In a thicket close at hand, a thrush broke out into song. His praise ended, he flew down to a soft bit of ground and began busily to look for worms. Paul moved his head ever so slightly, and the bird and the boy looked at each other. The thrush eyed him boldly, summed him up with a quick little pipe, and flew away. Paul sighed. "I almost wish I were not going to Cambridge," he said. "Why?" she asked. He reached out for a broken stick and began to play with it. "Oh, I don't know," he said restlessly. "Perhaps because it's so good to be here. Cambridge is a new world. I want to do great things, of course, but it's leaving things that I can do behind. Suppose I fail? I wish I could be ordained to-morrow and go to the Mission Hall to work at once. Or no, I'd like to go to Africa at once. Do you remember that man who came and spoke for the South American Missionary Society?" "Yes." "Well, I carried his bag to the station. He had pleaded for missionaries, and had said that he had been speaking at meetings for six months up and down the country, asking for help, and had not had a single volunteer. He was about to go back alone. So, on the station, I offered to go. I said he should not say again that he had had no offer of service. I was sixteen." "What did he say?" "Oh, the usual things. That I must be trained first. I asked what more was necessary than that one loved Jesus, and had been saved, and wanted to serve." "Yes?" "Well, I thought he half believed that I was right. But he didn't dare say so, like all the rest of them. I must wait God's time, he said. God's time! He meant man's time." She said nothing. "It's so hard to wait," he added restlessly. "I'm glad you didn't go," she ventured. "Why?" "Many of us are," she equivocated. "Why?" demanded Paul again, looking boldly at her. She disdained further subterfuge. "You have made God real to me," she said, "and if you had gone, you would have had no opportunity to do that." His eyes shone. "I'm very glad," he said softly. "Will you pray for me, Edith?" She wanted to fling herself down beside him, to hide her flushed face in his coat, to shed the tears that would stupidly start behind her eyes for no reason at all, to tell him that she hardly dared to breathe his name, but that, when she prayed, she could think of scarcely anyone else; but she could not. Every instinct in her cried for him--religion, sex, passionate admiration. But she only clenched one little gloved hand tightly and said that she would. A daughter of Claxted could hardly do otherwise. The minutes slipped by. Paul rolled over on his back and took out his watch. "My word," he exclaimed, "we ought to be going! We shall be late as it is. But what a topping morning it has been. Come on." And he jumped to his feet.