"He had just bought a couple of new hunters and was going to run the hunt this fall. I wanted him to live forever. He died in New York, and I came here to try and get used to being without him. I thought I should stay all alone for the rest of my life, but--this morning when I was moping about, everything looked so young and busy that I got a sort of longing to be young and busy again myself. I don't know how to explain it, but everything shouted at me to get up and shake myself together, and on the almanac in Father's room I read a thing that seemed to be a sort of message from him." "Did you? What was it?" "'We count it death to falter, not to die.' It was under to-day's date, and it was the first thing I saw when I went to the desk where Father used to sit, and it was his voice that read it to me. It was very wonderful and queer. It sort of made me ashamed of the way I was taking it, and I went out to begin again,--that's how it seemed to me,--and I woke everybody up and set things going and saw that the horses were all right, and then I climbed over the wall, and as I walked away, out again for the first time after all those bad weeks, I wanted to find some one young to talk to. I don't know how it was, but I went straight up the hill and wasn't a bit surprised when I saw you standing there." "That's funny," said Joan. "Funny--how?" "I don't know. But if you hadn't found me after the feeling that came to me at lunch--" "Well?" "Well, I'm sure I should have turned bitter and never believed any more in fairies and all that. I don't think I mean fairies, and I can't explain what 'all that' stands for, but I know I should have been warped if I hadn't turned round and seen you." And she laughed and set him laughing, and the reason of their having met was waved aside. The fact remained that there they were--youth with youth, and that was good enough. III There was a touch of idealism hidden away somewhere in Martin's character. A more than usually keen-eyed boy had once called him "the poet" at school. In order that this dubious nickname should be strangled at birth, there had been an epoch-making fight. Both lads came out of it in a more or less unrecognizable condition, but Martin reestablished his reputation and presently entered Yale free from the suspicion of being anything but a first-rate sportsman and an indisputable man.