"Commencements----" declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like weddings--all sort of weepy."

"What do you know of weddings, little one?" from Graham.

"I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried herself!"

"Did you cry, mother?" asked Tibby curiously.

Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did--really. And I cried at my Commencement. 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?............