Each was feeling what a happy time they had spent in one another's company.

“I shall write and tell you how the lizard is,” said Starr laughing, “and you will tell me all about the funny and interesting things you are doing, won't you?”

“If—I may,” said Michael wistfully.

At the station a New York acquaintance of the Endicotts' invited them to ride in his private car which was on the side track waiting for the train to pick them up. Michael helped Starr up the steps, and carried the lizard into the car as well as the great sheaf of flowers she insisted on taking with her.

There were some ladies inside who welcomed Starr effusively; and Michael, suddenly abashed, laid down the flowers, lifted his cap and withdrew. A sudden blank had come upon him. Starr was absorbed by people from another world than his. He would have no opportunity to say good-bye—and she had promised— But then of course he ought not to expect her to do that. She had been very kind to him—

He was going down the steps now. An instant more and he would be on the cinders of the track.

A sudden rush, a soft cry, caused him to pause on the second step of the vestibuled car. It was Starr, standing just above him, and her eyes were shining like her namesake the evening star.

“You were going without good-bye,” she reproved, and her cheeks were rosy-red, but she stood her ground courageously. Placing a soft hand gently on either cheek as he stood below her, his face almost on a level with hers, she tilted his head toward her and touched his lips with her own red ones, delicately as if a rose had swept them.

Simultaneously came the sound of the distant train.

“Good-bye, you nice, splendid boy!” breathed Starr, and waving her hand darted inside the car.

Mr. Endicott, out on the platform, still talking to the president, heard the oncoming train and looked around for Michael. He saw him coming from the car with his exalted look upon his face, his cap off, and the golden beams of the sun again sending their halo like a nimbus over his hair.

Catching his hand heartily, he said:

“Son, I'm pleased with you. Keep it up, and come to me when you are ready. I'll give you a start.”

Michael gripped his hand and blundered out some words of thanks. Then the train was upon them, and Endicott had to go.

The two younger ladies in the car, meantime, were plying Starr with questions. “Who is that perfectly magnificent young man, Starr Endicott? Why didn't you introduce him to us? I declare I never saw such a beautiful face on any human being before.”

A moment more and the private car was fastened to the train, and Starr leaning from the window waved her tiny handkerchief until the train had thundered away among the pines, and there was nothing left but the echo of its sound. The sun was going down but it mattered not. There was sunshine in the boy's heart. She was gone, his little Starr, but she had left the memory of her soft kiss and her bright eyes; and some day, some day, when he was done with college, he would see her again. Meantime he was content.

CHAPTER VI

The joy of loving kindness in his life, and a sense that somebody cared, seemed to have the effect of stimulating Michael's mind to greater energies. He studied with all his powers. Whatever he did he did with his might, even his play.

The last year of his stay in Florida, a Department of Scientific Farming was opened on a small scale. Michael presented himself as a student.

“What do you want of farming, Endicott?” asked the president, happening to pass through the room on the first day of the teacher's meeting with his students. “You can't use farming in New York.”

There was perhaps in the kindly old president's mind a hope that the boy would linger with them, for he had become attached to him in a silent, undemonstrative sort of way.

“I might need it sometime,” answered Michael, “and anyway I'd like to understand it. You said the other day that no knowledge was ever wasted. I'd like to know enough at least to tell somebody else.”

The president smiled, wondered, and passed on. Michael continued in the class, supplementing the study by a careful reading of all the Agricultural magazines, and Government literature on the subject that came in his way. Agriculture had had a strange fascination for him ever since a noted speaker from the North had come that way and in an address to the students told them that the new field for growth to-day lay in getting back to nature and cultivating the earth. It was characteristic of Michael that he desired to know if that statement was true, and if so, why. Therefore he studied.

The three years flew by as if by magic. Michael won honors not a few, and the day came when he had completed his course, and as valedictorian of his class, went up to the old chapel for his last commencement in the college.

He sat on the platform looking down on the kindly, uncritical audience that had assembled for the exercises, and saw not a single face that had come for his sake alone.