At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long as she could and then fell senseless.  The men nearest carried her down the hall to the fountain, revived her, and then placed her in the carriage to which she directed them.  The girl played on and never knew.  When she finished, the uproar of applause sounded a block down the street, but the half-senseless woman scarcely realized what it meant.  Then the girl came to the front of the stage, bowed, and lifting the violin she played her conception of an invitation to dance.  Every living soul within sound of her notes strained their nerves to sit still and let only their hearts dance with her.  When that began the woman ran toward the country.  She never stopped until the carriage overtook her half-way to her cabin.  She said she had grown tired of sitting, and walked on ahead.  That night she asked Billy to remain with her and sleep on Elnora’s bed.  Then she pitched headlong upon her own, and suffered agony of soul such as she never before had known.  The swamp had sent back the soul of her loved dead and put it into the body of the daughter she resented, and it was almost more than she could endure and live.

CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN ELNORA GRADUATES, AND FRECKLES AND THE ANGEL SEND GIFTS

That was Friday night.  Elnora came home Saturday morning and began work.  Mrs. Comstock asked no questions, and the girl only told her that the audience had been large enough to more than pay for the piece of statuary the class had selected for the hall.  Then she inquired about her dresses and was told they would be ready for her.  She had been invited to go to the Bird Woman’s to prepare for both the sermon and Commencement exercises.  Since there was so much practising to do, it had been arranged that she should remain there from the night of the sermon until after she was graduated.  If Mrs. Comstock decided to attend she was to drive in with the Sintons.  When Elnora begged her to come she said she cared nothing about such silliness.

It was almost time for Wesley to come to take Elnora to the city, when fresh from her bath, and dressed to her outer garment, she stood with expectant face before her mother and cried:  “Now my dress, mother!”

Mrs. Comstock was pale as she replied:  “It’s on my bed.  Help yourself.”

Elnora opened the door and stepped into her mother’s room with never a misgiving.  Since the night Margaret and Wesley had brought her clothing, when she first started to school, her mother had selected all of her dresses, with Mrs. Sinton’s help made most of them, and Elnora had paid the bills.  The white dress of the previous spring was the first made at a dressmaker’s.  She had worn that as junior usher at Commencement; but her mother had selected the material, had it made, and it had fitted perfectly and had been suitable in every way.  So with her heart at rest on that point, Elnora hurried to the bed to find only her last summer’s white dress, freshly washed and ironed.  For an instant she stared at it, then she picked up the garment, looked at the bed beneath it, and her gaze slowly swept the room.