It was an April day in the Walnut Valley, with all the freshness of the earth just washed and perfumed by April showers. The sunshine was pale gold. There was a gray-green filmy light from budding trees, and the old-time miracle of the grass was wrought out once more before the eyes of men. The orchards along the Walnut were faintly pink, and the eggs in the robin's nest, the south winds purring through the wooded spaces, the odor of far-plowed furrows on the prairie farms, all gave assurance of the year's gladdest days. From the Sunrise ledge the beauty of the landscape was exquisite. There was no haze overhanging the earth now, and the Walnut Valley was a picture beyond a Master's dream. Victor Burleigh sat on the top of the flight of steps leading from the lower campus, looking lazily out with dreamy eyes on all that the earth had to give on this sweet April afternoon. Presently Elinor Wream came around the north angle of the building, hesitated a little, then walked straight to the steps. “Good afternoon, Victor,” she said. Burleigh looked up, glad then of his months of discipline and self-control. A sight good for anybody on a day like this was this college girl with beautiful dark hair and laughing dark eyes, a satiny pink and white complexion, and a slender form, clad just now in dainty pink gingham with faint little edgings of white and pale green, all stylishly put together to reveal rounded arms, and white neck, and dimpled chin. “Hello, Elinor,” Vic said, calmly, making room for her on the stone steps. “Take a seat.” Elinor sat down beside him, throwing her hat on the ground. “Whither away?” Vic asked. “I'll tell you presently. I want to get over my stage fright first.” “All right, look at this view. I'll give it to you if you like it.” Vic had turned to the west again and was looking away toward the dreamy prairies beyond the valley. Elinor recalled the September day when the bull snake lay sunning itself on this very stone. How shy and awkward he seemed then, with only a deep sweet voice to attract favorable attention. And now, big, and graceful, and handsome, and reserved--any girl might be proud to have his regard. Of course, for herself, there was Vincent Burgess in the pleasant inevitable sometime. She gave little thought to that. She was living in the present. And in the wooing spirit of the April afternoon Elinor was glad to sit here beside Victor Burleigh. “What time next month do we have the big baseball game?” she asked. “The game that is to make Sunrise the champion college in Kansas, and you our college champion?” Vic's lips suddenly grew gray. “Friday, the thirteenth--auspicious date!” he answered. “But I may not play in it. I might fail.” “Oh, we must win this game, anyhow, and you never do fail. Don't forget the name your mother gave you. Do you remember when you told me that?”