“What is it, dear child?”
“Dear—child! dear—child!” echoed the clock solemnly.
“I've got to get up and stop that clock!” Glory said.
The week before the graduating exercises at the Centre Town Seminary, Glory had another of her “ideas,” and of course she carried it to Aunt Hope.
“Why not?” she said, when she had introduced it to her. “It would be like one of Tiny Tim's plays. He could go, too, and help us ‘play’ it, don't you see? I think I should enjoy graduating better if Diantha ‘played graduate’ with me. The teacher wouldn't care if she sat with me down on the end seat. I don't believe she ever had a white dress in her life—a soft, thin, floaty one.”
“Would you like to have hers just like yours, Glory?”
“Just, auntie. She's the—the friendest friend I ever had,” Glory said simply. “I'd like to have her close when I'm there getting ready to read.”
And so it came about that graduation day found the Other Girl beside Glory, in a beautiful white dress that lay about her in soft, sheer folds. The Other Girl's face above it was shining and rapt. This was almost like graduating herself. On the other side of Glory sat Tiny Tim, in the conscious pride of his best suit. There was no little crutch in sight. Timmie had hidden it under the seat. He was playing “Uncrutchit.”
“You can't see—an'thing, can you?” he whispered anxiously to the Other Girl, across Glory's lap.