Well-dressed ladies were in the meeting-house in silks
and cambrics,--the sunburnt necks in contiguity with the delicate fabrics
of the dresses showing the yeomen's daughters.
Country graduates,--rough, brown-featured, schoolmaster-looking,
half-bumpkin, half-scholarly figures, in black ill-cut broadcloth,--their
manners quite spoilt by what little of the gentleman there was in them.
The landlord of the tavern keeping his eye on a man whom he suspected of
an intention to bolt. [A word meaning in Worcester, I find, "to spring
out with speed and suddenness."--S. H.]
The next day after Commencement was bleak and rainy from midnight till
midnight, and a good many guests were added to our table in consequence.
Among them were some of the Williamstown students, gentlemanly young
fellows, with a brotherly feeling for each other, a freedom about money
concerns, a half-boyish, half-manly character; and my heart warmed to
them. They took their departure--two for South Adams and two across the
Green Mountains--in the midst of the rain. There was one of the
graduates with his betrothed, and his brother-in-law and wife, who stayed
during the day,--the graduate the very model of a country schoolmaster in
his Sunday clothes, being his Commencement suit of black broadcloth and
pumps.
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