community which Huntington knew himself to occupy, and the fact that Hamlen, because of his exile, would be considered to have forfeited his position, struck him as a commentary on the value of popular esteem and the lack of proportion in accrediting to each individual what was his proper due. Hamlen had nothing to his credit in the columns where Huntington scored heaviest: he was a poor citizen in his relations to those around him; he took no part in making others happier for his companionship or stronger by his example; his life had always been pointed inward, and yet, even with the limitations needlessly imposed upon it, there had been something within him, which Huntington had never felt within himself, great enough and strong enough to rise superior to these limitations, to burst the bonds by which Hamlen had sought to hold it back, and to force the expression of its own individuality! There, at least, was something positive; and yet the world would have called Huntington a success and Hamlen a failure! "We have torn off the bandages too fast," Huntington had complacently told Hamlen on that eventful first visit. Was it not presumption on his part when until now his own vision had been equally restricted? Huntington's first impulse was to make a frank admission, when Hamlen arrived, of the wide divergence between what people credited to him and what his real position ought to be; then he realized that his friend needed some one to look up to. He must, for a time at least, accept the position, however ironical it seemed; but he felt himself an impostor and a fraud. Since his return home Huntington had been more than ever grateful for the diverting influence of Billy's irresponsibility, and he encouraged him to come frequently to the house and to bring his friends with him. He would not have believed that a two months' absence could produce so momentous a change of his entire viewpoint. The calm tranquillity in his mental equipoise was seriously disturbed, and he welcomed anything which took his mind off himself and his personal affairs. He had urged Billy to bring young Thatcher in to dine with him, for in view of what Marian had said he hoped that Hamlen and the boy would make good with each other when once they met. Thus far Billy had always selected an evening when Huntington was engaged, but with the certainty that Hamlen would soon arrive a special effort produced a mutually convenient date, and the two boys appeared eager for their dinner and obviously ready to be entertained.