There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really _was_ the end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over--then, I remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress--we wore organdie then, too, girls--with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back.

So I cried--for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid--to look ahead into life----"

"But there was father--you knew him then, didn't you?"

A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes--there was father. I said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was married--and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy--but I knew I was going away forever from my girlhood."

"Mother----" protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to be _married_----"

"Darling"--and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers--"we leave our childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears--tears that sweeten and strengthen the spirit, too."

"Well, I'm glad _I_ have two more years at Highacres," cried Gyp, looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face.

"And _I'm_ glad," Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't be Amy Mathers for _anything_. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of all she's going to do next winter--such _empty_ things!" Isobel, in her scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do just what Amy Mathers was planning to do!

"Well,"--Graham stretched his arms--"school's all right but _I'm_ mighty glad vacation has come."

Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn, until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school.

A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates.

Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award--to Dana King. A murmur had swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records, the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis.

Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant a lot to him--for it made college possible."

It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining hill from which paths diverged--attractive paths that beckoned; that precious word college--Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow, little path, and led straight away from Highacres--but it led to Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart--and Gyp and Isobel would be with her.

The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the lapels of their coats.

Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes.

"You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew," she cried in the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you all--but it would muss you dreadfully."

"Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any _dirt_ on me," exclaimed Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing.

"Am _I_ all right, mother?" begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy white.

Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a flower in _his_ buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket.

"A little graduating gift for my Bonnie." It was a circlet pin of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things eternal--everlasting--never ending. That's like my faith in you." He lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on, now--everybody ready?"

If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's manner--a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has girded one's self for a great deed.

He _had_ made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had haunted him--thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really meant, "What will _I_ do without you?"

Absurd--he tried to reason the whole thing calmly--absurd that this slip of a girl, who knew _Chinese_, had become necessary to his happiness!

How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that--and he was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away--and he could not _let_ her go away.

So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me--if I tell her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth it seemed like ninety.

"I'll tell her--just the same," was his final determination; she was on her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years.

From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces--and saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness and a beauty of thought that was inspired--not by the detached group of graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the others and bring them very close.

"Loyalty" was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen."

After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth.

More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the promise of their day, stood at the start----

Then the school sang their Alma Mater--the undergraduates singing the first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar notes rang with a truer, braver cadence--one voice, clearer than the others, broke suddenly with feeling.

"Wasn't it all perfectly _beautiful_?" cried Gyp as the audience moved slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't _tell_ which was best of the program and it _was_ sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny _splendid_? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was just sick over her dress--it was so plain--and she looked as lovely as _any_ of the others. Oh, goodness, _think_ how you'd feel if we were graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's Barbara Lee, let's _hug_ her--think how _dreadful_ to have her go away.

And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry----" Gyp ended her outburst by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders.

John Westley advanced upon them--with the strange new look still in his eyes.

"Gyp--you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness." He tried to make his tone light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little, Barbara Lee walked away with him.

"Well, I never----" declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee.

John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart.

There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips.

"I wanted you to know," he finished, simply. "I don't suppose--what I can offer--can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid dreams--but, I wanted you to know that you have----"

"There's more than _one_ way to the stars----" she interrupted, lifting glowing eyes to his.

Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she remembered Uncle Johnny.

"Do you s'pose they're in the library _yet_?"

She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing looking out of the window--with their hands clasped.

Gyp coughed--a cough that was really a funny sputter.

"Did--did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?"

Uncle Johnny turned--without a blush.

"_Hello_, Gyp!" (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find the book--because I wasn't really after a book. But I _did_ find what I wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your Barbara Lee is _not_ going away?"

CHAPTER XXVII

CRAIG WINTON

"Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a" echoed through the wooded slopes of Kettle. Startled, birds winged away from the treetops, little wild creatures skurried through the undergrowth, yet in the care-free, silvery tinkle of those merry voices there was no note to alarm.

Jerry was leading Isobel and Gyp down the trail from Rocky Top. Baskets, swinging from their shoulders, told of the jolly day's outing. Isobel and Gyp were dressed in khaki middies and short skirts; Isobel's hair was drawn back simply from her face and bound with a bright red ribbon; Gyp's cheeks were tanned a ruddy brown, against which her lips shone scarlet. Jerry wore the boyish outfit in which John Westley had found her. Three happier, merrier girls could not have been found the world over.