The Free lance. (State College, Pa.) 1887-1904, November 01, 1895, Image 2

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    The Free Lance.
Published, Monthly during the College Year by the Students of
The Pennsylvania State College.
Vol. IX
A STUDY IN HUMAN NATURE.
Theodore Sercombe prided himself on being a student of human
nature. He had studied everything on the subject he could get
his hands on, from Shakespeare’s plays to “Skull’s Treatise on
Phrenology and the Science of Physiognomy,” and yet he thirsted
for more knowledge, which desire he usually sought to gratify by
personal experience and observation.
It was the second week in September, and Sercombe was re
turning for his senior year in Stanmouth University. His
summer, which he had spent mostly in traveling, had slipped
away rapidly, and in an hour he would be at college, if the train
didn’t cease its creep and stop entirely. The journey had seemed
long to him and he wished for some one to talk with; but his only
fellow passengers were two women with babies, a gjray-haired old
man, and a] conceited-looking youth, probably bound for Stan
mouth, whose acquaintance he didn-’i care to make.
Having finished a soliloquy on the girls he had met this summer
at the Springs, he was summarizing his list of promised corre
spondents and speculating on the contents of his next letter from
Oconomowoc when the whistle blew.
That must be Madison. A few minutes later the porter brought
in a dainty yellow grip, which he deposited in the seat directly in
front of Sercombe.- Quickly turning around to see who its pos
sessor might be, his ideas got a shock that sent his circulation on
the double quick.
“I didn’t suppose there was such a pretty girl within a hundred
miles of Stanmouth. What a face! Such dark brown eyes! She
has a lively temper, but what’s a woman without a temper?
That straight nose indicates firm character. What a chin! She’s
just a little bit stubborn; but I wouldn’t give a cent for a woman
NOVEMBER, 1895.
No. 5.