ne, and at length the
great day had dawned for Rebecca,--the day to which she had been
looking forward for five years, as the first goal to be reached on her
little journey through the world. School-days were ended, and the
mystic function known to the initiated as "graduation" was about to be
celebrated; it was even now heralded by the sun dawning in the eastern
sky. Rebecca stole softly out of bed, crept to the window, threw open
the blinds, and welcomed the rosy light that meant a cloudless morning.
Even the sun looked different somehow,--larger, redder, more important
than usual; and if it were really so, there was no member of the
graduating class who would have thought it strange or unbecoming, in
view of all the circumstances. Emma Jane stirred on her pillow, woke,
and seeing Rebecca at the window, came and knelt on the floor beside
her. "It's going to be pleasant!" she sighed gratefully. "If it wasn't
wicked, I could thank the Lord, I'm so relieved in mind! Did you sleep?"

"Not much; the words of my class poem kept running through my head, and
the accompaniments of the songs; and worse than anything, Mary Queen of
Scots' prayer in Latin; it seemed as if

"'Adoro, imploro,
Ut liberes me!'

were burned into my brain."

No one who is unfamiliar with life in rural neighborhoods can imagine
the gravity, the importance, the solemnity of this last day of school.
In the matter of preparation, wealth of detail, and general excitement
it far surpasses a wedding; for that is commonly a simple affair in the
country, sometimes even beginning and ending in a visit to the
parsonage. Nothing quite equals graduation in the minds of the
graduates themselves, their families, and the younger students, unless
it be the inauguration of a governor at the State Capitol. Wareham,
then, was shaken to its very centre on this day of days. Mothers and
fathers of the scholars, as well as relatives to the remotest
generation, had been coming on the train and driving into the town
since breakfast time; old pupils, both married and single, with and
without families, streamed back to the dear old village. The two livery
stables were crowded with vehicles of all sorts, and lines of buggies
and wagons were drawn up along the sides of the shady roads, the horses
switching their tails in luxurious idleness. The streets were filled
with people wearing their best clothes, and the fashions included not
only "the latest thing," but the wel