“I’m glad if I’ve been of any use to you,” replied Irving. “I know you didn’t expect I would be when you took me in. And your giving me this chance has meant that I could stay on here and tutor Lawrence this summer and at the same time pay all my living expenses. It’s been more of a help than you know—to Lawrence as well as to me.”

“You’re both good boys,” said Mr. Beasley. “But it seems like you’re too shy and quiet ever to make much of a lawyer, Irving—or a teacher,” he added, in candid criticism.

Irving blushed. “Maybe I’ll get over that in time, Mr. Beasley.”

“You had better,” observed the storekeeper. “It’s of no manner of use to anybody—not a particle. Lawrence, now, is different.”

Yes, Lawrence was different; the fact impressed itself that evening on Irving when his brother came home from the haying field with his uncle. Lawrence was big and ruddy and laughing; Irving was slight and delicate and grave. The two boys went together to their room to make themselves ready for supper.

“We finished the north meadow to-day,” said Lawrence,—“the whole of it. So don’t blame me if I go to sleep over French verbs this evening.”

“I’ll tell you something that will wake you up,” Irving replied. “I’m going to teach at St. Timothy’s School—in New Hampshire. So your going to college is sure, and we’ll be only a couple of hours apart.”

“Oh, Irv!” In Lawrence’s exclamation there was more expressiveness, more joy, than in all his brother’s carefully restrained statement. “Oh, Irv! Isn’t it splendid! I think you’re the finest thing—!” Lawrence grasped Irving’s hand and at the same time began thumping him on the back. Then he opened the door and shouted down the stairs.

“Uncle Bob! Aunt Ann! Irv has some great news to-night.”

Mrs. Upton put her head out into the hall; she was setting the table and held a plate of bread.

“What is it, Irv? Have you—have you had a letter?”

There was an anxious, almost a regretful note in her voice.

“Yes,” said Irving. “I’ll tell you about it when I come down.”

At the supper table he expounded all the details. Like Mr. Beasley, his uncle and his aunt had never heard of St. Timothy’s School. Irving was able to enlighten them. At college he had become familiar with its reputation; it was one of the big preparatory schools in which the position of teacher had seemed to him desirable almost beyond the hope of attainment.

He recited the terms which had been offered and which he had accepted: nine hundred dollars salary the first year, with lodging, board, washing all provided—so that really it was the equivalent of fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars a year. And then there would be the three months’ vacation, in which he could prosecute his law studies and earn additional money.

“Sounds good,” said Mr. Upton.

“Of course I’m very glad,” said Mrs. Upton. “But how we shall miss you boys! I’ve got used to having Irving away,—but to be without Lawrence, too—”

“Yes,” said her husband with a twinkle in his eyes, “we certainly shall miss Lawrence—especially in haying time. I’m glad you didn’t get this news till most of the hay crop was in. No more farming for you this year, Lawrence.”

“Why, but there’s all the south meadow uncut—”

“I’ll handle that. As long as there was so much doubt as to whether you’d be able to go to college or not, I felt that you might be making yourself useful first of all and studying only in the odd moments. Now it’s different; you’ve got to settle down to hard study and nothing else. And Irving had better devote himself entirely to you, and leave Mr. Beasley to struggle along without any college help.”

“I don’t believe he’ll miss me very much,” Irving admitted. “And you’re right, Uncle Bob; I can accomplish a great deal more working with Lawrence this next month. I ought to be able to get him entered in regular standing.”

“If I can do that,” cried Lawrence, “perhaps I’ll be able to earn my way as Irv did—tutoring and so on—and not have to call on you or him for any help.”

“What on earth should I do with nine hundred a year?” Irving exclaimed.

“Save it for your law school fund,” said Lawrence.

Irving shrugged his shoulders grandly. “Oh, I can earn money.”

Lawrence gave him an affectionate push. “Tut!” he said. “Be good to yourself once in a while.”

It was a happy family that evening. The uncle and the aunt rejoiced in the good news, even while regretting the separation.

Mr. Upton, the younger brother of the boys’ father, who had been the village clergyman, shared his brother’s tastes; he read good books, he would travel to hear a celebrated man speak, he had ideas which were not bounded by his farm. He had encouraged Irving as well as Lawrence to seek a university education. The two boys were proud, eager to free themselves from dependence on the uncle and aunt who, after their father’s death, had given them a home. Irving had worked his way through college, hardly ever asking for help; he had been a capable scholar and the faculty had found for him backward students in need of tutoring.

Meanwhile, Mr. Upton had been busily engaged in developing and increasing his farm; that he was beginning to be prosperous Irving was aware; that he did not more earnestly insist upon helping his nephews stimulated their spirit of independence. They knew that they had been left penniless; Irving sometimes suspected his uncle of parsimony, yet this was a trait so incongruous with Mr. Upton’s genial nature that Irving never communicated the suspicion to his brother. Irving felt, too, that his uncle cared less for him than for Lawrence. Well, that was natural; Irving was humble there.

When the dean of the college had said that it would be inadvisable for Lawrence to make a start unless he had at least three hundred dollars at command, it had seemed to Irving a little narrow on his uncle’s part not to have come forward at once with that sum. Instead he had merely given Lawrence the opportunity to work harder in the hay-field and so increase his small bank account. And it had soon become apparent to Irving that unless he and Lawrence could between them raise the money, they need not look to their uncle for help beyond that which he was already giving. Therefore Irving went into Mr. Beasley’s store, and hoped daily for the letter which at last had come.

Day after day the two brothers worked together. Irving, quick, impatient, sometimes losing his temper; Lawrence, slow, calm, turning the edge of the teacher’s sarcasm sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a quiet appeal. Irving always felt ashamed after these outbreaks and uneasily conscious that Lawrence conducted himself with greater dignity. And Lawrence forgot Irving’s irritations in gratitude to him for his help. “It must be a trial to teach such a numskull,” Lawrence thought; and at the end of one particularly hard day he undertook to console his brother by saying, “Never mind, Irv; it won’t be long now before you have pupils who aren’t country bumpkins and don’t need to have things pounded into their heads with an axe.”

It had been a rather savage remark that had called this out; Irving threw down his book and perching on the arm of his brother’s chair, put his arm around his neck and begged his forgiveness.

“As if I could ever like to teach anybody else as much as I like to teach you!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry, Lawrence; I’ll try to keep a little better grip on myself.”

Sometimes it seemed to Irving odd that Lawrence should be so slow at his books; Irving did not fail to realize that with the neighbors or with strangers, in any gathering whatsoever,