“Mr. Granville! Mr. Granville!” Mademoiselle raised her voice and appealed to Uncle Mac out of the gale around her. “Isn’t it time for something else to happen?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle,” he answered from the other end of the room, lifting his head from a whispered consultation with the three Maries. “Something else is going to happen right away. Jacquette, my dear, will you stand here?” he added, stepping forward and placing his niece directly in front of the tree.
As she stood there surprised, expectant, with the broad green branches spreading behind her, Mary Elliott dropped a red silk cushion on the floor at her feet, and Jacquette, required to kneel on the cushion, saw the other Maries coming toward her, bearing a wonderful diadem of gold filagree, set with sparkling rhinestones, and suddenly found herself being crowned Queen with all pomp and ceremony.
The room was absolutely still until the glittering circlet was finally placed on the fair bent head. Then came a burst of applause.
“Long live the Queen!” called somebody. “Vive la Reine!” cried somebody else, and as Jacquette rose to her feet, everyone took up the words together.
For one instant, the startled Queen looked at the doorway, but, before she could fly, Uncle Mac had stepped forward and slipped his arm around her.
“Friends,” he said, in a voice very different from the rollicking one he had been speaking in all the evening. Then he held up his right hand until the cheering had been silenced. “Friends,” he said again, “this act of devotion to our little girl has touched me deeply. I’m glad you all know that she’s a brave little Queen, but I think perhaps you don’t all know what I’m going to tell you. I rode out from town last night with Mr. Branch, your principal. He said to me that there had been a wonderful revolution of sentiment at Marston, in regard to secret societies, and he says he gives the credit for it almost entirely to the personal influence of one girl.”
“Oh, Uncle Mac—please!” Jacquette implored, but his arm held her close, and he went on firmly,
“Mr. Branch says that when this girl made up her mind it was right for her to leave her sorority, she fully expected all her friends to turn against her. They didn’t. Instead of that, two or three of them went out with her on the spot, and, somehow, the respect for her motives was such that, instead of dishonourably expelling her and the others who withdrew, as would naturally have been done according to the rules of the organisation, it was agreed to let them resign quietly. That isn’t all. Right here in our own little circle I want to tell you the whole story. Mr. Branch says this girl has gone on in her high-school work, making a splendid record; she has kept all her old friends, and made new ones; and the result of her steadfast, womanly course is that, yesterday, all the remaining members of her old sorority came to Branch in his office, and told him that they had decided to disband the Marston chapter of Sigma Pi Epsilon, on account of the example set them by Jacquette Willard.”
“Oh!” came a little gasping cry from Jacquette. Her face, under the glittering crown, was white with excitement, as her eyes flew from Blanche to Mamie—to Flo—to Etta. Not a Sigma Pi pin in sight. It was true!—it was true!