THE PASSING OF THE ANNEX 267 



all, was waiting the face, that as President Briggs has sug- 

 gested, might well recall the lines of Waller: 



" Sweetness, truth and every grace 



Which time and use are wont to teach, 

 The eye may in a moment reach 

 And read distinctly in her face." 



The picture of Mrs. Agassiz in her "widow's cap" and 

 favorite white cashmere shawl gracefully drawn about her 

 shoulders, seated by her tea-table in the drawing-room of 

 Fay House, is probably that which first rises at the sound of 

 her name in the minds of the students who knew her, al- 

 though her appearance was perhaps more distinguished on 

 the platform of Sanders Theatre at Commencement, when 

 she emphasized the lady rather than the academic official 

 by appearing always in a black velvet gown the only 

 woman, as one of the Cambridge clergy remarked, who 

 could wear black velvet on the hottest day in June without 

 loss of dignity. The Commencement exercises were to her 

 the most dreaded of all occasions connected with the col- 

 lege, especially after they were transferred from Fay House 

 to Sanders Theatre. Again and again her diaries record her 

 troubled anticipations of the day when she must appear in 

 public and deliver her address. "Great tremors before 

 immense relief after." "I feel like an emancipated woman, 

 now that I need no longer look forward to that terrible 

 ordeal in Sanders Theatre." It never ceased to be an agi- 

 tating experience to her, and as will be seen from some of 

 her letters published in a later chapter was the duty from 

 which she most craved relief when the time for her resigna- 

 tion came. 

 In concluding the story of 1894, a year so memorable 





