Janet Bingham Wilson

When She Came Home From College Janet Bingham Wilson

"WELL, this is cheerful!" cried the Infant, as she stepped briskly into the room where the rest of the "Set" were dejectedly assembled. "What if this is the last night of college! What if our diplomas are all concealed in the tops of our top trays! Can't this crowd be original enough to smile a little on our last evening, instead of looking like a country prayer-meeting?" The Infant cast herself upon the cushionless frame of a Morris armchair, and grinned at the forms on the packing-boxes around her. Her eyes roved round the disorderly room, stripped of the pretty portières, cushions, mandolins, and posters, which are as inevitably a part of a college suite as the curriculum is a part of the college itself. Even the Infant suppressed a sigh as she caught sight of the trunks outside in the corridor. "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean; Tears from the depths of some divine despair, Rise from the heart and gather to the eyes, On looking at the-excelsior-on the floor, And thinking of the days that are no more," she chanted.