untry from here."

Enid smiled, but showed no sign of relenting. "Let's wait and
watch the sun go down. Be careful, Claude. It makes me nervous to
see you lying there."

He was stretched out on the edge of the roof, one leg hanging
over, and his head pillowed on his arm. The flat fields turned
red, the distant windmills flashed white, and little rosy clouds
appeared in the sky above them.

"If I make this into a balcony," Claude murmured, "the peak of
the roof will always throw a shadow over it in the afternoon, and
at night the stars will be right overhead. It will be a fine
place to sleep in harvest time."

"Oh, you could always come up here to sleep on a hot night," Enid
said quickly.

"It wouldn't be the same."

They sat watching the light die out of the sky, and Enid and
Gladys drew close together as the coolness of the autumn evening
came on. The three friends were thinking about the same thing;
and yet, if by some sorcery each had begun to speak his thoughts
aloud, amazement and bitterness would have fallen upon all.
Enid's reflections were the most blameless. The discussion about
the guest room had reminded her of Brother Weldon. In September,
on her way to Michigan with Mrs. Royce, she had stopped for a day
in Lincoln to take counsel with Arthur Weldon as to whether she
ought to marry one whom she described to him as "an unsaved man."
Young Mr. Weldon approached this subject with a cautious tread,
but when he learned that the man in question was Claude Wheeler,
he became more partisan than was his wont. He seemed to think
that her marrying Claude was the one way to reclaim him, and did
not hesitate to say that the most important service devout girls
could perform for the church was to bring promising young men to
its support. Enid had been almost certain that Mr. Weldon would
approve her course before she consulted him, but his concurrence
always gratified her pride. She told him that when she had a home
of her own she would expect him to spend a part of his summer
vacation there, and he blushingly expressed his willingness to do
so.

Gladys, too, was lost in her own thoughts, sitting with that ease
which made her seem rather indolent, her head resting against the
empty window frame, facing the setting sun. The rosy light made
her brown eyes gleam like old copper, and there was a moody look
in them, as if in her mind she were defying something. When he
happened to glance at her, it occurred to Claud