back to his own Class Day, so many years
before.

When the march to the Stadium was formed Huntington led Hamlen to that
portion of the line where their own classmates were assembled, and
presented him to each. Only a few remembered him, but all gave him a
welcome which confirmed Huntington's predictions. Hamlen noticed who the
men were standing side by side, and was impressed by the fact that while
in college the groups had been made up quite differently. He and
Huntington, then, did not form so grotesque a combination as he had
imagined. Other members of his Class, who knew each other but slightly
while in Cambridge, since then had discovered characteristics in each
other which drew them together. As Huntington said to him in Bermuda,
the ratio had become readjusted, the essentials only were remembered,
and the real bond was the fact of being members of the great fellowship.
Then the procession started, and he fell into step with the new life
which it had taken him so long to find.

After the exercises at the Stadium, Cosden, at Huntington's suggestion,
took Hamlen with him to the Varsity Club, where the athletic heroes of
past and present congregated. There was a motive back of the suggestion,
and the effect on Hamlen of seeing these men, whose importance college
ideals had magnified, in their present relation to the world and to
their fellow-men, justified the experiment. Some of the old captains or
record-holders showed unmistakably their continued pre-eminence; others
had fallen back into the ranks after their temporary standard-bearing.
Hamlen could understand it now: what they did in college was of
importance only to the extent that it fitted them for what was to
follow; it was the use they made of this fitting in the after-life which
produced the permanent effect. This was the difference between the means
and the end which Marian tried to explain to him in Bermuda.

Then came Commencement as a crescendo. It would have meant little to
Hamlen had it preceded Class Day, but each new experience gave him
fuller understanding and richer enjoyment. He saw again the same members
of his Class and felt now that he knew them; he met others, and was able
to mingle freely as a fellow-classmate. On Class Day the alumni came as
a unit, on Commencement they separated into Class groups, each with its
own spread and reunion, offering greater opportunity for intimate
exchanges of personal experience and mutual confidence.

T