Reel Life (Mar-Sep 1915)

Eighteen REEL LIFE An Interesting Five-Part Mutual Masterpicture of College Life, Depicting the. Unusual Adventures That Befell a Country Girl in Search of an Education DORIS WILL ARB'S great dream was realized. She was going to Hamlin College. But now that the wonderful hour had come and they stood on the station phtform, waiting for the southbound train, father and daughter wiped away the tears — surreptitiously, to be sure, though, really, neither was deceiving the other. 'Doris was acutely conscious of the sacrifice her father was making. Still, howdisappointed he would have been, had a daughter of his preferred to stay in Phelpsville and "remain ignorant." In Pastor WUlard's vocabulary, there was almost no word more terrible than "ignorant." Then the train came rushing down upon them. Doris was caught up into the irrevocable hurry and indifference of the outside world — ^as all in a moment the last kisses were exchanged, and she found herself seated with her boxes and bags about her, while the only life she had ever known was slipping away from her, faster and faster, as the train sped along. Doris always had thought of college as a place which awaited her with open arms. Dean Fitch's letter to her father had been sincerely cordial. Her arrival at Hamlin was a painful disillusionment. She could not know the quaint, little figure she made, as she took her way, rather timorously, across the grounds to the administration building. The Phelpsville dressmaker and milliner had done their bravest. But in her prim, tan alpaca dress and drooping hat wreathed with daisies, with her boxes, old-fashioned valise and immense bouquet of wild asters, Doris looked as though she had stepped out of a photograph album of thirty years before. The girls, wandering arm in arm along the shady paths on the campus, stopped to stare as she passed. Then they fled together in clusters to whisper and laugh and to glance back many times over their shoulders. The Hamlin girls were neither so discriminating nor so well-bred that they appreciated the exquisiteness of this new-comer. To them Doris was merely "too weird for words, my dear !" Daisy Arnold, the pretty, smartly dressed ring-leader of the gay set, quite ruthlessly from the first, preyed upon her innocence. These practical jokes hurt. Doris was not long in realizing that she did not "fit in." At Thanksgiving time every girl in the dormitory, save Doris, was invited to the Princeton-Yale game. Alone in the deserted house, all that glorious November afternoon, "The Mating" "^'N'llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll'CAST Doris Willard Bessie Barriscale "Bullet Dick" Amis Lewis J. Cody Daisy Arnold Enid Markey Rev. Phelps Willard Walter Whitman Eleanor Ames Margaret Thompson Miss Fitch, the dean Ida Lewis Produced by the New York Motion Picture Corporation Under the Personal Supervision of Thomas H. Ince, Featuring Bessie Barriscale | the little alien cried her heart 1 out. That evening; she saw Daisy Arnold Was the Recognized Leader of the Gay Set in ( the paper a picture of "Bullet Dick" Ames. He was the Princeton captain. In fcot-ball togs, with massy shoulders and dogged jaw, he was not exactly a lovely object. The pose was a bit exaggerated for the part. But Doris dropped a tear on the young savage, and whispered, "I wish somebody like him liked me !" And then, all in a flash, a scheme which should win her popularity at college, made her seize pen and paper. Next morning, after Doris Willard had passed them on the porch, one of the girls picked up an open letter. It read: "Dear Doris — I am writing again for your answer. You say you noticed that I had been picked for the All-American team. That doesn't mean anything to me. I ought to be picked by you. Desperately, Dick Ames." Daisy Arnold was incredulous. "I know Dick Ames' sister, Eleanor,' she said. "And I'm going to find out the truth. I don't believe he ever heard of Doris Willard: Meanwhile, the dropped note was having the desired effect. Doris suddenly found herself the most sought-after girl in her class. She was recklessly happy. Then came a shock. Eleanor Ames and her brother were coming to the Sophomore reception. That was Daisy Arnold's, doing. Dick, however, unknown to the girls, was "on" to the plot. When he saw the panic-stricken Doris being driven into the drawing-room, a warm wave of pity swept over him. "I'm all for her," he told himself. "I'm going to help her out." Hurrying forward he seized Doris by the little, limp hand. "Oh, you don't have to introduce me to Miss Willard, Miss Arnold," he said, heartily, "we are old friends." After that the most unlooked-for things happened. No one was more utterly incredulous of it all than Doris herself. At last, came a day when Eleanor Ames pleaded tearfully with "the little frump," who had blossomed into the most envied girl in Hamlin. "Why won't you marry my brother?" she entreated. "Because he doesn't really love me," sobbed Doris. "He — only pities me." Eleanor pulled Doris to her feet. She dragged her along the corridor to the door of the sitting-room. Within sat "Bullet Dick," the picture of dejection, "Does that look as though he were pitying you — or himself?" Eleanor demanded grimly. And, pushing Doris over the threshold, she coolly locked the sitting-<room door.