l very
praiseworthy! The season was Lent, a fitting time for renunciations and
resolves. Although I had more than once fallen from grace, I believed
myself at last to have settled down on my true course--when something
happened. The devil interfered subtly, as usual--now in the person of
Jerry Kyme. It should be said in justice to Jerry that he did not look
the part. He had sunny-red, curly hair, mischievous blue eyes with long
lashes, and he harboured no respect whatever for any individual or
institution, sacred or profane; he possessed, however, a shrewd sense of
his own value, as many innocent and unsuspecting souls discovered as
early as our freshman year, and his method of putting down the
presumptuous was both effective and unique. If he liked you, there could
be no mistake about it.

One evening when I was engaged in composing a theme for Mr. Cheyne on no
less a subject than the interpretation of the work of William Wordsworth,
I found myself unexpectedly sprawling on the floor, in my descent kicking
the table so vigorously as to send the ink-well a foot or two toward the
ceiling. This, be it known, was a typical proof of Jerry's esteem. For he
had entered noiselessly, jerking the back of my chair, which chanced to
be tilted, and stood with his hands in his pockets, surveying the ruin he
had wrought, watching the ink as it trickled on the carpet. Then he
picked up the book.

"Poetry, you darned old grind!" he exclaimed disgustedly. "Say, Parry, I
don't know what's got into you, but I want you to come home with me for
the Easter holidays. It'll do you good. We'll be on the Hudson, you know,
and we'll manage to make life bearable somehow."

I forgot my irritation, in sheer surprise.

"Why, that's mighty good of you, Jerry--" I began, struggling to my feet.

"Oh, rot!" he exclaimed. "I shouldn't ask you if I didn't want you."

There was no denying the truth of this, and after he had gone I sat for a
long time with my pen in my mouth, reflecting as to whether or not I
should go. For I had the instinct that here was another cross-roads, that
more depended on my decision than I cared to admit. But even then I knew
what I should do. Ridiculous not to--I told myself. How could a week or
ten days with Jerry possibly affect my newborn, resolve?

Yet the prospect, now, of a visit to the Kymes' was by no means so
glowing as it once would have been. For I had seen visions, I had dreamed
dreams, beheld a delectable coun