ent, but a help to his father.

"No, Dad," he said; "I'm very fond of bank work, and I know I'll
succeed."

Both encouragement and discouragement had the effect of spurring Evan
on. There was no hope for him: he must go in and play the game--or,
rather, fight the fight--to a finish. Then he would know what others
knew but could not tell him; what Sam Robb knew and would have been
happy to make every prospective bankclerk understand.

In spite of himself and his surroundings Evan felt the old homesickness
creeping over him Sunday night. He had decided to take the first train
on Monday back to work; he told himself that the hardest way was the
best way, and he sought a short cut to success. After church Frankie
found it difficult to elicit cheerful words from him.

The two strolled along a side street. Those dear old Ontario villages
and towns where the boys and girls walk on Sunday nights along
tree-darkened ways, how long will they listen to the repetitions of
lovers? Evan's and Frankie's parents had said the same "foolish"
things to each other that Evan and Frankie were now saying, and on the
very same street. History repeats, but not with the accuracy of Love.

"Some day I'll come home a manager, Frankie," he was saying, "and then
you and I will get married."

"Oh, I hope so," she answered.

She went to bed that night with a happy young heart, and Evan retired
feeling sure he loved and would some day marry Frankie Arling.

CHAPTER IV.

_BEING A SPORT._

A sickening sensation took possession of Evan as he boarded the train
Monday forenoon for Mt. Alban. He found it hard to banish from his
thoughts the invitation his father had given him, to return to school
and the pleasant experiences that made up a school education.

The two young girls waved him good-bye from the platform of Hometon
station, and it afterwards became known that a tear had stood for a
second in the bankclerk's eye.

"You needn't have come till night," said the manager, as Evan walked
solemnly into the office.

The words made Evan more homesick than ever. One characteristic of the
disease known as homesickness is a strong tendency toward a relapse.
One may imagine himself cured, he goes out of his environment,--and
comes back with a new attack.

Because of the pain occasioned by visiting home Evan decided he would
stay away several months before making another excursion among
home-folk. In this resolve he was unintenti