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Now this had. The assassination. She was plainly shaken.

"We are having our Wednesday Morning Discussion Group," she said. "Your calming influence is needed."

I had always thought of myself as the hand-wringer type. I muddled through, trying to get things right, while everyone else knew what they were doing. "It's Tuesday," I reminded her.

"I know it's Tuesday. But I thought the girls needed it this morning."

"I don't know, Mrs. McQuade. I don't know if I can even go in there. I just know they're all whispering about me because my mother died."

"Mr. Lincoln's dying is all that's on their minds. I am afraid they have quite forgotten your mother's passing, Emily. I shall remind them."

"Don't, please. If I have to come back to school, I'd just as soon slip in and take a seat and have nothing said of the matter."

"'If'?" She scowled. "Certainly you aren't thinking of leaving school, Emily."

"It isn't school, Mrs. McQuade. It's that I just don't know if I can come back and be one of Miss Winefred Martin's girls again after all that's happened."

And then there was Myra Mott, my archenemy. I just knew she'd have something vengeful to say to me. She never let me forget that I did not have the social standing of the other girls. I did not think I could abide Myra Mott this morning, but I didn't say it. Mrs. McQuade did not allow rivalries in her classroom.

"You never were one of them, child," she whispered now. "You always had a bucketful of common sense that the others don't have."

"Thank you. But sometimes I wish I didn't. And now I feel so old. And all they do is talk about parties and boys."

"Not this morning. So come right on in. I'm sure you can contribute something, can't you?"

In the Wednesday Morning Discussion Group everyone was expected to have an opinion. Sometimes the discussion would be about food prices, especially with all the inflation with the war. Sometimes it was the freedmen problem. Sometimes it was fashions. We were graded on our comments. Mrs. McQuade did not hold with the notion that women should speak of nothing but children and matters of the home. New times were coming, and we must be ready for them.

I went into the bright, sunny classroom and slipped into my seat. The discussion was already in progress.

"The newspaper says his body is in the East Room of the White House," Lydia Rath was whispering, "and that he's wearing the suit he wore at the inauguration, just five weeks ago!"

"The doors of the White House are to be thrown open today!" Carol Johnson put in. "And the public is going to be allowed to file by and see him!"

"Remember, girls"—Mrs. McQuade rapped the desk with her pencil—"this discussion must remain on an intelligent level. Where should Mr. Lincoln be buried? Here in Washington? Or back in Springfield? And are the fortunes of the Republican Party, and not the needs of the people, on Mr. Stanton's mind?"

"I think he should be buried right here in Washington," Lucy Cameron said firmly, "under the Capitol's dome, the space originally made for George Washington." Lucy wore glasses and always made intelligent comments.

"Do you consider Mr. Lincoln on a par, as president, with Washington, then?" Mrs. McQuade probed.

Everyone agreed he was.

"I think the funeral should be long," Lydia Rath said wistfully, "and stately. I think all the cities that want to see him should be allowed to see him."

"Well, I'll tell you what I think," Marcia Wilson put in, "I don't think all those Southern relatives of Mrs. Lincoln's should be allowed in the White House. Not until they find out if this was a Southern conspiracy or not."

Everyone murmured their approval.

"My daddy said that the Todds are already here." Myra Mott knew they regarded her as someone to be reckoned with. Her father was a reporter for the Intelligencer. And she always knew more than anybody. She smirked. "My daddy tells the story that Mr. Lincoln once said the Todds spell their name with two d's. And one d is enough for God."

"Gossip,"