Presently Señor Juarez, the Mexican master, appeared. The bell in the slate dome rang loudly, and the throng filed indoors. There was the usual array of ceremonies appropriate to occasions like this. Small boys spoke "pieces," which they forgot, being audibly prompted, while the audience experienced untold pangs of sympathy and foreboding. Little beribboned girls exhibited their skill in dialogue, and read essays and filed through some patriotic drill, to which a forest of tiny flags gave splendid emphasis at impressive junctures. Then Edith May Jonas, solemn with anxiety and importance, rose to sing. She was a plain, flaxen-haired girl, with a Teutonic cast of feature and a thin voice; but every one, benumbed with speechless admiration of her blue silk dress, derived from her performance an impression of surpassing beauty and unbounded talent. "_Caramba!_ but she is like a vision!" sighed Señora Vigil in Jane's ear. "Look at Señora Jonas, the mother! Well may she weep tears of pride! She is a great lady--Señora Jonas. Just now she have condescended to say to me, ''Ow-de-do?' and me, I bow low. _'A los pics de V. señora!'_ I say. _Ay Dios!_ if I but had a child with yellow hair, like the Señorita Edith May! _Que chula!_" "Sh!" breathed Jane. "There's my Lola on the platform!" Lola had grown tall in the past year. She was fairer than the Mexicans, although not fair in the fashion of Edith May, but with a faint citron hue which, better than pink and white, befitted the extreme darkness of her hair and eyes. She wore a dress of thin white, and around her slender neck was a curious old strand of turquoise beads which had been found carefully hidden away in the Mexican trunk. There was an air of simple reserve about her which touched the doctor. She was only a child for all her stately looks, and he began to hate his task. Lola read a little address which had been assigned to her as a representative of the highest class. She read the farewell lines almost monotonously, without effect, without inflection, almost coldly. Yet as he listened, the doctor had an impression of vital warmth underlying the restraint of the girl's tone--an impression of feeling that lay far below the surface, latent and half-suspected. "There is something there to be reckoned with," he decided. "But what? Is it a noble impulse which will spring to life in rich gratitude when I tell her my story? Or will a mere hurt, passionate vanity rise to overwhelm us all in its acrid swell? I shall soon know." In the buzz of gaiety and gossip which succeeded the final reading, he approached Lola and beckoned her away from the crowd. She came running to him smiling, saying, "Señor!" "I want to say something to you, my dear. Come here where it's quiet." The doctor was finding the simplicity and trustfulness of her gaze very trying. "Lola," he continued, desperately, "I--you must listen to me." Just at this point something struck against his arm, and turning irritably, he saw Jane.