Each one would give to all the others a handsome graduation present.

She knew they would prepare gifts for her whether she could make a present in return or not.

Then it was the custom for each graduating class to give a great entertainment and use the funds to present the school with a statue for the entrance hall.
Elnora had been cast for and was practising a part in that performance.
She was expected to furnish her dress and personal necessities.

She had been told that she must have a green gauze dress, and where was it to come from?
Every girl of the class would have three beautiful new frocks for Commencement: one for the baccalaureate sermon, another, which could be plain, for graduation exercises, and a handsome one for the banquet and ball.

Elnora faced the past three years and wondered how she could have spent so much money and not kept account of it.