ntold pangs of sympathy and foreboding.
Little beribboned girls exhibited their skill in dialogue, and read
essays and filed through some patriotic drill, to which a forest of
tiny flags gave splendid emphasis at impressive junctures.

Then Edith May Jonas, solemn with anxiety and importance, rose to
sing. She was a plain, flaxen-haired girl, with a Teutonic cast of
feature and a thin voice; but every one, benumbed with speechless
admiration of her blue silk dress, derived from her performance an
impression of surpassing beauty and unbounded talent.

"_Caramba!_ but she is like a vision!" sighed Senora Vigil in Jane's
ear. "Look at Senora Jonas, the mother! Well may she weep tears of
pride! She is a great lady--Senora Jonas. Just now she have
condescended to say to me, ''Ow-de-do?' and me, I bow low. _'A los pics
de V. senora!'_ I say. _Ay Dios!_ if I but had a child with yellow
hair, like the Senorita Edith May! _Que chula!_"

"Sh!" breathed Jane. "There's my Lola on the platform!"

Lola had grown tall in the past year. She was fairer than the Mexicans,
although not fair in the fashion of Edith May, but with a faint citron
hue which, better than pink and white, befitted the extreme darkness
of her hair and eyes. She wore a dress of thin white, and around her
slender neck was a curious old strand of turquoise beads which had been
found carefully hidden away in the Mexican trunk. There was an air of
simple reserve about her which touched the doctor. She was only a child
for all her stately looks, and he began to hate his task.

Lola read a little address which had been assigned to her as a
representative of the highest class. She read the farewell lines almost
monotonously, without effect, without inflection, almost coldly. Yet as
he listened, the doctor had an impression of vital warmth underlying
the restraint of the girl's tone--an impression of feeling that lay far
below the surface, latent and half-suspected.

"There is something there to be reckoned with," he decided. "But what?
Is it a noble impulse which will spring to life in rich gratitude when
I tell her my story? Or will a mere hurt, passionate vanity rise to
overwhelm us all in its acrid swell? I shall soon know."

In the buzz of gaiety and gossip which succeeded the final reading, he
approached Lola and beckoned her away from the crowd. She came running
to him smiling, saying, "Senor!"

"I want to say something to you, my dear. Come here where it's