Providence had not gone to such lengths to bring Jimmy Lufton to Wellington and set him in the good graces of the college without some purpose. It was not only that he had been sent in time to save two prominent seniors from drowning, but Jimmy's destiny was henceforth to weave itself like a brightly colored thread in and out of the destinies of some of Wellington's daughters.

Wherever Jimmy went he brought with him gaiety and good will. The sympathy and charm of his nature had made him so many friends that of himself did not know the number. And now he had come down to Wellington and made a host of new ones eager to show him how much Wellington thought of courage.

On Sunday morning Jimmy not only met Dodo Green and Andy McLean, but he was led in and introduced to Professor Green, now sitting up against a back rest. There was an expression of ineffable happiness on the Professor's face because his bed had been moved near the window where he might catch a glimpse of the campus and of an occasional group of students strolling under the trees. Such are the simple pleasures of the convalescent.

Furthermore, Jimmy had met Miss Alice Fern, immaculate in white linen, and now he was carried off to the McLeans' to breakfast where he was to meet Molly Brown.

This was Molly's first glimpse of the famous hero. She had not gone down to dinner the evening before, having remained with Nance to minister to the wants of Margaret and Jessie.

Nance and Judy were at the breakfast, too, and Otoyo Sen, and Lawrence Upton who had come over on the trolley from Exmoor. It was, indeed, a meeting of old friends and the genial doctor gave them a gruff and hearty welcome as they gathered in the drawing-room.

"Gude morning to you," he said, rubbing his hands and beaming on them from under his shaggy eyebrows. "I'm verra glad to see the lads and lassies once more. The wife was only saying last week that in another year they'd be scattered to the four ends of the earth. And is this the young lad who picked up the drowning lassies out of the lake? Shake hands, boy. It was a brave and bonny thing to do."

"Any man would have done it in my place, doctor," said Jimmy, grasping the big hand warmly.

"Not any man, but some would. Andy and Larry, I make no doubt, and that wild buffalo, Dodo."

Dodo didn't mind being called a wild buffalo by the doctor if only he was given the credit of courage at the same time, but Mrs. McLean objected.

"Now, doctor," she said, "you mustn't call your guests ugly names. You know I won't permit it at all."

"Don't scold him, Mrs. McLean," said Dodo. "I think it's better to be called a wild buffalo than a wild boar."

"A bore is never wild, if that's the kind you mean," answered Mrs. McLean. "That's why they are bores, because they are so tame."

"Mither, mither," put in the doctor, laughing, "how you go on. As if you'd like 'em any way but tame. She's a great talker, Mr. Lufton, as you'll perceive before the morning's half over, but she doesn't mean the half she says, like every other woman under the sun."

Jimmy laughed. How delightful it was to him to be among these gay, simple-hearted people who found a good deal of enjoyment in life without the aid of things he had been accustomed to. Presently he heard Andy McLean's voice saying:

"Miss Brown, Mr. Lufton," and turning quickly, he confronted a tall slender girl with very blue eyes and red-gold hair. Miss Brown smiled a heavenly smile and gave him her hand.

"I'm glad to meet you," she said. "I've been hearing a great deal about you in the last few hours."

The soft musical quality of her voice stirred Jimmy's soul.

"It's like the harp in the orchestra. When a hand sweeps over the harp strings, you can hear it above all the trumpets and drums, it's so—so ineffably sweet, only there's never enough of it."

All this Jimmy thought as he exchanged Molly's greetings.

"Are you from the South?" he asked later when he found himself beside her at the breakfast table.

"I'm from Kentucky," she answered promptly and proudly.

"So am I," he almost shouted, and then they exchanged new glances of deeper interest and presently were plunged in a conversation about home.

Jimmy forgot that Judy, his sponsor at Wellington, sat at his right hand and Molly was oblivious to Lawrence Upton on her left.

"I suppose you never get any corn bread here?" Jimmy asked.

"Not our kind," replied Molly. "What they have here is made of fine meal with sugar in it."

Jimmy made a wry face.

"Wouldn't you like to have some fried chicken with cream gravy?" he whispered.

"And some candied sweet potatoes and corn pones and pear pickle," Molly broke in.

"And hot biscuits. But what shall we finish off with, Miss Brown?"

"Brandied peaches and ice cream and hickory-nut cake."

Jimmy gave a delighted laugh.

"That's a good old home dessert I used to get at Grandma's," he said. "At least the peaches and the ice cream were. She always had cup-cake with frosted icing."

"Do you ever have kidney hash and waffles Sunday mornings, nowadays?" asked Molly.

"I haven't had any for years, Miss Brown. But at the restaurant where I get breakfast I do get 'batty' cakes and molasses."

"'Batty' cakes," repeated Molly. "How funny that is. Do you know I've always said that, too, just because I learned to say it that way as a child. And hook and 'laddy' wagon. I can't seem to break myself of the habit."

"Don't try," said Jimmy. "I'd rather hear the good old talk than Bernhardt speaking French."

And so from food they came to discuss pronunciation, as most Southerners do sooner or later, and from that subject they drifted into mutual friendships and thence naturally into newspaper work.

"I'm a sub-editor," announced Molly proudly, and she told him about the Commune and her work. "Perhaps you'd like to see our office after a while?" she said.

