The routine of school was no longer dull. Around each
commonplace child hung a halo of romance. They were
love-children today. She wove a dream of tenderness,
of chivalry, and heroic deeds about them all. She
searched each face for some line of beauty caught in
the vision of her own baby who had looked into her
heart from the mists of eternity.

Three days passed in a sort of trance. Never had
she felt surer of life and the full fruition of every
hope and faith. Just how this marvelous blossoming
would come, she could not guess. Her chances of
meeting her Fate were no better than at any moment of
the past years of drab disillusionment, and yet, for
some reason, her foolish heart kept singing.

Why?

There could be but one answer. The event was
impending. Such things could be felt--not reasoned
out.

She applied herself to her teaching with a new
energy and thoroughness. She must do this work well
and carry into the real life that must soon begin the
consciousness of every duty faithfully performed.

A boy asked her a question about a little flower
which grew in a warm crevice of the stone wall on which
the iron fence of the school yard rested. She blushed