Sidney Burgoyne, watching him with fascinated eyes, her breath coming fast and unevenly, her color brightening and fading, heard only so much, and then, with a desperate impulse to get away, half rose to her feet.

But she was too late.  Long before the Governor reached her name, a sudden outburst of laughter and clapping shook the hall, there was a friendly stir and murmur about her; a hundred voices came to her ears, “It’s Mrs. Burgoyne, of course!—­She’s got it!  She’s got the first prize!—­Go on up, Mrs. Burgoyne!  You’ve got it!—­Isn’t that great,—­she’s got it!  Go up and get it!”

“You’ve got first prize, I guess.  You’ll have to go up for it,” Barry urged her.

“He didn’t say so!” Sidney protested nervously.  But she let herself be half-pushed into the aisle, and somehow reached the three little steps that led up to the platform, and found herself facing His Excellency, in an uproar of applause.

The Governor said a few smiling words as he put a large box into her hands; Sidney knew this because she saw his lips move, but the house had gone quite mad by this time, and not a word was audible.  Everyone in the hall knew that a tall loving-cup was in the box, for it had been on exhibition in the window of Postag’s jewelry store for three weeks.  It was of silver, and lined with gold, both metals shining with an unearthly and flawless radiance; and there was “Awarded—­as a First Prize—­in the Twelfth Floral Parade—­of Santa Paloma, California” cut beautifully into one side, and a scroll all ready, on the other side, to be engraved with the lucky winner’s name.

She had been joking for two or three weeks about the possibility of this very occurrence, had been half-expecting it all day, but now suddenly all the joke seemed gone out of it, and she was only curiously stirred and shaken.  She looked confusedly down at the sea of faces below her, smiles were everywhere, the eyes that were upon her were full of all affection and pride—­She had done so little after all, she said to herself, with sudden humility, almost with shame.  And it was so poignantly sweet to realize that they loved her, that she was one of themselves, they were glad she had won, she who had been a stranger to all of them only a few months ago!

Her eyes full of sudden tears, her lip shaking, she could only bow and bow again, and then, just as her smile threatened to become entirely eclipsed, she managed a husky “Thank you all so much!” and descended the steps rapidly, to slip into her chair between Barry and George Carew.

“You know, you oughtn’t to make a long tedious speech like that on an occasion like this, Sid,” Barry said, when she had somewhat recovered her equilibrium, and the silver loving cup was unwrapped, and was being passed admiringly from hand to hand.

“Don’t!” she said warningly, “or you’ll have me weeping on your shoulder!”

Instead of which she was her gayest self, and accepted endless congratulations with joyous composure, as the audience streamed out into the reviving festivity of Main Street.  The tide was turning in one direction now, for there were to be “fireworks and a stupendous band concert” immediately following the concert, in a vacant lot not far away.