I'm
going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger
vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game.
I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the
University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep
pegging away."

"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have
had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the
current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had
everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us
already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you
might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully.

"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any
good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all."

It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would
he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep
her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland.

He escorted Tony back to the campus house at the latest possible moment
and Carlotta, in the secret, pretended to upbraid her roommate for her
tardiness and flew about helping her to get dressed, talking
continuously the while and keeping a sharp eye on the door lest some
intruder burst in and say the very thing Tony Holiday must not be
permitted to hear. It would be so ridiculously easy for somebody to ask,
"Oh, did you hear about the awful wreck on the Overland?" and then the
fat would be in the fire.

But, thanks to Carlotta, nobody had a chance to say it and later Tony
Holiday, standing in the twilight in front of College Hall's steps, sang
her solo, Gounod's beautiful Ave Maria, smiled happily down into the
faces of the dear folks from her beloved Hill and only regretted that
Larry was not there with the rest--Larry who, for all the others knew,
might never come again.

After dinner Ted rushed off again to the telegraph office which he had
been haunting all the afternoon to see if any word had come from his
brother, and Doctor Holiday went on up to the campus to escort his niece
to the informal hop. He had decided to go on just as if nothing was
wrong. If Larry was safe then there was no need of clouding Tony's joy,
and if he wasn't--well, there would be time enough to grieve when they
knew. By virtue of his being a grave and reverend uncle he was admitted
to the sa