l preserved relic of a bygone day.
There were all sorts and conditions of men and women, for there were
sons and daughters of storekeepers, lawyers, butchers, doctors,
shoemakers, professors, ministers, and farmers at the Wareham schools,
either as boarders or day scholars. In the seminary building there was
an excitement so deep and profound that it expressed itself in a kind
of hushed silence, a transient suspension of life, as those most
interested approached the crucial moment. The feminine graduates-to-be
were seated in their own bedrooms, dressed with a completeness of
detail to which all their past lives seemed to have been but a prelude.
At least, this was the case with their bodies; but their heads, owing
to the extreme heat of the day, were one and all ornamented with leads,
or papers, or dozens of little braids, to issue later in every sort of
curl known to the girl of that period. Rolling the hair on leads or
papers was a favorite method of attaining the desired result, and
though it often entailed a sleepless night, there were those who gladly
paid the price. Others, in whose veins the blood of martyrs did not
flow, substituted rags for leads and pretended that they made a more
natural and less woolly curl. Heat, however, will melt the proudest
head and reduce to fiddling strings the finest product of the
waving-pin; so anxious mothers were stationed over their offspring,
waving palm-leaf fans, it having been decided that the supreme instant
when the town clock struck ten should be the one chosen for releasing
the prisoners from their self-imposed tortures.

Dotted or plain Swiss muslin was the favorite garb, though there were
those who were steaming in white cashmere or alpaca, because in some
cases such frocks were thought more useful afterwards. Blue and pink
waist ribbons were lying over the backs of chairs, and the girl who had
a Roman sash was praying that she might be kept from vanity and pride.

The way to any graduating dress at all had not seemed clear to Rebecca
until a month before. Then, in company with Emma Jane, she visited the
Perkins attic, found piece after piece of white butter-muslin or
cheesecloth, and decided that, at a pinch, it would do. The "rich
blacksmith's daughter" cast the thought of dotted Swiss behind her, and
elected to follow Rebecca in cheesecloth as she had in higher matters;
straightway devising costumes that included such drawing of threads,
such hemstitching and pin-t