ent, and to whom the divine ordering of fortune and
social rank has added quality and scholarship, hold it the first of
civic virtues to reply to every mandate of law or fate, Law is law, and
right is right, but, first of all, I was born free, and, please God,
I'll die so!

"Gentlemen of the graduating class:"

Nine trim, gray jackets rose, and John March was the tallest. The
speaker proceeded, but he had not spoken many words before he saw the
attention of his hearers was gone. A few smiled behind their hands or
bit their lips; men kept a frowning show of listening to the address;
women's faces exchanged looks of pity, and John turned red to his
collar. For, just behind the Governor, the noble head and feeble frame
of Judge March had risen unconsciously when his son rose, and now stood
among the seated multitude, gazing on the speaker and drinking in his
words with a sweet, glad face. The address went on, but no one heard it.
Nor did any one move to disturb the standing figure; all Suez, nay, the
very girls of Montrose knew that he who seemed to stand there with
trembling knees and wabbling hands was in truth not there, but was
swallowed up and lost in yonder boy.

Garnet was vexed. He shortened the address, and its last, eloquent
sentence was already begun when Ravenel rose and through room swiftly
made for him stepped back to Judge March. He was just in time to get an
arm under his head and shoulders as he sank limply into the pew, looking
up with a smile and trying to say nothing was wrong and to attend again
to the speaker. Garnet's hearers were overcome, but the effect was not
his. Their gaze was on the fallen man; and when General Halliday cleared
his sight with an agitated handkerchief, and one by one from the son's
wide open eyes, the hot, salt tears slipped down to the twitching
corners of his mouth, and the aged pastor's voice trembled in a hurried
benediction, women sobbed and few eyes were dry.

"Father," said John, "can you hear me? Do you know me?"

A glad light overspread the face for reply. But after it came a shadow,
and Doctor Coffin said, softly,

"He's trying to ask something."

Fannie Halliday sat fanning the patient. She glanced up to Garnet just
at John's back and murmured,

"He probably wants to know if----"

John turned an eager glance to his principal, and Garnet nodded "Yes."

"Father," cried John, "I've passed! I've passed, father; I've passed! Do
you hear, dear father?"

The M