JUNE. The month when all the trees in the city parks are waving soft green arms and whispering secrets about how beautiful it must be now, away out in the real country.

Jacquette was thinking of Brookdale, as she walked slowly home after school; wondering if the birds were singing there, this year, just as they always had before, every year since she could remember.

Suddenly she quickened her steps. Someone was coming behind her, and of all things she did not want Bobs to think she was loitering for the sake of having him walk with her! She turned a corner and set off at a brisk pace.

“Oh, Jack! Couldn’t you go a little faster?” a voice called. “Couldn’t you come a little slower?” she laughed, turning and waiting until he came up, breathless.

“I’ve raced five blocks while you were going one,” he declared, as they fell into step together. “Had to go over to Ned Woodward’s first, and I was afraid you’d get away. I have a lecture to give you.”

“Proceed, honourable highness! Don’t you see how meek I look?”

“No, I don’t. I see how pale and tired you look. You’re not the same girl that came here from Brookdale last fall.”

“A few still like me, though!” put in Jacquette, with a mimic pout.

“A few, indeed! Yes; and my lecture’s no sign I don’t.”

“Please, sir, where is the lecture?”

“Look here, Jack, I’m in earnest. You’re four years younger than I am, and I’ve been studying your case—you needn’t laugh—and I’ve made up my mind that you take your sorority too hard, for one thing. You girls all do. You put it ahead of everything else, and it wears you out. Now, I’d like to see you make up your mind that next year you’ll spend more time in gym, and less on sorority business. Why don’t you go in for basket-ball?”

“Dr. Bobs Drake!” Jacquette mocked, but she liked the lecture, for all that. “Look at Louise Markham! She’s a sorority girl, and a splendid student and a picture of radiant health, at the end of her high-school course. Now, where’s your argument?”

“Jack,” he answered, “I don’t know what the sorority cause is going to do, next year, when Louise goes off to college. Have you ever noticed how she’s the one girl that’s always pointed at, to prove that sororities aren’t harmful? She’s a stunning argument, but I don’t know another girl anywhere who can carry all the school work and all the social business she can, and not get fagged. You know very well that, with most of them, the school work has to go under. Isn’t that so? Honest, now.”

“What about fraternities?” Jacquette evaded. “You’re a pretty one to preach, with your pin right there in sight!”

“Oh, boys are different. We have a lot of fun, but we don’t get tragic over it and have hysterics and nervous prostration the way the girls do. Do you suppose my fraternity ever kept me from eating three square meals a day? I don’t believe it has interfered with my studies much, either, for that matter.”

“If that isn’t just like a boy!” Jacquette retorted. “Fraternities are all right for them, but sororities are bad for girls! You ask any of the teachers at Marston, and I’ll wager they’ll tell you there isn’t much choice between frats and sororities! Anyway, Bobs Drake,” she added, shifting base with feminine agility, “so far as school work is concerned, my sorority hasn’t interfered with mine one bit more than football has with yours.”

“You can’t tell me anything about that,” he admitted. “And I’ve played my last football, too.”

“You’ve played—your last——?”

“That’s right. I’m going to college on a new basis. The curriculum requires enough athletics to keep a fellow in trim, and that’s all I’m going to have, after this. It’s no use pretending that a fellow can do his best work on his studies when he’s so tired that it’s all he can do to sit up. I’m face to face with the business of being a man, Jack.”

Jacquette walked a little way, dumb with astonishment.

Bobs Drake forswearing football! She was almost afraid of him! But at last she turned.

“Robin Sidney Drake!” she said, “You make me so proud of you, I don’t know how to express it!”

To say that Bobs looked pleased, tells nothing. His whole face beamed.

“My! You make me as happy as a big sun-flower!” he answered, fervently.

They were almost home, now.

“Robin Sidney Drake,” he repeated, presently. “That’s the way you’ll have to address the envelopes when I’m at college, next year.”

“What envelopes, sir?”

“Well, I was thinking of mailing you some catalogues, and I hoped you might acknowledge them.”

They both laughed, the laughter of light-hearted comrades.

“Won’t you come in?” Jacquette asked, holding out her hand for the books he had been carrying.

“Can’t do it. Have to work on my class prophecy. You got me into trouble last November, when you made me write that sonnet, young lady. I’m doing this prophecy in rhyme, and it’s turning my hair grey.”

“I’m wild to hear it! You and Quis will be the only ones to represent the class, Friday night, won’t you? What are you going to prophesy for Quis, Bobs?”

