t you ever interfere with
her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to
take both to carry you through."

His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it
honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I
have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse
if not here."

A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift
accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you
could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well."
There were tears in her eyes.

George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at
all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion.
"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget
Ida Brand!"

There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station,
aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had
rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay
Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well.

He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he
inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple
petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible.

"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to
drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but
something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her
childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had
conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her
manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers
together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors
might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her
to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake.
Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her
youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she
should have cause for this passing sorrow.

He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of
the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he
himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should
achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her
his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed,
building o