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.
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