on to
lament over one's weaknesses and shortcomings, and to receive in return
the wisest of counsels from Darsie's pretty lips.

"To please _you_, Darsie!--I'm hanged if I care what other people think,
but if _you_ ask me--" The promises gained were all couched in this
personal vein. "If you chuck me, Darsie, I shan't worry any more."
This was the threat held out for the future. Unsatisfactory, if you
will, yet the fact remained that for the first part of the last term
Ralph _had_ appeared to show greater interest in work than he had before
manifested, and had been involved in a minimum of scrapes.

There were moments when, remembering these facts, Darsie felt proudly
that she had not lived in vain; moments when Ralph's dependence on
herself and graceful acknowledgments of her help seemed the chief
interest in life. But there were also other moments when the bond
between them weighed heavy as a chain. In less than two years the
training days would be over, Ralph would be a man, and she herself a
woman on the threshold of life. Would she be expected to play the part
of permanent anchor, and, if so, could she, should she undertake the
task?

For the last few weeks of the term Darsie had been so absorbed in her
own surroundings that she had had no time or thought to bestow on
outside interests, and Mrs Reeves being abroad, no college news came to
her ears from that source.

Now since the beginning of the holidays Ralph's name had hardly been
mentioned, since family interests were predominant, and Darsie had
learned from experience that the subject of "Percival" was calculated to
send Dan Vernon into his most taciturn mood.

On this Christmas morning, however, Darsie was in a mood of somewhat
reckless gaiety; let the future take care of itself. For to-day, at
least, she was young and happy and free; the Vernon family was coming
over in bulk to spend the evening, when the presence of one of Dan's
chums would supply an agreeable element of novelty to the occasion. Not
one single gloomy thought must be allowed to cloud the sunshine of this
Christmas Day!

Dinner was served at seven o'clock, and was truly a festive occasion.
The dining-room table being unequal to the task of providing
accommodation for sixteen people, the schoolroom table had to be used as
a supplement. It was a good inch higher than the other, and supplied
with a preponderance of legs, but these small drawbacks could not weigh
against the magni