STATE AND UNIVERSITY HISTORICAL LIBRARY--MADISON, WIS.

to toast our grave, reverend and dignified Alumnae? I am in as bad a pickle as Richard Harding Davis once was. He was present in a company of musical celebrities, many of whom had been playing pieces of their own composition. When he was called upon to furnish his share of the entertainment, he marched boldly up to the piano, studied the keys intently for a moment or two, then turning to Paderewski, who was standing near, said, "At home, I always compose my pieces on a Weber. Could you tell me where the note which is under the W on a Weber would be on a Steinway?"

Where is the lost note, or is it rather the missing link-that indefinable difference that distinguishes a college girl, an active girl, from an alumna? Can those of us who are standing on the edge of the Alumnae world, can we detect it any more clearly than we could when as Freshmen, the idea of being an Alumna was as shadowy and far away as the idea of matrimony, a vague, indefinite something which might happen in the far distant future? And in that it is not very far away and yet very hard to reach, I am reminded of the story of the two Swedes, brothers, who were out rowing together one day. They put in at a small island. One of them was to wait for the other but he soon grew impatient and started to row home alone. Just then his brother appeared on the bank, waving frantically to him to return. "Jump, jump!" the Swede called back, "I think you can make it in two jumps!"

This difference, this margin as it were, is vague, indefinable, elusive. With the poet, we wonder as we approach its shadowy boundary lines,

"Is it night or daylight yet?

Somewhere the birds seem singing yet
Though surely now the sun has set."

How can we help envying our Alumnae? They are ever calm, cool and collected and always seem to have plenty of time. As for the active girl! The description once given of a thief only needs a fraternity capping of quotation marks to fit her. A man pursuing a thief ran into a portly gentleman whom the thief had just passed. "Did you see him, did you see him? What did he look like?" he questioned.

"Whom? that man who just went by?" was the reply, "He, he looked like-like he had no time to spare."

Our Alumnae! we love them one and all! different types of alumnae girls there are.

and yet how many How well every one

of us knows the fostering mother of the fraternity, to whom we turn at all times for advice, sympathy and love, in joy or in trouble, and who is always ready to give a helping hand to each one of us. Then there is the alumna living in a small town, perhaps separated from all of us. Though she may not be doing much for the fraternity now, we know what she has done and that she still cherishes her love for Delta Gamma. Every chapter, too, numbers among its alumnae its Lost Leaders, not so famous as Browning's, perhaps, but whose loss is quite as keenly felt. We all know the story, it is older than time, but it always bears repetition.

"Just for a home and a husband she left us,

Just for a prefix to add to her name,

Took one step which so sorely bereft us

Left nothing else in her absence the same.
We shall rush badly, bereft of her presence,

Few words encourage us now from her lips;

We work for the fraternity, while she washes the dishes.
Goes to the club, tears her neighbors to bits."

The story of the creation of the world was told in only six hundred words, and yet I know that if I should try to mention all that our Alumnae have done for Delta Gamma, I would far exceed that limit. They are the real Delta Gammas; once an alumna, always an alumna. To them we owe the very fact that we are Delta Gammas.

Emerson said "Hitch your wagon to a star" but the Alumnae have taught us that the true Delta Gamma motto should be "anchor it there."

Looking back only eighteen years we can see how much they have accomplished. Eighteen years ago with this very chapter which has entertained us so royally, our third Convention was held. Only seven chapters then and about two hundred Delta Gammas in existence. And now fifteen active chapters, two alumnae and more than twelve hundred of us all together. The contrast almost overwhelms one.

I was reading in a modern society novel the other day, the story of a woman who said she should hate to go to Heaven

and confess that she had never been to Europe, and I thought how much more humiliating it would be to go to Heaven and acknowledge that one had never been a Delta Gamma. And if this is true, more than all things else do we owe it to our Alumnae that we shall never have this shame-faced confession to make.

We are told that "there's a past that is gone forever, and a future that's all our own" but sometimes we are inclined to question its truth. For the past is never gone-and certainly the past of Delta Gamma is one of the best possessions that our fraternity can ever have. And so the Alumnae are thrice blest, the past is theirs, their influence is shaping the present, and whatever gifts the future may have in store for us, are surely theirs as well as ours.

"Then 'ere's to you dear Alumnae girls, you're the best D. G's we know You love us and you scold us but then you help us so,

'Twas all your work that made D. G. the best frat of the lot And so we'll have a toast to you, the best D. G's we've got."

TOASTMISTRESS:-May the best day we have seen be worse than the worst that is to come! "Vive la Compagnie!" Response by Alice Pickney Graham of Psi.

"Prosperous life; long and ever happy."

Madame Toastmistress and Members of Delta Gamma Fraternity: It is with pleasure that I bring you a greeting from the south and I only wish that all of Psi's members could be here to share with me the happiness and the inspiration of this occasion. I feel that it is an especial privilege to be here at this, the largest Convention ever held by Delta Gamma.

Its size shows what Delta Gamma must mean to us when so many representatives-not only active but Alumnae-have came from such distances and in many cases, at the expenditure of great effort. I feel that we are especially privileged to have with us one who has come with love-not only for her own chapter and for Delta Gamma as she is to-day-but enthusiastic in the outlook for our future at Washington University. We also rejoice in the presence of six of our most distant chapter, our progressive Upsilon sisters, and the unusally large delegation from nearer chapters.

One of the greatest pleasures of Convention week has been