With the coming of the bright nights the Old Town grew young again. Its staid habits were laid aside; the watchmen cried the bedtime hour in vain. At all hours of the night, till the midnight bell sounded and sometimes later, young and old were abroad, on the causeway, in the Plantage, or driving to the shore and taking their supper there. The young rowed and sang on the river in the long glowing twilight and had a good time. School and university were closed, and the students came back to visit old friends and to make love. With midsummer came “Holme week,” of which more hereafter, when they all went out and sported in the hay together. An endless procession of young couples have driven home on the hay wagons, watching the midnight glow in the northern heavens from the top of the load, hand in hand, and thinking earth a new-found paradise for Two, while Cupid laughed at the ferry-landing to see them go. In Holme week he was always a regular boarder with the ferry-master. But the young never suspected it, or if they did, showed no fear; and their elders, who knew, having met him there in their time, held their peace. I am not sure that they did not even surreptitiously pay his board. For they were sly, the good people of the Old Town. Early in August the young storks began to gather on the high roof of the Cloister-church, and every day we saw them manœuvring there in agitated rows, between practice flights into the fields that grew longer and longer toward the time for their departure. At the final review, we knew, any of them that could not fly well enough and far enough would be killed by the rest, for no laggards were wanted on their long trip to King Pharaoh’s land. We watched them soaring high, high up, and hoped fervently that our own stork, or the neighbor’s we knew so well, might pass muster and not be stabbed to death with those long bills which we had seen carrying home snakes and frogs and lizards to the nest so often, and always raised in loud thanksgiving as the feast was spread before the brood. Then they seemed the gentlest of birds; but all at once the red beaks became swords to our imagination, to pierce the helpless youngster who got a bad report at his “exam.” Every day we looked to see if they were all there and were glad when none was missing. Then one morning we looked out, and the Cloister roof was bare. The storks were gone. Every nest in the town was empty. We searched awhile, incredulous; then, with a little shiver, went to look up our skates and our mittens. [Illustration: A GIRL FROM THE NORTH SEA ISLANDS.]