ernoon." Tom's voice registered his hearty regret
as he made this response. "I can wait until to-morrow if _you_ say so,
Grace. I'd rather you'd decide it. Of course, you know I'd prefer to put
over going until to-morrow. It's only----"

"I understand," came faintly from Grace. "You'd better go to-day. Tom.
It will be even harder for both of us to wait another day before saying
good-bye. Besides," she added, making a valiant effort to be cheerful,
"the sooner you go, the sooner you will return. You may find that you
won't have to stay there as long as you imagine."

"You're a true comrade, Loyalheart." Since the day when Grace had named
their future residence Haven Home, at the same time telling Tom of the
college play in which she had taken part, he had fallen into the habit
of calling her Loyalheart. "That Miss West had the right idea about
you," had been his tender criticism. "There isn't another name in the
whole world that could possibly suit you so well."

"I hope always to be a good comrade," returned Grace, a faint color
stealing into her lately-paling cheeks. "It's a pretty hard contract
always to live up to, though. While everything is lovely, it's not hard.
When things go wrong, it is. It reminds me of a poem I once read that
began, 'It's easy enough to be pleasant when life flows by like a song.'
I can't remember any more of it, except that it conveyed the thought
that the only persons who are really worth while are the ones who can
keep on being pleasant even when everything in their lives goes wrong.
So we ought to try to smile over this little hardship and look at it as
being just one of the vicissitudes that life is bound to bring us."

"But I don't like to see hardship and vicissitudes creeping into our
Golden Summer," protested Tom, not quite satisfied to adjust himself to
Grace's more optimistic view of the situation. "I'm selfish about it,
I'm afraid. When, after a long dark winter, a man is suddenly turned
loose in the sunshine, he is naturally anxious to stay there. Just
because I'm saying that, I don't mean that I would dream of failing Aunt
Rose. I'd go even if it meant we'd have to put off our marriage a few
weeks longer."

"And I would wish you to go," agreed Grace earnestly. "I am glad you
said that. If, when you get to the camp, you find that you will have to
stay quite a while, we can put off our wedding until the last of
September. Only a few of our closest friends know that we have set