nerous with her least thoughts. "I
enjoy impromptus, except speeches--or that last lecture when the man
couldn't read his own notes. Now my history which is to astonish the
world to-morrow will doubtless glitter with extemporaneous wit which has
cost me two weeks of meditation. Likewise this impromptu on the spur of
the moment----"

"I think it's beautiful," said Robbie. She was watching Berta's eyes as
the last lingering strains died away. Oh, dear! why did they sing that
good-bye serenade again? Berta was going to cry. Hark! A robin's twilight
call rose melodiously from the heart of a shadowy spruce. In the thrill
of it Robbie felt the sting of sudden tears. She turned to Bea.

"Now I know how Berta feels when she listens to music. I'm beginning to
understand. But I think a robin is different from a brass band."

"Is it now? You astonish me." Bea squeezed her understandingly,
nevertheless. "I know. Being with Lila has taught me a lot. She is like a
windharp--every touch finds a response. Berta's a violin, I guess. It
takes skill to play on her. And you--oh, I believe you're a splendid big
drum. You've been marking time for the rest of us all the four years. As
for me, I'm only an old tin horn. You need to spend all your breath to
get any music. Even then it isn't sickeningly sweet, so to speak. Still
for an audience in sympathy with the performer----"

"That is what college has given us," put in Lila who had been listening,
"it gives us sympathy. Being with different persons, you know, and loving
them."

"Oh, yes!" Robbie's sigh of intense assent left her breathless, "loving
them."

"Now, then, girls!" Berta's hand was lifted again to beat time as the
clapping for the sophomores subsided. Then the seniors sang. They sang
the songs that were to be interspersed as illustrations in Bea's class
history. There was the elegant stanza which they had shouted all the way
to the mountain lake that first October at college.

"'Rah, 'rah, 'rah! kerchoo, kerchoo!
We are freshmen--
Who are you?"

From that brilliant composition the selections ranged through four years
of fun and sentiment with an occasional flight to the poetry of earnest
feeling as well as many a joyous swoop into hilarious inanity.

When tired of standing around the tree, the class fluttered across the
campus to the broad stone steps in front of the recitation hall.

Bea clung to Robbie's arm