He made a point, for instance, of dropping in at Finch’s room in Standerland two or three times a week and chatting with the boy the odd quarters of an hour that he otherwise would have spent in genial loafing with his cronies. And though he certainly would not have kept on going there for the sake of anything that Finch could contribute to the joy of life for him, when the awkwardness of deliberately performing a kindness had somewhat worn off, he found a certain amount of compensating satisfaction in noting the light of pleasure that came into Jake’s pale blue eyes, and in the relaxation of the corners of his mouth from bitter rigidity into friendly appreciation and welcome. Gradually too Finch’s shyness wore off a little when he was alone with Tony; and though it can hardly be said that even in his most un-selfconscious moments he ever seemed a full-blooded care-free boy, he thawed into a semblance of humanity. He reminded Tony often of a dog that has been treated cruelly in its puppyhood, which never recovers fearlessness but shrinks even under a friendly hand. And like a dog Jacob Finch began to idolize Anthony Deering. This was the first time in all his barren life that a fellow boy had treated him with kindness, who had not showed in his manner the repulsion the unhappy little chap had the misfortune to stir in his kind. Tony’s image loomed large in his thoughts. The intense worship he paid him secretly did much to atone for the slights of others, to blot out other boys from his consciousness. He cringed and shrank still under jibes and jokes, trembled with unreasoned fear before masters, quivered with fright when he found himself alone in a crowd of boys; but he did his work faithfully and with the success that comes from persistence even when a keen intelligence is lacking. More and more, however, his inner life was absorbed in his devotion to Deering. From his seat in the chapel he could just see the wavy, copper-colored top of Tony’s head. By straining a little he could frequently see his face,—bright, sensitive, mobile, smiling often that smile of a singular and rare sweetness that made Tony beautiful to others beside Finch. To Jake he was as perfect, as spotless, as wonderful, as a god. The fervor of his adoration was akin to the enthusiasm of a _devotée_ for his idol. All this of course he hid, not altogether but mostly, from Deering; never voiced, though he could not help looking his devotion. He would spend hours during a day standing about in various places on the mere chance that he would get a glimpse of Tony; haunted the woods above Beaver Pond in the hockey season, where he would lie, flat and shivering, upon a projecting rock, and follow with weak, straining eyes the skaters on the ice below, his eager gaze seeking always for one bright slim form. And when he had found it, he was as happy as he often had been.