The registrar of Middletown College, being a newcomer, saw nothing unusual in the fact that the librarian came to his office on matriculation day to enroll as a freshman a shy, dark-eyed lad with a foreign name; but the president and older professors were petrified into speechlessness by the news that old J.M. had returned from parts unknown with a queer-looking boy, who called the old man uncle. Their amazement rose to positive incredulity when they heard that the fastidious, finical old bachelor had actually installed a raw freshman in one of his precious tower-rooms, always before inexorably guarded from the mildest and most passing intrusion on their hallowed quiet. The president made all haste to call on J.M. and see the phenomenon with his own eyes. As discreetly as his raging curiosity would allow him, he fell to questioning the former recluse. When he learned that J.M. had spent six weeks in Woodville, no more explanation seemed needed. "Oh, of course, your old home?" "Yes," said J.M., "my old home." "And you had a warm welcome there, I dare say?" "Yes, indeed," said J.M. "Found the old town in good condition?" "Excellent!" this with emphasis. The president saw it all, explaining it competently to himself. "Yes, yes, I see it from here--vacation spent in renewing your youth playing with the children--promised to go back at Christmas, I suppose." "Oh, yes, of course," said J.M. "Children cried when you came away, and gave you dotty little things they'd made themselves?" "Just like that," with a reminiscent smile. "Well, well," the president got to his feet. "Of course, most natural thing in the world to take an interest in your brothers' and sisters' children." J.M. did not contradict the president. He never contradicted the presidents. He outlasted them so consistently that it was not necessary. This time he took off his glasses and rubbed them on an awkwardly fashioned chamois spectacle-wiper made for him by little Molly McCartey. He noticed the pattern of the silk in his visitor's necktie and it made him think of one of Rosalie Loyette's designs. He smiled a little. The president regarded this smiling silence with suspicion. He cocked his eye penetratingly upon his librarian. "But it is very queer, J.M., that as long as I have known you, I never heard that you _had_ any family at all." J.M. put his clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked through them into the next room, where Ivan Petrofsky sat devouring his first lesson in political economy. Then he turned, beaming like an amiable sphinx upon his interrogator. "Do you know--I never realized it myself until just lately," he said. BY ABANA AND PHARPAR Fields, green fields of Shining River, Lightly left too soon In the stormy equinoctial, In the hunter's moon,-- Snow-blown fields of Shining River I shall once more tread; I shall walk their crested hollows, Living or dead. FINIS