h could not move
a limb. Dumbly and unbelievingly he stared at the Rector and the group
of teachers seated around him on the platform.

"Come forward, Wellander," the Rector said in a friendly voice as if he
could well understand the overwhelming effect of such distinction. At
the same time Keith noticed Lector Dahlstroem rising partly from his seat
on the platform as if to see whether anything might be the matter.

Had the ceiling opened and an angel appeared in a fiery chariot to call
him heavenward, the boy could not have been more startled. It was as if
a terrific blow had paralyzed all his senses. His classmates had to push
him forward. He never knew how he reached the platform, where the Rector
was waiting for him with a small package ready for delivery. Keith felt
the weight of that package in his own hand and the gentle touch of the
Rector's hand on his head. Words were uttered that he did not catch, and
the room became filled with the noise of boisterous applause.

He bowed mechanically and turned to walk back to his seat, and as he did
so, he noticed a white handkerchief waving at him from the rear of the
hall. Behind the handkerchief he caught a glimpse of his mother's face,
and a thought shot through his head:

"Papa is here and has heard all this!"

Then he relapsed into a state of utter oblivion of the surrounding
world. The thing was too tremendous to be felt even. Automatically he
moved out of the hall and back to the classroom with the rest. Dally was
saying things to him, but he could not grasp a word. Now and then he
became vaguely conscious of awed glances cast at him by the other boys.
Some of them spoke to him, and in some strange way he managed to realize
that Davidson was not among these.

At last he woke into full consciousness on the street, where he found
himself walking homeward by his father's hand. The pressure of that hand
seemed unusually soft and pleasant. The mother was talking eagerly and
wiping her eyes between little happy bursts of laughter. The father
listened for a long while in silence.

"Yes," he said at last, "it is not a bad beginning--if he can keep it
up."

Keith felt for a moment as if he were walking on air, and he knew that
he would keep it up--that after such a day nothing could prevent him
from keeping it up. Then a bewildering thought appeared out of nowhere
and began to buzz in his tired and over-excited brain.

"If I have done all that the Rector said," thi