Jove!" Huntington replied; "you've solved the problem! Be the first
to endow a college unit, Hamlen, and let it be for the glory of
Harvard. You can equip the outfit, select your professional corps, and
go over with it to superintend the business end. It's a capital notion!"

"I'll do it!" Hamlen said decisively. "With a definite purpose like this
ahead of me, I'll shake this weakness in no time.--How about the boys?
I'll need some chauffeurs."

"Not Philip!" Mrs. Thatcher cried.

"Let me have him, Marian?" Hamlen begged. "The personal danger will be
slight, and I don't need tell you that I'll watch over him as if he were
my own son."

She looked appealingly to her husband.

"I'd let him go," Thatcher said. "There's no chance for him to get
started in business for several months yet, and I'm grateful to Hamlen
for offering him this opportunity under such wonderful conditions."

Philip pleaded. "You won't hold out now, will you, Mother?"

"I can't," she answered soberly. "With your father's approval, and with
Mr. Hamlen's assurances, I should surely be opposing Nature, shouldn't
I?"

Her question was put to Huntington, who understood it. He smiled
approvingly.

"Good for you, little woman," he whispered. "There are times when we
must bow to something stronger than ourselves; this is one of them."

"How about me?" Billy demanded.

"I think I may promise to secure consent," Huntington assured him.

"Come on, Phil," Billy seized his chum's arm. "Let's go out in the
garage and practise on those cars."

Marian disappeared within doors to quiet the apprehensions of her
mother-heart; Thatcher drew a chair beside Hamlen's to discuss the war,
which now assumed a personal interest; Huntington and Merry quietly
slipped down the steps, and wandered through the formal garden to their
favorite retreat.

"Why not watch the sunset from the water-garden?" Merry asked.

The sun set in proper and glorious fashion into the sea at the foot of
the avenue of maple trees, but the successful completion of its task did
not suggest to the lovers a return to the house. Still they sat on the
curiously-cut stone seat, and told each other that story which is older
than the stone, and which was first told long before Benten became the
Goddess of Love. Twilight deepened into dusk, and stirred within
Huntington's mind a quotation from a kindred soul who felt as he felt,
but who couched his thought in more fitting words than he himself c