The Gilded Years Read Online Free Page A

fines from the college, he will think I’m in ill healthand have lost my spirit. This,” she said, motioning to the room, “is in everybody’s best interest.”
    The roommates finished tacking up the silk just as Mervis came in with their trunks, grunting about the walls. Lottie smiled sweetly and told him to make out the bill to Mr. Clarence Taylor, then she sent for a maid who helped the pair put away their dresses.
    “I’m starving,” Lottie declared after she had placed her silver hairbrush on the table by her bed and her silver inkstand on the writing table. Anita had done the same in her room with her modest belongings.
    “How about we walk over for an ice cream at the Dutchess? Is there still time to get a leave of absence to go to town?” Lottie asked.
    “I believe the Dutchess is closed now. It’s nearly six o’clock,” Anita replied, looking at the gold clock by Lottie’s bed. “The dinner bell will ring soon.”
    “Not those awful bells,” said Lottie, sticking her tongue out like a gargoyle. “Isn’t it horrible that we have to run around listening to the cling clang of old bells? The rising hour bell, the dinner bell, the chapel bell—I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
    Anita laughed and said, “You don’t look it.”
    “Really?” Lottie said, puffing up her cheeks. “I feel quite like a French hunchback today. I hate the sleeves on this dress,” she added, trying to pull them up at the shoulder. “I told my seamstress in Paris to make them bigger, but she’s so conservative and her answer to everything is ‘ Non, ma chérie .’ Not shockingly, she makes my mother’s day clothes, and I tend to hate my mother’s day clothes. For eveningwear I much prefer the House of Worth, but mother said I wasn’t allowed to train up in my Lyon silk. Anyway, you should go on. I know you were voted class beauty as a freshman. Don’ttry to deny it. And I heard all about you and your big, beautiful brown eyes from a few of my Harvard acquaintances, too.”
    Anita’s surprised look caused Lottie to elaborate. “I said acquaintances, Anita. Don’t tell me you believe all of that gossip. One little dalliance during the Harvard-Yale game as a sophomore and I’m a scorned woman. Vassar girls sure can talk. I don’t have a flaxen-haired daughter hidden in a convent in Switzerland, if you happen to be wondering.”
    “I hadn’t heard that one,” Anita replied, thoroughly entertained.
    “Well, I don’t. What I do have is a younger brother in his junior year at Harvard, and he told me that you were quite the talk of the school after our Founder’s Day dance last spring. Many Harvard men in attendance, if you remember. Yes, I launched an inquisition on you, Miss Hemmings.”
    It was unfortunate that Anita hadn’t done the same.
    As Anita contemplated what rooming with Lottie Taylor would mean for her final year at Vassar, she heard a light knock on their parlor door.
    “Come in!” bellowed Lottie in her low, raspy voice. Anita speculated that Lottie’s voice was half the reason so many rumors circulated about her. There was something quite intoxicating about it.
    The door opened slowly, and a tall girl bounded in, earning smiles from both roommates. Belle Tiffany, an alto in the choir and the Glee Club, was one of Anita’s closest friends.
    “Belle Tiffany! Look at you,” said Lottie. “See, I’m rooming with your old friend Anita Hemmings. The beautiful girls with the soaring voices. What will I do with myself around both of you? I need to develop a skill. I’m a terrible disappointment.”
    “You’re exceedingly rich,”said Belle, looking at the decorated walls. “And I suppose you’re amusing, too.”
    “That’s true. I am awfully funny,” said Lottie, hopping onto the couch again. “Matthew Ellery, Lucy Ellery’s brother up at Harvard, he was my Phil date last year, and he said I was the most entertaining girl he had ever known. Then he said men aren’t supposed to