10th October Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo?

He was a famous artist who lived in Italy in the Middle Ages.  Everybody in English Literature seemed to know about him, and the whole class laughed because I thought he was an archangel.  He sounds like an archangel, doesn’t he?  The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you’ve never learned.  It’s very embarrassing at times.  But now, when the girls talk about things that I never heard of, I just keep still and look them up in the encyclopedia.

I made an awful mistake the first day.  Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman.  That joke has gone all over college.  But anyway, I’m just as bright in class as any of the others—­and brighter than some of them!

Do you care to know how I’ve furnished my room?  It’s a symphony in brown and yellow.  The wall was tinted buff, and I’ve bought yellow denim curtains and cushions and a mahogany desk (second hand for three dollars) and a rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink spot in the middle.  I stand the chair over the spot.

The windows are up high; you can’t look out from an ordinary seat.  But I unscrewed the looking-glass from the back of the bureau, upholstered the top and moved it up against the window.  It’s just the right height for a window seat.  You pull out the drawers like steps and walk up.  Very comfortable!

Sallie McBride helped me choose the things at the Senior auction.  She has lived in a house all her life and knows about furnishing.  You can’t imagine what fun it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar bill and get some change—­when you’ve never had more than a few cents in your life.  I assure you, Daddy dear, I do appreciate that allowance.

Sallie is the most entertaining person in the world—­and Julia Rutledge Pendleton the least so.  It’s queer what a mixture the registrar can make in the matter of room-mates.  Sallie thinks everything is funny—­even flunking—­and Julia is bored at everything.  She never makes the slightest effort to be amiable.  She believes that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination.  Julia and I were born to be enemies.

And now I suppose you’ve been waiting very impatiently to hear what I am learning?

I. Latin:  Second Punic war.  Hannibal and his forces pitched camp at Lake Trasimenus last night.  They prepared an ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle took place at the fourth watch this morning.  Romans in retreat.

II.  French:  24 pages of the Three Musketeers and third conjugation, irregular verbs.

III.  Geometry:  Finished cylinders; now doing cones.

IV.  English:  Studying exposition.  My style improves daily in clearness and brevity.

V. Physiology:  Reached the digestive system.  Bile and the pancreas next time.  Yours, on the way to being educated,
Jerusha Abbott