talking with an excited group, who looked toward her continually as if she were the subject of the conversation. Then he left them and came over to her, and the girls and boys crowded around her to listen to what he would say. Has there ever been a moment in your life when something that has been the subject of your day dreams for many long weary months, or something that you have hoped ahd hoped for, comes to pass suddenly and without any warning? Then you know how Arna felt, and why her cheeks flushed pink with excitement. Here she was with all the set" around her! "Say, Arna," Winnie spoke ingratiatingly, "who do you think is the star of the room ?"

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Now Arna was distinctly flattered that they should ask her opinion about anything, but she did not exactly know what "star" when used that way meant, and she hated to appear stupid, so she thought a moment, and then, by figuring that a star is something bright, said, "Why, I guess John Andrews is. He's awfully bright, I think, don't you?"

Glances passed from one to the other, and they all laughed and said, "My, she's innocent," and Winnie said, "Well, I just asked you because Fred's sister said that you told her that you were the star of the room, and had the monitor's seat because you were so bright when 'the Principal' came in. So you think John Andrews is, do you? Ho! ho! Come on, kids, let's not bother the star, she might get conceited." Then they all walked away, and Arna sat there stunned. That dear, laughing, jolly Winnie should deliberately make sport of her, and that Fred's sister should so pervert her innocent confidence,-it was too much! Tears filled her eyes and she stared straight ahead and bit her lips so that they should not know. It seemed a century, all the long afternoon from recess time until she could go home. Over and over in her mind came the thought, "And I imagined they were really going to talk to me and let me be one of them.” She thought herself disgraced. Her head ached. At last her flushed cheeks drew the teacher's attention, and she was sent home.

Arna did not go out of the house until three weeks later. Meanwhile the Doctor came and went, gravely anxious. In an adult he would certainly have called it brain fever. Arna had never told about that dreadful afternoon. To her exaggerated fancy it seemed as if she had, somehow, disgraced her family. Then one day there came to the house a bunch of daffodils with

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thirty letters attached from "The Pupils of Miss Brown's room." This was a regular custom with Miss Brown. Whenever anyone was sick for any length of time she asked each child to bring a penny with which to buy flowers, and a composition hour was devoted to writing letters to the afflicted member. Now twenty-nine of the letters were surprisingly alike, not considering, of course, all possible variations in spelling. This similarity may have been due to the fact that Tommy Smith told Teacher that he didn't know nothing to say ", and this being loudly seconded by all the class, Teacher obligingly gave as a sample, "I am sorry you are sick, and hope you will soon be well. The class misses you and sends love." This was immediately seized and put down as nearly as possible by the letter writers, all except Winnie. He labored hard over his production and was finally obliged to send his paper in unfinished because the hour was up. His letter, strange to say, was the one that Arna enjoyed most. In fact, the Doctor, when he came, was quite professionally delighted at the amount of good his last prescription had done, being utterly unconscious of the fact that this change was due to the effect of a much besmeared piece of tablet paper, on which was written:

"Dear Arna,

"I'm awful sorry. I like you awful much. My mother wants you to come to the matinay with us when you are well. "Your respectable friend, "Winifred."

When Arna came back to school, all the girls hugged her. The distinction of having "nearly died" made her of mysterious importance to the grammar school minds. Winnie, in the sight of the others, did not speak to Arna. He merely hit her deftly on the ear with a paper wad, which act, though generally not to be considered delightful, pleased Arna quite out of proportion to its intrinsic worth. In passing her in the ranks, however, he managed to whisper, "Say, I got my seat changed next to yours."

LEOLA LOGAN SEXTON.

EDITORIAL

How many opportunities youth seems to find for commencing again! Some poet with "hope springing eternal" in his heart has even said that "every day is a fresh beginning", and there are mornings that greet our eyes with just such a radiant promise. It must be confessed, however, that frequent "new beginnings" have come to have a childish flavor about them. There was a time when we could easily persuade ourselves-if we even stopped to persuade at all-that the guilty deed of yesterday is purged away by purifying sleep and that the rising sun greets us a new, innocent individual. We possessed that elasticity of the moral nature which permitted of our putting our bosom faults cheerfully out of mind and "starting all over again."

