ality the alumni forgave, made indulgent by a sweet sympathy.

Alas for you, old worshippers at empty shrines! Those divine presences
are gone, new and unknown deities queen it in the ancient temples. Go
back to the hearth where some still know you and talk to the few who
gather around you there, of the old days when you, too, placed your
offering at celestial feet. These men of a new generation, sitting in
places that once were yours, will listen indulgently to your stories of
the past, and hear with patience the odious comparisons you inevitably
make; they will thank you for the advice you give them, and say
something pleasant about your college spirit; then in the morning when
you have taken the early train back to the World, they will go down to
the Quad with their books under their arms and something in their minds
that is anything but your talk of the evening before; the College life
will go on very much as if you had not been back, O wise fossils, and
there will be new graduates going out to learn your lessons and new
undergraduates who will pay no attention to them in turn. So be thankful
for this brief hour before the fire, with its chat as light as the
tobacco smoke floating over "old" man and Freshman lounging together, be
glad of the fellowship that welcomes you, and be content.

Each couch in the smoking-room had its load of sprawling figures. The
lights were out by this time and the Incurables had come back to the
house and ferreted places for themselves among the tangled golf suits
and 'Varsity sweaters. Duncan had a lamp on the table where he was
"bossing a rabbit"; Pellams said this was the only kind of lab-work in
zoology in which Bob could get credit. A pile of plates warmed before
the fire where Smith was toasting crackers at the end of a sharpened
stick. At the piano, Pellams was softly playing "barber shop" chords. It
was all very lazy and comfortable. The alumni grew reminiscent.

"This noon while we were walking up from Palo Alto," said Shirlock,
"Mrs. Stanford passed us in her carriage, coming from Chapel, I suppose.
I asked Harry if he remembered how they used to drive about the place
inspecting things, when the Senator was alive."

"Of course I do," spoke up Rice, "it seems odd that there are so few in
college now who remember them together. To you fellows, I suppose, Mrs.
Stanford is the source of the University. To us who saw them stand
together on the platform that day in October, '91, it