Ann Arbor Tales

Florence affected low candle-lights, glowing through softly tinted shades, of pale-green, blue, old-rose, pink; for such low lights set each coiled tress of her golden hair a-dancing--and Florence knew this. The hangings in the little round room where she received her guests were deeper than the shades, and the tapestry of the semi-circular window-seat was red. It was in the arc of this that Florence was wont to sit--the star amidst her satellites.

It was one's privilege to smoke in the little room, and somehow the odor of the burned tobacco did not get into the draperies; nor filter through the portières into the hall beyond; and the air of the boudoir was always cool and fresh and sweet.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday--every night--and Sunday most of all--there were loungers on that window-seat, their faces half in shadow. It was hard at such times to take one's eyes off Florence, sitting in the arc, the soft light of old-rose moving across her cheek, creeping around her white throat, leaping in her twisted hair, quivering in her blue, soft eyes.

When she smiled, one thought in verse--if one were that sort--or, perhaps, muttered, "Gad!" shiveringly under the breath.

Well may you--or I--shake our heads now and smile, albeit a bit sadly; but then it was different. We have learned much, too much perhaps, and the once keen edge of joy is dulled. But then we were young. Youth was our inheritance and we spent it, flung it away, you say, as we knelt before the Shrine of Beauty set up in a little round room where low lights glimmered among deep shaded draperies.

We realized that it was a serious matter--a deadly serious matter; just as did a score or more of our fellows on the campus in whose hearts, as well, flared the flame of the fine young love that we were feeling in our own.

For you--and I--loved Florence.

Dear little room! Dearest, dearest Florence! Many are the men who never learned; in whose hearts your image is enshrined to-night. And few are they who ever learned and really knew you, dear.

Some few thought they did and called you a "College Widow," because they could remember a certain tall, dark-browed senior who danced ten times with you at the Jay Hop of '87. Others were convinced through them; but these were mostly freshmen upon whom you had not sought to work your magic. How far wrong they were! Yet even you, Florence, I am thinking, were wont, at least in blue moments, to take yourself at the scant valuation these few saw fit to place upon you.

But in the end you, even, saw and understood.

I am glad, my dear, that I may tell the story. And if those who read it here shall call it fiction, you, and Jim, and I, at least, shall know it for the truth.

And then, when I have done, and you have put aside the book, to hide your eyes from him who holds you fonder far than you can know, remember, dear, the glory of it and be glad.

I

It was June.

The rain had been plentiful and the green things of earth rioted joyously in their silent life. In the trees were many birds that sang all day long, and in the night the moon was pale and the shadows were ghostly and the air was sweet with roses that hung in pink profusion from the trellis.

The grass was soft beneath the quick, light tread of the lads; and the laughter of the summer-time was in the eyes of all the maids.

Many the gay straw-rides to the Lake; frequent and long the walks through leafy lanes, down which the footfalls echoed; sweet the vigils on the broad stone steps distributed about the campus with so much regard for youthful lovers.

Too warm for dancing; too languorous for study, that June was made only for swains and sweethearts.