ossoms and
making the air melodious with their merry songs. Brilliant orioles
flashed to and fro like gleams of gold in the sunlight, as they built
their airy hammocks high among the swaying branches of the great willow,
and one inquisitive robin swept boldly through the clustering vines
which screened the front of the veranda and perched upon his shoulder.
He heard the merry hum of the bees at work and the strident call of the
locusts, mingled with the distant neighing of horses and the soft lowing
of the cows, but all the sweetness of nature was powerless to lift the
gloom which seemed to envelop him as in a shroud. His face was white and
drawn with pain and there were heavy rings beneath his eyes. Reginald
Hawthorne would be a cripple for life.

The College Football Club had met a New York team in the yearly
contest, which was looked forward to as one of the events in the
athletic world, and Reginald had been foremost among the leaders of the
play. Fierce and long had been the fight and the enthusiastic spectators
had shouted themselves hoarse with applause or groaned in despair when
the honor of Marlborough seemed likely to be lost. Then had come a
mighty onward rush and the opposing forces concentrated into one
seething mass of struggling humanity. When they drew apart at last the
College boys had made the welkin ring with shouts of victory, but their
bravest champion lay white and still upon the field.

Long days and nights of pain had followed, when John and Mrs. Hawthorne
were at their wits' end to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate
boy. Now the pain had resolved itself into a dull aching but Reginald
would never walk without a crutch again.

The mortification to his father was extreme. A passionate man, he had
centred all his hopes upon his son, whose position in life he fondly
expected to repay him for his years of unremitting toil, and this was
the end of it all! He grew daily more overbearing and hard to please,
and his ebullitions of disappointment and rage were terrible to witness.
He vented his anger most frequently upon John, the sight of whose
superb strength goaded the unhappy man into a frenzy, and John's
forbearance was tried to the utmost, but there was a sweet patience
growing in his soul which made it possible to endure in silence, however
capricious or unreasonable the commands of his master might be, and
Reginald, watching him critically, marvelled at the mysterious inner
strength of