in the class, and smarter girls-and
boys, too; yet she was the one from all that twenty-odd who had been
chosen to deliver the Valedictory. Did there ever exist a maid who did
not thrill to proof that she was popular with her mates? And when that
tribute carries with it all the possibilities of a Valedictory--double,
treble the exultation.

The Valedictory! When Missy sat in the classroom, exhausted with the
lassitudinous warmth of spring and with the painful uncertainty of
whether she'd be called to translate the Vergil passage she hadn't
mastered, visions of that coming glory would rise to brighten weary
hours; and the last thing at night, in falling asleep, as the moon stole
in tenderly to touch her smiling face, she took them to her dreams. She
saw a slender girl in white, standing alone on a lighted stage, gazing
with luminous eyes out on a darkened auditorium. Sometimes they had poky
old lectures in that Opera House. Somebody named Ridgely Holman Dobson
was billed to lecture there now--before Commencement; but Missy hated
lectures; her vision was of something lifted far above such dismal,
useful communications. She saw a house as hushed as when little Eva
dies--all the people listening to the girl up there illumined: the lift
and fall of her voice, the sentiments fine and noble and inspiring. They
followed the slow grace of her arms and hands--it was, indeed, as if
she held them in the hollow of her hand. And then, finally, when she
had come to the last undulating cadence, the last vibrantly sustained
phrase, as she paused and bowed, there was a moment of hush--and then
the applause began. Oh, what applause! And then, slowly, graciously,
modestly but with a certain queenly pride, the shining figure in white
turned and left the stage.

She could see it all: the way her "waved" hair would fluff out and catch
the light like a kind of halo, and each one of the nine organdie ruffles
that were going to trim the bottom of her dress; she could even see the
glossy, dark green background of potted palms--mother had promised to
lend her two biggest ones. Yes, she could see it and hear it to the
utmost completeness--save for one slight detail: that was the words
of the girlish and queenly speaker. It seemed all wrong that she, who
wasn't going to be a dull lecturer, should have to use words, and so
many of them! You see, Missy hadn't yet written the Valedictory.

But that didn't spoil her enjoyment of the vision; it would a