up the
twisting shore road. They came at last to the great gate which led into
the Malibou Ranch and they halted there and went down into a little
pocket of rocks and sand and sun and sat down with their faces to the
shining sea.

He kissed her again. "No; you can't go to Italy, Skipper. That's
settled."

"Then--what are we going to do, Jimsy dear?"

"Why, we'll just get--" his bright face clouded over. "Good Lord, I'm
talking like a nit-wit. We've got to wait, that's all. What could I do
now? Run up alleys with groceries? Take care of gardens?"

"Not _my_ garden! You don't know a tulip from a cauliflower!"

"No, I'll have to learn to do something with my head and my hands,--not
just my legs! I guess life isn't all football, Skipper."

"But I guess it's all a sort of game, Jimsy, and we have to 'play' it!
And it wouldn't be playing the game for our people or for ourselves to
do something silly and reckless. This thing--caring for each other--is
the wisest, biggest thing in our lives, and we've got to keep it that,
haven't we?"

He nodded solemnly. "That's right, Skipper. We have. I guess we'll just
have to grit our teeth and wait--_gee_--three years, anyway, till I'm
twenty-one! That's the deuce of a long time, isn't it? Lord, why wasn't
I born five years before you? Then it would be O. K. Loads of girls are
married at eighteen."

"You weren't born five years before me because then it would have
spoiled everything," said Honor, securely confident of the eternal
rightness of the scheme of things. "You would have been marching around
in overalls when I was born, and when I was ten you would have been
fifteen, and you wouldn't have _looked_ at me,--and now you'd be through
college and engaged to some wonderful Stanford girl! No, it's perfectly
all right as it is, Jimsy. Only, we've just got to be sensible."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing right now, Skipper, I'm not going to wait
five or six years. I'm going to go two years to college, enough to bat a
little more knowledge into my poor bean, and then I'm coming out and get
a job,--and get you!" He illustrated the final achievement by catching
her in his arms again.

When she could get her breath Honor said, "But we needn't worry about
all of it now, dear. We haven't got to wait the four--or six years--all
at once! Just a month, a week, a day at a time. And the time will
fly,--you'll see! You'll have to work like a demon----"

"And you won't be there to help m