e!"

"And there'll be football all fall and baseball all spring, and
theatricals, and we'll write to each other every day, won't we?"

"Of course. But I write such bone-headed boob letters, Skipper."

"I won't care what they're like, Jimsy, so long as you tell me things."

"_Gee_ ... I'm going to be lost up there without you, Skipper."

"You'll have Carter, dear."

"I know. That'll help a lot. Honestly, I don't know how a fellow with a
head like his puts up with me. He forgets more every night when he goes
to sleep than I'll ever know. He's a wonder. Yes, it sure--will help a
lot to have Carter. But it won't be you."

"Jimsy, have you told--your father?"

He nodded. "Last night. He was--he's been feeling great these last few
days. He was sitting at his desk, looking over some old letters and
papers, and I went in and--and told him."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything at first. He just sat still for a long time,
staring at the things he'd been reading. And then he got out a little
old leather box that he said was my mother's and unlocked it and took
out a ring." Jimsy thrust a hand deep into a trouser pocket and brought
out a twist of tissue paper, yellowed and broken with age. He unwrapped
it and laid a slender gold ring on Honor's palm.

"_Jimsy!_" It was an exquisite bit of workmanship, cunningly carved and
chased, with a look of mellow age. There were two clasped hands,--not
the meaningless models for wedding cakes, slim, tapering, faultless, but
two cleverly vital looking hands, a man's and a woman's, the one rugged
and strong, the other slender and firm, and the wrists, masculine and
feminine, merging at the opposite side of the circle into one. "Oh ..."
Honor breathed, "it's wonderful...."

"Yes. It's a very old Italian ring. It was my great-grandmother's,
first. It always goes to the wife of the eldest son. My Dad says it's
supposed to mean love and marriage and--and everything--'the endless
circle of creation,' he said, when I asked him what it meant, but first
he just said, 'Give this to your girl and tell her to _hold hard_. Tell
her we're a bad lot, but no King woman ever let go.'"

Suddenly and without warning, as on the day when Stephen Lorimer had
first read the Newbolt poem to them, Honor began to cry.

"Skipper! Skipper, _dearest_--" she was in the young iron clasp of his
arms and his cheek was pressed down on her hair. "What is it? Skipper,
tell me!"

"Oh," she sobbed, clingi