s compelled, but she omitted the important feature of
calling for a balance. So, one early spring morning in the last quarter
of the fourth year, she almost fainted when she learned that her funds
were gone. Commencement with its extra expense was coming, she had no
money, and very few cocoons to open in June, which would be too
late. She had one collection for the Bird Woman complete to a pair of
Imperialis moths, and that was her only asset. On the day she added
these big Yellow Emperors she had been promised a check for three
hundred dollars, but she would not get it until these specimens were
secured. She remembered that she never had found an Emperor before June.

Moreover, that sum was for her first year in college. Then she would be
of age, and she meant to sell enough of her share of her father's land
to finish. She knew her mother would oppose her bitterly in that, for
Mrs. Comstock had clung to every acre and tree that belonged to her
husband. Her land was almost complete forest where her neighbours owned
cleared farms, dotted with wells that every hour sucked oil from beneath
her holdings, but she was too absorbed in the grief she nursed to know
or care. The Brushwood road and the redredging of the big Limberlost
ditch had been more than she could pay from her income, and she had
trembled before the wicket as she asked the banker if she had funds to
pay it, and wondered why he laughed when he assured her she had. For
Mrs. Comstock had spent no time on compounding interest, and never added
the sums she had been depositing through nearly twenty years. Now she
thought her funds were almost gone, and every day she worried over
expenses. She could see no reason in going through the forms of
graduation when pupils had all in their heads that was required to
graduate. Elnora knew she had to have her diploma in order to enter the
college she wanted to attend, but she did not dare utter the word, until
high school was finished, for, instead of softening as she hoped her
mother had begun to do, she seemed to remain very much the same.

When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and thought over the
expense she was compelled to meet. Every member of her particular set
was having a large photograph taken to exchange with the others. Elnora
loved these girls and boys, and to say she could not have their pictures
to keep was more than she could endure. Each one would give to all the
others a handsome graduation prese