But the echo of the meadow came in sweet drifts of violet breath as his only answer. His voice sounded gruff even to himself, and he realized that she would not come to a call like that. If she had strength of purpose enough to go at his harsh words, she would not come at such a call. He tried again—“Joyce!”—and Joyce would have been astonished could she have heard his voice. He had never spoken to her with as much kindliness of tone in all his life, not even when he wanted to borrow money from her. Yes, he had really descended to asking her who had but a small allowance from the bounty of his mother to loan it to him. And she had always been ready to lend graciously if it was not already promised for some necessity. He would soon have kept her in bankruptcy had not his mother discovered it and forbidden Joyce to lend any more, telling her son to come to her in any need.

He stood there some time, calling into the darkness, trying various tones and wondering at himself, growing more indignant with the girl for not answering, calling her stubborn, and finally growing alarmed, although he would not own it really to himself.

But at last he gave it up and went in, putting it aside carelessly as if it were but a trifle after all. The girl was stubborn, but she would have to come back pretty soon, and the lesson would only do her good. As for the neighbors, they must prepare a story that would offset anything she might tell them. And what did the neighbors matter anyway? This wasn’t the only place in the world. They could sell the house and move where Joyce had no friends, and there would be no trouble. Joyce would have to stick to them, for she had no way of earning money anywhere else. The idea of teaching school was foolish nonsense. He wouldn’t think of allowing it. She would always be taking on airs even if she paid board, and then they would get no work out of her, and she would not be pleasant to have around.

With this reflection, he fell asleep, convinced that Joyce would be found safe and sound and sane on the doorstep in the morning.

About this time, the new young superintendent of the high school who was taking the place of the regular superintendent while he was abroad for six months studying, settled down in his one comfortable chair in his boardinghouse room with a bundle of examination papers to look over. This was not his work, but the two teachers who would ordinarily have done it were both temporarily disabled, one down with the flu and the other away at a funeral, and since the averages must be ready before commencement, he had volunteered to mark these papers.

It was late and he was tired, for there had been a special meeting of the school board to deal with a matter connected with the new addition to the school building, and also to arrange to supply the place of a teacher who had suddenly decided to get married instead of continuing to teach. There had been much discussion about both matters, and he had been greatly annoyed at the prospect of one young woman who had been suggested to fill the vacancy. She was of the so-called flapper variety and seemed to him to have no idea of serious work. She had been in his classes for the last six weeks, and he became more disgusted with her every time he saw her. The idea of her as a colleague was not pleasant. He settled to his papers with a frown that indicated no good to the poor victims whose fate he was settling by the marks of his blue pencil.

He marched through the papers, paragraph after paragraph, question after question, marking them ruthlessly. Misspelled words, how they got on his nerves! He drew sharp blue lines like little swords through them and wrote caustic footnotes on the corners of the pages. The young aspirants for graduation who received them in the morning would quiver when they read them and gather in groups to cast anathemas at him.

But suddenly he came to a paper written in a clear, firm hand as if the owner knew what she was talking about and thought it really worth writing down. The first sentence caught his interest because of the original way in which the statement was made. Here was a young philosopher who had really thought about life and was taking the examination as something of interest in itself rather than a terrible ordeal that must be gone through with for future advantage. As he read, a vision of a clear, smooth brow and calm eyes lifted now and then to the blackboard gradually came back to his memory. He was sure this was the quiet young woman with the beautiful, sincere, unselfish face that he had noticed as he passed through the study hall that morning. There had been half a dozen strangers in from neighboring towns for examination. Only this one had attracted him.