ny other sort of real inability to meet the requirements of the
college life had been at the bottom of it. Her father would know it too,
if the matter ever came to his notice; and her brother Jim, who was
making such a splendid record at Cornell--he would know that, as Betty
Wales had said once, quoting her sister's friend, "Every nice girl likes
college, though each has a different reason." Well, Jim had thought for
two years that she was a failure. Eleanor gulped hard to keep back the
tears; she had meant to be everything to Jim, and she was only an
annoyance.

It was almost dark by the time she reached the landing. A noisy crowd of
girls, who had evidently been out with their supper, were just coming
in. They exclaimed in astonishment when her canoe shot out from the
boat-house.

"It's awfully hard to see your way," called one officious damsel.

"I can see in the dark like an owl," sang back Eleanor, her good-humor
restored the instant her paddle touched water,--for boating was her one
passion.

Ah, but it was lovely on the river! She glided around the point of an
island and was alone at last, with the stars, the soft, grape-scented
breezes, and the dark water. She pulled up the stream with long, swift
strokes, and then, where the trees hung low over the still water, she
dropped the paddle, and slipping into the bottom of the canoe, leaned
back against a cushioned seat and drank in the beauty of the darkness
and solitude. She had never been out on Paradise River at night. "And I
shall never come again except at night," she resolved, breathing deep of
the damp, soft air. Malaria--who cared for that? And when she was cold
she could paddle a little and be warm again in a moment.

Suddenly she heard voices and saw two shapes moving slowly along the
path on the bank.

"Oh, do hurry, Margaret," said one. "I told her I'd be there by eight.
Besides, it's awfully dark and creepy here."

"I tell you I can't hurry, Lil," returned the other. "I turned my ankle
terribly back there, and I must sit down and rest, creeps or no creeps."

"Oh, very well," agreed the other voice grudgingly, and the shapes sank
down on a knoll close to the water's edge.

Eleanor had recognized them instantly; they were her sophomore friend,
Lilian Day, and Margaret Payson, a junior whom Eleanor greatly admired.
Her first impulse was to call out and offer to take the girls back in
her canoe. Then she remembered that the little craft would hold