heroes and we bend the knee. On Thursday we shall walk respectfully up
to the graduating class, bow politely, and say, 'We who are about to
die, salute you'!"

Merry laughed gaily. "Then, the next day, these heroes jump down off
their pedestals, walk respectfully up to the old grads, bow politely,
and say, 'Please give us a job'!"

"Don't be an iconoclast, Miss Merry," Huntington retorted. "These boys
may be looking for jobs, but they are richer than any of us: they have
youth, and life is before them."

"Grandpa!" the girl laughed mischievously.

"I sha'n't let you call me that!" he cried, really piqued.

"Then don't be so unfair to yourself!" she retaliated; "you are the
youngest 'old' man I ever met!"

* * * * *

XXIX

* * * * *

It was with real regret the following morning that Huntington watched
his ball drop into the cup on the eighteenth green. The round had been
too perfect, the experience too enjoyable to come to an end so soon.

"Five down," Merry remarked. "That looks to me like a real defeat."

"I'm glad to find some game I can play better than you," Huntington
replied banteringly. "I'm still sore over our swimming-races in Bermuda.
But in all fairness I must admit that this course is built for a man's
game, and the premium on the length of the wooden clubs was all that
saved me to-day."

"You are generous,--but I acknowledge my defeat. Do we have to go home
now?"

"There is at least an hour between us and the rigid convention of
luncheon," Huntington answered. "Shall we spend it on the piazza?"

"It is much nicer beneath one of these great trees," she said, suiting
her action to the word and sitting down upon the grass. "Come. Let us
imagine that we're back in Bermuda again!"

Huntington seated himself beside her, still rebellious that their
moments together were passing so swiftly. He had wondered how she would
appear to him when he saw her again, half hoping to find that the charm
of the earlier setting had exaggerated her attractiveness, half dreading
an awakening. This would have simplified his problem, but it would also
have robbed his life of the richness which had entered it. Even though
he saw his course plainly plotted out for him, there was a delicious joy
in knowing that there existed one who had awakened in him that which
alone is best and without which no man's experience can be complete.

But his half-