When the girl reached the swamp she sat on a log and thought over the
expense she was compelled to meet. Every member of her particular set
was having a large photograph taken to exchange with the others. Elnora
loved these girls and boys, and to say she could not have their pictures
to keep was more than she could endure. Each one would give to all the
others a handsome graduation present. She knew they would prepare gifts
for her whether she could make a present in return or not. Then it was
the custom for each graduating class to give a great entertainment and
use the funds to present the school with a statue for the entrance hall.
Elnora had been cast for and was practising a part in that performance.
She was expected to furnish her dress and personal necessities. She had
been told that she must have a green gauze dress, and where was it to
come from?
Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new frocks for
Commencement: one for the baccalaureate sermon, another, which could be
plain, for graduation exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and
ball. Elnora faced the past three years and wondered how she could have
spent so much money and not kept account of it. She did not realize
where it had gone. She did not know what she could do now. She
thought over the photographs, and at last settled that question to her
satisfaction. She studied longer over the gifts, ten handsome ones there
must be, and at last decided she could arrange for them.
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