A College Girl | Page 4

top landing window one could get a bird's- eye
view of the Napier Terrace gardens with their miniature grass plots,

their smutty flower-beds, and the dividing walls with their clothing of
blackened ivy. Some people were ambitious, and lavished unrequited
affection on struggling rose-trees in a centre bed, others contented
themselves with a blaze of homely nasturtiums; others, again,
abandoned the effort after beauty, hoisted wooden poles, and on
Monday mornings floated the week's washing unashamed. In Number
Two the tenant kept pigeons; Number Four owned a real Persian cat,
who basked majestic on the top of the wall, scorning his tortoiseshell
neighbours.
When the lamps were lit, it was possible also to obtain glimpses into
the dining-rooms of the two end houses, if the maids were not in too
great a hurry to draw down the blinds. A newly married couple had
recently come to live in the corner house--a couple who wore evening
clothes every night, and dined in incredible splendour at half-past seven.
It was thrilling to behold them seated at opposite sides of the gay little
table, all a-sparkle with glass and silver, to watch course after course
being handed round, the final dallying over dessert.
On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, suddenly and without the
slightest warning, bride and bridegroom had leaped from their seats and
begun chasing each other wildly round the table. She flew, he flew; he
dodged, she screamed (one could see her scream!) dodged again, and
flew wildly in an opposite direction. The chase continued for several
breathless moments, then, to the desolation of the beholders, swept out
of sight into the fastnesses of the front hall.
Never--no, never--could the bitterness of that disappointment be
outlived. To have been shut out from beholding the denouement--it was
too piteous! In vain Darsie expended herself on flights of imagination,
in vain rendered in detail the conversation which had led up to the
thrilling chase--the provocation, the threat, the defiance-- nothing but
the reality could have satisfied the thirst of curiosity of the beholders.
Would he kiss her? Would he beat her? Would she triumph? Would she
cry? Was it a frolic, or a fight? Would the morrow find them smiling
and happy as of yore, or driving off in separate cabs to take refuge in
the bosoms of their separate families? Darsie opined that all would

seem the same on the surface, but darkly hinted at the little rift within
the lute, and somehow after that night the glamour seemed to have
departed from this honeymoon pair, and the fair seeming was regarded
with suspicion.
As regards the matter of distance, it took an easy two minutes to cover
the space between the front doors of the two houses, and there seemed
an endless number of reasons why the members of the different
families should fly round to consult each other a dozen times a day.
Darsie and Lavender, Vi and plain Hannah attended the same High
School; the Garnett boys and John Vernon the same Royal Institute, but
the fact that they walked to and from school together, and spent the
intervening hours in the same class-rooms, by no means mitigated the
necessity of meeting again during luncheon and tea hours. In holiday
times the necessity naturally increased, and bells pealed incessantly in
response to tugs from youthful hands.
Then came the time of the great servants' strike. That bell was a perfect
nuisance; ring, ring, ring the whole day long. Something else to do than
run about to open the door for a pack of children!
The two mistresses, thus coerced, issued a fiat. Once a day, and no
oftener! All arrangements for the afternoon to be made in the morning
seance, the rendezvous to be outside, not inside the house.
After this came on the age of signals; whistlings outside the windows,
rattling of the railings, comes through letter-boxes and ventilation grids,
even--on occasions of special deafness--pebbles thrown against the
panes! A broken window, and a succession of whoops making the air
hideous during the progress of an extra special tea party, evoked the
displeasure of the mistresses in turns, and a second verdict went forth
against signals in all forms, whereupon the Garnetts and Vernons in
conclave deplored the hard-heartedness of grown-ups, and set their wits
to work to evolve a fresh means of communication.
"S'pose," said Russell, snoring thoughtfully, "s'pose we had a
telegraph!"

"S'pose we had an airship! One's just as easy as the other. Don't be a
juggins."
But Russell snored on unperturbed.
"I don't mean a real telegraph, only a sort--of pretend! There's our side
window, and your back windows. If we could run a line across."
"A line of what?"
"String. Wire. Anything we like."
"S'pose we did fix it, what then?"
"Send messages!"
"How?"
Russell pondered deeply. He