th; and yet there is a
certain whimsical pleasure in the memories the picture brings.

For three days there was much gaiety, much singing of class songs,
constant parading, dances, speech-making, class circuses, and endless
shaking of hands and exchanging of reminiscences. The seniors moved
through all the excitement quietly, keeping close to their relatives and
friends. Graduation wasn't so thrilling as they had expected it to be;
it was more sad. The alumni seemed to be having a good time; they were
ridiculously boyish: only the seniors were grave, strangely and
unnaturally dignified.

Most of the alumni left the night before the graduation exercises. The
parents and fiancees remained. They stood in the middle of the campus
and watched the seniors, clad in caps and gowns, line up before the
Union at the orders of the class marshal.

Finally, the procession, the grand marshal, a professor, in the lead
with a wand in his hand, then President Culver and the governor of the
State, then the men who were to receive honorary degrees--a writer, a
college president, a philanthropist, a professor, and three
politicians--then the faculty in academic robes, their many-colored
hoods brilliant against their black gowns. And last the seniors, a long
line of them marching in twos headed by their marshal.

The visitors streamed after them into the chapel. The seniors sat in
their customary seats, the faculty and the men who were to receive
honorary degrees on a platform that had been built at the altar. After
they were seated, everything became a blur to Hugh. He hardly knew what
was happening. He saw his father and mother sitting in the transept. He
thought his mother was crying. He hoped not.... Some one prayed
stupidly. There was a hymn.... What was it Cynthia had said? Oh, yes: "I
can't marry a stranger." Well, they weren't exactly strangers.... He was
darn glad he had gone to New York.... The president seemed to be saying
over and over again, "By the power invested in me ..." and every time
that he said it, Professor Blake would slip the loop of a colored hood
over the head of a writer or a politician--and then it was happening all
over again.

Suddenly the class marshal motioned to the seniors to rise. They put on
their mortar-boards. The president said once more, "By the power
invested in me...." The seniors filed by the president, and the grand
marshal handed each of them a roll of parchment tied with blue and
orange rib