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Jimmy was not elected President until four years later, and in the meantime Miss Willis kept her secret. When he was nominated, and the details of his career were eagerly sought for, it was announced by the press that in early life he had attended the Glendale grammar-school, and the fact was regarded by the authorities as a feather in the school’s cap, and was commemorated during the campaign by the display in the exhibition hall of a large picture of the candidate festooned with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was unknown to anybody, and Marion’s New England conscience shrank from obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence–the first she had ever requested in all her years of service. She was setting forth on the spree of her life, and her spirit was jubilant at the thought of Jimmy’s amazement when he found out who she was.

A day came at last, after the new chief magistrate had taken the oaths of office and was in possession of the White House, when the American public was at liberty to file past their President and shake his hand in their might as free men and free women. Miss Willis had not been able to obtain a location near enough to the inauguration proceedings to distinguish more than the portly figure of a man, or to hear anything except the roar of the multitude. But now she was to have the chance to meet Jimmy face to face and overwhelm him with her secret. Little by little the file of visitors advanced on its passage toward the nation’s representative, and presently Miss Willis caught her first glimpse of Sir Galahad–her real Sir Galahad. Her heart throbbed tumultuously. It was he–her Jimmy; he, beyond the shadow of a doubt; a strong, grave, resolute man; the prototype of human power and American intelligence.

Her Jimmy! She let her eyes fall, for it would soon be her turn, and her nerves were all tingling with a happy mixture of pride and diffidence. Her vision, her dearest vision, was about to be realized. There was no chance for delusion or disappointment now. So it seemed. Yet, as she stood there waiting, with her New England conscience and her sense of humor still active, of a sudden her imagination was seized by a new prospect. Why should she tell her secret? What was the use? There he stood–her Jimmy–good, great, and successful, and she had helped to make him so. Nothing could ever deprive her of that. The truth was hers forever. She was only an elderly spinster. Perhaps he would have forgotten. He was but fifteen when he left her, and he had never written to her during all these years. Very likely he did not realize at all what she had done for him. Nothing which he could do for her now would add to the joy of her heart. Secret? To share it with him might spoil all. The chances were it was her secret only; that only she could understand it.

She was close to the President now, and some one at her ear was asking her name. Suddenly she heard her name called, and stepping forward she was face to face with her soul’s knight, and he was holding her hand.

“I am very glad to see you, Miss Willis,” she heard him say.

She had been stepping shyly, with her eyes lowered. At his words, spoken in a voice which for all its manliness was still the same, she looked up into his face and murmured, as she pressed his fingers:

“God bless you, sir!”

She did not even say “Jimmy.” Then she passed, and–and her secret was safe.

Six months later Miss Willis was found one morning dead in her bed. She had died peacefully in her sleep. When her personal effects were administered there was noticed on the mantelpiece in her sitting-room a mounted tintype, on the paper back of which were two inscriptions. Of these the upper, in faded ink, was dated forty years before and read “From Jimmy.” The other, recent and written with the pen of an elderly person, ran as follows: “Portrait of the President of the United States as a school-boy.”