aymates go forth to valiant games.

When they had disappeared at a fast walk down the gravelled path to the
gate at the back of the grounds, taking by this route a straight course
toward the open country which lay in that direction not more than a mile
away, the grandson of old Matthew Kendrick went reluctantly back to his
work. He hated it, yet--he was tremendously glad he had taken the job.
If only there might be many oases in the dull desert such as this had
been!

* * * * *

"How do you like him, Rob?" inquired the young brother, splashing along
at his sister's side down the country road.

"Like whom?" Roberta answered absently, clearing her eyes of raindrops
by the application of a moist handkerchief.

"Mr. Kendrick."

"I think Uncle Cal might have looked a long way and not picked out a
less suitable secretary," said she with spirit.

"Is that what he is? What is a seccertary anyway?" demanded Ted.

"Several things Mr. Kendrick is not."

"Oh, I say, Rob! I can't understand--"

"It is a person who has learned how to be eyes, ears, hands, and brain
for another," defined Roberta.

"Gee! Hasn't Uncle Cal got all those things himself--except eyes?"

"Yes, but anybody who serves him needs them all, too. I don't believe
Mr. Kendrick ever helped anybody before in his life."

"Maybe he has. He's got loads of money, Louis says."

"Oh, money! Anybody can give away money."

"They don't all, I guess," declared Ted, with boyish shrewdness. "Say,
Rob, why wouldn't you ask him to the corn-pop frolic?"

Roberta looked round at him. Drenched violets would have been dull and
colourless beside the living tint of her eyes, the raindrops clinging to
her lashes. "Because he was too busy," she replied, and looked away
again.

"I didn't think he seemed so very much in a hurry to get back to the
library," observed Ted. "When I went down to the kitchen after the corn
I looked in the door and he was sitting at the desk looking out of the
window. But then I look out of the window myself at school," he
admitted.

"Ted, shall we take this path or the other?" asked his sister, halting
where three trails across the meadow diverged.

"This one will be the wettest," said he promptly. "But I like it best."

"Then we'll take it." And she plunged ahead.

"I say, Rob, but you're a true sport!" acknowledged her young brother
with admiration. "Any girl I know would have wanted the dry path."

"Dry