ber. Come in, Alfaretta, and cuddle
down with the rest upon the rugs before the fire. Old Deerhurst is at
its best, to-night, filled with happiness. Now, Dr. Ryall, as
once-master of these other 'Boys,' can you give your happiest thought of
the summer?"

The venerable collegian leaned back and twirled his thumbs. He had left
his boyishness but not his happiness back in the Markland woods, and it
was quite gravely yet simply he answered:

"Why yes, Elizabeth, and easily. It was the awakening of Monty yonder
to a sense of his own responsibility as a human being, made in his
Creator's image. He's got down to bottom facts. He knows it isn't
dollars but doings that make God's true man. Needn't blush, my lad; but
be reverently thankful." Then he turned a merry glance upon the company
and demanded: "Next?"

And as if he were still in the class-room questioned upon a text-book,
his merchant-pupil answered:

"The happiest sight to me was the first salmon I landed!"

"A good and honest answer!" laughed Mrs. Betty, and like the president
called: "Next!"

One after another the answers came; that of the surgeon being the memory
of a wounded fawn whom he had cured and set at liberty again. The
Judge's happiest moment had been when he caught sight of Molly's face on
that dark night in the forest, when he dreaded lest he should see it no
more alive and alight with love.

All had some answer to give, even Miss Greatorex, who wondered why they
smiled when she recorded her blest experience in discovering a rare
specimen of quartz. Surely, that was the very best gift she was bringing
home to "the Rhinelander," and wasn't it a specimen worth the whole trip
to a "foreign" land?

Even the youngsters were pressed to tell what they had found choicest
and when Molly answered the question put to her, she spoke with a sweet
solemnity: "The sound of Melvin's bugle in the wilderness."

There was a momentary silence. All were more moved than they could say,
remembering how different a group this would have been had that bugle
never blown "Assembly" in that far-away forest. Dorothy said nothing.
Even when it came to her and the last "turn," she could only turn her
happy eyes to one and another of the loved faces before her and shake
her head. There had been times out there on the Nova Scotia farm when
she had not been happy; when the moods of "wondering" had disturbed her
peace and made her discontent. That was all past now that she was
re