dancing is worth, and my singing, and my making
believe. I feel so powerful sometimes and then again--I am weak as--as a
shadow!"

"Oh! Joan do be careful--you'll fall over the wall."

Nancy flung her arms about Joan, who had tilted backward as she
portrayed her state of weakness.

"You frighten me, Joan, and besides you have no right to disappoint Aunt
Dorrie, and if she should hear you talk she'd be shocked!"

"I wonder," mused Joan, "she is so understanding. I wonder. But come,
Nan, dear, I must go practise the thing I'm to sing at Commencement, and
I have a perfectly new idea for a dance on Class Day."

David Martin and Doris were never to forget the impression Joan made on
the two occasions when she stood forth alone, during the Commencement
week, like a startling and unique figure, with the background of lovely
young girlhood. No one resented her conspicuousness. All gloried in it.
They clapped and cheered her on--she was their Joan, the idol of the
years which she had made vital and electric by her personality.

She danced on Class Day a wonderful dance that she had originated
herself.

Nancy played her accompaniment, keeping her fascinated gaze upon Joan
while her fingers touched the keys in accord with every movement.

Lightly, bewilderingly, the gauzy, green-robed figure was wafted here,
there, everywhere, under the broad elms, apparently on Nancy's tune. She
was a leaf, a petal of a flower, a creature born of light and air.

People forgot they were performing a stilted duty at a school
function--they were frankly delighted and appreciative. Joan rose to the
homage and, at such moments, she was beautiful with a beauty that did
not depend upon feature or colouring.

But it was when she sang on Commencement Day that she achieved her
triumph.

Martin was watching Doris closely. She had had no return of her March
illness; she never spoke of it, nor did he, but for that very reason
Martin kept a more rigid guard upon any excitement. There was that in
Doris's face which, to his trained eye, was significant. It was as if
she had been touched by a passing frost. She had not withered, but she
was changed. The time of blight might be soon or distant, but the frost
had fallen on the woman's life.

It was when Joan had finished her song that Martin took Doris from the
hall.

It happened this way:

The flower-banked platform was empty until the accompanist--it was a
young professor, this time, not Nancy--