Maturer years have brought a rather more serious view of life. We find ourselves often longing to begin again in that old, careless way; to shake off all responsibility for past misdeeds; to be just as sunny-tempered with ourselves and the rest of the world as such light-hearted forgetfulness of our failings permits. But we no longer feel that we can efface so suddenly or so completely the wrong which we committed yesterday. There are consequences to be met and, in so far as possible, to be atoned for. Our future inevitably involves our past and we cannot put it wholly out of sight. In other words, we have come to realize that life is an evolution. We have begun once and for all. In the old sense there can be no such thing as a "fresh beginning". The self is made gradually and irretrievably by its experiences. From the standpoint of character, life cannot be viewed as a succession of time-periods, each of which may be isolated and complete in itself, propelled by hitherto untried effort. Life flows indivisibly, bearing the individual with it. At no point is he at liberty to return to the stream's source and retrace his voyage, avoiding the rocks and whirlpools,-nor once he has encountered them can many waters wash the experience into oblivion.

Such a course might indicate the helplessness and hopelessness of human life, were it not for this same fact of evolution.

It would not be the impossibility of erasing the past and beginning again which would make life not worth living, but lack of power to grow. Growth exists. It redeems life. It is the secret of all strength, all hope, all joy. Growth is the law of healthy being. It renders possibilities eternal. It is itself eternally granted us. We must recognize in it the "fulness" of life, the God-given principle of all nature. We must glory in it as we catch the distant glimmer of perfection and realize that it is for us to live toward this transcendant ideal.

The past is an inseparable part of the entire plan. Through it only have we grown into the present or shall we grow into the future. It is all one structure. But the sane, progressive life involves a principle of selection. From our errors and their painful consequences we learn how to choose. Those positive truths which come out like lights along our way illumine an endless course, yet faith asks for no higher privilege than to pursue this path forever. Looking backward the situation may often seem appalling. Looking forward fear vanishes before

deeper confidence.

When we, as Smith College students, return after the summer's sojourn to this place where all is given us so "richly to enjoy", we realize afresh our opportunities for growth. Each opening year intensifies this feeling. We look, with ever increasing expectancy, toward that truth which shall continue to lead us to higher living. In our regret or mere impatience of past mistakes, our impulse is not to begin all over again, but to reach out into this added abundance of light. The first chapel service represents a host of possibilities incarnate. The first hymn voices the spirit of the occasion, also the constant ideal of our unfolding years :

"O Life that maketh all things new!"

It is life, that "fulness" of life, the "joy of paths untrod", which holds before us its infinite promise. We have come through happiness and through pain to the possession of the vision. From here, even as we are, we shall grow into its fulfilment.

The editors of 1907 wish to announce that on account of the resignation of Laura Casey Geddes from the "About College" department, Viola Pauline Hayden has been appointed in her place.

EDITOR'S TABLE

The Other Professor instantly rose to his feet and carried the book away to the end of the room, where he put it back in its place in the book-case. "I've been reading for eighteen hours and three-quarters," he said, "and now, shall rest for fourteen minutes and a half."

Following the example of the immortal Alice's learned friend, with what joy were Morgan's psychologies and ponderous treatises on Natural Selection assigned to summer quarters on the shelves of College library, three months ago. And yet the tpye-weary Young Person carried many a good resolution home with her. There should be long, peaceful afternoons spent in a hammock with "Henry Esmond", or some equally improving and long deferred work-perhaps Parkman, if a sufficiently attractive set could be found. But scarcely had she escaped from the tortuous windings of the B. & M. when the inevitable happened.

She picked one up, on the train, just to glance at the illustrations, and stumbled upon a Christy romance of the variety that begins, "If only, but no-" "And yet, once-" "Really, Mr. Trevelyn, you are forgetting yourself!" and from that hour "The History of the Jesuits" lost all charm. Of course there had been plenty of magazines at college, but one never had time to do more than skim through the story under discussion at last week's dinner-table. At home, each new arrival, from flippant Smart Set to venerated Atlantic, was greeted with languidly open arms; and not until the calendar began to show unmistakable leanings towards September did the Young Person realize that a "perfectly good" summer had been frittered away.

Frittered away? Not at all. Summer magazines are literary blessings in disguise. A twelve-month diet, consisting solely of strong meat could not fail to produce intellectual indigestion. Fortunately for our overworked mental processes, vacation