“Why, yes, he’s really my cousin, but he seems like my brother, for his mother died when he was a baby, and my mother brought him up. So we’ve always lived together, just like brother and sister, and I never think of any difference. Why, my dear, where are you going? The bell hasn’t rung.” For Virginia was half way out of the door. “I—must go,” she stammered. “The girls are waiting for me up-stairs.” Four more crestfallen and unromantic girls never existed than those which looked at one another at the conclusion of Virginia’s story. “I never felt so silly in my life!” she added, after the last rainbow-colored bubble had been burst. “Nor I!” cried Priscilla. “Let’s be everlastingly grateful we didn’t sign our names,” said Dorothy. “And he was just away being framed!” moaned Vivian. “Where’s Lucile?” “Oh, she’s probably moaning in her room over Fate!” “She needs a tonic!” said Priscilla. “Let’s go and tell her so.” “It won’t do a bit of good,” Virginia observed, as they started down the hall to employ the remaining five minutes in disciplining Lucile. “It’s her temperament, you know; and, besides, the very stones of Paris breathe Romance!” CHAPTER XIX THE SENIOR PAGEANT Commencement came with hurrying feet, showing little regard for Seniors, who daily visited the old haunts, grown so dear to them, and hourly hated worse the thought of leaving St. Helen’s. Every spot seemed dearer than ever before—the cottages, which had been their homes, the Retreat, filled with the memories of chapel and vespers, every path in the woods, every spot where certain flowers grew. It would be hard to leave them all; but far harder to say good-by to one another, and to the teachers and girls who were to return; for, as Anne said on every possible occasion, “There’s no use talking! It never will seem the same again!” So in all the festivities of the closing days there was a sadness—a strange hollow feeling in one’s body, a lump which often came unexpectedly into one’s throat. To Virginia, this season of her first Commencement was one of conflicting emotions. She was torn between a joy in the perfect June days, and a sorrow that they must soon come to an end; between the happy anticipation of seeing her father, who, with her grandmother and Aunt Nan, was to be at St. Helen’s for the closing week, and the sad realization that St. Helen’s would never seem the same without the Seniors, and that The Hermitage would be a sadly different place without Mary and Anne.