l shut up shop.'

Well, that was the end of it and came near being the end of our careers
in college. We looked at each other, torn and panting and bloody, and
at the girls, who stood by, pale with alarm. Then we picked up the
shapeless hats and went away for repairs. I had heard that the path of
learning was long and beset with peril but I hoped, not without reason,
the worst was over. As I went off the campus the top of my hat was
hanging over my left ear, my collar and cravat were turned awry, my
trousers gaped over one knee. I was talking with a fellow sufferer and
patching the skin on my knuckles, when suddenly I met Uncle Eb.

'By the Lord Harry!' he said, looking me over from top to toe, 'teacher
up there mus' be purty ha'sh.'

'It wa'n't the teacher,' I said.

'Must have fit then.'

'Fit hard,' I answered, laughing.

'Try t' walk on ye?'

'Tried t' walk on me. Took several steps too,' I said stooping to brush
my trousers.

'Hm! guess he found it ruther bad walkin' didn't he?' my old friend
enquired. 'Leetle bit rough in spots?'

'Little bit rough, Uncle Eb--that's certain.'

'Better not go hum,' he said, a great relief in his face. 'Look 's if
ye'd been chopped down an' sawed--an' split--an' throwed in a pile. I'll
go an' bring over some things fer ye.'

I went with my friend, who had suffered less damage, and Uncle Eb
brought me what I needed to look more respectable than I felt.

The president, great and good man that he was, forgave us, finally,
after many interviews and such wholesome reproof as made us all ashamed
of our folly.

In my second year, at college, Hope went away to continue her studies
in New York She was to live in the family of John Fuller, a friend of
David, who had left Faraway years before and made his fortune there in
the big city. Her going filled my days with a lingering and pervasive
sadness. I saw in it sometimes the shadow of a heavier loss than I dared
to contemplate. She had come home once a week from Ogdensburg and I had
always had a letter between times. She was ambitious and, I fancy, they
let her go, so that there should be no danger of any turning aside from
the plan of my life, or of hers; for they knew our hearts as well as we
knew them and possibly better.

We had the parlour to ourselves the evening before she went away, and I
read her a little love tale I had written especially for that occasion.
It gave us some chance to discuss the absorbing and forbidd