And Raymond? Of course Raymond had been prominent before, though she
had never noticed it, and now he had helped her up to this noble
elevation! He must think she would adorn it. Adorn!--it was a lovely
word that Missy had just captured. Though she had achieved her
eminence by a fluke,

Missy took fortune at the flood like one born for success. She mazed
the whole school world by a meteoric display of unsuspected
capacities. Herself she amazed most of all; she felt as if she were
making the acquaintance of a stranger, an increasingly fascinating
kind of stranger. How wonderful to find herself presiuing over a
"meeting" from the teacher's desk in the Latin room, or over a
"programme" in the auditorium, with calm and superior dignity!

Missy, aflame with a new fire, was not content with the old
hackneyed variety of "programme." It was she who conceived the idea
of giving the first minstrel show ever presented upon the auditorium
boards. It is a tribute to Missy's persuasiveness when at white heat
that the faculty permitted the show to go beyond its first
rehearsal. The rehearsals Missy personally conducted, with Raymond
aiding as her first lieutenant-and he would not have played second
fiddle like that to another girl in the class-he said so. She
herself chose the cast, contrived the "scenery"; and she and Raymond
together wrote the dialogue and lyrics. It was wonderful how they
could do things together! Missy felt she never could get into such a
glow and find such lovely rhymes popping right up in her mind if she
were working alone. And Raymond said the same. It was very strange.
It was as if a mystic bond fired them both with new talents-Missy
looked on mixed metaphors as objectionable only to Professor Sutton.