"You are a brave, good girl, Dennie. If I can ever serve you in any way, it will be a privilege to me to do it."

Ten minutes after they had left the library Trench, who had been stationary in the north alcove, slowly came to life. He had been posing as a statue, Winged Victory with a head on, he declared afterward to Vic Burleigh, to whom he told the whole story.

"Let me sing my swan song," he declared. "Then me for Lagonda's whirlpool. I'm not fit to live in a decent community, a blithering idiot and rascally villain, who lies in wait to hear and see like a fool. I thought Dennie knew I was there and would be in to dust me out in a minute. And when it was too late I turned to a pillar of salt and waited. But I believe I'll change my mind, after all. I'll live; and if Professor Burgess, A.B. of Cambridge-by-the-bean-patch, dares to make love to Dennie Saxon--on the side--he'll go head foremost into the whirlpool to feed Lagonda's rapacious spirit. I've said it."

_We cannot make bargains for blisses, Nor catch them like fishes in nets, And sometimes the thing our life misses Helps more than the thing which it gets_. --CARY

ELINOR WREAM spent the holidays in the East and was two weeks late in entering school again. Then her Uncle Lloyd tightened the rules, exacting full measure for lost time, until she bewailed to her girl friends that she had no opportunity even to make fudge or wash her hair.

"Were you sorry to come back, then, Norrie?" her uncle asked one evening when they were alone in their library, and Elinor was lamenting her hard lot.

"No, I want to be with you, Uncle Lloyd."

She was sitting on the arm of his morris chair, softly stroking his heavy hair away from his forehead.