Rose grew grave. "I don't know. Go on studying somewhere."
"I'm going to have a good time!"
"You're always having a good time, you little oriole." Rose had come to patronize Josie in these later days. "I envy you so," she sighed. "The world is so simple for you."
"I don't understand you when you go on like that—you'll come tomorrow and see my new dress, won't you?"
Graduation meant for Josephine the chance to wear a fetching gown, and be looked at by an immense crowd—and one extra man. This was supposed to be a secret, but everybody who cared to give it a thought, knew of it and smiled at her as they would at a child. Josie could be nothing else but a child.
To most of the students graduation day came rushing with sorrowful speed. It meant passing from sunlit lanes of maple and lilac out into the bleak highways of trade and labor. It meant the beginning of struggle with pitilessness in man and nature. As students they were not in the race for subsistence, but as citizens and professional men they were to be competitors in trades and crafts already overflowing.
Graduation day drew near, and a tremulous ecstasy came into the lives of the outgoing students—a joy made more precious by its certainty of passing.
To Rose graduation day came as the sweetest, saddest day of her life. It seemed to close a gate upon something in her history. The smiling, yet mournful, faces of her friends, the wistful eyes of the young men who loved her, the rustle of leaves, the gleam of the water, the dapple of light and shade on the campus, the exaltation of the public moment, all these wondrous things rushed upon her like a flood, and overwhelmed her ambitions and desires, powerful as they were.
At last the books were closed and packed away.
The commencement exercises began with the reception in Science Hall. The night fell slowly, and the fine new building grew alight story after story, and crowds began to stream in. The students led the way, rakish, full of airs, except when piloting their parents about. The fun had been almost furious all day.