Harvey's Romance

It was during liis freshman year at larvard that I flrst became acquainted ith Harvey. He had coine to college rom a thriving westera town where his ather was a banker and a leading citien. Harvey was a remarkable fellqw i many ways. In the iirst place, lie vas one of the handsomest fellows I ïave ever knovvu. He was possessed f rare tálente and bore upoa his face lie unmistakable stamp of good breedng. And yet when I iïrst kuew Harvey, ie was a freshman in every sense of the vord. You could hanlly cali hiin green. le has seen quite a bit of the world nd society, too, for all that, but it was uch as a boy sees ander the chaperonge of a fond and indulgent mother. lis experiences, while quite varied in heir nature, were of a tame variety. So you will not deern it strange that vhen he arriyed at Harvard, with an llowance of $300 per month and no baperons but sophs and seniors, a new world was opened to hini. Like all freshman of his type, Harvey ell in with a fast set, joined s svvell fraernity and went straight to the bad. And what a winding and mellifluous ath his satan ie majesty bas provided or bis college devotees ! Of courae larvey's apartments were the best in ;he city. His dog had whipped every,liing that had been pitted against iiiui, ind his wine suppers to the fast set of vhich he was a part were the talk and envy of every cheap Cholly man of the college. Long before the end of the first term Harvey was an acknowledged king of bloods. He was a greatly changed lad. All that simple charm and frankness that had inarked him when he caiue were gone. His marmer, talk and dress ïad all changed and conformed Btrictly to the ideas of the set of which he had secóme a part. At the junior hop occurred a little incident which was to mark an epoch in the affairs and life of :he freshraan, and in fact, to give birth to this story. Tlie junior hop is the social event of the year at Harvard, and at all great American colleges, for all that. This is the high tide of the year when the freshman sends home for his best girl to show her something of college life and to show her how important he has become in one term. A few months before a beautiful young lady, the daughter of one of the Back Bay rnillionaires, had made her debut in Boston society. Bessie Hill was so refined and so charrning that it was but a short time before all of the young men, both in Boston and Cambridge, were wild about her. She was a model of beauty, but to stop here and say no more would be doing her great injustice, for she was not only a queen of beauty, but possessed of all the othei qualities necessary to make her a type of perfect womanhood. Of course she would be at the hop and every fellow who had not already met her liad set his lieart upon an introduction. Every swell fraternity in the college attended in a body and every big fraternity man individually did all in his power to bring Bessie Hill to his booth and make her a part of his Greek letter circle. Harvey looked that night as I had never seen him look before. With the eflbrts of nature and the tailor combined he was by far the handsoinest man in the ballroom. He was introduced to Bessie Hill. It was Greek meet Greek. They exchanged glances. Harvey bowed low. She extended her hand, while the polite audience of students, mammas, and sisters held their breath in astonishment. ïsever before had Bessie Hill extended her hand to any new acquaintence. She had been with Harvey but a short time wheu the cold and steellike glitter left her eyes and her cheeks were suffused with the rose of nature's rarest red. They danced together. Harvey was a perfect terpsichorean. They glided off to the conservatory. Harvey's heart beat faster than usual and his bosom swelled with pride. But surely he had good reason to feel proud, for he (Uontinned on Tth page.) HA B V E Y ' S ROMANCE. (Coutinued from lst page.) liad by his side the niost admired woman of all Boston. The freshman had won the greatest of all social tiiumphs. It cost him a wine supper at Harvard and no little notoriety in Boston. Their meeting at the ball had caused quite a sensation. The daily papers reviewed lus life and family history, and Bessie Hill was convinced that she had made no mistake. But Harvey was a beginner. He could not understand that a social triumph and a love affair were one and the same thing, and that at best should last only so long as people talked about theoi. Like a foolisii freshman that he was, he allowed his head to be turned. He underwent a change. The wine at the inidnight revenes grew insipid; the songs, however spioy, lost their charm. There would come stealing into his miad now and then a fancy that he should study. But who ever heard of Greek and love uniting in the same charaeter? Philosophy be cl d, he usecl to sa}-. "I will win the girl I love. I will be a man of business. Let otlier freshmen wreek tlieir bodies, sell tlieir eyes and lose tlieir souls trying for a degree. I will marry the woman I love. Philosophy be d d." Harvey spent a major portiou of liis time in Bessie's company. They read together, compared notes and spent their time as all lovers do in that delicious pleasure of doing nothing. Harvey came home one night on a car from Boston. He rushed violently into my room. His face was flushed. He was somewhat wrought up. I thought he had been drinking. "Con, gratúlate me, oíd fellow," he exclaimed"I have won her, but keep it still. The wedding is to be in June. I know father wiil consent. We'll have the aft'air in Boston, so all the fellows can be there. We'll go to Europe for the siimmer, and I will go into business with father when we return. I came to Harvard to scale Parnassus, but flnd myself worshiping at the shrine ol Diana. Blast it, oíd man, brace up and congratúlate me, and Iets have a bottle." If I had only stopped with one bottle, I probably would have done better in my philosophy examination next dav. I onlv celehrat.pf] ly in college, and this one of the occasious. Oh, what a night ! As it neared the iïrst of June Harvey was almost constautly in Boston. He and his bride to be were ever together. The fellows all wondered what the freshman was going to do when the examination day came round. Harvey, hovvever was preparing a surprise for thern, but, alas, for the poor old chap, there was in store for hiin the greatest of all surprises. He came into my room one night. I sliall never forget the look upon his face. I have seeu men die in the throes of mortal agony, but pain was never pictured more vividly on any face than it was upon that of poor Harvey that uight. He held in his trembling hand a telegram. I knew some terrible calamity had happened. His father - his old and respected father - was a bankrupt