“Of course you don’t, you blessed little snow-child!”—­the laugh struck rudely on Nancy’s discomfort—­“why should you; why should any one in this—­this factory where we’ve all been cut in the same shape?  We’re all going to be let out of here to—­to be married!  They’ve never taken me in.”

“Oh, Joan!” Nancy looked about nervously.  Of course every girl had this ideal in her brain, but she was not supposed to express it—­except vicariously in the charm-lure.

“It’s all right, this marrying,” Joan went calmly on.  “I want to myself, some day, it’s splendid and all that—­but something in me wants to fly about alone first.”

“You’re silly, Joan.”

“I suppose I am, snow-child.  I suppose I’ll get frightfully snubbed some day and come back glad enough to trot along with the rest—­but oh! it must be sublime to have the chance a boy has.  He can have everything—­even the try if he is rich—­and then he knows what he’s worth.  Why, Nancy, I am going to say something awful now—­so hold close.  I want to know what my dancing is worth, and my singing, and my making believe.  I feel so powerful sometimes and then again—­I am weak as—­as a shadow!”

“Oh!  Joan do be careful—­you’ll fall over the wall.”

Nancy flung her arms about Joan, who had tilted backward as she portrayed her state of weakness.

“You frighten me, Joan, and besides you have no right to disappoint Aunt Dorrie, and if she should hear you talk she’d be shocked!”

“I wonder,” mused Joan, “she is so understanding.  I wonder.  But come, Nan, dear, I must go practise the thing I’m to sing at Commencement, and I have a perfectly new idea for a dance on Class Day.”

David Martin and Doris were never to forget the impression Joan made on the two occasions when she stood forth alone, during the Commencement week, like a startling and unique figure, with the background of lovely young girlhood.  No one resented her conspicuousness.  All gloried in it.  They clapped and cheered her on—­she was their Joan, the idol of the years which she had made vital and electric by her personality.

She danced on Class Day a wonderful dance that she had originated herself.

Nancy played her accompaniment, keeping her fascinated gaze upon Joan while her fingers touched the keys in accord with every movement.

Lightly, bewilderingly, the gauzy, green-robed figure was wafted here, there, everywhere, under the broad elms, apparently on Nancy’s tune.  She was a leaf, a petal of a flower, a creature born of light and air.

People forgot they were performing a stilted duty at a school function—­they were frankly delighted and appreciative.  Joan rose to the homage and, at such moments, she was beautiful with a beauty that did not depend upon feature or colouring.

But it was when she sang on Commencement Day that she achieved her triumph.