believes everything Fritz says, and between him and Mr. Weston she'll have a hard time."

"And a strange opinion of Harvard," added Brenda, who had joined the two speakers.

As the majority of the party, including Elinor, were now out of hearing, Brenda thought this a good time to ask Martine to explain her prejudice against Elinor, "who seems a pleasant and dignified girl," she concluded.

"Yes, that's it; she's too dignified for her size, she ought to be bright and jolly and--"

"But remember, please, that she's among strangers. You can't dislike her simply because she's quiet and dignified, so you might as well confess."

"Well, then," replied Martine, "if I must, I must; but you'll understand, when I tell you that she's the girl who knocked my hat off."

Amy looked puzzled and Brenda smiled as she responded, "Oh, the girl whom you tried to knock down with your umbrella. I suppose that is what has made that scratch on her face. No wonder she is on her dignity with you."

"I shouldn't have cared," retorted Martine, "if she hadn't refused to shake hands with me to-day. Surely everyone must have noticed that, and it's she who ought to apologize for destroying my third best hat."

Then, as she recalled the sight of the hat with the pale blue feathers sliding along on the asphalt, Martine laughed heartily, and from that moment, in her mind, all was peace between her and Elinor.

"I didn't mean to get so far ahead," explained Lucian, as the others came up to the spot where he and Fritz were standing with Elinor. "But Miss Naylor is delighted with Holden."

"Yes," murmured Elinor, "it is the cunningest little building! I should like to pick it up and carry it off as a souvenir. It's too bad that it isn't the very oldest of all the buildings now standing."

"No, Ma.s.sachusetts has that honor, but Holden is the first to take its name from an English benefactor," said Fritz.

"It seems too bad that nothing remains of the original Harvard, but the fire of 1764 swept them all away. Ma.s.sachusetts is older than that, and so are one or two others now standing. The old buildings are not particularly beautiful," Robert Pringle apologized.

"But they look like New England," interrupted Martine, "so practical and business-like and angular; that's why I like them."

"There must be some interesting stories connected with them," said Elinor, sentimentally.

"Oh, yes, stories, quant.i.ties of them. What would you like to hear?"

asked Fritz, with an eagerness that showed he was ready to manufacture any tale or legend that Elinor might desire.

"Did the college go on during the Revolution?" asked Elinor. "I know Was.h.i.+ngton had his headquarters in Cambridge."

"The library was sent up to Andover for safety, and the students to the Concord Reformatory."

"Oh, Fritz," protested Amy, "if you are not careful, Miss Naylor will believe you."

"Why not?" asked Fritz, innocently. "It's history that they were sent to Concord, and why not to the Reformatory? They must have needed it, if they were like some of the present students, and they would have been sent there surely had Concord possessed a reformatory in those benighted years."