e was sober again. "I do love our
job. If I were a man I'd be a minister myself. Reverend Carol Starr,"
she said loftily, then laughed. Carol's laughter always followed fast
upon her earnest words. "Reverend Carol Starr. Wouldn't I be a peach?"

He laughed, too, recovering his equanimity as her customary buoyant
brightness returned to her.

"You are," he said, and Carol answered:

"Thanks," very dryly. "We must go back now," she added presently. And
they turned at once, walking slowly back toward the parsonage.

"Can't you write to me a little oftener, Carol? I hate to be a bother,
but my uncle never writes letters, and I like to know how my friends
here are getting along, marriages, and deaths, and just plain gossip.
I'll like it very much if you can. I do enjoy a good correspondence
with--"

"Do you?" she asked sweetly. "How you have changed! When I was a
freshman I remember you told me you received nothing but business
letters, because you didn't want to take time to write letters, and--"

"Did I?" For a second he seemed a little confused. "Well, I'm not crazy
about writing letters, as such. But I'll be so glad to get yours that I
know I'll even enjoy answering them."

Inside the parsonage gate they stood a moment among the rose bushes.
Once again she offered her hand, and he took it gravely, looking with
sober intentness into her face, a little pale in the moonlight. He noted
again the royal little head with its grown-up crown of hair, and the
slender figure with its grown-up length of skirt.

Then he put his arms around her, and kissed her warmly upon the childish
unexpecting lips.

A swift red flooded her face, and receding as swiftly, left her pale.
Her lips quivered a little, and she caught her hands together. Then
sturdily, and only slightly tremulous, she looked into his eyes and
laughed. The professor was in nowise deceived by her attempt at
light-heartedness, remembering as he did the quick quivering of the lips
beneath his, and the unconscious yielding of the supple body in his
arms. He condemned himself mentally in no uncertain terms for having
yielded to the temptation of her young loveliness. Carol still laughed,
determined by her merriment to set the seal of insignificance upon the
act.

"Come and walk a little farther, Carol," he said in a low voice. "I want
to say something else." Then after a few minutes of silence, he began
rather awkwardly, and David Arnold Duke was not usually awkward: