deliver it."

Phoebe stiffened a bit at the thought of the other girl. Since the days
when the two girls attended the rural school on the hill and Mary Warner
was the possessor of curls while Phoebe wore the despised braids the
other girl seemed to have everything for which Phoebe longed.

"Ah, don't you care about the honor," said David. "Honors don't always
tell who knows the most. Why, look at me; I was fifth in my class and I
know as much any day as the little runt who was first."

"Conceit!" laughed Phoebe. "But I guess you do know more than he does.
Bet he never saw an orioles' nest or found a wild pink moccasin. You're
a wonder at such things, David."

"Um," came the sober answer, but there was a merry twinkle in his eyes,
"I'm a wonder all right! Too bad only you and Mother Bab know it. But if
I don't soon go you won't get to town in time to get the pink roses
arranged just so for the grand march. The girls in our class primped
about twenty minutes, patting their hair and fixing their ribbons and
fussing with their flowers."

"David, you're horrid!"

"I know. But I brought you something more to primp with." He handed her
a small flat box.

"For me?"

"From Mother Bab," he said.

"Oh, David, that's a beauty!" she cried as she held up a scarf of pale
blue crepe de chine. "I'll wear it to-night. Tell Mother Bab I thank her
over and over. But I'll see her to-night and tell her myself; she'll be
in at Commencement."

"She can't come, Phoebe. She's sorry, but she has one of her dreadful
headaches and you know what that means, how sick she really is."

"Oh, Davie, Mother Bab not coming to my Commencement--why, I'm so
disappointed, I want her there"--the tears were near the surface.

"She's sorry, too, Phoebe, but she's too sick when those headaches get
her. Her eyes are the cause of them, we think now."

"And I'm horribly selfish to think of myself and my disappointment when
she is suffering. You tell her I'll be up to see her in the morning and
tell her all about to-night. You are coming?"

"Sure thing! Aunt Mary is coming over to stay with mother, but there is
really nothing to do for her; the pain seems to have to run its course.
She'll go to bed early and be perfectly all right when she wakes in the
morning. Come on, now, cheer up, and get ready for that 'Over the Alps
lies Italy.'"

"It's 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy,'" she corrected him. Her
disappointment was softened by his cheerfulness.

"A