’The young man has a future before him.  Such eloquence as that could move the world, and rouse or quiet the wildest mob that ever surged through the streets of mad Paris.’

Jerry was there, and saw and heard.  And when Harold’s speech was over, and the building was shaking with applause, and flowers were falling around him like rain, she, too, stood up and cheered so loudly that a Boston lady, who sat in front of her, and who thought any outward show of feeling vulgar and ill-bred, turned and looked at her wonderingly and reprovingly.  But in her excitement Jerry did not see the disapprobation in the cold, proud eyes.  She saw only what she mistook for enquiry, and she answered eagerly: 

‘That’s Harold—­that’s my brother!  Oh, I am so proud of him!’

And leaning forward so that a curl of her bright hair touched the Boston woman’s bonnet, she threw the bunch of pond lilies which she had herself gathered that day on the river at home, before the sun was up, and while the white petals were still folded in sleep.  For Jerry had come down on the early train to see Harold graduated, and Maude had found her in the crowd and sat beside her, almost as pleased and happy as herself to see Harold thus acquit himself.

Maude’s roses had been bought at a florist’s in Boston at a fabulous price, for they were the choicest and rarest in market.  Harold had seen both the roses and the lilies long before they fell at his feet.  It was a fancy, perhaps, but it seemed to him that it sweet perfume from the latter reached him with the brightness of Jerry’s eyes.  He knew just where the lilies came from, for he had often waded out to the green bed when the water was low to get them for Jerry; and all the time he was speaking there was in his heart a thought of the old home, and the woods, and the river, and the tall tree on the bank, with the bench beneath, and on it the girl, whose upturned, eager face he saw above the sea of heads confronting him.

Jerrie’s approval was worth more to the young man than that of all the rest; for he knew that, though she would be very lenient toward him, she was a keen and discriminating critic, and would detect a weakness which many an older person would fail to see.  But she was satisfied—­he was sure of that; and if there had been in his mind any doubt it would have been swept away when, after the exercises were over, and he stood receiving the congratulations of his friends, she worked her way through the crowd and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him fondly, and bursting into a flood of tears as she told him how proud she was of him.

The eyes of half his classmates were upon him, and though Harold felt a thrill of keen delight run through his veins at the touch of Jerrie’s lips, he would a little rather she had waited until they were alone.

‘There, there, Jerrie, that will do!’ he whispered, as he unclasped her arms, and put her gently from him, though he still held her hand.  ’Don’t you see they are all looking at us.’