strolled homeward together.

In the early evening Lloyd Fenneben and Elinor sat on the veranda
watching the sunset through the trees beyond the river.

"You are to graduate from Sunrise tomorrow," Dr. Fenneben was saying.
"For a Wream that is the real beginning of life. I have your business
matters entrusted to me, ready to close up as soon as you are 'legally
graduated' according to my brother's wishes, but you may as well know
them now."

He paused, and Elinor, thinking of the moonlight, maybe, waited in
peaceful silence.

"Norrie, when I finished at the university my brother put a small
fortune into my hands and bade me go West and build a new Harvard. You
know our family hold that that is the only legitimate use for money."

Norrie smiled assent.

"I did not ask whose money it was, for my brother handled many bequests,
and I was a poor business man then. I came and invested it at last
in Sunrise-by-the-Walnut. That was your mother's money, given by your
father to Joshua, who gave it to me. Joshua did not tell me, and I
supposed some good, old Boston philanthropist had bought an indulgence
for his ignorant soul by endowing this thing so freely. I found it out
on Joshua's deathbed, and only to pacify him would I consent to keep it
until now. Henceforth, it must be yours. That is why I asked you a year
ago to just be a college girl and drop all thought about marrying. I
wanted you to come into possession of your own property before you bound
yourself by any bonds you could not break."

Elinor sat silent for a while, her dark eyes seeing only the low golden
sunset. She understood now what had grooved that line of care in Lloyd
Fenneben's face when he came home from the East. But he had conquered,
aye, he had won the mastery.

"And you and Sunrise?" she asked at length.

"I can sell the college site and buildings to this new manufactory
coming here in August. Added to this, I have acquired sufficient funds
of my own to pay you the entire amount and a good rate of interest with
it. My grief is that for all these years, I have kept you out of your
own."

Elinor rose up, white and cold, and put her hand on her uncle's hand.

"Let me think a little, Uncle Lloyd. It is not easy to realize one's
fortune in a minute." Then she left him.

"It makes little difference what passion possesses a man's soul, if it
possesses him he will wrong his fellowmen," Fenneben said to himself.
"In Joshua Wream's craving to endow