m Hometon, and yet Evan felt that he
was gone from home forever. So he was--if he continued to work in the
bank. He knew that he would be able to get home only for an occasional
week-end; nor were the Hometon trains convenient to bank hours. There
was no branch of the bank in Hometon, and he would, consequently, never
be located there. When the first move came it would take him still
further away.

Evan sauntered, with his thoughts, past comfortable homes fronted with
lawns and shaded by weeping willows. There is a peculiar melancholia
about a May day; it had an effect on the young bankclerk. He walked by
hedges beyond the end of Mt. Alban's asphalt out into the suburbs.
Spring birds sang their thanks to Nature, and to the homesick heart a
bird's singing is sadness. It is natural for such a heart to seek
quiet. Evan had no desire for company. He wanted to think, all by
himself. His mind travelled in the one circle, the arcs of which were
home, school and the bank. Yes, and Frankie Arling!

Although only seventeen he had a tenacious way of liking a girl; and
Frankie had always appealed to him. He thought of her as he walked by
the hedges. It was she, indeed, who helped him, more than anything
else, to forget the ordeal of his first few days' clerkship. He
shuddered when he thought of the hundred and one inscrutable books in
the office, so well known to the teller and Watson, and a shiver
accompanied thought of mail and copying-books; but he viewed matters
from a different angle when Frankie came forward in his mind. How
worldly-wise he would be when he went home, and what a hit he would
make with his own money in the ice-cream places of Hometon! Wouldn't
Frankie be proud of him!

Exclamation marks hardly do justice to Evan's enthusiasm as he allowed
himself to speculate on the future. Being "good stuff" at bottom, he
forced himself, finally, on this May-day walk, to look at the sunlight
on the lawns and trees; and when he doubled back to the boarding-house
it was with a good imitation of his old football energy. At table he
spoke blithely to the guests, and was quite gay during soup. Cold
roast beef brought a slight chill with it. Cake had something of a
sour flavor. He drank his tea in silence.

In the evening he declined an invitation to a party, extended to him
over the telephone, at the bank. After sweeping out the office he
perched himself on a stool and wrote a long letter home. Before
d