When the omnibus stopped at the church door, with his usual lithe smoothness of movement, Junior was on his feet and out of it first. Instead of marching straight into the church in the lead, as all of them expected him to do, he had surprised them by turning, and with one white-gloved hand upon the door, he had looked into the eyes of Edith Williams. Instantly she arose, gathering her skirts around her, and made her way to the door. She laid her hand in Junior’s outstretched one; she encountered the look in his eyes in a state of dumb bewilderment. She came carefully down the three steps leading from the eminence of the omnibus. Her ears heard the sweetest music this world ever had vouchsafed to them: “I say, Edith, you are a riproaring beauty to-night! Keep your head up, and show folks how it’s done!” In that instant Edith remembered that she knew her speech. A sort of cold self-possession washed in a big wave through her entire body. Her head tipped to a coquettish angle and she looked into the eyes of the boy she was passing so closely, with an alluring smile. “Thank you, Junior,” she said in dry breathlessness. “I’m so glad you like me.” Then she passed him and hurried across the sidewalk into the prayer-meeting room. Junior stood his ground and gave his hand to the girls in turn as they alighted from the omnibus. In his heart he was saying to himself: “Oh, Hell! I didn’t say I ‘liked’ her. I was trying to say that she was good-looking for the first time in her life, and maybe the last. But if she _could_ keep that up, she’d be some punkins to look at, and that’s the truth!” Junior’s words had been overheard by the class behind Edith. They stood back, carefully scrutinizing her, and realized that what he had said was the truth. Edith worked her way to one side of the room and from her left hand let slide down among the folds of her dress the copy of her speech that she was carrying. With a deft foot she kicked it under the seats, confident that no one had observed the movement. In this confidence she retained her poise and her pose, and it was thus that Mrs. Spellman saw her. At that instant the voice of the organ, rolling an unaccustomed march, came to their ears. Again involuntarily the thing that was deep in Edith’s mind arose to her lips, “Mahala!” Mahala’s mother was standing in the door, smiling and bowing and speaking in her gracious way to all of the boys and girls, cautioning them to keep cool, to keep in mind the opening phrases of their speeches and the rest must follow; then she made way for the Superintendent, who ordered them to “Come on!” and in mechanical obedience, Edith led the way from the room. In the darkness of the early June evening she could see a blur of white waiting on the sidewalk.