, but the boy merely shook his head--and pinched his leg.

Mr. Carver puffed his cigar in great relief. "Well," he continued, "I
don't want to give you much advice, but your mother feels that I ought
to tell you a little more about college before you leave. As I have told
you before, Sanford is a splendid place, a--er, a splendid place. Fine
old traditions and all that sort of thing. Splendid place. You will find
a wonderful faculty, wonderful. Most of the professors I had are gone,
but I am sure that the new ones are quite as good. Your opportunities
will be enormous, and I am sure that you will take advantage of them. We
have been very proud of your high school record, your mother and I, and
we know that you will do quite as well in college. By the way, I hope
you take a course in the eighteenth-century essayists; you will find
them very stimulating--Addison especially.

"I--er, your mother feels that I ought to say something about the
dissipations of college. I--I'm sure that I don't know what to say. I
suppose that there are young men in college who dissipate--remember that
I knew one or two--but certainly most of them are gentlemen. Crude
men--vulgarians do not commonly go to college. Vulgarity has no place in
college. You may, I presume, meet some men not altogether admirable, but
it will not be necessary for you to know them. Now, as to the
fraternity...."

Hugh forgot to pinch his leg and looked up with avid interest in his
face. The Nu Deltas!

Mr. Carver leaned forward to stir the fire with a brass poker before he
continued. Then he settled back in his chair and smoked comfortably. He
was completely at ease now. The worst was over.

"I have written to the Nu Deltas about you and told them that I hoped
that they would find you acceptable, as I am sure they will. As a
legacy, you will be among the first considered." For an hour more he
talked about the fraternity. Hugh, his embarrassment swallowed by his
interest, eagerly asking questions. His father's admiration for the
fraternity was second only to his admiration for the college, and
before the evening was over he had filled Hugh with an idolatry for
both.

He left his father that night feeling closer to him than he ever had
before. He was going to be a college man like his father--perhaps a Nu
Delta, too. He wished that they had got chummy before. When he went to
bed, he lay awake dreaming, thinking sometimes of Helen Simpson and of
how he had kissed h