instep of her neat little canvas
shoes. A wave of loneliness swept over Dr. Fenneben's soul as he looked.

"It must have been a thousand years ago that I was in love and walked in
my Eden. There are no serpents here as there were in mine."

Just then his eyes fell upon the wide stone landing of the campus steps.
At the same moment Elinor gave a scream of fright. A bull snake, big
and ugly, had crawled half out of the burned grasses of the slope and
stretched itself lazily in the sunshine along the warm stone. It roused
itself at the scream, emitting its hoarse hiss, after the manner of bull
snakes. Elinor clutched at her companion's arm, pale with fear.

"Kill it! Kill it!" she cried, trying to force her slender white parasol
into his hand.

Before he could move, Vic Burleigh leaped out from behind the cedars,
and, picking up a sharp-edged bit of limestone, tipped his hand
dexterously and sent it clean as a knife cut across the space. It struck
the snake just below the head, half severing it from the body. Another
leap and Burleigh had kicked the whole writhing mass--it would have
measured five feet--off the stone into the sunflower stalks and long
grasses of the steep slope.

"How did you ever dare?" Elinor asked.

"Oh, he's not poison; he just doesn't belong up here."

The bluntness of timidity was in Vic's answer, but the strength and
musical depth of his resonant voice was almost startling.

"There is no Eden without a serpent, Miss Elinor," Professor Burgess
said lightly.

"Nor a serpent without some sort of Eden built around it. The thing's
mate will be along after it pretty soon. Look out for it down there. The
best place to catch it is right behind its ears," came the boy's quick
response.

Burleigh looked back defiantly at Burgess as he disappeared indoors. And
the antagonism born in the meeting of these two men in the morning took
on a tiny degree of strength in the afternoon.

"What a wonderful voice, Vincent. It makes one want to hear it again,"
Elinor exclaimed.

"Yes, and what an overgrown pile of awkwardness. It makes one hope never
to see it again," her companion responded.

"But he killed that snake in a way that looked expert to me," Elinor
insisted.

"My dear Miss Elinor, he was probably born in some Kansas cabin and has
practiced killing snakes all his life. Not a very elevating feat. Let's
go down and explore Lagonda Ledge now before the other snake comes in
for the coroner's inqu