Graduation Day was all that it should have been as regarded weather. The morning was warm, but there was a fresh breeze from the southwest that stirred the maples along the village streets. Long before the exercises commenced the vicinity of the school was thick with cars, the Inn overflowed with visitors, and the little town had assumed the festal look that it wore once each year in June. The day belonged, of course, to the first class fellows, and they were much in evidence, some thirty-two in all, looking usually a bit self-conscious, sometimes rather self-important. The exercises were held out of doors on the lawn, the platform set against a background of trees, the settees ranged in semicircles before it. The scene was a fair one, colorful with the dresses of mothers and sisters and aunts dotting a lawn of emerald, with the bluest of blue skies above. One by one the graduates stepped to the platform and received their diplomas from Doctor Wyndham, shook the Doctor’s hand and turned to face a salvo of cheers from their fellows. An orchestra, hidden by the branches, played softly. The Doctor made his address, and Mr. Clendennin, Head of the Junior School, spoke. Then came the announcement of the prize winners, and finally a prayer. Clif, who had volunteered as a “roustabout,” hurried away to help a score or so of other boys prepare the assembly hall for the buffet luncheon to be served to the guests. There were long trestles to be set up, settees to be borne back from the lawn, a dozen other duties to be performed. After luncheon the Doctor held a reception that lasted until half-past two, but Clif had nothing to do with that and set forth in search of Tom. The latter, though, was not to be found. Clif suspected that he had gone back to the Inn with Mr. Cooper after the exercises and had taken lunch there. He gave over the search at last and went up to his room and spent half an hour packing, he and Walter Treat getting horribly in each other’s way during the operation. At two he made his way to the gymnasium, decorated with gay bunting and flowers for the school entertainment and dance to be held that evening, and found the elusive Tom in the locker room getting into baseball togs. Clif stared a moment in surprise. Then he gave a shout of joy that brought inquiring looks from the few other early arrivals. “You’re going to play!” he cried. “Say, that’s great! How’d it happen? Gee――” “Let go of me and shut up,” said Tom, grinning. “Some one went and spilled an earful to Steve. I don’t know who it was. I thought it might be Wink, but he swears it wasn’t. Anyway, Steve said he’d been a bit too rough, and he guessed I’d been punished enough and told me to report for practice. He didn’t say he was going to let me play, but Wink thinks he is. Tough on Wink, but he acted mighty decent about it. Says he’s only getting what’s coming to him. A pretty nice guy, that fellow, Clif.”