Finally those two men lifted their heads. They had evidently marked me strictly, so as to be sure beyond a doubt that the more rigid Regents Board would not turn me down. Professor Durland now nodded his head vigorously, and Father beamed with joy. How gaily I walked out into the hall, my feet scarcely touching the floor! While I was putting on my wraps the door softly opened, “Prof.” stepped out and said, “You are through this time, Eugenia!” It was one of the happiest moments of my life; but though choking with emotion and gratitude to him, I don’t suppose I expressed it at all. Still I think he knew; knew also that I was fond of him. Along with several of the other girls, I had a schoolgirl’s infatuation for him. He was our hero--a silly, sentimental fondness of the adolescent period, but then, and always afterward, redeemed by genuine affection and gratitude. He was then, I suppose, a man in the thirties, and we were girls of sixteen and seventeen. I have since thought how wise and kind he was never to seem to notice or to take advantage of our romantic feelings, and never to make us appear ridiculous on that score, for he must have seen it all. (There was a time when we treasured everything he said or did. I even remember once that a certain girl and I kept count how many times he glanced at us in a forenoon; though his glances were doubtless of surveillance, we treasured them just the same.) He pursued just the right course with us, and our sentimental adoration did us no harm. It probably helped us in our studies. We blossomed under his approval, and withered under his biting sarcasm. Yet we often teased and annoyed him. He was surprisingly forbearing at times, and especially indulgent with me, giving me freer rein than some others to indulge certain whims and idiosyncrasies. I half consciously recognized this, girl that I was, and sometimes took advantage of it. I used to love to hear him pronounce my name; he said it a different way from any one else. What is it Whitman says-- Did you think there was but one pronunciation to your name?