Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 28: Commencement—and the End
As Julia sat in church on Baccalaureate Sunday she felt sadder than on any occasion since the class had begun to take its farewell of Cambridge and of college life, for now they were together for the last time before Commencement as the Senior class in cap and gown.
The last day was near at hand, and after that final assembling in Sanders Theatre, it was unlikely that these threescore girls would ever be all together again in the same place. Impressive though the sermon was, more than once Julia had to recall her thoughts from wandering in a review of the past four years. Had she herself made the best use of her time? Was there not some girl among the Seniors to whom she might have been more helpful than she had been—in ways intangible if not material? Had she herself drawn all the inspiration she might have drawn from her classmates? She had learned much from her intimates, but had she been sufficiently appreciative of some of the others or responsive to them? Thoughts like these so mingled themselves with her impressions of the sermon that she left the church in a state of abstraction.
Questions such as Julia had asked herself can never receive a definite answer. The wisest of us makes many mistakes, and the most foolish would be plunged in constant despair if she had to call herself to account at every step. To do her best is the most that can be asked of any girl, and if only she tries to learn from her errors, whatever her past faults, she can turn hopefully to the future.
Julia, fortunately, had comparatively little occasion for self-reproach; for if she had made the very most of her opportunities at Radcliffe—if she had left nothing undone that should have been done—she would have been the only one of her kind. Thoughts like these of Julia’s presented themselves to nearly every girl in the class—from Pamela the over-conscientious to careless Polly. Even the self-sufficient Annabel talked in a less self-satisfied manner, as she walked homeward from church accompanied by two or three of her best friends.
The three days intervening between Class Day and Baccalaureate Sunday had been very full. Friday had been Harvard Class Day, and there wasn’t a girl in the class who did not know at least one Harvard Senior. It was the first Class Day for Julia since the year of Philip’s failure, and the things that she did seemed a repetition of the happenings of that other year. There was but one marked change: the Tree exercises had been given up, and a less strenuous performance went on around the John Harvard statue on the delta. Confetti took the place of flowers, and the whole affair was carried on in the most gentlemanly way. Yet Julia, like many others, thought with regret of the old struggle around the Tree—regret that it was to be no more. Philip, although he realized better than any one else that this was not his real Class Day, yet managed to get a great deal of fun out of it. Tom Hearst and some of his former classmates, now about to be graduated from the Law School, gave a small tea in the early evening, and it proved a reunion of the group of young people who had been together so much at Rockley and in Boston. Brenda’s engagement had come out that very day, and she and Arthur Weston received the congratulations showered on them in a fashion that amused every one. They were surprised that their friends were not surprised.
“I am sure that I have always complained of the way Arthur teased me,” pouted Brenda, “and I never really made up my mind until—”
“When?” shouted Tom Hearst, noting with delight that Brenda was embarrassed. But Brenda refused to answer.
Ruth and Will Hardon had an equally large share of congratulations, and they would have been astonished had their friends not taken their engagement as a matter of course.
On Saturday the same group of young people went to the Yale-Harvard game on Soldier’s Field, and after they had returned home from Annabel’s concert party, Ruth and Julia were tired enough.
Kaleidoscopic visions of the past week’s festivities mingled with Julia’s more serious thoughts that Baccalaureate Sunday, as she scratched off the dates on her calendar that showed only two days remaining of college life.
But at last the eventful Tuesday had come—the Commencement that was to end the undergraduate days of the class. They had breakfasted that morning with the Dean, and had met many of their instructors at the informal reception that followed. Commencement was at half-past four o’clock, and promptly at that hour, while the orchestra in the gallery was playing, a long procession filed into Sanders Theatre. The amphitheatre was already filled with guests who had been ushered to their seats by Harvard Seniors. At the head of the procession walked the President of Harvard, and on his arm leaned the President of Radcliffe—stately and benign. Close behind were the Dean, the Secretary, the members of the Governing Board of Radcliffe and the Overseers of Harvard, with whose approval the degrees were granted.
All these took their seats on the platform, and at the left sat the Radcliffe Glee Club. The Seniors in cap and gown at the end of the procession marched to places on the floor of the theatre directly under the stage. It was hard for them to maintain their dignity without turning around, when they knew that in the balconies were so many of those with whom they would have liked to exchange a glance and a nod.