As for Molly Brown, she hung her head and blushed, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
“The sweet lass, she might be a bride, she is so shy!” ejaculated Mrs. McLean as the procession moved slowly by.
“Hurrah for Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky!” yelled a group of Exmoor students.
“‘Here’s to Molly Brown, drink her down,’” sang the entire student body of Wellington.
It was a thing that happened every year and there were those who had seen it thirty times or more, and still the spectacle was ever new.
“I think I must be dreaming,” Molly was saying to herself. “Of course, I might have known Nance and Judy would have voted for me and perhaps one or two others,—but so many—and what have I done to deserve it? I have hardly seen anything of Caroline Brinton and her crowd. ‘Oh Lord, make me thankful for these and all thy mercies,’” she added, repeating the family grace, which somehow seemed appropriate to this stirring moment.
After the triumphal march, Molly with the class officers, flanked by the rest of the class, held an informal reception on the lawn. This was followed by the Junior Lunch, quite an elaborate affair, served in the gymnasium, decorated for the occasion by the sophomores.
Lawrence Upton was Molly’s guest for the day. Many of the girls had asked Exmoor students, but Nance had been visited with a disappointment that was too amusing to be annoying.
Otoyo Sen, on the sophomore committee for decorating the gymnasium, and therefore entitled to ask a guest, had not let the grass grow under her little feet one instant. The moment the committee had been selected, she sent off a formal, polite note to Andy McLean, 2nd, inviting him to be her guest.
“Oh, Nance, that’s one on you,” cried Judy, when she heard this bit of news. “You always thought Andy was so much your property that no one would ever think of treading on your preserves. It’s just like Japan, creeping quietly in and taking possession.”