s of the final examinations. Even Shirley went about anxiously
wondering if she would "pass" and asking each of her sisters if they
thought she had had good marks during the year.

"I just have to be promoted," she would say over and over. "I just
have to be promoted, 'cause my mother is coming home."

"When's Mother coming home?" was Sarah's cry. "You said in a year,
Hugh, and it's a year this month."

"I think we may look for her home sometime this month," said the
doctor one day when Sarah had asked him for the twentieth time. "You
mustn't expect her to keep a calendar, Sarah and come back on the
exact day she went away. It may be a few days longer, dear."

"She went away a year ago this Wednesday," said Rosemary, half to
herself.

"Has it been a long year, Rosemary?" asked her brother, quickly.

"In spots," answered Rosemary, the tears rushing to her eyes. "It
has been ever so long, sometimes, Hugh."

"Well, let's all get promoted," suggested Shirley, in her little
chirpy voice. "Mother would like us all promoted, wouldn't she,
Hugh?"

"She'll about eat you up, promoted or not," he answered, swinging
Shirley to the top of his desk the better to hug her. "But by all
means be promoted; that will be fine news to tell her."

The dreaded examinations approached relentlessly, engulfed each
fearful class and released them, after a few days, to wait their
fates. Shirley was sure she had "passed in everything," Sarah was
superbly indifferent, and Rosemary had secret qualms about history.
Jack Welles confided that he didn't care so much whether or not he
passed, but the uncertainty was driving him mad.

"If I pass, I get my choice of three dandy fishing rods," he
explained to Rosemary. "And if I flunk, I have to work in the
garden all summer without a single fishing trip."

This state of suspense extended to the last day of the term. The
senior classes, in the high and grammar schools, were given their
ratings earlier, to allow them to prepare for the graduating
exercises. Rosemary, Sarah, Shirley and Aunt Trudy went to the
exercises and all through the hot June night Rosemary sat, wide-eyed
and delighted, wondering if the day would ever come when she could
sit on the platform in a white frock with her arms filled with
roses, and perhaps be called on to read an essay.

The day after the graduation, the cards were handed out among the
other grades. Jack Welles waited to walk home with the Willis girls
and thoug