I had luck with him, And I've
missed him a lot since. So maybe that's the thing. I don't know.
We'll talk. Anyhow, this is ended.

I never let out what I thought about your being so decent, that night
at college, when I said I was going to be a parson; the chances are I
never will. But that's largely why I'm telling you this. I'm flunking
my job--I have flunked it; the letter to the rector is written--he's to
get it at the end of his holiday. I think I've stopped caring what
other people will say, but I hate to hurt him. But you see, I thought
it through, and it's the only thing to do--just to get out. I picked
one definite job, for a sort of test, and it fell through. That
settled it.

I wanted to tell you for old sake's sake. Besides, I somehow needed to
have you know. And so now I'm going motoring with you. Write me about
the trunk, and about when and where.

As ever,
MAC.

P. S. We needn't see people, need we?

The automobile with the two young men in the front seat sped smoothly
over June roads. For a week they had been covering ground day after
day; to-night they were due at Dick Marston's cousin's country house to
stop for three days before the return trip through the mountains.

"Dick," reflected Geoffrey McBirney aloud, "consider again about
dropping me in Boston. I'll be as much good at a house-party as a
crape veil at a dance. You're an awful ass to take me."

"That's up to me," remarked Dick. "Get your feet out of the gears,
will you? The Emorys are keen for you and I said I'd bring you, and I
will if I have to do it by the scruff of the neck. Don Emory is away
but will be back to-morrow."

"Splendid!" said McBirney, and then, "I won't kick and scream, you
know. I'll merely whine and sulk," he went on consideringly. "I'll
hate it, and I'll be ugly-tempered, and they'll detest me. Up to you,
however."

"It is," responded Marston, and no more was said. So that at twilight
they were speeding down the long, empty ocean drive with good salt air
in their faces, and lights of cottages spotting the opal night with
orange blurs. It was a large, gay house-party, and the person who had
been called, it was told from one to another, "the young Phillips
Brooks," a person who brought among them certain piquant qualities, was
a lion ready to their hand. With the general friendliness of a good
man of the world, there was something beyond; there was reality in the
friendliness, yet im