Webster spent a semester in her junior year in Europe, visiting France and the United Kingdom, but with Italy as her main destination, including visits to Rome, Naples, Venice and Florence. She traveled with two fellow Vassar students, and in Paris met Ethelyn McKinney and Lena Weinstein, also Americans, who were to become lifelong friends. While in Italy, Webster researched her senior economics thesis "Pauperism in Italy". She also wrote columns about her travels for the "Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier" and gathered material for a short story, "Villa Gianini", which was published in the "Vassar Miscellany" in 1901. She later expanded it into a novel, "The Wheat Princess". Returning to Vassar for her senior year, she was literary editor for her class yearbook and graduated in June 1901.