s launched.

So let these ships, which have such a vast, such an unutterable
influence, use that influence for brightening the encompassing gloom...
For, by so doing, the waters of Life will grow smoother, and the signals
will never flicker.

She came to the last undulating cadence, the last vibrantly sustained
phrase; and then, 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.

Here was a noble triumph, remembered for years even by the teachers.
Down in the audience father and mother and grandpa and grandma and all
the other relatives who, with suspiciously wet eyes, were assembled
in the "reserved section," overheard such murmurs as: "And she's
seventeen!--Where do young folks get those ideas?"--and, "What an
unusual gift of phraseology!" And, after the programme, a reporter from
the Cherryvale Beacon came up to father and asked permission to quote
certain passages from the Valedictory in his "write-up." That was the
proudest moment of Mr. Merriam's entire life.

Missy had time for only hurried congratulations from her family. For she
must rush off to the annual Alumni banquet. She was going with Raymond
Bonner who, now, was hovering about her more zealously than ever. She
would have preferred to share this triumphant hour with--with--well,
with someone older and more experienced and better able to understand.
But she liked Raymond; once, long ago--a whole year ago--she'd had
absurd dreams about him. Yet he was a nice boy; the nicest and most
sought-after boy in the class. She was not unhappy at going off with
him.

Father and mother walked home alone, communing together in that
pride-tinged-with-sadness that must, at times, come to all parents.

Mother said:

"And to think I was so worried! That hat-making, and then that special
spell of idle mooning over something-or-nothing, nearly drove me
frantic."

Father smiled through the darkness.

"I suppose, after all," mother mused on, surreptitiously wiping those
prideful eyes, "that there is something in Inspiration, and the dear
child just had to wait till she got it, and that she doesn't know any
more than we do where it came from."

"No, I daresay she doesn't." But sometimes father was more like a friend
than a parent, and that faint, unnoted stress was the only sign he ever
gav