Monday, January 17, 2011

Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College

Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College was published by Altemus in 1914.  Grace and her friends begin their senior year at Overton.  As usual, another new girl enters the scene.  The newcomer is Patience Eliot.   On page 22, the girls make the following comments about Patience.
The watchers saw the bus open.  Then out of it stepped the tallest girl they had ever seen.

"I believe she is seven feet tall," muttered Emma Dean.  "I'm sure of it."

"Nonsense," laughed Miriam.  "But she is not far from six.  I wish it were daylight, then we could see her face."
When Patience is greeted by Mrs. Elwood, "A voice almost masculine in its depth answered."  Naturally, my modern mind started thinking that the new girl is a man masquerading as a girl, and...  But no, she really is a girl, but I had a good chuckle over my hasty deduction.  Books read so much differently nearly 100 years after they were written.

In this book, Kathleen West backstabs Grace in the worst manner imaginable.  Grace gives Kathleen a great story for her newspaper, all because Grace wishes not to be involved with the police due to a promise she made to her father.  Kathleen can use the story so long as Grace's name is kept out of it.  Kathleen ignores Grace's request and uses her name.  For the first time, we get to see Grace so furious that she admits that she despises Kathleen.  Even though Grace despises someone for the first time, she is still willing to give Kathleen a chance to redeem herself.

As happens in all of these books, Kathleen regrets her actions and becomes Grace's friend near the end of the story.  I still wish the bad girls would get banished or something.  In real life, bad people do not always become good people later.

1 comment:

beautifulshell said...

I just watched "Ever Since Eve," with Marion Davies, and there's a funny little scene between a publisher and a ghostwriter about a couple of series - The Motorcycle Girls in the Everglades and The Airplane Girls (somewhere - I forget). Pretty funny contemporary (1937) joking about series books.