and a defaulter. It is too painful even at this time to go into details of that sad night. How all the fellows looked and acted. None could say a word. Harvey, poor Harvey, cried ïike a child. And when I saw lam wlio yesterday was the man of all men to be envied, when 1 thought of . his brokeu home, the stigma of disgrace the world would put upon his name, of how perhaps the prison cell yawned for his father, and when, above all, I guessed the thing that galled hiin more than all else, his love affair, I cried myself. The news was spread broadcast throughout the country by the morning papers. "Big Headed Harvey, Railroad Manipulator, a Bankrupt." Harvey's heart was broken; his spirit was crushed. Hastily penning a few lines to Bessie, in which he referred to the sudden downfall of his family, of his disgrace, their present difl'erence in position, life, etc., lie gatnereü tus Delongings togetner and iu half an liour was off ou a midnight traiu for New York. He would not stay over a day. He said on leaving, "Fellows, I waut you to remember me as Harvey and not as a beggar." He would not and could not go home He would only be useless to liis parents in their hour of woe. He could not bear to go back to town a beggar where he had once been a prince. Harvey shipped out of New York on a steamer bound for San Francisco, tílie was to take the place of a liner that had gone down off the coast of Lower California. After a vain effort to tind something worth doing in the city of the Golden Gate he shipped out of Frisco as a comaion deckhand on the fast boat for Japan. After a few months of knockabout life in Yokohauia and Tokyo he feil in with a party of pearl flshers and fared wellunti) a .heavy seatossed them upon the rocks of Australia. He next tried sheep herding away back in the hills, where he lived lor months withno compauy but his dog and sheep. He was stricken down with a deadly fever wtíile oue of a party of adventurers who were searching for a quick fortune in the diamond mines of Suutli África. Three moivths later, more dead than alive, he fouud his way to Johaunesburg. Here he feil iu with au English captain and made his way to London and then to Liverpool, and after fouryears of adventure, trial and sickness, helanded once more in New York. Harvey was a changed man - changed thia time in earnest. He had learned a most valuable lesson, one worth going all the way to África to learu, my boy. He had learned to know the value of a dollar. Being a persevering fellow, he desired to raise himself to a better position in society. Knowiug that an education was necessary, he looked for a school where his limited means would hold out for the longest time, and in a few weeks after we find liim enrolled as a student of law in that greatest of all western colleges at Aun Arbor. Noith of University liall to-day still stands a building that had it tumbled down 20 years ago, would still Irave been old. This building is owned by somechurch Corporation which furnishes studente with rooms in the old shack at iniserably low rates. But more miserable than all else are the rooms. These are devoid of . ture, save a riekety old table, a chair and a rusty stove with a crazy pipe, some dry goods boxes and a broken looking glass. The decorations were the work of spiders and flies of generations gone. The windows, for the most part, were minus glass and stuffed up with copy books and old paper. Here Haivey was located. Just across the way was the local chapter of his fraternity. Little did his wealthy brother think that the "Tramp Law," as they called him, possessed their most sacredof secrets, knew their grip, had memorized their ritual and was indeed a brother in good standing. It was the uight of the junior hop. Across the campus the gay young dancers asseinbled from all parts of the country were whirling en meshes in the naazes of the waltz. It was just midnight. Harvey had put in a hard night over a still harder lesson in cornmon law pleadings. He crossed the floor to the wiudow. Th dingy old building shook in the wind that moaned bitterly out of doors. He brushed aside the irost from the pane and looked in silent meditation toward the scène of gayety and grandeur. He reflected on his own position, thought of a time when he was a part of a similar gay assemblage and how he now was poor and inore miserable than the coadunen that were knocking their heels together without. He sat down before his dim fire, and thoughts of another junior hop came to him. He was back again in the good old days. Bessie was by his side. He saw her tender eyes looking into his. She seemed just as she did that night in the conservatory when, for the first time in lus life, he feit the warm and gentle presureof the hand of the woman he loved. His heart beat lively and his body thrilled through and through. "Strange it is," he said to liimself, "that a beggar dare love." As the blaze dimmned and the coal blackened he thought of his career, of his wealth, of his life, his adventures, and, last of all, his poverty. "Such is life," he said to himself. "Why not write a story about t all? It seems more romantic than real anyway. People would read it and be interested in the characters they can never know, and besides, I need a pair of shoes and a new coat badly." A few weeks later in a Sunday paper there appeared a most interesting college romance about the hop at Ann Arbor. A palé and sickly newsboy was vainly trying to sell his wares in a crowded parlor car. Travelers fatigued with a long and hard journey and chilled with the cold even in the car were not interested in the paper, and only one was affected by the pale look upon the face of the poor and thinly ciad boy. This was a very handsome vounglady. She was tired witli her journey and seemed weary of the world. She purchased all the papers because she pitied the boy. She looked them over. Her eyes chanced upon a college echo. She read the story, for she used to know college girls and fellows too. The story flnished, the paper at her feet, this very handsome young lady unconsciously lent achann to her beauty by the tear in her soft blue eyes. The next day shortly before noon there was a light step upou the dingy old stair case that led to Harvey's room, and there was a light rap at tïie door. Harvey thinking it was liis washwoman, called out, "come in, but I have no washing for you to-day." The visitor came in, and Harvey looked up. He iilmost fainted, for before him he saw Iris sweetheart of other days, Bessie Hill. I have jnst received a letter frorn Harvey to-day in wliicli he says: "In thi mail you will receive a printed invitation, etc. Well, old man, the affair's to be in Boston so all you fellows can be there, and it is a special request of