"You'll come out to dinner, Mr. Levine," asked Lydia.
"No, ma'am," replied the Congressman. "I return to Washington on the 12:30 train, which gives me just time to see you to the trolley."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Amos.
"We vote on the Levine bill, the morning I get back to Washington. I just ran out to see young Lydia graduate."
Amos groaned, "John, you're a fool!"
Levine laughed. "Lydia, am I a fool?" He looked down at the flushed face above the dainty organdy.
"No," she answered, giving him a swift look. "You're a goose and a lamb."
"So! You see you don't understand me, Amos," said John, triumphantly as he helped Lydia aboard the street-car. "Good-by, young Lydia. I'll be home in a week or so."
And so the great event ended. After dinner Amos rushed back to the factory, Lydia hung the graduation gown away in her closet and she and Adam spent the afternoon on the lake shore, where the delicate splendor and perfume of June endeavored in vain to prove to Lydia that the Senior Ball was of no consequence.
She was silent at supper, while Amos and Lizzie went over the details of the morning again. After the dishes were washed she sat on the steps in the dusk with Adam's head in her lap when a carriage rolled up to the gate. A man came swiftly up the path. As he entered the stream of lamplight from the door Lydia with a gasp recognized Billy Norton. Billy, wearing a dress suit and carrying a bouquet of flowers!