SOME YEARS AGO, a Harvard undergraduate forgot to turn in his study card on time. Sometime in late March, a good six weeks or so after the deadline, he received a letter from the Registrar's office. He opened it with trepidation, fearful of astronomical fines or even stiffer disciplinary sanctions.

"I know," the letter began, "that you are very busy at The Crimson. But we do need to keep our records in order. If you could be so kind as to fill out the enclosed checklist and mail it back, we will prepare your study card for you." The letter included a stamped envelope addressed to a Mrs. Elizabeth Butterfield, assistant registrar.

The undergraduate guiltily sent off the required information, then began making inquiries about this woman he had never heard of. He discovered that she was an older woman, known by many, and that she had helped dozens of other undergraduates through bureaucratic tangles. He also discovered that she was active in the antiwar movement, that she had brought the house down at a 1970 rally in Sanders Theater.

"No more business as usual," she had told the overflow crowd, speaking in support of a motion to strike in protest of the Cambodian invasion and the killings at Kent State. "All business at Harvard should be shut down: every building should be closed and every office should not function."

The undergraduate walked over to Holyoke Center to pay his respects. He found himself in an office decorated with a large post of Mao Tse-Tung talking happily with a cheerful, sprightly, white-haired woman. She assured him his tardy study card would not result in any financial damage. She talked proudly about her son, Fox, then and now a correspondent in the Far East for The New York Times. She inquired kindly about the undergraduate's own career plans.

The undergraduate asked if she would be the subject of a Crimson profile. "Oh no," she answered, a bit worried. "I'm much too controversial around here already. But maybe some day."

The years passed, and the undergraduate became an alumnus. Mrs. Butterfield moved over to the Social Studies office, where she made dozens of new friends to go along with the legions of old ones. About two years ago, the alumnus stopped in to see her there.

They had a pleasant long chat, during which they agreed that the state of affairs in the world had taken a turn for the worse since the early 1970s. The were both pleased that the Indochina War had ended, but they acknowledged that evil was still widespread--and people seemed less willing to fight it. And Mrs. Butterfield was worried about her husband, Lyman H. Butterfield, professor emeritus of History, who had not been well.

At that point in his life, the alumnus had been having a tough go of it. Nothing had seemed to be going right for him. But as he sat with Mrs. Butterfield, he felt the first feeble rays of optimism beginning to light things up. He left her office much happier than when he entered it.

This spring, the alumnus learned that Mrs. Butterfield had taken ill just after she retired from Harvard. He wrote her a letter, in which he reminded her of a promise made years before. Would he be able to do his profile now?

But Mrs. Butterfield was not feeling well. The alumnus made a note to keep in touch with her--perhaps her condition would improve, and she would be able to talk to him about more of her Harvard experiences, about her life before moving to Cambridge in 1954, about the bookstore which she managed in addition to her job to raise money for Bryn Mawr, her alma mater.

The alumnus never thought his profile would come in the form of an obituary, a clumsy effort to capture the sparkle of a woman who so touched everyone around her. He sure wishes Mrs. Butterfield were around to help him out.