“Oh, there was only one thing to do for him. I’ve made him a diplomat, with a strong prospect of becoming Secretary of State.”

“Good! And Louise?”

“I had a time deciding about Louise. She’s so versatile, she might turn out to be anything. At first I couldn’t think of one talent that was more conspicuous than the rest, but I struck it at last. I’m not going to tell, though. I want to keep it for a surprise. Say, Jack,”—Bobs had started, but he turned on his heel and came back—“there’s one thing that bothers me. Quis has never felt right toward me, yet. I don’t believe anybody else at Marston has anything against me, but he never looks me in the eye if he can help it. And I care. I want to quit friends.”

“It’s too bad, Bobs,” she sympathised. “Why can’t he let bygones be bygones? I think you had as much to forgive as he, after that ‘Fool-killer’ performance. But don’t worry. You’ve done all you could. Good luck to the prophecy!”

The Assembly room at Marston High School was far from being large enough for the audience which always attended the graduating exercises, and the custom was to rent a neighbouring hall for the June celebration. It was Friday evening, eight o’clock, and every seat in the hall was filled. On the stage, framed by garlands of green stuff and roses, sat the principal, the faculty, the graduating class, and the boys’ and girls’ glee club. Through the open window the soft June breeze crept in, gently stirring fluffy locks and filmy ruffles. In the front seats, as usual, there was a picturesque row of Sigma Pi girls, but their ranks were thinned, that night. Five of them were on the platform, saying farewell to Marston High. Louise Markham was one of the five, and, from her seat with the class, she smiled straight down into the adoring eyes of Jacquette Willard who was almost hidden behind the mammoth bunch of pink roses she had brought for Louise, while Aunt Sula, sitting with her white-haired father, watched the loving looks exchanged between the two girls, and thought regretfully how much Jacquette would miss Louise’s companionship in the year that was coming.

Then the piano sounded, and the glee club stood up to sing.

Everything moved like clockwork. Mr. Branch’s remarks were in an unusually happy vein; the glee club outdid itself; Marquis’s address as class president was a gem—“worthy of a college graduate,” his hearers declared—and, last of all, came Robin Sidney Drake, class prophet.

The enthusiasm was uproarious as Bobs took the front of the stage. Everybody there knew what always happened when Marston’s beloved Bobs tried to make a speech, and it seemed as if the haunting fear that his tongue might cleave to the roof of his mouth when he tried to prophesy kept his audience cheering and cheering to put off the evil moment.

But if that was true, the fears were wasted. Bobs had committed the prophecy to memory—and he did not forget.

Perhaps it was because they were surprised at his ability to speak, at all, that his prophecy seemed so good; perhaps it really was a wonderful piece of wit. In either case, he kept his hearers convulsed with merriment from the first word to the last. All over the house, solemn faces broadened into grins; tears rolled down the cheeks of dignified teachers; and it was only by the greatest effort that anyone stopped laughing, after each sally, long enough to let him pronounce the next.

The principal, the teachers, the members of the class, had been told off in the prophecy, until Louise Markham was the only one left. Bobs paused abruptly and glanced in her direction. Then he said to the audience in a confidential tone:

He turned, and flourished his hand toward Louise, with the air of a showman. There was a second of absolute silence. Then, as the drollery of the situation flashed upon her, the red lips parted, and out bubbled the irresistible laugh!

Bobs made a low bow of gratitude to her, another to the audience, and modestly took his seat, amid shouts of laughter and rounds of applause.

It was a long time before Mr. Branch could quiet the audience, for it seemed as if the event of the evening had taken place, but when people finally caught a hint of what he was trying to say, they leaned forward and listened, eagerly enough.

He was about to present the University scholarship, which was carried off each year by the brightest star of the graduating class, and he was explaining, as he always did, that it was awarded, not only in recognition of good scholarship, but of exemplary deportment during all the four years of high-school work.

Most of the pupils who knew the history of Marquis Granville’s last year at Marston thought they remembered one good reason why he should not get that scholarship, and yet, somehow, in spite of this, they all expected that his name would be the one pronounced. Instead, to their surprise, they saw the principal, in closing, step forward toward Bobs Drake,—no, past Bobs Drake. He laid the precious document in the small, white hands of Louise Edwina Markham.

