has won a permanent
place in the hearts of a grateful people.
--William McKinley.

The sunny plains of Kansas were fair and full of growing in the spring of
1898. The alfalfa creeping out against the weeds of the old Cloverdale
Ranch was green under the April sunshine. The breezes sweeping down the
Grass River Valley carried a vigor in their caress. The Aydelot grove,
just budding into leaf, was full of wild birds' song. All the sights and
sounds and odors of springtime made the April day entrancing on the Kansas
prairies.

Leigh Shirley had risen at dawn and come up to the grove in the early
morning. She tethered her pony to graze by the roadside, and with her
drawing board on a slender easel she stood on the driveway across the
lakelet, busy for awhile with her paints and pencil. Then the sweetness of
the morning air, the gurgling waters at the lake's outlet, once the little
draw choked with wild plum bushes, and the trills of music from the
shimmering boughs above her head, all combined to make dreaming pleasant.
She dropped her brushes and stood looking at the lake and the bit of open
woodland, and through it to the wide level fields beyond, with the river
gleaming here and there under the touch of the morning light.

She recalled in contrast the silver and sable tones of the May night when
she and Thaine sat on the driveway and saw the creamy water lilies open
their hearts to the wooing moonlight and the caressing shadows. It was a
fairyland here that night. It was plain daylight now, beautiful, but real.
Life seemed a dream that night. It was very real this April morning. The
young artist involuntarily drew a deep breath that was half a sigh and
stooped to pick up her fallen brushes. But she dropped them again with a
glad cry. Far across the lake, in the leaf-checkered sunshine, Thaine
Aydelot stood smiling at her.

"Shall I stay here and spoil your landscape or come around and shake
hands?" he called across to her.

"Oh, come over here and tell me how you happened," Leigh cried eagerly.

Grass River people blamed the two years of the University life for
breaking Thaine Aydelot's interest in Jo Bennington. Not that Jo lacked
for admirers without him. Life had been made so pleasant for her that she
had not gone away to any school, even after her father's election to
office. And down at the University the pretty girls considered Thaine
perfectly heartless, f