catching of the breath, something like a sob, close by me.  It was the Mistress,—­she was crying.  What was she crying for?  It was impressive, certainly, to listen to these young voices, many of them blending for the last time,—­for the scholars were soon to be scattered all over the country, and some of them beyond its boundaries,—­but why the Mistress was so carried away, I did not know.  She must be more impressible than most of us; yet I thought Number Five also looked as if she were having a struggle with herself to keep down some rebellious signs of emotion.

The exercises went on very pleasingly until they came to the awarding of the gold medal of the year and the valedictory, which was to be delivered by the young lady to whom it was to be presented.  The name was called; it was one not unfamiliar to our ears, and the bearer of it—­the Delilah of our tea-table, Avis as she was known in the school and elsewhere—­rose in her place and came forward, so that for the first time on that day, we looked upon her.  It was a sensation for The Teacups.  Our modest, quiet waiting-girl was the best scholar of her year.  We had talked French before her, and we learned that she was the best French scholar the teacher had ever had in the school.  We had never thought of her except as a pleasing and well-trained handmaiden, and here she was an accomplished young lady.

Avis went through her part very naturally and gracefully, and when it was finished, and she stood before us with the medal glittering on her breast, we did not know whether to smile or to cry,—­some of us did one, and some the other.—­We all had an opportunity to see her and congratulate her before we left the institution.  The mystery of her six weeks’ serving at our table was easily solved.  She had been studying too hard and too long, and required some change of scene and occupation.  She had a fancy for trying to see if she could support herself as so many young women are obliged to, and found a place with us, the Mistress only knowing her secret.

“She is to be our young Doctor’s wife!” the Mistress whispered to me, and did some more crying, not for grief, certainly.

Whether our young Doctor’s long visits to a neighboring town had anything to do with the fact that Avis was at that institution, whether she was the patient he visited or not, may be left in doubt.  At all events, he had always driven off in the direction which would carry him to the place where she was at school.

I have attended a large number of celebrations, commencements, banquets, soirees, and so forth, and done my best to help on a good many of them.  In fact, I have become rather too well known in connection with “occasions,” and it has cost me no little trouble.  I believe there is no kind of occurrence for which I have not been requested to contribute something in prose or verse.  It is sometimes very hard to say no to the requests.  If one is in the right mood when