She had slept through the greater part of it, for it was very warm, and the heat always made her drowsy.  She kept leaning towards Cynthia as she clapped, and asking in a loud whisper if she wasn’t sweet.  Cynthia did not applaud, but her delicate face was pale with emotion.  Lyman Risley, beside her, was clapping energetically.  “She may have a bomb somewhere concealed among those ribbons and frills,” he said to Lloyd when the applause was waxing loudest, and Lloyd laughed.

As for Ellen, when the storm of applause burst at her feet, she stood still for a moment bewildered.  Then she bowed again and turned to go, then the compelling uproar brought her back.  She stood there quite piteous in her confusion.  This was too much triumph, and, moreover, she had not the least idea of the true significance of it all.  She was like a chemist who had brought together, quite ignorantly and unwittingly, the two elements of an explosive.  She thought that her valedictory must have been well done, that they liked it, and that was all.  She had no sooner finished reading than the ushers began in the midst of the storm of applause to approach the stage with her graduating presents.  They were laden with great bouquets and baskets of flowers, with cards conspicuously attached to most of them.  Cynthia Lennox had sent a basket of roses.  Ellen took it on her arm, and wondered when she saw the name attached to the pink satin bow on the handle.  She did not look again towards Cynthia since the old impulse of concealment on her account came over her.  Ellen had great boxes of candy from her boy admirers, that being a favorite token of young affection upon such occasions.  She had a gift-book from her former school-teacher, and a ninety-eight-cent gilded vase from Eva and Amabel, who had been saving money to buy it.  She heard a murmur of admiration when she had finally reached her seat, after the storm of applause had at last subsided, and she unrolled the packages with trembling fingers.

“My, ain’t that handsome!” said Floretta, pressing her muslin-clad shoulder against Ellen’s.  “My, didn’t they clap you, Ellen!  What’s that in that package?”

The package contained Ellen’s new watch and chain.  Floretta had already received hers, and it lay in its case on her lap.  Ellen looked at the package, not hearing in the least the Baptist minister who had taken his place on the stage, and was delivering an address.  She had felt her aunt Eva’s and Amabel’s eager eyes on her when she unrolled the gaudy vase; now she felt her father’s and mother’s.  The small, daintily tied package was inscribed “Ellen Brewster, from Father and Mother.”

“Why don’t you open it?” came in her ear from Floretta.  Maria was leaning forward also, over her lapful of carnations which John Sargent had presented to her.

“Why don’t she open it?” she whispered to Floretta.  They were all quite oblivious of the speaker, who moved nervously back and forth in front of them, so screening them somewhat from the observation of the audience.  Still Ellen hesitated, looking at the little package and feeling her father’s and mother’s eyes on her face.