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 
