She hadn't yet thought of a theme for the Valedictory, and mother was
beginning to make disturbing comments about "this hat mania," when, by
the most fortuitous chance, while she was working on Marguerite's very
hat--in fact, because she was working on it--she hit upon a brilliantly
possible idea for the Valedictory.

She was rummaging in a box of discarded odds and ends for "trimmings."
The box was in mother's store-closet, and Missy happened to observe a
pile of books up on the shelf. Books always interested her, and even
with a hat on her mind she paused a moment to look over the titles. The
top volume was "Ships That Pass in the Night"--she had read that a year
or so ago--a delightful book, though she'd forgotten just what about.
She took it down and opened it, casually, at the title page. And there,
in fine print beneath the title, she read:

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a
signal shewn, and a distant voice in the darkness; So, on the ocean
of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice--then
darkness again, and a silence.

Standing there in the closet door, Missy read the stanza a second
time--a third. And, back again at her work, fingers dawdled while
eyes took on a dreamy, preoccupied expression. For phrases were still
flitting through her head: "we pass and speak one another".. . "then
darkness again, and a silence"...

Very far away it took you--very far, right out on the vast, surging,
mysterious sea of Life!

The sea of Life!... People, like ships, always meeting one another--only
a look and a voice--and then passing on into the silence...

Oh, that was an idea! Not just a shallow, sentimental pretense, but a
real idea, "deep," stirring and fine. What a glorious Valedictory that
would make!

And presently, when she was summoned to supper, she felt no desire to
talk; it was so pleasant just to listen to those phrases faintly
and suggestively resounding. All the talk around her came dimly and,
sometimes, so lost was she in hazy delight that she didn't hear a direct
question.

Finally father asked:

"What's the day-dream, Missy?--thinking up a hat for me?"

Missy started, and forgot to note that his enquiry was facetious.

"No," she answered quite seriously, "I haven't finished Marguerite's
yet."

"Yes," cut in mother, in the tone of reproach so often heard these days,
"she's been frittering away the whole afternoon. And not a glimmer for