I was very serious, and so I was," said John, with the
air of a man who refers to the follies of his long past youth. "Do you
remember how angry I was when you wanted me to skate with Miss Nellie?"

"Oh, I only said that to teaze you," Mrs. Goddard answered. "I daresay
you would be angry now, if I suggested the same thing."

"No," said John quietly. "I do not believe I should be. As you say, I
feel very much older now than I did then."

"The older we grow the more we like youth," said Mary Goddard,
unconsciously uttering one of the fundamental truths of human nature, and
at the same time so precisely striking the current of John's thoughts
that he started. He was wondering within himself why it was that she now
seemed too old for him, whereas a few short months ago she had seemed to
be of his own age.

"How true that is!" he exclaimed. Mrs. Goddard laughed faintly.

"You are not old enough to have reached that point yet, Mr. Short," she
said. "Really, here we are moralising like a couple of old philosophers!"

"This is a moralising season," answered John. "When we last met, it was
all holly-berries and Christmas and plum-pudding."

"How long ago that seems!" exclaimed the poor lady with a sigh.

"Ages!" echoed John, sighing in his turn, but not so much for sadness, it
may be, as from relief that the great struggle was over. That time of
anxiety and terrible effort seemed indeed very far removed from him, but
its removal was a cause of joy rather than of sadness. He sighed like a
man who, sitting over his supper, remembers the hard fought race he has
won in the afternoon, feeling yet in his limbs the ability to race and
win again but feeling in his heart the delicious consciousness that the
question of his superiority has been decided beyond all dispute.

"And now you will stay here a long time, of course," said Mrs. Goddard
presently.

"I am stopping at the Hall, just now," said John with a distinct sense of
the importance of the fact, "and after a week I shall stay here a few
days. Then I shall go to London to see my father."

"No one will be so glad as he to hear of your success."

"No indeed. I really think it is more for his sake that I want to be
actually first," said John. "Do you know, I have so often thought how he
will look when I meet him and tell him I am the senior classic."

John's voice trembled and as Mrs. Goddard looked at him, she thought she
saw a moisture in his eyes. It pleased her to s