She was early recognized as an earnest,
conscientious student whose work in certain directions was brilliant;
and as a sophomore her fellows began to know her and take pride in her.
She was relieved to find herself swept naturally into the social
currents of the college. She had been afraid of appearing stiff or
priggish, but her self-consciousness quickly vanished in the broad,
wholesome democracy of college life. The best scholar in her class, she
was never called a grind and she was far from being a frump. The wisest
woman in the faculty said of Sylvia: "That girl with her head among the
stars has her feet planted on solid ground. Her life will count." And
the girlhood that Sylvia had partly lost, was recovered and prolonged.
It was a fine thing to be an American college girl, Sylvia realized, and
the varied intercourse, the day's hundred and one contacts and small
excitements, meant more to her than her fellow students knew. When there
was fun in the air Sylvia could be relied upon to take a hand in it. Her
allowance was not meagre and she joined zestfully in such excursions as
were possible, to concerts, lectures, and the theatre. She had that
reverence for New England traditions that is found in all young
Westerners. It was one of her jokes that she took two Boston girls on
their first pilgrimage to Concord, a joke that greatly tickled John
Ware, brooding in his library in Delaware Street.
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