It was then near the close of the short afternoon. The sunset lights, were the day fair, would be shining westward; trailing, scarlet, fleecy clouds would be floating overhead, clamorous crows flocking homeward. One by one the carriages of many drivers, going one way or another, but all returning in time to watch the team work, would pull in on the road overlooking the grounds till it was filled with champing horses and grinding wheels. Frances was there always until the men went for a last run around the grounds, sprang up the steps, darted across the roadway and up to the "Gym." Then Starlight went spinning away for a drive in the fast closing afternoon. It was an old habit, too, of driving the horse to the stables and walking home. The tingling air made it delightful exercise. The streets were filled at the late afternoon hour with all the town, it seemed, a long procession out and in,--young girls and older women and men strolling out Universitywards; students in pairs and groups, and crowds lounging down toward the centre of the town, and many a student promenading with a young woman beside him. It was the holiday hour of the town. Somehow, somewhere in that procession of men and maids would be one man walking alone and searching the crowd eagerly, for all his air of careless assurance, for a young woman who walked briskly with shoulders well back and head in air, whose eyes were shining with health and content and whose lips were curving with happy thoughts, and though his life held bright days in spite of an old sorrow long past, and though there were bright days to come, there would never be any again with the intangible charm of the chilly afternoons faded well-nigh to dark, the evening star shining clearly in the pale green west, the tops of the tall trees rocking against the "primrose sky," and those two walking gayly along the paths of the University homewards. Sometimes there was a moment's pause in the library, sometimes an evening visit; but strangely enough, Lawson with his hard training had settled down to hard study likewise, and was giving an unexpected turn to the Faculty's thoughts of him; for those with whom he had first come in touch feared the results of his wealth and good-natured easy comradeship and not altogether admirable ways of living, upon the younger men. Through all his intercourse with Frances there was the most delightful comradeship, the girl yielding unconsciously to a friendliness from which she had always steadily held herself. True, Lawson was fairly irresistible. The strength of his nature which had much savagery under its gloss, the beauty of his physique, showing better each day of regular hours and cleanly living, the indomitableness of his resolve which set itself on winning always the want of the hour, were a power could scarce be turned aside.