"All Father's
'favorite students' are such rough-necks. And it makes me tired to
have all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--Miss
Lindstroem and Mr. Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all."
"The President comes," advanced Judith.
Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "What if he does--old
fish-mouth! _He's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. He used to be a
Baptist minister. He's only President because he can talk the hayseeds
in the Legislature into giving the University big appropriations. And
anyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. He
doesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time he
was here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade him to have
planchette write him a message from Abraham Lincoln. Isn't she the
limit, anyhow!"
The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilinged
living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrilling
violin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the Kreutzer, with Professor
Marshall at the piano. Judith went quietly to sit near Professor
Kennedy, and Sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head against
the pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside.
Her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to
limpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes were
fixed on a point incalculably distant.
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