"Terrible thing to be popular! Hasn't Kent the sweetest eyes! Do you know what he said to me the other night at the Evans' party?" The girls drifted out of the cloak room. Lydia sat rigid. Pink organdy! Red silk! Kent's "sweetest eyes"! Then she looked down at the inevitable sailor suit, and at her patched and broken shoes. So far she had had few pangs about her clothes. But now for the first time she realized that for some reason, she was an alien, different from the other girls--and the realization made her heart ache. The bell rang and she went to her recitation. It was in Civil Government. Lydia sat down dejectedly next to Charlie Jackson, the splendid, swarthy Indian boy of sixteen. "Did you learn the preamble?" he whispered to Lydia. She nodded. "He didn't say we had to," Charlie went on, "but I like the sound of it, so I did." The rest of the class filed in, thirty youngsters of fourteen or fifteen, the boys surreptitiously shoving and kicking each other, the girls giggling and rearranging their hair. Mr. James rapped on his desk, and called on young Hansen. "Can you give the preamble to the Constitution?" he asked, cheerfully. The boy's jaw dropped. "You never told us to learn it," he said. "No, I merely suggested that as Americans, you ought to learn it. I talked to you during most of yesterday's period about it. I wondered if you were old enough to take suggestions and not be driven through your books. Miss Olson?" Miss Olson, whose hair was done in the latest mode, tossed her head pertly. "I was too busy to learn anything extra." Mr. James' eyebrows went up. "A dance last night, I suppose." He continued with his query half way round the class, then paused with a sigh. "Has any one in the class learned it?" A muscular brown hand shot up, boldly. A thin white one timidly followed. "Ah!" Mr. James' face brightened. "Miss Dudley, try it." Lydia clutched the back of the seat before her and began timidly. Then the dignity and somewhat of the significance of the words touched her and her voice became rich and full. "'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.'" "Good. Try it, Mr. Jackson." The young Indian rose and began. "We, the people of the United States--" He too was letter perfect. After he was seated, the teacher, a gray-haired, stern-faced man, looked at the two attentively. "Miss Dudley," he said finally, "does the preamble _mean_ anything to you?"