“You were going without good-bye,” she reproved, and her cheeks were rosy red, but she stood her ground courageously. Placing a soft hand gently on either cheek as he stood below her, his face almost on a level with hers, she tilted his head toward her and touched his lips with her own red ones, delicately as if a rose had swept them. Simultaneously came the sound of the distant train. “Good-bye, you nice, splendid boy!” breathed Starr, and waving her hand darted inside the car. Mr. Endicott, out on the platform, still talking to the president, heard the oncoming train and looked around for Michael. He saw him coming from the car with his exalted look upon his face, his cap off, and the golden beams of the sun again sending their halo like a nimbus over his hair. Catching his hand heartily, he said: “Son, I’m pleased with you. Keep it up, and come to me when you are ready. I’ll give you a start.” Michael gripped his hand and blundered out some words of thanks. Then the train was upon them, and Endicott had to go. The two younger ladies in the car, meantime, were plying Starr with questions. “Who is that perfectly magnificent young man. Starr Endicott? Why didn’t you introduce him to us? I declare I never saw such a beautiful face on any human being before.” A moment more and the private car was fastened to the train, and Starr leaning from the window waved her tiny handkerchief until the train had thundered away among the pines, and there was nothing left but the echo of its sound. The sun was going down but it mattered not. There was sunshine in the boy’s heart. She was gone, his little Starr, but she had left the memory of her soft kiss and her bright eyes; and some day, some day, when he was done with college, he would see her again. Meantime he was content. Chapter VI The joy of loving kindness in his life, and a sense that somebody cared, seemed to have the effect of stimulating Michael’s mind to greater energies. He studied with all his powers. Whatever he did he did with his might, even his play. The last year of his stay in Florida, a Department of Scientific Farming was opened on a small scale. Michael presented himself as a student. “What do you want of farming, Endicott?” asked the president, happening to pass through the room on the first day of the teacher’s meeting with his students. “You can’t use farming in New York.” There was perhaps in the kindly old president’s mind a hope that the boy would linger with them, for he had become attached to him in a silent, undemonstrative sort of way. “I might need it sometime,” answered Michael, “and anyway I’d like to understand it. You said the other day that no knowledge was ever wasted. I’d like to know enough at least to tell somebody else.”