Nobody had expected it, and yet, as soon as it had happened, everybody felt that it was the right ending to the story—and everybody proceeded to express that feeling. The blood rushed to Louise’s cheeks and her dark eyes shone, but she kept a sweet composure through all the long hand-clapping and until the last word of the closing song was sung and the end of the programme announced.

At that instant, Jacquette, her face glowing with pride and gladness, made a dash for Louise, but, oddly enough, before she could reach her idol, she came face to face with Quis and Bobs, who happened to be crowded close together in the confusion following dismissal.

Both boys saw her coming, and, each taking it for granted that she was rushing straight toward him, held out his hand. Like a flash, before either could feel his mistake, the quick-witted girl caught both hands, one in her right and the other in her left.

“Boys, you were splendid! You were glorious!” she cried, straight from her heart. “Quis, your address was great; and Bobs——”

The words failed, for, suddenly, she felt the barrier of constraint between the boys, and, with a swift impulse, not stopping to fear consequences, she drew their two right hands together, and darted one appealing glance at Quis.

This time he did not fail her.

“Yes, old man, you’re the one to be congratulated,” he cried, grasping Bobs’s hand so quickly that Jacquette’s part was almost lost. “My speech was an everyday oration, but that prophecy of yours was a stroke of genius. We’re all proud of it, I tell you!”

Bobs’s face lighted up. He tried to speak, but, before the words could form, his blue eyes had said it all, and Jacquette, standing close to them both, murmured, with a tremble in her voice,

“Oh, boys—I’m so glad!”

At that moment, the gentle fingers of Mademoiselle Dubois were laid on the clasped hands of the two young men.

“My little peacocks!” she said caressingly, with a quick, understanding glance from one to the other. “I am ravished to see the heroes of the evening clasping hands!”

“Bobs Drake, you sinner!” struck in a merry voice from over Jacquette’s shoulder. “How dared you? And to think that I should help you to disgrace me in my last moments at Marston! I acted just like a trained animal!”

“Louise! Louise! That scholarship!” Jacquette half-shrieked, whirling around and venting her deferred congratulations in a smothering embrace. “Here come the Sigma Pi girls to hug you! Look out for yourself!”

With the Sigma Pi girls came the fond mothers and fathers, the grandfathers and Aunt Sulas, the Uncle Macs and Aunt Fannys, the brothers and sisters, and all the rest of the proud, happy friends.

Everybody’s face was covered with smiles; everybody’s voice was bright with gladness; but, through all those blithesome moments, in the depths of one girl’s heart, was running an undercurrent of feeling that no one guessed.

She kept it hidden until she and Aunt Sula were quite alone at home. Then she put both hands on the little woman’s shoulders, and said, in a low voice. “Tia, I saw you when they gave Louise that scholarship. I saw the look on your face. It was just a look of yearning envy, and Tia—don’t deny it!—it was because you knew my first year’s marks were so low that I couldn’t get the scholarship, now, no matter how I might try, the rest of the time. There isn’t any chance to get it, now, and oh—the reason I feel the worst is because I can’t help knowing that my sorority has lost me the chance!”

She hid her face on Aunt Sula’s shoulder. “I don’t know how Louise ever managed to be a sorority girl and a good student, too,” she murmured. “The rest of us can’t. Tia, I believe I’d give up anything if I could only get back the chance of winning that scholarship—for you!”

Aunt Sula patted her tenderly. “There’s something I care for more than scholarships, Jacquette,” she said, cheerily, “and you haven’t lost your chance for that. It’s the development of character; learning to see things in their relative proportions—and to choose the best things. That stands before high marks, I think, though high marks are almost sure to be a part of it.”

There was silence for a minute; then Jacquette lifted her face. “Do you mean,” she asked, doubtfully, “that if I were to try just as hard, in studies and deportment, from now on, as if I were working for that scholarship with a real chance of winning, it would be worth as much as the scholarship itself, to you?”

“More!”

Jacquette’s hand moved toward her heart, and drew back, irresolute.

“Tia,” she begged, her voice breaking, “do you believe it’s actually true, as the girls say, that if I resign from Sigma Pi, I won’t have any friends in school—not one?”

She stood, in the white gown she had worn that evening, all unconscious of the commanding power of her youth and sweetness, and the little woman who loved her with a great love, looked up into her face. “No,” she answered emphatically. “It is not true!”

Slowly, Jacquette’s hand moved again to the Sigma Pi pin on her breast, unclasped it, and held it in her hand.

“I’ve made up my mind to do it,” she said.