With grateful thanks the two friends accepted the kind old gentleman's offer, and he departed with an air that seemed to imply he had been favored, not that he had conferred a favor. "Well, chum," remarked Ray, when they were alone, "I do not see but both of us have a fair outlook for our college course. Thanks to our friend Mr. Swinburne, our tuition and room rent are provided for, and only our board and incidentals remain. Surely, with our experience here, we have no reason to falter in the undertaking." "That is so," said Edward, thoughtfully, "and I think I shall be able to go through college without any help from mother. We have friends in that city, and through them I hope to secure employment for you as well as for myself." "Always thinking of me, Ned," said Ray, throwing his arm affectionately around his chum; "but we will borrow no trouble. Those same old rules shall go to the university with us; the same principles shall actuate our hearts; we shall look ever to the same Master for his guidance and blessing. Why need we then have any fear? His name to us is Jehovah-jireh--the Lord will provide." "Amen," said Edward, gently and reverently. And then the two passed out from those academic halls to new duties and a new phase of life. CHAPTER XXIII. A SUMMER'S VACATION. Ray and Edward left Easton on the same train with their Afton and Wenton friends. All, in fact, had taken seats in the same car, and a bright, merry, vivacious company they made. Captain Tom Branford had reversed the seat in front of Mr. Squire and his daughter, and was apparently listening with marked attention to the old general's vehement praise of an institution that had been wise enough to confer its highest honors upon two Afton boys; but in reality he was studying the daughter's fair face with an admiration so manifest she could not have failed to detect it, had she not been engrossed by another matter quite outside of herself. Her thoughts were on her "two boys," as she called them, and remembering what they, by divine grace, had become, she "thanked God and took courage" for those of her class who were still unsaved.