The class prophecy provoked ripples of merriment from the audience.

Grace chuckled with glee at the idea of exclusive Ethel Post becoming the proprietor of a moving-picture show at Coney Island.  The futures prophesied for the other members of the class were equally remarkable for their impossibility.

At last nothing remained but the senior charge and the junior reply.  The president of the senior class rose, and facing the juniors poured forth her final words of advice and counsel.  She likened them to a baby in swaddling clothes, and cautioned them to be careful about standing on their feet too early.  It was the usual patronizing speech so necessary to class day.

Julia Crosby smiled a little as the senior exhorted her hearers to never forget the dignity of their station.  She was thinking of the day she crashed into that young woman, in the corridor The senior president had manifested the dignity of her station then.

Julia straightened her face and stepped forward to make her reply.  She thanked the president for her solicitude and tender counsel.  She humbly acknowledged that the juniors were helpless infants, entirely innocent of the wicked world.  They realized that they needed proper nourishment and exercise.  There was one consolation however, they were daily growing larger and wiser, and their lungs were strong.  If all went well they hoped to be healthy, well-grown seniors, capable of giving sage advice to those who would follow them.

Grace’s face was full of eager appreciation as she listened to Julia’s clever speech.  How greatly she had changed, and what a power she would be in her class during the senior year.  Grace felt that her sophomore year, though dark in the beginning, was about to end in a blaze of glory.

Julia sat down amid demonstrations of approval.  Then the first notes of “Auld Lang Syne” sounded on the piano, and the entire audience, led by the senior glee club, rose to their feet to join in that sweetest of old songs whose plaintive melody causes heart strings to tighten and eyes to fill.

The four chums silently joined hands as they sang, and mentally resolved that with them “auld acquaintance” should never “be forgot.”

There was a second’s pause after the song was done.  Then clear on the air rose the senior class yell.  That broke the spell.  Those who had felt lumps rising in their throats at the music, laughed.  A buzz of conversation began, and soon the graduates were surrounded by their families and friends.

The gymnasium gradually cleared.  The seniors hurried off to their banquet on the lawn and one more class day glided off to find its place with those of the past.

“Wasn’t it perfectly lovely?” sighed Jessica, as they made their way out.

“I think commencement week has even more thrills in it than Christmas,” Nora replied.  “Wait till we have our class day.  You shall write the class poem, Anne, and Jessica the song.”