ch."

"To have found it at all is more than most of us can claim."

Her hand paused in its idle motions, and she looked up at him
inquiringly.

"But you found yours."

"Don't!" he said softly, a twinge of pain crossing his face.

"I've hurt you again!" she cried impulsively. "Don't you see how selfish
I am? That proves it! There is no one I wouldn't rather hurt than you,
yet twice I've done it. Please forgive me; I'll not do it again."

"There is nothing to forgive," he insisted as he did before. "I'm too
sensitive, that is all. Sometimes Life draws back the curtain and shows
us a wonderful picture of what might have been, to test the strength of
the philosophy the years should have taught us. The strong say, 'That is
not for me,' and pass it by; the weak stretch out their arms and cry in
vain for what they ought to know is not for them. I am among the weak."

"You among the weak!" she cried incredulously. "How little you
appreciate yourself! It is of your strength which you must give me now,
for I am trying to be true to what you have taught me by your example:
by making some one else happy I am going to seek for happiness myself."

It had come! Huntington needed no further confidence to complete the
avowal. He must be careful not to endanger the possibility of success
coming to the efforts which this brave spirit was prepared to make.
Hamlen was almost normal now. If this must be, Huntington knew that he
had played his part in preparing his classmate for the supreme joy which
ought to come to him in sharing the life of such a girl. At least he had
made her happiness possible. But the irony of her reference to his
teachings!

"Then you are ready for the supreme test?" he asked in a low voice.

"If it comes."

Then it had not come! The reaction took him to an absurd extreme until
his sober sense returned and he realized that this made no change. If
Hamlen were eliminated, still the years remained. He saw still more
clearly that his opposition was not impartial. If Merry were to tell him
of her engagement to some younger man of whom he might wholly approve,
how could he take their hands in his and pronounce the banal
benediction, "God bless you, my children!" His heart would cry out and
his spirit rebel as bitterly in one case as in the other. Except for the
question of age he must admit that Hamlen was eligible; that what he
lacked in certain traits was offset by super-abundance in others. If
Huntington wer