"You all know that my life has been bound up in the fortunes of this place for some years now. When I first came here, there were about twenty-five girls registered. We taught a little French, some music, fine needlework, literature, and something of the social graces. Walking was about the most strenuous of the sports for girls in those days. Hiking was unheard of, for young ladies, I mean. It was considered quite the thing to grow pale and to faint on the slightest provocation, that is, if the young lady did it gracefully.
"Nan here would have been quite out of place in that old school with her bobbed hair, her keen enjoyment of all the sports, and her interest in Professor Krenner's class in architectural drawing."
The girls laughed. Although the course had been listed in Lakeview Hall's catalogue ever since Professor Krenner joined the faculty, Nan had been the first to actually elect the subject. The story of how and why she did had long ago become a campus joke as those who have read "Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall" are well aware.
Now, for the first time Nan herself began to see how really queer that listing "Architectural Drawing" must have looked when it first appeared on the catalogue. She giggled, as she thought of young women with long dresses that trailed along the gravel paths of the campus taking such a serious course.
Sharing the joke with Dr. Beulah, she smiled up at her.
"Yes, Nan would have been quite out of place there," Dr. Beulah repeated. "Not one among those twenty-five girls was trained to take care of herself. Here, today in the very hall where they sometimes gathered for their lessons in "The Social Graces" and practiced entering and leaving the room, using that door over there," she said, nodding toward the doorway from which Nan had first viewed the surprise party, "you girls of the modern day have planned a party for one of your number who has had more adventures than those girls had ever dreamed or read about.
"Whereas they walked, danced some, and fainted most expertly, you go boating, hiking, horseback riding, and, in the winter, sleighing. You play basketball and volleyball and golf. How they would envy you! Now, your party is for one among you who is going to Europe. There, all sorts of adventures await her. Just as Nan cannot imagine what these will be, just as I could not have twenty years ago imagined this big school with its two hundred self-reliant girls, you young ladies in planning this party had no conception of what a big thing was going to happen to you shortly.