"Thanks awfully," he said, more thrilled than he dared tell her at the invitation, "but I couldn't possibly come.... You see, Miss Carlton—I wouldn't fit in with your set."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Linda in disappointment, "We're not snobs, just because we go to Miss Graham's school!"
"Well, then, put it this way," he added: "I'm absolutely on my own—and I don't even have evening clothes!"
She smiled at his frankness, but she did not know that he told only part of his story—that he was supporting his mother and helping to put his younger sister through High School.
"All right, then—have it your own way—Ted," she agreed, holding out her hand. "I'll hope to see you some time after class-day."
From that hour on, it seemed as if every moment was filled with more things than she could possibly do. At last Friday came—as hot as any day in mid-summer, though it was still early June.
Soon after two o'clock the audience began to arrive, and at half-past, the twenty-two graduates, in their white dresses, with their large bouquets or American Beauties or pink rose-buds, filed in to take their seats on the flower-decked platform in the garden of the school grounds.
Fans waved, and the flowers wilted visibly, but nobody seemed to notice. For with the exercises the fun began, and everybody listened intently to the jokes and the compliments which came in turn to each and every member of Linda Carlton's class.
After Louise Haydock, the president, made her brief speech of greeting, the presenter took charge, and her remarks and her presents were clever without being cruel. Most of the latter she had purchased from the five-and-ten, but they all carried a point. To Linda Carlton she gave a toy car, because she thought that was what the latter was most interested in, and then she asked her to wait a moment, that she had something else for her.
Linda stood still, smiling shyly, and wondering whether her next gift would have anything to do with airplanes.