Well, you know what they say. If Mahomet won't, the mountain will. Vassar may move to New Haven and become a "co-ordinate college." Just like us. Of course the alliteration should be a clue that the may is to become will. Vassar President Simpson's acceptance of Yale's invitation to study the plan was demur enough. But he couldn't stop an alliterative joy -- "modern mission," "historic home," "properly preserved," "prodigious problems" -- from bubbling through his statement.

Yale, too, was proud as punch (Kingman Brewster felt it a "great privilege") that Vassar might be willing to scoop her classrooms and labs into her purse and scamper over the Berkshires to the sea. And it is a sacrifice on the part of Vassar. A football weekend in New Haven is all very well, but to live there. Smokestacks. Grimy water. Yale men. Everywhere. Hundreds of them.

But Vassar is going to weigh these factors. And when one considers the educational possibilities and the reduction in hitchhiking, it is probably for the best that the two schools live together (with separate quads to be sure).

Up here we've had our youthful fling and have settled down to a loving middle age of sorts. That's a good omen for the future of the young'uns down in Connecticut, though we never had their distance problem when we were courting. But all good love stories bring back fond memories, and when Radcliffe brings us our slippers tonight. we'll hold her hand just a little tighter thinking about kid brother and his girl sighing, waving, and squinting at each each other through the blue mist of the Connecticut hills. We know what they're after. And we like it.