e rarest incident. She took
all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months
the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor
was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had
expected it to be.

Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your
sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked.

The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest
from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to
himself and had no reply at hand.

"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing
for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She
was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of
the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of
the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her
years?" he asked, bluntly.

Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young
professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was
most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he
answered; "and even if they were not, she could get no Greek in any of
them."

"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister
knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has
things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And
deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together
his texts for the next recitation.

Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort
of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the
social side of our college life?"

"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does."

"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I
ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel
that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so
with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday
evening?"

Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless
you will go with me," she said.

Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible,
opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her. As Wayland had
said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own
came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be
spoiled by th