"I'd be only too glad," said Jimmy, delighted to be able to prolong his tÊte-À-tÊte with this gracefully angular young woman with blue eyes and red hair, who spoke with the "tongue of angels" and had the same yearnings he did for corn-bread and fried chicken with cream gravy.

And all this time something strange was taking place in Judy's mind that she could not understand. At first she thought she was catching the grippe. She felt cold and then hot and finally unreasonably irritated against everybody except Molly. At least, she put it that way to herself.

"She never looked more charming," thought Judy to herself.

Molly in her faded blue corduroy skirt and blue silk blouse was a picture to charm the eye. Judy herself looked unusually lovely in her pretty gray serge piped in scarlet with Irish lace collar and cuffs. There were glints of gold in her fluffy hair and her eyes shone with unusual brightness. But Mrs. McLean's good food tasted as sawdust on her palate and the conversation of the eager Dodo sounded trite and stupid to her. Once she had said a word or two to Jimmy Lufton and he had turned and answered her politely and agreeably, but as soon as he decently could he was back with Molly again deep in bluegrass reminiscences.

There were other people who were disgruntled that morning at Mrs. McLean's breakfast. Not Nance and Andy, who seemed well pleased with themselves and the bright fall day; not the doctor nor the doctor's wife beaming at her guests behind the silver tea urn, but Otoyo was strangely silent and averted her face from Molly's if by chance their glances met; looked carefully over Nance's head and avoided Judy's gaze as much as possible. Lawrence Upton, too, had little to say, except to Dr. McLean at his end of the table.

So it was that half the guests thought the breakfast had been a great success and the other half put it down as stupid and dull.

"Would anybody like to go over to the Commune office with us?" Molly vouchsafed some three-quarters of an hour later when the company was breaking up. "I am going to show Mr. Lufton our offices."

But nobody seemed anxious to accept.

"You'll come, won't you, Judy?" Molly asked.

No, Judy had other things to do apparently.

"Won't you come, Otoyo, dear?" asked Molly, slipping her arm around the little Japanese's waist and giving it a squeeze.

"It is not possible. I am exceedingly sorrowful," answered Otoyo a little stiffly and drew away from Molly's embrace.

"Aren't you well, little one?" asked Molly. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, exceedingly, quite well, but I cannot go to-day, Mees Brown," Otoyo answered, trying to infuse a little warmth into her tone.

So it ended by Molly's going off alone with the young man from New York to the Commune office, where she showed him their files and the proofs sent up by the printer in the village, which had to be corrected; then she introduced him into the little alcove office where Edith was wont to write her famous editorials.

"How would you like to write an article for my paper, Miss Brown?" Jimmy asked suddenly. "We run a page of college news, you know."

He had no idea that Molly could write or that the paper would take anything from her if she did. He had merely talked at random and was a little taken back when Molly clasped her hands joyously and cried:

"Oh, and would they pay me?"

"Of course," he answered, hoping devoutly in his heart they would. "I'll tell you what you do. This is the Jubilee Year at Wellington, isn't it?"

"Yes; it's been officially announced at last."

"Well, you could use that as a starter, with a little of the history of Wellington and the big festival you're going to have, and then you could go on and give some talk about the girls,—what you do and all that. There could be pictures of the cloisters and the library, perhaps."

"What a wonderful chance to answer Miss Slammer's article," Molly thought. "It's just what we would have wanted and never dreamed of getting. It's so kind of you," she said aloud. "I would be proud to do it for nothing if the paper doesn't want to pay——"

"Oh, it'll pay you all right if it takes the story. You may get anywhere from ten to thirty-five dollars for it."

"Why, that's enough to buy a dress," she exclaimed involuntarily, and Jimmy decided in his heart that he would sell that article if he had to wear the soles off his boots walking up and down Park Row.

"I suppose you'd like it simple," said Molly.

Jimmy laughed.

"Well, we don't like anything flowery," he said, "but you write it the way you like and I'll change it if necessary. Just tell about things as if you were writing a letter home."

"There it is again," thought Molly. "First the Professor and now Mr. Lufton."

They finished the morning with a walk and Jimmy Lufton entertained Molly with a hundred stories about his life in New York, and then he listened to her while she talked about college and home and her hopes.

At last they parted at the Quadrangle gates, where Andy McLean was waiting to take Jimmy home with him to dinner, and Molly saw him no more, since he was to catch the three-thirty train back to New York; but she had his address carefully written on a scrap of paper and already the opening paragraph of the newspaper article was beginning to shape itself in her mind. She saw nothing of Judy until bedtime. Judy had been with her friend, Adele, she said. But when the two friends parted that night Judy flung her arms around Molly's neck and kissed her so tenderly that Molly could not help feeling a bit surprised, since only a few hours before Judy had seemed cold somehow.

A few days after Jimmy Lufton had returned to New York he received six letters from the following persons: Margaret Wakefield, Senator and Mrs. Wakefield, Jessie Lynch, and Colonel and Mrs. Lynch. Any time James Lufton tired of his job he could get another from Senator Wakefield or Colonel Lynch. That was stated plainly in the letters of the two fathers.

"And all because of an anti-suffrage speech that was never made," thought Jimmy.

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