Susie was an acknowledged favorite, and it is needless to say she enjoyed this school-girl homage. Others had joined the group since they commenced talking, and each in turn had said, "You are sure of my vote, Sue."
"Thank you all," she answered, looking around gratefully. "I'm half in a dream. It seems too good to be true."
"I've just been having another talk with Miss Page," called Sadie, bounding down the walk. "She knows more about it than any of the others, I guess, for she saw a May-day celebration at some place on the Hudson last summer. Every one in the school is to take part. The primary class are to dance round a May-pole; and then there are to be garland-bearers and maids of honor, so we'll all be something; but of course Susie will have the highest honor."
Susie's happy look of a moment before was gone. That word honor had set her to thinking.
"What is the matter?" asked Sadie, mistaking the cause of her changed expression. "Don't you want us to be in it?"
"Want you to be in it! Of course I do," cried Susie. "You must think me a monster of selfishness. I only wish you could all be queens."
"We are satisfied to be your subjects," said Sadie, putting her arm around Susie, as they all started by twos and threes for the school, as the bell was ringing.
"I wish I'd never seen that verse," thought Susie, not heeding Sadie's chatter, as they went up the walk. "It's just going to spoil the whole thing."
"Here comes Florence Tracy," remarked Sadie, as a carriage stopped at the foot of the walk, and a young girl alighted. "Do you know, Susie, I don't believe she has a good time at all, if she does drive to school, and live in the handsomest house in town. I fancy her uncle isn't very kind to her, for she never seems very happy. Just look: don't you think she has a sad face?"
"I don't know," answered Susie, anxious to change the subject. "Isn't the parsing hard for to-day? Miss Page gives such long lessons."