m it had seemed that this
flower-strewn summer could actually end no more than he could actually
die, but Time had begun its awful lecture, and even Seventeen was
listening.

Miss Pratt, that magic girl, was going home.

XXIII

FATHERS FORGET

To the competent twenties, hundreds of miles suggesting no
impossibilities, such departures may be rending, but not tragic.
Implacable, the difference to Seventeen! Miss Pratt was going home, and
Seventeen could not follow; it could only mourn upon the lonely shore,
tracing little angelic footprints left in the sand.

To Seventeen such a departure is final; it is a vanishing.

And now it seemed possible that William might be deprived even of the
last romantic consolations: of the "last waltz together," of the last,
last "listening to music in the moonlight together"; of all those sacred
lasts of the "last evening together."

He had pleaded strongly for a "dress-suit" as a fitting recognition
of his seventeenth birthday anniversary, but he had been denied by
his father with a jocularity more crushing than rigor. Since then--in
particular since the arrival of Miss Pratt--Mr. Baxter's temper had been
growing steadily more and more even. That is, as affected by William's
social activities, it was uniformly bad. Nevertheless, after heavy
brooding, William decided to make one final appeal before he resorted to
measures which the necessities of despair had caused him to contemplate.

He wished to give himself every chance for a good effect; therefore, he
did not act hastily, but went over what he intended to say, rehearsing
it with a few appropriate gestures, and even taking some pleasure in the
pathetic dignity of this performance, as revealed by occasional
glances at the mirror of his dressing-table. In spite of these little
alleviations, his trouble was great and all too real, for, unhappily,
the previous rehearsal of an emotional scene does not prove the emotion
insincere.

Descending, he found his father and mother still sitting upon the front
porch. Then, standing before them, solemn-eyed, he uttered a preluding
cough, and began:

"Father," he said in a loud voice, "I have come to--"

"Dear me!" Mrs. Baxter exclaimed, not perceiving that she was
interrupting an intended oration. "Willie, you DO look pale! Sit down,
poor child; you oughtn't to walk so much in this heat."

"Father," William repeated. "Fath--"

"I suppose you got her safely home from church," Mr