When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters,as she pulled her last stroke in the boat-race,she did not know what a strain she was putting upon it.She did know that she was doing her best,but how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its effects.Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature,in all its manifestations.She did not pride herself on her knowledge,nor reproach herself for her ignorance.In every way she formed a striking contrast to her friend,Miss Vincent.Every word they spoke betrayed the difference between them:the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice,penetrative,aggressive,sometimes irritating,revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character;the quiet,conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic.
The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies.The dependence of two young friends may be mutual,but one will always lean more heavily than the other;the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes.
On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior.She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge,and deferred to her opinion in every-day matters,not exactly as an oracle,but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions.It was a different thing,however,when the graver questions of life came up.Lurida was full of suggestions,plans,projects,which were too liable to run into whims before she knew where they were tending.
She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help believing them herself,and feeling as if her friend must accept them with an enthusiasm like her own.Then Euthymia would take them up with her sweet,deliberate accents,and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them.
Lurida was in an excited condition,in the midst of all her new interests and occupations.She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read at the meetings of her Society,--for she made it her own in great measure,by her zeal and enthusiasm,--and in the mean time she was reading in various books which Dr.Butts selected for her,all bearing on the profession to which,at least as a possibility,she was looking forward.Privately and in a very still way,she was occupying herself with the problem of the young stranger,the subject of some delusion,or disease,or obliquity of unknown nature,to which the vague name of antipathy had been attached.Euthymia kept an eye upon her,partly in the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury,and partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question.
"How do you like the books I see you reading?"said Euthymia to Lurida,one day,as they met at the Library.
"Better than all the novels I ever read,"she answered."I have been reading about the nervous system,and it seems to me I have come nearer the springs of life than ever before in all my studies.Ifeel just as if I were a telegraph operator.I was sure that I had a battery in my head,for I know my brain works like one;but I did not know how many centres of energy there are,and how they are played upon by all sorts of influences,external and internal.Do you know,I believe I could solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,'as the paper called him,if he would only stay here long enough?""What paper has had anything about it,Lurida?I have not seen or heard of its being mentioned in any of the papers.""You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for some time,--the same one who gave the account of his interview with a celebrated author?Well,he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he writes,'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'He talks about this village in a very free and easy way.
He says there is a Sphinx here,who has mystified us all.""And you have been chatting with that fellow!Don't you know that he'll have you and all of us in his paper?Don't you know that nothing is safe where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil?Oh,Lurida,Lurida,do be careful!"What with this mysterious young man and this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer,you will be talked about,if you don't mind,before you know it.You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone.If you must deal with such dangerous people,the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.--I wonder if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much curiosity about.That might be managed easily enough without your having anything to do with it.
