Endeavor Society
anywhere, do you?"

The startled young man shook his head, a look of being on his guard
suddenly coming into his eyes.

"Do I look like it?" he asked half comically, suddenly glancing down
at his muddy, greasy garments and old torn sweater.

"Well, then I want you to come to the meeting to-morrow night--no,
to-night, at seven o'clock, down at that little brick church on the
next street. Everybody had to promise to bring some one who has never
come before, and I didn't have anybody to ask because all the college
people I know are off at a house-party; and I ran away from it, and
came home; so I couldn't very well ask them. Will you go?"

The young man looked at the lovely girl with a smile on his lips that
might easily have grown into a sneer and a curt refusal; but somehow
the clear, true look in her eyes made refusal impossible. Against all
his prejudices he hesitated, and then suddenly said:

"Yes, I'll go if you want me to. I'm not in the habit of going to such
places, but--if you want me, I'll go."

She put her slim, cool hand into his, and thanked him sweetly; and he
went out into the starlight feeling as if a princess had knighted
him.

"There!" sighed Leslie as the sound of his motor-cycle died away in
the distance. "I think he's a real man. It's queer; but he and Jane
Bristol are the nicest people we've met in this town yet, and they
both work for their living."

"I was just thinking that, too," said Allison, vigorously poking the
fire into a shower of ruby sparks. "Don't you like him, Cloudy?"

"Yes," said Julia Cloud emphatically. "He looks as if he took life in
earnest. But come, don't you think we better go to bed?"

So they all lay down to sleep at last, Julia Cloud too profoundly
thankful for words in the prayer her heart fervently breathed.

CHAPTER XX

The routine of college classes became settled at last, and gradually
the young people found bits of leisure for the family life which they
craved and loved. Allison came in one day, and announced that he had
bought a canoe.

"It's a peach, Cloudy, and I got it cheap from a fellow that has to
leave college. His father has got a job out in California, and they
are going to move, and want to transfer him to a Western college so he
won't be so far away from them. I got it for fifteen dollars with all
the outfit, and it's only been used one season. But he couldn't take
it with him. There are three paddles and two cushi