Everything went off smoothly. The girls cheered the picture to the echo, and at the end went marching out, shouting:
"S.B.—Ah-h-h!
S.B.—Ah-h-h!
Sound our battle-cry
Near and far!
S.B.—All!
Briarwood Hall!
Sweetbriars, do or die—
This be our battle-cry—
Briarwood Hall!
That's all!"
CHAPTER XXV
AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL
Mr. Cameron, Helen's father, and Mrs. Murchiston, who had acted as governess for the twins until they were old enough to go to boarding school, were motoring to Briarwood Hall for the graduation exercises. They proposed to pick Tom up at Seven Oaks Military Academy, for he would spend another year at that school, not graduating until the following June.
They also had another guest in the big automobile who took up a deal of the attention of the drygoods merchant and Mrs. Murchiston. A two-days' trip was made of it, the party staying at a hotel for the night. Aunt Alvirah was going farther from the Red Mill and the town of Cheslow than she had ever been in her life before.
First she said she could not possibly do it! What ever would Jabez do without her? And he would not hear to it, anyway. And then—there was "her back and her bones."
"Best place for old folks like me is in the chimbly corner," declared Aunt Alvirah. "Much as I would love to see my pretty graduate with all them other gals, I don't see how I can do it. It's like uprooting a tree that's growed all its life in one spot. I'm deep-rooted at the Red Mill."
But Mr. Cameron knew it was the wish of the old woman's heart to see "her pretty" graduate from Briarwood Hall. It had been Aunt Alvirah's word that had made possible Ruth's first going to school with Helen Cameron. It was she who had urged Mr. Jabez Potter on, term after term, to give the girl the education she so craved.