My preceptor moved away before I was graduated from the Academy, and I then carried on what studying I did by myself, and later with another girl, who, though ridiculing me at first, finally decided to go to Boston with me to study medicine. No urging of mine influenced her; on the contrary, I was rather disappointed at her decision. Secretly pleased, as I was, to be different from the others, Belle’s determination to study medicine robbed me of this distinction. Then we had never been especially congenial. Totally unlike in tastes and temperament, we had always been on opposite sides of the fence--she a Democrat, I a Republican; she a Baptist, I a Methodist--we had quarrelled over politics and argued over religion, and there was no love lost between us. But, as she told me later, she had had me “dinged” into her ears by her mother and sister so long that she had come to think she must do as I did. This is why she decided to study medicine. At our last rhetorical exercises before graduation, we had the usual history and prophecy, and felt the sentiments and emotions usually felt on leaving school. We resurrected an old song we had sung in the lower grades--“Twenty Years Ago”--its sentiment appealing to us now that we were already beginning to feel a yearning for the old place: I’ve wandered to the village, Tom, I’ve sat beneath the tree Upon the school-house play-ground Which sheltered you and me; But none were left to greet me, Tom, And few were left to know Who played with us upon the green Just twenty years ago. Although the boys had jeered at its sentiment, and objected to its solemnity, they joined in it at the close of the exercises as feelingly as we could desire. There seemed a world of pathos in it as our young voices sang it that June afternoon just before we were dismissed for the last time from the old walls. As the sounds died away, “Prof.” stepped to the bell-rope, traces of emotion on his face, and rang the bell--the signal for the close of school. We packed our books, closed our desks, and dispersed, never more to return to the place that had grown so dear. Commencement exercises! There in the old church packed to overflowing, parents and friends gather to hear the boy or girl on whom their hopes are set deliver the oration or read the essay that is a marvel of eloquence and wisdom. Brimming with youth and hope, each girl graduate flutters before the audience and from out the glamour of this never-to-be-forgotten time announces confidently her hopes, her solemn beliefs, her freely bestowed advice. It is all beautiful. The youths and maidens seem lifted just a bit above the earth; but underneath the rosy glow solemn thoughts force their way; sobs and tears are near the smiles; the earnest students, touched by the remembrance of the love and sacrifice of their parents, are moved to high resolve--they will yet justify this faith in them!