s, she could never have come into his. His
early intuition had not been at fault; she would never touch the
height, breadth and depth of universal womanhood with its vision and
its sympathy.

Just before leaving, the two visitors spent a recitation period in
Steve's class room, and so eager was he to reveal the best in his
pupils that he did not dream he was also putting forth the teacher's
best.

When the pupils had filed out and the three stood alone, Mrs. Polk
made a gay little bow, and said with glistening eyes:

"Bravo, Sir Knight of the Mountains, you have certainly won your
spurs,--though they be of civilian make!"

He smiled in return, brought back to a consciousness of himself, but
turning from it instantly again, he inquired:

"And what do you think of my brother knights?"

"They are equally fine," said Mrs. Polk warmly.

"They are indeed," joined in Nita, "but how you have penetrated the
hopeless exteriors of these people, as we saw them on our way here,
found the germs of promise and developed them, will always remain an
unfathomable mystery for me," she declared. "I confess I understand
your skill less than I do that of the sculptor who makes the marble
express beauty, thought and feeling,--and his work would be infinitely
more to my taste. I think nothing more distasteful than contact with
people can be,--and when it must be daily----" She shrugged her
shoulders in conclusion expressively.

Steve smiled back at her for he knew she did not think of him as one
of these people with whom she could not bear the thought of daily
contact.

"Now confess, don't you get dreadfully tired of it all?" she
persisted, looking with real appeal into his face as though she would
draw him away from it if she could.

"Unspeakably, sometimes," he smiled back again, then looking beyond
her over the mountains he added simply, "but I belong here."

And uncomprehending as she would ever be, she turned at last lightly
away and walking to the outer door stepped out upon the campus,
leaving her sister and Steve for a little talk alone, which she was
sure they would like.

When she was gone, Mrs. Polk laid a hand upon Steve's arm and said
softly: "Some day, Steve, everything will come right," looking
expressively into his eyes, and he knew she meant between himself and
Mr. Polk, a subject that had not been mentioned since she came. "I
catch beautiful prophecies sometimes of all this human desert
blossoming as a rose,"