“See!” he said eagerly as if he were pointing to a loved scene, “the sun is almost down. Don’t you love to watch it? In a minute more it will be gone and then it will be dark. Hear that evening bird? ‘Tit-wiloo! Tit-wiloo!’ He sings sometimes late at night.” Starr followed his eager words, and saw the sun slipping, slipping like a great ruby disc behind the fringe of palm and pine and oak that bordered the little lake below the campus; saw the wild bird dart from the thicket into the clear amber of the sky above, utter its sweet weird call, and drop again into the fine brown shadows of the living picture; watched, fascinated as the sun slipped lower, lower, to the half now, and now less than half. Breathless they both stood and let the two men go on ahead, while they watched the wonder of the day turn into night. The brilliant liquid crimson poured itself away to other lands, till only a rim of wonderful glowing garnet remained; then, like a living thing dying into another life, it too dropped away, and all was night. “Why! How dark it is!” exclaimed Starr as she turned to her companion again and found she could scarcely see his face. “Why! How queer! Where is the twilight? Is anything the matter? I never saw it get dark all at once like this!” She peered around into the strange velvet darkness with troubled eyes. Michael was all attention at once. “No, that’s all right,” he assured her. “That’s the way we do here. Almost everybody from the north speaks about it at first. They can’t understand it. Its the difference in the position of the sun, nearer the equator, you know. I’ll show you all about it on the chart in the astronomical room if you care to see. We haven’t any twilight here. I should think twilight would be queer. You wouldn’t just know when night began and day ended. I don’t remember about it when I lived in New York. Look up there! That’s the evening star! It’s come out for you tonight—to welcome another—Starr!” Oh, Michael, of unknown origin! Whence came that skill of delicate compliment, that grace of courtesy, that you, plucked from the slime of the gutter, set apart from all sweetening influences of loving contact with, womankind, should be able so gallantly and respectfully to guide the young girl through the darkness, touching her little elbow distantly, tactfully, reverently, exactly as the college president helps his wife across the road on Sabbath to the church? Is it only instinct, come down from some patrician ancestor of gallant ways and kind, or have you watched and caught the knack from the noble scholar who is your ideal of all that is manly? They walked silently through the warm darkness until they came within the circle of light from the open door, and matron and teachers came out to welcome the young stranger and bring her into the house.