.

The exercises went on very pleasingly until they came to the awarding
of the gold medal of the year and the valedictory, which was to be
delivered by the young lady to whom it was to be presented. The name was
called; it was one not unfamiliar to our ears, and the bearer of it--the
Delilah of our tea-table, Avis as she was known in the school and
elsewhere--rose in her place and came forward, so that for the first
time on that day, we looked upon her. It was a sensation for The
Teacups. Our modest, quiet waiting-girl was the best scholar of her
year. We had talked French before her, and we learned that she was the
best French scholar the teacher had ever had in the school. We had never
thought of her except as a pleasing and well-trained handmaiden, and
here she was an accomplished young lady.

Avis went through her part very naturally and gracefully, and when it
was finished, and she stood before us with the medal glittering on her
breast, we did not know whether to smile or to cry,--some of us did
one, and some the other.--We all had an opportunity to see her and
congratulate her before we left the institution. The mystery of her six
weeks' serving at our table was easily solved. She had been studying too
hard and too long, and required some change of scene and occupation. She
had a fancy for trying to see if she could support herself as so many
young women are obliged to, and found a place with us, the Mistress only
knowing her secret.

"She is to be our young Doctor's wife!" the Mistress whispered to me,
and did some more crying, not for grief, certainly.

Whether our young Doctor's long visits to a neighboring town had
anything to do with the fact that Avis was at that institution, whether
she was the patient he visited or not, may be left in doubt. At all
events, he had always driven off in the direction which would carry him
to the place where she was at school.

I have attended a large number of celebrations, commencements, banquets,
soirees, and so forth, and done my best to help on a good many of
them. In fact, I have become rather too well known in connection with
"occasions," and it has cost me no little trouble. I believe there is
no kind of occurrence for which I have not been requested to contribute
something in prose or verse. It is sometimes very hard to say no to
the requests. If one is in the right mood when he or she writes an
occasional poem, it seems as if nothing could have been easier. "W