s and of her mother crying as
though she had been very badly hurt. It was a vague figure now, and the
boy's queer way of talking about it so personally made the conventional
expressions that she had heard seem out of place. It was the little
shake in his voice that touched her.

"He had just bought a couple of new hunters and was going to run the
hunt this fall. I wanted him to live forever. He died in New York, and
I came here to try and get used to being without him. I thought I
should stay all alone for the rest of my life, but--this morning when I
was moping about, everything looked so young and busy that I got a sort
of longing to be young and busy again myself. I don't know how to
explain it, but everything shouted at me to get up and shake myself
together, and on the almanac in Father's room I read a thing that
seemed to be a sort of message from him."

"Did you? What was it?"

"'We count it death to falter, not to die.' It was under to-day's date,
and it was the first thing I saw when I went to the desk where Father
used to sit, and it was his voice that read it to me. It was very
wonderful and queer. It sort of made me ashamed of the way I was taking
it, and I went out to begin again,--that's how it seemed to me,--and I
woke everybody up and set things going and saw that the horses were all
right, and then I climbed over the wall, and as I walked away, out
again for the first time after all those bad weeks, I wanted to find
some one young to talk to. I don't know how it was, but I went straight
up the hill and wasn't a bit surprised when I saw you standing there."

"That's funny," said Joan.

"Funny--how?"

"I don't know. But if you hadn't found me after the feeling that came
to me at lunch--"

"Well?"

"Well, I'm sure I should have turned bitter and never believed any more
in fairies and all that. I don't think I mean fairies, and I can't
explain what 'all that' stands for, but I know I should have been
warped if I hadn't turned round and seen you."

And she laughed and set him laughing, and the reason of their having
met was waved aside. The fact remained that there they were--youth with
youth, and that was good enough.

III

There was a touch of idealism hidden away somewhere in Martin's
character. A more than usually keen-eyed boy had once called him "the
poet" at school. In order that this dubious nickname should be
strangled at birth, there had been an epoch-making fight. Both lads