had
begun their studies, and, above all, found themselves surrounded by a
circle of warm friendships.

* * * * *

Very nearly five years after the date of this chapter, just before
sunset of a pleasant summer's day, a barge party of gay young people
rowed out over the placid Schuylkill from the boat-house belonging to
the University of Pennsylvania. In the stern of the barge, acting as
coxswain, sat a young man of delicate frame and refined features. His
pale, thoughtful face showed him to be a close student, and the crutch
at his side betrayed the fact that he was a cripple.

On each side of the coxswain sat a young lady, both of whom were
exchanging good-natured chaff with the merry-faced, stalwart fellow who
pulled the stroke oar.

"I don't believe rowing is such hard work after all," said one of them,
"though you college men do make such a fuss about your training and your
practice spins. I'm sure it looks easy enough."

"You are quite right, Miss Nellie," answered the stroke; "it is awfully
easy compared with some things--cramming for a final in mathematics, for
instance."

"Oh, Derrick!" exclaimed the other young lady, "you can't call that hard
work. I'm sure it doesn't seem as though you had spent your time
anywhere but on the river for the past two months. If you can do that,
and at the same time graduate number one in your class, with special
mention in mathematics, the 'cramming,' as you call it, can't be so very
difficult."

"All things are not what they seem," chanted Derrick. "It may be, sister
Helen, that there are some things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in
your philosophy, after all!"

"Oho!" laughed Nellie Halford. "_Pinafore_ and Shakespeare! What a
combination of wit and wisdom! It's quite worthy of a U. P. Senior."

"He's not even a U. P. Senior now," said the coxswain, from the stern of
the barge. "He has gone back in the alphabet, and is only an A. B."

"An idea for your next cartoon, old man," cried Derrick. "The downfall
of the Seniors, and their return to the rudimentary elements of
knowledge. By-the-way, Polly," he added, more soberly, "do you remember
that to-day is the anniversary of your entering upon the career of
breaker-boy five years ago?"

"It is a day I never forget, Dare," answered Paul Evert, gravely, as he
gazed into the handsome sun-tanned face in front of him, with a look in
which affection and pride were equally blended.

THE