: Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College by Chase Josephine - College stories; Women college students Juvenile fiction Children's Book Series

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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A TRAGIC IDYL

LE "TOUT EUROPE"

That night a vast crowd was thronging the halls of the Casino at Monte Carlo. It was one of the momentary occasions, well known to all who have passed the winter season on the Corniche, when a sudden and prodigious afflux of composite humanity transfigures that place, ordinarily so vulgar with the brutal luxury of the people whom it satisfies. The gay madness that breaks out at Nice during the Carnival attracts to this little point of the Riviera the moving army of pleasure hunters and adventurers, while the beauty of the climate allures thousands of invalids and people weary of living, the victims of disease and of ill fortune; and on certain nights, like that on which this narrative begins, when the countless representatives of the various classes, scattered ordinarily along the coast, suddenly rush together into the gaming-house, their fantastic variety of character appears in all its startling incongruities, with the aspect of a cosmopolitan pandemonium, dazzling and sinister, deafening and tragical, ridiculous and painful, strewn with all the wrecks of luxury and vice of every country and of every class, the victims of every misfortune and disaster. In this stifling atmosphere, amid the glitter of insolent and ignoble wealth, the ancient monarchies were represented by three princes of the house of Bourbon, and the modern by two grand-nephews of Bonaparte, all five recognizable by their profiles, which were reproduced on hundreds of the gold and silver coins rolling before them on the green tables.

"'Yet a few days, and thee the all-beholding sun shall see no more.'"

quoted Emma Dean lugubriously.

"Not quite so bad as that," returned Elfreda with an appreciative grin.

"Even we juniors feel more or less that way," said Laura Atkins. "I never had any real fun until I came to Overton. The time has gone so fast I can't believe that it is two years since I locked Grace and Anne out of their room and behaved like a savage. I don't wonder Elfreda named me the Anarchist. I did my best to live up to the name."

"Oh, forget about that," murmured Elfreda, looking embarrassed.

The members of the club were wholly familiar with the history of Laura Atkins's freshman year and admired her for the matter-of-fact way in which she was wont to discuss her early short-comings. Under the sunny influence of the four girls who had helped her to find herself, she had developed into a gracious and likeable young woman. She and Mildred Taylor were the guests of the club that afternoon.

"What is the latest word from erring freshmen? Has any one heard?" asked Grace. Laura's reference to herself had set Grace to thinking of freshmen in general.

"We've six at Ralston," groaned Julia Emerson. "The usual variety--neither rich nor poor, brilliant nor dull, amiable nor perverse, goody-goody nor lawless. Just that comfortable, maddeningly commonplace variety of girls who never go to extremes."

"Extremes are dangerous," declared Elfreda judicially.

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